by Alan Ross
Chapter 25
Korean Impact
Park Jung’s head was swimming and his legs felt like lead as he tried to get out of bed. He needed to go to work, hadn’t missed a day at the factory in over fifteen years but his body wasn’t cooperating. He was having trouble breathing and felt feverish, probably had picked up the flu from someone at the plant. His wife Min was standing at his side, arguing with him.
“You need to stay home today, the factory will survive without you for one day. You will rest and I’ll cook some food to make you feel better.”
“I cannot miss work, don’t want to lose my job.”
“You never miss work, they will understand. I’ll send Ho over to tell your boss that you will not be in.” Ho was their grandson, who shared their home with their daughter and son in law, who was in the military and stationed in the north, helping to guard the border between North and South Korea.
The older man started to argue with his wife but his body won and he lay back down, his breathing shallow. He slept most of the day, lost in dreams brought on by the fever, most of them about jungles and being unable to cool down. His wife sat on the bed and tried to comfort him, but it seemed that he was getting worse. Maybe it was a twenty four hour flu and he’d be better in the morning, she thought as she placed the cold cloth on his forehead and prayed the fever would subside overnight.
That night neither of them slept, the man screaming in terror as the nightmares raged on. At dawn’s first light she ran to get the doctor, who came with bag in hand. Min hadn’t noticed the sores that were forming on Jung’s torso and face and stared in horror when she and the doctor returned to the house. The doctor called for an ambulance and stayed away from the man, not knowing what he had but determining that it looked like something that might be contagious. He followed the ambulance to the hospital and told the paramedics to leave the body until he had a chance to talk to the doctors in the emergency room.
The hospital staff prepared an isolated room to treat the man and took extra precautions to protect themselves from the threat of infection. Jung was brought in on a stretcher, barely conscious now. “If I didn’t know any better I would say that this looks like Variola Major but there hasn’t been a case of it in a very long time.” The lead doctor said.
“We better call someone fast, if this is smallpox it’s nothing I’ve seen before, especially since he only showed symptoms in the past twenty four hours. Seal off this room and bring in the entire family so we can keep them in observation.” The hospital administrator had been called in during the setup of the room. A physician himself, he’d seen smallpox firsthand when he was young and remembered how contagious it was.
“There aren’t many free beds and they’re scattered.” A nurse offered.
“Double people up and make some room available, we need this now!” He barked back.
They gave Jung some morphine and prayed for him, knowing that it wouldn’t be long before his body shut down. The old man was delusional and they tried to question him to see where he’d been before he got sick but all he talked about was the vultures circling the forest. He died a few hours later, too drugged to know that his insides were turning to jell-o and unable to recognize the faces of his family, who were watching him die from the window of the hospital room.
Similar stories emerged around Seoul over the next day, dozens stricken and succumbing to the virus without many clues. The news media tried to keep a lid on the story but it was being spread around by the people, who were locking themselves in their homes and talking about it on the internet. The death toll quickly reached one hundred and there were probably others. The government arrived and started searching the residences of the infected, finding one common item, the bottles of Coke. Analysis showed it as the source of infection, which was directly given to the media. The company was more than cooperative and able to trace back the batch that appeared to be contaminated and recall all that hadn’t been sold by taking all of the stock back from every location that had received a delivery from that batch.
The Korean government set up a triage center where they quarantined anyone who might have had some of the contaminated drinks or been exposed to those who had died. They separated the people into three groups; those who were infected, those who were high risk and others who they isolated as a precaution. They peppered the airways with notices about what to do if the symptoms showed up and were flooded with people who were scared and those who were looking for vaccinations from the disease.
By the end of the weekend the country was in panic, even though the government assured them that the situation was coming under control. It was still unclear, however, if anyone had bought some of the contaminated Coke and then traveled, it was impossible to know that immediately. The South Korean government alerted the rest of the world and alerted them that there was an outbreak. Since there was no direct evidence of infection outside of Korea the threat was treated as moderate and governments began burning through passenger manifestos from all inbound flights from Korea in the past week, which left them with tens of thousands of people to follow up with.
The news media was all over the story by Sunday afternoon and there was no putting the genie back in the bottle. The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta was flooded with phone calls and their website shut down because there was so much traffic to it by Sunday evening. The story was the same all over the world, as governments scrambled to find anyone who could be infected and to prepare what to do in the face of this new biological threat. It was all hands on deck in the United States government, the Sunday afternoon blowing up like the fourth of July.
Darren was sleeping in from their late night together at the beach when the phone rang for the third straight time. “Damnit, the world better be on fire.”
It was James, Darren’s boss. “There’s been an outbreak of smallpox in South Korea. Hundreds are dead, some new strain. We need all hands on deck to start chasing down possible leads as well as corralling the potentially infected.”
“I’m on my way James.” He got out of bed, Monica starting to stir.
“What’s happening Darren?”
“I need you to stay inside until I let you know. I may not be able to come home for a while. There’s been a smallpox outbreak in South Korea, it’s a new strain and hundreds are dead.”
Monica’s face showed shock and fear, similar to the morning of 9/11. “Is this related to what you’ve been getting from Jack?”
“Yes, I guess he’s a good source. I wish like hell he would have told me more, still think he’s holding something back. Maybe he sent me more information since the attack.”
She held him a long time and didn’t want him to leave. “Is there a chance we’ve been infected?”
“I don’t think so, the only infected people seem to be in the greater Seoul area. I will call you as soon as I know more. I love you Moni.”
“I love you too baby, please stay safe.” She held him some more and he kissed her and headed out the door. The world seemed quiet, he wondered if the news was already breaking. When he got in the car the news was filled with information and modulated between drilling fear and trying to instill a feeling of calm with the listeners. Darren switched off the station and took the nearly dead beltway to the department of Homeland Security. The office was full and everyone was running around looking for information that could assist in the apprehension of the suspects.
“Just got word from South Korea that a North Korean group has claimed responsibility for the attack, saying this was just the start if the world doesn’t leave North Korea alone. Kim Jong-Il has publicly denounced the attack and disavowed any knowledge of the act or new strain of smallpox. His government is cooperating with other agencies around the world to try and determine if a vaccine can be developed quickly.”
“I’ve been chasing a ghost around this. Let’s grab a conference room.” Darren brought his laptop and proceeded to tell James everything.
“I wis
h you would have brought this forward Darren. It’s probably twenty-twenty hindsight but I understand why you didn’t. You haven’t been able to find out anything else?”
“Nothing beyond what I’ve told you. I’m pretty sure the person leading up The Cause works in the government, they have access to too much information and seem very well backed and organized. Not sure who this Jack is though, maybe someone who is working with them or somehow stumbled on it in an official capacity and doesn’t want to get caught in the middle of something.” He showed James the website and they reviewed everything that Darren had found in the chatter of the past few months.
“This is pretty sketchy, not much different than what we get from dozens of other places each year. What made you keep up with this one?”
“It was just the way that Jack reached out to me, how safe he was. If we’d have found him after the first couple messages it might have been different but he’s smart and doesn’t want us to know who he is.” Darren also told James about what he’d heard off the record from the CDC contact that there was a new smallpox strain and also some top secret work to develop a vaccine. This got James’ interest and he immediately started sending emails looking for information.
James got called away to an upper level meeting and left Darren in the conference room, alone with his thoughts. Darren asked Jack if he was around in the chat box of the website and waited for a response. He updated his chatter program to search for everything from the past couple of days and found nothing significant. CNN had reported that the North Korean group was taking credit for the attack. James reached out to a friend over there and asked how the tip came in.
“It was strange, came in on an anonymous tip line but the caller ID was blocked. We tried to keep them on the line but they disconnected after giving us the tip.”
“Let me know if you hear anything else and especially if you get word of anything breaking out in the States. Thanks for your help Tom.”
“No problem Darren, please do the same. I don’t want this sucker punching the United States because the government sits on it too long. If you hear about a vaccine I’d like to know about that too, for my wife and kids if they can have it.”
“I understand, hang in there buddy.” Darren stewed a bit as he refreshed the website and didn’t see a response from Jack. Was he possibly involved? Had the group gone dark? Darren called Monica and told her that for now there were no cases in the United States. He was probably going to be in the office overnight but he’d call her later and would let her know if he heard anything urgent or more concrete. He hung up and got back to digging through leads, intel and chatter before succumbing to the need for sleep sometime in the early morning.
Robert and Mickey were celebrating. It was hard to find an open restaurant but eventually they found a diner that was either oblivious or simply didn’t care about the news and had the place almost entirely to themselves. There was no waitress but an older Greek came out from the kitchen to take their order and make their food.
“This is the beginning of everything Mickey, I keep wondering if I’m going to wake up and find this is all a dream.”
“The news has picked this up so well, the panic level is rising. Look out there, it’s like doomsday, everyone is afraid to come out of their homes. This is better than I could have imagined.”
“We’re just getting started, I hear that the government is all screaming for the vaccine and tomorrow we’re going to offer it to them.” The two men toasted with their milkshakes and grinned as they stuffed their faces.