Or maybe he would have just let him sleep.
The second RPG was enough to convince Sarge that they were outmatched. “Fall back!” He shouted. “Keep the fire going, but get back.”
“They're pushing through!” one of his men shouted.
Sarge had stood and was literally shoving some of his men off of the line, ordering them to take cover further from the tomb entrance. He looked up in time to see a number of well-armed men rush out of the tomb. Some were carrying litters piled with bundles and crates, with two men per load. He couldn't get a good look at their cargo, but he could make a guess. Kotler had said they had Ah-Puch, but he'd also said they had weapons. A lot of weapons.
There was nothing to be done about it. At the moment, Sarge and his men were completely outmatched, and the mercenaries were filing out and into the jungle under a barrage of automatic weapons fire and a butt-ton of explosives. It was all his men could do to keep from being slaughtered. If those boys pressed forward with that firepower, it would be game over.
But luck was with Sarge and his bunch—the mercenaries were more concerned about escape than fighting. Whether that luck would turn out to be good or bad was kind of up in the air, but Sarge would take what he could get.
“Get in pursuit!” He shouted to some of his team. “Track ‘em! If you get a shot and can take ‘em out, do it, but otherwise I want to know where they put every footprint until they get to where they're going. Keep out of sight, but find out where they're taking that haul!”
His men, grim and determined, did as ordered and started their pursuit. They moved into the jungle behind the mercenaries, and Sarge said a prayer that he'd see all those boys again, and soon.
Smoke was swirling all around them. The jungle they stood in was shredded and smoldering, and some of his men had formed a fire brigade to tamp things down. The rest swept forward, weapons ready, inspecting the tomb entrance.
By some Sonny-Jesus miracle, none of his men had been killed. Some had been injured, mostly by flying debris. Their only advantage, in that fight, had been position, and it had saved their butts, for the most part.
They moved down to the tomb entrance, where they found four dead mercenaries. Sarge counted this as at least a partial win.
“Sarge, should we go in?”
“Negative,” he grumbled, puffing heavily on his cigar. He blew the smoke into the opening of the tomb, as if he might be able to cleanse it. He hated the idea of viruses and other sickness taking him or his boys down. That wasn't how he wanted to go out. “Get the docs out here. We got a viral situation, and I don't want any exposure.”
The men pulled back, and someone went to retrieve the CDC lady.
Sarge stood and surveyed the site, shook his head, and let out a stream of curses around the stump of his cigar. All the while he gripped his rifle and propped it against his shoulder, marching off toward the edge of the jungle where the mercenaries and his men had just made tracks.
He stopped at the jungle's edge. It was all he could do to stay behind. He wanted to get out there and gun down some scumbags. But that wasn't how this worked. There were things in pieces, here in his own camp, and that meant he had to pull it all back together.
“Sarge, we got incoming!” a report came over his radio.
Sarge pulled the radio close and mashed the button. “Who we got?”
There was silence for a moment, and Sarge was just about to chew into the man on the other side when he reported, “It's Knoll and the FBI guys.”
Sarge grunted. “Get them back to camp. And every damn man in this bunch better be on patrol in five. Move!”
He turned back to the entrance to the tomb, and the problem within. Dr. Graham was alive, when Kotler saw him, but that was before a bunch of trained killers armed better than most militaries came through, determined to fight their way out. For all anyone knew, Graham might be Swiss cheese, or worse.
Dr. Dawson arrived, suited up and ready, along with two of Sarge's men. The boys were hoisting a rectangular box, carrying it like a litter between them.
She had them place the box on the ground and then pull on bio-suits.
“What's with the casket?” Sarge asked.
“Portable bio-containment chamber,” she replied. “Dr. Kotler said that Dr. Graham was incapacitated. This is the best way to retrieve him. But I'm going to need a clear path between here and the lab.”
Sarge nodded. “I'll arrange that.” He paused, and motioned for her to step aside with him, out of earshot of his men. “Doc, give me the straight and skinny on this. Are … are we exposed to this thing? Should we be doing anything? Taking meds, burning our clothes, what-not?”
Dawson shook her head. “I don't believe there's been any exposure. Dr. Kotler's blood work is in process, but he's showing no signs, at the moment. That doesn't necessarily mean he's had no exposure, but he was smart to keep himself at a distance.”
“So the squint might be sick, but he kept it away from me and mine,” Sarge said. He shook his head. “That does sound like him.”
Dawson smiled. “We'll retrieve Dr. Graham now.”
Sarge glanced back at his men, then gave Dawson a serious look. “Doc, be prepared, when you go in there. He may not be in good shape. There were a lot of bullets flying.”
Dawson considered this and nodded, then went and led the two men and the containment unit into the tomb.
Sarge watched them go, and then made his way back to the rest of the camp. He needed to see to Knoll and the other two, get a debriefing, and find out just what the hell they needed to do next. Because as of now, this was all FUBAR.
Chapter 30
Kotler snapped out of a doze as Dawson and two of Sarge's men came in through the airlock, each clad in a containment suit. They were carrying something between them, and they set this down inside one of the cells. They opened the top, and lifted someone out, placing him on the floor of the cell.
It was Graham. And he definitely did not look good.
Dr. Dawson administered several injections, what Kotler assumed were broad spectrum antibiotics and antivirals. She drew blood, handing it off to Liz through another of the access ports mounted in the Plexiglas wall, and then she and the men exited the cell. The decontamination mist activated and coated Graham as well as the bio-containment unit he'd been in. Graham remained prone and unmoving through all of it.
“How is he?” Kotler asked.
Liz glanced up at him, and didn't need to say a word. He could read it on her face.
She took the blood sample and began running the same tests as they'd done on Kotler.
Kotler sat, watching Liz across the space.
“Ok, how am I then?” he asked. He tried to be lighthearted about it, to smile and pretend like he wasn't at all worried about what was happening to him, and what might happen to the world, if Ah-Puch were released in a populated area.
Liz looked up. “So far, you seem fine,” she said, giving him a smile he wasn't sure how to read, through the suit. Her body language was being muted, and Kotler found himself wondering if he'd ever get a chance to read someone's natural expressions again. Or, for that matter, if he'd ever leave this room alive.
“That good, huh?” Kotler asked. “I've always been hearty.”
Dr. Dawson entered the lab, having gone through decontamination. She took a seat next to Liz, monitoring some of the test results from Kotler's blood. “The good news is so far there’s no trace of the protein capsules in your blood,” Dawson said. “Those appear to be the delivery system for the pathogen. But until we've observed you for a while, there's no way to know for sure.”
Kotler thought for a moment, and glanced at Graham. “John presented within an hour or so,” he said.
Dawson peered at him. “You know when he came into contact with the virus?”
“Approximately,” Kotler said. “I'm pretty positive it was within the timeframe of us leaving the altar chamber and the moment I left him in the dark. That wasn't more than
an hour. His erratic behavior started around that time. I'd much rather assume it was the virus impacting him than believe he truly wanted to kill me. But to be honest, it's a toss-up.”
He continued to explain his observations of Graham's shift in behavior, rebuilding the events that led up to their present predicament.
“I don't know how, but I believe he was exposed to something around the time we discovered the tomb entrance, in the altar chamber. It was about an hour later when he started showing signs of paranoia. At least, that's the point where he pulled a gun on me.”
Dawson nodded. “So I believe that since you've shown no signs or symptoms, you should be ok. But we still have to keep you in observation for twenty-four hours. We have no idea what the incubation period is for this, and I'm already bending protocol by not having the entire camp in quarantine.”
Kotler sighed. “Can I get something to read? Or maybe my iPad? I could be of use, maybe work up some notes.”
Dawson shook her head. “I'm sorry Dr. Kotler …”
“Dan,” he said. “Please.”
She paused, and nodded. “Dan. I'm sorry. We have to limit what you come in contact with.”
Kotler nodded, and sighed again. He looked around the cell that, for the time being, he was being forced to call home. He also studied the lab, taking in the equipment, watching some of the displays churn data in ever-growing cascades.
He saw Liz Ludlum, working diligently at one of the displays nearby, and brightened somewhat. “What about you, Liz? What the heck are you doing here? The last time I saw you was at Ashton Mink's apartment, while we were working with Detective Holden to solve his murder. Are you still with the NYPD?”
She smiled. “On loan,” she said, nodding to Dr. Dawson. “Emily is a good friend of mine. She consulted with me about this, and I asked if I could tag along, to assist and to provide a forensic perspective.”
Kotler nodded. It seemed fantastic, that somehow Liz Ludlum was not only good friends with the CDC expert that Denzel had called in, but she'd also managed to get herself invited along on this specific case. The odds had to be astounding.
Kotler wanted to ask her more questions, possibly in an attempt to alleviate his boredom, as much as to understand how this could all be happening. It felt good to be talking and sharing ideas. It made him feel as if he could still contribute.
At that moment, however, two figures entered the airlock from outside, and started going through decontamination. One was one of the guards that had helped Dr. Dawson bring Graham into the portable lab. The other, to Kotler's surprise, was Denzel. Clad in a contamination suit, he was led through the corridor and stopped in front of Kotler's cell.
“You just can't keep out of trouble,” he said.
Kotler laughed. “No, I guess I can't. It's good to see you, Roland.”
“How are you doing?” he asked.
Kotler shrugged. “I've been worse. I was very surprised to hear that you found a back door into the tomb. I'm glad I didn't accidentally trap you in there.”
“You damn near did,” Denzel scowled. “And because of you, I had to swim through ice-cold water, in an underground cavern, in the dark.”
Kotler's eyes widened. “And … how did you do?”
Denzel took a deep breath, letting it out in a rush, temporarily fogging the glass of his mask. “I'll admit, I don't want to repeat that anytime soon. But we actually had some warning of what you were doing, in advance. We had one of their radios, and heard you going all John McClane on them.”
Kotler smiled and chuckled, then held his hands out to his side. “Now I have a deadly virus,” he said, in his best imitation of Hans Gruber, Alan Rickman's character in Die Hard. “Ho-Ho-Ho.”
Denzel looked concerned. “Do you?” He looked to Liz. “Does he?”
“It's too soon to tell,” she replied.
Denzel looked back at him, and Kotler could see the agent was struggling with what to say.
“Twenty-four hours,” Kotler said. He glanced at the time on one of the computers near his cell. “Well, more like eighteen hours now. If I'm alive at that point, I can get out of here.”
Denzel nodded. “You'll make it.”
Kotler accepted the optimism without comment. He stood then, and nodded to Graham. “What about John?” he asked Dr. Dawson.
She turned to the microscope she'd been using, then brought the image up on the screen next to her.
Kotler leaned against the Plexiglas, to get a better look. He was no virologist, but he knew enough to recognize the anomalies in Graham's blood. Onscreen, Kotler could see red blood cells bulging and exploding as millions of capsule-shaped protein casements replicated themselves.
“I believe this is part of a first stage of this pathogen,” Dawson said. “It's similar to the way Ebola or Marburg destroys cells, during replication, but it seems to be using cell material to create these protein capsules. Later, at a timeframe we can't yet determine, those will erupt as well. The pathogen then causes an extreme reaction in the host, effectively destroying all of the host cells and leaving behind a waste product that resembles ash.”
“The mounds we found all around the guerrilla campsite,” Kotler said to Denzel.
“Wait, does that mean we're all infected?” Denzel asked.
Dawson shook her head. “I don't believe so. As far as I can tell, the transfer method for this may have to be direct contact with the pathogen. It doesn't appear to be airborne. The protein capsules are somewhat heavy. They could certainly be spread through force, but their natural tendency would be to settle.”
Kotler was surprised. “Well, that's good news at least!”
She smiled. “It means that the likelihood that you or anyone else is infected is slim,” she nodded. “That's definitely the good news.”
“And what's the bad news?” Denzel asked.
She sighed. “Again, it's early days yet, but I believe once someone is infected, the pathogen replicates itself until it has used up the cells of the host. And during this replication, the host is a carrier. Any direct contact could mean infection.”
“So someone becomes patient zero, and infects a population by going out and shaking hands with the public?” Kotler asked.
“That's one possible vector,” Dawson said. “Another is potentially more dangerous. Though the virus itself isn't airborne, it could certainly be weaponized by infusing it in an aerosol. It only takes a very brief contact, and any particles left on the skin of someone who encounters it would start replicating. It would have to be highly targeted, I believe. I haven't yet determined how much exposure will result in an infection, but my guess is it's a very small amount. We're also working to find the pathogen's viability outside of a host. It clearly has a very long dormancy, if it was stored within that Ah-Puch statue for thousands of years.”
Kotler shook his head. “That wasn't the source, though.”
“I'm sorry?” Dawson asked.
“Graham had no contact with that statue,” Kotler said. “He had to have come into contact with the virus some other way. I found hundreds of those statues down in the tomb, but Graham never came into contact with any of them.”
“So how did he become infected?” Denzel asked.
Liz stood and moved to the Plexiglas wall in front of Graham's cell. Across from her, Denzel moved to look at Graham from the corridor. “Have we searched him?” Liz asked, looking back at Dr. Dawson.
Dawson shook her head. “I wanted to get him here as quickly as possible, to see if we could alleviate his symptoms but also lower the risk of exposure for anyone else here.”
Liz looked back at Denzel. “Agent Denzel, since you're already on the corridor side of the cells, would you mind?”
Denzel nodded, then opened the door to Graham's cell. There was a whoosh as the seal on the door was broken and the pressurization shifted to match the atmosphere of the corridor.
Denzel knelt beside Graham. He reached out and started patting the man's pockets. He remov
ed everything he found, piling it around Graham on the floor.
Among the odds and ends that emerged were shards of what looked like pottery.
“Hold those up for me to see,” Kotler said.
Denzel held each piece up, then ultimately placed them on the floor near the wall between Graham and Kotler's cells. “I think that's a figurine of Ah-Puch,” Kotler said.
“There's some kind of sand or something in Graham's pocket,” Denzel said.
“Wait,” Liz said. She turned and went to a table, retrieving a test tube with a rubber stopper.
She took this to the access port of Graham's cell, and ran it through. Denzel opened the port from his side and took out the tube. He knelt again, and scooped some of the substance into the tube, pushing the stopper in tight. He took it back to the access port, and in minutes Liz had it and was putting a sample under the microscope.
The image appeared on screen.
“That's our virus,” Dawson said. “Capsule shaped proteins. They must remain dormant until they come in contact with human skin. Perhaps they're activated by moisture or skin oils.”
“And they start replicating,” Liz said, her voice quiet and fascinated. “These are active, but not replicating. They must need the human host.”
Dawson stood beside her, and Liz shifted to allow access to the microscope. “The Mayans who used this must have collected some of the ash of those who were infected and killed. They used the statues as a way to store it, but how were they able to put it into stasis? The samples we found in the mounds around the temple were completely unviable. No living viral agent. So we know that it doesn't go into dormancy naturally. At least, not in an open-air environment.”
“Maybe encapsulating it in the statues protected it from the open air?” Liz asked.
The Girl in the Mayan Tomb Page 25