Dogs (25 page)

Jess said, “When did Tyler get all these troops?”

“This morning, after the explosion. Scott Lurie's hell-bent on nobody's saying FEMA isn't doing a total job on
his
watch. He's over-compensating, if you ask me, for all of the agency's past screw-ups. Trying so hard to keep the epidemic contained in Tyler that he's bound to create a backlash. When he heard about the West Virginia Doberman, he went ballistic.”

“Joe, what do you think will—”

“I don't know,” Dr. Latkin said, pulling his hands over the gray skin on his face as if to force some life into it. “I've seen Ebola in Africa and Marburg in the Philippines and cholera in South America and we got them all under control, but none of them involved eradicating people's pets. People just aren't rational about their pets!”

Jess had been an animal control officer for twenty years. He didn't need a CDC doctor with a lot of advanced degrees to tell him that. And since Joe Latkin didn't seem able to tell him anything else, he got back in his truck and headed for West Virginia and the fruitless search for the home of the escaped Doberman that, Jess increasingly suspected, they were not going to be able to find.

Tessa checked into a Maryland motel a few miles south of the Pennsylvania state line. That was as close as she could get to Tyler because every other place displayed NO VACANCY signs, full of reporters and gawkers and Tyler citizens exiled from their town for the duration of the quarantine. The motel featured bullet-proof plastic between the desk clerk and his patrons, accepted cash, and didn't question her story that she had no car. Bars shielded the windows. The sink ran a trickle of rust-colored water. The phone allowed only local calls.

She showered, a much overdue necessity, retrieved her car from the supermarket parking lot down the road, and found the local library. She was getting tired of rural libraries.

One of its two Internet terminals was down. Tessa waited while three teenage girls noisily used the other one, emailing somebody named Zach that somebody else named Emily was secretly in love with him. Finally the librarian chased them away. Tessa accessed her email.

My dear Tessa,

You asked about my “cause.” How laughably naïve you are. First, to think that I don't know what you're doing. You think the more you know about me the easier it will be to find me. You are mistaken. Second, you are naïve to think that I have a single “cause,” as if there is only one thing wrong with the world.

You, and all like you, will soon learn otherwise. The decline of the United States has many causes, but all come back to one thing: we have become soft. Don't you read the newspapers, my Tessa? Men no longer stand up, take command, do whatever proves necessary to bring about a righteous society. Soft men—even women—take office and then can't even hold their own positions, let alone bring forward those who truly deserve to hold power. Our politicians cannot rule. Our soldiers cannot fight. Our children cannot compete. Softness has nearly destroyed us. I have seen the world, and I see how we are despised by those that
we
should despise.

But not for much longer. A New Order is coming. The soft elite shall fall, and the true men come out of the shadows and rule. I am owed this. I have earned it.

More later.

Richard

 

“Ma'am, are you almost finished? I got a term paper due tomorrow.”

Tessa looked up at the girl. Thin, tall, shy, with accusing blue eyes. The same blue, she thought numbly and irrelevantly, as the eyes of the Brit shooter in London. Small world.

“Just let me print this, and…just let me print it in private, okay?”

The girl moved to the side of the computer station, but kept staring balefully at Tessa. She hit PRINT, heard the communal printer whirr behind her, and was about to log off when the PC announced, “You've got mail!” The girl sighed.

Madame,

I have received what follows from frère Luc-Claude of our order. Since you have said your French is not good, I will tell you what he tells to me.

Tessa glanced at the message reprinted at bottom of the email; it was long, detailed, and in complex French. She returned to Abbé LeFort's summary.

Richard Ebenfield was indeed with les Frères de l'Espoir céleste in Mogumbutuno two years ago. He was very ill and our order cared for him until he recovered. He told frère Luc-Claude that he has been into the jungle, at a village besieged by wild dogs. There Richard was bitten. When he came to les frères, he had a very strong fever but this passed away after some days and Richard once more left. He seemed then once more healthy. Frère Luc-Claude has not seen him ever since. He adds only that in his fever Richard said many violent things about both the United States and the man named Salah.

I wish you success under God in your endeavors.

Abbé Guillaume LeFort

les Frères de l'Espoir céleste

The girl whined, “It's a term paper on
Faulkner.
And he's hard.
”

“Just another few minutes,” Tessa said, and somehow the words came out normally. The girl scowled and flounced off.

She printed the email. The girl reappeared with a middle-aged woman. “Ma'am,” the librarian said, “there's a ten-minute limit on use of the Internet connections, and Sarah here says you've exceeded your limit. Is that true?”

“No,” Tessa said. “I've got two minutes left.” She had no idea how long she'd been on.

“Sarah, dear, I think you can wait two more minutes.”

“She's lying! She's been on longer than ten minutes already!”

Tessa forwarded both Ebenfield's and the abbé's email to Maddox with the heading “VERY IMPORTANT” She signed off, grabbed her printouts, and matched the girl's scowl. She wanted to tell the brat, “I hope you flunk your SAT's.” She didn't say it; she'd already drawn enough attention to herself.

Tessa drove back to a public phone. Using one of her phone cards, she called Maddox's cell. He answered instantly.

“John, Tessa again. I just sent you email. See that the medical information gets to that CDC doctor, Laskit or whatever his name was. Tell him to watch the dog-bite victims who didn't die, looking out for high fever. And—”

“Tessa, where are you?”

“—and
find Ebenfield
.” She hung up. Nowhere near time for a trace.

She parked the Toyota on a carefully-chosen residential street, where it was less likely to be noticed overnight than in the supermarket parking lot, and walked through the cold winter night to her ratty motel. The TV was broken. Too exhausted to look for a bar with a television, she fell into bed and slept like a stone, without dreams.