by Bobby Akart
Wolf Blitzer stared in disbelief at the monitor. The United States government had gone underground to protect itself from this deadly disease. After Tuchman’s statement, Blitzer wasn’t sure if there was an appropriate follow-up. He set aside his professional journalistic persona and asked a logical, albeit personal question on behalf of his millions of viewers worldwide.
“Gary, did your source at Homeland Security have any suggestions on what the rest of us should do?”
“No, Wolf. He did not.”
Chapter 69
Day Fifty
DTRA/CIA Facility
Fort Collins
“Where is everybody?” Mac asked as Hunter slowly eased through the unmanned barricades. “Yesterday, there were only two guards around the perimeter and two at the gate. Now it’s totally unprotected. Do you realize how dangerous that could be if someone came in contact with what we have inside?”
Hunter quickly surveyed the grounds and confirmed what Mac saw. “I’m surprised that Agent Surrey would dismiss the detail completely. But she can’t keep them here indefinitely. I doubt the CIA ever contemplated abandoning the lab with the dangerous diseases locked inside.”
“The building has a secure vault that would take dynamite to open,” added Mac. “I suppose if someone blasts their way into it, they’d be shocked at what came out.”
Hunter backed into a parking space near the front door, where one other vehicle was left empty. The two of them opened up the rear doors to the Defender and adjusted the backseats to lay down flat, allowing for more compartment storage. Mac’s list was short, but the items were bulky and not stackable. The truck would be stuffed with equipment and supplies, not to mention one very dangerous cooler full of plague bacteria to study.
Mac approached the front door and scanned her badge, but it didn’t activate the entry locks. She tried again. Nothing. Hunter slipped past her and tried his badge. He was also unsuccessful.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mac grumbled. “Any ideas?”
“I guess Agent Surrey has dismissed her detail and revoked our privileges. I’m gonna guess that she received orders to close the station.”
Mac turned and looked toward the other vehicle in the parking area. It was a government-issue Ford Taurus. “I’ll bet that’s her car. Do you have her cell phone number?”
“No, but there’s always the old-fashioned way,” said Hunter as he pounded on the smoked-glass door. After a moment, he tried again and then he saw a shadow move through the entry hallway toward Agent Surrey’s office.
A series of clicks followed by a metallic snapping sound indicated that the doors had been unlocked remotely. Hunter grabbed the handle and escorted Mac inside.
“After you, Madame,” he said.
“Merci, Monsieur,” came the reply.
The two entered Agent Surrey’s office and found her with a clipboard, checking off items on a fairly long list. Agent Surrey explained she’d received the call late yesterday afternoon to close the facility. She’d dismissed the agents, what was left of them, this morning. The research staff was contacted by text and told not to come in. She said most of them hadn’t planned on it anyway.
“I guess you drove down here for nothing,” said Agent Surrey. “I’m sorry that I didn’t text you also. It was my mistake.”
Mac glanced at Hunter, who nodded in response. He wanted her to be straightforward about her intentions.
“Agent Surrey, I’m not stopping my research. I think we all agree it’s too dangerous here, but I have another option.”
“Explain.” Agent Surrey set aside her clipboard and leaned back in her chair. She motioned for Hunter and Mac to take a seat.
Mac went over a brief summary of the plan created last night with her mother and Janie. They all recognized the experimentation could be dangerous, but it was their lives at risk, nobody else’s. As scientists, they couldn’t rest until a solution was found.
After a few minutes of playing devil’s advocate, Agent Surrey shrugged and acquiesced. She was going back to St. Louis after filing her report. Nothing in her directives from Langley required an inventory of equipment, supplies, or anything in the facility, for that matter.
They left Agent Surrey to finish her work and Mac led Hunter to the BSL-4. Although the process of removing the equipment sounded simple, the execution must be undertaken without shortcuts or mistakes. Mac had no intention of carrying one cell of plague bacteria out of the laboratory unless it was in a secure container.
Hunter offered to help, but Mac told him it would get crowded in the decontamination chamber with all of the equipment loaded inside. She provided him a list of supplies to box up while she took care of her end.
With a kiss on the cheek, she was off to change, and within ten minutes, Mac was diligently working in the BSL-4 to sanitize, disconnect, and load the equipment into the decontamination chamber while Hunter set off on his own tasks.
The building was eerily quiet as he went about his business, thinking of how much he and Mac’s lives had changed since they’d met seven weeks ago. His mind wandered to a vision of their future. Sadly, he couldn’t predict what tomorrow would bring.
Chapter 70
Day Fifty
DTRA/CIA Facility
Fort Collins
Hunter had retrieved the items on his list and set the boxes of supplies outside the thick glass window, where he watched Mac at work, when he heard the sound of glass breaking at the front door. He quickly drew his weapon and glanced at Mac, who was unaware of the noise.
Two gunshots pierced the air and the sound of more glass breaking. Again, Mac was oblivious to the noise. She’d explained to Hunter before that it was hard to hear in the suits when the air was circulating through the helmet.
He had to make a decision. There were no shouts for help from Agent Surrey, and he had to assume she could take care of herself. Hunter hesitated to leave Mac in order to investigate. She was completely unaware of the threat and unprotected. The glass was thick, but it was not bulletproof.
Hunter moved closer toward the front of the building and slipped into a doorway across the hall. This required him to shoot left-handed in order to maintain cover, something he practiced frequently.
The empty building echoed every sound through its hallways of linoleum floors and painted drywall. Crunching glass and muffled voices could be heard. The quiet made him wish he had his suppressor. When he fired, the P320 blast would sound like cannon fire.
He glanced across the hall to check Mac’s progress. She’d removed the autoclave and an incubator and was in the process of wiping them down. She was halfway there.
A dark figure passed through Hunter’s field of vision. He had to be patient so he could determine the strength of their force. Plus, if it was Agent Surrey, he didn’t want to shoot her. The person approached at a low crouch. It was a heavyset man, much larger than Agent Surrey. She must’ve been injured, Hunter surmised.
As the figure slowly inched forward down the hallway, Hunter caught a glimpse of three more figures turn the corner and approach his position. No time like the present, he thought to himself. Using the element of surprise, Hunter revealed himself in the hallway and fired two shots, dropping the first target. The retort of his weapon was deafening, causing his ears to ring.
The close proximity to Mac startled her and she instinctively moved toward the glass to see what was going on. Hunter twirled his hand and index finger, indicating to Mac to speed up the process.
A shotgun blast missed the mark but sent buckshot pelting the floor and down the hallway past Hunter. Heavy footsteps began to walk toward him. They stopped at the dead man slumped against the wall and one of them cursed. The other man whispered loud enough for Hunter to make out the words.
“Hey, let’s get out of here. I just wanted some meds to stay alive. Not to get killed like Jerry.”
“Shut up,” the other man yelled. “We’ve got to make this right. Jerry’s dead and somebody’s got
ta pay.”
“No way, man, I’m outta here,” the other intruder whispered.
Hunter remained behind the wall for a moment and gave another glance toward Mac, who’d found a new sense of urgency. She was quickly disconnecting the equipment, including the incubator, the bulkiest piece of equipment, which resembled a small refrigerator. The autoclave was the size of a small microwave and the centrifuge resembled a Crock-Pot.
The time-consuming aspect of Mac’s part of the mission was safely securing and packaging the plague bacteria. Hunter didn’t want her to rush and compromise her safety. He decided to press the fight against the two untrained shooters, who really didn’t want to be there.
The hallway was dark except for the faint light emanating from the lab. This light would cast a shadow, creating his silhouette. At the other end of the hall, the men could hide in the darkness. Hunter stepped out of the protective alcove and aimed his weapon. He fired two rounds to the spot where he would hide if approached by an unknown assailant.
The rounds missed their mark, ripping through the drywall instead. He focused the next two rounds on the other side of the hallway where alcove-type entries were located. One of the rounds found a target, as Hunter was rewarded with a cry and a thud.
He slammed himself against the floor as three rounds from a handgun fired high and wild, well above him. Hunter rolled to the side of the hallway against the wall.
The muzzle flash revealed the shooter’s location. Three blasts from Hunter’s P320 wounded the man. A fourth shot brought the man down in a heap.
Hunter was breathing heavily, but footsteps could be heard pounding down the hallway in retreat, growing fainter as the fourth would-be attacker fled. Or did he?
The man was beating a hasty retreat, not attempting to mask the sound of his sneakers as they squeaked on the polished floors. Hunter listened intently for the sound of glass being crushed as the fourth man exited the building. He never heard it. Hunter was still unsure of how many shooters had entered the building. In the dim light, he had been able to make out four. There could be more.
He looked over to the lab and made eye contact with Mac. She’d finished up and was entering the decontamination chamber. He needed to buy her ten minutes while the process ran its course. If the chamber was compromised, they’d have the same type of disaster that the CDC had on its hands in Atlanta. More importantly, Mac could die.
Hunter weighed his options. He knew the building from wandering around that first day Mac started here. There were two ways to access the lab. One was the hallway, which now held three bleeding out dead hostiles. The other way was through a conference room at the other end of the corridor. The door entering the conference room was directly across from the entrance to the changing room. If the shooter came through it, he’d have an easy shot at Mac, who was being washed down with decontaminant.
Risking exposure from the ambient light, which remained on continuously in the lab, Hunter quickly abandoned his secure position and ran toward the conference room door. Breathing heavily, he pressed his ear to the door and listened for movement. Nothing.
He debated whether he was making the wrong choice. If the shooter charged down the hallway, past his dead buddies, he could be on top of the lab in seconds, potentially firing indiscriminately into the protective glass.
Hunter waited, hoping the assailant had fled the building after all. The shower device stopped, prompting Mac to press buttons and turn dials, marking the completion of the process. Hunter breathed a sigh of relief until he heard the clicking of a door closing—within the conference room.
A chair sliding on the floor confirmed his suspicions. The man was entering through the conference room. Hunter backed away from the door and trained his weapon on the center just to the right of the handle.
After a few seconds that seemed like an eternity, the handle slowly moved. Hunter patiently waited for the door to crack open, allowing the intruder to gain a false belief that no one was on the other side. The man was wrong.
Hunter opened fire, pounding four rounds through the door. The sound of a body crashing backward onto the conference table, scattering chairs in all directions, let Hunter know the bullets did their job.
He opened the door to the dressing area and told Mac to hide in one of the ceramic-tiled shower stalls. She found a Rubbermaid cart holding cleaning supplies in a closet and replaced its contents with her own gear. She quickly maneuvered the cart into the shower and gave Hunter a thumbs-up.
Cautiously, Hunter entered the conference room, where he found the fourth dead body. Out of an abundance of caution, he hustled through the hallways of the facility, opening doors and clearing rooms. After ten minutes, he was satisfied that the threat was over.
First, he retrieved Mac and made sure she was okay. Then, arming her with a handgun taken from one of the dead hostiles, they went looking for Agent Surrey.
Chapter 71
Day Fifty
DTRA/CIA Facility
Fort Collins
Hunter and Mac exited the front of the building, stepping through shards of glass and into the bright sunshine. Agent Surrey was slumped against a brick half wall in the landscape bed. Her chest was covered in blood.
“Hunter, here! Quickly, she’s been shot!”
Mac looked frantically in all directions for Hunter, who’d stepped off to the right to make sure there weren’t any more gunmen.
“I’m here,” Hunter yelled as he holstered his weapon. “How bad is it?”
Agent Surrey managed to open her eyes and looked at Mac. “I’m dying.”
“We’ll help you,” Mac pleaded, begging Agent Surrey to hang on. “Hunter, find some towels. We need a medical kit. Try the break room!”
“No, don’t bother,” groaned Agent Surrey. She began to cough, but blood didn’t come through her mouth, but rather, it gushed through the hole in her chest. The gaping wound would end her life shortly. She motioned for Hunter to come closer.
“Weapons. Independence Day. Take them.” Her voice became weaker with each word.
“What? The weapons cache?” asked Hunter, trying to understand the woman’s dying words.
“Oh-seven, oh-four, seventeen, and seventy-six. Protect yourselves,” said Agent Surrey as she exhaled her last breath.
Mac, who’d barely had any interaction with Agent Surrey, suddenly became overwhelmed with emotion. She started crying and fell backwards into the mulch bed. Hunter joined her and provided comfort.
“Is this what it’s going to be like?” Mac said, attempting to fight back the tears. “Is this how it is now? People kill for no reason?”
“Honey, under the thin veneer of human civilization lies a bunch of barbarians prepared to do whatever it takes to survive. This is just the beginning.”
“Savages,” said Mac out of anger. She wiped her face and used Hunter’s shoulder to stand up. Mac pulled herself together by stretching her shoulders and rolling her head on her neck to relieve the tension. “Let’s get our stuff and go home. I’ve had enough of civilization.”
The two took one more glance around the outside of the building to make sure there weren’t any more surprises. They entered Agent Surrey’s office and approached the gun vault. Hunter hoped that the cryptic code she provided them as her dying words applied to the weapons cache kept on the premises. He was right.
Inside the vault was a gold mine in terms of security. They found fully automatic M4s, riot gear, ballistic vests, shotguns, and more than enough ammunition for every weapon. While the back storage compartment of the Defender got suddenly smaller, Hunter found a way to pack the weaponry and the supplies needed to create the lab at Quandary Peak.
The last item, which Mac planned to cradle safely in her lap for the trip up the mountain, was the aluminum container carrying the plague samples. She and Hunter returned to the dressing room to retrieve the case and stopped by the large conference room, where the monitors cast a faint blue glow across them.
“Hunter,
the spread rate reveals more red than white on the map. The United States is not as bad as the rest of the world, but it’s changed significantly since yesterday.”
Hunter shook his head as he took in all of the screens. “Should we turn them off?”
“Nah,” she replied. “Maybe the next set of looters will stop and look at them. They should have more important things to do than break in here.”
“We’re outta here,” said Hunter.
Chapter 72
Day Fifty
DTRA/CIA Facility
Fort Collins
They were walking down the quiet desolate hallway and almost reached the main entryway when Mac heard her computer ding.
“Should I check it?” she asked. “It’s the signal I use for an email flagged high importance.”
Hunter stepped forward and looked through the doorway exiting the front of the building. He nodded and gestured for her to lead the way. “Okay, but we shouldn’t wait too much longer. These idiots may have friends.” He kicked the leg of the first dead man.
Mac led the way back into her office. “It’s from Homeland Security. Hunter, my God. They’ve declared a Level 6 Emergency.”
“Don’t you mean a phase six, based upon the WHO’s pandemic alert system?” asked Hunter.
“No, read it.” Mac spun the monitor around for Hunter to read the short, two-sentence email. “Phase six is where the WHO considers the overall severity of a pandemic to be moderate to extreme. It’s rarely used, but appropriate now.”
Mac began to pace and then she got angry. She swept all the stacks of files off her desk and pounded the corner with her fist.
Hunter tried to console her, but she pulled away. “Mac, we know it’s bad. I don’t under—”
She threw her arms up and looked toward the ceiling. Then she turned to Hunter, arms crossed. “I thought this was the stuff of urban legend. You know a myth only made up on television.”