Pandemic (The Extinction Files Book 1)

by A. G. Riddle

  “Dad…” She began crying again, and William hugged her, held her tight.

  Desmond nodded. It made sense. In fact, a lot of pieces were starting to fall into place.

  William released Peyton and focused on Desmond. “What happened after you contacted me?”

  Desmond sensed that the man was still testing him, trying to decide whether to believe him. He began telling his story, starting with waking up in the Concord Hotel a week ago.

  “The message said, Warn Her, with Peyton’s phone number.”

  “Warn her of what?” William asked.

  “I think I just figured that out.” But before explaining, Desmond wanted to get all the facts out there. He described his meeting with the journalist, being captured, and his time in confinement on the Kentaro Maru. He quickly summarized their escape with Avery, rescuing Hannah, and the Labyrinth Reality app, which he had re-downloaded in Dadaab.

  “Before, in Berlin, the app didn’t provide any entrances—no locations. But in Dadaab, it provided us with the coordinates you had given me.”

  “Interesting,” William said.

  “I must have programmed the app to release the location as a backup plan—probably after a set amount of time if I hadn’t taken control of the situation. Coming here and joining forces with you would have been my avenue of last resort.”

  “Very clever.”

  “What about the second location—your childhood home?” Peyton asked. “It popped up after we reached the box in the woods.”

  “I believe that was a secondary backup plan,” Desmond said, “in case this didn’t pan out. Maybe I figured William might not show, or wouldn’t be helpful.”

  “That was prudent.” William motioned toward Peyton. “Let’s go back to the message. Warn Her. Of what?”

  “I believe I was supposed to warn her that she was in danger of being kidnapped, which is exactly what happened in Kenya. I think they wanted her to see the outbreak first, but mostly they wanted to take her so they could use her as a tool to get to you. For just the reason you stated: leverage. If you’re right, and you hold the key to stopping them, Peyton becomes the key to stopping you—and thus ensuring their success.”

  Just then, Desmond wondered exactly how far the Citium would go to get to William. Would they have deliberately let himself and Peyton go, so they would lead the Citium to William? Had the escape been a ruse?

  He checked his radio. Avery should have checked in by now. Something was wrong.

  Desmond stood, but he was too late. The door was already open. The rifle that breached the threshold pointed at him first, then moved to Peyton and William.

  Chapter 84

  Avery didn’t take her eyes off William. She pointed the rifle at the center of his chest. Her voice was commanding, devoid of emotion. “Step away from her.”

  William held his hands up and slowly moved away from Peyton.

  Desmond saw a man ready to give his life for his daughter’s without hesitation.

  “He’s on our side, Avery.”

  She sidestepped, moving between Desmond and William, as if ready to shoot either. She stole a glance at Desmond, then at the corkboards that were covered with articles, pictures, and names of Citium organizations and projects.

  “What is this?”

  “Thirty years of research,” Desmond said. “The key to stopping the Citium.”

  “He’s my father,” Peyton said.

  Avery cocked her head. “Okay… Didn’t see that coming.”

  She lowered the rifle.

  “How’d you find us?” Desmond asked.

  “Tracking dot on your clothes.” Avery smiled. “Not my first rodeo.”

  “Very clever.”

  “I figured if you were in trouble you wouldn’t be able to radio me, and calling you would only reveal my presence.”

  They told Avery what they had learned, and Avery quickly summarized her experience with Rubicon, for William’s benefit. He listened quietly, then asked her who ran the Rubicon program.

  “I don’t know. I was recruited by a man named David Ward.”

  “Are you in contact with him?”

  “No. Phones are down. The websites I used for digital dead drops are too.”

  Desmond could read William fairly well—Peyton had certainly inherited some of his mannerisms—and could see that he was skeptical. Desmond knew time was running out—for Peyton and for so many others. They needed to make a plan, and quickly.

  “Okay,” Desmond said, “let’s try to put it all together. We know the Citium released the virus. We know they have a cure. Let’s assume they’ve manufactured a stockpile.”

  “Controlling the cure would effectively give them control of the world,” Peyton said.

  “Not if we find it first,” Desmond said. “We find the cure, we stop them.”

  He walked to the corkboard. “Rapture Therapeutics. Rook Quantum Sciences. Rendition Games. Phaethon Genetics. Labyrinth Reality. CityForge. Charter Antarctica. Those are my companies. They were Citium projects for sure. The cure could be housed at one of these locations or at another Citium company.”

  “It’s possible,” William said, “but unlikely. I think the cure will have been developed and manufactured somewhere way off the beaten path. Outside an urban area, probably in the third world, where satellite coverage is minimal.”

  “The Isle of Citium,” Peyton said. “In your journal, you said the Beagle stopped there periodically. It fits.”

  William nodded. “It’s certainly a candidate, but not my first choice, for several reasons. One: whoever controls the Citium knows I’m still alive—and that I know about the Isle. Two: I’ve been monitoring it via publicly available satellite imagery. I haven’t seen any activity.”

  Avery spoke up. “For locations that are considered uninhabited, those satellite images might only be updated every two or three years. Annually at best. The chance of spotting a supply ship arriving or leaving would be low.”

  “True,” William said. “That’s a reason to suspect the Isle. My final reason is more practical. The Isle is exceedingly hard for us to investigate. It’s halfway around the world. Getting there will take us a long time, and will probably require refueling—and that’s the easiest issue. If, in fact, the Isle is where the cure was developed and manufactured, it will be extremely well guarded.” He motioned to the group. “We are four people. They’d know the moment we landed on the Isle, and we’d likely be facing a very large defensive contingent.”

  “We could make contact with the UK government,” Peyton said.

  “True,” her father replied. “But convincing them to believe what we’re saying might be a challenge—if they listen to us at all. They’re likely struggling to survive. We need to act. We need proof before we go to any government for help.”

  “Let’s back up,” Desmond said. “Are there any Citium projects or companies that deal with infectious diseases or could be related to starting an outbreak?”

  “Not during my time within the organization. If I had known any Citium members were doing anything even remotely like that, I would have turned them over to the authorities, and I’m not the only one. In fact, some of us were working specifically to prevent an outbreak or act of bioterror.”

  “How?” Peyton asked.

  “It was Yuri Pachenko’s project. I wasn’t privy to the details, but I know he was designing what he called an adaptive antivirus: an agent that could be trained to recognize a virus and bind it, neutralizing it in the body. That might be the Citium cure.”

  “Yuri Pachenko,” Desmond said. “He recruited me to the Citium.”

  William froze. “So he’s alive.”

  “He was in 2002 anyway. That’s my last memory of him.”

  “All these years, I wondered if he had died in the purge.”

  “Is he an ally?” Peyton asked.

  “Perhaps,” William said. “Whoever controls the Citium now may have taken Yuri’s research and completed it. Or per
haps the cure is something else entirely. Yuri may be dead by now.”

  Desmond noticed Avery eyeing him. Thanks to his comment about Yuri, she now knew that he had recovered his memories—and hadn’t told her. Her expression was unreadable, somewhere between nervousness and anger—or possibly betrayal.

  He tried to steer the conversation back to the task at hand. “What about Rapture Therapeutics? They were doing research into bacteriophages with the potential to eliminate brain plaques in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Could it be related?”

  William thought for a moment. “I don’t think we know enough yet. The pandemic is certainly part of a larger end game—the ultimate outcome being the Looking Glass. How Rapture ties in isn’t clear to me.”

  “Maybe there’s a way to find out.” Desmond held up his cell phone. “There’s the location from the Labyrinth Reality app. My childhood home in Australia. What if the information we need is in one of my memories located there?”

  Avery spoke quickly, as if eager to shoot the idea down. “That’s a pretty big leap.”

  “I have to agree with Avery,” William said. “Furthermore, the location is a problem. It will take us a great deal of time to get there—and it’s remote. If the plane is low on fuel, we could be stranded. I think it’s too far away. And we have a better candidate.”

  William walked over to the laptop in the kitchen and opened it.

  “Five years ago, I bribed an IT employee at an international shipping company. I gave him the names of the Citium subsidiaries and shell companies I knew about. He provided records of any shipments paid for by the organizations or shipped to or from their locations. At first, I thought it was a bust. But one location intrigued me.”

  William opened an application Desmond wasn’t familiar with. On the left hand side of the screen was a series of satellite images, each one dated; on the right was a world map with glowing dots. William clicked a dot south of Russia, right at the border of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. An overhead image appeared: a small island on an inland sea.

  “Several Citium-controlled companies were sending shipments to this site: Vozrozhdeniya Island. The Russian doesn’t translate well, but it’s roughly ‘Rebirth Island’ or ‘Renaissance Island.’ A fitting name. In 1948, the Soviet Union built a top-secret bioweapons lab on the island. They expanded it in 1954, when it was renamed Aralsk-7. The Soviets’ Microbiological Warfare Group operated there, testing some of the world’s most lethal pathogens. In 1971, they accidentally released a weaponized form of smallpox. Ten people were infected; three died. Could have been a lot worse. People who worked at Aralsk-7 have admitted to working on anthrax spores and strains of bubonic plague—both of which were weaponized.

  “The site was officially shut down in 1991. All the military and civilian personnel were evacuated. The town on the island, Kantubek, which had housed fifteen hundred people who worked at the facility, became a ghost town. That’s why I was so surprised that the Citium was flying shipments into the island. Public satellite imagery showed no activity, but as Avery noted previously, for unpopulated areas, the images aren’t updated frequently. I found a commercial satellite company that provided private imaging, and those images proved that the activity at the site has continued—until recently.”

  William clicked an image. “These are from the past month.”

  He hit the right arrow key, moving through the set. In the first image, the buildings on the island were lit. Desmond could just make out five figures at various points around the perimeter, wisps of smoke rising from what looked like cigarettes, dogs on leashes close beside them. In the next image, a convoy of trucks was backed up to a loading dock. Then the trucks were gone, but the guards were still there. In the final image, Desmond saw no signs of life, only darkened buildings.

  “Does it show where the trucks went?” Avery asked.

  “No,” William replied. “The satellite contract was only for a limited coverage area. I assume they loaded the cargo onto a train in Uzbekistan.”

  That surprised Desmond. “I thought you said they were on an island?”

  “It was an island—until 2001. The Aral Sea has been shrinking since the sixties. The Soviets diverted the rivers feeding the Aral Sea for irrigation projects. It’s now about ten percent of its original size. In fact, it’s just four large lakes at this point.”

  William turned to the group. “Overall, I think Aralsk-7 would be a perfect site to create the virus. The necessary infrastructure is already there. It’s isolated. It can be defended. The land is split between the border of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Either or both nations could have leased it to the Citium. And, the southern part of the island now has a land bridge to Uzbekistan, offering ground transport.”

  Desmond motioned toward the laptop. “But it looks like they’re gone.”

  “Precisely,” William said. “We know something’s there—or was until recently. The evacuation of Aralsk-7 coincides with the outbreak—which means they no longer needed it at the exact moment the virus was released. And, with only four of us, it’s a site we have a reasonable chance of infiltrating. Even if there’s a small guard contingent remaining, we’ll have the element of surprise.”

  “If they’ve evacuated the site,” Peyton said, “what’s our objective?”

  “Information,” William answered. “We’re looking for a list of sites where they shipped the cure. We find that, we’ll have something to send to governments around the world. And if we don’t find that, maybe a sample of the cure. Perhaps it can be reverse engineered.”

  “Are there any other sites that could be potential candidates?” Desmond asked.

  “No. Well, nothing this close. To me, Aralsk-7 is our best move.” William scanned the room, prompting the others to weigh in.

  “I like it better than the Isle. And a lot more than Des’s childhood home,” Avery said.

  “Same here,” Peyton said.

  “Okay,” Desmond said. He felt drawn to the Labyrinth location at his childhood home. He desperately wanted to know what was there—what he had left behind. But he knew William’s plan was their best hope of stopping the pandemic. That was the priority. His own answers would have to wait. “So how do we get in?”

  William pointed to what looked like a starburst carved in the brown terrain.

  “What is that?” Avery asked.

  “Four runways intersecting; only airport like it in Russia.”

  “Why would they intersect like that?”

  “The weather on the island changes frequently. Wind direction shifts. Depending on the wind, you have to use a different runway. It’s not exactly an easy landing.”

  Avery looked at the ceiling. “Wonderful.”

  Day 12

  5,600,000,000 Infected

  6,000,000 Dead

  Chapter 85

  At CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Millen Thomas walked to the Biosafety Level Four laboratory deep inside the building. He stopped at the iris scan and held his head still. When the lock clicked, he pushed the door open.

  The entire lab was a self-contained space with twelve-inch-thick concrete walls and a sixteen-inch-thick concrete floor with heavy steel reinforcement. The place was capable of withstanding an earthquake. By necessity, it also had its own air supply. Decontamination procedures involved flooding the space with vaporized hydrogen peroxide or formaldehyde.

  In the clothing room, Millen grabbed a pair of surgical scrubs, socks, and underwear from the wire rack. He changed in the locker room, stowing every article of his own clothing. Glasses were the only personal item allowed inside the lab.

  In the suit room, he taped his socks to the scrubs. He laid a positive pressure suit on the steel table, attached it to the air supply, and inflated it to check for any leaks. Even a small puncture could be deadly.

  Upon landing in the US, the CDC had held him at the airport while they tested him for the virus. The CDC and health agencies worldwide were now calling it “X1-Mandera,” as tests had confirmed
that the flu and the hemorrhagic fever were in fact caused by the same virus, which mutated inside the body. Millen had breathed a sigh of relief when his results came back negative. He wasn’t about to take any chances of getting infected now.

  When he was sure the suit was airtight, he disconnected the hose, taped his inner gloves to his scrubs and checked them for punctures, then slid into the suit and donned the helmet. He braced himself on the bar-height steel table while pulling on a pair of rubber boots.

  The entrance to the lab reminded him of the entrance to a spaceship. A door with a keypad loomed. He punched in his code and watched the red light turn green. The door opened with a pop, and Millen shuffled in and made his way across the room, past several researchers hunched over computers and microscopes. He connected his suit to a hose hanging down, then activated the speaker.

  “How’re you feeling today?”

  Halima sat up on the bed, recognized Millen’s face through the helmet, and smiled. “Good.”

  “Are they treating you okay?”

  “Yes.” She pointed to a portable DVD player lying on the bed. On the table behind her was a stack of DVD box sets including seasons of Seinfeld, LOST, Alias, 24, and The Big Bang Theory. “They brought me some TV to watch. It’s incredible.”

  The other villager, Tian, the young boy who didn’t speak English, was asleep on the bed beside Halima’s.

  “How’s the food?” Millen asked.

  “Fine.”

  She glanced at the suited researchers behind Millen. “Are they close to finding a cure?”

  He knew they had made little progress—and that the last few days had been pretty tough on the Kenyan teenager.

  “They’re very optimistic,” he said. That was a bit of a stretch, but the truth seemed too harsh for what she was going through. “We appreciate what you’re doing very much, Halima.”

  “I’m glad to do it.” She held up the small DVD player. “Wanna watch LOST? I’m on season two. They just got in the hatch.”

  “Wish I could. My shift is about to start. I’ll come back after though, okay?”