The Hatching Page 2

  Mike glanced over at Leshaun, but his partner was ostentatiously not listening. Leshaun was doing what he was supposed to be doing, which was staring at the alley. There wasn’t much chance that the prick they were waiting for, Two-Two O’Leary, was going to show up, but given that he used as much of the meth as he sold, and had wounded an agent in a bust gone bad the week before, it probably wasn’t the worst thing in the world to have one of them paying attention.

  “All I can do is keep apologizing.” He glanced at Leshaun again and decided he didn’t care if Leshaun was listening or not. It wasn’t like they hadn’t talked about his relationship with Fanny—or Leshaun and Leshaun’s ex-wife’s relationship—more than he had ever talked about it with his therapist, or, for that matter, with Fanny. Maybe if he’d talked about things with Fanny as much as he had with Leshaun, things would still be okay. “You know I’m sorry. About everything. I’m sorry about everything. Not just being late.” Mike waited for Fanny to say something, but there was only silence. He went on. “I’ve been talking with my therapist about it, and I know that I’m late saying this. I mean, I guess I’m late with everything, but I’m trying to say I should have told you I was sorry a long time ago. I didn’t mean to let things fall apart, and even though I’m not really happy about it, I am happy that you’re happy. And you know, Dawson—Rich—seems like he makes you happy, and I know that Annie loves him. So, you know, I’m sorry. I’m doing my best to be a different kind of guy, a better man, but there’s always going to be a part of me that’s just the way I am. And that goes for the job too.”

  “Mike.” Fanny’s voice seemed faint, and Mike shifted again. He couldn’t tell if it was his shitty phone cutting out or if she was talking more softly. “Mike,” she repeated. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “What? You going to divorce me again?”

  Leshaun straightened and then leaned a little bit out the open window. Mike sat up in his seat. There was a car pulling into the alley. A Honda, which wasn’t really Two-Two’s ride of choice, but it was the first action they’d seen for a while. The car stopped with its trunk hanging over the sidewalk, and then a black teenager, maybe fifteen or sixteen, got out of the passenger-side door. Mike relaxed, and Leshaun sat back. Two-Two was selling guns and meth, but he was also big time in with the Aryan Nations. There wasn’t much chance he was rolling with a black kid.

  “I want to change Annie’s name,” Fanny said.

  “What?”

  “I want her to have the same last name as me, Mike.”

  “Just a second.” Mike put the phone down on his thigh and rubbed his face with his free hand. He wished he still smoked, though it wasn’t as if Leshaun would have let him light up in the car. The car. The goddamned car felt so close and hot. With his bulletproof vest over his T-shirt, he was sweating. Couldn’t they run the engine just for a few minutes, have a little fucking air-conditioning? He needed to stand outside for a minute, to stand up, to get some fresh air. He opened the door. He needed a blast of cold air like they had in those gum commercials, but it wasn’t any cooler outside the car.

  “Mike?” Leshaun was looking at him. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing man. I’m not going anywhere. I’m just going to stand outside, okay? I just want to take this call outside the car for a minute. Is that okay with you? Do you mind?” He realized his voice had gotten loud and hard, and he knew that when he was done talking to Fanny he was going to have to apologize to Leshaun. Leshaun was a good partner, a good friend, and he’d understand, but still, it made Mike feel like an asshole. Like more of an asshole. Leshaun nodded, and Mike got out of the car. He shut the door behind him, not that it mattered with the windows open.

  He lifted the phone back up. “What are you talking about, Fanny?”

  “Come on, Mike. You had to see this coming. Didn’t you see this coming?”

  “No, Fanny, I didn’t see this coming.”

  “Oh, Mike. You never see anything coming.”

  He heard the brush of the phone against Fanny’s cheek and then the low murmur of her saying something to Dawson. He pressed the phone hard against his ear. “You’re not changing Annie’s name. She’s my fucking daughter, and she’s going to be Annie Rich, not Annie fucking Dawson.”

  “Mike,” she said. “Annie’s my daughter too. It’s weird, having her have a different last name from me.”

  “You didn’t have to change your name to Dawson,” Mike said. Even as he said it, he knew it was the wrong thing to say, but he couldn’t help himself.

  Fanny sighed. “We can talk about this later, but it’s going to happen. I’m sorry, Mike, I am, but things have changed.”

  “I’m trying to change too,” Mike said.

  “I appreciate that. I do,” she said, and then neither of them said anything for a few seconds. Mike could hear Fanny breathing. Finally, she said, “Do you want to talk to Annie?”

  “Please,” he said. He felt defeated.

  Mike leaned against the car, facing the alley. He shifted against the side of the car, rolled his shoulder, and tugged down on his T-shirt under the vest. It was wet with sweat. Better to be uncomfortable than dead, though. The agent Two-Two had shot in Eau Claire probably would have died if he hadn’t been wearing body armor: three shots stopped by body armor, one bullet clean through the agent’s biceps. It was a hundred miles from Eau Claire back to Minnesota, though, and hell, nobody thought Two-Two—even hopped up on Nazi meth—was going to come back to his bar after the debacle in Wisconsin. He adjusted the strapping to loosen the vest. Normally he had a shirt over it, but when they were just going to sit in a car all day, he figured there wasn’t much point trying to hide it. And of course, it’s not like he wasn’t wearing his badge hanging off the chain around his neck. He loved being able to wear it, loved the way people looked at him differently when he introduced himself as Special Agent Rich, but as he fingered the chain, he thought that there were times when it felt like something he needed to take off more often.

  “Hey, Daddy.”

  “Hey, beautiful. I’m going to have to meet you at the field, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “How was school?”

  “Good.”

  “Anything exciting happen?”

  “Not really.”

  That’s what talking with her on the phone was like. When they were together, he couldn’t get Annie to stop talking, but there was something about the invisibility of talking to each other over the telephone that made it so she rarely said more than a couple of words at a time. It was like she thought there was some sort of evil magic at work, and if she told the telephone too much information, it was going to steal her soul. The thought made Mike smile. It sounded like a book Stephen King would write.

  He was about to ask her what she’d had for lunch when he saw the car. It was a red Ford truck, big tires, tinted windows, and it was turning into the alley. “Beautiful, I’ve got to go.”

  “Okay. I love you, Daddy.”

  “I love you too, baby.” He felt his stomach churning. He let his free hand reach up again to finger the badge hanging around his neck. “I love you so, so much. You remember that, okay? No matter what happens, you remember that.”

  The truck stopped. Mike put the phone in his pocket. He felt the car move as Leshaun opened the door and slid out. Mike moved his hand from his badge to his hip, until he could wrap his fingers around the handle of his gun. The metal was cool against his hand. He took a moment to look over his shoulder for Leshaun. His partner was starting to stand up straight, and Mike looked back toward the red truck. He realized too late that Two-Two had already seen him standing outside the car, had seen the bulletproof vest, had seen the badge hanging around his neck. Mike shouldn’t have been standing outside the car, talking on the phone. He shouldn’t have looked back at Leshaun. Mike should have been in the car with his partner, should have been paying attention, should have been a lot of things.

  Two-Two�
��s passenger, an undershirt-wearing dipshit with a shaved head who looked like he was barely twenty, came out firing a handgun. Mike wasn’t even sure he heard the bang of the man’s pistol, but he heard the plink of a bullet hitting the door of the car, heard the glass of the windshield shattering. He heard a grunt, and then the heavy drop of Leshaun’s body hitting the ground. All this before Two-Two even got out of the truck.

  Mike’s mind went blank, and he watched the man from the passenger side of the truck pop the emptied magazine out of his gun, reach into the pocket of his baggy pants, and pull out another clip. Meanwhile, Two-Two’s door opened, and Mike saw that he was also carrying a pistol. Two men, two guns, Leshaun hit, though Mike didn’t know how bad, and he hadn’t even pulled his own gun out yet. He knew he was supposed to be doing something, but he was just standing there as if he didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what to do.

  And then he did.

  He put the kid on the passenger side down first. Three shots clustered in his chest. Two-Two and his buddy weren’t wearing vests. He’d heard some of the agents who were gun nerds bitching about the stopping power of the service-issued Glock 22, but judging by the way the kid went down like a bag of chicken parts, the .40 cartridges seemed to work just fine. He’d never actually shot anybody before, had fired his gun only once in the line of duty—it had been one bullet, one time, barely a year on the job, and he’d missed—and he was surprised at how easy and normal it felt. All three bullets went home, and as the kid left his feet, Mike pivoted so that he could aim at Two-Two.

  Two-Two had the same idea, though, and Two-Two was pointing back.

  Mike wasn’t sure who fired first, or if they fired at the same time, because the push of the pistol in his hand was matched by a tug on his sleeve. But he was entirely sure whose aim was better. Two-Two’s head snapped back in a mist of blood. When Mike looked at his arm, there was a hole in the sleeve of his T-shirt, but not in his flesh.

  The kid from the passenger side wasn’t moving, and neither was Two-Two. Mike holstered his gun and hustled around the car to check on Leshaun. There were two holes in Leshaun’s shirt: one hole a bloody mess on his upper arm, the other on the chest, clean and clear, the vest doing its job. Leshaun’s eyes were open, and Mike had never been happier to see that big black motherfucker staring at him, but as he called for help he realized he was also going to have to call his ex-wife again.

  He was going to be really, really late.

  National Information Centre of Earthquake Engineering,

  Kanpur, India

  It didn’t matter what Dr. Basu did; the numbers kept coming back strange. She had rebooted her computer twice, even called Nadal in New Delhi and made him manually check the sensor in the basement of his building, but she kept getting the same results: something was shaking New Delhi with a consistency that was puzzling. Whatever it was, Dr. Basu thought, it wasn’t an earthquake. At least, it didn’t act like an earthquake.

  “Faiz,” she called. “Can you please check this for me?”

  Faiz wasn’t exactly quick to respond. He’d gone to Germany the previous month for a conference and had apparently spent most of his time in Düsseldorf in the hotel room of an Italian seismologist. Her colleague’s focus, since coming back, was on e-mailing dirty pictures back and forth with his new girlfriend and trying to find employment in Italy.

  Dr. Basu sighed. She wasn’t used to such behavior from Faiz. He was funny and charming, but also sloppy and inappropriate and in many ways a horrible man—he had showed her some of the photos the Italian woman had sent him, photos that Dr. Basu was sure were not meant for sharing—but he was also good at his job. “Faiz,” she said again. “Something’s going on.”

  He banged his keyboard with a flourish and then pushed his heels against the ground, sending his chair wheeling across the concrete floor. “Yes, boss.” He knew she hated when he called her that. He looked at her screen and then ran his fingers across the monitor, even though he knew she hated that too. “Yeah,” he said. “Looks weird. Too steady. Try rebooting.”

  “I did. Twice.”

  “Call New Delhi and get somebody to check the sensors. Maybe reboot those too.”

  “I already did,” Dr. Basu said. “The data is accurate, but it doesn’t make any sense.”

  Faiz took a toffee from the bowl of candy she kept next to her computer. He started unwrapping the cellophane. “Ines said she might be able to come visit the last week in May. I’m going to need that week off, boss, okay?”

  “Faiz,” she said. “Concentrate.”

  “It’s hard to concentrate knowing that Ines could be here next month. We aren’t going to leave my apartment. She’s Italian, which means she’s extra sensual, you know?”

  “Yes, Faiz, I know. And why do I know? Because you keep telling me exactly how ‘sensual’ she is. Has it ever occurred to you that I might want to spend my time focusing on data rather than on the way your new girlfriend likes to—”

  “She’s never been to India before,” Faiz interrupted. “We aren’t going to do anything touristy, though. A week in the bedroom, if you know what I mean.”

  “It’s impossible not to know what you mean, Faiz. You are a man who has never encountered subtlety, and if I were not such a wonderful and understanding person, I would have you fired and possibly imprisoned. Now, please concentrate,” she said.

  He looked at the numbers again. “It’s low and strong, but whatever it is, it isn’t an earthquake. Too steady.”

  “I know it’s not an earthquake,” Dr. Basu said. She was trying not to lose her temper. She knew there was something she wasn’t seeing, and while Faiz might be acting like a lovesick fool, he really was a remarkable scientist. “But let’s concentrate on what it is, not what it isn’t.”

  “Whatever it is, it’s building,” Faiz said.

  “What?” Dr. Basu looked at the monitor, but she didn’t see anything that stood out. The rumbles were all low. Nothing that really would have worried her if it had been something singular. It was the regularity, the pattern, that left her feeling as if something was wrong.

  “Here,” Faiz said, touching the screen and leaving a smear. “And here, and here. See how there’s a rhythm to it, but every tenth one’s a little bigger.”

  Dr. Basu scrolled to the beginning of the pattern and then counted. She frowned, jotted down some numbers, and then chewed on the end of the pen. It was a habit she’d developed in graduate school and one that, despite having more than a few pens break in her mouth, she’d yet to kick. “They stay bigger.”

  “No, it’s only on the tenth rumble that they get big.”

  “No, Faiz, look.” Dr. Basu handed him the pad of paper and then pointed at the computer screen. “See?”

  Faiz shook his head. “Nope.”

  “This is why I’m in charge and you have to get the coffee,” she said, taking some comfort in Faiz’s slow chuckle. She clicked the mouse and isolated the points, then drew a line to plot the changes. “Here. Every tenth event it amplifies, and though it doesn’t keep the entirety of the amplification, each set of nine that follows is slightly stronger than the previous set, until, again, the tenth.”

  Faiz leaned back in his chair. “You’re right. I missed that. If it keeps up, though, keeps growing like that, we’re going to start getting complaints from New Delhi. They won’t be able to feel it yet, but sooner or later somebody is going to call us and ask what’s going on.” Faiz lifted his glasses and perched them on top of his head. He thought it made him look smart. Ditto stroking his beard, which he did as he mused, “Hmmm, every tenth one.”

  Dr. Basu took the pen from her mouth. “But what’s it mean?” She tapped the end of the pen on the desk and then spun the pen away from her. “Drilling?”

  “No. Wrong pattern.”

  “I know, but sometimes it’s just good to get confirmation that I’m as smart as I think I am.”

  Faiz snatched her pen from the desk and
started flipping it. One rotation. Two rotations. Three rotations. On the fourth he fumbled it and had to reach under his chair to pick it up. His voice came out a little muffled. “Maybe the military?”

  “Maybe,” Dr. Basu said, but it was clear to both of them she didn’t really believe that either. “Any other ideas?” she asked Faiz, because she had none of her own.

  American University,

  Washington, DC

  “Spiders,” Professor Melanie Guyer said. She clapped her hands, hoping the sound would carry to the top of the auditorium where at least one student appeared to be sleeping. “Come on, guys. The answer in this class is always going to be spiders. And yes, they do molt,” she said, pointing to the young woman who had asked the original question. “But no, they aren’t really that similar to cicadas. For one thing, spiders don’t hibernate. Well, not that cicadas exactly hibernate.”

  Melanie glanced out the window. She wasn’t about to admit to the class that she found cicadas creepy. One time she had a bat get stuck in her hair while she was looking for a rare beetle in a cave in Tanzania, and another time, in Ghana, she accidentally stepped into a nest of western bush vipers. She’d gotten stung by a tarantula hawk wasp in Southeast Asia, which she thought was the most painful thing there was until she got bitten by a bullet ant in Costa Rica—that felt like having a nail gun fired into her elbow followed by a dunk in acid—but none of that really scared her like cicadas did. Oh, cicadas. The clicking sound from their tymbals, the ones with the red eyes, the way they swarmed and fell from trees and littered the sidewalks. And the crunching. Jesus. The crunching. The live ones underfoot, the discarded exoskeletons. Worse, the sheer number of them. Predator satiation was brilliant from an evolutionary perspective: all the cicadas had to do was breed in such numbers that anything that fed on them just got full. The survivors got on with their business. And then, after a few weeks, they died out, and there was just a graveyard of husks, which was also totally creepy. Thank all fucking everything that she was going to have another decade or so before Washington had its next big swarm of cicadas. She was going to have to plan a vacation. It wasn’t really an option for a biologist who specialized in the use of spider venom for medicinal purposes to admit to being so afraid of cicadas that she couldn’t go outside when they were swarming.