face. He turned to Ruth. She was what mattered, and he saw a different strain in her eyes as she clutched her backpack and the data index.
She was breathing too fast. Her chest rose and fell against her T-shirt. Her arms were scored with red marks where she’d been scratching. They’d taken off their encrusted jackets and Ruth was slim and ‚rm but absolutely ‚lthy, speckled with old bites and sores and a few spots of blister rash.
“The man in the dark suit is Governor Shaug,” the pilot said. “Small guy. Not much hair.”
“I see him,” Newcombe said.
“Let’s head straight for him, okay?” The pilot had removed his eye patch and pocketed it as he walked to the door of the plane. Newcombe and Cam stood up. The copilot joined them.
Outside the round windows, Cam saw a team of Army medics and a gurney off to one side. That was good. They’d anticipated the most obvious need, but he resented the mob. He wanted food and sleep. But they wanted the vaccine. He had no right to blame them. The circus seemed like a bad idea, though, despite the netting that concealed most of them from satellite coverage. The Russians might be looking and listening. The best thing would be for Ruth to disappear.
Their pilot opened the door. The air felt wonderful on Cam’s skin, but the crowd stopped them close enough to the plane to feel the hot stink of the engines. Most of the people were in uniform, yet it was a civilian who took charge, a clean-shaven man in a smudged white dress shirt. Many of the others were bearded and sunburnt. This man was pale.
“Missus Goldman?” he said.
“We have wounded,” the pilot said. “Let us through.”
“Missus Goldman, I’m Jason Luce with the U.S. Secret Service. Are you okay?”
“She’s hurt. Let us through.”
“Of course,” Luce said. His men slipped in between Ruth and the copilot as they walked and then a man in Army green drew Newcombe away from her, too.
“Staff Sergeant?” the man said.
“Sir.” Newcombe saluted, but visibly hesitated as the space between himself and Ruth ‚lled with people.
It was hard to let go. They had been bound together through eight weeks of desolation and misery and yet this was exactly what they’d fought for, the chance to pass the vaccine to someone else. Cam told himself to be glad. It was over. They’d won. Grand Lake had the men and the aircraft to spread the nanotech — and to protect Ruth.
“Wait.” She pulled back from Luce. She’d regained some of her color, but her expression was afraid.
“She needs medical attention,” Newcombe called.
The pilot said, “They all do. Give ’em some room.”
“We have doctors and food and you can rest,” Luce said, “but you have to come with me.”
Cam didn’t argue. His role had changed as soon as they boarded the Cessna. The power he’d wielded for so long was meaningless here, and he didn’t know enough about this place to decide if he still belonged in her life. But she wanted him. That was enough. He held on to Ruth’s narrow waist and supported her as they moved into the shade beneath the netting, where Governor Shaug advanced with both hands out.
The governor was in his sixties, short and balding. He was also the oldest person Cam had seen in sixteen months. In California, unending stress had swiftly killed off the children and the middle-aged. Shaug was one more indicator of how different things had been here.
There was real strength in his smile. “Thank God for everything you’ve done,” Shaug said. “Please. Sit down.” He gestured to where steel benches and tables lined one corner of the shaded area. The nearest had bottled water, Cokes, and four cans of sliced peaches. A small feast.
Cam nodded. “Thanks.”
“We’d like blood samples immediately,” Luce said, waving for the Army medics. “Please.”
* * * *
Richard Shaug had been the governor of Wisconsin, displaced like so many survivors. He was nominally the top man in Grand Lake, and yet Cam wondered if Shaug and Luce were working against each other. There would be factions among the leadership. That went without saying. Every day was a test, and they would have different goals. Was it something he could exploit? Which man had the real power? Cam imagined that it lay with the Secret Service agent. He thought Luce was more likely to have allied with the military, and he’d seen how the armored vehicles and barricades divided this makeshift city.
He was wrong. The medics drew four slim vials of blood each from Ruth, Newcombe, and himself. The twelve plastic tubes were set in four racks and Luce said, “Take three of those to the planes.”
Shaug held up his hand. “No.”
“Governor,” Luce said.
“No. No yet.”
“We have to get it to as many people as possible. We could †y it to Salmon River, at least,” Luce said.
“What’s going on?” Ruth asked. Her face was paler than ever. She hadn’t been able to afford even 30 ccs of blood and looked nauseous, although her eyes were angry and alert.
Two of the medics hustled off with the blood samples, leaving their cart and equipment behind. A full squad of troops moved with them through the crowd. They were headed for the labyrinth of shelters, not the runway. Cam’s gaze shifted to the needles and tubing, and then to Luce. Did the man realize how little blood was necessary?
“Let’s get you inside,” Shaug said, offering Ruth one of the cans of peaches. “Do you want to eat a little ‚rst? Please. I can see you’re very tired.”
“I don’t understand,” she protested, but she was hardly a fool or a helpless girl. She was trying to draw him out.
Shaug didn’t bother to answer. “Clean that up,” he said to the remaining medics, pointing at their trays and equipment. Then he looked back at Ruth like an afterthought. “Let’s get you inside,” he repeated, glancing at another man.
It was the of‚cer who’d stopped Newcombe by the plane. A colonel. “Let’s go,” the colonel said, and Cam watched the crowd separate as men and women in uniform stepped forward and Luce’s civilian agents held back. Had Luce really expected to outmaneuver the governor?
Ruth was being used for barter or political gain, he thought. Shaug wanted to hold on to her and the vaccine in exchange for guarantees from the other Americans and the Canadians, and it was true that Grand Lake had rescued her when no one else could. But it was divisive. That was why Luce had rushed their plane. Luce hoped to spread the vaccine before some catastrophe destroyed it altogether, another bomb, or a Russian assault.
Cam wanted him to succeed, and maybe that was all Luce had intended to accomplish — to make a friend. Shaug probably couldn’t control the vaccine no matter what he did. The three of them were exhaling traces of it just sitting here. As soon as they showered or went to the bathroom, the vaccine would be in the water and in the latrines. In fact, their jackets must be crawling with it, rubbed inside and out with blood, skin, and sweat. If they only knew, Luce and his people could slice the jackets into pieces and package the material aboard any number of jets. They could even ingest a pinch of the dirty fabric themselves and then set out below the barrier on foot.
Cam didn’t say it out loud. There was another way. He coughed and brought his hand to his mouth, spitting lightly into his palm.
“Have you heard from Captain Young, sir?” Newcombe asked. The colonel only frowned. “My squad leader in Sacramento,” Newcombe explained. “He and another man went south.”
“I don’t know, son.”
“We saw ‚ghting on May twenty-third, west of the Sierras. We thought it was them.”
Cam paced through the soldiers and made eye contact with Luce, extending his hand. “Thank you,” he said.
“Sure,” Luce said doubtfully, yet he reached out and Cam completed the gesture, pressing his wet palm against the other man’s dry skin. The uncertainty in Luce’s expression deepened, but then he nodded. It was done. The vaccine was loose in Grand Lake.
