Elliott considered playing dumb, but figured appealing to the director’s sense of duty was the stronger play. “Look, whatever you think of what I did, it’s done now. We’ve got a serious outbreak going on. We need all hands on deck—for the sake of the American people—”

“Save it, Elliott. We’re well aware of the situation. Go home. And don’t you dare say another word to the press.”

DAY 5

DAY 5

50,000,000 Infected
12,000 Dead

Chapter 38

Chapter 38

Desmond awoke with a new, more intense pain. The welt covering the left side of his chest was like a bee sting—from a Volkswagen-sized bee.

While he had been unconscious, they had moved him from the barn. His new cell was quite different. He was indoors, in a very new and sophisticated facility. Metal walls painted white surrounded him on three sides, and a thick glass barrier looked out onto a wide corridor. He lay on a narrow bed with a simple mattress and no sheets. This was a proper prison—and a high-tech one at that. There was a speaker in the ceiling, and a pass-through slot on the wall opposite the glass, presumably for food.

The tranquilizer dart the soldier in the barn had shot him with had been powerful; Desmond sensed that he had been out for quite some time. And much had happened: they had taken his clothes, replaced them with green scrubs, and seen to all his wounds. He pulled up his shirt and inspected the cotton bandage on his side. It covered the shallow rut he had carved.

His hands and feet were unbound. It felt good to be at least that free again.

He wasn’t sure exactly how he knew, but he sensed that he was on a ship. Perhaps it was the slight movement, or simply the proportions of the space and the fact that the walls, floor, and ceiling were all metal.

He sat on the bed and waited, for how long he didn’t know. The hum of the fluorescent lights slowly became annoying, then deafening.

Footsteps: boots on the metal floor, marching with purpose. A man stopped in front of the glass divider and stared for a moment. Desmond recognized him instantly: the scar-faced man from his memories. His hair was longer now. The blond locks hung across his face, partially obscuring the scars. The mottled, burned flesh stretched up from his chest, across his neck, chin and cheeks, and stopped at his forehead. He wore a scruffy sandy-blond beard that grew in uneven patches. It did little to hide the healed wounds, which must have once been excruciating. He looked almost inhuman.

Desmond rose and moved slowly over to the glass wall.

“Why?” His captor’s question was laced with malice and, to Desmond’s surprise, hurt. The man seemed enraged but also vulnerable somehow.

“Who are you?” Desmond asked.