Scott Sigler - Contagious

They successfully set the head on top as Chelsea danced in place, hands clutching a big orange carrot. Her puffy baby-blue snowsuit made her look quite chubby. The carrot was the final stroke in the annual snowman masterpiece (who, sadly, would be Sir Dicksickle only in spirit this year), so naturally the honor fell to the youngest.

Just as Bobby reached down to pick up Chelsea and lift her so she could place the snowman’s carrot nose, the invisible cloud of microscopic seeds whipped through the Jewell family.

They missed Candice entirely.

Bobby’s T-shirt proved to be a disastrous choice—he caught seven on his left arm.

Donald was turned just so and inhaled three of them into his nose. Two more landed on his left hand.

Betty’s hat and thick black hair acted as a defense of sorts, trapping the seeds in the wool or amid her hair-sprayed locks. The wind whipped around her head, however, and four landed on her left cheek. One fell off as soon as it hit, but she would still have to deal with the three that stuck fast. If she had been wearing gloves, she would have at least avoided the one that stuck on her left hand.

Little Chelsea had the worst luck of all. She made a hole in the snowman’s head with her left thumb, then jammed the carrot in with her right hand. As she twisted the carrot, driving it deeper, setting it in real good so it wouldn’t fall off, fifteen seeds landed on her clammy, exposed skin, sticking fast to the backs of her hands, her palms and her fingers.

Still laughing, the family finished the snowman and applauded. Chelsea made everyone give her smoochies. Mmmmm-ahhhh! Mmmmm-ahhhh!

Then they all went inside.

Room 207 had become the de facto ops center for the Glidden/Marinesco installment of Project Tangram. A little extra money and hotel management magically made the bed disappear, replacing it with a wooden table and chairs from the restaurant. Add a smaller table for a row of four briefcases that opened up to be computer/phone stations, and you had an instant office. At the moment the office contained Dew, Baumgartner, Milner and Amos. They were handling various cleanup aspects of the McMillian situation. Amos was only there for the free doughnuts, but that was to be expected.

The really sensitive communications still took place in the Margo-Mobile, but there was only so much room in there. Dew wanted to finish debriefing everyone, make sure he hadn’t missed anything. He also had to keep tabs on local law enforcement and the media.

Local police were almost always a snap. Despite jurisdictional squabbles, cops were all in the game for pretty much the same reason, and it wasn’t to get rich. If you told city cops, county cops or even state police that there was some shit going down, shit you couldn’t actually talk about, but it was real serious and that it was over, people were safe …well, ninety-nine times out of a hundred they’d let it go. And for that one-in-a-hundred liberal prick who wouldn’t let something slide? He always had superiors who would play ball, put pressure on the guy to let things lie. Sometimes not even that worked. In those cases Dew would give a last warning, a final face-to-face chat. He’d tell the guy that his whole life was about to turn into a steaming pile of donkey shit, that his reputation was about to be trashed, and if push came to shove he’d be facing some trumped-up charge that would end his career in law enforcement.

If that didn’t work, Dew pitched it to Murray and washed his hands of the whole situation. Murray Longworth made problems go away. Sucked balls for the guy with the burr under his saddle, but every war has collateral damage.

This time, however, Dew wasn’t having any problems. Reports of domestic terrorists, army troops, gunfire and a ground-shaking bomb in Marinesco gobbled up attention. Not that people weren’t interested in the sad story of Thad McMillian Sr. going nuts and killing his wife, his daughter and his little boy. A tragedy, that’s what it was. A shame he was running a meth lab in that house, a real shame, but it explained the sightings of men in hazmat suits carrying guns, and it explained the two big semi trucks parked in the McMillians’ driveway. It also explained the absence of Tad Jr. and the baby. Witness-protection plan. Just for a short time as the feds in town worked through the meth-lab case. The boys were safe, although no one could say when or if they’d be back in town. Seems their grandmother (on the wife’s side) lived in Washington State, and the boys were eventually going to go live with her. The local media bought the story hook, line and sinker. METHED-OUT FATHER MURDERS FAMILY would be in area headlines for another few days, sure. Glidden was so small it didn’t even have its own newspaper. Soon it would all die down. This was America. People got killed. Such is life. What time is the game on?

So Dew Phillips was in as good a mood as could be expected for a man trying to deal with a bizarre parasitical invasion. He had helped shut down the fourth gate. He had dry clothes. He was warm again. The media and local police were playing ball. He had a full belly, and room service kept bringing pots of coffee and boxes of doughnuts from Bob’s Breakfast Shack.

Everything was going great guns, right up to the moment when the door opened and Perry Dawsey stepped inside.

Four heads turned to stare at him. Milner’s hand went to the grip of his pistol and stayed there. Baumgartner’s hands locked down on the back of a wooden chair. Amos backed up against a wall, a chocolate doughnut with nuts still hanging in his mouth.

“Dew, I need to talk to you,” Perry said. “Right now.”

“So talk.”

“Get these faggots out of here,” Perry said.

“I’d be happy to vacate the premises,” Amos said. “If you’d be so kind as to remove your substantial bulk from the doorway, I’ll be gone forthwith.”

Perry stepped aside. Amos shot out of the room like a world-class sprinter coming off the blocks.

“Kid,” Dew said. “If you’ve got something to say, just say it. These guys are part of the team.”

“They’re fucking peons,” Perry said. “Don’t make me beat their asses again, old man.”

Dew Phillips nodded. Yes, that was just about enough of this shit. It most certainly was.

“Milner, Baumgartner,” Dew said. “Take a walk.”

Baumgartner seemed uncertain and looked at Dew. Milner kept staring at Perry and kept his hand on the gun. He wasn’t taking his eyes off the big man for even a second.

“Sir,” Baumgartner said, “I think we should stay here.” His metal nose brace glinted in the hotel room’s light. Between the brace and the mustache, he couldn’t possibly look any dumber.

“I said take a walk,” Dew said.

“Sir,” Baum said. “Uh… you being alone with Dawsey, maybe it’s not—”

“Take a motherfucking walk, boys,” Dew said. “Get out. I want to have a private discussion with Citizen Dawsey.”

Baumgartner let go of the chair. He walked out, patting Milner on the back as he did. Milner managed to follow Baum out the door without taking his eyes off Dawsey and without taking his hand off the gun.

Perry shut the door. “Listen, Dew, something’s up.”

“We’ll get to that in a second,” Dew said. “First I’ve got a pesky little agenda item that we need to address.”

“Dew, you don’t understand.”

“Is there a new gate?”

Perry thought for a second, then shook his head.

“Are you hearing new voices?”

Perry thought again. “Kind of. Yeah, voices, but they aren’t saying any words.”

“No words,” Dew said. “So you’re sure they’re not talking about a gate, then?”