Virus Hunters 2: A Medical Thriller

by Bobby Akart

  The male subordinate had recovered from his stinging rebuke. “Sir, we have made great strides in stifling the citizen journalists. Several dozen dissidents feeding information to Terminus 2049 have been apprehended and charged with many offenses, including treason.”

  Terminus 2049 was an internationally crowd-sourced project that archived materials published on Chinese media outlets and social media platforms before they have been removed by censors. Terminus 2049 was hosted on GitHub, the world’s largest open-source code-sharing and publishing site.

  Chinese citizens preserved the dissident posts from social media sites within China and immediately uploaded the information to GitHub, one of the few websites not blocked by China’s Great Firewall, as its closed internet system was called. The Communist government had attempted to block GitHub in 2013, and the site suffered a barrage of cyber attacks in 2015 that were later traced back to the Chinese state telecommunications company, China Unicom. After a worldwide outcry for transparency, access to GitHub was resumed.

  “Where were these criminals located?” asked their gravelly-voiced leader.

  “Beijing and Xinjiang,” the subordinate replied. “Some of the publishers are professors at two universities here.”

  “Any papers that published this information must be severely managed,” the superior snarled. By managed, he meant punished. “I will have the Ministry of Education issue a directive that prohibits these entries and requires additional layers of approval for even unrelated posts. The State Council will be asked to form a task force to ensure compliance.”

  “Sir,” the female subordinate began, “should we consider a lockdown of Lhasa, where the most cases are being reported?”

  “It draws too much attention. I will request an increased military presence there. I will also request a much larger contingent of the People’s Armed Police to be deployed to Urumqi. We will flush the dissident vermin out of every hiding place!”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  CDC Headquarters

  Atlanta, Georgia

  After a brief meeting with Dr. Reitherman, reality began to set in for Harper. The way had been paved for her to travel to China, assume the identity of Dr. Blasingame, and begin the hunt for patient zero. It would be the greatest challenge she’d ever faced other than coping with the death of her father. This was different. It would be something that would’ve made her dad proud, if he could’ve been alive to witness it.

  She’d spoken to Joe’s chief of staff, who made the arrangements for her air transportation via military jet to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, near the Potomac River. From there, she’d be driven twenty miles to DARPA in Arlington, located halfway between Alexandria and McLean, home of CIA headquarters.

  The best news of all was that Joe would be meeting her at DARPA to introduce her to the person who’d be accompanying her to China. Spangler was unable to answer any of Harper’s questions about the man other than to say she should trust her husband’s judgment on this.

  Dr. Reitherman gave Harper some words of advice and then a little background on his days at DARPA. He was certain that anyone Joe picked from the agency would be capable of assisting Harper in her investigation. Most likely, he’d added, the man would have other useful attributes.

  Harper didn’t question Dr. Reitherman on what said attributes might entail. His cryptic statement coupled with Spangler’s reminder to have trust in Joe’s guy was too much to think about for the moment. She needed to prepare Becker to take over her duties while she was gone.

  She’d been tied up preparing for her trip to China. Harper had an opportunity to speak with Dr. Blasingame, who had no knowledge of the operation. They couldn’t take the risk that the Chinese intelligence apparatus was listening in. Harper kept the conversation casual as if it were part of a follow-up report on the CDC trio’s expulsion. Mainly, she wanted to know how much of their investigative kits they had been able to remove from the facility. She was pleasantly surprised.

  In the final hours of the day before she was to catch a ride to Dobbins Air Force Base, she was able to give Becker her undivided attention.

  Several more cases were being reported to the WHO. In addition to Austria, patients with similar symptoms were being reported in France, Germany, and the UK. As was customary, the two disease-fighting organizations exchanged data and information so the brightest minds on the planet could get a handle on this novel virus.

  “We’ve had another situation in Las Vegas,” began Becker. “Quite interesting, to use your friend Woolie’s words.”

  “Dr. Boychuck brought this to us?” asked Harper.

  “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes,” replied Becker in an attempt to mock the pathologist’s peculiar idiosyncrasy.

  “Just three,” corrected Harper. “You know. Like the jelly beans.”

  Becker, who was a whiz at numbers, seemed genuinely confused by what Harper said. “Ya lost me.”

  “Just three times. Dr. Boychuck never says yes once or twice, or even four times. It’s always three times.”

  “Oookay. And what about the jelly beans?” asked Becker as she picked through her Bradley University coffee mug to pluck three pink jelly beans. Then it struck her. “Three. Really? Do I take three every time?”

  “At least when I’ve watched you,” Harper responded. “It’s just a thing.”

  Becker furrowed her brow and then slowly popped the sugary treats into her mouth, one at a time, as if she were counting them. She chuckled. “Maybe I should’ve been a bean counter?”

  “Huh-huh-huh,” Harper jokingly replied three times. “So what’s the story?”

  Becker finished chewing up her jelly beans and organized her notes. “So, you remember the elderly couple, right? The lady had come in contact with our index patient, Mr. Yao.”

  “Yes. Yes. Yes.” Harper’s face broke out in a grin.

  Becker scowled. “Shut up! See? It’s contagious!”

  Harper was gonna miss her sidekick. Naturally, Harper would’ve preferred Becker to come along, but she’d be in constant fear that her assistant might punch a Chinese soldier in the nose for some reason or another.

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist.”

  Becker raised her right palm in the air and directed it to Harper’s forehead. She used her best Luke Skywalker voice. “You must resist, Rey!”

  Harper sighed. She’d opened up this can of worms. She tapped the desk and pointed to Becker’s notes. “Focus. The old people?”

  “Anyway, the two elderly people were taken to Dignity Health, where they were initially treated in the ER and then moved into quarantine.”

  “Are they still alive?”

  “Yup, but there’s more. There was a breakdown in quarantine protocols by the hospital staff. It was inadvertent and unfortunate. Despite their training during trial runs, it happened.”

  “Oh no,” lamented Harper. “Please don’t tell me they infected someone else.”

  “They did, but hear me out.” Becker gathered her thoughts and continued. “They were all old friends, literally. Every Sunday night, they’d gather at each other’s homes to play poker. They’d go on cruises together and visit casinos in the islands. Supposedly, nothing like the high-stakes games. Just hundred-dollar pots or less.

  “When they heard their friends were sick, they descended on Dignity Health to see how they were doing. Apparently, one of them was a retired nurse who knew the staff in the emergency room. They got permission to see them, and one thing led to another.”

  “And they broke quarantine.”

  Becker sighed. “Yep. It gets better, sort of. After the visitors left the hospital, they all got together for their regular poker game. The usual hugs, banter, exchanging of cards, chips and cash occurred. They even double-dipped in the cheese fondue.”

  “Jeez Louise,” said Harper.

  “Whoever didn’t get close enough to their hospitalized friends to contract the virus via airborne transmission picked it up at the weekly poker soirée.
By the following week, they were beginning to show symptoms of the flu and were soon admitted to hospitals around the city.”

  “What is their condition?”

  “All but two are improving, and their prognosis is good,” replied Becker. “Two more, a man and an unrelated woman, are in critical condition on ventilators.”

  Harper sat forward in her chair. “Were they all in equal proximity to one another?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about health history? How do the two criticals differ from the others?”

  “When Dr. Boychuck heard of these cases, he contacted me immediately. I’ve moved part of our team to conduct interviews, gather documents, and conduct our own investigative tests. I’ll do a comparison of their health and genetic characteristics.”

  “There has to be something that differentiates the more critical patients from those who are improving. And here’s what really puzzles me. It’s the elderly who seem to have a fighting chance while seemingly healthy adults, whether it’s the Olympian from Austria or the five victims of Asian descent in Las Vegas, die.”

  Becker set her notes aside and leaned back in her chair to finish up another Diet Coke. “It doesn’t add up, does it?”

  Harper shook her head as she pondered this new information. “Keep digging. Compare all of the known and suspected patients, including the one from Los Angeles. First, confirm the toxicology to determine whether they were infected with the same strain of the virus. Second, compare all of the genetic and health markers. Third, look at everything from a health perspective right down to the medications and vitamins they take. There has to be a pattern.”

  “I’m on it,” said Becker reassuringly.

  Harper glanced at her watch and sighed. It was time to go. She stood and stretched out her arms to hug her assistant. It was a rare showing of affection for each other, but if there was ever time the two women needed a hug, it was now.

  They held each other for almost a minute, allowed a few tears, and then nervously laughed as they broke their embrace. Harper wiped the tears off her cheeks.

  “Becker, basically, you’re in charge while I’m gone.”

  “Great!”

  “No, not great. Careful what you wish for.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  People’s Liberation Army

  85th Air Defense Brigade

  Lhasa Gonggar Airport

  Lhasa, Tibet, China

  Dr. Basnet Dema walked alone down the lengthy hallway connecting the offices at the base infirmary of the 85th Air Defense Brigade located at Lhasa’s Gonggar Airport. Dr. Basnet had been born and raised in Tibet. After receiving his medical degree and training, he requested assignment to a hospital located in Lhasa.

  For years, he was an esteemed surgeon at the Tibet People’s Hospital until he began to notice mild symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. The occasional shakes prevented him from continuing his career as a surgeon, so the hospital administrators transferred him to oversee the medical personnel at the PLA’s base located at Tibet’s largest airport.

  It was a position well beneath his knowledge and capabilities, but it paid the same and was far less stressful. In recent weeks, as the mysterious disease began to take its toll on the people of Lhasa, he was called back into service at the People’s Hospital. He treated the ill and lent a hand in the emergency ward to triage new patients. After several long days at the hospital, he longed for the relative quiet and serenity of the base infirmary.

  It also suited him in another way. The solitude and the lack of a direct supervisor allowed him a lot of free time. Dr. Basnet was a citizen journalist. Over the years, he’d been instrumental in shedding light upon human rights abuses in Tibet.

  When China deployed tanks, howitzers, and air assets along the Tibetan border with India in an effort to lay claim to Arunachal Pradesh as a part of South Tibet, the PLA staged their incursion at Lhasa Airport.

  Dr. Basnet reported this activity via WeChat and onto GitHub. Word spread to the northeasternmost state of India, and the inhabitants sought refuge away from what appeared to be a potential war zone. The disputed territory, often referred to as the land of dawn-lit mountains, had no particular geopolitical benefit to China other than Beijing had adopted an expansionist mindset.

  Dr. Basnet was also instrumental in reporting accurate numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic, which eventually made its way into Tibet. He worked with the locals to make the best use of traditional Tibetan medical techniques to treat the infected. During that time, his reputation within the mysterious autonomous region swelled.

  He was not on hand when the helicopter arrived from Mount Everest with the body of the Australian, Adam Mooy, one of the first to die during the climbing accident. Through gossip in the local medical community, he’d suspected that there was more to the man’s death than simply a climbing accident.

  Meanwhile, a second medical emergency caught his attention. The helicopter pilot who’d participated in the rescue mission became inexplicably ill. He was treated at a local hospital first and then brought to the infirmary at the 85th Air Defense Brigade when his condition didn’t improve.

  Dr. Basnet immediately connected the dots and surmised that the pilot’s illness was possibly connected to the Australian man, although he’d heard nothing from Xinjiang about the results of their investigation.

  He’d tried to reach out to the First Affiliated Hospital and was ignored at first. When he insisted upon answers, claiming that a man’s life was at stake, he was transferred to a hospital administrator, who stonewalled him. Shortly thereafter, while in the quarantine unit, the pilot died.

  Dr. Basnet had seen it all before. This was a classic case of Communist Party cover-up. He took to WeChat to express his frustration and soon received a strict admonition from his superiors at the military facility. The words of the base commander were simple.

  You will not speak of this again. Dismissed.

  Dr. Basnet knew immediately that he would do just the opposite. Only, he’d be far more careful next time. He spent every waking moment scouring the social media groups at both GitHub and WeChat. The levels of encryption were beyond anything he’d ever practiced during his years of whistleblowing, as the Westerners called it.

  He studied the combination of symbols, emojis, and written text. He began to fully understand the intentional, incorrect use to create confusion. Once he felt confident, he began to create a few posts about the unexplained illnesses that were occurring in Lhasa. He bravely went into the local hospital to videograph the dead who were being abandoned because the hospital was either overwhelmed or afraid to treat the patients.

  When the pilot died, he learned the young man had no family or next of kin. So he stowed him away in the small morgue located at the infirmary. The pathology lab was small, as most autopsies were sent to the regional hospitals. It was rarely used and therefore never inspected by the military’s constantly prying eyes. In fact, the pilot’s body was the only one kept in refrigeration.

  Dr. Basnet was not trained in pathology nor was he capable of identifying infectious diseases. There was an office of the CDC in Tibet, but it was controlled by Beijing, and he didn’t trust their personnel. As a result, he undertook the only course of action available to him. He posted the patient’s case notes to WeChat.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

  DARPA

  675 North Randolph Street

  Arlington, Virginia

  The year was 1958, and the new chief scientist of an obscure arm of the defense department known as the Advanced Research Project Agency submitted a proposal to the agency’s director. Four months later, nine naval vessels departed for the mostly uninhabited Gough Island in the far reaches of the South Atlantic. The vessels carried forty-five hundred government personnel and contractors. They also carried three nuclear weapons designed to launch into the magnetosphere. This was Project Argus and it cemented the use of advanced technology
into America’s war arsenal.

  The concept had germinated in the panic after the successful launch of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik satellite. The Pentagon immediately raised their concerns. How can we defend our nation from an incoming nuclear warhead?

  Armed with the physics evidence resulting from the Starfish Prime nuclear tests, the new agency hatched a plan. Explode nuclear weapons in Earth’s magnetosphere to create a long-lived radiation belt that would degrade the missiles.

  The first detonation set off a spectacular luminous fireball, triggering a staggering blue-green aurora that captivated the thousands of onlookers. However, beyond the vividly colored night sky, the bombs failed to produce sufficient high-energy electrons to keep the shield in place long enough to deter a speeding nuclear missile.

  The ill-fated death belt, as it was called, did lead to further research into electromagnetic pulse weapons. It also convinced America’s military leaders that the new agency was of vital strategic importance to the nation’s national defense.

  Over the years, DARPA became known as the Imagineers of War. It’s the agency that conceived the internet, the laser, and the stealth fighter. DARPA became a uniquely nimble governmental agency, unbound by the usual red tape and constraints associated with congressional oversight. It was allowed to conduct the kind of high-risk, high-reward research that went way beyond the purview of other branches of government.

  Through the use of very tight public relations control, only exposing what it wanted politicians and the public to know, the agency has succeeded in creating a massive technological research and development arm of the government while establishing a worldwide intelligence apparatus in which its operatives operated without rules.

  Like its counterpart at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, or DTRA, in nearby Fort Belvoir, DARPA scientists and operatives were looked upon as ghosts—individuals who not only created the technological gadgetry deemed necessary to protect America, but who used these advanced weapons to conduct counterinsurgency operations.