Spiral

about?”

“Let me ask you a question. What if you Americans discovered the Chinese had the Uzumaki since the war? And told no one? What if they had built a billion-dollar facility whose mission was to develop a cure for the Uzumaki? And then what if an extremely high-ranking Chinese official was caught on tape describing a plan of attack, a plan to release the Uzumaki in the United States, killing millions and millions of your citizens. What would you think then? Would you do anything to stop them?”

“Quit playing games.”

“Answer me. Would you do anything to stop them?”

“Of course.”

“And if someone else stopped them, if someone else made them pay? Would that person, that nation, become your ally? Even if in the past they had been your enemy?”

“Tell me what is going on.”

“Hours ago, Orchid sent a series of encrypted files to the Japanese and Chinese embassies. In them are documents and audiotapes proving that the United States is preparing a biological attack against China. A secret, underhanded, despicable act. A plan to use the Uzumaki as a weapon to bring down the Chinese government. To kill thousands, perhaps millions, of innocent Chinese civilians.”

The words were like an electric shock. Suddenly Jake understood.

“You son of a bitch. You hired Orchid.”

A hundred connections appeared, images flooding his mind. Connor jumping off the bridge. Vlad shot in the head. Dylan alone in an isolation tank. All because of this man. “You’re paying Orchid to get you out of jail. You did all this to set yourself free.” Jake grabbed one of the oars, held it like a club. “Tell me where Maggie is.”

Kitano ignored the threat. “The United States kept the Uzumaki secret for over sixty years. It covered up Japan’s infamous Unit 731 to protect this precious secret. And now it is undertaking an aggressive countermeasures program that will allow it to use the Uzumaki as an offensive weapon. I have documents proving all of this.”

“That’s total bullshit. No one will believe you. Documents can be forged. You think China will love you after this? Be your friend just because you cook up some crazy conspiracy theory that the U.S. is going to attack China?”

“The Chinese will revere me for exacting revenge against the white devils.”

“Revenge? What the hell-”

Kitano cut him off. “You still do not understand, do you? It is over. The Uzumaki is already free. It is already spreading.”

48

DUNNE SLIPPED AWAY TO THE WOOD-PANELED ROOM THAT was his temporary office at Camp David, phone pressed to his ear, talking frantically to Paul Waller, his attache. Reports had started coming in from the prison at Hazelton. “Seventeen guards called in sick,” Waller said. “The prisoners are agitated. They started a riot.”

“Why?”

“No one knows. Everyone is acting crazy. The warden said he’s never seen anything like it.”

“Find out why.”

Dunne tossed the phone down on his desk, skin itching like fire. He tried to keep calm, but it was as if his thoughts shredded before he could understand them. Streaks of light shot across his line of vision.

He sat at the desk, poured a glass of water from the pitcher on the table. His hand shook as he tried to take a drink. “There’s something wrong with me,” he said aloud. Denying it was no longer possible. Now his thoughts were crawling everywhere, almost as if they were outside his head, like spiders on his scalp. One second he was Lawrence Dunne, sinew and substance, the deputy national security adviser for the most powerful nation in the world. The next second he was a loose collection of dust, water, and sand.

“Walking dead,” a voice said.

Dunne looked up, shocked. It took him a minute to realize that he had said it. He was sitting in a chair, at a desk, his BlackBerry on the desktop before him, but he was also standing across the room, watching himself sitting in the chair. I’m having some sort of breakdown.

The other Dunne watched him. The other Dunne was now a rotting corpse, bits of skin hanging down like peeled paint. The other Dunne spoke, his voice sounding as if it came from the bottom of a well. “Walking dead.”

Dunne closed his eyes. The other Dunne was still there, waiting in the blackness.

I’m cracking up.

A wave of nausea hit. He shook his head, saw streaks of lights like tracer bullets. The walls began to pulsate, as if the office were a giant, breathing animal.

The prison. Everyone at the prison was going crazy.

He flashed to Kitano, the old man on the floor of his prison cell, a drop of spittle on his lips.

His phone vibrated on his desk, wriggling like a living creature. Dunne forced himself to pick it up.

It was Waller again. He sounded panicked. “They tore apart Kitano’s cell. He had a phone. A goddamn cellphone-one of the guards admitted to smuggling it in for him. He’d been texting back and forth with someone. Lawrence, he knew. He knew everything that was coming. The demands, everything. But that’s not the worst. In one of the books he’d carved out a little space. Inside it they found a MicroCrawler. It was wrapped in a note. The note said, ‘The falcon strikes.’ ”

Dunne dropped the phone. The room pulsed a dark red. Dunne fought to keep control of his thoughts. The walls ran bloodred. Looking up, he saw a falcon pulling in its wings.

Dunne ran out of his office, trying to get away. He stared upward, seeing not the ceiling but a sky on fire, flames tearing holes in the world. From the center of the maelstrom came a Tokko plane diving, orange flames shooting as it fell, melting and re-forming, as a falcon, as a burning sword. Yelling at the top of his lungs, Dunne heard nothing, screaming and running until the Navy guards grabbed him.

The next thing he knew he was on the floor, strong arms holding him down. The President, the cabinet, the Joint Chiefs, all stood over him. Men in their uniforms, the trappings of power. Bombs, missiles, satellites, all worthless, nothing. Today it ended. Kitano would end everything.

49

MAGGIE WAS RUNNING OUT OF TIME.

She strained against the cuffs on her wrists. Two feet away, on the little table, lay the pair of tweezers that Orchid had used the day before. They were a pitiful weapon, but if she could get her hands on them, it might just be enough.

The skin on her right wrist tore, rolled back. The blood was slick, acting as lubrication between flesh and metal. A few more minutes and she’d be there. If Orchid would stay away just a few minutes longer.

Maggie was very close.

If only Orchid would stay away.

THE LAST TWELVE HOURS HAD BEEN A TERRIFYING JOURNEY. A descent into madness, and then, incredibly, a return to sanity. Orchid had infected her with the Uzumaki, then left her overnight in complete darkness. For hour after interminable hour, Maggie had grown increasingly frantic, trapped inside the claustrophobic gas mask, trying to scream, trying to escape the corpses grabbing at her.

Hours later, Orchid had returned and switched on the lights, dispelling for the moment her ghostly attackers. Maggie had let loose with a string of curses like she’d never uttered. She’d howled, called Orchid a bitch and a whore, screeched all the ways she’d like to kill her. A demon possessed her that had little relation to the self that Maggie had known.

Orchid had opened her backpack on the bench, reached inside. Maggie had kept up the invective, only stopping