“We need to know what we’re facing here. I want you to find out from the area hospitals if this is localized, spreading or…” He paused and looked back into the room. “Okay?”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“Didn’t I say ‘Chief’ was fine?” He flashed a grin that was gone in a heartbeat. “Welcome aboard, Dr. Alston.” Dr. Honeycutt pointed toward the front reception desk. “You’ll find phones and directories over there. Get to it and let me know what you find out. I need to go find some clean scrubs.”
Brenda picked up the phone at the front desk. A clipboard held the phone numbers to all local hospitals. There was a map tapped to the back of a clipboard, displaying their locations. She picked up the phone and dialed the first number on the list.
Maybe this is for knocking him down…she thought miserably.
Brenda felt a tug on her sleeve and turned just in time for an elderly man to vomit on her shoes. After he had finished emptying his stomach, the wrinkled old man looked up at Brenda with rheumy eyes and smiled. Brenda sighed.
First days suck.
CHAPTER 5
Chula Vista, California.
MASTER CHIEF PETTY OFFICER, Cooper Braaten, lay by the pool in his teammate’s backyard and felt truly relaxed for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. He could hear Charlie’s wife and young son splashing in the shallow end, playing with an innocence that was more comforting than anything he could imagine. He could feel a delicious stretch in his arms and back that made him instantly sleepy.
Cooper stretched out on a lounge chair, arms behind his head, eyes closed, and exhaled a sigh of contentment as he basked in the warm early autumn California sun. Winter was not that far off, but in sunny SoCal, the snow blasted memories of his youth in Michigan melted peacefully away.
Cooper sighed at the realization that he would be mustered out of the service on Monday, now that the final surgery to reconstruct his knee was complete and rehab had all but wrapped up. Honestly, he was sad to leave SEAL Team 9, but he was looking forward to starting a lucrative new career in the private-sector with Oakrock Security. A six-figure salary out the gate—they had made an offer he couldn’t possibly refuse.
Stranger things have happened, he thought. The soon-to-be retired Master Chief felt a smile split his face.
“Look at you, only a few days till you’re out and you’re already going soft.”
Cooper cracked his eyes at the voice and waited for them to adjust to the sunlight.
“Laying around in a lounge chair at 1400 hours—on a weekday—grinning like a damn civilian. And the shame of it is, just last week you were in command of a first-rate, lean, mean, terrorist killing SEAL fireteam,” said his longtime second-in-command, Charlie Marshal.
“Hey, I ain’t dead, yet. I’m still in charge,” Cooper objected, still smiling.
“In charge of a wheelchair, yeah,” laughed Charlie. “Here, gimpy, have a beer.”
Cooper grinned and sipped the ice cold brew with his eyes closed. He turned his head and shielded his eyes with a hand to see Charlie standing over him, hands on hips, his tanned physique marred with the calling cards of their shared profession. Bullet wounds, knife scars, imperfections caused by the chafing of gear or heat of fire. His chest and back were the story of his career in the Navy. Anyone with experience in the field knew right away, he wasn’t just a soldier or sailor, he was an operator. Cooper grinned. A younger version of himself.
“How’s the knee?” Charlie asked with mock concern and smacked Cooper playfully as he sat like a coiled spring in the next chair.
“Shit, knock it off!” hissed Cooper with a wince. He gingerly flexed the pink, new skin around the incision points where the surgeon had reconstructed his butchered right knee. “Damn bullet didn’t hurt half as much as that surgery did…”
“Man, you already turning into a wuss? Here I thought you were a SEAL.”
Cooper drained the beer and turned the bottle upside down as proof. “This helps. C’mon Master Chief, reload me.”
“Easy there, Hoss,” said Charlie with his hands up defensively. “So,” he said, passing Cooper another beer. “What’s up with Oakwood?”
“Oakrock,” replied Cooper after the first gulp. “They’re legit, man. Straight up spooks and operators, only. They pay top-shelf, have the best toys you can get outside of…I was about to say ‘us’, but I guess I should say ‘you guys’, now.”
Charlie nodded. “I know, I checked ‘em out too. VIP security, foreign dignitaries, a little dirty work over in the Sandbox…”
“You spying on me, Master Chief?”
“Wipe that grin of your face−hell yes, I been spyin’ on you. Besides, LT asked me to. And…” Charlie said before swallowing a mouthful of cold beer. He raised his finger, “For the record, you taught me everything I know about raising hell and saving the day. I feel, y’know, obligated to make sure they don’t just put you out to pasture…now that you’re an old fart and all.”
“Well,” Cooper started to say, then saw a blur of motion out of the corner of his eye. Acting on instinct, his right hand whipped out and the beer flew from his hands to intersect the football aimed at Charlie’s head. “Head’s up!”
Charlie sputtered a curse through the beer foam that exploded in his face. “What the hell, man!”
“Now, who’s looking out for who?” laughed Cooper. “’Old fart’, my ass. I’m 38 and I got the reflexes of a 20 year old.”
“You ruined a perfect spiral, Coop!” complained the athletic young man coming through the pool gate on the other side of the backyard oasis. Charlie’s little boy squealed at him from in the pool. He waved to the mother and child in the water. “I should be playin’ for the 49ers! You see that, little man? Perfect spiral!” The boy’s reply was unintelligible but enthusiastic.
“Hi Jax, come on in,” said Aliana Marshal with a smile.
“Hey Allie, how you—”
“Jax! You son of a—” bellowed Cooper with a wide smile on his face. What was supposed to be just a quiet afternoon was turning into a surprise retirement party.
“Hey, watch the mouth, sailors,” warned Aliana from the pool. Her voice was stern but a smile lit her face.
Cooper felt his cheeks flush. “Sorry, ma’am.” When he got up from the chair, Cooper was instantly enveloped in a bear hug.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, handing Jax a beer.
“Well, we didn’t really get a proper send off, now did we?” Petty Officer First Class Jackson Miller said over the top of his beer.
Cooper turned to look at Charlie with a raised eyebrow. “Hey, you never said we couldn’t throw you a retirement party, and I’m the Master Chief now…”
“In three days you are. What about the others?”
“Oh, they’ll be along. They got some more supplies to round up,” replied Jax.
“Steaks, beer, strippers, you know,” said Charlie in a deadpan voice.
Cooper laughed out loud and nodded toward Aliana. “Did you know about this?”
The pretty grin he got in reply was all the answer he needed.
“Man, lemme see that scratch you got,” said Jax, bending low to examine the healing knee of his teammate. “Hmmm,” he said in a deep rumble, finger on his chin as if he were an inspecting doctor. He looked up and flashed a wide grin. “Does it still hurt? ‘Cause the last time I saw you, you were screaming like a teenaged girl at a boy-band concert,” Jax said in his Texan drawl and slapped the knee in question.
Cooper yelped. “Is everyone gonna do that? Christ…”
“Let that be a lesson to you old man, never abandon your command on sick-leave. We will get our revenge!”
The shared laughter was interrupted by a screeching female vocal set to house music, with a heavy bass back-beat. “Hey, who stepped on the cat?” asked Jax, looking around innocently.
“Hush!” called Aliana from the pool as she walked over with Charlie, Jr. on her hip. She paused to look at the male
faces ogling her.
“Really, guys?” she asked in a tired voice. She handed her son over to Charlie, who traded her a towel and the squawking cell phone.
“Hello?” she asked, wringing the water from her hair.
“You are one lucky, S-O-B, Master Chief,” whispered Jax with a slow drawl straight out of west Texas.
“Don’t get any ideas. Allie—and her sisters—are above your pay-grade, sailor,” said Charlie.
Jax waved off Charlie’s comment and squatted next to Cooper. “When you gonna find yourself a good white girl and settle down, Chief?”
Cooper sighed. “Maybe never. I don’t think I’m the marryin’ type.” He grinned and punched Jax on the arm. “That was for Dashiqi. She says you’re her ‘baby daddy’.”
Jax laughed. “Nice…” He grew serious and rubbed his chin. “I haven’t seen her since…hey, when was the last time I went out with your mom?”
“Burn!” hooted Charlie. He high-fived Jax.
Cooper stopped laughing when he saw Allie turn around slowly and walk over to Charlie. She looked confused. Cooper sensed immediately something was wrong.
“Um…it’s Kevin. He’s at work and wants to talk to you.”
“Your brother?” asked Charlie, arms full with a wet, squirming two-year old. “What’s he want me for?”
She traded the phone for the giggling toddler. “I don’t know, but he’s really scared. And now I am too. Something has him spooked.” She put on a smile for her son then glanced at the clock mounted to a post by the pool. “It’s somebody’s nap time! Yes it is, mister cranky-pants…” She looked at her husband and the smile vanished. “I’ll go put him down. Let me know what’s up.”
“Sure, babe,” said Charlie. He put the phone to his ear. “Kevin? Hey, what’s up, man? Everything—” he stopped mid-sentence. After a moment, he looked at Cooper and Jax. “Okay. Whoa, whoa, hold up man, slow down. One at a time. What are you talking about?” He pulled the phone away from his head and hit the speaker button.
“—what I was telling you last Christmas? At the party?” The voice on the phone was scratchy due to the connection, but the stress was palpable.
Cooper glanced at Jax, who shrugged.
“About the flu bugs those guys in Europe were tinkering around with?”
“Oh…ah, yeah, yeah—you said something about they were trying to test to see how many mutations it would take for the pig flu or something to be…uh…easily spread from human to human. That was right before I spilled the eggnog on you…right?”
Cooper and Jax sipped their beers and tried not to laugh.
“Right,” the voice said, dripping with scorn. “And all that not even a decade after the Blue Flu. Crazy bastards. We knew it was a bad idea. We even got the Administration to put some pressure on over there to stop them from publishing results. Again. That limp-wristed response we put out the first time seemed to do the trick, but none of us here actually thought they stopped the research. I think we were right. And now…Well, I think something really bad is happening.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Charlie, his face taking on the visage of the veteran operator: a face of stone cold determination. Charlie the husband, the playful father, was gone. Cooper put his beer down and lowered his sunglasses to look at the phone.
There was some static and a double click on the line, then some noises like Kevin was shuffling papers. “Look, I don’t think I have much time. They’re trying to round up as many H5N1 vaccines as possible. We don’t really have all that much left, so we’re going to recall our guy in Wyoming. He’s the Source. With what’s happening out west, I gotta believe this consolidation is connected. I’ll send you some info. You still got that Gmail address?” Two more clicks sounded over the line.
“Yeah, it’s still there. But what’s happening out west? What guy—what do you mean, the source?” asked Charlie. He raised an eyebrow to Jax who nodded and walked across the pool deck to the outdoor TV, his flip-flops slapping the wet concrete. Cooper rolled on his side and pulled a tablet out of his bag. While Jax selected one of the 24-hour news channels, Cooper did a quick internet search.
“Look, you can put it all together, just like I did, okay? You’re a smart guy and this line isn’t secure. I know we haven’t been the best of friends and all…”
“Oh, hey, Kevin, about last month, I—”
“Listen, Charlie, would you just forget about that? Jesus, this is serious! Just…just do me a favor, okay? Watch out for my sister.”
Charlie was taken aback. “Of course, man, she’s my wife!”
“I know—I didn’t mean…oh, hang on,” there was some noise in the background and a barely audible murmur, but the tone was unmistakably insistent. “Oh, my God—”
The phone shrieked, a high pitched squeal, and the line went dead. Charlie looked at the phone in irritation. Signal lost blinked on the display.
“Okay, that was weird,” said Charlie as he shut off the pink, jewel-encrusted cell phone. He placed it on the table as if it were week-old roadkill.
“Hey, check it out, guys…I found something,” called Jax from across the pool in a shaded part of the porch that contained the outdoor entertainment center. Charlie and Cooper walked over to join him and removed their sunglasses. “Look at that!” he said, pointing the remote at the TV.
The screen showed a view of a hospital in downtown Los Angeles and lines of people that snaked through the parking lot. Tents emblazoned with red crosses had been set up throughout the lot, but the crowd spilled across the grass to the circle driveway by the emergency room entrance. The terra-cotta colored, arrow-shaped hospital was surrounded by cars parked haphazardly on the nearby streets, like they had been abandoned. Police cars and fire trucks added flashing lights to the scene and emergency personal scurried here and there.
“…Scene at area hospitals reminds many of the early days of The Pandemic, ten years ago…” scrolled across the bottom of the screen.
“Where is this?” asked Charlie. He tapped the screen. “Are those bodies on the ground?” There were clusters of people gathering around them.
“…All Saints Memorial Hospital reports 327 cases of mystery Influenza-Like-Illness in the last three days, 73 of those in last 24 hours…”
Cooper frowned. “It’s not just L.A…look,” he said. He turned the tablet around for his brothers-in-arms to see. “That’s an article from the Seattle Times. Flu-like cases three-times above normal for September. I just did a search for spikes in flu cases and found this from Boston: over a hundred in the last 48 hours, seven fatalities.” He scrolled down and said, “Here’s an article that just broke last night, out of Dallas.” He whistled. “Listen to this, guys.” Cooper tapped a video embedded in the article and turned up the tablet’s speakers.
A female voice reported: “The investigation into a mysterious illness in Tarrant County is expanding, as other hospitals and doctors report similar cases. The new case files are being reviewed for similarity to eight people currently at the Baylor Medical Center in Fort Worth, which prompted a Tarrant County Health Department investigation. Four of those eight patients died, and two are still fighting for their lives. A doctor, speaking on condition of anonymity told CBS-11, ‘We don't currently have a diagnosis for what has caused those illnesses, other than influenza,’.”
Cooper looked up when the clip ended. “That doesn’t sound too good.”
“Okay, so there’s a handful of people in Texas and a little group in L.A.,” started Charlie.
“Little?” asked Jax. “That didn’t look little to me, man…”
“In a city of how many millions of people? Yeah, I think less than a few thousand is ‘little’,” said Charlie, folding thick arms across his chest in skeptical defiance.
“They’re calling this thing an influenza-like illness,” said Cooper, looking down at the tablet again.
All three men looked back at the TV. Scrolling across the bottom of the screen: “…Influenza-l
ike-illness shows unusually-high infection rate in areas along the coasts…”
Cooper turned back to the tablet. “Still, Charlie’s probably right, guys. It may not be anything to get all worked up over, since there’s been…looks like 197 ILI cases in Fort Worth this month. It’s just these 8 that are different. Looks like they all tested negative for standard strains of seasonal flu, which is weird. I guess. Hell, I don’t know, guys.” Cooper turned the tablet off. “I’m no doctor. The Navy pays me to kill bad guys, not heal people.”
“Hooyah, Master Chief,” said Jax, a fresh beer raised in salute.
“Well, Danielle, you can see by these dramatic images that hospitals in Los Angeles are being swamped with flu or ILI cases. It appears, according to the CDC, that an unusually cool, wet summer has created ideal conditions for the flu,” said the anchorman with slicked back hair. He looked at his papers and continued, “Los Angeles County officials assure us that the situation will be contained within a day or so, as stockpiles of antibiotics and flu medicine are being shipped in from unaffected areas of the state.”
Charlie rolled his eyes. “Pass me a cold one, Jax.”
“Jim, the question I think our viewers want to hear,” the camera pulled back to focus on an elegantly dressed Hispanic woman casually leaning over the anchor desk. “And I hate to even suggest it but…is this a repeat of The Pandemic? I mean, if you look at those pictures—Dale, can we bring back the view of L.A.? Yeah, there you go—does that ring a bell for anyone out there? I know I remember seeing views like this at the beginning of the H5N1 Pandemic.” She shook her dark tresses in sadness.
File footage of bodies lining the streets during The Pandemic appeared on the screen. TEN YEARS AGO flashed across the bottom of the image.
“The big worry about a situation like this, Danielle,” replied her smooth voiced co-anchor, “is that according to what State Health officials told us early this morning, this particular ILI could certainly be one of a dozen different viruses, but it might not. It might very well be H5N1 and I quote: ‘that is the big concern.’”
Apache Dawn: Book I of the Wildfire Saga Page 6