Sleep Tight by Jeff Jacobson Read Free Book Online Page B

ignore the shrill bleating. One did not put God on hold while one answered a paltry phone call. Yet, this was the department phone. His staff was under strict orders only to call this phone under precise circumstances.
    He felt his concentration vacillate. He clenched his hands tighter, raising his voice from a whisper to almost a hoarse shout. Work could wait. Everything could wait. His time with the Lord was precious. Sacred. In fact, his devotion to his Lord was what made him so effective at his profession.
    Dr. Reischtal was the director of special operations for the special pathogens branch in the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. With the exception of Dr. Reischtal himself, no one was entirely sure what these special responsibilities entailed, only that he was the man to contact if certain parameters were exceeded when a suspicious death was reported.
    Dr. Reischtal knew. He understood the exacting nature of his responsibilities, and why striving to maintain a clear line of communication with his Lord was so vitally important.
    Unlike the traditional priests and the wishy-washy New Age pastors who spoke of the devil as if he were some sort of harmless metaphor, Dr. Reischtal knew Satan was real. The idiotic fire-and-brimstone born-again evangelists were closer to the truth, but they howled about the devil as if he strode through the cornfields on cloven feet, slinging fire at all true believers with his pitchfork and seducing everybody else down into the pits of hell.
    Dr. Reischtal knew better. He knew that Satan existed in the tiniest of organisms, patiently waiting for a chance to turn this paradise mankind had been given into a hellish wasteland. It was only fitting then, that the ancient one lurked in the primordial ooze.
    Hell was not a place separate from paradise, and the devil strived to turn paradise into hell. He knew this because he had seen the devil, pinned under glass, as he watched him carefully with own two eyes through a microscope.
    Pieces of Satan were kept frozen, locked away deep in the cavernous levels of the CDC. Dr. Reischtal had filed a memo that these samples be destroyed, but the suggestion was quietly rebuked. The samples were vital, in case further vaccines needed to be developed.
    He said nothing else. In his professional life, he was smart enough not to refer to Satan by name, or even suggest that they were all dealing with mankind’s oldest and deadliest foe. But he knew. He knew. And his job, his holy mission, was to maintain a vigil, watching and waiting for any signs of where Satan may be trying to force his way through a crack into this world.
    The phone continued to ring. There was no answering machine, no voice mail. It would continue to ring until he answered.
    Dr. Reischtal’s prayers faltered and stopped. He pushed himself to his feet, placating his discomfort at leaving the prayers unfinished with the promise that he would start over when he finished with the phone call.
    “Yes,” he said into the receiver. Only the knowledge that punishment would be severe for the voice on the other end of the line made him feel a little better. He listened for a moment, then said, “Chicago. I would have thought New York.” He exhaled. “No matter. Assemble the components. I want a plane ready within the hour. I will expect a car at my door in precisely thirty minutes.” He remembered his prayers. “No. Make that sixty. Please remind the liaison in Chicago that they are to follow the strictest isolation procedures. Any—I repeat, any—deviation from my written protocol will be dealt with in the harshest possible manner.” He replaced the receiver.
    God did not tell him whether they were false alarms or if true battles were about to begin when the calls came in. So he made sure he was ready. “I pledge my allegiance, oh Lord, in this endless war. In this life and the next,” he said, then went back down the hall, knelt under the round window that looked out to the stars,