'What about her crew?' Clark asked. 'Were any of them epidemiologists?'
Vikram nodded. 'Three of them, good doctors all, but military doctors. She gave them orders and they followed without any questions. She let them know nothing of what she was doing'and that is standard operating procedure only. That is not the mystery. She had them look up newspaper articles, mostly. You remember the outbreak of violence last year that had the media so excited?'
'Yes, of course. I mostly attributed it to anger over the election. That's what the the newspapers told me, anyway.'
Vikram nodded. 'I have seen the clippings. I have read myself a story about a dog that ate its owner before it was put down. About a mother who tore her babies to pieces. Missing children. Serial killers. Bad batches of the drugs like PCP. Lieutenant Sanchez looked at these and many more and saw evidence of a larger trend." Vikram touched the systems specialist on the upper arm'the approved zone. 'Please show him now.'
The screen filled in with what could have been a spiderweb or the root pattern of an ugly tree. Clark felt his breath leaking out of him. This changed everything. He reached for his cell phone. The Civilian had to know about this. Everyone had to know about this.
'It's not a disease at all, I do not think,' Vikram said, rubbing his beard. 'It is more like a radiation. Or perhaps it is magic.'
Clark shot him a warning glance and pressed SEND.
Monster Nation
Chapter Ten
NO VACCINE, NO PEACE!!!! Sheriff's Office in Clark County has some according to insider eyewitness but no plan to distribute to the people! WTF!!!1 If I was WHITE like YOU, could I have my innoculation then, OFFICER??? ['unDead Amerikkka' electronic newsletter, distributed via email 4/9/05]
Men with machine pistols and brown baseball caps patrolled Terminal Two of McCarran international airport in Las Vegas. They moved in teams of two or three. One of them lead a pair of Doberman pinschers directly past where Bannerman Clark sat, waiting for the next flight to Washington.
'They don't have any badges,' Clark observed to the man sitting next to him in the cocktail bar. He sipped at his ginger ale'a little sugar always helped with his jet lag'and watched one of the dogs shove his snout into a trash can. 'No insignia. Is this new?' He had never been to Las Vegas before, and was only there now because it was the last airport in the West that hadn't been overrun. A military helicopter had brought him that far but lacked the range necessary to get him to the Capital.
The businessman sitting next to him hunched his shoulders, wrinkling his tweed jacket and looked at Bannerman with some surprise. 'This is the only city in a hundred miles that isn't crammed full of dead maniacs and you're worried about identification? They're private consultants. We don't ask a lot of questions about them, and you shouldn't either. Excuse me, I have a flight to catch.' He dropped a five on the bar and hurried off.
Who had hired the private consultants? The mayor of the city? Organized crime? It wasn't Clark's jurisdiction. Yet when he finally arrived in Washington twelve hours later (after an unannounced layover in St. Louis where he was not allowed to deplane) he found more private consultants at Ronald Reagan, though at least these wore some insignia on the back of their flak jackets: KBR. A man in a KBR vest with a long, fluttering mustache checked his ID before he was herded into the baggage claim, even though he had no bags to pick up.