7 Sykos Read online

  “Just been waiting on you,” he answered calmly. He stepped over the corpse on the floor and headed toward his partner.

  She was a solidly built woman, five-­nine or -­ten, two hundred pounds easy. She outweighed Light by at least twenty-­five, probably more. He was on the lean side, for an EMT, but with the upper-­body strength necessary to do the job.

  He hoped she could fight. He had a feeling he’d find out.

  But before he could reach her, a teenage boy jumped onto her back. He was wiry—­all limbs—­attacking with such ferocity that Bev couldn’t shake him. The boy got a grip on the right side of her mouth, then buried a finger in her left eye. Gelatin-­like aqueous and vitreous humors mixed with blood slicked Bev’s cheek, and her wail was audible even over the rest of the din.

  That was enough for Light. More than. He darted out the front door and into the nighttime darkness. The chaos outside was even worse than what he’d just left. He heard sirens approaching, helicopter blades chopping the air, but they were too late. Safely inside the rig, it occurred to him that whatever virus was racing through the Valley of the Sun, it was no flu. He cranked the motor, and the rumble of the Mercedes Sprinter TraumaHawk’s V-­6 brought him comfort. As he pulled away from the hospital, he saw ­people blocking the drive. His headlights showed their flushed cheeks and puffy eyes and the hungry way they looked at him, and he stepped on the gas.

  He barely felt the impacts as the Sprinter mowed them down.

  CHAPTER 2

  96 hours

  Breakfast for Fallon O’Meara was a slice of whole-­wheat toast with almond butter and some plain Greek yogurt with blueberries and wheat germ stirred in, accompanied by a small glass of orange juice and a mug of a dark-­roast coffee. Sometimes she added a poached egg or a slice of cantaloupe, but not on this morning. Running late because Mark had silenced the alarm and left her sleeping, she was acutely aware of every passing minute. She’d been pulling twelve-­ or thirteen-­hour days lately, which was why Mark’s impulse had been not to wake her. But she was working so much because there was so much to do—­research, administrative work, HR tasks, all of it on her back—­so getting to the lab late meant staying that much later in the evening. Not that she really minded; at least at the lab she felt needed.

  Jason would be three in six weeks, which meant it had been three years since Mark had worked outside the home. He did okay doing silk-­screening out of the garage—­enough to pay for the diaper ser­vice and other assorted child-­oriented expenses—­but she resented his lack of ambition sometimes. She had tried to encourage him to put Jason in day care and go back to work, at least a ­couple of days a week, but he had been steadfast in his insistence that he wanted to be with Jason every day until the boy started kindergarten. Fallon admired his dedication, but she thought he had forgotten a thing or two about keeping a regular work schedule. Like the part about its being regular. Income wasn’t a huge issue, though more was always nice. But she worried that he was leaving adulthood behind; as Jason gradually matured, Mark slowly regressed, and the two would meet in the middle.

  The kitchen was particularly chaotic this morning. On the countertop flat-­screen, morning news talking heads wore their serious faces as they discussed the worsening flu epidemic. “Authorities,” one said, “are advising ­people to stay out of the Valley altogether, if possible. If you can’t, they’re asking you to keep out of this area. Take a look at your screen, now.”

  Fallon glanced toward it. The well-­coiffed anchor was pointing toward a zone marked in bright red on a map, stretching from Mesa to Avondale, Deer Valley to the north and Chandler to the south. So yeah, she thought, pretty much the whole Valley. At least home and the lab were both outside it.

  The anchor said something else, but Fallon couldn’t hear it. Mark and Jason were playing some sort of game that involved stuffing Cheerios into their mouths, then making funny faces at each other. Mark bugged out his eyes and raised his eyebrows what seemed like halfway up his forehead—­that expanse exaggerated by all the hair he’d lost in the last ­couple of years, which he claimed was a sign of virility—­and Jason laughed so hard that Cheerios blew out onto the table, and she worried he’d fall out of his booster seat.

  And no doubt choke to death on more Cheerios.

  Of course, that was always the direction her thoughts went. Fallon was the analytical one whose mental path inevitably veered toward the most disastrous possible outcome. If Mark ever worried, about anything, she didn’t see it.

  She multitasked her way through the meal, spooning in yogurt and munching on toast while checking messages and texts on her phone, glancing at the TV screen now and again, and trying to look like she saw the boys’ game as something more than medical bills in the making. It was difficult, though, since her preferred hospital for Jason was Phoenix Children’s, and that was almost smack-­dab in the middle of the “danger zone.”

  Stop obsessing, she mentally chastised herself. He’s going to be fine.

  She turned back to her phone. Among the usual work-­oriented semi-­crises, she had two urgent “Call me!” texts from Gloria Upjohn. She soaked in the kitchen’s decibel level for a few seconds, then decided she would call Gloria from the car. When she was finished with her breakfast, she stacked her dishes in the sink, where Mark might or might not deal with them during the course of the day, and went upstairs to the master bath for final prep.

  Five minutes later, she returned to the kitchen, purse and briefcase in hand. Mark and Jason had switched to peekaboo, hiding their faces behind cloth napkins. “I’m going,” she said. Jason laughed uproariously. Not at her, at Mark. “I’m going now,” she said, louder.

  Mark turned to her. “Kiss,” he said.

  She leaned forward, kissed him. He broke it off before she was ready and swiveled his head back toward their son, mumbling something that she guessed was a wish for her to have a good day. That wish seemed unlikely to be granted.

  She didn’t know then just how bad the day would be.

  “ . . . flu epidemic continues to spread. Medical researchers from the Centers for Disease Control are in the Valley to study the strain, in hopes of determining its origin and hopefully arriving at a vaccine. Meanwhile, Valley hospitals report record—­”

  Fallon punched the radio’s POWER button because she heard Gloria pick up her phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Gloria.”

  “Fallon! Thank God.”

  Fallon didn’t like the sound of that. “What is it?”

  “I saw him. Elliott.”

  Fallon had to fight to keep her Volvo in the lane. Offhandedly, she noticed that traffic was heavy, with lots of military and law-­enforcement vehicles heading toward Phoenix. But she was focused on her call—­on Elliott—­and paid them scant attention. “Where?”

  “Downtown. I had an early meeting at the Hyatt Regency. He was eating breakfast in the café there. The Terrace Café, I think it’s called.”

  “With who?”

  “Alone. His back was to me most of the time, but I’m sure it was him.”

  Fallon pictured the back of her partner’s head. He grew his hair long in back—­long for him, though not quite to the length at which he could wrap a rubber band around it and call it a ponytail. It curled, though, and the most distinctive curl was right at the center of his head, in back. Fallon had always wanted to yank on it. Gloria had only worked at the lab for six months, in its early days, when they were still struggling to find funding. But Elliott hadn’t changed much, physically, over the last few years. If Gloria thought she’d seen him, she probably had.

  “I’m surprised he’s still in the state,” Fallon said. “Much less in town.”

  “Maybe he can’t get out. Flights are still—­”

  “Yes, right.” Air travel out of Phoenix had been curtailed a ­couple of days ago, in hopes of limiting the spread
of the flu virus. ­People could still choose to fly into the city, but not many did.

  “Anyway, I thought you should know.”

  “Thanks, Gloria. I don’t have time to check it out right now, but I will as soon as I can. I appreciate the call.”

  “Of course. I know you’ve been looking for him.”

  She paused there, as if hoping to be filled in on why Fallon was looking for him. That wasn’t happening, though. Fallon was not telling Gloria, whom she considered a good friend. She wasn’t telling anyone.

  After all, what could she say? “He stole our only prototype of MEIADD—­Miniature Encephalographic Imaging/Analysis/Dampening Device—­which we spent years developing so that we could identify and possibly treat psychopathy in ­people, and I have to get it back?” That would mean admitting that MEIADD even existed in the first place, which she didn’t want to do yet . . . especially not until they came up with a less clunky acronym. They pronounced it “May-­add,” but even lab personnel sometimes struggled with it.

  Anyway, it wasn’t really theirs. Once they had provided proof of concept, government grants had begun to roll in. That R&D money had sped the process up considerably, but the catch was that the government had a claim to the final product and the associated research. That didn’t mean they couldn’t eventually develop alternate versions for civilian use, but for now, she and Elliott were only MEIADD’s keepers, not its owners.

  Or rather, Elliott was its keeper, since he had absconded with the prototype. And the key that activated it. Sure, she could make a new one, but that would take time she couldn’t spare.

  Instead of letting that all out in a rush, Fallon wished her friend a good day—­aware even as she said it how vague it was, how much like Mark’s parting comment—­and ended the call. She was almost at the lab, anyway. From her home in Maricopa, it was only a twenty-­minute drive in the worst of traffic. She turned the radio on again, expecting more flu news.

  Instead, the news anchors were talking about Kim Kardashian’s butt, a viral video of a cat drinking milk from a bottle, a self-­driving car, and a baby born with two front teeth. She switched to another local news station and found mostly the same sort of thing. No mention of the flu, for what seemed like the first time in days.

  Had the outbreak ended? During the time she’d been on the phone with Gloria? That was impossible.

  Something had changed, though.

  She didn’t have time to figure it out. The gates of the Maricopa Neuroscience complex were dead ahead. Fallon slowed for the electronic verification, and the gates parted for her, swinging inward. As soon as she was through, they would swing shut quickly and without pause—­nobody piggybacked into this place.

  They didn’t want any surprises.

  And yet that’s exactly what she found. The parking lot—­usually almost empty at this time of day—­contained three Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office SUVs, two black Escalades with heavily tinted windows, and a pair of sand-­colored military Humvees. They were all bunched up near the main entrance to the lab and office structure, parking-­space lines ignored.

  Fallon parked—­inside the lines, unlike her surprise visitors—­draped her ID lanyard around her neck, grabbed her purse and briefcase, and stormed toward the building. It was two stories, a stucco adobe-­look pseudo-­Santa Fe style structure with a flat roof and vigas sticking out just below it. She waved her keycard at the reader, and the doors opened with an audible electronic thump.

  The lobby was full of uniforms. Sheriff’s officers, military officers and a ­couple of grunts, and four men and a woman in crisp, dark business suits. The men wore ties. Two of them had sunglasses on.

  The oldest of the suits came toward her, one hand extended and the other holding a leather wallet. The woman followed close behind.

  “Dr. O’Meara?” he said. He was in his forties, maybe, with some grey just beginning to fleck his thick, dark hair. He looked solid under his suit. Something that might have been mistaken for a smile touched his lips, then was gone. “I’m Special Agent Guzman.” He flipped the wallet open long enough for her to catch a glimpse of an FBI badge, spread-­winged eagle on top.

  Fallon glanced at the woman, who stood behind Guzman’s elbow, silent and without expression. There to catch Fallon if she fainted, maybe, or to Tase her if she tried to run.

  “Yes, I’m Dr. O’Meara. What can I do for you?”

  “We need you to come with us.”

  “Come where?”

  “With us.”

  “That’s all you’re giving me?”

  “We need you to come with us, Doctor.”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “What if I decline your invitation?”

  “I’m afraid that’s not an option.”

  Fallon shrugged, then turned to the reception desk. Nora sat behind it, a helpless expression on her face. “I’m sorry,” the receptionist mouthed. Fallon just shook her head to indicate it wasn’t the other woman’s fault. “Nora, please let everybody know what’s happened. Apparently, I’ll be late to work today.”

  CHAPTER 3

  96 hours

  Fallon sat in the backseat of Guzman’s Escalade. The woman, who had eventually introduced herself as Special Agent Barksdale, sat beside her. In the front passenger seat was an agent who had not been introduced, one of the men who wore his sunglasses inside. And probably at night, too, she thought.

  The other vehicles either led or followed, a mysterious convoy about which Barksdale and Guzman would answer no questions. Nor would they entertain any about where the convoy was going, or why. When Fallon asked Barksdale what she’d had for breakfast, hoping to discern some semblance of humanity, Barksdale’s response was, “Coffee. Black. Strong.”

  “Probably why you’re such a chatterbox,” Fallon said.

  Barksdale said nothing.

  The ride wasn’t long. They drove to the Gila River Memorial Airport, where, instead of entering a terminal, they headed directly onto the tarmac and stopped beside a helicopter, its blades turning lazily and flashing at they caught the morning sun. Guzman killed the engine, got out of the SUV, and opened Fallon’s door.

  She eyed the chopper. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said.

  “If you’ve done any research on me at all, you know I hate flying.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “But you’re going to make me get in that thing?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “They serve peanuts? Drinks?”

  Guzman’s flat expression didn’t change.

  “So it’s just like flying commercial,” Fallon said. “You’re coming, too?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Sit close,” Fallon said. “If we crash, I’m landing on you.”

  This time, Guzman’s smile was genuine and went all the way to the eyes, but it didn’t stay much longer than the last. “Yes, ma’am.”

  The military and law enforcement personnel stayed behind, but all the suits clambered aboard with Fallon. The flight was mercifully brief. They flew over South Mountain, then up the next valley, following the path of what was still called the Gila River even though most of the year it was nothing more than a dry trench. Green saguaro dotted the hills, like ranks of soldiers marching across rock-­strewn battlefields. As they neared civilization, the helicopter began to descend. Fallon was close to vomiting the whole time, from the motion and the uncertainty, even fear. And she was pissed. Guzman was unfailingly polite, the rest impassive, and nobody would tell her what this was all about. She tried her best not to show how she felt but worried that her trembling hands gave her away.

  She wondered if they’d finally talk if she started throwing up.

  As they dropped, she looked out the window at what seemed to be their destination. “PI
R? Is there a race today?”

  “No, ma’am,” Guzman said. Somehow, he could speak loud enough to be heard over the propeller racket without sounding like he had raised his voice.

  She wasn’t going to learn anything from him, she decided. She hoped that the Phoenix International Raceway would be their last stop and not just a place to get into more cars.

  She looked again. The first time, she had glimpsed something about the outline of the enormous raceway that wasn’t familiar, that seemed wrong. It hadn’t registered in that moment, through her relief that they were landing, her queasiness, and her anxiety. But then it sank in, and she focused this time just outside the raceway’s high northern wall, where the grandstands were.

  The Salt River flowed into the Gila just east of there, and the riverbed was deeper and wider. A high bridge arched across it, connecting the raceway to the southern stretches of Avondale and from there to the sprawling suburban/urban mass that was the Greater Phoenix Metropolitan Area. What didn’t fit was all the activity on the north side of the bridge. Dropping ever lower, it became clear as her angle of view changed. Somebody—­no, not somebody, soldiers—­were building a massive fence, probably twenty feet high and stretching as far as she could see to the east and west. Beyond that was another fence, just as tall, and a third stood on the far side of that one. There was never any traffic out here except on race days. A handful of pickup trucks and banged-­up cars were gathered on the outside of the fence, their occupants standing around talking. One of them kept gesturing angrily toward the barrier. Fallon wished she could hear what he was saying, but she thought she had a pretty good idea.

  Then the chopper sank below the grandstands, settling to the ground with a ­couple of thumps that made her stomach lurch. They were in the center of the track, next to the small, fenced enclosure around the scoring tower.

  Fallon turned to Guzman, who had indeed flown in the seat next to hers. “What are we—­oh, never mind.”