Darwin's Children Read Online Free PDF Page A

worry. It’s safe. If you want to beat me up, my blood won’t hurt you. I could be your own little Jesus.”
    The fever-scent did its thing. The glands behind her ears began to pump defensive pheromones. Her neck felt hot.
    “Shit,” the clerk said, and bumped up against the tall rack of cigarettes behind her.
    Dave showed the whites of his eyes like a skittish horse. He veered toward the door, giving her a wide berth, the deliberate smell of her in his nose. She had snuffed the fuse of his anger.
    Dave joined his friend. “She smells like fucking
chocolate
,” he said, and they kicked the glass doors open with their boots.
    An old woman at the back of the store, surrounded by aisles jammed with puffed bags of potato chips, stared at Stella. Her hand shook a can of Pringles like a castanet. “Go away!”
    The clerk moved in to defend the old woman. “Take your Gatorade and go home!” she barked at Stella. “Go home to your mama and don’t you
never
come back here.”
    6
    THE LONGWORTH HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING
    WASHINGTON, D.C.
    “W e’ve been over and over this,” Dick Gianelli told Mitch, dropping a stack of scientific reprints on the coffee table between them. The news was not good.
    Gianelli was short and round and his usually pale face was now a dangerous red. “We’ve been reading everything you sent us ever since the congressman was elected. But they have twice as many experts, and they send twice as many papers. We’re drowning in papers, Mitch! And the
language
.” He thumped the stack. “Can’t your people, all the biologists, just write to be understood? Don’t they realize how important it is to get the word out to everybody?”
    Mitch let his hands drop by his sides. “They’re not my people, Dick. My people are archaeologists. They tend to write sparkling prose.”
    Gianelli laughed, stood up from the couch and shook out his arms, then tipped a finger under his tight collar, as if letting out steam. His office was part of the suite assigned to Representative Dale Wickham, D., Virginia, whom he had faithfully served as director of public science for two of the toughest terms in U.S. history. The door to Wickham’s office was closed. He was on the Hill today.
    “The congressman has made his views clear for years now. Your colleagues, scientists all, have hopped on the gravy train. They’ve joined up with NIH and CDC and Emergency Action, and they pay their visits mostly across the aisle. Wilson at FEMA and Doyle at DOJ have undercut us every step of the way, squirming like puppies to get their funding treats. Opposing them is like standing outside in a hail of cannonballs.”
    “So what can I take home with me?” Mitch asked. “To cheer up the missus. Any good news?”
    Gianelli shrugged. Mitch liked Gianelli but doubted he would live to see fifty. Gianelli had all the markers: pear shape, excessive girth, ghostly skin, thinning black hair, creased earlobes. He knew it, too. He worked hard and cared too much and swallowed his disappointments. A good man in a bad time. “We got caught in a medical bear trap,” he said. “We’ve never been prepared. Our best model for an epidemic was military response. So now we’ve had ten years of Emergency Action. We’ve practically signed away our country to Beltway bureaucrats with military and law enforcement training. Mark Augustine’s crew, Mitch. We’ve given them almost absolute authority.”
    “I don’t think I’m capable of understanding how those people think,” Mitch said.
    “I thought I did, once,” Gianelli said. “We tried to build a coalition. The congressman roped in Christian groups, the NRA, conspiracy nuts, flag burners and flag lovers, anybody who’s ever expressed a shred of suspicion about the guv’ment. We’ve gone hat in hand to every decent judge, every civil libertarian still above ground, literally and figuratively. We’ve been checked every step of the way. It was made very clear to the congressman that if he