The question was rhetorical, he understood; she expected no reply.
“I could have held his hand.”
He kept his vigil at the window through the night. Sleeplessness was not a problem for him; he had learned to get by on just a few winks. April lay curled on the floor beneath the window. Kittridge had removed his jacket and placed it over her. There were no lights anywhere. The view from the window was of a world at peace, the sky pinpricked with stars. As the first glow of daylight gathered on the horizon, he let himself close his eyes.
He startled awake to the sound of approaching engines. An Army convoy was coming down the street, twenty vehicles long. He unsnapped his second pistol and passed it to April, who was sitting up now as well, rubbing her eyes.
“Hold this.”
Kittridge quickly made his way down the stairs. By the time he burst through the door, the convoy was less than a hundred feet away. He jogged into the street, waving his arms.
“Stop!”
The lead Humvee jerked to a halt just a few yards in front of him, the soldier on the roof tracking his movements with the fifty-cal. The lower half of his face was hidden by a white surgical mask. “Hold it right there.”
Kittridge’s arms were raised. “I’m unarmed.”
The soldier pulled the bolt on his weapon. “I said, keep your distance.”
A tense five seconds followed; it seemed possible that he was about to be shot. Then the passenger door of the Humvee swung open. A sturdy-looking woman emerged and walked toward him. Up close her face appeared worn and lined, crackled with dust. An officer, but not one who rode a desk.
“Major Porcheki, Ninth Combat Support Battalion, Iowa National Guard. Who the hell are you?”
He had only one card to play. “Staff Sergeant Bernard Kittridge. Charlie Company, First MP Battalion, USMC.”
Her eyes narrowed on his face. “You’re a Marine?”
“Medically discharged, ma’am.”
The major glanced past him, toward the schoolhouse. Kittridge knew without looking that the others were watching from the windows.
“How many civilians do you have inside?”
“Eleven. The bus is almost out of gas.”
“Any sick or wounded?”
“Everybody’s worn out and scared, but that’s it.”
She considered this with a neutral expression. Then: “Caldwell! Valdez!”
A pair of E-4s trotted forward. They, too, were wearing surgical masks. Everyone was except Porcheki.
“Let’s get the refueler to see about filling up that bus.”
“We’re taking civilians? Can we do that now?”
“Did I ask your opinion, Specialist? And get a corpsman up here.”
“Yes, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am.”
They jogged away.
“Thank you, Major. It was going to be a long walk out of here.”
Porcheki had removed a canteen from her belt and paused to drink. “You’re just lucky you found us when you did. Fuel’s getting pretty scarce. We’re headed back to the guard armory at Fort Powell, so that’s as far as we can take you. FEMA’s set up a refugee-processing center there. From there you’ll probably be evaced to Chicago or St. Louis.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, do you have any news?”
“I don’t mind, but I’m not sure what to tell you. One minute these goddamned things are everywhere, the next nobody can find them. They like the trees, but any sort of cover will do. The word from CENTCOM is that a large pod’s massing along the Kansas-Nebraska border.”
“What’s a pod?”
She took another gulp from the canteen. “That’s what they’re calling groups of them, pods.”
The corpsman appeared; everyone was filing out of the school. Kittridge told them what was happening while the soldiers established a perimeter. The corpsman examined the civilians, taking their temperatures, peering inside their mouths. When everyone was ready to go, Porcheki met Kittridge at the steps of the bus.
“Just one thing. You might want to keep the fact that you’re from Denver under your hat. Say you’re from Iowa, if anyone asks.”
He thought of the highway, the lines of torn-up cars. “I’ll pass that along.”
Kittridge climbed aboard. Balancing his rifle between his knees, he took a place directly behind Danny.
“God
“Sticks and stones, young man,” she responded. “Sticks and stones.”
He turned to face her across the aisle. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. What is it with old ladies and the snot-rag-in-the-sleeve thing? Doesn’t that strike you as just a little unsanitary?”
“This from a young man with enough ink in his arms to fill a ditto machine.”
“A ditto machine. What century are you from?”
“When I look at you, I think of one word. The word is ‘hepatitis.’ ”
“Christ, the two of you,” Wood moaned. “You really need to get a room.”
The convoy began to move.
14
The plan was in motion. His team was assembled, the jet would meet them at dawn. Guilder had been in touch with his contact at Blackbird; everything had been arranged. The server and the hard drives at the warehouse had all been wiped. Go home, he’d told the staff. Go home and be with your families.
It was after midnight when he drove to his townhouse through quiet, rain-slickened streets. On the radio, a continuous stream of bad news: chaos on the highways, the Army regrouping, rumblings abroad. From the White House, words of calm assurance, the crisis was in hand, the best minds were at work, but nobody was fooling anybody. A nationwide declaration of martial law was sure to come within hours. CNN was reporting that NATO warships were churning toward the coasts. The door would slam on the North American continent. The world might despise us, Guilder thought; what will it do when we’re gone?
As he drove, he kept a watchful eye on the rearview. He wasn’t being paranoid; it was just how things tended to unfold. A roar of tires, a van pulling in front of him, men in dark suits emerging.
He pulled into the garage and sealed the door behind him. In his bedroom, he packed a small bag of essentials—a couple of days’ worth of clothes, toiletries, his meds—and carried it downstairs. He fetched his laptop from the study and placed it in the microwave, sizzling its circuitry in a cloud of sparks. His handheld was already gone, tossed from the window of the Camry.
In the living room he doused the lights and peeled back the drapes. Across the street, a neighbor was loading suitcases into the open hatch of his SUV. The man’s wife was standing in the doorway of their townhouse, clutching a sleeping toddler. What were their names? Guilder either had never known or couldn’t remember. He’d seen the woman from time to time, pushing the little girl in a brightly colored plastic car up and down the driveway. Watching the three of them, Guilder was touched by a memory of Shawna—not that last, terrible encounter but the two of them lying together in the aftermath of lovemaking, and her quiet, whispering voice, tickling his chest.
