3
It took a long time for all the noise to stop. After the initial explosion—what sounded like an explosion, anyway—shook the entire hospital, the extended sounds of collapsing, of something large falling apart, went on for a while, the crashing and banging and shattering sounds of destruction in progress. Fara backed into Emilio and pressed against him. She was trembling. He put his hands comfortingly on her shoulders, hoping she couldn’t tell that he was trembling, too.
“One of those trees,” Fara said.
Emilio leaned close to her ear and said, “What?”
She turned her head toward him and said, “One of those huge oak trees outside. They’re as old as dirt. I think one of them fell into the building.” She pointed. “Sounded like the one on the western side.”
The sounds of the storm seemed to be inside the old hospital now, echoing up and down its corridors, shoving on its doors. Emilio noticed the room suddenly felt colder.
“If that’s what it was,” Emilio whispered, “sounds like it knocked the shit outta that side of the building.”
“Yeah, I’m afraid that was a breach,” Ollie said. “Which means there may now be other ways for those people to get out of this building.” He turned to one of his men. “Leave a man on each exit, but get the rest together in the corridor intersection ASAP.”
The man hurried out.
Ollie turned to Emilio. “Are you gonna give me shit?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean if your only interest is to get us out of here without spreading this goddamned doomsday plague, I could use your help.”
Emilio nodded. “Yeah, at this point, that’s my only interest.”
“Can you shoot a gun?”
“I’ve been to the range a few times.”
Ollie turned to Craig, who’d been standing silently with them all night, and said, “You got a handgun you can give him?”
The man removed his pistol from its holster and handed it to Ollie, who turned and offered it to Emilio.
“Can you handle that?”
“A Ruger? Sure.” Emilio took the gun.
“We might need some muscle, too. Whatever happened out there, it sounds like a mess.” He glanced at Fara. “I think you’re right about that tree. I had a man in that tree, goddammit.”
Ollie started to head for the door and Emilio began to follow him, but Fara’s hand clutched his elbow and pulled him back.
“Don’t leave me here,” she whispered.
“Well . . . I don’t think he’s gonna want you to come with us.”
“Don’t go out there. I’m scared. I’m serious, Emilio, I’m very scared, I don’t feel safe in here.” She folded her arms across her stomach and looked at their masked guard, then at Ollie, then at Corcoran. “From anyone.” She moved close, pressed herself against Emilio, and he put an arm around her. “And that dead man on the floor over there keeps reminding me that we’re all in a pretty shitty situation. You know?”
“Yeah, okay,” he said, turning to Ollie. “Look, I’m gonna stay here for now. If you really need my help with something, let me know, but right now, I don’t think I should leave her.”
Ollie nodded once, then held out his hand. “In that case, give me the gun.”
Emilio handed him the gun and Ollie handed it back to its owner. He looked at Fara but spoke to Emilio. “Is she sick?”
“No, she’s just really upset. She’s been through a lot and—”
Ollie barked an unpleasant laugh. “She’s been through a lot? Imagine what she’s been putting all those homeless people through, huh? Why don’t you imagine that for a minute or two?” Then he turned to Craig. “Come with me. We’re gonna need all the men we can get out there, I think.”
“What about them?” the man asked.
Ollie turned to Emilio, Fara, and Corcoran, who now sat in the chair behind Fara’s desk. “Where are you gonna go? There’s a storm outside and a bunch of crazy, virus-carrying people in here. Safest thing you could do would be to stay right here in this room.”
Ollie and Craig left the office.
Fara pulled away from Emilio, shaking her head. She spoke quietly, just above a whisper. “I couldn’t. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t what?”
“Stop it. I tried. I reported him three times. I kept thinking I should leave, but I didn’t because I couldn’t. I couldn’t just walk away from this, I kept hoping I’d find a way to do something. What I did with you today, that recording—I should have done that months ago. Months ago. But I just . . . I was afraid of ruining my life, or something, of becoming this, this, I don’t know, public whipping post. My whole life plastered all over TV and the Internet.”
“People will say you’re a hero, Fara,” he said.
“Some might,” Corcoran said.
They turned to see him sitting in Fara’s chair at her desk. He had his feet on the desk, ankles crossed, and he was leaning back in the chair, holding his cell phone to his right ear. He’d been a trembling wreck earlier, but now he appeared quite relaxed and comfortable. He was watching them with a smile. In the candlelight, the smile had a ghoulish appearance—the small mouth elongated and surrounded by the deep lines of Corcoran’s face. His glasses were pushed up on his forehead and his eyes, even in the poor light, were red and puffy and gleaming. But his smile was warm and cheerful and he sounded rather chipper when he spoke.
“I’m making a call,” he explained, “and I’m on hold.”
“Who are you calling?” Fara said.
“An associate.” He kept smiling. “Look, some might say you’re a hero. For a while. You’d probably get a book deal right away, be on all the talk shows. Half the country would despise you and want to string you up, but you’d have those who say you’re a hero. Until they find out you’ve got real fur in your closet. Or that you like veal and foie gras. Or that you don’t like Lady Gaga, or some dumb thing like that. Until they find out you’re human. Then they’ll just throw you under the bus. Or worse!” he said, his eyebrows rising high up on his spacious forehead. “They’ll hand you over to the people who want to string you up!” Then he laughed loudly until his laughs became coughs and he had to drop his feet to the floor and sit up straight as he hacked and coughed and wheezed, still holding the phone to his ear. When it stopped, he took his glasses off his head, put them on the desk, and scrubbed a hand down his face. Then he put the glasses on his nose and pushed them back up on his forehead again. He chuckled quietly as he settled back in the chair and put his feet back up on the desk.
“You seem awfully happy,” Fara said.
Corcoran, still smiling, said, “Who, me? Well, Dr. McManus, if you’d taken the opportunity to get to know me during our time here, you would know that I am generally a happy person. I am optimistic, upbeat, and good-natured, and there’s very little that can get me down.”
“Even this? A hurricane? A raid by a private militia? The discovery of your kidnapped human subjects, and the potential spread of the deadly virus you’ve created? To say nothing of a possible career-ending scandal that could land you in prison? None of that troubles you?”
“I remain singularly untroubled.”
“Well, that could be the drugs.”
His smile opened and he laughed quietly. “You could be right.”
“You’re wasted,” Fara said. She spoke quietly, but with contempt and anger. “Like some teenager. Completely wasted.”
“I’d hate to be in this situation without some chemical assistance,” Corcoran said with a chuckle, “but I assure you I am quite sound.” He smiled at the ceiling.
“How can you call yourself a scientist and do the things you’ve done here, conduct yourself the way you have, I mean, the drugs, the parties—”
“Dr. McManus, I call myself a scientist precisely because I do the things I’ve done here. Your morals and your righteous indignation are admirable, but science does not share them, nor does it give a damn about them. You’re free to express them as long as you continue to allow me to do things that ultimately save lives. Possibly millions of lives.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t see any lifesaving being done with this virus.”
“It will be used in the defense of this country. In the defense of freedom. It’s very possible, even likely, that it will do work that our young men and women will then not have to do, and they won’t need to risk and lose life and limb in combat.”
“I bet you have a justification for everything you’ve done here, everything you’ve done before this. You’ve got it all worked out in your head, don’t you, in some way that makes you blameless?”
He nodded his head slightly, still smiling. “Go ahead and tell yourself that if it makes you feel better.”
“Do you know what I’m going to do, Dr. Corcoran?” Fara said. “I’m going to do everything I possibly can to make sure that your career and reputation are destroyed and that you go to prison for what you’ve done here.”
He lifted his head slightly and smiled at her for a moment. “Do you know what I think you’re going to do, Dr. McManus? I think you’re going to commit suicide. Or I think you’re going to fall ill and be diagnosed with a very rare, fast-acting cancer, and in a few weeks, you’ll be dead. Or I think your brakes will fail one day soon and you’ll go off a cliff and into a ravine and your skull will be crushed. Or I think you’re going to quietly die in your sleep one night soon. Or . . . something like that. Do you get the picture, Dr. McManus? You want to tell the world what we’re doing here? Fine. But everything has consequences. As you can see, I’m not too concerned, am I? Do I appear worried to you? I’ve been down this road with underlings like you before, underlings who suddenly discover they have a conscience and simply cannot live with themselves anymore. I’ve been down this road before and I’m still here. The same thing cannot accurately be said of them. You’re not in any position to destroy anyone or anything, Dr. McManus, and based on my past experiences in this line of work, I’m of the opinion that you won’t even have time to try.”
That seemed to deflate her, shrink her.
Corcoran suddenly dropped his feet to the floor, leaned forward in the chair, and spoke quietly into the phone. “Yes, it’s Corcoran. We have a big problem that will have to be dealt with immediately.” He turned the chair all the way around so the back of it faced them.
Fara went to the couch and slowly lowered herself onto it. Emilio noticed that her knees were bobbing up and down because she was shaking all over. He was afraid she was going into some kind of panic attack.
He sat down beside her and put an arm around her. “Look, I know you’re feeling a lot of bad crap right now, but you’ve gotta do me a favor and hold yourself together a little longer, okay?” He took both of her small, pale hands between his big, dark ones and rubbed them vigorously. “Until we get outta here. Then you can knock yourself out. But right now, we all need clear heads, and we need you to be clearheaded. You know this place better than any of us. We need you right now, Fara. Do you think you can keep it together a little longer?”
She nodded emphatically as she sat up straight and took a few deep breaths. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and swept them outward, wiping her tears.
“Yeah,” she said, sniffling. “Yeah, I think I can do that.”
“Thank you. After this is over, you can go out and get shitfaced. I’ll be your designated driver.”
“That . . . actually . . . sounds like fun.”
“Yeah, it’ll be fun. We can go dancing. You like to dance?”
“Me? Oh, God, I haven’t danced since high school. And even then, I wasn’t any good at it.”
“Get drunk enough, it won’t matter.”
“That’s true.”
“That’s what we’ll do, then. You can go out and get as drunk as you want, and I’ll be your driver and bodyguard.”
“Would that be . . . a date?” She had gone from quivering and looking deflated and in pain to relaxing on the couch and smirking.
“Well, it can be, if you’d like. But if it’s gonna be a date, I think both of us should be drinking.”
“Sure. Even better.” She smiled. “Who’ll drive?”
“We can always take a cab.”
She laughed quietly.
“You feeling better?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He stood. “Look, I’m gonna join Ollie and have a look around out there. You gonna be okay?”
She stood, too. “Yes, because I’m going with you.” She turned to Corcoran, who still had his back to them. “I’m going to go see what happened, Dr. Corcoran.”
He ignored her.
Emilio turned to the masked man. “Why don’t you give me that gun now. I’m gonna go out and join Ollie. And she’s going with me.”
He thought about that a moment, then handed the gun to Emilio. Fara went to get her coat, put it on, then got the mini-Maglite from her purse. She removed something else, too, but slipped it quickly into the pocket of her coat. Then they left the office and went out into the dark.