Manny couldn’t stop himself from grimacing. He’d written the speech, but he hated those two sentences. He hated them because he knew they weren’t true. Maybe they’d get this figured out in the next few days and have soldiers and cops and first responders in there, but all they were doing right now was trying to keep it contained. They were scrambling to get crop dusters and firefighting planes over the city to spray insecticide, but that was going to take at least a few hours, and even then, they had no clue if it was going to work. The bitter truth was that the people in that zone were alone. The country was not with them in any sense other than as spectators. The National Guard and the police, the army and the navy, the Marines and the air force weren’t lined up with their guns pointed out, to protect them from some invading army, but rather with their guns pointed in. But as much as he hated those two sentences, he was even less happy about what was coming. Yes, it made sense, and he reluctantly agreed with the national security advisor and the secretary of defense and pretty much everybody else who said it had to be done, but it was still going to be tough to swallow in the polls.
“The news channels and the Internet have been awash in speculation the last few days, and the truth is that the facts of this situation are not entirely clear.” Stephanie leaned in toward the camera, and despite himself, despite knowing the words that were about to come out of her mouth, Manny found himself responding in kind, leaning toward her. “What I know for sure, however, is that Americans are dying, and my job is to protect this country.” She paused to take a breath. Here it comes, Manny thought. It made him feel sick. He knew it was the wrong thought to have at a moment like this, but he was a political animal and he couldn’t help himself. All he could think of was that she was going to lose the election with the next sentence. “I am declaring the states of California, Oregon, Arizona, and Nevada under martial law.”
There was more. Curfews. Pleas for calm. A stern reminder to stay indoors with windows and doors closed, to try to seal any possible entrances. But above all, it was Stephanie sounding presidential. Authoritative. Manny was proud of the speech he’d written, particularly given how short a time he’d had to write it, but it was Stephanie who sold it. She did what the president is supposed to do, which is look into the camera, look into the eyes of the American people, and say, “We’ve got this under control.”
But Manny knew she didn’t believe it any more than he did.
Soot Lake, Minnesota
A quarter past midnight and there was still traffic on the 6. He’d figured there’d be cars and trucks for the two hours up 169 from Minneapolis to Crosby, but they were already twenty-five minutes past Crosby, and the traffic was constant. It worried Mike. He thought he was being overcautious, a little crazy, even, to make Rich and Fanny pack up and head to Rich’s cottage with Annie, but it scared him a little that so many other people had the same idea, that he wasn’t the only person who wanted to get his family away from Minneapolis. He’d fought about it with Fanny for more than twenty minutes before Rich finally came in off the sidelines to say he thought Mike was right. For that, Mike begrudgingly liked his ex-wife’s husband even more than he already did.
“I’ve got the vacation time,” Rich said, “and I don’t have any cases coming up for a few weeks.” Fanny started to protest again, but Rich shook his head. “Maybe he’s wrong, honey, but if Mike’s right, and things get worse?” He shrugged. “It’s not like spending a week or two at the cottage is a real hardship.”
Mike had been at home, already a little anguished, when the president declared martial law out west. And then, five minutes later, even though he was supposed to be off the next day, he got the e-mail that he was on duty, that everybody was on duty, starting from the moment they read the e-mail until further notice. He hadn’t opened the e-mail. It was enough to read the subject line. Besides, if he opened it, there’d be a record of his reading it. Instead, he dropped his agency phone on the counter—he could argue he didn’t see the e-mail until the next morning—took his personal phone, loaded his truck with all the canned and dried food he had, plus a few other odds and ends, and headed over to Fanny and Rich’s. By the time Rich had come around to the idea and they’d loaded up Rich’s Land Cruiser and hitched up the boat, Annie was asleep. She’d barely woken up when Mike moved her to his truck—he’d left the agency car at home with his agency phone, another step toward deniability—and he was grateful she hadn’t asked why they were heading out of town in the middle of the week, late at night, why she was in Mike’s car instead of with her mother and Rich.
The brake lights on the boat trailer glowed red and then the turn signal came on. Rich had said the BP station in Outing was the last place to get gas before his cottage. Mike turned the radio down a notch. There wasn’t anything new anyway, but what was on the radio was enough: Delhi, Los Angeles, Helsinki, Rio de Janeiro for sure. Suspicions in North Korea, but who the fuck knew what was happening there? More unconfirmed reports in rural areas all over the place. Scotland, Egypt, South Africa. But Mike didn’t care if they were confirmed or not. He’d seen that goddamned spider come crawling out of Henderson’s face, and he’d walked that spider into a university lab to find the president of the United States waiting, and then he’d flown home to a country that was on lockdown. Even before Los Angeles and the president’s speech he was feeling antsy.
Rich turned off into the gas station, and Mike pulled his truck up to the pump on the other side of Rich’s Land Cruiser. He tried to be gentle closing the driver’s door so that Annie could keep sleeping, but she didn’t stir at all.