I told you, this a true story. Mr. Park Ranger’s eight-year-old son dusted him trying to crawl through the cat-door.”

Nic laughed so hard it bounced her long, tight braids. “No punch line, my ass.” 

Winter looked at her with mock seriousness. “Would I make up something like that?”

They’d gotten their coffee and were parked on the street when the dispatcher’s voice crackled over the digital receiver. A waving Abominable Snowman figurine was mounted on the dash beside it. 

It was garbled (department equipment was gradually going to seed, Winter had noticed) and Nic fooled around with the tuner. She picked up the mic. “10-1, receiving poorly.”

Winter sipped his drink, waiting for the caffeine to lift him from his afternoon doldrums. “I’ll receive a lot better after my mocha.”

The static-distorted voice patiently repeated its message. Winter thought he could hear “10-92.” He knew that code.

Nic must have found a better frequency because Dispatch’s suddenly clear voice confirmed Winter’s suspicions.

“All units, all units, 10-92 in progress in the U-District. 10-92 in progress, U-District.”

Winter groaned. “Not another riot.” He lolled back on his head-rest, closing his eyes.

Prompted by headquarters, the heads-up display offered turn-by-turn directions. They didn’t need it. 

The Interceptor reversed, light bar flaring green and yellow. The siren spit a few notes and a Jeep dawdling in their lane moved aside to let them U-turn. The sleek Mustang leapt forward as if jet-propelled, streaking northward.

Winter checked the load on his department-issue Heckler & Koch submachine gun. Light and short-barreled, the semi-automatic made a fine weapon for virus control because most encounters were at short range. You needed stopping power to keep a relentlessly advancing feeder at bay until you could hit him in the head.

Securing the magazine, Winter realized he had no idea how many feeders he’d taken down with this very H&K. More than a few. He’d been a Seattle beat cop for almost a year when the bug hit. After a few chaotic weeks he signed up with the Department of Virus Control, on the very day it was inaugurated. He was green, then. Now, in Year Three A.V. (“After Virus”) he was starting to forget what being a cop used to be like.

Virus Control didn’t do domestic disturbance calls, bust corner crack peddlers or issue speeding tickets. Winter likened his gig to a military police posting in an occupied country — every neighborhood was unsecured, every civilian was a potential threat and every patrol could be your last. His cousin Hideo did two tours in Afghanistan and had confirmed that analogy.

“Awful quiet over there,” Nic commented, looking over with that hint of playfulness she reserved for him. Or so he liked to think.

“Just getting my game face on.”

“Your face always looks like that.”

“You calling me an inscrutable Asian?”

“I’m calling you a better poker player than a cop.”

Winter smiled. “That why you refuse to join our game, or are you afraid we’ll play strip?”

“I got nothing to be afraid of,” Nic bantered back with a look he found so incalculably sexy he wondered how long this partnership could last. It was killing him and keeping him going at the same time.


#


Evan Pollard parked the truck beside the burnt-out façade of a Korean grocery, long-closed, and the news crew cautiously disembarked with their equipment. Jeanne, Evan and the two sound guys. 

“Still hot for hard news?” Evan quipped, making Jeanne scowl as she smoothed out the wrinkles in her “on-air” blazer. “It’s all hard news now,” Jeanne snapped.