The Hot Zone by Richard Preston Read Free Book Online

HOURS
    Thurmont, Maryland, nearly four years after the death of Charles Monet. Evening. A typical American town. On Catoctin Mountain, a ridge of the Appalachians that runs north to south through the western part of the state, the trees were brightening into soft yellows and golds. Teenagers drove their pickup trucks slowly along the streets of the town, looking for something to happen, wishing that the summer had not ended. Faint smells of autumn touched the air, the scent of ripening apples, a sourness of dead leaves, cornstalks drying in the fields. In the apple groves at the edge of town, flocks of grackles settled into the branches for the night, squawking. Headlights streamed north on the Gettysburg road.
    In the kitchen of a Victorian house near the center of town, Major Nancy Jaax, a veterinarian in the United States Army, stood at a counter making dinner for her children. She slid a plate into the microwave oven and pushed a button. Time to nuke up some chicken for the kids. NancyJaax wore sweatpants and a T-shirt, and she was barefoot. Her feet had calluses on them, the result of martial-arts training. She had wavy auburn hair, which was cut above the shoulders, and greenish eyes. Her eyes were actually two colors, green with an inner rim around the iris that was amber. She was a former homecoming queen from Kansas—Miss Agriculture, Kansas State. She had a slender, athletic build, and she displayed quick motions, flickery gestures, with her arms and hands. Her children were restless and tired, and she worked as fast as she could to fix the dinner.
    Jaime, who was five, hung on Nancy’s leg. She grabbed the leg of Nancy’s sweatpants and pulled, and Nancy lurched sideways, and then Jaime pulled the other way, and Nancy lurched to the other side. Jaime was short for her age and had greenish eyes, like her mother. Nancy’s son, Jason, who was seven, was watching television in the living room. He was rail thin and quiet, and when he grew up he would probably be tall, like his father.
    Nancy’s husband, Major Gerald Jaax, whom everyone called Jerry, was also a veterinarian. He was in Texas at a training class, and Nancy was alone with the children. Jerry had telephoned to say that it was hot as hell in Texas, and he missed her badly and wished he was home. She missed him, too. They had not been apart for more than a few days at a time ever since they had first started dating, in college.
    Nancy and Jerry Jaax—the name is pronounced JACKS —were both members of the Army Veterinary Corps, a tiny corps of “doggy doctors.” They take care of the Army’s guard dogs, as well as Army horses, Army cows, Army sheep, Army pigs, Army mules, Army rabbits, Army mice, and Army monkeys. They also inspect the Army’s food.
    Nancy and Jerry had bought the Victorian house not long after they had been assigned to Fort Detrick, which was nearby, within easy commuting distance. The kitchen was very small, and at the moment you could see plumbing and wires hanging out of the walls. Not far from the kitchen, the living room had a bay window with a collection of tropical plants and ferns in it, and there was a cage among the plants that held an Amazon parrot named Herky. The parrot burst into a song:
    Heigh-ho, heigh-ho
,
    it’s home from work we go!
    “Mom! Mom!” he cried excitedly. His voice sounded like Jason’s.
    “What?” Nancy said. Then she realized it was the parrot. “Nerd brain,” she muttered.
    The parrot wanted to sit on Nancy’s shoulder. “Mom! Mom! Jerry! Jaime! Jason!” the parrot shouted, calling everyone in the family. When he didn’t get any response, he whistled the “Colonel Bogey March” from
The Bridge on the River Kwai
. And then: “Whaat? Whaat? Mom! Mom!”
    Nancy did not want to take Herky out of his cage. She worked quickly, putting plates and silverware out on the counter. Some of the officers at Fort Detrick had noticed a certain abrupt quality in her hand motions and had accused her of