The president suddenly looked at something off screen and Price heard someone that he couldn’t see say something. Price couldn’t hear most of the words, but he saw the way in which those words affected the president. Anger and concern were replaced by shock and then a twisted mask of what appeared to Price to be absolute horror. The same horror was mirrored on the faces of Blair and McReady.
“Oh my God…” breathed McReady as she covered her mouth with her hands.
Panic flared in the eyes of Scott Blair.
The two words Price did hear hit him like punches to the face.
“… quarantine failed…”
If he heard more, his mind was momentarily unable to process it.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
STEBBINS LITTLE SCHOOL
STEBBINS, PENNSYLVANIA
Dez and Billy sat on opposite sides of a teacher’s desk in an empty room. Dez had swept all of the items from the desk and had covered it with rifles, handguns, and boxes of shells.
“This is what we have,” she said. “Not counting the pieces I gave to Piper and a few of the others. Three rifles with fifty rounds each. Two shotguns, but only forty-four shells left. Three Glocks and nine magazines, all full, and this piece of shit thirty-eight.” She nudged a Ruger LCR revolver. “I don’t know why I even brought it. But there’s a box of hollow-points for it, so it’s not entirely like giving a blow job.”
Trout smiled thinly. “Didn’t Sirhan Sirhan kill Bobby Kennedy with a twenty-two?”
“What’s your point?”
“Thirty-eight’s a bigger gun.”
“It’s not the caliber that matters, Billy. It has a five-round cylinder.” She patted the Glock 22 Gen4 holstered at her hip. “Extended magazine with seventeen rounds. Which would you rather have if the shit comes down again?”
“I can’t hit a barn with a baseball, Dez, so I’m not sure it would matter.”
Dez leaned across the desk and pushed one of the shotguns toward him. “It’s Korean, but don’t hold that against it. Daewoo USAS-12. Gas operated with selective fire. Very nice in close-combat situations, which is pretty much the definition of life as we know it. I have a ten-round detachable box magazine or a twenty-round drum magazine, take your pick. Fires twelve-gauge.”
He hefted it and winced. “Shit, this thing is heavy.”
“Thirteen pounds fully loaded,” she said. “Don’t be a pussy.”
“I have a bad back.”
“Really? I thought maybe you had menstrual cramps.”
“Dez…”
She grinned at him, and it was the first time he’d seen an unguarded smile on her face in a long time. “I’m just messing with you.”
He grinned back.
Dez picked up a pistol that didn’t look like it could fire anything. There was no barrel.
“What’s that, a Taser?”
“Close. Nova SP-5. Five-shot stun gun.”
“Bulky.”
“Yeah,” she agreed and she affixed the holster to her belt.
“What’s the point? I thought only headshots bring them down.”