One hundred and twenty minutes to find out if she had missed something important.
She had long since exhausted the W.H.O. records, having read and examined any and all relevant or related reports to her questions regarding the plague. The plague was her field of specialty and she knew the database well. But new information came in all the time, and that was what she had been checking.
Having exhausted the W.H.O. records, she then moved on to databases and reports from doctors, universities and medical institutions around the world. Early yesterday morning she had taken to Social Media, reaching out to her extensive network of contacts, seeking information and reports on any new outbreaks of plague that been observed and treated anywhere in the world in the last twenty years.
The plague used to be a notifiable disease, with every recorded instance of it automatically being reported to the W.H.O., but as its potency declined with the advent of new super-drugs to fight it, the practice was stopped.
Hence the necessity to call in favors from colleagues all around the world, and to enlist their help in trawling for any data that the W.H.O had not seen.
Throughout the night and morning, reports had been popping into her email box from doctors and scientists around the globe. She scanned and read them all. Some she already knew about, others however, were new to her.
With two hours to go, she had two unread reports to digest, and she had been promised information on another three outbreaks of plague that she had not previously known about. Two were in South America in 2002 and 2004, and one was in China in 2008.
It was 11.55 a.m., and she had just finished reading all the reports and analyzing the data she already had, when an email arrived from a missionary hospital in Chile. It contained the information on the outbreak of plague that had occurred there in 2002 in a small remote area in Cordillera de Nahuelbuta, a mountain range in the Araucania Region of southern Chile.
She opened the report, scanned the first five pages, and then saw a picture of the biovar that the Universidad Católica de Temuco had created, detailing the structure and shape of a single bacterium.
Her hand began to shake, and her pulse quickened.
She immediately started reading the report again from page one, digesting every single word of the report.
By the time she was finished it was 12.16 p.m.
At 12.17 p.m. she picked up the phone and placed an emergency call to the lead W.H.O. doctor in the field hospital at the Blue Emerald Bay resort.
When he didn’t answer the phone, Moira Cerny began to panic.
She looked at her watch. It was 12.18 p.m.
She dialed the number again…
Chapter 44
The Blue Emerald Bay Resort
Puerto Rico
Thursday
12:18 p.m.
Sally-Anne Davis opened her eyes, blinked a few times, and then tried to lick her lips. Her mouth was dry.
She felt someone holding her hand, and she turned her head to see Captain McGregor sitting beside her and smiling.
“Welcome back, Miss Sally.”
“Captain Rob, …can you get me some water please?”
He poured her a glass from the jug on the small table beside her and handed her a plastic cup.
She sipped it slowly, and then turned back to the Captain.
“What time is it? How long have I been asleep?”
Captain Rob looked up at the sun.
“It must be sometime after eight bells…sorry, midday. But not long after. You have slept well, Miss Sally, but you should sleep more. Your body can fight this infection best when you are asleep.”
“I feel better, Captain Rob. Much better…”
“That is good news. I shall call the doctor to examine you.”
--------------------
The news was indeed good. Five minutes later, as Dr Mitchell left Miss Sally’s bed, he turned to Captain Rob and confirmed that the fever had broken, and miraculously it did indeed seem as if Miss Sally was on the mend.
He was just finishing his conversation with the pirate captain when another doctor hurried over to him, waving the green army field phone.
“It’s Moira Cerny. She says it urgent!”
--------------------
“I’m sorry, Dr Mitchell, I haven’t got a single second to spare…this is urgent. Please, just tell me… how many residents and employees of the hotel have now got sick or died.”
“Two new cases were admitted this morning…fewer than we expected. There have been no new deaths.
“Any signs of improvements yet on those that were ill?”
“Actually, yes… in the past hour, two of those who first showed signs of infection yesterday have since shown remarkable improvements. It's even possible that they are now recovering…”
“And are you sure that the man who died was killed by the plague?”
“No. About an hour ago we did a quick, very basic autopsy before they incinerated his body. I thought it was important since he was the first person to die…”
“And? Did the plague kill him?”
“The autopsy showed that he died of a heart attack. The patient was overweight, around sixty, and a smoker. He was infected, but it's most likely that the stress of the past few days, coupled with the physical onset of the plague caused the heart attack. So, in answer to your question…no, I don’t actually now believe that the plague was the actual cause of death…A contributory factor, yes, but not the cause…”
Before he had even finished the sentence, Moira Cerny had hung up.
It was 12.25 p.m.
--------------------
Anton Lebsky picked up the phone on the second ring. He had been trying to reach Moira for the past ten minutes, but she was constantly engaged.
“Anton? Thank God! We’re making a terrible mistake! The plague is not as deadly as I suspected it would be! We’ve got to stop the bomb being detonated!”
“How do you know? Why do….”
“Because I just read a report from an outbreak of plague recorded and researched in 2002 in the mountains in Chile. The local university in Temuco produced a picture of the biovar and described it in detail. It’s almost identical to the one that is …was…killing people in the Blue Emerald. But the report states that of six hundred people infected over a three month period in Chile, only twenty died. That’s a death rate of less than four percent. The death rate amongst the pirates is almost seventy percent, but that’s because they have no immunity to the infection. It seems that although I've never seen this form of the bacteria before and though in theory it looks like the perfect pathogen, people from the twenty-first century have somehow got an inbuilt immunity to it that must have been built up over the past three hundred years. I don't fully understand it. It looks lethal, but it isn't…our bodies seem to be able to resist it. I don't know how, but that’s what happened in Chile. People were able to fight the infection." She paused to take a breath.
"So, …coupled with our modern drugs, and based on what was seen in Chile, I think that the death rate will also be really low amongst the residents and the employees at the resort. I’ve already checked with Dr Mitchell in the resort, and he confirms that some residents are already recovering and that the single death already reported was caused by a heart attack and NOT the plague!” Moira paused for a breath.
“Anton, I’ve made a terrible mistake. This is not the killer that I thought it would be. We simply can’t justify Piras Stage Three. We have to abort, immediately! There are only minutes left!”
“Understood!”
Anton hung up the phone, and ten seconds later was connected to the President of the United States of America.
“This is Anton Lebsky! Abort! Abort the detonation…I will explain later….Do you hear me…Abort!”
--------------------
12.28 p.m.
U.S. Air Force Flight 287
Colonel Jake Anderson checked his instrumentation panel. Everything was ready. The na
vigator had just confirmed that they were directly above the Blue Emerald Bay Resort.
Colonel Anderson flicked the switch opening the bomb-bay doors, and took the plane into a quick turn.
In less than thirty seconds they would once again be in the exact position that the G.P.S. and on-board computer system told them was the optimal drop point for the N-648 Nuclear Incendiary Device.
With the bomb-bay doors open, Colonel Anderson lifted the red safety catch that covered the bomb release mechanism, and he prepared to press the button beneath.
“Twenty-five seconds to release,” he announced to his crew.
Everyone on board understood the significance of this mission. They had been briefed on the target beneath, and the payload that was being dropped.
Once released, a parachute would be deployed, the weapon would arm itself and the incendiary device would detonate at precisely ninety feet above sea level.
The men on board were silent.
This was no Afghanistan, or Iran or Syria.
This was American soil.
“Twenty seconds to release… Fifteen seconds.”
Suddenly a loud and urgent voice from mission headquarters broke through the countdown sequence and tension on the flight deck, “Colonel Anderson, this is Flight Commander Dean. Code word 'Alice'. I repeat, the code word is 'Alice'. Abort the mission. Do you copy? Abort the mission and return to base! Over.”
“Commander Dean, this is Colonel Anderson. The bomb is secure and the mission has been aborted. Am returning to base. Over.”
Several miles below, Captain Rob McGregor and Miss Sally Davis looked up into the sky and saw the small silver bird fly overhead.
“I wonder what it would be like to fly in one of the metal birds,” the Captain said.
“Perhaps one day you will,” Miss Sally suggested.
“I would like that,” Captain Rob McGregor replied smiling. “I would like that very much.”
Chapter 45
The Bluebell Mansion
Negril
Jamaica
Thursday
1 p.m.
As they approached the Bluebell Mansion, the Colonel had still not decided how best to prepare Professor Derek Martin for the discovery that they were about to make.
He had been thinking about it for the past twenty-four hours, but the best way had still not occurred to him.
The bottom line was, that what the Colonel was about to show Derek Martin was proof of a discovery that would change the world, and perhaps everyone’s perception of reality. The discovery - perhaps not the portrait itself, but the story that the picture told - had the potential to threaten the peace and stability of the world itself.
“Stop the car here, please.” Colonel Patterson ordered, bidding for a little more time.
They all got out of the car, the Colonel, Derek, Constable Jones and the Colonel’s assistant who was recording a photographic log of everything.
They were now a hundred yards from the entrance to the impressive mansion, where the road swept around in front of the building and where the passengers would historically have alighted from their coaches and carriages and disappeared into the house through the covered entrance.
The Colonel ordered the other two to go ahead and announce their arrival and set up the cameras. Once they were out of earshot, the Colonel walked to the side of the driveway they had driven up and sat down on the edge of the lawn.
“Please, Derek, join me. I would like to talk to you before we go inside.”
A little nervous as to what this heralded, Derek sat down beside him. For a few minutes, the Colonel said nothing,
“Derek, I want to be frank and open with you, and to discuss a few things that perhaps may be a little sensitive, but which are very relevant.”
“Okay…”Derek replied, tentatively. Intrigued.
“Once, a long time ago, before I met the present Mrs Patterson, I met someone else. I fell in love. And I never fell out of love. We never married. She came from a different background than I did, was not military, and my parents, well,…they wanted me to marry a General’s daughter…or someone like that. Stupidly, I never followed my heart. I did in fact marry a General’s daughter…and she is lovely, don’t get me wrong. But I never forgot my first love, and I still think of her every day.”
Derek turned and looked at the Colonel. For this first time since they had met, he saw a man who was not wearing a uniform. Just a man, like any other. Someone vulnerable, a mother’s son… and someone who carried a secret longing all his life, - just like Derek did.
“Has this got something to do with Kate?”
“Yes.”
“Kate is in the painting. I know that. You told me already.”
“She didn’t die, Derek. She is still alive…albeit in another time, three hundred years ago. But she survived the vortex!”
“I know. And it was such a relief when you told me. I had begun to blame myself…”
“Derek, if things were different, do you think she would have wanted to be with you?”
“That’s a very personal question.”
“I know.”
Derek thought about it. Did he want to open up his heart to this man? His gut reaction was no, but there was something about the way that the Colonel was speaking to him now, that was different from the way they had ever communicated before.
“She was a Jew, as I think your reports already told you. She was pressurized to marry within the faith. I am a Gentile. She conformed to what was expected of her…”
“As did I,” the Colonel interjected.
“…and I think she always regretted it.” Derek finished the sentence. “But no one can turn back the clock. What was done was done. She got married. She stayed married. We lost each other. Perhaps in a different world with different values and different pressures, we would have had a chance. But not in America in the 20th Century. And before you ask me Colonel, the answer is ‘yes’! I still love her, and I never stopped.”
“That’s what I thought. Please, now…come with me.”
The Colonel stood up, and then waited for the Professor to rise too, and then gestured with his hand that the Professor should lead the way.
The impressive front doors of the mansion were open, waiting for their arrival.
Derek stepped through the doorway and into the entrance vestibule and then through into the large grand hallway. The reception hall reminded him of the large stately homes of England: the floor was tiled in large black and white marble slabs which looked like a gigantic chess-board. The center of the hall was dominated by a grandiose stone fireplace, with two curved marble staircases - one on either side of the fireplace - that swept up and beyond to the second floor of the mansion.
Above the fireplace, a large, very impressive oil-painting dominated the reception hall, welcoming visitors to the mansion: obviously the original owners of the mansion, the picture depicted a family, a happy family, who looked down upon their arriving guests and smiled upon them.
There were seven people in the painting: A woman, her husband, five children -three boys and two girls, and some animals.
Derek’s gaze was immediately drawn to the central figure of the woman. From everything that the Colonel had already said, he knew what to expect.
It was Kate.
She looked beautiful, happy. Fulfilled. More happy than he had seen her in years.
She wore a long, flowing ball-gown. Her long hair swept down over her shoulders, and her eyes twinkled.
The artist had done an incredible job.
Derek’s eyes wandered next to the man who stood beside her.
His heart skipped a beat.
He blinked.
He stared at the painting again, and then in disbelief turned to the Colonel, as if for confirmation of what he was seeing.
The Colonel simply nodded.
The man looking down from the painting, standing by Kate’s side, and the father of their five children, was himself: P
rofessor Derek Martin.
Older, rounder, happier, but definitely, without any shadow of a doubt, it was him.
“What was it you said, Derek? - ‘Perhaps in a different world with different values and different pressures, we would have had a chance.’ Well, I think that one day soon you are going to find that chance. History has already recorded that you have.”
“But how…when…I don’t understand.”
“You will, soon. This oil painting shows us that you married Kate and had five children with her! You lived together in this mansion, and ran this estate. Together! This is fact. This happened. This proves it…and if you don’t believe this, your name is also written on the gravestone that we found with Kate’s name on it above the Dunn's River Falls. I’ve been doing lots of research over the past twenty-four hours and I can tell you, that you and Kate were pioneers in Jamaica in the early eighteenth century. You ran the first plantation here that did not depend upon slavery…you set your slaves free. You…”
“Are you telling me the truth?”
“Absolutely! History has recorded it all.”
“But…how did I end up there?" Derek pointed at the painting, "…I’m here!"
“You are here now. But at some point in the future you will travel back in time to meet Kate. You will join her. And you will be together!” The Colonel paused, before committing himself. “Derek, tomorrow I would like to fly with you back to my laboratory in Colorado and show you the top secret research that the government has been conducting. We have been making great strides in our laboratories in the fields of teleportation and time travel, based mostly upon your concept of the Hunraken Vortex. One of my teams has been designing a machine that will one day hopefully allow us to artificially create the conditions needed for a Hunraken Vortex to form. In our work we have already been able to transport small amounts of material through time, so we already know that time travel is possible. But now…this…,” the Colonel said, waving at the oil-painting. “…This shows us that even more is possible. This changes everything. This proves that we will succeed in our work, that either this year, or next, or the year after, we will succeed in building a machine that will allow us to transport objects, even people, back in time. And you, Derek, you will be one of the first people in the world to travel back in time using our machine!”
TIME SHIP (Book Two) - A Time Travel Romantic Adventure Page 21