Pestilence: The Infection Begins

by Craig A. McDonough

  The CDC executive jet was a good distance from the terminal, and prying eyes, there was a black SUV at the bottom of the stairway. Another man dressed like airport staff but with an orange reflective jacket waved the two light wands in his hands to get Calgleef’s attention. After stopping where the man indicated, the CDC director got out of the van and went directly to the stairs and up into the plane. He didn’t say anything, not after the guy at the gate demonstrated that conversation was not on this flight list.

  “Over here, Dr. Calgleef, over here.” A voice that was familiar called the moment he stepped into the cabin. “Sit, we have much to discuss.” The voice belonged to his NSA contact that he’d only spoken to on the phone, but he recognized it instantly. The authority his NSA contact displayed concerned him. Where once he was almost subordinate to Calgleef he now appeared to be in command.

  While Calgleef took his seat the NSA agent ordered some coffee, from the attendant, who Calgleef assumed was also from the NSA. Once the attendant left the agent began he filling the director in.

  “The hospital wasn’t devoid of all life as first thought,” he told Calgleef as if reading a report of company finances. “A substantial group of infected individuals attacked and—we assume—killed your retrieval team—”

  “Killed them? How, my team was armed.”

  “Keep your voice lower please, Dr. Calgleef.”

  “Yes, of course, my apologies.” People with loud voices or who expressed surprise publicly must be an intelligence agent’s nightmare, Calgleef surmised.

  “We haven’t been able to ascertain that as yet, but a cleanup crew will go in at first light. We may not want to know what the exact nature of their deaths was, as autopsies would be required, which means more people in the loop and more people to keep watch over. You follow?”

  Calgleef also knew at that moment, this man from NSA—or wherever, he was beginning to doubt if his contact had ever told him the truth—knew of the entire scheme and was probably more of a Thorncroft man than he was, but he played the game well.

  “How will you do that if my armed team was killed? How would you—”

  “Just leave that to us, Dr. Calgleef.”

  The less I know, the better, I’ll bet, is what he is saying. Calgleef was able to grasp the hidden threat.

  The door of the cabin was pulled shut behind them by a man in coveralls who looked like airport maintenance, and it was clear to Calgleef that the NSA had wasted no expense on this—if indeed they were the NSA. The whine of the engines picked up, as the plane taxied toward the runway. The two men put down their coffees and fastened their seat belts as instructed and prepared for the journey to Atlanta.

  “Your idea to use the vaccine on the few who were rescued by the helicopter was probably a valid one—except we didn’t get the vaccine, did we?” The agent looked over at Calgleef, who saw for the first time a look of quiet menace in the eyes of the shadowy government man. The NSA agent sat back in the comfortable chair opposite Calgleef, hardly standard airline seats. The jet had recently been remodeled and made roomier. “Those five, as you know, are loose ends, and they have to be dealt with. But,” the agent leaned forward, loosening his red silk tie as he did, “that’s another matter you don’t need to concern yourself with, you follow?”

  Calgleef noted how his contact had gone from cordial, when he’d dealt with him on the phone, to almost arrogant superiority.

  “There’ll be some questions asked, no doubt, and some will be answered sufficiently, but there will always be some speculation particularly on the Internet—that’s to be expected. It won’t necessarily do any harm. The public’s fear of catching a deadly disease will outweigh any concerns over the integrity of the vaccine or its manufacturers, you follow?”

  Calgleef didn’t have to guess what his contact’s favorite turn of phrase was; he repeated it almost every time he spoke.

  Calgleef left the rest of his coffee. He didn’t want the NSA spook to see his hand shaking. As they winged their way back to Atlanta, the director of the CDC went over and over in his head all the possible ramifications and wondered how the scheme could possibly go ahead after the disaster that had struck. But when he looked at his NSA contact sitting back relaxed in his seat and dozing, he couldn’t help but ask if all the events of today might also have been planned.

  No one could be that calm if they weren’t fully prepared for what had transpired since the early hours of the day.

  And to be this prepared—it had to be a contingency plan, it had too! Calgleef watched the man, who he now thought of as his controller and no longer his contact, who had started to snore.

  The agent’s sleep, as well as his unruffled character, weren’t about to last.

  Seventeen

  The two guards who arrived to transport Delaney and the others were different than the black shirts who watched over them at the warehouse. Their uniforms, for a start, were different. Wearing dark blue shirts and pants with black workman’s boots, they resembled US Postal employees more than anything, plus they only wore surgical masks over their faces. Either there was no disease to be concerned with, or they just hadn’t been informed of the full dangers they faced. One guard slid the door open and got into the single seat that faced toward the back of the van, directly at the prisoners. Once settled he thumped his fist twice on the panel that divided the driver’s cabin and the “personnel” section. The gears cranked and the van lurched off. The sudden movement of the van put pressure on the bladders of the two doctors in the back seat.

  “What’s with you two?” The guard had noticed their uncomfortable looks when he shone his flashlight on them.

  “Uh, it just these cuffs are hurting my wrists,” Tilford answered him.

  “Well that won’t bother you much longer.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Mike was quick to ask but didn’t make any sudden moves. He didn’t want to spook the guard.

  Leaning back into his chair, the guard displayed an air of confidence that none of the five would present a danger to him bound hand and foot as they were. This is exactly what Mike was hoping for, and the more relaxed the guard was the better his chances. The guard was in his mid-thirties, of stocky build with a boot camp haircut. But he was no recruit, his cold matter-of-fact voice and uncaring stare told Mike that much. The guard wore a shoulder holster over his blue double-pocket shirt, where a medium-sized 9mm pistol rested in a horizontal position, which suited Mike just fine. The warehouse that had been their home for the last few hours was accessible by a road that hadn’t seen any maintenance for years. Every time the van bounced over a pothole, Delaney and Tilford noticeably grimaced Mike couldn’t see their reaction but could imagine what they were going through.

  Mike felt the van slow appreciably to take a tight turn—this was their chance.

  “Now, Grace, now!” he whispered from the corner of his mouth.

  Delaney took her cue like a seasoned actress on Broadway.

  “Guard, guard, I-I-I have to use the bathroom I have to—” The desperation in her voice wasn’t fake.

  “Well you just have to squeeze you muffin pie a bit longer.” A sneer formed on the guard’s face. He enjoyed the schoolyard reference he made. “Hell, we’ll be there soon and I’ll even help you take down you pants, ma’am.” He leaned forward, a lecherous grin on his face and a glint in his eye.

  BHAM! In the dim light all anyone saw was a flash from where Mike was sitting, but they all heard the double-handed fist connect to the guard’s jaw. His head hit the back of the divider and creating a loud bong. Mike didn’t hesitate and hit him again, again and once more for good measure.

  “What are you doing? You’re killing him, you’re killing him!” Steve cried in shock. Reporting on violence of this nature was his thing, being in the thick of it wasn’t.

  “What do you think they were going to do with us, you dropkick?” Mike had made friends with some Australian servicemen in Iraq and picked up a few of their colloquial manne
risms’.

  The van screeched to a halt. The driver had obviously heard the commotion in back. Whether the guard was unconscious or dead it didn’t matter to Mike; he had his life to save and that of four others. Reaching down, he yanked the pistol from the holster and quickly checked the pockets and found another magazine.

  “Get back from the door and be quiet!” he said in a tense whisper as he heard the keys twisting in the sliding door’s lock. Mike knelt on the floor and raised the pistol shoulder high. The door to the van slid back. The smell of dust from the dirt road and the damp night air rushed in.

  “What the hell is go—” A double tap from the 9mm put an end to the driver’s inquisitiveness.

  “Oh my God,” Steve jumped out of his seat.

  “Jesus!” Richard added as he recoiled in his.

  While they shared religious experiences, Mike vaulted out of the dark van. Though they hadn’t been held that long, the air was like freedom to him, he could smell the grass, now damp from the night air. He didn’t have time to take in all the delights of the Iowa night and grabbed the driver by the ankles and dragged his twitching body to a ditch beside the road.

  “Okay, quickly out!” he ordered, no more whispering; it was time to get things done.

  “I have to—”

  “Over there but not too far from the car,” he told Delaney, as he unlocked her cuffs with the keys he liberated from the driver.

  Tilford was next to have his cuffs removed then headed for first tree ahead of him. Soon the aroma of night was joined by the sulfur-sweet smell of urine. Steve and Richard, both still shaking visibly, also took the opportunity to relieve themselves; it had been a long time for all of them. Mike went back into the van and pulled the unconscious guard out and dragged him over to the ditch and dropped him next to the driver.

  “Is he… is he dead too?” Steve asked, his voice displayed fear. Whether it was over the situation or the ease in which Mike seemed prepared to kill, or both, it was hard to tell.

  “Not yet,” Mike raised the pistol and pumped another two shots into the back of the guard’s head. “Now he is.”

  “My God man you--” Tilford began but was grabbed by Delaney.

  “Isaac, they were going to do the same to us. It’s unfortunate but necessary.” She held him by his upper arms.

  Tilford thought for a moment or two before seeing her logic.

  “Yes, yes I understand. I do.”

  Richard and Steve stared at the man who they’d only ever thought of as their chopper pilot. Now, they had just watched him kill two men without so much as an increase in his pulse rate; or that’s how it seemed.

  “Let’s get going. We don’t have time for this.” Mike was sure the driver would be in regular contact via radio with his superiors, and when he didn’t check in at the appropriate time a search would be launched immediately.

  “He’s right, we have to get moving,” Delaney added. Now relieved of her overflow, she looked ready to take part in the decision-making process once more, not that she’d been out of it. It just felt that way.

  “Aha, just as I suspected.” Mike picked up a satellite phone off the seat next to the driver’s.

  “What the hell are you doing? Have you gone mad?” Steve confronted Mike, who threw the satellite phone to the ground and stomped on it several times. He’d been itching to speak out but not in the confines of the van. Too close for comfort. “We can use that to call—”

  “Call who, a mortuary service to order your pine box? These are agency men and that sat phone has a built-in tracker. When they don’t call at the pre—determined time, they’ll begin a search for this vehicle… And they’ll know right where to go.”

  “Why wouldn’t the van have a radio?”

  “Radio signals can be intercepted far easier, Grace.”

  Delaney understood that, as well as the need to destroy the phone. Besides, they didn’t know where they were, and who would they call?

  “Well, if they launch a search we’ll have about ten or fifteen minutes use of this van at best,” she said, walking over and looking inside, “so let’s make use of it and get rolling!”

  “Right, you three get in the back,” Mike said to the men, he wanted Delaney in the front with him. Not because she was attractive, though that helped, but because she was more level headed and practical than the others.

  Mike tucked the pistol into his dark green cargo pants and hopped into the driver’s seat. Delaney slid the door shut to the rear section, then got into the passenger seat.

  “Sorry for the brutal display, but there was no choice, I—”

  “I understand. I had to shoot several inside the hospital to facilitate our escape, and I’m sure you saw what occurred on the rooftop?”

  “Yes, well, I saw you shooting at something.”

  “Let’s just put this behind us for now. We’re still a long way from being out of this.”

  She was right, Mike said to himself as he slipped the van into drive and moved on. Where to from here, he didn’t know. But they had escaped the clutches of their captors and were out.

  They weren’t the only ones to escape that night; at the Riverside hospital in Des Moines the wind raced through the shattered windows and over the rivers of blood and carried the Baltic flu into the night air.

  The new pestilence had arrived in the United States. Not that it wasn’t meant to, just months in advance.

  Eighteen

  Calgleef watched as one of the earlier attendant came up the aisle and rustled the NSA agent awake. “Phone for you, sir.”

  That brief interaction told Calgleef he wasn’t dealing with any run-o-the-mill agent here.

  “Yes,” he said into the satellite phone, “go ahead… WHAT? HOW IN THE FUCK DID THAT HAPPEN?” The agent practically erupted; his voice carried the length of the executive jet. Calgleef watched as the spook ended the call, then hurled the phone down the aisle.

  Do I dare ask and risk being thrown off the plane? Calgleef wondered.

  The agent sat back, put a hand to his forehead and stared at Calgleef without really seeing him. It was obvious he was going over the ramifications of whatever information he’d just had delivered.

  “Is… is there anything I should know?” Calgleef finally summoned the courage to ask.

  The agent dropped his hand into his lap. “Yes, as a matter of fact. Your friend from the CDC, Miss Delaney, has escaped captivity along with the others she was brought in with.”

  “What? That’s dreadful news!”

  “No shit?”

  Calgleef eyed the government agent intently. His demeanor had changed from calm, almost arrogant, to angry and volatile with a single phone call. Considering the work he specialized in, Calgleef reasoned that it would not be a good idea to piss this guy off.

  “How is that possible?” Calgleef struggled to keep his voice low. “They were surrounded by twenty armed men in that warehouse.”

  “We believe it occurred as they were being transferred.” The agent didn’t say “led to their execution,” but the inference was there. “The driver didn’t make his scheduled call, and the transponder in his sat phone ceased working, but there’s a secondary one inside the van. We’ll close in on them soon. It won’t be ideal conditions where we can manage the process, but we have no choice. However, should they make contact with anyone… shit, I don’t even want to think about it!”

  Calgleef knew that disposing of Delaney and her pals wouldn’t be easy—if not impossible—if there were witnesses.

  “What do we do then?”

  “At the moment we just play it by ear, as they say. Authorities will be alerted of the fugitives’ status and that they need to be apprehended at once. The media will be informed not to have any contact and report to us should any attempt at contact be made.” The agent lifted the shade over the window a touch and peered out into the night sky. He enjoyed the contrast offered by the colors on the tops of the clouds. “Your Delaney will try to make contact,
I would assume, with the media; she has too much of a story to tell. Or so she believes. But for safety’s sake they may not surface for a few days or even weeks, providing we don’t catch them, so…”

  “So what, what are you saying?” Calgleef noted the change in the NSA spook. His disciplined manner reappeared, and the answers had obviously come to him as he spoke.

  “We may be able to continue on unchanged. These people will be listed persona non grata, and no one is going to give them any media time… we can practically guarantee that.” A sinister tick developed in the agent’s right eye. “We could even send out a media release that they are infected with the Baltic flu and need to be reported to the CDC immediately. This will reduce the chances of them making serious contact dramatically, which will work to our favor.”

  “Are you serious? Informing the public that the flu has broken out could jeopardize everything!”

  “Perfectly serious, my good fellow. The CDC will inform state and federal authorities, who, I’m sure, will pass measures to seal off the entire city, then our friends won’t have anywhere to run. You’ll make that happen as soon as you get to your office, make the calls, wake whomever you have to. Don’t worry, it’s a national emergency if ever there was one and you’ll have assistance from us on all counts. This will guarantee the implementation of the vaccine program across the country—and much faster. It might also mean that production be continued overseas or a second company could share the manufacturing rights. The rest of the country will become so fearful of the flu, they’ll be lining up for blocks to get the vaccine. Now, do you follow?”

  The agent confirmed to Calgleef he was a big player with Thorn Bio-Tech. He had to be to plan something as large as sealing off a whole city.

  “Well if you think that’s best, just tell me what you want from me,” was all Calgleef could say or think to say. The level of power displayed by this agent was more than impressive; it was scary.

  “Distance yourself from this officer of yours, Delaney. Issue statements that she was a wild card, disobeyed orders, that sort of thin. I’ll have a dossier drawn up and forwarded to you with all you’ll need to know when answering questions—which I’m sure you’ll be asked many. You just get the ball rolling; as the director of the CDC, it’s part of your job anyway. The National Guard and the police will erect chain-link fences, and from there it will be practically out of our hands, you follow?”