The Twelve

"Always it's tomorrow." Fred Wilkes was a trim man of at least seventy, with bright blue eyes; in the heat he'd removed his shirt, displaying a fan of downy white chest hair. He and his wife, as generously proportioned as he was undersized-Jack Sprat and the missus-were playing gin rummy, sitting across from each other on a pair of cots and using a cardboard box as a table. "If it doesn't happen soon, people are going to lose patience. And what then?"

Kittridge stepped back outside. They were surrounded by soldiers, safe for the time being. Yet the whole thing felt stopped, everyone waiting for something to happen. Infantrymen were stationed along the fence line at one hundred meter intervals. All of them were wearing surgical masks. The only way in or out seemed to be the front gate. Abutting the camp to the north he saw a low-slung, windowless building without visible markings or signage, its entrance flanked by concrete barricades. While Kittridge watched, a pair of sleek black heliocpters approached from the east, turned in a wide circle, and touched down on the rooftop. Four figures emerged from the first helicopter, men in dark glasses and baseball caps and Kevlar vests, carrying automatic rifles. Not military, Kittridge thought. Blackbird, maybe, or Riverstone. One of those outfits. The four men proceeded to take up positions at the corners of the roof.

The doors of the second helicopter opened. Kittridge placed a hand to his brow to get a better look. For a moment, nothing happened; then a figure emerged, wearing an orange biosuit. Five more followed. The rotors of the helicopters were still turning. A brief negotiation ensued, then the biosuited figures removed a pair of long steel boxes from the helicopter's cargo section, each the approximate dimensions of a coffin, with wheeled frames that dropped from their undercarriages. They guided the two boxes to a small, hutlike structure on the roof-a service elevator, Kittridge guessed. A few minutes passed; the six reappeared and boarded the second helicopter. First one and then the other lifted off, thudding away.

April came up behind him. "I noticed that, too," she said. "Any idea what it is?"

"Maybe nothing." Kittridge dropped his hand. "Where's Tim?"

"Already making friends. He's off playing soccer with some kids."

They watched the helicopters fade from sight. Whatever it was, Kittridge thought, it wasn't nothing.

"You think we'll be okay here?" April asked.

"Why wouldn't we be?"

"I don't know." Though her face said she did; she was thinking the same thing he was. "Last night, in the lab ... What I mean is, I can be like that sometimes. I didn't mean to pry."

"I wouldn't have told you if I didn't want to."

She was somehow looking both toward him and away. At such moments she had a way of seeming older than she was. Not seeming, Kittridge thought: being.

"Are you really eighteen?"

She seemed amused. "Why? Don't I look it?"

Kittridge shrugged to hide his embarrassment; the question had just popped out. "No. I mean yes, you do. I was just ... I don't know."

April was plainly enjoying herself. "A girl's not supposed to tell. But to put your mind at ease, yes, I'm eighteen. Eighteen years, two months, and seventeen days. Not that I'm, you know, counting."

Their eyes met and held in the way they seemed to want to. What was it about this girl, Kittridge wondered, this April?

"I still owe you for the gun," she said, "even if they took it. I think it might be the nicest present anybody ever gave me, actually."

"I liked the poem. Call it even. What was that guy's name again?"

"T. S. Eliot."

"He got any other stuff?"

"Not much that makes sense. You ask me, he was kind of a one-hit wonder."

They had no weapons, no way to get a message to the outside world. Not for the first time, Kittridge wondered if they shouldn't have just kept driving.

"Well, when we get out of here, I'll have to check him out."

Chapter 17

Grey.

Whiteness, and the sensation of floating. Grey became aware that he was in a car. This was strange, because the car was also a motel room, with beds and dressers and a television; when had they started making cars like this? He was sitting on the foot of one of the beds, driving the room-the steering column came up at an angle from the floor; the television was the windshield-and seated on the adjacent bed was Lila, clutching a pink bundle to her chest. "Are we there yet, Lawrence?" Lila asked him. "The baby needs changing." The baby? thought Grey. When had that happened? Wasn't she months away? "She's so beautiful," said Lila, softly cooing. "We have such a beautiful baby. It's too bad we have to shoot her." "Why do we have to shoot her?" Grey asked. "Don't be silly," said Lila. "We shoot all the babies now. That way they won't be eaten."

Lawrence Grey.

The dream changed-one part of him knew he was dreaming, while another part did not-and Grey was in the tank now. Something was coming to get him, but he couldn't make himself move. He was on his hands and knees, slurping the blood. His job was to drink it, drink it all, which was impossible: the blood had begun to gush through the hatch, filling the compartment. An ocean of blood. The blood was rising above his chin, his mouth and nose were filling, he was choking, drowning-

Lawrence Grey. Wake up.

He opened his eyes to a harsh light. Something felt caught in his throat; he began to cough. Something about drowning? But the dream was already breaking apart, its images atomizing, leaving only a residue of fear.

Where was he?

Some kind of hospital. He was wearing a gown, but that was all; he felt the chill of na**dness beneath it. Thick straps bound his wrists and ankles to the rails of the bed, holding him in place like a mummy in a sarcophagus. Wires snaked from beneath his gown to a cart of medical equipment; an IV was threaded into his right arm.

Somebody was in the room.

Two somebodies in fact, the pair hovering at the foot of the bed in their bulky biosuits, their faces shielded by plastic masks. Behind them was a heavy steel door and, positioned high on the wall in the corner, watching the scene with its unblinking gaze, a security camera.

"Mr. Grey, I'm Horace Guilder," the one on the left said. His tone of voice struck Grey as oddly cheerful. "This is my colleague Dr. Nelson. How are you feeling?"

Grey did his best to focus on their faces. The one who'd spoken looked anonymously middle-aged, with a heavy, square-jawed head and pasty skin; the second man was considerably younger, with tight dark eyes and a scraggly little Vandyke. He didn't look like any doctor Grey had ever met.

He licked his lips and swallowed. "What is this place? Why am I tied up?"

Guilder answered with a calming tone. "That's for your own protection, Mr. Grey. Until we figure out what's wrong with you. As for where you are," he said, "I'm afraid I can't tell you that just yet. Suffice it to say that you're among friends here."

Grey realized they must have sedated him; he could barely move a muscle, and it wasn't just the straps. His limbs felt like iron, his thoughts moving through his brain with a lazy aimlessness, like guppies in a tank. Guilder was holding a cup of water to his lips.

"Go on, drink."

Grey's stomach turned-just the smell of it was revolting, like some hideously overchlorinated pool. Thoughts came back to him, dark thoughts: the blood in the tank, and Grey's face buried greedily in it. Had that actually happened? Had he dreamed it? But no sooner had these questions formed in his mind than a kind of roaring seemed to fill his head, a vast hunger lurching to life inside him, so overwhelming that his entire body clenched against the straps.

"Whoa now," Guilder said, backing away suddenly. "Steady there."

More images were coming back to him, rising through the fog. The tank in the road, the dead soldiers, and explosions all around; the feel of his hand crashing through the Volvo's window, and the fields detonating with fire, and the car sailing through the corn, and the bright lights of the helicopter, and the space-suited men, dragging Lila away.

"Where is she? What have you done with her?"

Guilder glanced toward Nelson, who frowned. Interesting, his face seemed to say.

"You needn't worry, Mr. Grey, we're taking good care of her. She's right across the hall, in fact."

"Don't you hurt her." His fists were clenched; he was straining against the straps. "You touch her and I'll-"

"And you'll what, Mr. Grey?"

But there was nothing; the straps held firm. Whatever they had given him, it had taken his strength away.

"Try not to excite yourself, Mr. Grey. Your friend is perfectly fine. The baby, too. What we're a little unclear on is just how the two of you came to be together. I was hoping you might help us with that."

"Why do you want to know?"

One eyebrow lifted incredulously behind the faceplate. "For starters, it seems that the two of you are the last people to come out of Colorado alive. Believe me when I tell you, this is a matter of some interest to us. Was she at the Chalet? Is that where you met her?"

Just the word made Grey's mind clench with panic. "The Chalet?"

"Yes, Mr. Grey. The Chalet."

He shook his head. "No."

"Then where?"

He swallowed. "At the Home Depot."

For just a moment, Guilder said nothing. "Where was this?"

Grey tried to put his thoughts together, but his brain had gone all fuzzy again. "Denver someplace. I don't know exactly. She wanted me to paint the nursery."

Guilder quickly turned toward the second man, who shrugged. "Could be the fentanyl," Nelson said. "It may take him a little while to sort things out."

But Guilder was undeterred. There was something more forceful about the man's gaze now. It seemed to bore right into him. "We need to know what happened at the Chalet. How did you get away?"

"I don't remember."

"Was there a girl there? Did you see her?"

There was a girl? What were they talking about?

"I didn't see anyone. I just ... I don't know. It was all so confusing. I woke up at the Red Roof."

"The Red Roof? What's that?"

"A motel, on the highway."

A puzzled frown. "When was this?"

Grey tried to count. "Three days ago? No, four." He nodded his head against the pillow. "Four days."

The two men looked at each other. "It doesn't make sense," Nelson said. "The Chalet was destroyed twenty-two days ago. He's not Rip Van Winkle."

"Where were you for those three weeks?" Guilder pressed.

The question made no sense. Three weeks?

"I don't know," Grey said.

"I'll ask you again, Mr. Grey. Was Lila at the Chalet? Is that where you met her?"

"I told you," he said. He was pleading now, his resistance gone. "She was at the Home Depot."

His thoughts were swirling like water going down a drain. Whatever they'd given him, it had screwed him up good. With a thump in his gut, Grey realized what the straps were all about. They were going to study him. Like the sticks. Like Zero. And when they were done with him, Richards, or somebody like him, would put the red light on Grey, and that would be the end of him.

"Please, it's me you want. I'm sorry I ran away. Just don't hurt Lila."

For a moment the two men said nothing, just stared at him from behind their faceplates. Then Guilder turned toward Nelson, nodding.

"Put him back under."

Nelson took a syringe and a vial of clear liquid from the cart. While Grey looked on helplessly, he inserted the needle into the IV tube and pushed the plunger.

"I just clean," Grey said feebly. "I'm just a janitor."

"Oh, I think you're much more than that, Mr. Grey."

And with these words in his ears, Grey slipped away again.

Guilder and Nelson stepped through the air lock into the decontamination chamber. First a shower in their biosuits; then they stripped and scrubbed themselves head to foot with a harsh, chemical-smelling soap. They cleared their throats and spat into the sink, gargling for a minute with a strong disinfectant. A cumbersome ritual but, until they knew more about Grey's condition, one they were wise to observe.

Just a skeletal staff was present in the building: three lab technicians-Guilder thought of them as Wynken, Blynken, and Nod-plus an MD and a four-man Blackbird security team. The building had been constructed in the late eighties to treat soldiers exposed to nuclear, biological, or chemical agents, and the systems were buggy as hell-the aboveground HVAC was on the fritz, as was video surveillance for the entire facility-and the place had a disconcertingly deserted feel to it. But it was the last place anybody would look for them.

Nelson and Guilder stepped into the lab, a wide room of desks and equipment, including the powerful microscopes and blood spinners they'd need to isolate and culture the virus. While Grey and Lila were still unconscious, they'd each had a CT scan and blood drawn; their blood tests had been inconclusive, but Grey's scan had revealed a radically enlarged thymus, typical of those infected. And yet as far as Nelson and Guilder could discern, he'd experienced no other symptoms. In every other way he appeared to be in the pink of health. Better than that: the man looked like he could run a marathon.

"Let me show you something," Nelson said.

He escorted Guilder to the terminal in an adjacent office where he'd set up shop. Nelson opened a file and clicked on a JPEG. A photo appeared on the screen of Lawrence Grey. Or, rather, a man who resembled Grey; the face in the photograph looked considerably older. Sagging skin, hair a thin flap over his scalp, sunken eyes that gazed into the camera with a dull, almost bovine look.