Brian O'Grady - Hybrid

Amanda stared at the blurry image and accepted on faith that Benedict and his photo analysts knew what they were talking about. “So that’s not Reisch,” she said not feeling even a trace of his mental signature.

“No,” Benedict answered. Phil chose to remain seated while the other three huddled over Benedict’s desk. “Do you want to see these?” the assistant director asked Phil.

“No,” he said simply. Amanda’s “fresh air” had turned out to be a six-minute ride in her Jeep followed by a meeting with twenty federal and local officials in the old courthouse building.

Benedict shrugged and turned to Amanda. “Here is the vehicle,” and he pointed to a small grey dot on a two-lane road that sliced through emptiness. “On this magnified view you can see that he’s changed license plates.”

Greg stared and finally picked up the photograph. Unlike the previous three pictures, this was amazingly clear. “Those are Denver plates; see the registration sticker.”

“So we’ve found the car, and know that he’s being careful.” Ron nodded to one of the technicians who placed a large poster-sized view of the area on an easel. “This is the car,” he hadn’t needed to point because a red circle was drawn around a small grey dot and labeled suspect’s vehicle .

“As you can see, there are thirteen occupied residences within a five-mile radius. We can take number eight off the list, because of our Hispanic male. We doubt he would leave any occupant alive.” Benedict paused and turned to Amanda. “Can you tell us anything from this?”

“Nothing,” she said, and everyone looked at Phil.

“I have no idea which house he’s in,” Phil said from the safety of his chair. The air in the room buzzed with his proximity to Amanda, but it was tolerable. “How do you know he’s even there? Why couldn’t he have moved on to another vehicle?”

“He may have,” an agent of Homeland Security said. “But we’re hoping that because he didn’t swap out the license plate he decided to hold up for awhile.”

“He may have swapped out with a different set of plates. He had to know that eventually we would find that car with satellite or just a cop driving by. He didn’t even bother trying to hide it,” Phil argued.

“We think that the engine failed, there’s engine coolant around all four tires, so he would have needed help to get it under cover,” Benedict said.

“I think he’s in one of these houses,” Amanda said suddenly, ending the debate. “It is a calculated risk. He’s pulled back inside of himself because he knows I’m looking for him, in fact, he told me to come and find him. If he kept going, eventually he would run across a police roadblock or a military patrol; under normal circumstances, he would simply disguise himself as an ambulance or some other authorized vehicle, but then I would see him. He’s not afraid of you, he is afraid of me.”

“So what do we do now?” Benedict asked the room.

For a minute, Amanda simply listened to the options running through the heads of the government officials. “Stop, all of you,” she demanded. “No low-yield tactical nukes, or cruise missiles, or any other military responses. We aren’t even sure he’s there. Yes, I have a suspicion he’s in one of these houses, but that’s hardly definitive enough to kill dozens of people and lay waste to an entire area.”

“He has another vial. .” said the Homeland Security officer.

“I know exactly what he has,” Amanda responded sharply. “He’s alone in the desert, and very much alert. If any of you got within fifty miles of him, he would know it in an instant. He would destroy your missiles in the air, or worse, redirect them.”

“Do you have any suggestions?” Greg asked, subtly shifting his weight and inserting himself between Amanda and the men behind him.

“Send Phil in,” she answered. ”Alone.”

It had been the most agonizing week of Klaus’s life, and now his hosts were beginning to get on his nerves as well. The Theimes didn’t believe in creature comforts, but they did supply him with a television; and with their satellite connection, he had been able to experience the twenty-four-hour news cycle for the first time. He was amazed at how many different ways the announcers could repackage what little they knew and then represent it as ”news.”

There was little news, however. At this point, if everything had gone according to plan, the American government would have to admit to the growing death toll; it would have been impossible for them to hide the deaths of millions of its citizens. And even if they had managed to completely stifle the domestic sources, there were still international news organizations that would jump at the chance to report on another American tragedy. And then there was the Internet. Certainly, someone, somewhere in the world, would have caught a whiff of what was going on.

Reisch covered his nose; he was going to have to deal with Elmer and Rose Theimes. He had managed to restrain himself for almost two days; it was his way of repaying them for taking him in. But his patience had its limits.

He turned the television off with the remote. CNN was replaying the American president’s speech; Klaus had already listened to it three times and didn’t want to hear his cautious, but triumphant, tone again. Jeser had failed, and he was beginning to accept that fact. Avanti had anticipated the quarantine and had been certain that it would have only a modest short-term effect, but no lasting impact. Once the virus had been complexed with the microcapsules, it was incredibly stable, and would disperse on the wind, dust particles, or even droplets of water; it would find almost everyone, no matter where they hid. What he hadn’t anticipated was that the Americans would find the eleven before they had a chance to disperse their virus.

He carefully put the remote down; the desire to throw and smash things was under control, and he began to feel like his old self. He got up and bumped his head on the exposed wooden beam. Mr. and Mrs. Theimes lived in what some would call a modest house; Reisch called it something different. It was tidy, but cluttered with so many pictures and mementos that he was convinced that they were the main structural support for the ancient house. It had been the family home for five generations, but all eight of their children had moved away. Rose Theimes had assaulted Reisch with stories and photographs of her children for nearly two full days, but now, she was silent. Her silence would force him to leave soon; the curfew was lifting in a matter of hours, and at least one family member would be checking in to see why Elmer and Rose had stopped answering their phone.

Despite the fact that the president’s speech referred to him indirectly, he was still pleased with his decision to stay in the United States; he probably could have slipped into Mexico without alerting Amanda or anyone else, but then he would have missed the perfect opportunity to reverse Jeser’s error. They hadn’t failed entirely; they had created the right conditions for Reisch to succeed. The world had closed its borders to the United States, and after a week locked inside their houses, the populace was eager to get outside. For a while, suspicion would be running high, but it would take a good deal more than suspicion to stop him.

It had started to rain and the sky crept closer to the desert floor; the late afternoon started to look more like dusk and Klaus wondered if he should leave under the cover of the rare thunderstorm. He had planned on waiting until it was fully dark, but if he left now he could stick to the back roads and still be in Dallas for the morning commute.

The experts said that it would take less than a thousand infections in six major cities to create a self-sustaining epidemic; Dallas would be the first. New York, Chicago, and L.A. would be next. He would spend one to two days in each place and then disappear like a ghost. He hadn’t yet decided on his last two cities, but he would before he finished in Los Angeles; right now, he was toying with the idea of Washington DC, followed by Miami. Then, at least he could find a boat and make it to Cuba.