13 Days to Die

by Matt Miksa

  Jo didn’t wait for a rebuttal. She turned and headed toward the cargo truck.

  “What about you?” Olen called after her. Her grit continued to impress him. “You’re not going to walk there, are you? In the dark? Alone?”

  “I don’t expect to be mugged, if that’s what you’re concerned about.” She jabbed a finger toward the faint glimmer on the horizon. “The answers I need are in there. We don’t even know the primary vectors of transmission. The virus could be spread by bats, rodents, maybe even insects. If I don’t figure this out soon, it won’t matter how many fences the army puts up. This entire region will be overrun by the disease.” Jo pounded twice on the back of the cargo truck to signal its driver to unlock the hatch.

  “In that case, I’m sticking with you. If we’re all facing infection anyway, I might as well have China’s best virus hunter by my side to protect me,” Olen said.

  Jo smiled for the first time that evening. She twisted her ponytail into a tight bun, baring the slender nape of her neck.

  “Fine. Then load up. We’ll need to take as much gear as we can carry on our backs.” Jo lowered the truck’s heavy rear hatch, revealing stacks of neatly arranged wooden crates. She began heaving the crates out of the bay. “Most of the light machinery was loaded first, so it’s all near the front of the truck bed. The centrifuges will be too heavy to bring with us, but they’re only backups. The provisional lab should have a few that are still operational.” She crouched and ripped into one of the smaller crates. “There’s extra agar, glassware, and syringes in this one. I’ll need those to collect and preserve my samples. The box by your left foot has some antiviral medication and sedatives for treating the sick. Here, give me a hand with this one.”

  Olen rushed to Jo’s side to help her pry off the wooden planks stapled across the top of the crate. The soldiers paced restlessly. They wouldn’t stick around for much longer. Jo sorted through the carefully packaged crate and expertly triaged the most crucial items. When her rucksack bulged to capacity, she reached for Olen’s without bothering to ask for it first. His bag had ample room now that he’d surrendered his camera and laptop to the goons at the airport.

  Jo surveyed her work. Shards of splintered wood and foam core packing material lay strewn across the road. The two swelling rucksacks balanced against each other on the ground. “It’s the best we can do.” She wiped her dusty hands on her pants and brushed aside a rogue strand of hair. Her eyes shone with tenacity. She looked like a woman heading into battle, ready for hand-to-hand combat if necessary. “Let’s get moving,” Jo ordered.

  * * *

  Inky darkness dripped from the branches overhead, coating the primitive roadway. The PLA vehicles were long gone. The village flickered in the distance. The occasional flash of lightning revealed the narrow, unpaved path ahead. Walking single file, with Jo in the lead, they trod cautiously to avoid muddy sinkholes.

  Leaves rattled around them. The breeze grew colder. On cue, the sky cracked open and the deluge began. Jo wiped rainwater from her face. The steepening uphill slope and the weight of her pack eroded what little energy she had left, but she refused to let it show. Especially since the American journalist seemed unfazed, totally in his element. His soaked flannel shirt clung to his body, revealing the bulges of his arms and shoulders. The man was built like a tank, industrial grade. Good, she thought. That meant he wouldn’t slow her down. And she could make him carry heavy things.

  Sheets of water flung in all directions. The blurry lights of Dzongsar still looked so far away.

  CHAPTER

  13

  Beijing, People’s Republic of China

  “COME IN,” GENERAL Huang barked at the staccato rapping. It was late, but Lieutenant Wang knew that Huang was restless. The general often said insomnia was the cruelest side effect of an active mind. The man’s usual soporific—Dostoyevsky paired with a full-bodied Tempranillo—must’ve had no effect.

  Lieutenant Wang twisted the knob and tentatively opened the door. A summons to the general’s personal residence after midnight was not unprecedented but rare enough to raise alarm. He hoped it wasn’t about the American reporter. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had yet to provide the man’s full dossier. Cooperation between the MFA and PLA had degraded over the past few months, turning even simple requests into painstaking exercises in intragovernmental diplomacy. Wang had promised a friend at the ministry’s home office a ride on a military transport to Hainan Island in exchange for the reporter’s visa paperwork and photo. The docs should’ve arrived in Wang’s in-box an hour ago, but they still hadn’t come through.

  When awoken by the familiar chime of the general’s text message, Wang had scrambled into his impeccably pressed uniform, which bore a collection of variegated service ribbons. A brass pin decorated his right lapel—a flaming torch in the center of a crimson sunburst. The badge had been worn by revolutionary Red Guards in the 1960s and was a gift from Wang’s late grandfather. The lieutenant affixed the vintage symbol to his jacket every day to remind himself of the importance of upholding one’s convictions, especially in turbulent times.

  General Huang was dressed considerably more casual. He wore a yellow linen bathrobe, loosely secured at the waist. An overstuffed wing-back chair swallowed his languid form.

  “Sir, I came as soon as I could. Has something happened?” Wang asked with concern.

  The general snorted. Deep plum laced his lazy grin. “Why Tibet?” He tilted his head back in deep reflection, and Wang sighed. It was too damn late for pontification, but alas, he was in no position to protest.

  “You’re referring to the outbreak. Why Tibet and not the coast?” Wang played along.

  Huang refilled his wineglass. “When I was a boy,” he began, “a Tibetan woman from Nyêmo—a nun, in fact—claimed she could summon Buddhist gods into her body at will. It sounded like nonsense to a rational person, but not to those living in the mystical land of Tibet. Supernatural mediums, voluntary possession—these things were not considered peculiar to those people. In short order, the villagers began to revere this woman for her alleged holy correspondence. They believed she had become a goddess.” Huang tilted the bottle of Tempranillo toward Wang, who shook his head in polite refusal.

  “But this goddess wasn’t virtuous. She fed on the absurd credulity that only her specious religion could engender. Her little parlor trick made her respected, powerful. And the nun exercised this potent influence to assert a dark control over the impressionable community.”

  “Dark control?” Wang asked.

  “It wasn’t long before the murders began. Her army of warrior heroes, as they called themselves, savagely mutilated thirty-four people, mostly Party officials posted to Nyêmo. Did you know that, Xiao Wang?”

  Wang had not.

  Huang continued. “She didn’t just have them killed. No. She instructed her followers to sever the victims’ hands and feet. No one really knows why she did it—why she became consumed with such inhumane rage. The nun later explained that the Dalai Lama had visited her in the form of a bird and ordered her to carry out the violent attacks. Any reasonable medical professional would have diagnosed her as insane, locked her away. But no, not the Tibetans. To them, she was a god.”

  Huang paused. He swirled his glass. Finally, Wang broke the silence.

  “So, why Tibet?” Wang tried not to sound impatient.

  “You see, Xiao Wang, the Tibetans claim their religion is under siege. They assume we awaken every morning dreaming of new ways to suppress their way of life. Cultural genocide, they call it. How could this accusation be any further from the truth? Buddhism is one of the five officially recognized religions in China. Perhaps it’s their own lack of conviction that threatens their culture.”

  “What do you mean?” Wang asked.

  “Our traditions possess a certain … fortitude. A virility. Wouldn’t you say?”

  “Are you implying that Tibetan culture is too weak?”

  “Precisely, Xiao W
ang. Perhaps their cultural inadequacy makes them susceptible to more dominant influences. The Tibetan resistance blames the Chinese government for restricting their religious freedoms, but history reveals just how eagerly the Tibetan people have turned against their own faith willingly. During the Cultural Revolution, Tibetans destroyed hundreds of their own Buddhist monasteries. They simply replaced one sacred symbol with another—the Great Helmsman, Chairman Mao.

  “We see the same thing happening now. This time it’s the Dalai Lama. The man is a fraud. A cult leader. He’s obsessed with the separation of Tibet from China at any cost. Even if it means self-destruction. And the Tibetan people lionize this false deity just as they did that murderous nun from Nyêmo. Time and again, Tibet has proven itself to be nothing but a vessel for the powerful to fill with their own agenda. Tibet is not complicated. It’s a tool. If used correctly, it can be quite valuable.”

  “I see. So, given the state of affairs, how do you plan to capitalize on Tibet’s … infirmity?” Wang asked with genuine interest.

  The general’s eyes pinched into a squint. He took another sip of wine, letting Wang’s question ferment for a moment.

  “Hmm,” Huang finally vocalized. “I want you to release the identity of patient zero.”

  Lieutenant Wang was certain he’d misheard the general.

  “The Taiwanese intelligence officer, Chang Yingjie,” Huang continued. “I want you to leak his name and affiliation to the media. Not just Xinhua; those sycophants are in President Li’s back pocket. The Post and the Times.”

  “You want me to tell the American press that Chang was a Taiwanese spy?”

  “Leak it carefully. Make it nonattributable. Anonymous source. It mustn’t be traced back to this office,” Huang said.

  “Of course. But sir, this will lead to major instability. Ever since the Taiwanese election, our relationship with Taipei has been tenuous, to put it mildly. Maybe we should—”

  “Xiao Wang.” Huang cut him off. The general’s eyes flared intensely. “There is no we. Is that understood?”

  The lieutenant swallowed his rebuttal and nodded obsequiously. “Yes, sir.”

  “Taiwan is getting away with the most brazen act of bioterrorism in history. Unchallenged!” Huang sat up and leaned toward his aide. His voice rumbled. “We will not be victims,” he declared. “Not anymore.”

  “Yes, sir.” Wang stiffened to attention and waited to be dismissed.

  Huang’s tense expression faded, and he sank back into the chair. “This wine is piss,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m never going to be able to rest.”

  Huang looked up at Lieutenant Wang, whose posture remained rigid. The general impulsively reached for the fabric of Wang’s pant leg, just above the young officer’s knee. Wang didn’t react, not even as the general’s hand moved slowly up his thigh.

  “You know, Chairman Mao was an insomniac too,” Huang said. “He swallowed sleeping pills by the fistful. I understand why he did it, but drugs aren’t for me. They cloud the mind.”

  The lieutenant could feel his boss’s knuckles brushing against his testicles through the thin wool of his trousers.

  “You’ll help me get to sleep, Xiao Wang,” the general rasped, opening his robe.

  Lieutenant Wang held his breath, dropped to his knees, and obediently lowered his head into the older man’s lap.

  CHAPTER

  14

  Dzongsar Village, Tibetan Autonomous Region, People’s Republic of China

  OLEN AND JO trudged through sticky mud and soaking rain for more than two hours. When the torrent finally let up, Olen could see the uniformed figures of three PLA soldiers guarding the entrance to the Q-Zone. Their spindly arms and legs swam inside pine-green camouflage. They looked like children playing schoolyard war games.

  When the sentries spotted two drenched drifters staggering toward their post, their military training kicked in and they assumed defensive postures. Olen was well acquainted with the business end of a firearm. Nevertheless, staring into the barrels of QBZ-95 automatic assault rifles clutched by anxious teenagers would make any man nervous. One of the soldiers shouted in Mandarin and then blew a whistle. The high-pitched squeal further agitated the other riflemen, their hearts pulsating in their bird chests.

  “He says to stop walking and kneel on the ground,” Jo translated, her voice strained.

  “So much for a warm welcome. Guess we look worse than I thought,” Olen quipped, kneeling beside the doctor. Jo shielded her eyes from the blinding spotlight bathing the roadway.

  The soldier with the whistle barked another command, and Jo raised her hands behind her head. Olen did the same. Even if he couldn’t understand the guard, Olen recognized the man’s skittish tone. It was the taut desperation of a sleep-deprived combatant. Except this was no war zone. Why were they so high-strung, itching for a reason to shoot?

  The riflemen advanced in a crouch-jog. They trained their muzzles on the interlopers. Six black boots splashed through pools of rainwater. The whistle blower shouted again, his voice cracking a little. Olen watched Jo in his peripheral vision. Her gaze looked focused and clear-eyed. She spoke in Mandarin with measured calm. Her reply seemed to confuse one of the sentries, who thrust his weapon in Olen’s direction.

  Jo continued, but the guard cut her off. His eyes flared and he shouted threateningly, this time in English. “No reporters! Absolutely no reporters in the Quarantine Zone!”

  The man-boy moved in, tightening his grip on the QBZ-95. He pressed the muzzle into Jo’s cheek. Whatever she’d said, the guards didn’t believe her. Why would they? She’d walked up to the gates of the country’s most restricted territory, in the middle of the night, with a foreigner. Understandably, it had raised a few red flags.

  The young men continued shouting. “Absolutely no foreigners! Stop lying! You are not authorized to be here! Stay down!”

  Olen scanned each of the three soldiers. They weren’t thinking clearly, and that meant they’d get sloppy. The man hovering above Olen held his weapon too low, which weakened his control. A swift jab to the rib cage and the man would reactively angle his rifle to the side. A reflexive shot would miss Olen completely; disarming the soldier would be a breeze. The sentry guarding Jo leaned too far forward in a narrow stance, resting his weight on his front leg and destabilizing his balance. Olen could tackle him, roll underneath the guard’s featherweight body, and use him as a human shield. From that position, he could use the first guard’s weapon to take out the whistle blower. Bam, bam, bam. Piece of cake. But overtaking the three soldiers would wreck Olen’s mission. Journalists didn’t go full Rambo on armed Chinese soldiers. His cover would blow sky-high and VECTOR would lose its only opportunity to penetrate the Q-Zone. If Jo couldn’t talk them down, though, he’d have no choice.

  As Jo opened her mouth to speak, another female voice echoed from behind the barricades. “Dr. Zhou! Thank God you’re finally here.” A chubby Asian woman in dingy khaki cutoffs and a man’s blue dress shirt ran to the waist-high barrier. The woman wore a baseball cap with the Baltimore Orioles logo stitched on the front. She appeared more American than Chinese but spoke English with a heavy accent. “There’s been an accident at the lab,” she said. “We’ve got to get back, pronto.”

  The guards looked puzzled. Their postures relaxed. The whistle blower turned his attention to the woman behind the gate. She seemed to be in charge.

  “That’s Dr. Zhou Weilin,” the woman said. “She heads up this entire investigation. Geez, Jianheng. Let her through these gates.”

  The soldiers lowered their weapons, but Olen and Jo froze and waited for the whistle blower’s response. “What about the man?” he asked.

  “He’s with me, Amy. He has permission to enter,” Jo explained, sounding relieved at the well-timed appearance of her colleague.

  “But he’s American,” the guard protested.

  “Aw, heck, Jianheng. So am I,” Amy said, coming out from behind the gate and approaching the group. “
Well, half American, anyway.” Amy bent over to catch her breath, a hand clasped on the guard’s shoulder for balance. “Relax, Jianheng. If Dr. Zhou says the big boy is good, he’s good.” Amy waved Jo over. “Come on. The lab is only ten minutes in the Jeep.”

  The whistle blower grunted in agreement and motioned for his riflemen to open the gate. The soldiers looked even more juvenile without their weapons drawn.

  “You said there’d been an accident. What happened, Amy?” Jo asked with concern as she and Olen crossed into the quarantined region.

  “It’s Dr. Sun,” Amy replied, as she helped Jo and Olen load their gear into the black Jeep. “He’s … he’s infected. I think we’re gonna lose him.”

  “Ru’s here?” Jo wrinkled her nose in disbelief.

  “Whose Dr. Sun?” Olen asked. He noticed Jo’s hands tremble a bit before she shoved them into her jacket pockets.

  “He’s my husband,” Jo replied.

  CHAPTER

  15

  Beijing, People’s Republic of China

  WANG DIDN’T BOTHER to flip on the lights. A few stray beams of moonlight bounced around the expansive work space, searching for an escape from the maze of cubicles. The workday had ended more than eight hours ago, but Wang was too agitated to relax. After leaving General Huang’s chambers, he’d marched across the National Defense University campus to Building 31, the Office of the Superintendent. The general’s office. Huang had assumed the position as head of the military academy shortly after ascending to the PLA chairmanship. All good leaders invested in developing the virile young men who would one day carry the torch of victory, Huang had argued. Wang wondered how many of those virile young men had visited the general’s private quarters after hours. How many had sipped the Tempranillo and knelt, cherry lipped, before their emperor?