Boxer turned, saw what she saw, and said what Sam and Trout were only now just beginning to see.
“They’re soldiers,” said Boxer. “Oh, goddamn, it’s the National Guard. They’re all … they’re all … ah, shit.”
“Got to be fifty of them,” said Moonshiner.
Moonshiner popped a flare and sent it high into the air.
There were not fifty.
There were hundreds of them.
Torn, bleeding, shambling, and hungry.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THREE
THE SITUATION ROOM
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
The experts did one threat assessment after another, each time rebuilding both outbreak and response models to fit new data.
With each new assessment the president felt the world slip away from him. He sat in his chair, fingers balled into fists on the tabletop, staring at speaking mouths and screens filled with data.
Scott Blair looked every bit as bad. He hung up from a call and rubbed his eyes. Or was he wiping at tears? The president couldn’t tell.
Blair held up a trembling hand and the room fell into a flawed and troubled silence.
“That was Dr. McReady. She’s with the NBACC field team in Fayette County. They reached General Zetter’s command post. It was deserted except for several infected. The, um, infected were all members of the Guard command staff.”
“How the hell is that even possible?” demanded General Burroughs. “If they’
d been overrun we’d have known about it.”
“That’s why Dr. McReady called. Her team was able to subdue and examine the infected at the command center. A few had been bitten, but most showed no signs of violence. No bites, nothing.”
“Then what in hell happened?” asked the president.
Tears broke from the corners of Blair’s eyes. “Dr. McReady thinks that the bombs reduced many of the infected to particulate matter and ash. Those particles still contain parasitic larvae, and the storm winds are spreading them throughout the region.”
There was a beat and for a moment some of the people around the table seemed unable to comprehend the implications.
The president wiped at his own tears. “Say the rest, Scott. Tell them.”
Blair placed his palms on the table and leaned heavily on them, his head hanging down between hunched shoulders.
“Lucifer 113 has gone airborne,” he said.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FOUR
THE NORTHERN LEVEES
FAYETTE COUNTY
Jake DeGroot came back to himself slowly.
So slowly.
With pain and realization and horror.