The Nirvana Plague (47 page)

Power was not restored. Government health officials began to worry about food spoilage, medical emergencies, and dysentery.

The
USS Auster
steamed into Gastineau Channel with her attendant vessels that afternoon and took up a position mid-channel, west of the city. General Graham’s operational headquarters were transferred from the airport to the ship straightaway.

Benford helicoptered from Abrams that evening to attend meetings aboard ship. Marley was not invited.

Fred Peters and Marley’s other experimental patient had been ordered back on medication. Marley protested the order and refused to comply with it. Benford reassigned all of his patients to other doctors.

Marley passed the time playing poker and watching the news with Sikora, DiGrandi, and Wenslau, who, as non-medical personnel, had also been sidelined.

Rachel Fredrickson, the constable’s wife, sat in a rocking chair outside the little town’s only jail cell, knitting while she watched the news on a small panel she’d carried in from the office and propped against the wall.

Karen and Ally, sitting yoga-style on their cots, were also watching the news — through the bars of the cell.

Karen’s cat lay on the rug near the rocking chair, twitching her tail, idly monitoring the ball of yarn as it staggered about on the rug.

“That cat’s gonna get her tail broke,” Karen said.

Rachel smiled. “She’s all right.”

The yarn ball rolled over against the bars. The cat got up, trotted over, slipped through the bars, and started batting the ball from inside the cell.

Rachel’s phone chimed. She put down her knitting and picked it up.

Karen pointed the remote and muted the television for her.

“Hi, hon,” Rachel said. “Just watching the news… Already? … All right … All right … Yes. Bye.”

She clicked off the phone and looked at the two women.

“Time to go?” Ally said.

Rachel nodded. “They’re on their way over.”

Constable Fredrickson came in with two uniformed Mounties in tow.

“Morning, ladies. All packed?”

Rachel got up from her chair. “I’ve made you some muffins,” she said, and presented a plastic bag to the two Mounties. “For the trip.”

One of them took it with a smile, opened it and looked inside. “Thanks, ma’am.”

The constable put his palm on the readerplate and the doorlocks released. He slid the door open.

“Let’s go, ladies.”

Karen and Ally came out, each with a pillowcase stuffed with clothes and odds and ends. Ally’s luggage had been destroyed in the accident; the constable’s wife donated the pillowcases.

She came forward now and gave them each a warm embrace.

“It’s been so nice having you here,” she said.

“You’ve been a wonderful host,” Karen said.

Ally said nothing. She held Rachel at arm’s length, gazing into her eyes for a long while.

The Mounties produced handcuffs and stepped forward.

“That’s not necessary,” Rachel said evenly.

“Regulations, ma’am,” said one of the Mounties.

“Let it go, man,” the constable said.

The two Mounties looked at him, then at each other, and put the cuffs back on their belts.

The constable’s wife put her arm around Karen and walked out into the office with her.

“You’ll write to me as soon as you get back?” she said.

“Yes,” Karen said. “Let me know what you decide to name that damn fool cat.”

“I already decided. I’m going to call her Karen. Karen Kat. With a K.”

Karen and Ally sat in the back of the car, enclosed by thick wire mesh screens. The two Mounties sat up front.

Karen said, “Karen Kat. With a K.”

“I was hoping for Ally Cat. Without an E.”

“Maybe next time we lose our husbands, drive across the continent, and murder a moose, I’ll let you name the abandoned pet.”

“Thanks,” Ally said, batting her eyes. “At least the cat made out all right. Her new housekeeper is a good woman.”

“She’s another one of you.”

“Yes,” Ally said. “You just now figuring that out?”

“No. I knew it the minute I saw her, locking us up.”

“Yes. She wouldn’t have, but she’s still waiting for her husband to figure things out.”

Karen nodded forward. “Why don’t you put the zap on these two so we can get out of here?”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“Doesn’t it?”

Ally didn’t respond.

“Anyway,” Karen said, “there’s no door handles on the inside. We’d be trapped!”

“Wouldn’t that be ironic.”

One of the Mounties, the one that wasn’t driving, turned round, with muffin crumbs on his lips. “It’ll take us about three hours to get there, ladies. Sit back and enjoy the ride.”

“Three hours?” Karen said. “Just to get to the airport?”

“We’re not going to the airport, ma’am.”

“You’re
driving
us all the way back to the border?”

“It’s only about three hours.”

“Three hours?”

Then the light went on.

“You mean you’re taking us to the
Alaskan
border?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the Mountie. “Of course.”

The driver looked back in the mirror at them.

“Did you think we were going to drive you all the way back to Illinois?”

The Mounties parked behind the border station and let the women out. They retrieved their pillowcases from the back and walked up to the gate on the American side.

National Guard troops, in full battle gear, were on station at the gate. All border crossings were now being guarded around the clock.

The Mounties presented their credentials and told the officer in charge that he was deporting two prisoners back to the States. There should be some American officials waiting to collect them.

“First I heard of it,” the guardsman said.

“There’s no one here for them?” the Mountie said.

“Nope.”

“Well, not my problem. Here they are.”

“Identification?”

Karen and Ally presented their identification cards.

The guardsman slotted them through his tablet reader and handed them back. He studied his screen for a minute then looked back at the women. “Says here you’re from Illinois.”

“Yes,” Karen said.

“What are you doing up here?”

“Sightseeing.”

“Says here there’s a federal warrant out for both of you.”

“There’s a lot of that going around these days.”

He looked at Ally. “Says here
you
don’t have health clearance.”

He looked back at the Mounties. “We can’t take this one. Our orders are nobody passes without a certified health clearance.”

“I should think the federal warrant supersedes your standing orders,” the Mountie said.

The guardsman tipped his helmet back slightly. “I should think I can interpret my own orders. Sir.”

“Look, it makes no difference to me
what
your orders are. They’re US citizens, they’re persona non grata in Canada, and they’re not coming back. Those are
my
orders.”

“Maybe you should just shoot us,” Karen said.

The men looked at her. She and Ally were the only human beings in the vicinity not packing weapons.

“Maybe we should,” the guardsman said.

“Don’t put yourself out.”

The guardsman looked back at the Mountie. “I can see why you’d want to get rid of her.”

Karen and Ally spent the rest of the afternoon in handcuffs in the back of one of two Humvees sitting behind the guard station on the American side of the border.

Toward nightfall the next watch arrived in a different pair of Humvees and relieved the day squad. The guardsmen climbed in around the women, the vehicle lurched into gear, and the pair of them roared off down the road chasing each other back to Skagway.

The two Humvees full of guardsmen ran the sun down out of the mountains and slammed to a halt beside the local command headquarters. The two female prisoners were admitted to the chain link precincts of a temporary holding pen, and the border guards rolled off to town to drink and philander.

Karen and Ally passed a cold night on the ground under a Mylar canopy.

On the third day after the outbreak a fire broke out in the city.

Marley was sitting on one of the rubberized steel benches inside the perimeter fence around Abrams.