Chapter 14

THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY, VIRGINIA

Infection Date 19, 1700 GMT (1:00 p.m. Local)

Noah found the Old Place a hive of activity. Men in hardhats and work boots traipsed about the house, barn, smokehouse, and well house. The contractor, tall and skinny, perhaps a long lost, mustachioed cousin of the gun salesman, wore jeans and a silver hardhat emblazoned with a scratched and fraying US flag decal. He took his work gloves off to shake Noah’s hand. “Looking good,” Noah said.

“We’re gittin’ there,” replied the contactor in a thick, twangy mountain accent. “Everybody’s sleepin’ up here. Workin’ sixteen-hour days.” On the front porch, he said, “This place is solid as a fort.” He slapped the rough-hewn stone wall.

“General Sheridan missed it when he burned his way down the Valley in 1864.”

“It is off the beaten path,” said the West Virginian, who lived far enough away that, when he left, he probably wouldn’t return . . . hungry. “Must’ve been another way up here. No way they built that ridge road way back then.”

There was an old, longer way up to the house, so overgrown as to be almost invisible.

“Like you asked fer—hurricane shutters.” The contractor looked at Noah as if to make sure. Panic Room. Tunnel beyond the fence. Fire suppression system. He pointed at pipes, sprinklers, and bundles of low-voltage wiring exposed inside open walls and ceilings. Woodburning and gas fireplaces in every room. Outside, security cameras mounted under eaves, to trees, and to posts along the fence line. Water heating in the barn with pipes under the walk to keep it snow free. A half-dozen huge cylinders that Noah had filled at great cost with propane. Four gasoline tanks buried under the barn floor with electric and foot pumps. Both fuels powered standby generators. Behind the house, a rig drilled for water. The contractor slapped one of the four steel shipping containers painted woodlands camo, with a hollow thonk.

“They’re for vegetables and things,” Noah said of the grow labs. He wasn’t sure the contractor believed him.

There was a radio/television antenna and satellite dish on a nearby hilltop. They were cementing posts for almost 2,000 feet of twelve-foot-high chain link fence with angled barbed wire at the top that would surround the compound. He and Noah finished in the barn. Roof repairs, insulation, chicken coop, and pigpen. Noah had arranged to buy a starter-kit of livestock and the feed to keep them alive, and his Agriculture for Dummies book had just arrived.

“Quite the farmers, you D.C. folk. I also got a crew at the cabin up the mountain.”

Noah said he would take a look at it on his next trip.

* * * *

On the drive back down the hill, Natalie called. “What the hell did you buy? FedEx just dropped off this hundred-pound package that’s only about the size of a breadbox. I had to get the delivery guy to roll it into the kitchen.”

Two million dollars worth of gold, Noah thought, and rising. “I’ll take care of it.”

Her sigh sounded like a roar. “When are you getting home?”

“Coupla hours.” He listened politely to her complaints before hanging up. After locking the gate at the state highway, Noah pulled his dusty SUV into a country store to refill the gas-guzzling vehicle. The pumps were the old kind with no credit card reader, so he went inside. “Doin’ some off-roadin’?” asked the graying woman behind the counter.

Noah checked out the aisles, which bore convenience store staples—soft drinks, beer, cookies, chips, jerky—plus necessities like light bulbs and small hand tools. As he filled the huge tank, he was startled by the arrival of the proprietor. “Are you from War-shington?” Noah squeezed out the last few drops. “Our boy is in the Guard. Got called yesterday. First time since I-Rack. But the fishy thing is they’re bringin’ ever’body back. His buddies in the Persian Gulf and Japan are headin’ home. Name’s Margie.” They shook. “Husband’s Angus. We live out back.”

“Noah Miller.”

“Miller?” Margie said. “Like the Millers who used to live ‘round here?” Noah should’ve kept his mouth shut, and gave a noncommittal bob of his head. “Well, drive safe,” she said, waving.

When Noah got to the little town—Population 1,306—maybe six miles from the gate up to the Old Place, he took the time to wind his way through the several streets laid out on a rectangular grid, as much as allowed by the tight valley.

Sheriff’s office. Volunteer fire department. City hall. Courthouse. Unified school. Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal, and Presbyterian churches, all at one intersection. Medical clinic. Diner. Barbershop. Funeral home. Dollar store. Auto-body shop. Farm supply store. And the largest structure in town, a brand-new brick National Guard building. Probably has an armory.