by Joseph Souza
“Look, I’m not bullshitting either one of you,” Tag said, turning to face them. “Yes, my identification is inside the house, but the two of you cannot, under any circumstances, come inside.”
“Why the hell not?” asked Mueller.
“Because my wife and daughter are in there. That’s their golf cart and our BMW parked in the driveway. I told them to wait in the basement and stay put until I returned.”
“Who cares if your wife and kid are in the house? We go inside, you prove to us you are who you really say you are, then we’re all good. If not, we take you down to the station and book your sorry ass.”
“You don’t understand, officers,” Tag said. “My wife and daughter have probably become infected with the virus. If the two of you go inside, then there’s a good chance that you’ll both contract this infectious disease as well. And trust me, this is not something you want to catch.”
The two cops stared at each other, unsure of what to say.
“You’re going to have to trust me, officers. Please release the cuffs and let me go inside.”
“No can do, pal. We can’t take the chance of releasing you and then finding out you’re some kind of domestic terrorist or serial killer.”
“This whole island could potentially be destroyed and all you’re worried about is me escaping into my own home? Check my shorts. The house keys are in my left pocket.”
“Let him go, Mikey,” said Silva. “We got nothing to lose.”
“No, Peggy, I will not let him go.”
“If this thing spreads like he’s saying, Mikey, then I’m holding you personally responsible.”
“And if he escapes and blows up another building on the island, then it’ll be your ass on the line.”
“Don’t be such a goddamn asshole. Let the man go inside and get his friggin’ ID.”
“I promise I won’t run out the back door,” Tag said, shaking his head in frustration. “Besides, where am I going to go? The ferries have been shut down and the island’s in chaos.”
“C’mon, Mikey, we have more important shit to take care of than to stand here screwing around with this clown.”
“Fuck it,” Mueller said, removing the plastic cuffs from Tag’s wrists. “I suppose you couldn’t make things any worse than they already are.”
“Trust me, officers, things can and will get much worse than this. You two stay put until I return with some hazmat face masks and my ID.”
Tag unlocked the door and ran inside. Before he retrieved his license, he went downstairs and unlocked the basement door, relieved to see Monica and Taylor resting comfortably on the sofa and watching the news. Monica looked as if she’d been crying. Taylor lay sprawled with her head on her mother’s lap, watching the TV stoically.
“Please tell us what’s happening on this island, Tag.”
“I don’t quite know yet, but I’m working on it,” he said, kneeling next to her on the sofa. “I can’t stay with you right now. I’ve got to go out there and help take care of the situation on the island, which has gotten a lot worse. People downtown are panicking.”
“Have we been attacked? Please be honest with me.”
“I can’t be sure if it’s a dangerous virus or a well-planned hoax. My guess is that it’s just a scare, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“Come on, Dad,” said Taylor. “Why else would they spread a virus on the island? To give us the flu?”
“If a terrorist released a virus, they’d most likely do it on the mainland so that they could maximize death rates. It doesn’t make sense. There’s something else going on here that I can’t quite pinpoint, but I doubt that whoever did this would choose to release a lethal virus on such a small island off the coast of Maine. There’s nothing to be gained from it. Besides, to develop such a hybrid organism would be extremely difficult, if not virtually impossible,” he lied.
“Let’s pray that you’re right.”
“What they’ve managed to do is create chaos, and that’s often a more frightening and effective tool than the actual threat.”
“So what’s next, Dad? Do we stay down here in this basement and chill?”
“For the time being. I’ll be back shortly when I can better figure things out. Whatever you do, neither of you use your cell phones. I’ve disabled the ones I’ve found inside the house. If anyone rings the bell or comes to the door, don’t answer it no matter what they say or how desperate they seem. Understand?”
They nodded their heads in agreement. He kissed Monica and Taylor on their foreheads and headed back upstairs. Once in the kitchen, he grabbed the Stinger combat knife, his Glock pistol and his military ID. It seemed like such a small arsenal in the battle against the coming tide of a biological event, but he supposed it was better than nothing. Of course, he knew that if he couldn’t help these people, then no one else could. He’d been a combat vet and had run a multi-million dollar agency as efficiently as any of his predecessors. Not to mention that he’d been vaccinated against the plague soon to hit the island. Either that or else the vaccine was merely a ruse used to help perpetuate this giant hoax. He couldn’t take any chances. He went to his workshop for his portable drill and replaced the bit with a half-inch bit. The drill roared to life once he squeezed the orange trigger. He replaced the battery with a freshly charged one and headed back upstairs with his arms full.
The two cops! He’d almost forgotten about them. He went out the front door and saw them leaning up against the hood of the patrol car, smoking. Mueller tossed his butt to the ground and pulled out another. To his horror Silva was talking on her cell phone. Tag sprinted down the steps and pulled it away from her ear, tossing it far down the cliff below and into the thick vegetation.
“Hey! What the hell’d you do that for, asshole?”
“I told you to stay off your cell phone!”
“You ain’t my boss!” She took out her revolver and pointed it at him. “I’ll put a few holes in your army ass, Colonel, if you don’t chill the fuck out. Now put the gun down.”
“I knew we shouldn’t have trusted this asshole, Peg.”
“I’m sorry about doing that,” he said, dropping everything to the pavement.
“I was talking to my husband and kid, you son-of-a-bitch!”
“Your phone is infected, officer! You ever want to see your husband and kid again, then you better put all calls on speakerphone from now on,” he said, holding his hands up in surrender.
“Too late for that now!”
“My ID fell to the ground.”
“You losing your mind?” Mueller said, laughing bitterly. “How can her cell phone be infected? She’s had it in her pocket the entire time.”
“It’s the radio frequency waves,” Tag said, watching Silva walk over and pick up his military ID. “The waves coming out of it may have the potential to activate targeted cells in the brain and cause damage to the basal ganglia region.”
“What the hell are you talking about with that gibberish?”
“He is who he says he is, Mikey. Says here he’s Colonel Taggert Winters of the United States Army. Got a driver’s license from Maryland as well.”
“How come I’ve never seen you on this island before, Colonel?”
“Because I’ve never gotten into trouble with the law.”
“Okay, Colonel, we know you’re the real deal. Now what?” Silva said.
“Here,” he said, passing them the hazmat kit. “Gloves, disinfectant spray, and face masks that you should wear at all times.”
“You mean this flimsy little face mask is going to protect us from catching the crud?”
“That’s a certified AVAB face mask. Antivirus and bacterial. Stops 99.9% of all organisms that you might come in contact with. So wear it with confidence if you want to stay healthy.”
“Kind of like safe sex, huh, Colonel?” Mueller said, wrapping the rubber band around his head. “Little snug but not bad.”
“Should have just wrapped it around your
fat ass, Mikey.” Silva laughed.
Tag walked over to his golf cart, jumped in, and started the ignition.
“Where you going, Colonel?”
“I have a few important things I need to do. It’s going to be a long night, and we’re going to need to prepare for the worst.”
“So what should the two of us do?” Mueller asked.
“I’m so glad you asked. You and Officer Silva need to head up to Main Street and take control of the situation. Try to keep the peace if you can. Make sure riots don’t break out. Get the residents to return to their homes and stay inside. All the tourists should head down to the beach and spread out in order to minimize the risk of catching this disease. It’s warm tonight, so they should be able to sleep on the beach without too much discomfort. Any breeze off the water should help minimize the spread of infection if, indeed, that becomes an issue. We might need to take some water and supplies out of the local grocery stores and deliver them around the island.”
“Okay, Colonel, we’re on it. Any other instructions before we take off?”
“We’ll need to start identifying any medical personnel and round them up: doctors, PAs and nurses. We’ll need to set up a sick bay if people start coming down with symptoms.”
“At that point will it even matter?” Silva asked.
“Might, might not, depending on the agent we’re dealing with. Quarantining is always the safest strategy, especially if this bug’s a virulent flu strain. And if there’s any casualties, then we’re going to need to safely dispose of the bodies, and the best way to accomplish this is to burn them. I know that sounds harsh, but that’s the reality of the situation, and we must be prepared for the worst.”
“Damn fine mess we’re in, Colonel! Seeing how you’re the expert on these matters, we’ll follow your lead.”
“See you around the island, officers,” Tag said, speeding off in the golf cart.
Tag heard his phone go off. He was relieved to see that it was a text message from his son saying that he was okay. Now he just needed to hear from his daughter.
Chapter 6
He zipped down the hill and turned left onto Atlantic View Road. Once he drove out of the grove of trees, he could hear the familiar roar of surf pounding the shore. Down below and to his right, he could see the beach bathed in the soft glow of moonlight. A few people had already made their way down to escape the chaos taking place in town. The golf cart’s motor whirred in his ears, and the ocean breeze swept past his face. He pumped the gas pedal to the floor, but the cart had reached its top speed. Looking to his left, he observed the row of modest homes lined up and down the quiet residential street. The island sloped down from the center of town until it descended upon the east and west end beaches. The beach facing the Atlantic was the most popular and spectacular of them all. Many of the houses sat empty for long periods of time during the summer. Tag wondered if at some point these homes could be used to house people in the event things on the island got worse.
The golf cart swerved as it reached the far end of the beach. The northern tip of the island shore was composed mostly of woods, ledges and large rocks covered in seaweed and barnacles. Only a few isolated homes existed on the north end of Cooke’s, and they belonged mostly to the full-time residents. Seagulls soared above the surf, squawking and fighting for supremacy. Tag could feel the salty spray wash over his face as he turned the corner and headed west. Because of the rocks and rough water, not many boats were docked on this part of the island. He cut across the northern tip and made his way to the eastern shore, where the harbor provided much better protection for all the boats docked there. He took a hard left onto Cooke’s Way and parked at the end of the street. Then he ran down toward one of the small docks fronting the magnificent waterfront homes facing toward Portland. Two power boats bobbed on either side of the dock. Concealed by the darkness, he knelt down next to the first powerboat and, using the battery-operated power tool, he drilled a series of holes into the fiberglass hull just below the waterline. He did the same to the powerboat docked on the other side. Satisfied that he’d disabled both crafts, he hopped back in his golf cart and sped off. Looking over his shoulder, he saw them start to submerge into the bay.
He managed to drill holes in all the boats docked along the eastern waterfront, insuring that none of the residents would be able to make their way over to the mainland. The closer he got to Cooke’s Landing, the more shadows he saw loitering around the ferry terminal. Hundreds of people had camped out there for the night, hoping that a ferry or rescue ship might pick them up and return them back to Portland. On the hill high above, he saw streetlights glowing on Main Street. Sparks and ash flew up into the night, a result of the still-blazing church fire. He knew full well that the explosion had not been caused by a gas leak. Someone had rigged that church, and it was only by a stroke of good luck that no one had died or gotten seriously injured when it went up in flames.
He stopped the golf cart roughly a hundred yards from the ferry terminal. It would be risky to try to make it through that desperate throng without getting mobbed. They would block his path and possibly become violent, begging for food, information and assistance. It wasn’t their fault. Desperate people did desperate things, especially if they had no lodging, food or information about the crisis facing them. Rather than try to motor past the crowd, he took a left on Cod Lane and swerved through the labyrinth of winding backstreets. Stragglers wandered along the streets, calling out to him as he passed, begging for help. He wished he could be of some assistance to these poor souls, but for now he had to insure that the island remained shut off from the mainland, meaning that he had to disable every boat, raft or jet ski he could find. Breaking the quarantine was not an option, and he had to do everything in his power to prevent the organism from escaping into the general population.
Pedestrians tried to block his path, but he swerved easily past them, not bothering to answer the myriad of questions they shouted out to him. He managed to make his way around to the south-east part of the island, where the largest marina on the island was located. Dozens of power craft were moored on the southern tip of Cooke’s, and a small group of people were walking toward the dock. Were they trying to escape? He sped toward them, and as soon as they heard the high-pitched whine of his golf cart, they turned and looked at him. Tag recognized the tall man with the shoulder-length hair and horn-rimmed glasses. It was Dr. David Goldstein, one of the most respected brain surgeons in the country and the owner of the Cera Bellum, the forty-two-foot cabin cruiser docked at Cooke’s Marina. Goldstein’s six-thousand-square-foot summer home sat atop the island and had the best views of any other home.
Tag had been invited to a few parties at Goldstein’s house in the past few years but got the sense that the surgeon looked down on him for being a lowly army doctor, having never actually checked out his military credentials. Goldstein’s home was spectacular, and Tag always marveled at both the amazing ocean views and the grandiosity of its architectural design, which had been featured in more than a few home and garden magazines.
He pulled up to the group and could tell right off that they’d been drinking. A long set of stairs led from the man’s summer home atop the cliff down to the marina. Goldstein preferred to dock the Cera Bellum because of how little time he actually spent on the island, which Tag estimated was roughly three weeks out of the year. That was because Goldstein lived in Boston and spent much of his time in the surgical unit of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he was chief of surgery.
“Hi, guys,” he said, idling next to the group. Goldstein had a cocktail in one hand and walked with a loose-limbed gait. “Where you guys going at this late hour?”
“If it isn’t my curious neighbor, the esteemed army physician Tag Winters. How are you, my friend?” Goldstein greeted him with an air of condescension.
“Fine, Dave,” he replied, knowing the man hated to be called Dave. “Just wondering where you’re all headed tonight…”
&
nbsp; “Heard that the ferries are all out of commission. I’ve got a group of friends visiting from San Fran that need to head back tonight to catch their flight. I’m going to drop them off at Pier Seven to catch a cab and then return to the island after this little hubbub passes.”
“I’m afraid you can’t do that, Dave.”
“It’s Dr. Goldstein, Winters, and I can do whatever I damn well please,” Goldstein said, holding up his drink.
“I beg to differ, Dave.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said I beg to differ. I’m afraid I can’t let you get on that boat.”
Goldstein laughed and sipped his cocktail. With his pointy beard, long gray hair and horned-rimmed glasses, he intimidated most people. But Tag was used to dealing with imposing, self-righteous assholes who thought their shit didn’t stink. Not to mention the lethal viruses he handled. He felt sorry for all the young interns that had to study under this difficult taskmaster.
“You can’t let us? I suppose I didn’t get the memo that you’d been elected the new sheriff of Cooke’s Island,” Goldstein said, continuing to walk toward the dock.
Tag hopped out of the golf cart and sprinted past the man and towards the middle of the dock. He faced Goldstein and pointed the Glock at him.
“You heard me, Dave. We have a situation on the island, and I’m afraid I’ve been designated to spread the word. For the time being no one is allowed to leave the island, and that includes you.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Winters?” he said, his jovial expression now turning sour and nasty. “What could have possibly happened that would prevent me from leaving here on my own boat?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss the situation at the moment, Doctor, but if you return to your home right now, I’ll explain it to you later in much greater detail.”
“I’m not going back to my house, Winters. I’m going to take my guests on that dock and then onto the Cera Bellum like I planned. Then I’m going to head toward Portland and drop them off in town. When I return, I’ll be happy to discuss this matter and any other matters with you over a few cocktails.”