'In a week ago. Never nothing since weeks,' he said.

'Do the neighbors buy her recipes?' I asked.

He frowned as if this were an odd thing to ask. 'They already got theirs.'

Now people had come out on their porches, slipping quietly into the dark shadows of their yards to watch this wild woman in surgical gown, hair cover and gloves shining a flashlight in their neighbor's cubbyholes and talking to their chief.

'There's going to be a lot of commotion here soon,' I repeated to him. 'The Army's sending in a medical team any minute, and we're going to need you to make sure people stay calm and remain in their homes. What I want you to do right now is go get the Coast Guard, tell them they're going to need to help you, okay?'

Davy Crockett drove off so fast, his tires spun.

Chapter Nine

They descended loudly from the moonlit night at almost nine P.M. The Army Blackhawk thundered over the Methodist church, whipping trees in its terrible turbulence of flying blades as a powerful light probed for a place to land. I watched it settle like a bird in a yard next door as hundreds of awed Tangiermen spilled out onto the streets.

From the porch, I peered out the screen, watching the medical evacuation team climb out of the helicopter as children hid behind parents, silently staring. The five scientists from USAMRIID and CDC did not look of this planet in their irtflated orange plastic suits and hoods, and battery-operated air packs. They walked along the road, carrying a litter shrouded in a plastic bubble.

'Thank God you're here,' I said to them when they got to me.

Their feet made a slipping plastic sound on the porch's wooden floor, and they did not bother to introduce themselves as the only woman on the team handed me a folded orange suit.

'It's probably a little late,' I said.

'It can't hurt.' Her eyes met mine, and she didn't look much older than Lucy. 'Go ahead and put it on.'

It had the consistency of a shower liner, and I sat on the glider and pulled it over my shoes and clothes. The hood was transparent with a bib I tied securely around my chest. I turned on the pack at the back of my waist.

'She's upstairs,' I said over the noise of air rushing in my ears.

I led the way and they carried up the litter. For a moment, they were silent when they saw what was on the bed.

A scientist said, 'Jesus. I've never seen anything like that.' Everyone started talking fast.

'Wrap her up in the sheets.'

'Pouched and sealed.'

'Everything on the bed, linens, gotta go in the autoclave.'

'Shit. What do we do? Burn the house?'

I went into the bathroom and collected towels off the floor while they lifted her shrouded body. She was slippery and uncooperative as they struggled to get her from the bed inside the portable isolator designed with the living in mind. They sealed plastic flaps, and the sight of a pouched body inside what looked like an oxygen tent was jolting, even to me. They lifted the litter by either end and we made our way back down the stairs and out onto the street.

'What about after we leave?' I asked.

'Three of us will stay,' one of them replied. 'We got another chopper coming in tomorrow.'

We were intercepted by another suited scientist carrying a metal canister not so different from what exterminators used. He decontaminated us and the litter, spraying a chemical while people continued to gather and stare. The Coast Guard was by Crockett's truck, Crockett and Martinez talking to each other. I went to speak to them, and they were clearly put off by my protective clothing, and not so subtly stepped away.

'This house has got to be sealed,' I said to Crockett. 'Until we know with certainty what we're dealing with here, no one goes in or near it.'

He had his hands in the pockets of his jacket and was blinking a lot.

'I need to be notified immediately if anyone else here gets sick,' I said to him.

'This time of year they have sickness,' he said. 'They get the bug. Some take the cold.'

'If they get a fever, backache, break out in a rash,' I said to him, 'call me or my office right away. These people are here to help you.' I pointed to the team.

The expression on his face made it very clear he wanted no one staying here, on his island.

'Please try to understand,' I said. 'This is very, very important.'

He nodded as a young boy materialized behind him, from the darkness, and took his hand. The boy looked, at the most, seven, with tangles of unruly blond hair and wide pale eyes that were fixed on me as if I were the most terrifying apparition he had ever seen.

'Daddy, sky people.' The boy pointed at me.

'Darryl, get on,' Crockett said to his son. 'Get home.'

I followed the thudding of helicopter blades. Circulating air cooled my face, but the rest of me was miserable because the suit didn't breathe. I picked my way through the yard beside the church while blades hammered, and scrubby pines and weeds were ripped by the loud wind.

The Blackhawk was open and lit up inside, and the team was tying down the litter the same way they would have were the patient alive. I climbed aboard, took a crew seat to one side and strapped myself in as one of the scientists pulled shut the door. The helicopter was loud and shuddering as we lifted into the sky. It was impossible to hear without headsets on, and those would not work well over hoods.

This puzzled me at first. Our suits had been decontaminated, but the team did not want to take them off, and then it occurred to me. I had been exposed to Lila Pruitt, and the torso before that. No one wanted to breathe my air unless it was passed through a high efficiency particulate air filter, or HEPA, first. So we mutely looked around, glancing at each other and our patient. I shut my eyes as we sped toward Maryland.

I thought of Wesley, Lucy and Marino. They had no idea what was happening, and would be very upset. I worried about when I would see them next, and what condition I might be in. My legs were slippery, my feet baking, and I did not feel good. I could not help but fear that first fateful sign, a chill, an ache, the bleariness and thirst of fever. I had been immunized for smallpox as a child. So had Lila Pruitt. So had the woman whose torso was still in my freezer. I had seen their scars, those stretched, faded areas about the size of a quarter where they had been scratched with the disease. It was barely eleven when we landed somewhere I could not see. I had slept just long enough to be disoriented, and the return to reality was loud and abrupt when I opened my eyes. The door slid open again, lights blinking white and blue on a helipad across the road from a big angular building. Many windows were lit up for such a late hour, as if people were awake and awaiting our arrival. Scientists unstrapped the litter and hastily loaded it in the back of a truck, while the female scientist escorted me, a

gloved hand on my arm.

I did not see where the litter went, but I was led across the road to a ramp on the north side of the building. From there we did not have far to go along a hallway until I was shown into a shower and blasted with Envirochem. I stripped and was blasted again with hot, soapy water. There were shelves of scrubs and booties, and I dried my hair with a towel. As instructed, I left my clothes in the middle of the floor along with all of my possessions.

A nurse waited in the hall, and she briskly walked me past the surgery room, then walls of autoclaves that reminded me of steel diving bells, the air foul with the stench of scalded laboratory animals. I was to stay in the 200 Ward, where a red line just

inside my room warned patients in isolation not to cross. I looked around at the small hospital bed with its moist heating blanket, and ventilator, refrigerator and small television suspended from a corner. I noticed the coiled yellow air lines attached to pipes on the walls, the steel pass box in the door, through which meal trays were delivered, and irradiated with UV light when removed.