13 Days to Die

by Matt Miksa

  “Not yet,” Jo responded. “I need to secure the Four Pests.”

  The term “Four Pests” was a euphemism for the nastiest of level four’s microbial inhabitants—Marburg, Ebola, Lassa, and Crimean-Congo fever—and an homage to Mao Zedong’s bizarre effort to rid China of all rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows. The chairman had thought he could control nature. One hour in a level four laboratory would’ve changed his mind.

  “You know the procedure. We must destroy the samples,” Jo said.

  “I’ll help.”

  “No. It will only take a minute. You should go.”

  The doctor hesitated, as if struggling with the ethics of leaving a colleague behind in a burning laboratory.

  The clock was ticking. Jo grew impatient. “Godammit! I said go. That’s an order.”

  Without another word, the young man raced down the corridor. He didn’t look back.

  Jo began to sweat. How many seconds had that boy-doctor wasted?

  She punched in the remaining digits of her code, her hand trembling. A light above the keypad flashed red. Nothing happened. The elevator doors remained sealed shut. Someone had locked her out. Someone in the Black Egg had known she was coming.

  * * *

  Through the steel elevator doors, Olen could hear faint electronic beeps. Someone was trying to open the incident chamber.

  Jo. She made it.

  Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. Nothing. The door didn’t budge.

  The shaft radiated. The incinerator was charging up. Beads of sweat rolled down the bridge of Olen’s nose, evaporating almost as soon as they dripped off the tip. His skin felt like it was peeling away. The first sparks from the incinerator would ignite the compressed oxygen inside the scuba tank. He’d never survive.

  Olen pounded on the elevator door. The time for stealth had passed. His pulse raced, and it became impossible to breathe. He gulped the hot air, but it seared his dry throat. His shouts were hoarse. They echoed in the hollow shaft like ashen voices bellowing from the depths of hell.

  He knew it was over.

  * * *

  Jo wanted to smash her fist into the keypad. She jabbed at the numbers, trying her code again and again. Each time, a red light flashed and buzzed. No entry.

  A series of dull thuds came from inside the chamber. Kip had made it to the top. Jo only had a few seconds to open the doors before white-hot flames engulfed him. She shouldn’t have let him come to the Black Egg. She could’ve retrieved the evidence alone. Why hadn’t he listened? If Kipton didn’t trust her, the CIA wouldn’t either. So he had to climb into an oven to save the world. And now, if she couldn’t open the doors, she’d be responsible for his death.

  Closing her eyes, Jo tried to focus. Her code had been deactivated. Fine. What else could she try?

  A string of numbers flashed in her mind, beaming neon orange. Of course! She entered them quickly, making sure not to mistype. She had one shot to get it right.

  The light above the keypad flashed green. The elevator doors slid open. A man in a black wetsuit stared back at her with two bloodshot eyes. His cracked lips formed a weak smile. Jo felt a powerful flush of relief. “Kipton! I was worried that you—”

  An invisible force hurled Kipton toward her, and Jo tumbled backward. The back of her helmet smacked the ceramic floor. Kipton collapsed on top of her. A fireball rushed out of the elevator doors. The lab’s negative pressure sucked in the flames like a vacuum, igniting the ceiling and walls.

  Jo shouted through her bubble helmet. “We must get to decontamination. Now!”

  She rolled Kipton off her body and helped him to his feet. He was weak, but he needed to move fast if they hoped to escape the roaring fire. The pair sprinted through the lab as smoldering ash rained down around them.

  * * *

  The water in the decontamination shower stabbed Olen’s flesh like poisoned needles. It felt scalding, but he knew it was lukewarm at most. He needed to cool his body down. Jo had helped him strip off the wetsuit and pulled him under the stream. The procedure would clean his skin, but it would do nothing to neutralize the pathogens that Olen might have inhaled inside level four. He had been exposed for less than a minute, but if even a single virus particle had entered his nostrils, it would eventually lodge itself in his lungs. It would burrow into the soft, pink tissue and replicate millions of deadly copies. Once the disease entered his bloodstream, he was as good as dead. What were the odds he’d been infected in such a blink of time? Olen shuddered at the thought.

  “Put these on. We’ve got to keep moving,” Jo ordered. She pushed a vintage Rolling Stones T-shirt and rust-colored corduroys into Olen’s dripping chest. The doctor had already changed into a pair of Listerine-green scrubs and a white lab coat. The muscles in her neck looked tense.

  “Where did you get this?” Olen asked, pulling the shirt over his torso. His shoulders stretched the fabric.

  “I grabbed it from one of the lockers. You’ll just have to make it fit.”

  “We’re in the men’s locker room?”

  “Yes, but this floor has already evacuated. We’re alone. That said, security teams will arrive any minute.”

  “We have to go back in … to find BRV45,” Olen argued.

  “You won’t find it in there. Level three is two floors up.”

  “Wait a minute. The virus that’s already wiped out thousands of people isn’t designated biosafety level four?”

  “That’s correct,” Jo said. “BRV45 is bad, but it’s no match for what’s in there.” Jo pointed to the air lock from which they’d just come.

  Olen felt a tickle in his throat. Probably just ash from the fire.

  Jo touched his arm. “If you start showing symptoms, any at all, you’ll never leave this building. You must accept that, Kip.”

  Olen nodded. He’d considered the risks. “Hey, I’m just glad you got that elevator door open. Took you long enough.”

  “My code had been deactivated.”

  “Someone was expecting us.”

  “Looks that way,” Jo agreed.

  “Then we’ve got to find the evidence we need and get the hell out of here.” Olen hopped on one foot, pulling on the corduroys. He slipped his switchblade into the back pocket. “If your code didn’t work, how did you open the doors?”

  “Ru …” Jo started. “If my ex-husband worked on Blood River virus here, at the Black Egg, he also would’ve had access to all safety protocols, including his own code to the incident chambers. I made a lucky guess.” The words seemed to get caught in Jo’s throat. “Ru’s code was a date. Our wedding anniversary.”

  CHAPTER

  59

  Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

  “OKAY, THERE SHE is.” The fresh-faced security technician tapped the monitor.

  “What am I looking at?” Marc asked, leaning in.

  “Dr. Zhou. She just used her badge to call an elevator on the second floor.”

  “The elevators are running? Why didn’t the fire alarm deactivate them?”

  “She’s a department head. Her badge can override the elevator’s automatic safety protocols.”

  “Well, deactivate her badge!” Marc barked. “Like you did with her code to the incident chambers.”

  “I can’t do that, sir. Security badges run on a separate system. Her clearance outranks mine. You have to enter a command code to supersede Dr. Zhou’s authority.” Fresh Face’s eyes wandered to the chief of security’s limp body, crumpled in a mountain of cellulite on the floor. The silent implication was clear. Only the chief could override Dr. Zhou’s badge and halt the elevator. Marc wouldn’t revive the man for that. He’d find another way.

  “At least tell me if she’s going up or down,” Marc ordered.

  “Up. The elevator is stopping on the fourth floor. I can pull up the cameras.”

  “No, you won’t be able to do that.”

  Fresh Face tapped a few keys. “You’re right,” he said, stunned. “It looks like all the cam
eras on the fourth floor have been switched off. That’s a complete breach of protocol. Someone really high up the chain would’ve had to give that order. Why would they do that? And how did you know—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Marc blurted. He knew why the cameras had been deactivated. He’d given the order six months ago, under the authority of General Huang’s office. He didn’t want anyone snooping around on the fourth floor. If Dr. Zhou and Grave were headed there now, Marc was already too late.

  Another message flashed on the screen.

  “She just entered the fourth-floor viewing room,” Fresh Face reported.

  “What’s a viewing room?”

  “It’s where we keep the electron microscopes and data servers.”

  Marc was puzzled. “She didn’t enter the level three air lock?”

  “No, sir.” The technician plinked a few keys. “Definitely not. The air lock is still sealed.”

  Electron microscopes? It made no sense. Marc turned and shouted to the room. “Someone get me a map of the fourth floor.”

  “Sir, you won’t be able to access the viewing room. That’s classified as a top-secret data storage facility. It requires a retinal scan,” Fresh Face explained.

  Marc Chen looked at the mole-speckled walrus on the floor.

  * * *

  “What are we looking for?” Olen asked. “We need proof BRV45 was a PLA bioweapon, but we can’t exactly walk out of here with a test tube of the stuff.”

  “We don’t need to find the actual virus,” Jo said. “BRV45 was manmade, but it’s not completely artificial. The DNA of other viruses—natural viruses—was split apart, resequenced, and recombined to create BRV45. Designing a pathogen is extremely complicated. Most synthetic viruses degrade after the first few transmissions. The pieces of DNA become unglued, and they reduce to a harmless jumble of proteins. Creating a virus deadly enough to spark a pandemic would have taken months, if not years, to establish a stable genetic structure. If Ru engineered BRV45 in this building, there would be a mountain of data documenting his experiments.”

  “So, we won’t need to extract live virus?” Olen asked, relieved.

  “Nope.” Jo held up a hot-pink memory drive the size of a quarter. “Just data.”

  * * *

  Marc Chen’s pistol bounced against his hip as he ran. The fourth-floor viewing room was at the end of the hall. The door would be locked, but Chen had stolen the security chief’s badge. As for the retinal scan …

  Marc gently squeezed a slippery orb in his fist. It oozed between his fingers. He’d make a point to smash the thing under his heel afterward.

  * * *

  Jo located Ru’s research file on the main server. Olen watched the progress bar inch across the screen as BRV45’s secrets spilled into her memory drive. Eleven percent to go.

  The viewing room door buzzed, and the latch clicked.

  “Time’s up, Doc,” Olen said.

  “Almost there.” Six percent to go.

  The door flew open. A man in a military uniform burst through, arm outstretched, brandishing a pistol. He said nothing and moved swiftly across the room.

  The man shot Jo first, and she collapsed instantly. He then aimed at Olen, and the men locked eyes. Fiery anger flared inside Olen’s chest at the sight of Marc Chen, his missing colleague. He pivoted on his back foot, preparing to charge, but Marc dropped him with a direct shot to Olen’s neck.

  * * *

  The fresh-faced security guard rushed into the viewing room, panting, his baby-soft skin flushed from exertion. He saw the bodies on the floor. “You killed them.” The guard doubled over at the waist, hands pressed into his gangly thighs.

  “Compose yourself, comrade,” Marc ordered. “They’re not dead.” He wedged the tip of his boot under Olen’s rib cage and flipped over the man’s flaccid body. Olen’s abdomen expanded with each weak breath. A trickle of blood seeped from his neck, where the dart had struck flesh.

  “Should I have them transferred to confinement?” Fresh Face asked.

  “The doctor, yes.”

  “What about the man?”

  “General Huang wants to meet with him. He lands in an hour. Deliver him to Jiangwan Airfield, but keep him sedated,” Marc warned. “Heavily sedated.”

  “Who is he?” Fresh Faced asked.

  “Is it not obvious, comrade?” Marc turned to leave. “He’s a journalist.”

  CHAPTER

  60

  New York, New York, USA

  THE ELEVATOR NUMBERS lit up one by one, ticking off as the car inched higher. For President James Barlow, the doors couldn’t open fast enough. He’d spent the evening grinning and backslapping with puffed-up campaign donors, and it made his stomach churn more than a North Korean disarmament negotiation. Unfortunately, begging America’s corporate class for money was all part of the Washington game.

  The elevator stopped, and a Secret Service agent with thick eyebrows escorted Barlow to his suite—a palatial residence encompassing the entire penthouse floor of New York’s Waldorf Astoria. The president had no intention of staying overnight, but the lavish space easily converted to a command post during his short trip. Stepping inside, he heard a familiar voice coming from the living room.

  “Is that Jim Barlow or George Clooney?” The jab might have been viewed as disrespectful coming from anyone else, but Secretary Darlene Hart’s soft drawl somehow made the remark acceptable, even charming. If only Barlow felt as smooth as Clooney in the tuxedo strangling his body. He promptly ripped the silk bow tie from his starched collar and shrugged off his jacket, eliciting a disapproving groan from the secretary.

  “East Asia’s on the brink of collapse, and I’m sucking stuffed olives off tiny toothpicks,” Barlow said.

  “The midterms are in two weeks, Jim. You’d consider sucking more than olives if it’d help us pick up four congressional seats in the battlegrounds.”

  The president cracked a smile. “Did you just suggest the president of the United States perform fellatio to pad the DNC’s coffers?”

  Hart raised both palms in mock defense. “I’m just saying we’re working with a thin margin in Virginia’s sixth. Pucker up, pretty boy.”

  Barlow grabbed a bottle of Evian, wishing it were a bottle of Scotch. “Where are Nate and Bruce?”

  “In the bedroom. It’s not what you think. They’re on the horn with—”

  Before the secretary could finish, the suite’s bedroom door flew open and the two men lunged into the living room.

  “Jesus Christ, Nate!” Bruce exclaimed, his face flushed. “Tang has been stirring up the separatists on the mainland for months now, poking China in the eyeball. If Beijing wants to smack him down, it’s not our problem. We’re really going to get drawn into a war over a little island?” The director of national intelligence rolled up his sleeves to cool off.

  “We’re talking about military invasion by a hostile foreign power,” Sullivan countered. “If we let China take Taiwan, it won’t stop there. They will pursue a path of aggressive territorial expansion, especially if unchecked by the United States. President Li was rational—he wouldn’t have taken such a risk—but he’s gone now. No one could have predicted the goddamn PLA would take over Zhongnanhai.”

  “But that’s exactly what Langley has been telling us for years! We knew about the fracturing of the Politburo Standing Committee, the rival factions within the Party. The China desk has had a file on Huang since … since …” Bruce gestured at Barlow. “Since Jim was chasing CIA tail at the Farm.”

  “General Huang is preparing to use nuclear weapons, Bruce. Activity around the Ngari launch site is heating up. Huang will obliterate every living soul in Taipei. To let it happen would be criminal.”

  Bruce shook his head and turned to the secretary of state. “You believe this horseshit, Darlene?”

  “Here’s what I know,” Hart started. “East Asia’s at a tipping point. An egomaniacal madman now runs Beijing, and an irrational nutjob runs Taipei. These
men are on a collision course, and it’s not a fair fight. Nukes, missiles, land invasion, drones—any way you crack it, Taiwan loses. Big-time. America has always been the stabilizing force in Asia. Now is no different. We’re needed more than ever to diffuse the situation.”

  “A preemptive strike on a Chinese air base isn’t very diffusive,” President Barlow challenged.

  “How long do we wait, Jim?” Sullivan asked. “Until red flags are flying over Tokyo and Seoul too?”

  Barlow pressed both fists into his forehead. It felt like someone was squeezing his gray matter like a sponge. He flumped into a chair.

  “Get him a pill. Nate, where is the president’s medication?” Hart asked.

  “My jacket pocket,” Barlow said, his voice strained.

  Hart fumbled with the president’s tuxedo jacket, which he’d flung over the back of a chair. “I’m not finding anything in here.”

  “I know I have a few left. Look again.”

  Hart pulled an empty Ziploc baggie from the breast pocket. “It’s empty, Jim. Maybe there are more in—”

  “Forget it,” Barlow snapped. “It’s fading. It’s nothing. Probably too much champagne.”

  The room fell silent, wide eyes fixated on Barlow.

  “I said it’s nothing, godammit!” the president shouted. He sat up and fought through the pain, like he always did. Now wasn’t the time to show weakness. “Nate, where does Russia stand?”

  “Firmly with Beijing,” Sullivan answered.

  “Words I never wanted to live to hear,” Barlow mused. “NATO allies?”

  “It’s wait-and-see. No surprise there,” Hart said.

  “There’s no going back from this,” the president warned. “If we do this—if we challenge Huang with a preemptive strike—we’ve got to be one hundred percent committed.”

  Barlow steadied his gaze on Hart. His old friend’s eyes were hopeful, prescient. “You’ll make the right call, Jim,” she said. “You always do.”