Darwin's Children Part 15

"Turn it on," Kaye said.

Mitch turned on the receiver. The dashboard display showed a map with a red spot, their position, and the radio tuned automatically to a Philadelphia station, giving stock market news for the morning.

"Did he-"

"George turned off the TheftWave years ago," Mitch said. "I checked. It's unplugged. We're just tracking GPS, not sending."

"Good." Kaye reached forward with a grunt, shifting Stella's head, and pulled out a remote folding keypad. "Fancy," she said.

Mitch glanced at her in the rearview mirror. She looked haggard, and her eyes were too bright. He could only see part of the gently breathing, blanketed form beside her.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"I'm fine." She studied the keypad, then experimented with a few b.u.t.tons. "Looks like HFMD to me."

"That's not a radio station," Mitch said.

"Hand, foot, and mouth disease. It's usually a minor viral infection in infants and children. I'm sure she's been exposed before. Something's changed. Whatever, we need to stock up on drugs and fluids."

"Drugstore?"

Kaye shook her head. "I'm sure by now they've made this a reportable illness. Every pharmacy in the country will be on the alert, and the hospitals are refusing to take cases . . . Let's hear what the world is saying." The broadband sites were full of digital music, digital advertising, Rush Limbaugh thundering and buzzing away from somewhere in Florida, d.i.c.k Richelieu on building that new home, rants by evangelicals, and then BBC World News direct from London. They caught the story in progress. Kaye worked the touch pad and backed up several minutes to the beginning.

"Conditions in Asia and the United States have quickly deteriorated to what can only be described as panic. The prospect of the so-called virus children producing an unknown pathogen capable of causing a pandemic has haunted world governments for a decade, certainly since the strange and disturbing case of Mrs. Rhine seven years ago. And yet the children have remained healthy, in their schools and camps and with their beleaguered families. Now, this new and so-far unexplained illness-given no official diagnosis-is causing widespread disruption in North America, j.a.pan, and Hong Kong. International and even some local airports are blocking flights from affected areas. In the past forty-eight hours, public and private hospitals in the United States have closed their doors to this new illness for fear of becoming part of a proposed general quarantine. Other hospitals in the UK, France, and Italy, announced that should the disease spread to these sh.o.r.es, which some regard as inevitable, they will accept SHEVA children and their relatives only in isolated wards."

"If you see a vet's office, stop," Kaye told him.

"Okay," Mitch said.

"The illness has not yet spread to Africa, which has the smallest population of SHEVA children, some say because of the prevalence of HIV infection. In Washington, Emergency Action denies that it has begun taking measures based on a top-secret presidential decision directive, a confidential order dating from the early years of Herod's plague. On some widely touched Web sites, the specter of bioterrorism is being invoked with alarming frequency."

Kaye turned off the radio and squared her clasped hands in her lap. They were pa.s.sing through a small town in the middle of fields and gra.s.sy plains. "There's a pet hospital," Kaye said, pointing to a strip mall on their right.

Mitch swung off the road into the parking lot and parked opposite a square blue-and-gray stucco building. Kaye drew the sun shades in the Jeep's windows, though the sun was still low in the east and the air was actually cool. "Stay in the back with her," she said as they both got out. Mitch tried to give Kaye a brief, encouraging hug. She squirmed out of his arms like a cat, made a vexed face, and jogged across the asphalt.

Mitch looked over his shoulder to see if they were being watched, then climbed into the backseat, lifted his daughter's head, and placed it on his lap. Stella drew breath in short jerks. Her face was covered with small red spots. She curled her knees up and flexed her fingers. "Mitch, my head hurts," she whispered. "My neck hurts. Tell Kaye."

"Mom will be back in a few minutes," Mitch said, feeling a gnawing helplessness. He might as well have been a ghost watching from the land of the dead.

Kaye peered through the venetian blinds in the gla.s.s door and saw lights inside and figures moving in a hallway in the back. She banged on the door until a young woman in a blue medical uniform approached with a puzzled look and opened the door a crack.

"We're just starting the day," the woman said. "Is this an emergency?" She was in her midtwenties, plump but not heavyset, with strong arms, bleached blonde hair, and pleasant brown eyes.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but we have some trouble with our cat," Kaye said, and smiled with her most ingratiating and harried expression. The woman opened the door and Kaye entered the hospital's small lobby. She turned nervously and looked at the admissions counter, the racks of specialized pet food and other products. The woman walked behind the counter, perked up, and smiled. "Well then, welcome. What can we do for you?" Her pocket tag showed a smiling cartoon puppy and the name Betsy.

The good caring women of this Earth, Kaye thought. Kaye thought. They are hardly ever beautiful, they are the most beautiful of all. They are hardly ever beautiful, they are the most beautiful of all. She did not know where this came from and shoved it aside, but first used the emotion to put a sympathetic spark into her smile. She did not know where this came from and shoved it aside, but first used the emotion to put a sympathetic spark into her smile.

"We're traveling," Kaye began. "We're taking Shamus with us, poor thing. He's our cat."

"What's wrong?" Betsy asked with genuine concern.

"He's just old," Kaye said. "Failed kidneys. I thought I brought our supplies with us, but . . . they're back in Brattleboro."

"Do you have a doctor's sheet? A phone number, someone we can talk with?"

"Shamus hasn't seen the doctor in months. We moved recently. We've been taking care of him on our own. We've already been to one pet hospital, up the road a ways . . . They got mad. It's so early, and we've been up all night. They turned me down flat." She wrung her hands. "I was hoping you could help."

Betsy's eyes glinted with the merest shade of suspicion. "We can't supply narcotics or pain killers," she warned.

"Nothing like that," Kaye said, her heart thumping. She smiled and drew a breath. "Oh, forgive me, I'm so worried about the poor thing. We'll need Lactated Ringer's, four or five liters, if you have it, with b.u.t.terfly clamp, and as many sets of tubes and needles-twenty-five-gauge needles."

"That's a little thin for a cat. Take forever to fill her up."

"It's a he," Kaye said. "It's all he'll put up with."

"All right," Betsy said doubtfully.

"Methyl prednisone," Kaye said. "To calm him while he's traveling."

"We have Depo-Medrol."

"That's fine. Do you have vidarabine?"

"Not for cats," the young woman said, frowning. "I'll have to check all this with the doctor."

"He's at the cabin-our cat. He's doing poorly, and it's all my fault. I should have known better."

"You've handled this before . . . haven't you?"

"I'm an expert," Kaye said, and put on a brave, tearful grin.

The young woman entered the list onto a flat-screen monitor. "I'm not sure I even know what vidarabine is."

Kaye searched her memory, trying to remember the long hours she had spent searching PediaServe, MediSHEVA, and a hundred other sites and databases, years ago, preparing for some unknown disaster. "There's a new one we use sometimes. It's called picornavene, enterovene, something like that?"

"We have equine picornavene. Surely that's not what you're looking for."

"Sounds familiar."

"It comes in quite large doses."

"Fine. Famicyclovir?"

"No," Betsy said, very suspicious now. "Drugstore might have that. What kind of life has your cat lived?"

"He was a wild one," Kaye said.

"If he's that sick . . ."

"He means so much to us."

"You should wait for the vet. He'll be back in an hour."

"I'm not sure we have that long," Kaye said, looking at her watch with a desperate expression she did not have to fake.

"You're positive you've done all this before, you know how it works?"

"We've kept him alive for a year. I've had him for eighteen years. He's a brave old tom. I don't know what I'd do without him."

The a.s.sistant shook her head, dubious but sympathetic. "I could get in trouble."

Kaye felt no guilt whatsoever. If she had had a gun, she would have held them up, right now, for everything she needed. "I wouldn't want that," she said, staring right at the woman.

The a.s.sistant waggled her head. "What the h.e.l.l," she said. "Old cats. Pain in the b.u.t.t, huh?"

"You know it," Kaye said.

"And it's not like we're in the big city. Five liters Ringer's, two hundred mils equine picornavene-that's the smallest we've got-and the Depo-Medrol-" Betsy picked up the printed list. "Credit or debit?"

"Cash," Kaye said.

39.

OHIO.

Yolanda Middleton followed d.i.c.ken through the school trailers to the old farm buildings. She caught up with him easily and shook out a ring of keys. "We ransacked Trask's office," she said. "Found master keys to all the buildings. There's a tag from when this was a prison. Some of the nurses say there could still be supplies out here, but n.o.body knows."

"Great. Did Kelson ever come out here?"

"I don't think so. This was Dr. Jurie's lab," Middleton said. "Dr. Pickman was his a.s.sistant. Both were authorized to do research. They stayed away from the rest of us."

"What sort of research?" d.i.c.ken asked.

Middleton shook her head.

d.i.c.ken stood on the asphalt path and tapped his shoe lightly on the curb, thinking. He looked over his shoulder at the converted barn, the old business education building, and the three blank-faced concrete cubes between. Then he set off. Middleton followed.

A double steel door marked one side of the closest cube. This was labeled "no admittance" in white letters on the door's blue enamel.

"What's in here?"

"Well, among other things, a temporary morgue," she said. "That's what they told me. I don't know that it was ever used."

"Why here?"

"Dr. Jurie told us we had to keep the bodies of any children who died. The county coroner wouldn't take them, even though she was supposed to."

"Were the parents notified?"

"We tried," Middleton said. "Sometimes they move without giving any forwarding address. They just leave the children behind."

"Is there a graveyard for the school?"

"Not that I ever heard of. Honestly, Dr. Jurie took care of all that." Middleton looked distinctly uncomfortable. "We a.s.sumed they went to a potter's field somewhere outside of town. There weren't that many, really. Two or three, maybe, since the school opened, and only one since I've been here. Trask didn't let word about deaths circulate very far. He called it a private matter."

d.i.c.ken rubbed his fingers together. "Key?"

Middleton looked for a newer key on the ring, and held one up for his inspection. It was labeled R1-F, F for Front, presumably-and R for what, Research? They agreed with a look that this was the best choice. As she pushed the key into the lock, d.i.c.ken turned his gaze up the face of concrete, pale gray in the morning light. He narrowed his eye, as he had learned over the years, to help the fogged lens focus on the vent covers near the top, a few pipes sticking out, a thick power line going to a pole and across to the junction box near the old barn. They agreed with a look that this was the best choice. As she pushed the key into the lock, d.i.c.ken turned his gaze up the face of concrete, pale gray in the morning light. He narrowed his eye, as he had learned over the years, to help the fogged lens focus on the vent covers near the top, a few pipes sticking out, a thick power line going to a pole and across to the junction box near the old barn.

Middleton pulled the door open. Inside, it was cool enough to make him shiver.

"The air-conditioner works here, at least," he said.

"It's separate from the main plant," Middleton said. "This building's newer than the rest."

d.i.c.ken took a deep breath. He felt as if he were on a wild goose chase. There might be medicine in these buildings, but he doubted it. More likely they would find laboratory supplies-unless Trask had conspired with the doctors to sell those, too. Still, the lab might be better equipped than the small medical facility adjacent to the infirmary. But these were just excuses.

Something else was bringing him here, an instinctive suspicion that had come to him as he walked among the cots in the special treatment center. We're curious monkeys, We're curious monkeys, he thought. he thought. We never miss opportunities. We never miss opportunities.

He found a light switch on the wall inside the door and pushed it. Fluorescents bathed the interior in a cool, sterile glow. The north wall of the room was covered by stainless steel refrigerators, huge lab units equipped with tiny blue temperature displays. Expensive, and very unlike the small, hump-shouldered units outside the infirmary.

"When did Jurie and Pickman leave?" he asked.

"I'm not sure."

"Did they take anything?"

Middleton shrugged. "I didn't see them go. I can't be everywhere."

"Of course not," d.i.c.ken said. The mask itched. He reached up to rub his nose, then thought better of it.

"How long will this take?" Middleton asked.

d.i.c.ken ignored her. The refrigerators were locked and equipped with push-b.u.t.ton keypads. He ran his fingers across one of the pads and shook his head.

Middleton found a key on the ring that opened the door across the room. This led to a small pathology lab with a single steel autopsy table, shining clean. All the tools lay neatly in their trays or in cabinets along the far wall. Some tools had been left in an autoclave, but otherwise the lab was beautifully organized and maintained.

"When was the last autopsy conducted here?" d.i.c.ken asked.