Calgleef followed all right: “Do as you’re told, and don’t get cold feet,” that’s what it amounted to. Yes, he followed all right.
The agent was right that no one would want to risk exposure, and the diabolical plans may just yet go ahead. Calgleef wondered whether or not Delaney and her group would flee. She wasn’t a native of Des Moines and hiding out in a foreign city would be a good idea, at least that’s how he looked at it. Placing the city under quarantine would prevent their escape—it would also prevent the bacteria from spreading and there wouldn’t be any better encouragement for the use of the vaccine. Whatever fiend Calgleef had become, he was still the director of the CDC and was aware that the flu was out there, spreading, infiltrating, penetrating. The coming pestilence, which he knew it would be inevitable, didn’t discriminate. They were all vulnerable.
“Yes I think you’re right, I honestly do.” Calgleef settled back in his seat; he could relax. He would call Thorncroft after landing but now assumed someone from the NSA or another government department had beaten him to it based on what he’d just learned from his contact. The disguised hints from the agent told how far reaching this scheme was.
Like a giant evil octopus, Thorn Bio—Tech had spread its tentacles across the world; his NSA spook had just reinforced it.
Nineteen
“We got to dump this van and get something else,” Delaney said to Mike.
“Agreed. We won’t get far in this, that’s for sure. Plus there’s a chance this thing could be bugged too.”
“There’s some lights up ahead. We might get lucky there.”
Mike glanced over and nodded. Delaney had seen better days, he noted as the light from the street lamp showed her ragged hair and creased doctor’s coat and a drained look on her face. Tired and unkempt as she may be, her natural good looks and well-proportioned figure hadn’t really suffered. Mike never liked thin women all that much; when he wanted bones he preferred gravy and baked potatoes with it. Mike wasn’t stupid and had noticed the looks Delaney and Tilford had exchanged. He understood and respected it. But it didn’t stop him from admiring her and he did but not just for her beauty
“It looks like an all-night bar. We’ll—”
A fast-approaching helicopter from Mike’s left cut him off. “Spotted!”
The wide arc of the chopper’s powerful spotlight lit up the road ahead of them.
“If I can get up next to this truck, it might buy us enough time.”
“Time for what?”
“That, I haven’t figured out yet, but if you’ve got any ideas, now’s the time.”
Mike drew up next to the eighteen-wheeler and snuggled alongside just as the circle of light thrown down by the chopper hit them.
“At the angle they’re on, they won’t see us, and we might be able to get to the bar before they do. We’ll have to take whatevers’ available, smash-and-grab style, so as soon as we stop you run around and open up the back for the others… and if that reporter dick mouths off, leave him there.”
Epilogue
“Good, thank you,” Thorncroft said into the phone as he picked up his wine. It was the early hours of the morning in England, but he’d been up all night “working” hard on easing his frustrations out. He wasn’t displeased at all with the latest turn of events. He had been alarmed when first told of the escape of the five people who could do irreparable damage to his plans, but relaxed when it was explained they probably wouldn’t last a day on the loose; or if they did, they’d be quarantined with no access granted to anyone. The fear of the Baltic flu would be emphasized over and over in releases to the media from departments like the CDC and the FDA and why it was imperative to public safety that no one come into contact with them.
Thorncroft’s caller also informed him, “We have them located near a roadside bar and should pick them up anytime now.”
Thorncroft was also pleased that Calgleef had received a subtle reading of the riot act and was seemingly well onboard.
Moya was no longer an issue. There would be some questions asked of Thorncroft as he paid his former representative some large sums of money. The explanation for sealing off the whole city concerned him about as much as losing an hour’s sleep. The fact that it would hasten the need for a vaccine and there wouldn’t be any time for testing or putting out tenders for the contract delighted him in a way that only obscene profits could; well, young men had a way of doing it too.
As Thorncroft mulled this over in his comfortable English home, two dozen National Guard trucks drove into the parking lot of Riverside Hospital. Heavily armed soldiers in camouflage battle dress alighted from the trucks and sealed off the perimeter. The NSA agent had had this already planned well ahead even as he detailed his plan to Calgleef. He couldn’t wait until the CDC director got into his office, but it would make Calgleef think he played an important role in the whole subterfuge.
No, Thorncroft wasn’t too displeased at all, considering all that had happened, the shoot-ups, riots and wild claims against the establishment are a part of the everyday life in America, so much so that most went by unnoticed.
Thorncroft looked out the bedroom window of his two-story estate. A streak of light across the sky in the east foretold of the coming day. There was some work to be done for sure, but there was some celebrating to do as well. He’d just been informed his contract with the US government was practically set in cement.
“This is indeed a time for celebration!” He grabbed a bottle of Dom Pérignon from the bar fridge in his master bedroom and headed back to the bed, dropping the towel from around his waist.
“Jason, Jason. Wake up, young man, it’s time to make your daddy happy again!”
The Baltic flu had gone from humble beginnings in an obscure European town to three continents, but it was its emergence in the United States with its privately owned and controlled health system that paved the way for the biggest killing—in financial terms—at least that’s how Thorncroft looked upon it. He had no concern for the further implications: a worldwide pestilence raging like an out of control forest fire. The poor, the frail, the young and the old would be the most susceptible—at first—but then the rich, the elite and the politicians would be just as vulnerable to the indiscriminate tentacles of the virus. They just couldn’t see it because of the dollar sign’s in their eyes.
Millions would perish to the pestilence and no one would be safe.
Also by Craig A. McDonough
More than just another zombie shoot ‘em up!
“Toward the Brink” is the Apocalyptic series with a difference. Political corruption and intrigue. Greed on a massive scale that has lurked behind the shadows for decades and of course the Foamers. Hideous walking dead that seek vengeance on the living.
Start the journey with Toward the Brink 1 you won’t be dissapointed .
Check them out here on my author page.
My Author Page
Pestilence: The Infection Begins Page 16