Read Online Cat's Cradle by William W. Johnstone - Free Book Online

the dried blood, along with the small print of tennis shoes. “Don’t get any of that blood on you,” he warned the others. “It might be, probably is, highly contagious.”
    “But not airborne?” Dodge asked.
    “Not according to Doctor Goodson and the men from CDC.”
    Outside, Dan said, “Seal it off, Billy. Captain Taylor, can you get those troopers you talked about in here?”
    “How many do you want?”
    “I don’t know. As many as it takes.”
    “Twenty-five to start with?”
    “Sounds good to me.”
    “They’ll be here within the hour.” The Virginia Highway Patrol can place one hundred combat ready troopers anywhere in the state within one hour.
    “I can probably get a few more Bureau people in here quickly,” Dodge said.
    “I would appreciate all the help I can get,” Dan said.
    “You got your speech all prepared for the press?” Taylor asked.
    Dan shook his head. “I wish.”
    “I don’t mean to take anything away from you, Dan,” the Bureau man said. “But I’ve probably had more experience fielding questions from reporters. If you like, I’ll handle it.”
    It was tempting for Dan. Just dump it in someone else’s lap. God, it was tempting. “No,” he said. “It’s my county.”
    The news of the newly found body spread through the county with the speed of that much talked about wildfire. Dan had ordered his people not to talk to anyone about the dead, but he was making no effort to hide the fact that a killer, or killers, was loose and on the rampage in Ruger County.
    Whether or not to tell the press about the possibilities that one or both of the madmen, or madwomen, were carriers of a deadly “virus,” as Doctor Goodson called it, was solely in Dan’s lap. He talked with all concerned about it.
    “We don’t even know what it is they’re carrying,” Chuck said. “Every time I try to think about it, I come up short. It’s like a science fiction movie. How the hell would you explain it?”
    Dan didn’t know.
    “I’d dump it in the CDC’s lap,” Sergeant Langway said.
    Captain Taylor’s smile was wan. “You’ll be captain someday, Scott.”
    And he left it at that, leaving Scott to read whatever into his remark.
    “If you tell the people that these . . . murderers can turn them into mummies,” a deputy said, “they’re not going to believe you unless you show them the body of the dead engineer and the arm of the other guy. Then we’ll have a damn circus on our hands.”
    Dan looked at agent Dodge. “What do your people say about it?”
    “Off the record and it didn’t come from me?”
    “Yes.”
    “Sit on it for a few days.”
    All present agreed they should do that. And all knew they were taking a terrible chance.
    Reporters from Richmond, Charlottesville, Petersburg, and Lynchburg were gathered at the sheriff’s office when Dan opened the news briefing. Among them Mille Smith.
    “Looks like when bad luck strikes a place, it sometimes decides to hang around for a while.” Dan told the men and women. “And we’re having our share of bad luck. I have not prepared a statement; so I’ll wing this as best I can.”
    Then it hit him, plunging him into numbing silence. Eddie Brown had reported seeing a small girl and a cat in a cave inside Eden Mountain back when he was lost, years ago. That was before Dan had joined the department. Was there a connection? God, surely not. There couldn’t be. The girl would be in her twenties now.
    Dan mentally filed that and got down to business. He kept his fingers crossed that no one would ask for an exhumation of the graves of Billy Mack and Mary Louise. Both mothers were in bad enough shape as it was. Seeing the bodies might well kill one of them.
    “Here is what we know for sure,” Dan began. “You all are aware of the deaths of the teenagers. No need to go into that. You’ve all carried the stories. We believe that the miner who was killed inside Eden Mountain was killed by the same party or parties. He was the