by Mark Donovan
A hotel attendant raced up to her and offered to take her luggage, which she gladly handed over to him. Similarly, a couple of other attendants came up to her two colleagues and took theirs as well. Dana’s arms were worn out from carrying and dragging her luggage throughout the airports and train stations. She had sworn to herself several times throughout the past two day journey to be more like Dave in the future and pack lighter. The attendant pointed her in the direction of the registration counter as he began to carry her bags to the hotel’s central luggage holding area.
Dana walked over to the registration desk, introduced herself to the woman behind the counter, and handed over her passport. Her two colleagues did the same at adjacent stations along the long registration counter. Fifteen minutes later she was taking a hot shower in her room. Besides removing the grime from her body, the warm water was rejuvenating her. She thought of Dave as the soothing shower water ran down her neck and back. She knew he was in Alaska looking for the downed aircraft, and wondered if he and the team he was with had found it yet. She figured she would try giving him a call later in the day.
At one o’clock in the afternoon Dana met Sam down in the lobby. He held a small digital SLR camera in his hand. They had not intended to do any video filming for the afternoon presentations, however, as a cameraman he never went anywhere without some type of photographic recording device. And an iPhone camera simply didn’t cut it.
The two walked from the lobby through a long hallway that connected to the main convention center and conference rooms.
“You didn’t have to ride shotgun with me this afternoon,” said Dana. “I wasn’t planning for us to do any filming until tomorrow. You should have gotten some rest like Denzel.”
“I know. But like you, and most of the rest of the people on this planet, I’m interested to learn more about how to avoid catching one of those killer diseases.”
“Yes, it is a pretty scary world we live in today,” responded Dana. “Sometimes I think I might be better off just to retire and maintain some level of isolation in McCall. But then I remind myself that that is no way to live life. Better to tackle life head on and do my little part in helping to make the world a better place, than to live in a bubble for the rest of my days.”
“Amen to that,” replied Sam as his eyes drifted off towards a blond haired young woman walking past them. Dana noticed and whispered jokingly, “Stay focused Sam. Stay focused.”
Dana and Sam sat through the two presentations that went on for nearly five hours before they made their way over to the evening cocktail party. Dana hoped to meet one of the speakers that they had listened to in the first session. She wanted to talk with the speaker, a medical doctor specializing in epidemiology who gave an impassioned speech on the need for countries to establish formal isolation and containment policies on contagions. Policies that would provide clear procedures, and that could be swiftly enacted, to mitigate the lethal effects of highly contagious and life threatening viruses such as Ebola and Marburg viruses.
The cocktail party was in a large ballroom and was filled with conference attendees who were talking in small groups. By the size of the room Dana estimated a couple of hundred people were in attendance, most of whom were doctors and international policy makers from various European countries and the United States. Sam leaned over to Dana and whispered into her ear.
“Would you like me to get you something from the bar?”
“Thank you, I’ll have a dry Martini,” replied Dana.
Sam gave a nod of silent acknowledgement and began to worm his way through the crowd towards the bar. It looked like Sam was going to be a while getting the drinks so she worked her way slowly around the room, carefully sliding through the groups of people looking for epidemiologist researcher Dr. Judith Baumann. When she had nearly given up hope she saw Dr. Baumann talking to two men. Dana walked over to the three and began listening to their conversation, hoping she could chime in with her questions at some point. Both men proved to be doctors from the United States.
“Concern for offending an individual or a group of individuals should be the least of one’s concern when dealing with an outbreak of a deadly contagious virus,” said Dr. Baumann. “Political correctness needs to be tossed out the window when fighting a deadly disease like Ebola. It does not discriminate who it attacks. If you don’t quickly isolate the sick individuals from the society, the entire population could become infected. And in the case of an Ebola outbreak, that means potentially losing sixty percent or more of the population to the disease.”
“The United States people wouldn’t stand for the isolation of groups of people,” responded one of the men, a large balding man who was wearing a tailored pin-striped suit and talked with what Dana guessed was a New England sounding accent.
“It would take a nanosecond before it was reported as being a racist move,” said the other tall thin and suave looking gentleman.
“I understand that may be the case,” replied Dr. Baumann. “But leaders need to accept the criticism, and do what is unequivocally right to protect their constituents. Or, alternatively watch the contagion systematically wipe them all out. Make no mistake, there is no talking or reasoning with a deadly contagious virus. It simply does what it wants. Period.”
“What are your thoughts on the risks of bio-engineered viruses for the express purposes of being used as a weapon?” asked Dana in between a brief pause between the doctor and two men.
Dr. Baumann looked over at Dana and asked dryly, “May I ask who is asking?”
“My name is Dana Cogswell. I work for the American Broadcast Corporation in the United States,” replied Dana in an apologetic tone for having interrupted Dr. Baumann’s conversation with the two men.
Dr. Baumann hesitated a moment as if she was storing Dana’s name in her memory, while at the same time collecting her thoughts on Dana’s question.
“Over the centuries many governments and their militaries have developed and used biological weapons on their enemies,” responded the doctor. “And today, yes, the deployment of synthetically engineered infectious diseases for military or terrorist reasons is a very real threat. At this point, I’d say biological weapons are more of a threat than their nuclear counterparts. I have read numerous reports in recent years, of individuals and terrorist groups around the world who have attempted to develop and deploy synthetically generated infectious diseases. Fortunately, they’ve had minimal success to date due to the complexity of making such a weapon. However, it only takes one time for one of these groups to get it right, and the entire world may find itself in a sudden and deadly pandemic. Sadly, I don’t think we’re far off from that day.”
The large bald man interjected. “Doctor, I’m sorry but it sounds like your crying wolf a little.”
Doctor Baumann gave the man a stern look before responding in a dour tone.
“The possibility of a terrorist group releasing a deadly virus in a large population is one of my chief reasons on why I am so passionate about governments around the world developing containment plans to deal with such deadly diseases. The natural outbreak of a disease such as Ebola, or even cholera, is difficult enough to deal with when it flares up in a small region of the world. A terrorist act of purposely deploying a similar type of contagion around the world would be a massive catastrophe. It would be unimaginable to many, including yourself sir, on how fast it could ravage the entire world’s population.”
Sam came up to the small group and handed Dana her Martini.
“Oh, thank you Sam. I could use this drink right about now.”
The tall suave gentleman was asking Dr. Baumann another question when Dana’s phone began to vibrate in her blouse pocket. She turned away from the group as she pulled her phone from her pocket. She didn’t recognize the phone number, but from the 202 area code she knew it was someone calling from Washington D.C. Suddenly, she felt a cold chill run down her spine. She anxiously hit the green button on her phone and put the receiver to
her ear.
With her hand trembling nervously she said, “Hello, this is Dana Cogswell.”
As she listened to the man’s voice on the other end of the line, her face began to turn ash white and her head started to spin. She reached out to grab a chair, a chair that wasn’t there, to catch herself from falling. Sam caught her in his arms just before she hit the floor, the phone tumbling from her hand.
Chapter 12 (April 13, Thursday 12:30pm, Europe)
Two men slipped in through one of the back doors of Eberswalde, Germany’s water supply treatment center. It was in this facility that the town’s water supply was monitored and treated for removing contaminants before being pumped into the main waterlines that fed the village center of the town. The water treatment process included filtration, flocculation and sedimentation, and disinfection. Eberswalde’s public water system provided potable drinking water to nearly thirty thousand people, approximately three quarters of the town’s population.
The water treatment employees were still at lunch. So the two men dressed in the same clothing as the water treatment’s staff moved quickly and unnoticed through the dimly lit cement block-wall hallway that led to the facility’s main pumping station. They were wearing baseball caps pulled down low over their faces. Faces that had a honey-brown complexion to them and that matched their exposed hands. Both were carrying knapsacks thrown over their shoulders and draped across their backs.
The lead man saw a door suddenly open up in front of him only ten meters away. He ducked into a doorway alcove beside him and quickly motioned the man behind him to do the same. One of the employees of the water treatment plant stepped out into the hallway. The employee turned and began to walk down the hallway, away from the two men. Several steps later the man turned down a side hallway to his right.
The two men stepped out from the alcove and continued on, in the same direction as the employee. However, when they got to the side hallway, where the employee had turned, they stopped just short of it and looked carefully around the corner. There was no one in sight. They rapidly proceeded past the hallway intersection for another fifty paces before they came to a door on the left hand side that was labeled “Main Pumping Station”.
The lead man carefully looked in through the window on the door. He could not see, nor hear anyone in the large mechanical room. There was only the loud humming sound coming from the pumps working tirelessly away, pumping clean drinking water to the Eberswalde village center.
The man placed his hand on the door’s handle and attempted to twist it. The handle turned freely and the door opened. The two men quickly slid into the room and stayed low as they made their way further into the main pumping station, around the opposite side of the pumps, and out of view of the doorway entrance.
As they looked down, they observed treated water spilling out just below them and into a large and deep cement cistern like reservoir. As fast as the water flowed into the giant cistern, a large pump that sat in the center of it pumped water out of it. Thousands of gallons of water a minute poured into the cistern and were simultaneously drawn out of it by the massive water pump.
The lead man knelt down and glanced over for a fraction of a second to his accomplice next to him. He gave a slight nod and then removed the knapsack from his shoulder. The other man followed. Both men withdrew a stainless steel cylinder from their knapsacks. Then, each carefully removed the caps from the cylinders.
After removing the cap, the lead man pulled a pendant from underneath his sweatshirt. The pendant had Arabic lettering on it and was partially surrounded by a crescent moon. The leader raised it to his lips and gently kissed it as he said to himself “Allahu Akbar”, while the other man next to him watched silently. The leader then extended his arm out over the cistern and without hesitation poured the contents of the steel cylinder into the raging water below him. The man beside him did the same, extending his cylinder outwards over the cistern and emptying its contents into the cistern below.
The men screwed the caps back onto the empty cylinders and stored them back into their knapsacks. Then, just like they entered the water treatment facility, they quickly and silently exited it.
After leaving the facility the men walked down a wooded embankment next to the water treatment plant, to the Oder River, the river that supplied the water to the facility, and ultimately to the residents of Eberswalde. They changed into street clothes that were stored in their knapsacks. They then placed several large stones in the bags, while leaving the stainless steel cylinders in them, and tossed the bags into the river.
They made their way back up the river embankment and walked to a local pub in the center of the village. Each ordered a sealed can of soda, their first of what would be many that afternoon. They would wait to see the fruits of their labor play out. And in the meantime, say silent prayers to Allah to thank Him for letting them serve Him in such a powerful and righteous way.
Chapter 13 (April 13, Thursday 9:00am, Alaska)
Dave slowly pulled himself up off the cold snow covered ground, his ears still ringing from the explosion, his face and body covered in dirt and snow. His parka was torn in a dozen places and he could feel a warm trickle of blood running down his left arm, but all of his body parts were intact and still seemed to move without great pain.
He looked around and saw Ron and Chief Davis. They were up in front of him several meters and to his left. Both were still laying on the ground, but each were struggling to get to sitting positions. The agent who had been nearest to the terrorists when the explosion had occurred wasn’t as fortunate. His body, like the terrorist leader who set off the explosion, was effectively non-existent. Only his boots, with remnants of the lower parts of his legs protruding out of them, were visible. The terrorist himself appeared to have virtually vaporized. Dave called out to Ron and Chief Davis and asked if they were okay. Ron looked in his direction and mouthed something, but Dave couldn’t hear him. His ears were still ringing from the explosion.
Dave made his way over to the Chief and knelt down beside him. He had a major laceration to the left side of his face, and the lower part of his right leg was bent in such a twisted way that Dave immediately determined it was broken.
“Can you hear me?” shouted Dave into Chief Davis’ right ear, as he ripped a section of his own parka off and applied the cloth to the Chief’s face to stanch the bleeding.
The Chief nodded his head slowly as he grimaced in pain and laid back down in the snow.
Ron had managed to stand up and work his way over to Dave and the Chief. Like Dave, his parka was shredded from the shards of rock and dirt that had ripped through the air when the terrorist’s bomb exploded. His face was also bespeckled with dirt and blood, but otherwise he seemed none the worse for wear. He looked down at the Chief and saw the unusual position of his lower right leg. Fortunately, he did not see any heavy flow of blood around the pant leg. At least it was not a compound fracture he thought to himself.
“Dave can you hear me?” yelled Ron, as his ears were still ringing loudly too.
Dave looked up at him and yelled “yes.” However, Ron could barely hear him.
“We need to get the Chief on a dry flat surface, set his leg, and then bundle him up before he goes into shock.”
Dave nodded his head in silent acknowledgment.
Ron left the two men to find a couple of tree branches to act as braces. He then made his way over to the snow machines to grab a first aid kit. Ten minutes later Ron and Dave had Chief Davis’ leg in a splint, and a thick gauze bandage covered half his face. They had also positioned his body onto a snow machine and given him a sedative to dull the pain he was experiencing. By the time they had completed administering first aid to the Chief, Dave and Ron’s hearing had mostly returned.
“Jesus, that son-of-a-bitch, nearly killed us all,” vented Ron.
“Well he succeeded in killing three agents, and almost taking the life of the Chief,” replied Dave. “He also took out our two SAT phones. The
poor agent that was closest to the lead terrorist had one of them and the Chief had the other. Like the agent, there is nothing left of his SAT phone, and the Chief’s is non-functional. The phone saved his life. It took a direct shrapnel hit.”
“So basically we have no way to call for help,” exclaimed Ron.
“Yes, but I’m sure help will be on its way soon,” replied Dave. “The base had our coordinates and they will send out a search party when we miss our expected return window. In the meantime while the Chief rests, we can finish what we came here to do.”
“Find the bioweapon,” interrupted Ron.
Dave stood up from his perch on one of the snow machines and started walking in the direction of the airplane debris field. As Dave and Ron approached the wreckage they saw that its appearance had changed dramatically from when they first arrived on the scene. The terrorist’s explosion had not only inflicted its wrath on them, but also on the remains of the downed aircraft.
“Jeez, there isn’t much left to it,” commented Ron as he looked at the twisted wreckage.
“True, but fortunately the terrorist leader had walked several meters away from it to talk to the Chief. Those extra several meters made all the difference between still seeing some remnants of the aircraft and none at all.”
“So where do you think we should begin to look?” asked Ron.
“Well it looks like this mound of material is what’s left of the wings,” responded Dave, as he pointed at a large mass of twisted aluminum. “The trees must have severed them off when the plane came down.”
Dave looked ahead about twenty meters at the other mound of snow, with the remains of a vertical stabilizer sticking out of it.
“Over there. That looks like where the fuselage ended up,” said Dave, as he pointed in a northerly direction.
Ron looked to where Dave was pointing and said, “Do you really believe that small mound represents all that is left of the aircraft.”