“Well, there are at least a few things our viewers can do, no matter what strain it is, right?” asked the eye-candy. She cocked her head as a list appeared on the screen next to her air-brushed face. “The Centers for Disease Control reminds everyone to stay calm and do their part to prevent any of these mystery illnesses from spreading: Wash your hands frequently; cover your cough but don't cough into your hands; stay home if you're sick; and get to the doctor within the first 24 hours of illness. Common symptoms include…”
All three turned when they heard a gasp come from behind them. Aliana stood in the doorway to the house, hands at her mouth, staring at the TV. She started to shake her head and took a step back, eyes tearing up.
“Ooops,” exhaled Cooper.
Charlie rushed to his wife’s side. “Allie, look at me, honey. It’s okay,” he said when she turned her watery eyes on him. He held her shoulders firmly, but gently. “It’s just some people in L.A. getting sick.”
“But, Coop said—” she pointed. “I heard him, he said it was in Texas, too. A-and Boston.”
“I know, but…” he looked over his shoulder at the TV. Jax moved to block her view.
“It’s back,” she said nodding. “The Blue Flu. It’s back…” she whispered. “I knew it would come back…”
“Honey, we don’t know that—look, if that thing really has come back, they’d know it,” he said, jerking a thumb at the muted image of a man in a lab coat in front of a hospital in Washington, D.C. “The docs would know it, honey. They wouldn’t be screwing around like they did back then. We know better how to fight it now, right? They have a vaccine for it! Hey—look at me—we’d be getting called back to base, wouldn’t we, if there was really some emergency?” He pulled the secure, special-issue cell phone from his pocket and held it in front of her. “See?” he said gently. “No calls.”
She nodded, eyeing the government-issue plastic in his hand. She shook her head. “I can’t go through that again…” she whispered, wiping the tears out of her eyes with the back of her hands. She sniffed loudly. “Not with little Charlie…” She suddenly looked at her husband.
“This is what Kevin called you about, isn’t it?” Aliana said and pointed an accusing finger at the TV. “He works at the Goddamn CDC…he would know if that…thing…came back.” She watched some more footage of the helicopter over the hospital in Los Angeles. The camera zoomed in on a couple figures laying prone on the pavement outside the hospital. A group of people crowded around the bodies. “Oh my God.”
“Honey…” Charlie looked over his shoulder at the TV. “I know it looks bad. But all this is just…look, it’s the media trying to hype things up for the election. Right guys? It’s just—”
“Just what, Charlie? The beginning of another plague?” she cried. She burst into tears and wrenched herself away from Charlie and made for the house.
“No—it’s just speculation! It’s starting to get close to flu season…this happens every year…” The patio door shut and she was gone.
“Smooth, Master Chief, real smooth,” said Cooper with a rueful grin.
“Stow it, civilian,” retorted Charlie with a glare that would have withered mere mortals. He sat down in a chair and sighed, a hand to his forehead. “Allie lost her parents to the Blue Flu. It was pretty rough on her. Her sisters and Kevin, they’re all she has left in the world now. Her whole extended family got wiped out.”
“Jesus,” said Jax.
“You never mentioned that before,” said Cooper in a quiet voice. He sat down next to Charlie. “Sorry, man.”
“Yeah, well…not exactly a good conversation to have over beers, is it?” said Charlie with a dismissive wave of his hand. He unmuted the TV.
“−would say politics has no business in this situation, but apparently, the President is not going to change his campaign schedule for anything,” the anchorman’s voice squawked behind them. “So it seems the question of the day is, if the President isn’t concerned, should we be?”
“Now you say it,” Charlie groaned. “Asshole,” he hissed. “Allie needed to hear that thirty seconds ago…”
“That’s right,” said Danielle, the co-anchor. “President Denton landed in San Diego earlier today.” The image on-screen switched to a shot of Air Force One gliding in to a perfect landing at a deserted looking airstrip. “He’s scheduled to make stops in Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Francisco over the next week, and many political insiders now suspect he will try to get some photo-ops to appeal to his base by lending a helping hand at area hospitals…”
As the reporters bantered about the wisdom of political moves, Charlie shook his head. “That ain’t right, man. I know he’s the Boss, but damn, that’s low. I need a drink.”
“Someone say something about beer?” called a voice around the corner. A short man with a crew cut of jet black hair carrying an overflowing cooler with one arm strolled around the corner. He wore red flip-flops, Hawaiian-style swim trunks, a towel around his neck, and aviator glasses perched on his aquiline nose. He tilted his head down to see over the rims of the mirrored glasses and grinned, revealing a prominent gap in his front teeth.
“You ladies watching the soaps?”
“Hey, Beaver,” said Cooper with a grin.
“Master Ch—ah…hey, Coop,” replied Michael Holliday. Charlie got a nod.
“Yeah, yeah, it’ll take me time to get used to it, too. Don’t worry about it,” replied Cooper with a wave of his hand. Damn, it really was going to take some time. Retirement. Ain’t that some shit.
“Mike!” called a woman’s voice. “Can you get the gate?”
The dutiful husband put the cooler down and glanced at the TV on his way around the corner. “We heard about all that flu stuff going down in San Francisco,” he called out.
“Yeah?” shouted Jax. “It’s in L.A., too, man.”
Re-appearing with his comfortably plump wife in a one-piece black swimsuit and teenaged daughter, Jessica, Mike set down a bundle of towels and toys for the pool.
His wife waved casually at the others in the shade by the TV, looking past them at the open door. “Hello, boys,” she said with a smile most moms reserve for their children.
“Hi, Joan,” they called out in unison like students greeting a teacher.
“Yeah,” Mike continued, removing his sunglasses. “We heard a little on the radio. They keep talking about how it’s just the seasonal thing. No big deal. Oh, hey, Jax—Swede and Tank just pulled up. If you want to make sure you can get out of here before midnight, you better move your truck.”
“Why you think I need to get out by midnight?”
“Uh, ‘cause you’re such a lightweight?” asked the short, wide-shouldered, well-muscled SEAL.
“Man, I bench press more than you weigh.”
“All right guys,” Charlie stood up. “Can you help get the rest of the beer unloaded? Hey Joan, can I borrow you for a second to check on Allie?”
Cooper limped behind Jax and Mike, elbowing each other around the corner when he happened to glance at the TV. He froze.
“…BREAKING NEWS…” flashed across the screen in big, bold flashing letters, designed to gather attention.
“What’s wrong?” Joan asked behind him, sudden concern blossoming in her voice. Cooper noticed her back was to the TV. She peeled off her own sunglasses as she moved into the shade.
“Oh, with all the news about the flu in L.A., Allie’s convinced the Blue Flu is coming back,” Charlie said, ushering Joan toward the house.
“Oh, the poor dear,” she said sadly.
“Yeah, I tried to tell her that if there really was another Pandemic we’d all be called back, you know?”
Cooper turned back to the screen. His heart skipped a beat.
“Well, of course, I can—” Joan’s response was cut short by Cooper’s gasp.
“I’m not the only one seeing this, am I?” He turned up the volume.
“…interrupt, but I’m being told there’s a… Wa
it. Chuck are you serious?” The anchor put his hand to his ear, listening to someone off-camera. The box in the corner of the screen showed something that looked pretty amateurish. A shaking image of grass, rotating to trees and sky, before finding buildings.
“There’s a mushroom cloud over Atlanta? You’ve got to be kidding me… Oh…oh my God,” the suddenly pale-faced anchor said.
The small preview image on the screen expanded from the corner. Now it was clear that the shaky, grainy image came from someone’s camcorder. They had been looking at a city skyline in the distance. A mushroom cloud, lit from within to a burning, orange glow, loomed over the city as it clawed its way into the sky. The shockwave had passed, but dust and debris still expanded out from what looked like the downtown district.
Across the bottom of the screen scrolled: “…sensors in Savannah, Georgia measuring spikes in radiation…BREAKING NEWS…beach-goers in Florida report seeing missile launch off-shore…BREAKING NEWS…”
“Jesus H…” muttered Charlie. “A sub off the coast of Florida…”
“Did he say Atlanta just got nuked?” asked Cooper.
“Say what?” asked Jax. He and Mike had arrived carrying cases of beer and bags of ice.
Mike slowly removed his aviator glasses. “Son of a bitch.” He cracked a beer and drained it in two gulps. Eyes still locked on the screen he belched and dropped the can to the ground, missing the trash can a foot away.
“I…I’m going to go check on Allie. Jess! Come with me, sweetie.”
Mike watched his rebellious daughter follow his wife with a scared look on her face, eyes on the TV. “Well, all it took was a major city getting whacked for her to listen to her mom…” he muttered.
A shrill, desperate ringing sounded from Cooper’s pocket. He frowned and looked at Charlie. Cooper checked the number after he fished the whining phone out of his pocket. It was their deep-shit emergency line. It meant he needed to get his ass back to base, now.
Three more phones added their noise to the first.
“I’d say our shore leave just got canceled with extreme prejudice…” muttered Charlie.
The SEALs looked at each other, then at Cooper.
Cooper frowned. “Screw the retirement party, boys. We got work to do.”
“Hooyah, Master Chief,” replied Jax softly.
CHAPTER 6
Washington, D.C.
U.S. Naval Observatory.
Vice Presidential Emergency Operations Center.
THE VICE PRESIDENT PUSHED past his Secret Service bodyguard and slammed the door to his private suite in The Bunker. Alone at last. He looked toward the ceiling of the oak-paneled briefing room. Above him, there was a hundred or more feet of earth and a veritable labyrinth of rooms and tunnels. He may not occupy the White House yet, but the Vice President’s nuclear bunker was pretty close to anything the White House offered.
He strolled into the expansive kitchen area and tore open the large stainless steel fridge to find it fully stocked with his favorite beer and wine. He grabbed a cold Stella Artois and savored the first cold, crisp taste. In two swallows he had downed half the bottle.
It had been a hell of a day.
Out of habit he walked over to the far wall in the living area expecting to pull the curtains back and see a window. He had spent so many nights in hotel rooms across the country and around the world in the last four years he almost felt more at home gazing through a window overlooking a foreign city than staring at his own backyard in Ohio. Yet, when the curtains were ripped open, he saw only a large black screen embedded flush in the wall.
He sighed and took another swallow of the cold beer. He chuckled, looking at the fancy European label and remembered how the Prime Minister of England had laughed when he had seen the Vice President’s beer of choice.
“Surely you jest, old boy,” the stodgy Brit had said over the rims of his Ben Franklin glasses.
“Nope. Love it,” he had told the British leader, while smiling at another dignitary across the room.
After he stopped laughing, the PM gave the visiting VP the hairy eyeball. “You do realize, of course, that particular beverage you are enjoying so earnestly right now is considered the…ah…wife beater of beers?” He had burst out laughing again, a deep, throaty, guffaw.
Barron had grinned and saluted the PM with his gold-rimmed pint glass. “Cheers, mate!”
Returning to reality, the Vice President belched and turned on the large TV screen and immediately saw the classified reports that were privy to only the upper echelon of the U.S. Government. One channel had an up-to-date map of reported cases of the mysterious H5N1-variant strain across the country. He could clearly see the angry red welts on the map, in California, up the West Coast and into Canada. Vancouver looked like one big red blob—they were taking it on the chin pretty hard up there.
New York appeared like a red cancer. A chain of dots stretched to Boston in the north and Philly in the south. Washington was surrounded by a small army of red dots. The cases thinned out the farther south on the map his eyes traveled, but he swore there were a hell of a lot more dots on the screen—representing 100 cases as marked on the map legend—than there were just two hours earlier.
Guilt washed over him. He knew. He alone in the whole country knew the truth of where and how this massive epidemic had started. It was his fault. The deaths of all those Americans rested on his shoulders, threatening to crush him with remorse.
He, Harold J. Barron, Vice President of the United States, had authorized the release of the North Korean-made bio-weapon based on an especially deadly strain of flu last seen during The Great Pandemic. He had committed High Treason. When he had given his soul to Jayne and Reginald, he had given them certain codes to gain access to American security grids, protocols, and agencies.
Days. It had only taken days for Reginald’s employers to wreak havoc on the country. Reginald was one very well-connected man. A sickening thought occurred to him: how well prepared were Reginald’s employers for this? How long had they plotted and lain in wait for the right moment to strike? Months? Years? How many political victories had he racked up because of the unseen hand of Reginald’s employers? How long had they owned him?
The Vice President hadn’t given the actual command to launch the attack, and of course he had taken no physical part in it, but he had allowed it. He had enabled it. Guilt crashed against his psyche again and again, like waves that pummeled a crumbling shoreline. He stared at the red dots on the map. All those Americans were sick because of him. So many would die because of him. So many had died, because of the frailties of his flesh.
Jayne. All of this, the nuclear strike, the weaponized-flu—it had all started in that hotel room with Jayne.
Jayne had forced him to receive what she called “the only known” vaccine last week, so he wasn’t worried for himself, or even his family. He had made sure his family had secretly received the vaccine as well. He stared at the dots and finished the rest of the bottle. He purposely avoided looking at the angry black and red bull’s-eye over Atlanta.
“Jesus…God, forgive me,” he muttered, tears welling up in his eyes again. Anger fought with guilt to control his emotional roller-coaster. He threw the beer bottle toward the wall in frustration. It exploded on impact and showered the carpet with glass.
James Conway, his permanently assigned Secret Service agent, threw open the door and scared the Vice President half to death. He thought he had locked the damn door.
“I’m fine!” he called as the Agent stormed the room, pistol in hand. “I just…” the Vice President looked at the broken glass on the floor by the far wall and shrugged. “It’s been a rough day…”
James relaxed with a barely perceptible dip of his shoulders. The gun vanished inside his coat in a well-practiced flash of movement. He nodded and took one more look around the room.
After he shut the door, the Vice President turned to face the screen again and loosened his tie angrily. He ripped his jacket of
f and threw it on the floor in impotent rage. Reginald was behind this, he was sure of it.
“You never said anything about nuking an American city,” he hissed under his breath, glaring at the bull’s-eye over Atlanta. The casualty figures on the right side of the map continued to rise. The last official count was 326,987 killed, and another 273,432 missing and suspected dead.
He reached out a finger and touched the angry bull’s-eye. The screen flickered and was split into four quadrants. The upper left screen showed a live feed from Atlanta, just outside the radiation zone on the south side. Crumpled buildings, illuminated by the countless fires that burned uncontrolled in the deepening night, reached up from the ground like the charred fingers of a corpse. It was a ghoulish nightmare scene.
The upper-right screen showed a replay loop of the footage the NSA had obtained from a man filming clouds the instant the bomb went off. The Vice President had seen it over and over again already, but could not stop watching.
The camera zoomed in on one of the dark-bellied cumulous clouds, then the screen went white. Slowly, the image faded back into view but it shook violently. The camera swung all over place, from the grass to the trees, as the man ran up a slight hill to see where the flash had come from. The Vice President noticed that everything had a white-pink tint to it, an after-effect he had been told, of the nuclear blast on the camera’s imaging sensor.
At the crest of the hill, the camera panned around shakily before settling on the skyline of Atlanta, a few miles to the north. There it was. Growing upwards on a twisted, writhing column of smoke not unlike some demonic bean plant, a mushroom cloud was rising and expanding, glowing a sullen orange from the inside.
It was the most unsettling, obscenely beautiful yet haunting thing he had ever seen in his entire life. The image trembled as the shockwave blasted its way through Atlanta in the distance. He could actually see skyscrapers as they collapsed into a cloud of debris billowing in the wake of the nuclear inferno. The image froze. It was the last thing the cameraman recorded—he turned and ran for his life at that point.
Apache Dawn: Book I of the Wildfire Saga Page 7