Containment Failure (A Special Agent Dylan Kane Thriller, Book #2)

by J. Robert Kennedy

  “Can you identify this man?”

  Flowers rose from her cot and stepped toward the photo.

  She nodded. “Yup. That’s the guy who promised to cure my brother.”

  Morrison spun on his heel, heading for the door.

  “Finally! Some progress!”

  Detective Laprise’s Apartment, New Orleans, Louisiana

  Detective Isabelle Laprise woke with a start. She quickly glanced around the room to confirm she was alone, then checked her watch. She had been asleep almost three hours, but something had woken her. A quick check of her cellphone showed no missed calls or messages.

  A moan from the living room had her out of bed, reaching for her weapon, her holster draped across the back of a chair sitting in front of her dresser. Silently she removed it as another moan drifted into her bedroom, then a whisper.

  Kane was asleep on the pullout couch, or at least he should be, but these sounds she was hearing as she approached the door sounded like pain.

  Maybe he’s sick?

  The thought froze her in her tracks.

  Then you are too.

  She realized it was true. They had spent so much time together in a cramped FBI mobile HQ, her car, the apartment. If he was sick, so was she.

  She opened the door to her bedroom and the moans and whispers were louder. With her weapon extended in front of her, she rounded the couch and cleared the room, finding only Kane, lying far more naked than she had left him, on the couch, moaning and muttering to himself. She lowered her weapon, and knelt down beside him, unsure of what to do.

  He’s having a nightmare.

  “Abort! Abort! Abort!” he muttered as he writhed under the sheet that now barely covered him, his body covered in sweat from head to toe, his chest heaving with each agitated breath. “Oh God no! Oh God please no!”

  The agony in his voice tore at her heart as she leaned in to touch him, to comfort him, the anguish unlike anything she had ever heard. She felt her eyes begin to tear up, her chest tighten as he repeated his plea.

  Then suddenly he bolted upright, his eyes wide open, tears flowing freely down his cheeks as he caught his breath. His eyes squeezed shut, blocking the tears, then suddenly they were open again, staring at her as she knelt beside him.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “Has there been news?”

  “Yes, I’m okay, no there’s been no news. You were having a nightmare.”

  He wiped the tears from his eyes and cheeks, then sat up.

  “Anything you want to talk about?”

  He shook his head.

  “Classified.”

  “You’d have to kill me?”

  He chuckled, but there was no heart in it, so she decided to drop it.

  “Do you think you’ll be able to get back to sleep?”

  He nodded.

  “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be okay.”

  He didn’t sound convincing.

  “Would you—” She stopped, stunned she was about to suggest this, but now with the words almost out, she couldn’t exactly not complete the sentence. She looked at the floor instead. “Would you like to sleep in my bed?”

  “No, you keep that. I’m comfortable here.”

  Argh! He’s going to make me say it, isn’t he!

  “I meant with me. Maybe you’ll sleep better if you’re not alone.” She wagged a finger at him with half a smile. “No funny business.”

  He laughed.

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

  “Hey, it’s the end of the world. Who’s gonna know.” She stood up and extended her hand. “Come on, let’s get some sleep.”

  He smiled and took her hand, standing up. She led him to the bedroom, having to remind herself to let go of his hand, he being the most stunning creature to have ever crossed the threshold of her bedroom in far too many years.

  Ever!

  She pointed at the usually empty side. “Get in bed, I’m going to powder my nose.”

  “Thanks,” said Kane, giving her a genuine smile of gratitude then dropping onto the bed with a bounce, his rippling muscles sending tingling sensations up and down her core.

  She had a quick tinkle, washed her hands, checked her teeth, swished some mouthwash, then returned to the dark bedroom, her eyes adjusting from the light in the bathroom. She rounded the bed and climbed in, facing him, but not touching him, her pulse racing as she tried to control her breathing, unsure of whether or not she should say something.

  Fortunately Kane took care of that for her.

  With steady, deep breaths, the object of her fantasy already asleep.

  Decontamination Zone, Interim LSU Public Hospital, New Orleans, Louisiana

  Outbreak Day #12

  Dr. Katherine Best stripped out of her hazmat suit then stepped into the decontamination chamber, closing her eyes. As she was hit with bursts of air and various other chemicals, she held her breath then heard the all clear. Stepping out, she dried off and got into a jumpsuit, finally stepping out into a much larger isolation tent that had been set up over the past day. It was massive and multi chambered, an inflatable research lab. Dozens of technicians and scientists filled the area as fans roared in the distance keeping the pressure inside higher than that outside so no virus could enter.

  Dr. Barry Johnston waved her over.

  “Just in time, we’re about to start the briefing,” he said as she dropped into a small metal chair. She nodded to those around her, most of the faces familiar including Dr. Corkery, now sporting a green jumpsuit indicating he was clear of the virus, and an Army officer and several of his aides she hadn’t met yet.

  “This is Colonel Jeremiah Jackson from the Louisiana National Guard,” said Johnston, sensing the question in her mind. “He’s in charge of enforcing the quarantine. Colonel, this is Dr. Katherine Best, she’s in charge of our operation here.”

  Pleasantries were exchanged without handshakes, and Johnston gave the rundown of the latest news that had an emergency page go out to all department heads.

  “Here’s the latest we know, and it’s a stunner.” He paused for a moment, but nobody asked the question, so he continued. “We just heard back from the BioDyne Pharma people.” He clicked a button on a handheld pointer and the large screen displayed a split screen of the two antivirals she recognized by now as the original, and the mutated that the two friends had brought in after their fishing trip. “On your left is our original antiviral, genetically encoded to target women with the BRCA1 genetic defect that less than one percent of the population carries—commonly known as the breast cancer gene.” He pointed to the image on the right. “Here, we have the second antiviral, confirmed to be a derivative of the original antiviral developed by BioDyne, but!”—he said the last word louder, pausing to get everyone’s attention—“this one was never designed to target the BRCA1 genetic defect.”

  He paused triumphantly.

  The Colonel cleared his throat.

  “Forgive me, Doctor, but let’s pretend I have no clue what conclusion you just made. Let’s have it in English.”

  Johnston turned a few shades paler and flushed at the same time, his cheeks now a rosy red.

  “I’m so sorry, Colonel. What it means is BioDyne has essentially told us this second antiviral is not a mutation, but a completely separate creation of its own. It means that the first virus didn’t mutate. We are dealing with a separate outbreak, of a separate antiviral.”

  “So a second attack?”

  Johnston nodded as Katherine’s mind reeled with the implications. This had the potential to be good news, or bad news. Or both.

  “So what does this mean?” asked Colonel Jackson. “This quarantine was put in place because we thought a virus with a one hundred percent kill rate was concentrated here, and had mutated and was spreading outside of the city. How does this new information change that reasoning?”

  Katherine leaned forward. “Let’s look at this from two perspectives. First is the original antiviral. It showed its
elf ten days after the initial exposure. The only people confirmed to have the antiviral are women who all have this rare genetic defect. According to BioDyne, the only way it can be transmitted from person to person is if that second person also has the same targeted gene sequence. If they don’t, it’s harmless and can’t be passed on. Our testing at the Superdome has shown no active antiviral anywhere in the structure, which tells us it can’t last airborne for too long. We still don’t know how long, our tests are still ongoing. So far it seems at least twenty four hours, but much longer than that is rare.

  “Bottom line, Colonel, is that I think we will see the end of the first outbreak in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”

  The Colonel smiled, slapping his knees. “That’s fantastic. And from what I’m hearing, the risk of this spreading is next to nothing. Perhaps we can lift the quarantine?”

  “We’re forgetting the second outbreak. This seems to be presenting itself in the same way, on the same cycle, with an unknown release point. We don’t know where this came from, and we can only assume when. We also don’t know who it’s targeting yet, or how widespread it is.”

  Colonel Jackson’s smile disappeared. “Out of the frying pan and into the fire,” he muttered.

  “Perhaps. We need to trace these men’s steps. Every single thing they did from the moment they stepped off that boat. They did something that got them exposed.”

  “Do we know about the outbreaks in the other cities yet? Which antiviral they are?”

  Katherine shook her head.

  “Somewhat. We know we have had a few women test positive for the initial antiviral. All were at the Saints game, and all have the gene sequence in question. All of the others so far are either just regular flus, or the testing hasn’t come back yet.”

  “So we could still have a global pandemic on our hands targeting an unknown group of people with a one hundred percent kill rate,” summarized the Colonel.

  Katherine sighed.

  “Yes. We’ll know better once we see how our two patients here respond over the coming hours and hopefully days. It may just be a bad flu reaction, or it may be deadly like the others. Time will give us those answers. In the meantime, I need to put together a timeline.”

  “I’ll take care of that, Doctor,” said Dr. Corkery, raising his hand. “I’m from the area, so anything they say will make more sense to me. I also have some experience in this.”

  Katherine turned to the Colonel. “It was Dr. Corkery who discovered much of what we now know.”

  “Fine. I think we’ll have to brief the President as soon as possible with this new information.”

  “Agreed,” said Johnston. “I’ll set up a video conference shortly. If there aren’t any additional questions, I’ll let everyone get back to their duties.” Silence. “Very well, next briefing in eight hours.”

  The meeting broke, with Katherine approaching Dr. Corkery.

  “Want some help?”

  “Absolutely!” he said with a smile. “We don’t have any time to waste if these two are on the same track as our previous patients.”

  The two went through decon then donned their suits, and fifteen minutes later were at the side of the first patient, Stanley Lafayette, who was in worse condition than his friend, Richard Cross who lay in the next bed. Katherine sat at Stanley’s side, Corkery standing beside her, with Richard’s bed close enough to hear the conversation.

  The two men had agreed that they never left the boat, it having sleeping quarters for two, and hadn’t encountered anyone beyond a wave and a ‘hello’ from the deck. After docking at the end of their trip, they dropped off the rental keys in a lockbox, climbed in Richard’s car, then returned home. Richard dropped Stanley off, then went home, grabbed some dinner at a restaurant, then stopped back at Stanley’s house to drop off something left in the trunk. Stanley didn’t encounter anybody else until calling 9-1-1.

  Dr. Corkery had been taking notes throughout, as had Katherine. His pen tapped the notepad.

  “If we assume you didn’t get infected along the way, then Richard, you must have contracted it after Stanley was dropped off, then infected Stanley when you returned to pick up your bag.”

  “Bastard,” moaned Stanley, who then laughed once, triggering a coughing fit.

  “Sorry, buddy,” said Richard, who truly did sound mortified. “Then why is he so much sicker than me? Shouldn’t I have gotten sick first?”

  Katherine shook her head. “No. The progression of the disease is pretty consistent between patients, but not exact. The unusual nature of the first group is that we know when they were infected. They were all infected at the Saints game, and we know it was initiated during the power outage. This means people were exposed within perhaps a two hour period. We’ve seen people coming in from nine to eleven days after. The variation between yourselves is probably the same thing.”

  “So you’re sure there’s no other way you could have come in contact with someone?” asked Corkery, looking at Stanley. “No pizza delivery, mail man, meter reader, canvasser, anything?”

  Stanley shook his head.

  “I almost never answer the door unless I’m expecting someone,” he whispered.

  Richard agreed. “I had to ring three times to get him to answer. He’s notorious for that.”

  “And nothing along the way. No other boater that you walked by on the pier. You mentioned you put keys in a drop box? Did you touch it?”

  “I did that,” said Richard, “and no, I didn’t touch it, you just dropped them in a pretty wide slot on the top. No lid to open or anything.”

  “Gate?”

  “It was open.”

  Corkery frowned, exchanging a glance with Katherine. She knew what he was going after. If Richard was the source, they had an entire bar full of patrons who could be the source. If it were Stanley, the source pool was far lower.

  They had to know.

  “The truck stop!” exclaimed Richard.

  Stanley’s eyes shot open as he stifled another cough.

  “Yes, I forgot about that,” he said, hacking through the sentence.

  “What truck stop?”

  “Off the I-10 in Slidell, I can’t remember what it’s called, but it’s huge. We stopped because micro-bladder here had to use the bathroom,” said Richard, jerking a thumb at Stanley.

  “Piss off.”

  “We stopped, he went to the bathroom, I stayed in the car.”

  “What did you do inside?” asked Katherine.

  “Pissed.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Umm, washed my hands.”

  “Did you encounter anyone?”

  “Probably dozens. I just walked to the bathroom, did my business, washed my hands, dried them, then returned to the car.”

  “Okay, we’ll check it out.”

  “Do you think that’s the source?” asked Richard.

  Katherine shrugged.

  “Perhaps. We haven’t had big reports of your variation of the antiviral reported within the city. This makes me think the source is from outside. Someone at the bar would have had to be infected for you to catch it there. If that were the case, we should have a cluster of infections around that area, instead we only have you two, plus reports around the country of similar symptoms.”

  “But couldn’t I have infected the bar if we picked it up at the truck stop?”

  “Yes, but it’s unlikely you would have infected everyone. Remember, you weren’t showing symptoms so you would have just been breathing, not coughing or sneezing, which is what would propel something like that throughout the restaurant. No, I think we might find our source is the truck stop, or someone that Stanley walked by who was infected.” Katherine rose. “Thank you for your time, gentlemen. We’ll let you know if we find anything.”

  Katherine walked out of the isolation chamber, followed by Corkery.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “I’m leaning toward the truck stop. Either way we’re s
crewed. If this more general variation has been floating out there for over ten days, it will have gone worldwide no matter where it originated from.”

  “Then what will we do.”

  “Pray.”

  Detective Laprise’s Apartment, New Orleans, Louisiana

  Detective Isabelle Laprise woke to the smell of something wonderful. She groaned in pleasure at having what felt like a full six or better hours of sleep, and a quick peek at the alarm clock confirmed it. She rolled over and saw the other side of the bed empty, to which she had to admit a twinge of regret.

  Get over it! He’s just a kid!

  She rolled out of bed and checked herself out in the mirror.

  Damned fine for forty. He should be so lucky to tap this!

  She did a sexy pose and laughed to herself, heading for the bathroom.

  “Is that you? Breakfast in five!” yelled Kane’s voice from the other room.

  “Okay!”

  “How do you like your eggs?”

  “Over easy!”

  “Roger that!”

  She quickly straightened herself out, gave her teeth the once over with a toothbrush and swooshed some mouthwash. Brushing her hair then pulling it back into a no-fuss ponytail, she looked at herself then immediately let her hair down.

  Much better.

  She shook her head at herself.

  You’re hopeless!

  She returned to her bedroom, pulled a pair of yoga pants on that made her ass look like you could bounce quarters off it, and a loose sweater to make her look modest, then moseyed out into the kitchen.

  “What’s all this?” she asked, stunned. Not only were there bacon, sausage, eggs and toast, along with a fresh pot of coffee, you would have never known that the act of cooking had taken place, the kitchen nearly spotless.

  All those muscles and he cooks and cleans too!

  “Mmmm, nummers!”

  “Huh?”

  “This looks delicious!”

  Kane smiled. “Perfect timing. Let’s eat, get ready, and hit the streets. Apparently we’ve got some info on the bomb fragment they want to show us but not send out over the airwaves.”