by Welker, Wick
“Just stay awake. You’re going to be fine, you crazy bastard.”
The helicopter approached closer and soon the heavy beating sound of its blades was over their heads. Two men quickly repelled down with a cloth stretcher and loaded Ortega onto it, securing it with ropes. He then floated up into the bright lights of the helicopter. The men then secured Dave with a harness and prompted someone up above to lift him as well. He was hoisted higher and higher until he could see that an entire façade of the football stadium had collapsed.
When the levee breaks, he thought to himself, reciting song lyrics, mama you got to move.
In the helicopter, he could see that the missiles had only created a way for all the infected to escape back into the city from within the stadium.
And that’s how Baltimore was taken, he thought. The helicopter ascended and flew out, leaving the city behind them.
Chapter twenty one
Doubt and insecurity were unfamiliar emotions to Rambert. The last time he could remember feeling this way was when he applied for college and was waiting to hear back from all the big name schools. He didn’t think he would get accepted to any of them and would have to rely on his fall back plan of working for his dad’s insurance company while he paid his way through a state school. He remembered loathing himself for months, waiting to hear back whether he got into Harvard or Yale. What a beautiful problem to have, he thought, laughing at himself. It was the same cold lack of confidence that had him doubting everything he had done up until that point. Now his problems grew exponentially by the minute and they would affect the entire world.
“Mr. President,” a woman came into the room.
“Yes, Diane?” Rambert replied.
“We’re getting reports of Canadian forces coming down through Maine within the last couple of hours.”
Rambert was silent for a moment. “I see.”
“The British have also invaded Baltimore.”
“I probably would’ve led with that piece of information,” he said, without humor.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“And what’re they doing? Why didn’t they tell us?”
“They may have tried, but you know how communications are right now.”
“Yes, I know all too well. What are they doing in Baltimore?”
“It’s not clear at this point, but we believe they have fired from their naval force into the city.”
“Into the city?”
“It’s not confirmed, but yes, we think so.”
“Where is this intel coming from? How could we not possibly know for sure? Baltimore is just right around the corner.” Rambert got up from his chair that was facing a boarded window and turned to the woman.
“Medora One was there.”
“And where is Medora One now?”
“They’re mostly dead except for one survivor.” She paused and then added, “Well two actually.”
“Is it one or is it two?”
“Captain Ortega has survived as well as a civilian that they had with them. They were extracted from Baltimore after a skirmish with the British.”
“A skirmish? Where are they now?”
“On their way to Richmond via helicopter.”
“Okay. I’m assuming you still haven’t heard anything from Secretary of State?”
“No, she is still missing.”
“And what about Doug?”
“The Chief Staff of Army is on his way here.”
“He is? How did you find him?”
“He just called in on the satellite phone, says he was able to get a chopper out of Providence and he said he’s coming to discuss nuclear options with you.”
“It’s going to be a short conversation.”
The breakdown of the government had been swift, Rambert thought. We are suddenly a chicken without a head. But isn’t that how it usually happens? Every great nation suddenly falls when no one is expecting it. That’s the only way it can really happen. The rudder has broken clean off this ship, he thought. I can’t even find out what’s going on a few hundred miles away.
There suddenly appeared a secret service person at the door to the office. “Sir.”
“Yes, what’s up?”
“There’s someone at the front gate for you.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“It’s someone in a van outside. Take a look.”
Rambert stared at the man for a moment, slowly got up from the desk and peeked through a three-inch crack between two metal planks covering the window. A large delivery van had crashed through a sandbag barricade and was becoming surrounded by the sick. He could faintly make out a figure in the driver’s seat. Crudely spray painted on the side of the van was large wording:
RAMBERT:
IT’S STARK
Rambert turned to the agent. “Go cover for that man and let him in immediately.”
“You know him?”
“Yes, he needs to be in here right away. You make sure he doesn’t die.”
“Yes, sir.” He left the room.
Rambert watched out the window as a small SWAT group surrounded the van, shooting down the infected and helping the man out the driver’s window. Rambert recognized Stark’s glasses and forehead wrinkles as they huddled around him and escorted him into the building.
Within a few short moments, there was a knock on the door and Stark stepped in, tired and disheveled.
“Larry, you’re alive,” Stark said.
Diane awkwardly interjected with a formal introduction. “Dr. Stark, the President of the United States.”
Stark looked at her and then slowly brought his eyes to Rambert. “What?”
“It’s true, I’ve been given the presidency temporarily. Or indefinitely, I’m really not quite sure at this point.”
“What happened to the president?”
“He died in a plane crash a few hours ago.”
“Oh, my gosh.” Stark looked down. “Who knows about this? Is this public?”
“No, not yet. We don’t really have the capability of making it public right now.”
“I don’t believe it.” Stark leaned over, his arms resting on his knees. “Wait a minute. You’re just the Secretary of Health. There’s no way you can be the president. You must be like tenth in line or…”
“Eleventh, actually.”
“Well, where in the hell is everyone else, the Speaker, Attorney General?”
“Presumed dead or missing.”
“All of them?”
“Yes.”
Stark kept looking at him, mouth ajar, and then slumped down into an oval office couch.
“What can you tell me, Dr. Stark?”
“No, no, no. What can you tell me, Larry?” Stark’s tone of voice changed from surprise to accusatory.
“What do you mean?” Rambert sat on the opposite couch to Stark. The room was dim from the blocked windows.
“I know everything about Medora. I know everything about Beckfield.”
“And just what is it that you think you know?” He brought two pointed index fingers to his lips.
“Dr. Beckfield was involved with the Medora clinical trials this whole time. He already knew everything about the virus. Hell, he helped develop it. And you had him working with me just to cover it all up, probably trying to make me a patsy. You’re a son of a bitch and I know all about it now.”
Rambert studied Stark’s face for a moment. It was normally friendly and agreeable, perhaps even mistaken to be weak looking. Now his face was vicious without a glint of humor or understanding. He felt for a moment that he had completely misunderstood what type of man Reginald Stark was this whole time.
“Dr. Stark, there are things that I have known about, yes. I’ve been fully aware of the outbreak in Medora and I’ve known that the survivors were here in D.C. But the things you’re suggesting, no, I have no idea what you’re talking about, clinical trials with Dr. Beckfield? I honestly don’t know. Our former President must have kept those
details from me.”
“I’m not just suggesting these things, I’ve seen it. I’ve talked with the Medora survivors myself. I even took a little tour of Beckfield’s office not an hour ago and helped myself to all his files. I read about Virulex and Lantus and everything. You can’t hide it from me.”
“Virulex? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Dr. Beckfield was appointed by the President himself. Before that, I didn’t know the man from Adam. I know very little about his past.” Rambert stared straight at Stark.
“Where is Dr. Beckfield?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“He caused the D.C. outbreak. He let Danny out of that cell and I know why.”
“Why?”
“The man was trying to frame me. He had already lost containment with the other Medora patients just hours before. The infected had already gotten out on his watch so when he saw me bitten and lying on the ground, he saw the perfect opportunity to just let me die and let Danny out of the cell, which everyone would believe caused the D.C. outbreak.”
“I did think that the outbreak here happened sooner than when you called me to tell me you were bitten. Care to guess how the New York outbreak started, because I’m still trying to crack that nut.”
The two exhausted men looked back at each other from across a coffee table. They both felt defeated, wanting to know who and where the enemy was and knowing that it was not the person in front of them.
Rambert spoke up again, “What can you tell me about the virus? What is Virulex?”
“It’s a nano-virus made by a pharmaceutical company called Lantus. Medora was their first clinical trial of the virus. They brought in dozens of very sick leukemia patients from all over the country and it mutated inside of them, infecting everyone else at the compound.”
“But the Medora survivors had immunity, right?”
“They did, but only temporarily. They’re all dead now. I put the last survivor down before she turned. A girl named Eli.” Stark looked down at his hands.
“Oh, I see.”
“It turns out there’s another European pharmaceutical company that might have gotten involved with Lantus. Lantus was being extremely secretive about the Medora trials, not just because the FDA hadn’t approved clinical trials with nano-particles, but also because this other company has been trying to do the same thing. I read files in Beckfield’s office about outrageous sums of money offered to Lantus employees to sell them some of Lantus’ technology. They even thought that there were spies in the company and it sure looked like there was. There’s also something else…” Stark waited for him to respond.
“Well, what is it?”
“It’s about the Mad Cow disease in the eighties. It definitely wasn’t Mad Cow which is what I thought this whole time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you remember how I told you there were some clinical trials in England during the same time as the Mad Cow outbreak?”
“Yes…”
“They were the same clinical trials using a similar type of nano-virus as the one used in Medora. Mad Cow was a complete cover up for a mutation of the chemo delivery virus that they were using there. The exact same thing is happening over here now, but with a newly developed nano-virus, Virulex but it’s mutated just like it did in London. It must be a very unstable technology. That one doctor I told you that I had worked with was Dr. Crimmel.”
Rambert paused, trying to recall the conversation.
“He was at the head of those clinical trials and according to Dr. Beckfield’s notes, he’s been trying to steal this new nano-virus from Lantus for the last five years. This guy, Crimmel has been working on this same stuff for the past thirty years.”
“So there was no Mad Cow disease?”
“No, it was totally made up, just a cover up. Apparently, they got a better handle on the virus over there than we did here though.”
“I don’t believe it. How did you not detect the virus when you were in England?”
“I was blocked and doubted by Crimmel the entire time. He allowed me very little access and I didn’t have the equipment to know that it was a nano-virus at all. But I knew it wasn’t CJD. The bastard…” Stark stopped and clenched his jaw. “That bastard ruined my career and was fully aware of it.”
“So why did Danny and all of the Medora survivors not turn?”
“Leukemia, they all had leukemia giving them a high white blood cell count which was able to allow their immune systems to stave off the virus for a few weeks. But it gives out and the virus eventually takes over. There’s nothing special about them, they turn just like anyone else.”
Rambert stared straight forward over the glossy table of the oval office.
Diane appeared at the threshold of the room again with a telephone. “Mr. President, I have finally been able to get the Britain Prime Minister on the line.”
“You’re kidding me, how? I thought all lines were down.”
“He managed to call us on the satellite phone.”
Diane handed the phone to Rambert who got off the couch and went into an adjacent office to talk.
Stark was kicking himself for trusting Rambert again so quickly. As he barreled through the decaying streets of D.C. from the research facility, he had planned an entire speech about how what Rambert had done was unconscionable to the American people. However, Rambert seemed so earnest that it was irresistible not to trust him again. At this point, it didn’t even matter why or how this all happened, he thought. It only mattered about what we did about it.
Rambert returned to the room and sat down again on the couch. “Dr. Stark, you’re now an official cabinet member of the President. I’m going to make you… White House Chief of Staff. How does that sound to you?”
Stark just looked back at him, not amused.
“I’m actually quite serious, Dr. Stark. Do you understand that our government is crumbling? We’re leaderless. I brought you onto the research project because I trusted a hunch that I had about you when I read all those journals you wrote about Mad Cow Disease. You’re a double doctorate in physics and medicine. You are a brilliant man. Do you know this? Have you forgotten? Yes, you had a terrible reputation, but I still thought there was something about the way you assimilated problems and used pragmatism instead of politics. You’re… honest. This is the time and place for you. Right now, we need you.”
Stark scoffed for a moment.
“Plus, there’s no one else around.”
Stark finally grinned, “Yes, Mr. President, I’ll be your Chief of Staff.” He shook his head, “What a joke” he added.
“Okay, good, because I have some things to discuss with you. That was indeed David Cameron from Britain explaining his country’s presence in Baltimore and also New York State.”
“And?”
“It boils down to two things. They know that D.C. is compromised and they made an agreement with Canada that they would do everything necessary to stop the spread of the infection. They put the burden upon themselves in light of the fact that we are functionally paralyzed at the moment.”
“Can we really not take care of this ourselves?”
“It is impossible to mobilize any major advancement on the cities. We’ve lost about eighty percent of communications not only within the city but transatlantic is down as well. All our satellite communication installations are down across the city. Those are what we use to talk to our forces all across the planet. Frankly, I’m glad the Brits are here. We need them. We have all of our forces available, but we can’t communicate with them. The White House is commanding none of the pinpoint bombings on the New York area anymore. We are having different bodies of the government working without each other.”
“What’s the other reason England is here?”
“China.”
“And what are they doing?”
“The Prime Minister believes China is attempting a power grab on the United States. They’re using the infection as an excuse to invade
, just as the Brits, but he insists that they’re seizing the opportunity to occupy the United States.”
“Where is China?”
“Coming up the Eastern coast. They may also be mobilizing in the Pacific.”
“How’d they get here so fast?”
“I don’t know, but listen, Reg, there’s something I need you to do.”
“What?”
“Get in a helicopter and go to Richmond, Virginia.”
“Why?”
“I’ve managed to get a radio broadcast around the Eastern seaboard area for any bitten people showing no signs of infection to report to the CDC there. I’m actually not even sure if the broadcast is still running, but it was playing long enough for a lot of people to hear it.”
“All we’re going to find are people with undiagnosed leukemia. They are the only people who could be bitten and not be showing symptoms.”
“You’re probably right, but you know more than anybody right now what’s going on with that virus and I’d like you to be there right now.”
“More than anyone except Beckfield.” Stark stood up. “Okay, take me away, I guess.”
Diane opened the oval office door to show him out.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you something,” Stark said, turning to Rambert. “I have leukemia and I’m going to die in about two weeks from Virulex.”
“Oh, well, that gives us plenty of time then.”
Chapter twenty two
The maroon suburban jumped up and down on the uneven grass as it cruised along the riverbed. Keith looked over the steering wheel and into the early morning sun as it began to peek up over the trees ahead of him. Through the five-hour drive, he had realized that the best course out of the city was to follow small rivers and streams through parks. They provided both the absence of traffic jams and hordes of the infected. The car had been silent most of the night, with Ellen sleeping quietly in the back seat. He had intermittently checked the radio throughout the night for updates, but until the signal died, kept getting the same looped recording to come to Richmond. He was seriously beginning to doubt how much the government was even in control. The bombing of an elementary school area had reeked of desperation.