Charlie checked him out in the rearview mirror, huddled behind the driver’s seat, and didn’t like what he saw. Was he shivering?

“Now lie down and try to get some sleep,” he said.

For once, Harley did as he was told.

Driving on into the night, Charlie turned the radio to the local weather station and heard that the storm was only going to get worse. Welcome to Alaska. He pushed the accelerator lever forward, locking in the cruise control at a steady forty-five — any faster than that and he’d spin out for sure — and focused on the road. His headlights illuminated only a narrow slice right down the middle, but he could sense, all around him, the low frozen hills pressing in on him — lonely and empty and dark. A darkness, as Exodus and the Reverend Abercrombie had so aptly put it, that could be felt.

Chapter 50

As the helicopter swept in over the harbor of Port Orlov, Slater could see the Coast Guard vessels bobbing offshore, their spotlights sweeping back and forth across the docks, making sure that nothing came in or went out. Not that it was likely on a night like this. The town itself was largely dark, the snowy streets scoured by the punishing wind.

Dr. Lantos was barely clinging to life, her face beneath the oxygen mask a deep purple, and in Slater’s mind there could no longer be any question about what was wrong. She had a hacking cough, mounting pulmonary problems, and a high fever.

She had come down with the flu.

Which meant it was possible that Nika, pierced by the needle, might have become infected, too. But it wasn’t certain, there were still too many questions. Was it transmissible that way? Had the needle been infected, and more to the point, had it been infected before the puncture wound occurred? Slater clung to the possibility that it had not, even as he tended to Lantos. The last time he had found himself in a position like this, administering to an endangered patient in the bay of a helicopter, the outcome had been bad indeed, but right now, he had to put those fears, and those terrible memories from Afghanistan, aside. This time, he lectured himself, the patient would survive; this time she would get the care she needed before it was too late; this time he would get full cooperation instead of delays and impediments.

As the chopper descended, it skimmed the tops of the evergreen trees, and made for the bright white lights of the hockey rink. It had no sooner settled on the center of the ice, its rotors still winding to a halt, than a refueling truck rumbled toward it. The nearest biohazard-containment facility was hundreds of miles away in the state capital. “Eva,” Slater said, laying a hand on her shoulder, “I’ll see you in Juneau.”

But she did not reply, or show any sign of even having heard him.

The bay doors were thrown open by a medical officer in full hazmat ensemble, and Slater leapt out. He held up a hand to help Nika to disembark but she was already jumping out on her own.

She called out “Ray!” to a man wearing a police parka and a sheriff’s badge a few yards away, but her face mask made it impossible to be heard. Pulling it away for a second, she called out again, “Ray! Did you find them?”

Standing on the ice with legs spread wide apart to keep his balance, he called back, “Not yet.” As instructed, he was wearing his own mask and gloves, too. “I went out to the Vane house, but Charlie said they weren’t there.”

“We both know that Charlie Vane couldn’t tell the truth if he tried.”

“I hear ya, Mayor. But I haven’t got a warrant to search the place, and nobody’s seen Harley, or Eddie for that matter, for the past few days.” Gesturing at the oil truck deployed from the company that employed Russell, he said, “And Russell hasn’t shown up for his job, either.”

“He won’t be,” Nika said, soberly. “He’s dead.”

“What did you say?”

She pointed to the cargo bay, where two Coast Guardsmen, also suited up, were removing the body bag.

“He was found on the island. The wolves got him.”

The sheriff, even from half a dozen yards away, was plainly pole-axed.

“Keep him on ice, and keep the bag sealed,” Slater interjected, before turning back to Nika and saying, in a low voice, “Maybe we should take that drive now.”

“Sure,” she said, knowing full well what he meant. Taking care not to slip on the ice, and under the puzzled eye of the sheriff and his deputy, Nika led Slater over to the municipal garage at one end of the rink; the last time she’d been in here she’d been parking the Zamboni. Now she went right past it, along with the snowplows and the garbage truck, and stopped beside Port Orlov’s one and only all-terrain ambulance.

“Get in,” she said, sliding into the driver’s seat, as he raced around to the passenger side. “Where to first?”

“Harley’s place.”

“Buckle up,” she replied, rolling down her window and putting the car into gear.

As she pulled out of the garage, the sheriff scooted in front of the headlights, holding up his hands. “Hey, hang on, where you going with that?” he shouted, holding the mask away from his mouth. “Nobody’s supposed to be going anywhere tonight — those are orders.”

“The mayor is exempt,” Nika called out, swerving around him and heading past the corner of the community center. For a second, the deputy held up his shotgun, as if waiting for instructions to shoot, but the sheriff just stood there, hands on his ample hips, unsure whose authority won out in a situation like this.

Front Street was deserted, the few fishing-gear shops and the grocery closed up tight. Even the Yardarm was dark. The old totem pole, teetering to one side, loomed ahead. Slater looked at its grinning otters and snarling wolves with a new understanding. There was nothing like a trip to St. Peter’s Island to broaden your horizons.

With a deafening roar, the chopper, fully fueled again, soared over their heads, red lights blinking, as it headed east … carrying its precious, and endangered, cargo.

“Will she make it?” Nika asked.

And this time Slater didn’t know how to reply; he had thoroughly briefed the chief medical officer on board, and Dr. Levinson had prepared the team in Juneau. But there was no knowing. “I hope so,” he finally said.

In the meantime, all he could do was keep a close watch on Nika.

Turning the ambulance into the driveway between a gun shop and a lumberyard, she said, “Harley lives in that trailer out back.” A violet glow could be seen between the tangled slats of the window blind. “He’s probably feeding his snake.”

Climbing out of the ambulance, she bounded up the steps to the door, banged loudly with the flat of her hand, then leaned over toward the window and peered inside. Slater, standing with one foot in the car and the other out, pulled the mask away from his mouth and took this chance to gulp the fresh night air. The thermals and hazmat suit he was wearing were plenty warm for the car — too warm, in fact — but even after a minute or two outside, the Alaskan cold could start to penetrate them. When Nika turned around, she was shaking her head.

“Eddie’s place next?” he asked.

“Eddie’s mom’s a meth head. Nobody hangs out there, not even Eddie.”

“And you say that this Charlie Vane is a liar.”

“True enough,” she said, getting back behind the wheel, “but I never said he was a good one.”

Backing up onto the empty street, she took a right at the edge of the lumberyard and headed down a dark, bumpy track no longer lined with any stores or commercial establishments. This one was just a back road dotted with an occasional shack, slapped together out of weathered planks and tar paper, or a mobile home parked up the hillside. Old wooden meat racks leaned between dilapidated sheds and piles of firewood. On the way, Nika elaborated on Charlie and his church of the Holy Writ.