A Heartbeat Away - Michael Palmer [100]
The admiral lifted his hands to prevent O’Neil and her from passing, and Ellis gasped.
His palms were a swirl of crimson, concentric circles, giving the appearance of having had the design branded on. On the surface of the swirls were hundreds of tiny, raised blisters, many of them broken and oozing.
“Home … please take me home…,” Jakes moaned.
His voice was a coarse whisper, and his breath was foul.
“Admiral, what’s going on in here?” O’Neil managed to ask. “What’s happening to you? Who’s helping you all?”
“Dying … we’re all dying.” Each word the admiral spoke emerged like a hiss of steam. “Why did you do this to me?”
“No, it wasn’t us,” O’Neil said. “It was Genesis. It’s some sort of virus.”
“You lie! You lie!”
Ellis sensed movement behind her and turned to see that others in the room were now gathering behind her like zombies, blocking their only retreat from Jakes. Some of them had been friends and colleagues of hers for many years. All of them were ill—terribly, terribly ill. It was also impossible not to see the bright red patterns on their palms.
“Admiral Jakes, please,” O’Neil pleaded, “let us by. We’ll get you help. I promise.”
The navy man’s eyes were wild.
“No help. You lie! You lie!”
Jakes drove forward with surprising quickness and wrapped his fingers around O’Neil’s throat. The Secret Service agent batted Jakes’s hands aside, but in an instant the admiral lunged again, clawing at his face, drawing blood.
“Stop!” O’Neil shouted.
“Die! Die like me!”
Jakes continued flailing at the much younger man. Blood from the angry gouges ran down O’Neil’s cheek, soaking his shirt collar.
Ellis screamed as the small crowd began folding in around them.
At that instant, the scene was frozen by a gunshot. Smoke rose from the pistol at O’Neil’s waist. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff dropped to his knees, then toppled in slow motion onto his back, staring sightlessly at the high, ornate ceiling. A scarlet stain instantly began expanding from the bullet hole in his jacket. The advancing crowd pulled back as the pistol in O’Neil’s hand smoked. The stench of gunpowder merged with the other odors in the room.
“Let’s go! Now!” he barked at Ellis.
Clutching her BlackBerry, the speaker grasped O’Neil’s coat sleeve and allowed herself to be dragged outside the Senate Chamber. The dying men and women were again moving in when O’Neil pushed the doors closed. Ellis looped the chain tightly through the handles and leaned against the doors with all her strength as O’Neil snapped the lock.
Then, gasping for air, exhausted, and rattled, the two of them slumped against the wall. The din and scratching from within had resumed, but with a difference. Somewhere amidst the mob on the other side of the door lay the body of the chief of the United States Navy.
Ellis checked her phone.
She had recorded everything.
CHAPTER 46
DAY 6
5 A.M. (CST)
“Rhodes, can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear. Listen, Angie’s been hurt. Genesis somehow followed her to New York, and tried to kill her. I haven’t called the hospital where she is because I really don’t trust that this line is secure. It doesn’t seem like anything is down here. I want you to have the FBI find out where she is and send some people to watch out for her. I’m not giving you the details, but send some men over to the Riverside Nursing Home. They’ll know where she is and what name she’s been admitted under. But do it quick. And make sure she has the best doctors.”
“What in the hell is she doing in New York?”
“I’ll tell you soon. I don’t have time for this right now.”
“Okay, I’ll