The Deep Zone

no matter how small.”

“Sure.”

“Well, we have an unexplained staff absence.”

“Who?” Hallie and Bowman said at the same time.

“Evelyn Flemmer.”

It meant nothing to Bowman, but Hallie’s eyes widened. “Evvie Flemmer? You don’t think she was involved with this, do you?”

“We can’t be sure of anything at this point, of course. But she hasn’t reported for work since Lew died. Agents went to her apartment yesterday, but she wasn’t there.”

“They can get records of all enplanements,” Bowman said.

“Easily. Already done. She did not leave on a plane, train, bus, or rental car. And her personal vehicle was in the lot at her apartment building.”

“My God, Don,” Hallie said. “If you’d asked me to pick the one person at BARDA least likely to be involved with something like that, I would have named Evvie Flemmer.”

“You know what? Me, too,” Barnard said. “And we don’t really know if she was. But it’s the only blip in our operational procedures we’ve detected.”

Hallie remembered the soldiers, their families. “How have containment efforts been working?”

“We’ve just about run through our colistin stockpile. The more cases we find, the faster we have to use it.”

“How many cases reported so far?”

“Almost seven hundred.”

“Mortality rate?”

“Right around ninety percent. A few survivors. But so disfigured…” He shook his head.

“Any other developments?”

“Fox News sniffed out the story. They’ve agreed to embargo it until noon tomorrow. When it breaks…” He shrugged. “Very bad.”

“If we could at least say a new drug works, it might stave off panic.”

“It could.” Barnard nodded. “If we had one.” There was a clock on the wall, but he pulled out his pocket watch. “I need to get back to BARDA, and you need to rest.”

“Don, before you go…”

“Yes?”

“Whatever happened to the people from the COP? The Z point.”

“Fourteen soldiers dead at this point. And three nurses.”

“What about that doctor?”

“She contracted ACE herself. It was a virtual certainty, with her not wearing a biosuit. But she refused. Said she couldn’t treat the soldiers with one on. For five days she was the only physician at the COP. All the others were dealing with battle casualties. That’s a brave woman.”

“What’s her name?”

“Lenora Stilwell.”

“Say again?”

“Lenora Stilwell. She’s a major with the Florida—”

“I know who she is, Don. Mary’s older sister.”

“Mary who runs the dive shop? Your college friend?”

“My best friend. My God. Don, is Lenora dead?”

“Not yet. Soon, though. She got bad enough that they had to bring her stateside. She’s here at Reed, as a matter of fact.”

“Why would they bring her all this way?”

“Better palliative care, basically. And with an outbreak, you have two options. Contain each cluster individually—put out the small fires. Or aggregate cases. There’s a tipping point after which aggregation becomes safer.”

“Are there others here?”

“About fifty. The worst cases. All in the big iso ward downstairs.”

She yawned, despite herself. Barnard headed for the door.

“I’ll come back tomorrow. I hung a fresh change of clothes in your closet.”

Barnard left, closing the door behind himself, and Hallie and Bowman were alone. The meds were reaching for her, pulling her down, but she would not leave him again.

“How is your arm? And your side?”

He stepped back and took his right arm out of the sling. He snapped off three fast jabs, took a quarter out of his jeans pocket, tossed it in the air, and caught it.

She could do nothing but gape. “How did you do that? I saw your bullet wounds.”

He grinned. “Recall I mentioned that DARPA was working on a way to speed up the body’s healing process? Something called Superheal?”

“Yes. Okay. But why the sling?”

“It’s just for show. DARPA’s not ready to go public with this yet.” He was smiling down at her, eyes alight. He touched her face, just his fingertips, careful of her injuries. “You’re a sight, Doctor.”

“We almost died back there.”

“As close as I’ve ever come.”

“Given what you do, I’d guess that’s saying something.”

“Yes, ma’am. It is. You know, I would have kissed you already except for the bruises. I know love can hurt, but kissing shouldn’t.”

Love? A blossoming in her chest, hot and beautiful.

“Get me some of that fast-healing stuff. Then…”

“Would if I could, believe me. I only got it because…” He trailed off.

“Because?”

“They like to keep me functional.”

“Wil, I have so many questions.”

“You deserve answers. Shoot.”

“Were those paramilitaries working for the same people as Al Cahner?”

“Unclear.”

“Did we find out who Cahner was working for?”

“Possibly. A very shadowy network, multinational, no discernible tracks. But good people are working hard on it right now.”

She yawned again, could feel herself drifting. “I want to hear how you got out. Of the cave. You said you’d tell me later.”

He hesitated, and she saw something behind his eyes, quickly there and gone but sharp enough to wake her up. “What?”

Bowman shifted on his feet, then sat on the edge of her bed. She could tell he was having an internal debate of some kind, and wondered if he had used more DARPA black magic to get himself out. He sighed, pursed his lips, rubbed his face. Made some kind of decision.

“Okay. Cahner shoved me into the river. You know about that.” Shook his head. “I still cannot believe he suckered me so badly.”

“Suckered us. I worked with the man for almost two years, Wil. And he had me fooled completely. You can’t blame yourself for not suspecting him. None of us did. Not even Don Barnard.”

“Yeah. The guy could act, I’ll give him that. So anyway, the river flowed down into a sump for about a hundred yards. There was some air space in the middle where I got a couple of breaths. Then it spit me out like a watermelon seed into a huge room.”

“But you were still by yourself, without a light, no food…”

“I had a light, thanks to you.” He reached out for her hand, held it gently. “Without that, I was a dead