Omega Plague: Collapse (7 page)

“Yeah. Bad news travels fast,” Bruno said.

“Well, it’s not supposed to open for another hour, but we
called the pharmacy owner and he’s on his way.” Veri looked over Bruno’s
shoulder towards the crowd. “I’m going to let them know what’s going on.”

Veri turned, raised his hands, and walked a few steps, right
to the edge of the crowd. “All right, everyone!” Veri’s voice approached a
shout. “Calogero DeLuca, the owner, is on his way—he’s going to open early, so
everyone please stay calm!”

“When will he get here?” someone in the back shouted.

“I just spoke to him a few minutes ago, and he should be
here very soon—perhaps ten minutes.” Veri stepped back towards the pharmacy
entrance, terminating the conversation before some wise-ass asked any more
questions. “Thank you all for your patience.”

Bruno watched the people react to Veri’s statement. People
were talking to each other, the tension easing a bit. He hoped it would last.
Two police officers took advantage of the lull to break from their line in
front of the entrance to shepherd people out of the street. The traffic
congestion began to ease, but there must have been over one hundred people
arrayed on the sidewalk around the pharmacy’s entrance.

Veri took a few steps back toward the entrance, where Bruno
had remained.

Bruno glanced around at the number of law enforcement
officers, counting off in his head. Eight, plus the two of them. Not good odds.
Then he looked at Veri.

“Don’t we have any more officers coming? More local police
at least?”

“The other police organizations are busy guarding the other
pharmacies and God knows what else.” Veri spoke to Bruno, but kept his eyes on
the crowd. “For a potential riot situation like this, I’d usually call the
Regional Command, and they would have sent a squad in full riot gear. They’d
normally be here by motovetta in a half-hour.” Veri’s voice was just loud
enough for Bruno to hear. “But no one is coming. I talked to Colonel Costa on
the way here—they’ve got their hands full in Naples. After the mosquito
announcement, there’s already looting breaking out all over.” Veri gritted the
words through clenched teeth, only now looking directly into Bruno’s eyes.
“Costa said we’re on our own.”

Bruno nodded in silence.
On our own.
The words
weighed on Bruno, but he didn’t have much time to ponder their ramifications.
One of the officers who had been keeping the traffic flowing now walked toward
Bruno and Veri. A lean, balding man with wispy, white hair accompanied the
officer. The man wore a tweed coat and striped tie, accentuating his tall,
professorial look. To Bruno, from what he could see of the man’s face not
covered by the surgical mask, he looked quite pale, and his hazel eyes stood
out against his skin. The police officer held the older man by the elbow,
half-pushing him forward. The man’s eyes darted back and forth between Bruno
and Veri.

“This is the owner,” grunted the officer, letting go of his
elbow.

Veri nodded and gestured toward the door. “Ah, Signor
DeLuca, yes, glad you are here. As you can see, there are many people who would
like to make some purchases—and I don’t think it would be wise to keep them
waiting.”

DeLuca glared at Veri. “You didn’t tell me there were this
many people here,” DeLuca hissed. “Look at them! They’ll ransack my store!”

Someone in the crowd shouted, “Is that the owner?” Bruno
could sense the crowd’s impatience growing by the minute. Others began shouting
in response. The crowd pressed forward, surging into the street once more,
close to the officers arrayed around the pharmacy.

Bruno muttered to Veri, “This is about to get out of
control.”

Veri turned to DeLuca. “Signore,” Veri began, “there aren’t
enough of us to stop them. But if you let them in a few at a time, we can keep
order. We
can
protect your store, but only if you help us.” Bruno had
never heard Veri’s voice tinged with fear before. DeLuca looked at the crowd,
then back at Veri. As Bruno had hoped, DeLuca saw reason and relented. “Only
ten at a time. I won’t let this rabble destroy what I’ve spent my life building.
And they can only have one can of insect repellant per person.”

Veri nodded. “Thank you.”

DeLuca moved toward the door. “Before I open up, I need to
get some cash out of the safe. Banking networks have been overloaded, I
suppose.” DeLuca took out a key ring with a large, square key. “Just keep them
out for another two minutes.” DeLuca opened the door and went in, shutting the
door immediately behind him.

Veri turned to the crowd. “All right, everyone! Signor
DeLuca has gone in to open up his store. People will be let in ten at a time
and are limited to the purchase of one item of insect repellant per person.”

The crowd grumbled, but began to form something resembling a
line.

Two minutes came and went. But there was no sign of DeLuca,
and the door remained closed. Veri tried the door, but it was locked. The scene
being played out agitated the crowd.

Then someone cried out, “The British Prime Minister is dead!
It’s on the news! He just died!”

Something shifted. Bruno could feel a new dynamic in the
air, as this news shocked the group from crowd into mob. Two or three hundred
strong by now, they began to shout.

Veri yanked on the door one last time, then turned back
toward the mob, hands raised, shouting. Bruno couldn’t tell what exactly he was
saying; the noise overwhelmed any one voice. Bruno stood at the apex of the
semicircle of officers, with Veri directly to his left in front of the shop
window. By now, the mob was pressed up against the officers arrayed around the
entrance.

Veri shouted toward Bruno, “Get that door open, I don’t care
how!”

Bruno backed up toward the glass door. He didn’t know what
Veri thought he could do. He didn’t know how he was going to get the door open.
Bruno turned his back to the crowd and pulled out his pistol, trying to shield
it from view, but meaning to shoot off the lock.

Without warning, the mass lurched forward. Bruno, standing
in the doorway, saw the front of the crowd surge into two officers. Bodies
crashed through the plate-glass window, screaming, cursing. One officer twisted
towards his left side, avoiding the brunt of the mob’s force, but the other,
with arms flailing, fell backwards, like someone who’d been pushed without
warning into a pool. A tangle of limbs kept Bruno from seeing who was on the
bottom.

Bruno pointed his pistol and pulled the trigger, aiming over
the heads of the crowd into the stone building across the street. Bruno’s ears
rang. Another officer, too, had shot over the heads of the mob. The mob pulled
back, piling up into the ones behind them, the front line now seeing the downed
officers and pile of bodies and retreated, fearing for their own lives.

Bruno turned to his left and saw shattered glass where there
had once been a window. After the din, the silence itself felt oppressive.
People were on the floor of the store. One got up, clutching at a bleeding gash
on his head, looking stunned. A second officer sat staring at the shards of
glass in his shoulder and arm. The other lay on his back, behind the remnants
of the window. The downed officer was quiet, yet Bruno could see his legs
trembling.

Bruno moved out of the doorway toward the fallen officer. A
jagged shard of glass stuck out the left side of Veri’s throat and crimson
blood poured onto the tile floor.

Bruno dropped to his knees, laying his pistol by Veri. He
pulled Veri’s mask down to help him breathe and cupped his hands around his
neck to staunch the blood flow, applying as much pressure as he dared. Bruno’s
hands trembled as he looked into Veri’s eyes. They were bright and piercing against
his pallid skin. The pain and fright Bruno saw made tears spring to his own
eyes. Bruno was aware of movement around him and heard someone call for an
ambulance, but he couldn’t break eye contract with Veri.

“It will be all right,” Bruno reassured. “An ambulance is
coming.”

Two other officers approached with gauze and pads they had
taken from the pharmacy shelves and handed them to Bruno. Bruno pushed them
against Veri’s neck gently, not wanting to make anything worse. The whine of an
ambulance filled the air. Veri spluttered, as if to say something, and Bruno
bent down closer. Frothy blood coated his lips and splashed onto Bruno’s face
as Veri tried to speak.

A fierce tremor rocked Veri’s body and his eyes rolled back
into his head.

“No, stay with me—” Bruno said.

After a few seconds, Veri’s rigid body went limp. His eyes
were wide open, glassy. Bruno let go of Veri’s hand and it fell to the tile
floor. A halo of blood now surrounded his friend’s head.

Two paramedics kneeled on either side of Bruno and Veri, and
a third gently moved Bruno to the side. They began to work on Veri, but Bruno
knew it was too late.

Bruno scooped up his pistol, stood up and surveyed the
scene. Bloody glass was strewn about the floor. The paramedics hunched over
Veri’s body were still working. The crowd had begun to disperse, though some
were detained by officers who were trying to take statements from witnesses.
Bruno had no hope that anyone would say anything of value. No one saw anything,
no one knew who pushed whom, and everyone would blame someone else, some
unknown troublemaker.

Bruno didn’t much care who in the crowd had done what. His
eyes fell on DeLuca, standing two or three meters from Veri in the middle of
his store. DeLuca simply stood there, staring at the tiles on the floor,
fidgeting with the keys in his pocket. Then he started scratching his arm. To
Bruno, DeLuca looked like he wanted to sink into the floor, to hide, but didn’t
know how. A detached part of Bruno noticed that DeLuca looked like he was in shock.
Bruno couldn’t have cared less about DeLuca’s mental state. He stiffened and
moved towards DeLuca, but one of the municipal police officers put a hand on
Bruno’s arm, as if to lead him away. Bruno shrugged it off. DeLuca stared at
his own feet, at nothing.

“I—I’m sorry.” DeLuca’s voice sounded flat and emotionless.

Even though DeLuca slouched as he stared at the ground, he
still loomed over Bruno. Bruno grabbed his shirt and yanked him down to his
level, and DeLuca stumbled forward.

“You piece of filth!” Bruno spat. “This is your fault!” He
kept hold of DeLuca’s shirt with one hand, and tightly gripped his pistol in
the other.

Finally Bruno let go and DeLuca took a step back. Bruno
reached up towards DeLuca’s face, and DeLuca flinched as Bruno almost tenderly
pulled DeLuca’s surgical mask down around his chin. Bruno left a crimson stain
of Veri’s blood on the mask’s white fabric. Bruno stared at him. “Imagine what
I’ll do to you if I ever see you again,” Bruno whispered.

DeLuca simply stood there, repeating the words, “I’m sorry.”

Bruno turned away without another word and walked over to
the paramedics, who were lifting Veri’s body onto a stretcher. One of the
paramedics pulled a white sheet over Veri’s head as they stepped over the
remnants of the window and back onto the sidewalk. Bruno followed them. All he
could do was look at the blood congealing on his hands.

***

By the time Bruno returned to the station, hours later,
Cristian had already been on conference calls with their superiors. He was
still on a call in what used to be Veri’s office when Bruno walked in. While
Bruno waited for Cristian, he called his sister. She didn’t pick up her mobile
phone. But to his relief, she picked up her work phone.

“Hi, Bruno,” she said.

“Carla, Veri’s dead. The British PM is dead. I don’t know
what to . . .” his voice trailed off.

“I know about both. And I’m sorry about Veri. But, the
government’s got everything under control.”

“Under control? They don’t have a fucking thing under
control! If the head of the British government can die from this HAV, who’s
safe?”

“There are contingency plans, Bruno. Everything will be
okay. I have faith in the government’s response.”

“Faith? You have faith . . . in the government?” He wondered
who this person was on the other end of the phone. She’d never had any
confidence that their government could do anything right. “Are
you
all
right?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. You and Cristian take
care of yourselves. Don’t come to the hospital, Bruno . . . it’s . . . not safe
for nonmedical personnel.”

“Not safe? What the—”

“We know how to take proper precautions. You don’t.”

“But—”

“Listen, I have to go. I’ll contact you when I can. I love
you. Tell Cristian I love him too. Ciao.” The phone went silent.

Bruno spent the rest of the day at the station staring at
his desk. The one clear memory Bruno had of the remainder of that day was
hearing the screams of Veri’s wife, even though Cristian spoke to her over the
phone from Veri’s office.

After Cristian had finished dealing with higher-ups, other
officers, and God knew who else, it was early evening. Cristian walked out of
the office in the back, over to Bruno’s desk, pulled up a chair, and sat down.
Their masks dangled around their necks, a breach of the anti-infection
protocols, but neither of them cared.

“You know, he hated to use his office,” Cristian said.

Bruno nodded. “He always wanted to be out here with ‘the
lads,’ said he felt like an arrogant ass when he had to stay back there.” Bruno
rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “It was terrible to see him like
that.”

Cristian looked down. “I can’t imagine what it was like. I’m
so sorry I wasn’t there. I was still on my way from Naples—”

“How could you have known what was going to happen?”

They could spend all night talking about what happened,
about how much they would miss Veri, Bruno knew. He also knew that they needed
to press on.