“Back up! Back up now!” A teenage kid with a skateboard took out his phone and started filming the scene. Xander took his stance over Azir and attempted to question him but to no avail.
“We’re losing him!” He yelled up the escalators at the emergency quarantine team through his respirator. The hazmat team approached as Azir coughed deep, spraying a fountain of blood up into the air. He twitched more violently, until the twitch became a convulsion and the convulsion became a seizure.
“Damnit! Stay with me” It was no use as his brain seized upon itself and began to lose oxygen from the pooling of blood in his throat.
Choking, seizing and bleeding – it all came to an end in a matter of seconds. Azir fell limp and still.
Xander brought the corpse up off the floor and could make out a bloody smile left on the terrorist’s face. He slammed what was left of Azir back down onto the floor and searched his pockets. He had nothing on him, except a cell phone in his pocket. The hazmat team arrived with a mobile isolation unit and immediately began to enclose the body. Xander stepped away from the body, heaving through every breath – the adrenaline still coursing through his veins. He surveyed the paralyzed crowd and saw no movement, no terrorist on the run.
“Azir is dead!” he updated the Presidential Bunker.
“Keep the scene contained. Where is the driver?” Hardy spoke over the comm unit.
“No sign of Khan…” Xander sighed in defeat.
“Keep us posted.” Hardy’s responded.
“Over and out” Xander tapped the device over his ear to cut off the camera, linking his feed to the bunker.
He brought the phone up to his view and searched the call log. Empty. He then accessed the text messages and found one thread, time-stamped for earlier that day. He paced to the corner away from the lingering screams and cries, seeking concentration. Wiping his face in an effort to compose himself, he opened the text message. His eyes quickly read the text message.
Our man in the White House has been contacted. All is going according to plan.
Xander froze in disbelief. His breaths quickened through his respirator as the implications settled in. An ache rung out in his head like a leaden bell tolling. Wincing in pain, his hand lost its grip on the phone, dropping it to the floor, where it shattered into pieces.
Chapter 37
BNA Studios
Washington, DC
2:45PM
Rachel and Porter awaited the FBI in a small isolated conference of BNA studios. Rachel tapped out an impatient rhythm on the conference table, frustrated that she was sitting on the bench during the biggest game of the season. There was one lone television in the room and they watched as Adam Nichols continued his reporting on the growing unrest in the streets. He sent it out to their man in the field by the National Guard’s road blocks. The armed men of the Guard stood stoic and alert, directing commuters along, occasionally explaining the situation to drivers who stopped. The BNA reporter stood at the edge of the Beltway – the shot showed the road block behind him.
“As we expected, traffic is beginning to build on the Beltway as commuting cars cannot get out of the city to return to their homes. They are directing these commuters back into the city where they will have to wait until the quarantine is lifted. I sense that unrest is growing, slowly but surely around the Beltway as more and more people become informed of the events of today,” the reporter shouted.
“Jeff, have you seen anyone that appears sick in any way out there?” Nichols asked over the satellite.
“No, Adam I haven’t but out here, most people have stayed in their cars and moved along as directed. But that can only last for so long, because many of these people have nowhere to go. Many of them don’t want to go to the designated emergency quarantines across the city, for fear of getting sick from others there,” he reported.
Back in the conference room, Rachel fidgeted, nervous of what was to come. “They are going to shut us down… right in the middle of the biggest story of the year,” she alleged through her growing anxiety.
“No, they won’t…” Porter assured her. “If they pull plug on us then people will really freak out. We are their best chance of keeping the DC area calm.” Rachel turned to Porter with condescension.
“Are you kidding me? How naïve are you? The media only perpetuates crises. Remember Ferguson, Baltimore, Charlotte… Any time a riot breaks out, the news gets the ratings and the situation gets worse,” Rachel explained as the producer she was.
Just then, an FBI agent dressed in a black suit and tie entered the conference room with the head of the network, Lukas Zucker, and took a seat across from them. The agent was balding, but retained a fringe of short red hair that framed his bare scalp. He had a long face which drooped but somehow maintained its sternness.
Lukas Zucker had materialized in the flesh before Porter Nash, usually only being visible in silhouette form in his office, overlooking the bullpen. He had thick white hair, gaunt features and a dimpled chin. Zucker crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair in a posture that reminded everyone present that he owned the place.
“Alright listen here. As far as I’m concerned you both have made a mess of my news station. When I said, ‘get me ratings’, I did not mean like this. There is a fine line between being interesting and being weak. We will appear weak, if we don’t fix this.” Rachel and Porter were paralyzed by his intimidating presence.
“You are going to fix this, and you are going to give Mr. Graves here whatever he wants. I want you to give the FBI your full cooperation, or you will never work in this industry again. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes…” the two responded.
With a nod of the head, Zucker stood from his chair and exited the conference room, leaving Porter and Rachel alone with the FBI agent. A quick beat passed and the agent started his line of questioning.
“I am Special Agent Andy Graves. Do you know why we are here?” His eyes held a soft green hue that put the others at ease. His approach was composed and objective, assessing the two BNA employees with no aggression.
“Because you want to take a look at the video? We only have a recording of it, we have no idea how it got up on our monitors,” Rachel explained in a pleading defense.
“That’s one of many things. We are treating this area like a crime scene. If you will supply any and all information we need in performing our investigation, we won’t shut down your broadcast.” Graves laid the deal on the table.
“Really?”
“I can assure you that things go much smoother for all parties involved when you cooperate with the FBI.”
“Okay then…” Rachel accepted it, finally calming down.
“You have to understand that in this situation, how you report the news could be a matter of life and death. I’m going to go ahead and assume that BNA was in fact hacked and that you didn’t purposefully air the video after reviewing it. But you better hope we can find that computer virus...” Graves’s tone dropped an octave. His words were met with blank, paralyzed expressions.
“We didn’t see it before it aired!” Rachel pleaded.
“I’m sure that is the case, but we need to prove it. Because if we can’t then you may be treated as an accessory to all of this. So, help me help you.” Rachel nodded, petrified of her own possible culpability in the matter. Graves turned to Porter for a direct line of questioning. “You said that you received the flash drive from an unknown source. Did you see his face?”
“Only partially, he was discrete and had a hood over his head,” Porter answered.
“I want to see the replay of the video you have, we will send it for processing right away, I also want one of my men to take a look at your network. If we can find it, we may be able to trace it back to where the signal came from. And lastly, I want that flash drive.” Graves’s eyebrows arched toward Porter, who fumbled in his pocket after a brief moment of hesitation. He slapped the flash drive on the table and slid it across to the FBI agent
.
“You cooperate, we cooperate. Understand?” Graves admonished them. He received two agreeing nods and stood up from the table.
He hastened to leave but he stopped as he turned to meet the video monitor that read Breaking News. They turned to watch as Adam Nichols reported the latest development.
“There appears to have been a situation at Van Ness Metro Station on the east side of the city moments ago. Preliminary reports state that a car chase ensued that led a freezer truck slamming into the entrance of the station.” In mid-sentence a live feed populated the screen, showing the carnage at the entrance of the Metro Station. The shot was rolling from a helicopter overhead. It showed a containment team running into the station.
“Those are Hazmat suits…” One of the members on the panel shrieked aloud. The rest of the panel exhaled their shock as the feed circled overhead, zooming in on the debris from the wreck and the Hazmat personnel running toward the site.
“It appears the third target has been hit,” Nichols explained with great difficulty. The crew behind the cameras became audible as gasps sounded off stage.
“How many people are trapped in there?” a candid voice asked off camera. Then the studio stared at the television in silence along with the American public as they processed the live images on the news that they’d never forget.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“There aren’t cameras in the tunnels. He could be anywhere on the red line right now,” Mac explained on the phone to Hardy.
“Damnit…” A moment of consideration followed. “If you can’t find out where he is going, find where he has been. Trace his route to the metro, work backwards. He most likely has a base of operations in the city somewhere,” he ordered.
“Already on it. It will take time though—”
Hardy cut him off. “Time is something we don’t have! Get it done, Mac!”
“Yes sir.” Mac tapped the Bluetooth on his ear to end the call.
“He always has a good bedside manner, doesn’t he?” Cusick asked from the couch.
“Yeah, he’s a real peach…” Mac responded. Expecting a laugh, he looked back at Cusick who was honed in on his computer screen. He then heard screams coming from his laptop. Cusick lips mouthed the words: What the hell…
Mac popped out of his chair and hovered over Cusick’s shoulder. His monitor showed a bloody man, coughing and dying on the floor. A flurry of curses sounded from behind the phone camera on which the video was filmed. The footage shook as its cameraman adjusted his position. The video then paned up to two large escalators ascending to the street. On the escalator coming down were four men in Hazmat suits carrying different quarantine instruments toward the body. Two armed operatives with respirators covering their face barked toward the camera.
“Back up, back up!” The feed focused down onto the floor and cut. After watching the video, Cusick exited the pop-up window, revealing a twitter feed. The tweet appended to the video read ‘Quarantined in Van Ness Station, what is going on? #SOS #BreakingNews’ It had been retweeted 1,332 times. Shocked from the footage, Cusick refreshed the webpage. The retweet count now was 2,043. Upon seeing the number, Cusick and Mac backed away from the computer in shock.
“What’s the only thing that spreads faster than a disease?” he asked over Cusick’s shoulder.
“Panic…”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Tobias Greene pushed his glasses back up his nose as he leaned over the microscope. With a couple twists of the knobs, he brought the contagion strand into focus. An image materialized before him – a bending strand, outlined by dark crimson borders, looping at its end like an old key.
“We need to focus on the genetic alteration,” Catherine noted.
“Yes, we do,” Tobias responded from the microscope lens.
“Symptoms are manifesting themselves much faster than normal bacteria. It must have been genetically altered to intensify upon incubation,” she explained.
“I concur…” Tobias positioned another petri dish beneath its lens. “So far no common antibiotics have been responsive. Cellular wall, membrane and pilus are all still intact. And no matter the dilution of sample its CFU’s grow fast. Catherine…” Catherine did not answer. “Colony-Forming Units…” he explained as if Tobias did not know the acronym mentioned. Another silent moment passed. “Catherine?” He called again.
He then lifted from the microscope and joined Catherine in front of the television. There was a reporter on scene outside of the Van Ness Metro Station. The headline read “Breaking News: Attack at Van Ness”.
“Is that related?” Catherine asked.
“I t…th…th…think it is… w…w…which means…” Tobias almost couldn’t breathe, causing his stutter to return.
“The plague is out…” Catherine concluded, her head dropping to a defeated position.
Just then Tobias’s phone rang. He grabbed it and answered.
“Hello?”
“Tobias, it’s Xander.”
“X…X…Xander, where are you?”
“Van Ness station,” he replied.
“It’s on the n…n…news now… Has the b…b…bacteria gotten out?” Tobias asked immediately.
“Mohammad Azir’s body is lying in the lobby of the station. It came down the escalator right before we got here. There is no doubt people got close enough to be infected. We think we have contained it within the station though. We stopped the trains and closed off the exits,” Xander explained.
“Good.”
“How is the research going?” Xander asked.
“It’s going w…w…well but everything we learn about this…s…s thing is bad news,” Tobias explained.
“Hit me with it.” Tobias drew a deep breath. He held the phone out to Catherine as if to ask, do you mind?
“Developing an antibody will be a losing battle. Antibiotic development takes years and we’ve tried every antibiotic we can think of, all of which are unresponsive. The problem is that this bacterium acts so quickly it would be almost impossible to test an antibiotic on a test subject. The subject would die too fast,” Catherine explained.
“Are you saying that the cure may not even work?” Xander asked.
“I’m not saying that. The antibiotic will work and stop the disease, granted it hasn’t progressed too far. But when you develop antibiotics you tweak it back and forth. Unfortunately, the damage is so severe it is almost impossible to be able to make any logical judgment about which way to tweak it. So… we’re flying blind in other words,” Catherine concluded to her dismay.
“I didn’t think bacterial infections showed symptoms this quickly. So how is this happening?” Xander asked.
“Good question… We have concluded that it must have been genetically altered. That is the only explanation. The concentration of the bacteria once it has been injected must be incredibly strong. It’d be like shooting you up with stage 3 Cancer,” she answered.
“That’s why the symptoms manifest themselves so quickly.”
“The damage will have already run its full course by the time we can develop and produce an antibiotic to this scale,” Catherine concluded. “Xander, it appears that you need to find the cure. The only way this stops is if you recover the cure they developed…”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
Chapter 38
Metro Tunnels
3:15PM
Khan limped along the tracks, heart pounding. He stretched and felt three of his ribs crackle, crippling him in stride. He was hunched over his right side, protecting the cracked ribs suffered from the wreck. Khan panted in rhythm with his hobbling jog.
I still have a job to do.
His grip tightened on the black case, he tugged along.
After another ten minutes, lost and consumed in the darkness of the tunnel, Khan passed something that slowly morphed through the shadows – a door. He fell into it, shouldering it ajar and pushing it over its rusted hinges. Through the door, a dim light shined from ov
erhead. Khan’s eyes tried to readjust, but they failed . His hands reached out only to hit an iron bar – it was a ladder. He climbed it, one rung at a time, curling over on his side.
After reaching the chamber above, a stench beset Khan on all sides. He emerged into the city’s sewer system – the air of which was a musty humidity. Khan moved quickly through the sewage, searching for another way up. His feet splashed in the murky waters as he hobbled through section after section of the sewers, until he finally saw it before him – a ladder, ascending to a man hole.
After making his way up to the manhole with the case, he pushed up on the thick cover and jarred it loose with a shoulder. Once it was loose, he slowly opened it and peaked his eyes above the ground level. There he saw headlights – a car speeding straight for him. He quickly ducked back into the sewer and was glad his head was still attached to his body. Upon peeking again, he saw his chance and took it, climbing up and onto the street. Despite receiving a few stares from onlookers, Khan darted across the street and into an alley, before his appearance could be committed to memory.
Once finding a corner of privacy, he took a seat up against a brick wall, trying to catch his breath. The pain from his ribs told him to check the status of the rest of his body but Khan praised Allah for his escape. Expecting to see the light of a beautiful day, he did not. Rather clouds had converged over the city, creating an eerie air as the afternoon began to dim into evening. Khan’s vision fell to his lap, where his weak arm plopped down on his leg. His watch read – 3:30PM. His brain racked itself, confirming his schedule.
Fourth target. His hand reached into his jacket pocket where his fingers ran themselves over the small glass vial filled with the blue liquid he had obtained from their underground facility in the Dupont Trolley station.
Good…
Then, contact our man on the inside.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“This place is locked down – airtight,” Seamus updated as he joined Xander and Ashton outside of the metro station. He pulled down his respirator to his chin, now clear of the quarantine zone.
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