Pandemic (The Extinction Files Book 1)

by A. G. Riddle

  Charlotte stared at the old TV for a moment. “The camera crew went back to our regional command post at Mbale. That was the last anyone saw of Andrew. We found his burned remains, along with Akia and a hundred villagers, deep in Mount Elgon National Park.

  “It was very brave what he was doing. HIV/AIDS is almost common knowledge now, but it was new and very scary back then. Uganda was a huge success in the fight against the AIDS epidemic. It was the first country where the WHO pioneered a single national plan and budget that all donors agreed to use and fund. The government got behind the effort. We synchronized the message and efforts, brought all the stakeholders to the table. It was all about changing lifestyle. It was our only weapon in the fight. And it worked. The US Census Bureau and UNAIDS program estimated that there was a 67% drop in HIV/AIDS infections in Uganda between 1991 and 2001. Millions of lives were saved. Children who would have been born with HIV, a death sentence then, were spared; they grew up healthy, with a shot at a normal life.

  “I think Andrew would have said that was a cause worth fighting for… and dying for.”

  Charlotte grew quiet. “We had talked about getting married after our tours were up in Uganda. I’ve often wondered what my life would have been like if we had.” She glanced at the old tape. “Seeing this again… it’s tough. It brings back so many memories.”

  Peyton couldn’t help wondering what could have been. Charlotte, this woman who seemed good-hearted and dedicated, could have been her sister-in-law. The thought made her miss her brother even more.

  “Yes,” William said. “It was indeed bittersweet to watch. I think for all of us. Thank you for showing us the video, Charlotte. It means a great deal.”

  “Of course.”

  They walked back to Charlotte’s office in silence. Ahead, Peyton heard papers rustling. Someone was waiting for them.

  Charlotte pushed the door open. Standing inside her office were three men in woodland camo. Two pointed rifles at Charlotte and the others; another was looking through the folder from Aralsk-7.

  Peyton turned—and saw two more soldiers blocking the end of the hall.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” said the soldier looking through the file. “No one needs to die here.”

  Chapter 101

  Elliott hadn’t seen or heard anything from the authorities all day. The BioShield convoys that distributed food hadn’t come. And just like yesterday, the Rook Quantum Sciences app hadn’t prompted him to take the daily survey.

  Rumors were going around. The most pervasive was that the government had developed a cure but was hoarding it. Another theory went that the government was preparing for a world war, conscripting survivors, and leaving the sick to die. With each passing hour, the absence of food and medicine made the rumors more believable.

  Elliott sat in his study, thinking about what was happening. In his mind’s eye, he saw Rose, sick and alone, lying on a blanket in the Georgia Dome, coughing, burning up with fever. The people who had cared for her were now gone; they were preparing to protect the downtown cordon headquarters from the mobs descending upon it. The city was tearing itself apart. He imagined Ryan, a physician, charged with caring for the wounded in the battle, trapped, his own life in danger. He thought about his grandson, Adam, whose cough was getting worse each day. Ibuprofen no longer controlled the fever. Sam was dedicating herself completely to caring for the boy now. She had given up on trying not to get infected.

  From his window, Elliott could see a convoy of trucks moving slowly down his street. Men and a few women sat on the backs of the trucks, rifles in their hands. They hopped out and walked to each door, talking with the neighbors.

  When the knock at his door came, Elliott answered it, careful not to swing the door too wide.

  A man in his thirties, with a weather-beaten face, long brown hair, and a beard, stood on his doorstep. He had left the rifle on the truck; his hands were held in front of him, slightly raised, showing that he meant no harm. He said his name was Shane, and that he and his wife had a daughter being held downtown.

  “We’re going after her. Lot of other folks are heading that way too. We ain’t lookin’ for a fight, just want to get our people and leave in peace. We’re going out to the country to try to make it.

  “Just letting you know. If you want to come along,” Shane glanced at the RV, “maybe take some people with you. More numbers we got, more chance they’ll just stand down.”

  Elliott considered this. “I’ve heard the roads are blocked—military checkpoints.”

  Shane glanced back at the truck. “Yeah, we got a plan for that.” He stepped away from the door. “Hope you join us. Either way, good luck.”

  Back in his study, Elliott watched several neighbors raise their garage doors, get in their cars and trucks, and join the growing convoy.

  When the procession had departed, the neighbors Elliott had convened at his home days earlier once again descended on his house. He gathered them in his study, where they sat and argued.

  Finally, Elliott said, “Okay, stop. Raise your hand if someone in your family is being held in the downtown quarantine zone.”

  Four hands went up. “Raise a hand if you’ve got someone sick at home.”

  Three more hands went up.

  He leaned back in his chair. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

  At the CDC headquarters, Millen stood at a seventh-floor window. Below, his colleagues and other BioShield staff were filing out, loading onto the city buses and school buses.

  Phil walked up and stood beside him, but said nothing.

  “Where will they take them?” Millen asked.

  “Outside the cordon. Hopefully outside the battle lines.”

  Millen watched figures in FEMA jackets loading food into a box van.

  Ten minutes ago, Millen had heard a rumor that the president had died from X1-Mandera. Or had been assassinated.

  “Is it true? The president’s dead?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who’s in charge?”

  “One way or another, I’d say the Citium is in charge now.”

  Thirty minutes later, Millen was wearing a positive pressure suit. The door to the BSL-4 lab hissed open, and he walked in to find Halima lying on the bed, watching the portable DVD player. Tian was playing with a handheld game console.

  Halima smiled at Millen and put the DVD player aside. “I was worried. Everyone left.”

  Millen set some food on the steel-topped table. “Are you hungry?”

  “Starving. No one came this afternoon. All the researchers stormed out. We couldn’t hear what they were saying.”

  Millen forced his voice to remain calm. “It’s nothing. Just urgent meetings. I’ll bring the food from now on. Would you like that?”

  She nodded as she took a bite of the sandwich.

  “Good. I’ll come back in a few hours.”

  And he would. He had made a promise to take care of the two Kenyans, and it was a promise he intended to keep. His parents had taught him to take his commitments very seriously. He wondered where his parents were now, if they were safe. There wasn’t much he could do for them. But he would do everything he could for the people of Atlanta and the two Kenyan villagers in his care.

  Upstairs, he walked to the EOC, sat at his desk, and studied the satellite images. He pulled on his headset and typed: MedSupply unit 227, be advised, combat units are assembling at Mitchell and Central Ave to meet hostiles inbound. Estimate two hundred, heavily armed en route with others arriving. Recommend you fall back to rally point Gamma-Bravo.

  Elim Kibet rode in the passenger seat of the box truck that rolled through the littered streets of Nairobi. Buildings were burned. Cars lay in charred ruins. Children with blood on their faces watched the truck go by, the flames and smoke behind them a heartbreaking backdrop.

  Elim could hardly look. His country’s capital city had fallen.

  He hoped that somewhere in the wreckage, he’d find survivors he could save—and
IV antibiotics. Hannah was in the truck behind him. She would die soon without them.

  The stoplights were dark and lifeless. At an intersection, the lead truck in the convoy paused as the driver checked the cross street. It was blocked off with two burned cars—roadblocks. Elim felt a tinge of nervousness.

  Someone raised their head above one of the burned cars, peered at the truck, then ducked back down.

  “Go!” Elim said.

  The driver of the truck floored it, but it was too late. Ahead, two armored troop carriers pulled into the street, blocking it. Armed men poured out, guns held at the ready. In the side mirror, Elim saw a similar force pull up behind the convoy.

  They were trapped.

  Chapter 102

  Desmond lay on the metal floor of the cargo container in almost complete darkness.

  At the burned ruins of his childhood home, the soldiers had zip-tied his hands and placed a black bag over his head. They hadn’t pulled it off until they’d shoved him in the container.

  His cell, such as it was, had six round holes about a foot off the floor, each about an inch in diameter. Desmond figured they were there to let air in, or perhaps for warehouse employees to verify the container’s contents without opening it. He pressed an eye to one of them. Rows and stacks of cargo containers sat on a concrete floor.

  After a few minutes of searching, he found a twisted edge on the corrugated metal wall. In the dim light, he carefully placed the zip-tie against the sharp metal, then sawed back and forth until his hands came free.

  He heard tapping against the wall of another container. A pattern—Morse code, he thought. Someone in another container? Desmond didn’t know Morse code. He tapped three times to acknowledge that he had heard the signal. Three taps responded from the original location. Then three more, and three more—both from different locations.

  So, including himself, there were four of them. He was sure Avery would have captured William and Peyton. William was probably the one who’d started the Morse code tapping. Who was the fourth captive? Charlotte, because they’d told her too much?

  Someone tapped a new pattern. This one wasn’t Morse code, and it was familiar to Desmond. He squinted, listened, then grinned. The taps mimicked the theme song to The X-Files. It ended with a single large tap. He rolled to the metal wall, began tapping the same refrain back.

  Twenty years ago, he had sat on a cloth couch in a living room in a small home in Palo Alto and watched the show every Friday night, Peyton beside him, a cup of tea in her hands, occasionally a glass of wine if she’d had a tough week at med school. Desmond would have given anything to go back there and start over. He wondered if it was too late for the two of them. He knew Peyton had been hiding how sick she was. How much time did she have? The thought filled Desmond with energy. He had to find a way out of the box.

  Conner McClain sat at the head of the conference table, waiting for the call to connect. He was nervous. The Citium were on the cusp of completing their great experiment. In the following days, two thousand years of work would come to fruition. Or fail.

  And now he had the last piece they needed: Desmond Hughes. If Avery had completed her mission, the man had recovered his memories—and the details of how to retrieve Rapture. Letting him go had been a risk, but one he’d felt he had to take.

  The call connected, and the screen showed a view of an industrial office with cheap furniture. Plate glass windows looked down on a warehouse full of metal shipping containers. A man in woodland camo stood next to a solid wood desk covered in nicks and scratches, papers strewn across its surface. Avery stood beside the man, her arms crossed just below her breasts, her blond hair hanging down, her gray-blue eyes cold. Conner found her incredibly attractive. He wondered what might develop between them when this was over. She’d had no interest before—but soon he would be the second most powerful person in the world. That might change things.

  The man spoke first. “We’ve got them.”

  “Why were they in Australia?”

  “A woman,” Avery said. “Charlotte Christensen.”

  Conner had never heard the name. “Who is she?”

  “A relief worker who took care of Desmond after the Ash Wednesday fires.”

  “Interesting.”

  “We captured her as well, just in case she’s connected somehow.” Avery leaned off the desk. “We’ll bring them to you.”

  “No.”

  “We need—”

  “I’ll come there when this is finished.”

  Avery’s eyes flashed. Conner couldn’t read the expression, but he thought it was anger.

  “We had a deal,” she said, her voice hard.

  “We still have a deal.”

  “I want in.”

  “You’ll get in. When I say so.” Conner paused, letting his words hang in the air.

  Avery exhaled, broke eye contact with him, and slouched back against the desk.

  “I want him well guarded,” Conner said. “As you know, he’s a very resourceful man.”

  Chapter 103

  Elim opened the truck door. The driver yelled at him to stay inside, but Elim knew that what he was about to do was his only choice, perhaps his convoy’s only hope of surviving the ambush. Into his radio, he called for everyone to stay inside their vehicles. His white coat made him less likely to be gunned down than the rifle-carrying men in the canvas-backed trucks behind him.

  He stepped down from the box truck’s cab, held his hands up, and marched forward. The troops exiting the armored personnel carriers came into focus. Elim exhaled when he saw their uniforms: Kenyan army. When he had seen the ambush, he had assumed the worst—that it was gang-related.

  An officer strode forward. He was coughing. The lapels of his uniform were stained red, and his eyes were yellow and bloodshot.

  His voice was much stronger than his appearance. “Who are you?”

  “Dr. Elim Kibet. We’re survivors. And we’re here to help.”

  Elim found the Kenyan Ministry of Health in shambles. The Emergency Operations Center wasn’t staffed, and the phones were ringing constantly.

  To Dhamiria, he said, “Get people in here, have them start answering these phones. Tell callers that we will send help when we can and to do their best until we get there. They need to hear that.”

  Kenyatta National Hospital was in even worse shape. Dead bodies lay on gurneys. People filled the waiting room. Blood covered the floor and walls. The staff had bags under their jaundiced eyes. Most were like walking zombies; they had been working so long they could hardly think. Elim insisted they take a break. He sent every one of the doctors and most of the nurses to the on-call rooms and a hotel nearby. They were too tired to argue with the newcomer.

  Then he had his people set about cleaning up the hospital. Over the next four hours, Kenya’s oldest and largest hospital went from a bloody, disheveled mess to at least some semblance of a functioning trauma and referral hospital.

  He stood in Hannah’s room now, gazing down at her. Even before the first mop had gone across the floors, before disinfectant was sprayed on the walls, Elim had made sure she was brought in, placed in a patient room, and hooked to IV antibiotics. She would survive the infection, but the virus was overtaking her body. Organ failure was beginning. She hadn’t even woken up when they had brought her in. She would die within hours. The thought saddened him. It also reminded him of Lucas Turner, the other young American he had tried to save.

  He stood for a long moment, then pulled the thin, white blanket up to her chin and walked to the window. A line had formed outside the hospital. That was good: there were still people healthy enough to get here.

  He had work to do.

  The CDC was in chaos. In the EOC, operators were ending their calls, getting up, and rushing out of the room. Millen stood at his desk. On the wall screen, scenes of the fall of Atlanta played without sound. The mobs were massing on the combined BioShield troops, which included Army, Navy, Marine, Air Force, and National Gu
ard units. Many of those in uniform had lain down their arms and walked across the line to join the gathering crowd. They had taken an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic—and for many of them, that didn’t extend to shooting their own mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and neighbors when they were simply sick and seeking help. Millen couldn’t blame them. He wondered what he would do if he were on the line in riot gear.

  Phil walked up behind him. Millen thought his supervisor was going to reprimand him for not answering the call beeping on his headset, but instead he told Millen to follow him.

  At a floor-to-ceiling glass window on the seventh floor, they looked down Clifton Road. A crowd of people filled all five lanes, but a procession of three pickup trucks—each with men on the back holding semi-automatic rifles—weaved through the mob, toward the line of BioShield troops who formed a perimeter around the CDC complex. The trucks were like a fuse on a bomb; would the scene erupt when they reached the troops? Would the shooting start?

  “This could get ugly,” Millen said.

  Stevens nodded. “Isn’t there something you should be doing?”

  Comprehension dawned on Millen. He turned on his heel and ran. At the kitchen off the cafeteria, he stuffed food into garbage bags. He needed non-perishable items, enough for at least four days.

  The halls were filled with people, everyone arguing about what to do. They were scared. So was Millen.

  He found the BSL-4 lab empty once again. He donned the suit, entered, and placed the food on one of the tables inside. Halima was asleep. He hated to wake her, but he had to.

  After the third gentle nudge, she opened her eyes, rubbed them, and smiled.

  She saw the fear on his face instantly.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I might be going away for a while. I need you to stay here. It’s important. You understand?”

  She nodded.

  “If you run out of food before I’m back, you can leave. But be careful. Don’t tell anyone you’re from Kenya. Tell them you’ve lost your parents and they didn’t want you to talk to strangers.”