Final Epidemic by Earl Merkel Page A

former husband was, to Deborah, somewhat unnerving; that she had actually gone ahead and done it, extremely disturbing; that her automatic first words to him—rather, to his answering machine—had been harsh and accusatory, almost a relief. She had gone through too much, made too many hard decisions, to get to where it proved she now was. And to where Katie still adamantly refused to go.
    Deborah had no doubt that the three girls, with Katie as their ringleader, had plotted this . . . this outrageous expedition. And whether Beck was privy to the plan or not— probably not, Deborah decided; not even Beck would be that irresponsible —the fact is that once more they had somehow succeeded in making her the outsider.
    She almost got away with it, too, Deborah told herself, and as it had so many times before, the anger rose anew.
    Secrets. She had lived most of her adult life on the wrong side of that wall, trying to accept that there were things she should not know, that she and her daughter needed to turn a blind eye toward.
    And so she had tried.
    Ultimately, it had all come crashing down on her anyway, and the price had been far too high to ever pay again. And now her daughter— her only child! —had chosen to follow the same hateful path.
    And that made it hurt all the—
    Oh, hell, Deborah thought, feeling the hot sting of tears she had not known she still possessed. Damn him, anyway.
    She froze, suddenly aware of the pronoun she had used.
     
    In Washington, Andi Wheelwright replayed Deborah Stepanovich’s call again and again.
    One missing fifteen-year-old, she told herself. Not a major priority, when the whole damn country’s about to go up for grabs.
    Andi was still surprised at herself when she found herself punching in the numbers and giving the order.
    “There’s three of them,” she said, hearing herself add the professional toughness to her voice. “I imagine at least one of them is using a credit card on the parental account. I want to know where they are and what they’re doing.”
    She listened for a moment to the voice at the other end.
    “Do it anyway. This is no time for a damn road trip. God knows what kind of trouble they can get themselves into.”

Chapter 8
    Columbia Falls, Montana
July 21
    An instant before the staccato chatter of the assault rifle cut through the sounds of the night, FBI special agent April O’Connor realized that everything had gone terribly wrong. She saw it in the face of Orin Trippett, the shipping clerk—in the sudden way his eyes narrowed, his expression hardened.
    The metamorphosis had been swift and unexpected. A moment before, Trippett had shown the kind of behavior most people did when law enforcement credentials are held before their faces: startled, then ingratiatingly submissive.
    Trippett had been standing on the shipping docks when they arrived, his breath making wispy clouds in the high mountain night air. Hadley and Morrisee, the other pair on the FBI-ATF tactical team, had elected to wait in the relative shelter of the car. That left April and Jesús Robles, a burly, dark-eyed agent from ATF.
    And that’s just dandy with me, she thought. For an ATF cowboy, Robles isn’t all that bad.
    She had been working with Hadley and Morrisee for almost a week, tracking a shipment of M-16s stolen ten days earlier from a National Guard armory in Missoula, Montana. In that time, she had learned much.
    She had, for example, learned that she did not want to work with Hadley and Morrisee ever again.
    She was no stranger to crude jokes, and even in the “new” FBI, suggestive language was not uncommon. During her four years in the field, April had learned to deal with it; in most cases, she could establish a working relationship with even the most recalcitrant chauvinist. Robles, at least, had waited almost two days before propositioning April. Unlike the two FBI men, he had accepted her refusal with a good-natured grace and gotten on with the job.
    When Robles held