The Strain (The Strain Trilogy 1)

They went up the fire rescue ladder onto the wing, and advanced to the door. They pulled up flat against the fuselage on either side of it, one man folding the door back against the interior wall with his boot, then curling inside, low and straight ahead to a near partition, staying down on his haunches. His partner followed him aboard.

The bullhorn spoke for them:

"Occupants of Regis 753. This is the New York-New Jersey Port Authority. We are entering the aircraft. For your own safety, please remain seated and lace your fingers on top of your heads."

The lead man waited with his back to the partition, listening. His mask dulled sound into a jarlike roar, but he could discern no movement inside. He flipped down his NVD and the interior of the plane went pea-soup green. He nodded to his partner, readied his Glock, and on a three count swept into the wide cabin.

Chapter 2

NOW BOARDING

Worth Street, Chinatown

Ephraim Goodweather couldn't tell if the siren he heard was blaring out in the street-which is to say, real-or part of the sound track of the video game he was playing with his son, Zack.

"Why do you keep killing me?" asked Eph.

The sandy-haired boy shrugged, as though offended by the question. "That's the whole point, Dad."

The television stood next to the broad west-facing window, far and away the best feature of this tiny, second-story walk-up on the southern edge of Chinatown. The coffee table before them was cluttered with open cartons of Chinese food, a bag of comics from Forbidden Planet, Eph's mobile phone, Zack's mobile phone, and Zack's smelly feet. The game system was new, another toy purchased with Zack in mind. Just as his grandmother used to juice the inside of an orange half, so did Eph try to squeeze every last bit of fun and goodness out of their limited time together. His only son was his life, was his air and water and food, and he had to load up on him when he could, because sometimes a week could pass with only a phone call or two, and it was like going a week without seeing the sun.

"What the..." Eph thumbed his controller, this foreign-feeling wireless gadget in his hand, still hitting all the wrong buttons. His soldier was punching the ground. "At least let me get up."

"Too late. Dead again."

For a lot of other guys Eph knew, men in a situation similar to his own, their divorce seemed to have been as much from their children as from their wives. Sure, they would talk the talk, how they missed their kids, and how their ex-wives kept subverting their relationship, blah, blah, but the effort never really seemed to be there. A weekend with their kids became a weekend out of their new life of freedom. For Eph, these weekends with Zack were his life. Eph had never wanted the divorce. Still didn't. He acknowledged that his married life with Kelly was over-she had made her position perfectly clear to him-but he refused to relinquish his claim on Zack. The boy's custody was the only unresolved issue, the sole reason they still remained wed in the eyes of the state.

This was the last of Eph's trial weekends, as stipulated by their court-appointed family counselor. Zack would be interviewed sometime next week, and soon afterward a final determination would be made. Eph didn't care that it was a long shot, his getting custody; this was the fight of his life. Do the right thing for Zack formed the crux of Kelly's guilt trip, pushing Eph to settle for generous visitation rights. But the right thing for Eph was to hang on to Zack. Eph had twisted the arm of the U.S. government, his employer, in order to set up his team here in New York instead of Atlanta, where the CDC was located, just so that Zack's life would not be disrupted any more than it had been already.

He could have fought harder. Dirtier. As his lawyer had advised him to, many times. That man knew the tricks of the divorce trade. One reason Eph could not bring himself to do so was his lingering melancholy over the failure of the marriage. The other was that Eph had too much mercy in him-that what indeed made him a terrific doctor was the very same thing that made him a pitiful divorce-case client. He had conceded to Kelly almost every demand and financial claim her lawyer requested. All he wanted was time alone with his only son.

Who right now was lobbing grenades at him.

Eph said, "How can I shoot back when you've blown off my arms?"

"I don't know. Maybe try kicking?"

"Now I know why your mother doesn't let you own a game system."

"Because it makes me hyper and antisocial and...OH, FRAGGED YOU!"

Eph's life-capacity bar diminished to zero.

That was when his mobile phone started vibrating, skittering up against the take-out cartons like a hungry silver beetle. Probably Kelly, reminding him to make sure Zack used his asthma inhaler. Or just checking up on him, making sure he hadn't whisked Zack away to Morocco or something.

Eph caught it, checked the screen. A 718 number, local. Caller ID read JFK QUARANTINE.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention maintained a quarantine station inside the international terminal at JFK. Not a detainment or even a treatment facility, just a few small offices and an examining room: a way station, a firebreak to identify and perhaps stall an outbreak from threatening the general population of the United States. Most of their work involved isolating and evaluating passengers taken ill in flight, occasionally turning up a diagnosis of meningococcal meningitis or severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

The office was closed evenings, and Eph was not to be on call tonight, or anywhere on the depth chart through Monday morning. He had cleared his work schedule weeks ago, in advance of his weekend with Zack.

He clicked off the vibrate button and set the mobile back down next to the carton of scallion pancakes. Somebody else's problem. "It's the kid who sold me this thing," he told Zack. "Calling to heckle me."

Zack was eating another steamed dumpling. "I cannot believe you got Yankees-Red Sox tickets for tomorrow."

"I know. Good seats too. Third-base side. Tapped into your college fund to get them, but hey, don't worry-with your skills, you'll go far on just a high school degree."

"Dad."

"Anyway, you know how it pains me to put even one green dollar in Steinbrenner's pocket. This is essentially treason."

Zack said, "Boo, Red Sox. Go, Yanks."

"First you kill me, then you taunt me?"

"I figured, as a Red Sox fan, you'd be used to it."

"That's it-!" Eph wrapped up his son, working his hands in along his ticklish rib cage, the boy bucking as he convulsed with laughter. Zack was getting stronger, his squirming possessed of real force: this boy who he used to fly around the room on one shoulder. Zachary had his mother's hair, both in its sandy color (her original color, the way it was when he first met her in college) and fine texture. And yet, to Eph's amazement and joy, he recognized his own eleven-year-old hands dangling uncannily from the boy's wrists. The very same broad-knuckled hands that used to want to do nothing more than rub up baseball cowhide, hands that hated piano lessons, that could not wait to get a grip on this world of adults. Uncanny, seeing those young hands again. It was true: our children do come to replace us. Zachary was like a perfect human package, his DNA written with everything Eph and Kelly once were to each other-their hopes, dreams, potential. This was probably why each of them worked so hard, in his and her own contradictory ways, to bring out his very best. So much so that the thought of Zack being brought up under the influence of Kelly's live-in boyfriend, Matt-a "nice" guy, a "good" guy, but so middle of the road as to be practically invisible-kept Eph up at night. He wanted challenge for his son, he wanted inspiration, greatness! The battle for the custody of Zack's person was settled, but not the battle for the custody of Zack's spirit-for his very soul.