The Last Good Man by Nick Thacker

Author:Nick Thacker [Thacker, Nick]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Conundrum Publishing
Published: 2023-09-25T16:00:00+00:00

36

Luke and Mia were on their way back to the ICE offices in Albany. Again. To talk to Dr. Saiid Edemza. Again.

Luke had told Mia about his first encounter with the man. The doctor hadn’t seemed to be hiding anything, and Luke was usually pretty good at finding the cracks in an interrogation subject.

But apparently he had missed something.

Mia had spent most of the morning studying up on the parasite, but she’d reached a point where they simply needed more data, and that data wasn’t coming in quickly enough.

The biggest surprise so far that day had come in the form of new cases: there was only one.

Briggs had sent an email to Luke informing him that there was only a single new active case. A man who worked as a janitor in the same office as the receptionist had come down with similar symptoms and was now hospitalized. Unfortunately, he was very likely to die by that afternoon, so Luke determined that it wouldn’t be worthwhile to make the drive back to Clinton.

They were happy to hear that there was only a single new case, but they also knew that there was still a lack of testing—they weren’t sure yet what to test for—and that the numbers would likely soon begin to swell.

Even then, Mia seemed to be having a hard time with the numbers. Luke watched her as he drove, scratching out and rewriting something on her legal pad.

“It doesn’t make sense,” she finally said. “These numbers don’t add up.”

“The known active cases?”

“All of them. Active cases, total deaths, total recovered.”

“So far, no one’s recovered,” Luke said. “Meaning we have to assume this thing is deadly.”

She nodded. “Definitely. I’m sure it is. But the R-naught? That number seems really low.”

Luke considered this. “But I thought we agreed that the testing would increase that number, as in, the more we test, the more active and confirmed cases we find? That would push the number up considerably.”

“It would,” Mia said, biting on the end of her pencil. “But we know some of these people came into contact with the Stermers before they died, right?”

Luke nodded. There were more cars out today, and he had to slow down to miss an aggressive, overzealous lane-changer who decided he needed to be in Luke’s lane right now.

“We know that they came into contact with the police officer, Robert Craig, who died last night,” Mia said.

“Yes.”

“But that officer also was in contact—at least we assume—with other officers, right? Up in Richford. I mean, he called it in to Border Patrol, and then he would have spoken with someone in person when they came to get the Stermers, right? And what about the sheriff from that station? She was there, too, the morning after the Stermers were brought in.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Luke said. “So far, neither the sheriff nor anyone else from that station’s called in sick.”

“And the receptionist—she was definitely around other people. Detainees who were brought in, the ICE officers and agents who brought them in—some of those people should be infected bad enough now that we’d know it.

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