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Ogden would have felt better using all four companies, but it was just too much to move a full battalion into a small town. Plus, it was prudent to leave two companies of the DOMREC free to react, in case a gate popped up somewhere else. The DOMREC was the only unit that could deploy and be combat-ready anywhere in the Midwest inside three hours. The next-fastest response time would come from the Division Ready Force. The DRF’s mission was to put lead elements anywhere in the world within eighteen hours of an alert. If DRF had to deploy in the continental United States, that would probably cut it down to seven or eight hours, but no way in h.e.l.l could they be ready to fight in three hours.

When it came to that kind of speed, there was Charlie Ogden’s unit and no one else.

HOW TO DEAL WITH THE DEATH OF A FRIEND

Clarence Otto sat in the modified sleeper cabin of the MargoMobile, Margaret on his lap, her forehead in the crook of his neck and her legs supported by his arm. Her tears and snot dripped onto his jacket. If he noticed, he didn’t seem to care.

She couldn’t stop crying. She wanted to, tried to, but she couldn’t. She’d cried all night until she’d fallen asleep on the computer-room floor, then started again as soon as she woke.

They were driving north to g.a.y.l.o.r.d. Driving to more death. To more horror.

She was still wearing her scrubs, the same ones she’d slept in, the same ones she’d been wearing under the hazmat suit when Betty Jewell killed Amos Braun.

Killed her friend.

A friend she would never, ever see again. She just wanted him back. Why couldn’t he just come back?

“I’m so sorry, Margo,” Clarence said as he gently petted her hair. He kept saying that. Maybe he didn’t know what else to say. It didn’t matter what he said, really. She was grateful just for the sound of his voice.

She should have been the one to call Amos’s wife. She’d never met the woman, but still, Margaret should have done it. She’d taken the coward’s way out, though—Dew sent a couple of FBI agents to deliver the news.

“I need to get up,” she said. “I have to watch the video from my helmet-cam. Maybe I missed something, maybe I already forgot something when . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“There’s plenty of time to work later,” Clarence said. “You need a rest. Besides, we’re driving. It’s not safe for you to be in the trailer when this thing is rolling along.”

He kept petting her hair.

The cold lump in her chest wouldn’t go away.

“If only . . . I could have . . . gotten his helmet off sooner,” she said quietly, her sobs breaking up her sentence.

“You know that’s not true,” Clarence whispered. “She cut his artery. There was nothing you could have done.”

“But I . . . was in charge. It’s . . . it’s my fault.”

She felt Clarence shaking his head, his chin rubbing softly against her hair.

“You’re smarter than that, Margo. I know you’re going to try and blame yourself, because that’s the kind of person you are. You want to take everything on your shoulders. But blaming yourself for his death is stupid, and you know it. That girl had enough drugs in her to knock out an elephant. She had shown no signs of violent behavior. h.e.l.l, her hands were strapped down. No one could have seen it coming. In fact, if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine, because I’m responsible for protecting you both. I wasn’t even in the room.”

“But we told you to stay out of our way,” Margaret said. “Too cramped in there with an extra body. If . . . if you hadn’t been in the computer room, watching it on the monitor . . .”

“I can override any order you give me if I think your safety is at risk. I could have stayed in the autopsy room. If I had, Amos would still be alive.”

Margaret sat up and looked at him. “Don’t do that, Clarence. It’s not your fault!”

“I know. And it’s not yours, either.”

Another sob grabbed her body, grabbed it and shook it. Amos was dead. Who was going to look after his daughters? Had the FBI agents delivered the news yet? Would his family ever know the truth, or was Murray already dealing another cover story? Amos Braun deserved a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom—his family would get a lie about a lab accident and an insurance payout.

“We can look for blame all day,” Clarence said. “That’s not going to bring him back. All it’s going to do is take our focus away from the job at hand. More people are going to die, Margo, you can bet on that. More good people like my boy Amos. It sucks to say, but we can grieve him all we want once we beat this f.u.c.king thing. You want to place blame? Place it where it belongs. Place it on this infection. That’s what killed Amos, not me, and not you.”

Another set of sobs. .h.i.t, but this time she finally forced them into submission. Clarence was right. This disease had taken Amos, taken all the others. If she could stop it, if she could kill it, that was the greatest tribute she could pay to her friend.

“You know what’s funny?” Clarence said.

“What?”

“I finished up twenty bucks ahead. He’d be so p.i.s.sed if he knew I won.”

Margaret couldn’t believe Clarence could joke at a time like this. Then she thought of Amos’s face when he took the twenty from Otto, or the scowl when he had to hand it over. For some reason she pictured him looking down on both of them, pointing and laughing.

And despite the pain, she laughed a little herself.

MR. BURKLE THE POSTMAN

John Burkle was a bit behind. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor the gloom of night, but notice how no one ever listed nor horribly rotted blackened corpses as one of the things that could keep you from your appointed rounds.

John had called 9-1-1, then waited for the ambulance and cops to arrive. He couldn’t say for sure if it had been Cheffie in that house. Cheffie was the only one who lived there, but that black . . . thing . . . could have been anyone. The paramedics had even given John some test for flesh-eating bacteria, which—thank G.o.d—turned out to be negative. He’d gone home after that, a bit shaken up by the whole ordeal, which meant that today he had a double load of mail to deliver.