right she could see the tip of the terrace that surrounded the pool as well as about a hundred yards of lawn before it butted up against a pine forest.
She looked at her watch. She wondered when she would start feeling ill. She tried to remember the interval that Beau had experienced between being stung and his first symptoms, but she couldn't. All he'd told her was that he'd been in class. She didn't know which class.
Returning to the door, she gave the knob another twist. It was still locked as securely as when she'd been put in the room. Turning around, she leaned against the door and surveyed her surroundings. It was a generous bedroom with a high ceiling, but except for the bed, it was completely empty. And the bed itself consisted of a bare mattress on a box spring.
The short nap had revived Cassy to a point. She felt a mixture of depression and anger. She thought about lying back on the bed but didn't think she could sleep. Instead she returned to the window.
Noticing there was no lock, she tried the sash. To her surprise it opened with ease. Leaning out the window, she looked down. About twenty feet below was a flagstone walkway that connected the back terrace with the front. It was edged with a limestone balustrade. It would be a very hard landing if she tried to jump, but she gave the idea serious thought. Death might be preferable to becoming one of them. The problem was, a twenty-foot fall would probably only maim, not kill.
Cassy raised her eyes and looked more carefully at the tree. One stout branch in particular caught her attention. It grew out of the main trunk, arched directly toward the window, then angled off to the right. Her interest was directed at a short horizontal section that was about six or seven feet away from where she was standing.
The question went through Cassy's mind whether she could leap from the window, catch the branch, and hold on. She didn't know. She'd never done anything like it in her life and was surprised the idea even occurred to her. Yet these were hardly normal circumstances, and she quickly became intrigued. After all it seemed possible, especially with all the working out with weights she'd been doing over the last six months with Beau's encouragement.
Besides, Cassy thought, what if she missed? Her present prospects were dismal. Dashing herself against the balustrade didn't seem much worse and might do more than injure.
Climbing up on the windowsill, Cassy pushed the sash up to its full height to create an opening about five feet square. From that position the ground looked dramatically farther away.
She closed her eyes. Her heart was pounding, and she was breathing rapidly. Her courage vacillated. She recalled going to a circus as a child and seeing the trapeze artists and thinking she could never do anything like that. But then she thought of Eugene and Jesse and what Beau was becoming. She thought of the horror of losing her identity.
With sudden resolve, Cassy opened her eyes and leapt out into the air.
It seemed forever before she made contact. Perhaps drawing on some arboreal instincts she didn't realize she possessed, Cassy had judged the distance perfectly. Her hands made proper contact with the branch, and she grabbed on. Now the question became whether she could hold on as her legs swung beneath her.
There was a few moments of terror before her swinging came to a halt. She'd done it! But it wasn't over. She was still twenty feet off the ground, although now she was suspended over lawn, not flagstone.
Swinging her legs to help her, Cassy moved along the branch until she came to a point where she could get her right foot on a lower branch. From there it was relatively easy to work her way down the tree and eventually jump onto the grass.
The moment her feet touched the ground, Cassy was up and walking. She resisted the temptation to run out across the expansive lawn, knowing full well that it would only draw attention to herself. Instead she forced herself to assume a leisurely pace after climbing over the low balustrade. She followed the walkway to the front of the house.
Mimicking the smiles, the blank staring into the middle distance, and the relaxed walk, Cassy melded into the crowd of infected people heading out the driveway. Her heart was in her throat and she was terrified, but it worked. No one paid her any attention. The hardest part was forcing herself not to look around her, especially not at the dogs.
'How do you know where we are going?' Pitt asked. They had traveled miles on a track that in places was barely discernable from the desert itself.
'We're almost there,' Harlan said.
'Oh, please!' Sheila said impatiently. 'We're in the middle of the damned desert. Without the paved road this is more Godforsaken than the area around that deserted gas station. Is this some kind of joke?'
'No joke,' Harlan said. 'Be patient! I'm giving you all a chance to help save the human race.'
Sheila glanced over at Pitt, but his attention was glued to the track. Sheila sighed loudly. Just when she'd started feeling good about Harlan, it was becoming apparent he was taking them on a wild-goose chase. There was no lab out there in the desert. The whole situation was absurd.
'Okay,' Harlan said. 'Stop up there next to that flowering cactus.'
Pitt did as he was told. He pulled on the brake and cut the engine.
'All right,' Harlan said. 'Everybody out.' He opened the slider and stepped out onto the sand. Jonathan followed at his heels.
'Come on,' Harlan encouraged the others.
Sheila and Pitt rolled their eyes for each other's benefit. They were parked in the middle of the desert. Except for a few scattered boulders, a handful of cacti, and some low rolling sand hills, there was nothing around them.
Harlan had walked about twenty feet away before turning back. He was surprised no one was following him. Jonathan had gotten out of the van, but since the others hadn't, he'd hesitated.
'For chrissake!' Harlan complained. 'What d'ya need, a special invitation?'
Sheila sighed and alighted from the vehicle. Pitt followed suit. Then all three trudged after Harlan, who was striking out into nowhere land.
Sheila wiped her brow. 'I don't know what to make of this,' she whispered. 'One minute this guy seems like a godsend, the next like a crackpot. And on top of that it's hotter than Hades.'
Harlan stopped and waited for the others to catch up to him. He pointed down to the ground and said: 'Welcome to the Washburn-Kraft Biological Warfare Reaction Laboratory.'
Before anyone could respond to this preposterous statement, Harlan bent down and grasped a camouflaged ring. He pulled up and a circular portion of the desert floor lifted up. Beneath was a round opening lined with stainless steel. Just the tip of a ladder was visible.
Harlan made a sweeping gesture with his hand. 'This whole area around here all the way to within a few miles of Paswell is honeycombed with underground facilities. It was supposed to be a big secret, but the Native Americans knew about it.'
'It's an operational lab?' Sheila questioned. This indeed was too good to be true.
'It had been mothballed in kind of suspended animation,' Harlan said. 'It was built back in the height of the cold war but then deemed superfluous when the threat of germ warfare coming to the USA diminished. Except for a few bureaucrats who kept the thing stocked, it was pretty much forgotten about; at least that's my take on the situation. Anyway, after all this trouble started, I got into it and cranked it up to speed. So to answer your question: yes, it is an operational lab.'
'And this is the entrance?' Sheila questioned. She leaned out over the rim of the opening and looked down. There were lights below. The ladder went straight down about thirty feet.
'No, this is an emergency exit plus an air vent,' Harlan said. 'The real entrance is closer to Paswell, but I'm afraid to use that lest I be seen by some of my former patients.'
'Can we go inside?' Sheila asked.
'Hey, that's what we're here for,' Harlan said. 'But before a tour I want to cover the van with a camouflage tarp.'
They all climbed down the ladder to a white, high-tech corridor illuminated by banks of fluorescent lights. From a storage locker at the base of the ladder, Harlan got out the tarp he'd mentioned. Pitt returned topside with Harlan to give him a hand.
'Pretty cool,' Jonathan said to Sheila while they waited. The corridor seemed to stretch off in either direction
