“We have an escort vehicle behind us. They will be accompanying us.”
“Understood.” The man stepped back and waved Leroux into the left lane. He cranked the wheel and headed the wrong way down the road, their tail waved by after them, and stopped at what would normally be the exit gate. Again their IDs were checked as dogs sniffed the vehicle and men circled it with mirrors held on long poles, looking for bombs or other foreign devices. Leroux didn’t bother mentioning that the escort did that several times a day regardless. The first time he had mentioned it had prompted an entire teardown of the vehicle.
Never again.
Finished, they were cleared and they rushed to the parking lot then inside, only to find another line up, this time people being sent through some sort of scanner manned by people in biohazard suits. When Leroux passed through, he looked back and realized it was an infrared scanner measuring their body temperatures. There was a trickle of people being turned around and sent for what he assumed was further testing.
He breathed a sigh of relief when Sherrie was cleared.
“See you soon,” he said, giving her a kiss.
“Unless I’m tasked elsewhere.” She winked. “Don’t wait up.”
Sherrie headed for the clandestine section of Langley, Leroux following her with his eyes, hoping for a look back. She was almost out of sight when she spun and blew him a kiss. A smile was permanently plastered on his face as he headed for the analysis section. When he arrived in his office area, the place was filled, day shifts and night shifts mingling, competing for desk space. Fortunately for Leroux, he was senior enough to merit his own dedicated terminal in his own open office cubicle.
The smile gone, he hung his jacket on a hanger then immediately headed for the Director’s office. As he approached, Morrison’s secretary smiled at him.
“Conference Room B. Briefing starts in five.”
Leroux nodded and began to trot toward the room, joined by other late arrivals.
I guess there wasn’t time for that nookie.
He crammed himself into the back of the room and the doors were closed as the Director stood at the front. The nearly one hundred senior analysts fell quiet instantly.
“Good afternoon everyone. I won’t waste any time as there’s none to waste. This morning the President authorized the complete quarantine of New Orleans, with shoot to kill orders if anyone attempts to break the quarantine. This is the largest quarantine in the history of our country, and potentially the greatest threat we have ever faced. Indeed, it may be the greatest threat mankind has ever faced.”
Leroux gulped, exchanging glances with those around him.
Please don’t let it be zombies.
“This is what we know.” And for the next ten minutes the Director related how BioDyne had been covering up one of their researchers having gone nutbar, the attacks in LA and LaGuardia, and now the New Orleans Saints game, how the antiviral he had invented had been modified by this Dr. Urban, and how it had mutated, spreading beyond its original intended targets. Leroux’s mind wandered for a moment when the antiviral was first explained.
Incredible!
It was revolutionary, world altering, and now, potentially world ending.
“Bottom line, people, is this thing has mutated, has a one hundred percent fatality rate, and just may be spreading through the general populace, depending upon when the mutation took place.
“But that’s not our concern. CDC will track this thing, and try to stop the spread. Our job is to find this Dr. Urban, at all costs. We cannot let a fourth event occur, and to be honest, if we can’t get containment, or find a cure, CDC’s projections are that there might not be enough people left alive on the planet to care.
“This is it people, this is the end game. If we fail, it’s all over. So we won’t fail. The President has suspended all laws that have restricted us in the past. What that means for those in this room, is that you can look at anything, foreign or domestic. No wiretap authorization, no court orders, no nothing. You need something, you get it. You want something, you take it. Don’t wait on anyone for permission, just do it. Your individual supervisors will have instructions as to your assignments.
“We are now working on alternating shifts. Eight hours on, eight hours off. Don’t tell your loved ones, otherwise we could create even more panic than will already be happening beyond these doors. Call whoever you need to call to tell them you’ll be working and sleeping here. Cover story is a major terrorist threat geared around taking advantage of our being distracted by the New Orleans situation.” Morrison paused, staring out at the crowd, the next words from his mouth stressed with a tone Leroux had never heard from the Director.
“We are not working on New Orleans, clear? If the public thought we were, then the current cover of this being a naturally occurring, limited risk virus, would blow up in our faces. As it stands, we’ll be lucky if that cover lasts for more than a day. Dismissed.”
He immediately left the room, leaving everyone staring at each other, then someone yelled, “Let’s get to work!”, and the room emptied in a hurry, Leroux rushing for his desk, thanking God it wasn’t zombies, but even more terrified of what they truly were dealing with, a madman with a virus that could be genetically targeted to kill any group of people. It was sickening, and he found his mind being consumed by the horror of it all as he dropped into his seat, not sure where to begin.
As he was logging in, his Blackberry vibrated with a secure message.
Report to Director Morrison’s office immediately.
He jumped up, wondering what the Director wanted from him now. He had been exclusively tasked with pursuing The Assembly, and they were so well buried, he had had almost no success yet.
In fact, he had had none.
Arriving at Director Morrison’s office, he was waved directly in, and found Morrison sitting at a side table in a comfortable leather chair, another occupied by a man Leroux didn’t recognize. Leroux closed the door and sat in the chair pointed to by Morrison.
“This is Dr. Hermann Kapp from BioDyne Pharma,” said Morrison, motioning toward the man occupying the other chair. Leroux leaned forward to shake the man’s hand, who left them clasped across his stomach.
“You’ll forgive me for not shaking hands. I think with this pandemic, we should all minimize personal contact.”
Leroux nodded as he made a quick mental tally of all the people and things he had touched since yesterday.
His skin crawled.
“Mr. Leroux is one of our top analysts. He has a knack for tracking communications back to their source. I’m assigning him to try and find your Dr. Urban.”
“Just Mr. Leroux?”
Kapp seemed surprised and disappointed.
Morrison chuckled.
“No, of course not. We’ve got teams being assigned right now, as do other agencies. I wanted you to meet Mr. Leroux however, as, like I said, he’s one of our best, and has a habit of being able to take two apparently completely unrelated pieces of information and join them together, revealing new truths that ultimately lead to our target. You will each have the other’s personal phone number. Chris, if you have a question, you call Dr. Kapp, day or night. Dr. Kapp, should you think there is something Chris should know that you’ve forgotten, you call him. Day or night. Time is of the essence.”
“Of course, of course,” agreed Kapp as he removed a card from his pocket, then thought better of it. “Cards can transmit germs. How about I text you my number?” Moments later the numbers were exchanged electronically, and Morrison turned to Leroux.
“Anything you want to ask to get started?”
Leroux nodded, his mind having been racing from the moment the briefing had begun.
“Does Dr. Urban have a family?”
Kapp nodded. “A wife and two daughters. By all accounts they were very close, but he appears to have left them behind.”
Leroux nodded. “I’ll start there. If they were close, then they’re most likely
communicating. I’ll need everything you have on them, lists of employees going back to the time he joined the company, any friends you know of, where he travelled on company and personal business. Everything. The more you give me, the more chances I have of connecting the dots.” He turned to Morrison. “I’d also suggest we have the FBI pick up his family for questioning.”
Morrison smiled slightly.
“Already being taken care of. They should be here before the end of the day.”
“Here?”
“They’re in Canada. Mrs. Urban is Canadian. She apparently moved back after her husband disappeared.”
“Are the Canadians cooperating?”
“I’m sure they would eventually, but we haven’t told them of our interest. We have no time for bureaucracy getting in the way.”
“Are there plans to inform foreign governments of what we know?” Leroux waved his hand. “Sorry, sir, I shouldn’t have asked that.”
Morrison bobbed his head in agreement.
“A little above your pay grade. Focus on your job. Find Urban. That bastard might have a cure for all we know.”
“Yes, sir,” said Leroux, standing up, clasping his hands behind his back as a reminder to avoid shaking hands. “Doctor, if you could have everything emailed to my account as soon as possible, I’ll get to work.”
Kapp nodded, his fingers flying on his Blackberry Q10 keyboard. “Everything has naturally already been compiled by our people as we tried to find him ourselves. It should be in your email within the next few minutes.”
Leroux nodded, and left the room, excited about the new hunt he was about to begin.
And scared at the implications of failure.
Decontamination Zone, Interim LSU Public Hospital, New Orleans, Louisiana
Dr. Katherine Best stared at the reports as they rolled across the screen. The quarantine was quickly coming into place, but not quick enough for her liking. As soon as word had come out that the airports, railways and shipping were all being shutdown, some segments of the population had panicked as was expected. The freeways had jammed within the first hour, and an unknown number of residents had managed to escape before the roadblocks were in place.
Damn the press!
The shutdown had been a secret. They wanted the roadblocks in place, the quarantine complete, before they went public with the news, but instead, the local press had caught wind of massive cancellations at the airport, then somebody had leaked why, and then the cat was out of the bag, scurrying around the airwaves, destroying any hope of a complete quarantine.
The roads were now closed, traffic cameras being examined to identify the cars that had left the city over the past ten days in the desperate hope of tracking down all those who might be infected.
It was hopeless.
National Guard units from the surrounding states were deploying to block all traffic going into or coming out of Louisiana, but with there being so many roads, at best they might just stem the flow. Cordons were being set up to try and turn around traffic and all airports and trains were being shutdown throughout the state, the President ordering the expanded quarantine. Refugee camps were just starting to be set up for those trapped with nowhere to go and the conspiracy theory mill was going at full tilt.
Unfortunately this time it was more accurate than the crazies even knew.
“Dr. Best!”
She turned to see a beaming Dr. Johnston.
“What is it?”
“We found it?”
“What?”
“The canister used to infect the Superdome!”
Katherine smiled, this the first piece of good news she had had all day.
“When will it be here?”
“Chopper is on its way to pick it up right now.”
“Where was it?”
“Apparently tied into the ventilation system. And there’s something else.”
“What?”
“There was a body discovered in the same room about a week ago. We might actually finally have a lead!”
Katherine nodded. A murder meant a murderer, and that murderer might very well be Dr. Urban himself.
“Do the police have any leads?”
“I’m checking now. Hopefully I’ll have something for you soon.”
She nodded, returning to the reports streaming in. The good news was that the flood of people at hospitals across the city were proving to be mostly false alarms. Possible new cases were a trickle an hour, and she was assured by Atlanta that they’d have a blood test before the end of the day to identify those truly infected thanks to the cooperation of BioDyne Pharma.
Thank God they came forward!
She’d hate to think where’d they’d be in this without them. Now at least they weren’t working blind. They had scientists who could answer questions, who knew exactly what they were dealing with, and could speed up their regular processes dramatically.
It was hope.
Now all we need is a cure.
Outside the Superdome, New Orleans, Louisiana
Detective Isabelle Laprise pulled her car up to a throng of emergency personnel, flicking off the integrated emergency lights, their flashing blue proving to be not much of an advantage in the traffic chaos that was forming on the roads as the citizenry of the city discovered the quarantine, then decided to promptly get in their cars to test it.
Maybe tomorrow things will be better.
She could understand the panic, but what the hell was the point in leaving your house? The authorities were saying stay put, so stay put. Why would you want to risk spreading an infectious disease to the friends or family you were trying to escape the city to stay with?
A report on her car radio as she had pulled in had said the water supply was perfectly safe, and that door to door food delivery would be starting tomorrow. Part of her wondered how they could know the water supply was safe. It didn’t matter. If they were all going to die a horrible death from some unknown disease, then so be it. She wasn’t afraid to die, she had no husband or boyfriend, no kids she knew of, and no family to speak of, her parents dead when she was in college.
She did have her grandparents though, but they were old, and she knew her granddaddy would probably welcome death considering he had said as much at Thanksgiving.
“I can’t wait ta die!” he had said. “I can’t walk right no more, I can’t sit right no more, I can’t shit right no more. Why the hell would I wanna keep livin’, with all these damned things wrong with me. I take twenty different pills, four times a day, just to keep me going, and the side effects half the time are worse than the damned thing they’re supposed to treat! This ain’t life, this is existin’!”
Her grandmother had tut-tutted him in a way that made Isabelle think this was an old rant, so decided to pay it no mind. But knowing her granddaddy, if he had the energy he’d be at the mall with his tongue glued to the top of the handrail of the escalator, just hoping he’d catch something that could kill him.
Too bad you don’t have boobs, granddaddy.
From what she had heard, almost all the victims so far were women. Which meant she herself was probably at more risk than her aging grandfather.
I hope grandma will be okay.
She climbed out of the car as the thumping of a chopper overhead grabbed everyone’s attention. Instead of watching the chopper however, she rushed to the entrance she had been told to report to when she saw a cylinder being wheeled out by a group of hazmat suits.
That’s from my damned crime scene!
“Wait a minute!” she yelled, running toward them, her badge held high in the air. She was ignored at first until she finally was close enough for them to hear her. One looked at her and stopped the procession as the chopper landed a couple of hundred feet away, whipping the dust and litter of the massive stadium about until the blades finally slowed down. “Is that from my crime scene?” she demanded.
The one apparently in charge looked at her.
“This cylinder has bee
n taken into the custody of the CDC under author—”
“I don’t give a shit under what authority you’ve taken it. I damned well know that your authority trumps mine. I just want to know if anybody had the presence of mind to check for prints or any other trace evidence before pulling it out of there? A good young man died, and it’s probably because of this.”
“Ma’am—”
“Detective.”
“Detective, we could be looking at billions dead.” The man turned to the others. “Let’s go.”
Billions?
Isabelle stood there dumbfounded at the statement.
Was it really that bad?
She suddenly felt naked as she watched the group in hazmat suits rush to the chopper with their prize. Several of the others who were within earshot were exchanging the same shocked look she was probably displaying.
Billions?
“Excuse me, Detective?”
She turned toward the voice, snapping her shocked jaw shut.
“Yes?”
“Sergeant Greg Michael, Detective. There were some crime scene techs here. I saw them in the parking lot when we arrived. I guess it was sort of an all hands on deck type thing—”
“You’re rambling, Sergeant.”
The Sergeant’s partner, a much younger female officer, stifled a grin.
“Sorry, Detective. Not every day you hear the world’s ending.”
Isabelle frowned.
Billions?
“Anyway, I had Officer Macleod here”—he jerked a thumb at the smile beside him—“go get them, and they checked out the cylinder before those CDC people got here. No fibers, no prints. I’m afraid it’s a dead end.” He held up his phone. “I did get photos of it before they took it out, and close ups of some numbers that were etched on the bottom. Probably from the factory.”
“Good work, Sergeant,” said Isabelle as the chopper powered up, halting the conversation, her mind already awhirl at the possibilities of this new piece of evidence. Obviously her murder was connected to this virus. They might be able to trace the cylinder back to whoever manufactured it, then eventually to whoever bought it. It was a long shot. She had no idea if these sort of things were actually traceable.
Containment Failure (A Special Agent Dylan Kane Thriller, Book #2) Page 8