The Doomsday Infection

by Lamport, Martin

  Luke sprang up from his good leg until he was horizontal on his crutch, kicked out at the general, and caught him with a tremendous blow square on the side, making him stumble. The general almost recovered his balance when, Sophie swept out with a low kick, sending Jumpin’ Jack Malloy, the highly decorated, Four Star General face-first into the whirling propellers.

  CHAPTER 48

  23:43 PM

  Some 4th of July, thought the surgeon general as he washed his hands in the bathroom at the White House down the corridor from the Oval Office, under the watchful eye of his armed escort. The time is now, he thought. Somehow, he would have to convince the armed guard to release him so that he could section the President.

  Some tall order, he thought solemnly. Yet he had too for the sake of the country. He would have to persuade the armed guard that it was imperative that he section the incumbent President.

  Surely, they could see that the President had become unbalanced, they could worry about the subpoena later, or maybe they could think of a way of impeaching him, either way they would have to worry about the niceties of their actions later. He had to act; the President had totally lost it, having proposed the annihilation of Florida.

  He had never heard such nonsense in all his born days. Mental health was no laughing matter, and should certainly not be in doubt in the ruler of the free world.

  He marched briskly back to the Oval Office when to his consternation he found the door locked. “What the . . .?” Quinn Martell said in alarm. He tried the door again. Definitely locked. He heard shouting and turned to the uniformed guard, “Unlock this door, immediately!”

  “Negative,” gulped the young guard. “My orders are clear. Guard you and nothing else.”

  The shouting got louder. “Listen to them, that’s Vice-Admiral Reed in there. Who has the most experience in defending our nation, him or that preppy nobody?” he pleaded, as the guard stared straight ahead, as trained, and ignored him. “Use your initiative.”

  “No can do, sir. Now step away.”

  23.44 PM

  Sophie gently steering the spluttering, disabled airboat along the Intracoastal Waterway. The boat limped along, as the propellers malfunctioned after removing most of the general’s face. She shuddered as she remembered his howls of agony as the blades turned his face into hamburger.

  Sophie heaved the carcass over the side of the airboat and was surprised how quickly the alligators were upon the corpse devouring it. She glanced at Luke who’d sunk into semi-consciousness. He’d lost an enormous amount of blood, she had stopped the flow for the moment. The bullet had passed right through his shoulder, so no permanent damage there, she thought.

  She cut the throttle and glided the airboat up to the embankment outside the Good Samaritan’s hospital, on Sandbank Island. My gosh, she thought, back to where we started. She came to a halt almost at the spot where the river ambulances would dock, then dashed inside the deserted hospital, grabbed a gurney and helped Luke onto it.

  23:45 PM

  The President entered the Oval Office in a manic mood once again. His appearance unkempt, his hair disheveled, and he had large sweat patches under his arms. His face turned puce. “What have you done to me? He raged.

  “I . . .I d - don’t know what you mean?” stammered the vice-admiral.

  “You and that quack, Martell, you’ve given me something haven’t you.” He grinned, baring his teeth, and pointed in Reed’s face. “I’m on to your little game.”

  Vice-Admiral Reed worried for the President’s sanity, this latest bout of paranoia was too much, and as soon as Quinn got back to the office, they would have to act. “Mister President, we don’t have time for this -”

  “Damn well right we don’t. That’s why we’re going to launch Plan Z. You and I, right here, right now.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” the vice-admiral asked incredulous.

  “You know what Plan Z involved. It’s going to happen, mister, with or without your help.”

  “Never.”

  “It’s been ratified by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

  “I don’t care,” said the vice-admiral. “I cannot, in all good conscience be responsible for this madness.”

  “It’s not your responsibility – it’s mine. I’ve made an executive decision and that’s final. Now, put your goddamn palm-print on the plate!” he ordered, opening the briefcase containing the nuclear missile launch-codes.

  “Not in a million years,” Reed replied.

  “You put your goddamned palm-print on the screen now, or I’ll cut your hand clean off and put it on there.”

  “You cannot launch a nuclear strike upon your own country, please think again. It’s insane.”

  “We’ll bomb the state back to the Stone Age. We have to make sure that’s it’s uninhabitable. It’s the only sane option we have.”

  “It’ll make Florida uninhabitable for a hundred years.”

  “That’s what we want,” said Hamilton trying to appeal to the man through logic. “We kill every living thing, then logically we kill the bubonic plague’s host, and it’ll die with them. AND it’ll stop the illegal immigrants from wanting to enter the country through Florida; surely even they wouldn’t be dumb enough to venture into a radioactive area.”

  “No!” Reed said.

  23:46 PM

  At the Good Samaritan Hospital Sophie gave Luke a blood transfusion by flashlight. She had Luke strapped to the gurney and drew more blood for a regular check. The prognosis was good from the gunshot at least. She compared before and after blood samples at a makeshift laboratory, and gained puzzling results. She was mystified. “That’s curious . . .,” she said to herself. “. . . Surely not . . .”

  If correct, she may have accidentally stumbled upon the cure!

  Incredible as it may seem - it had happened before - the discovery of penicillin had been by accident. She told herself to calm down, and thought she should do another test to confirm her theory.

  She heard the roar of distant jets and peered from the hospital window and her mouth dropped open; the sky was full of military aircraft heading north and a shiver ran down her spine, knowing that the retreat was not good and had an ominous feeling. Something awful was about to occur. She rushed back to her experiments knowing that the potential outcome of the tests could result in the most important discovery in history.

  She prayed to God that she was correct.

  23:47 PM

  Submariner Pete Williams coughed and tried to breath in the thin, fetid air. Slow, deep even breaths he told himself. If the lack of air wasn’t enough, there was also the intolerable heat. He did not know which would get him first, lack of oxygen or heatstroke. Well, whichever got him first it would not be before he made a pre-emptive strike.

  Fuck the retaliation only rule of a nuclear launch. He knew the enemies of the United States were behind the contagion and if he were to die then he would damn well make sure he would take them with him. He needed the captain’s computer, and with a great deal of difficulty, he sat at the desk, and prepared to send the Rag-Heads or Ruskies back to the dark ages. He paused for a moment doubting his motives. The enemy would see the launch and would respond in kind. The US had always calculated on six or seven nuclear bombs getting through and resigned themselves to the loss of several major cities, New York, Washington and Chicago to name a few, should he be the instigator of such mass murder? Would anyone ever know it had been him, and would anyone even care?

  He had fed the launch codes into the captain’s laptop, on the outside it looked like an innocuous briefcase, but on the inside it held unimaginable power and destruction. Everything was prepared, he only had to push the button. His vision became blurred and his breathing erratic, the panic rising in him. He made himself calm, and regulated his breathing. He flipped back the plastic safety cover and his finger hovered over the button. . . .

  23:49 PM

  Sophie entered Quinn Martell’s cellular telephone number into the army sa
tellite-phone they’d taken from the soldier on the barge. He answered quickly, but sounded out of breath. “It’s me, Sophia Garcia.”

  “My God, you’re alive!” Quinn’s heart swelled at the news, and he felt himself grinning for the first time in ages. The shouting inside the Oval Office grew so loud that he had to cover his ear to be able to hear her. He nodded to the uniformed guard to open the door and saw that the young guard’s resolve waned; he took out a key and turned it over in his hand, trying to make the right decision.

  23:50 PM

  Pete Williams was in a quandary. I’ll give it a couple of minutes he thought. He scrolled through the captain’s emails, his vision focusing in and out, when two words struck terror into his heart Defcon One emblazoned across the screen. He knew that this was battle stations, nuclear war imminent. Thank God that he’d already prepared, and was one-step ahead. Should he wait for the official command, or should he get on and do it, and maybe take out a Russian nuclear silo or two. Such proactive action might even save Washington. He was about to start proceeding when the next e-mail turned his bowel to liquid.

  His vision blurred again but saw the relevant words, Nuclear launch. . . and Florida . . . they galvanized him into action and he pressed the button. The sub shook with the tremendous ferocity of the tomahawk launches. Nuclear War had begun. . .

  CHAPTER 49

  TIME ELAPSED SINCE LAUNCH: 00. 00.01 - 00.00.59

  TIME LEFT TO RETALIATE: 00:09.59 - 00.09.01

  Within the first minute of the launch, Russian satellites would detect the missiles in flight. This information would pass to Early Warning Center Staff in Moscow, where the operators would relay the information to the General Staff Command Post located in Chekhov, who would analyze the information.

  “I’ve found a cure!” Sophie shouted down the phone to Quinn, when she heard a distant boom. She glanced out of the window and saw missiles being launched from out in the ocean. She gazed open-mouthed, as the missiles climbed into the sky. She turned her attention back to the telephone call. “I did a total blood transfusion on a patient, and he is well on the way to a full recovery and is completely free of the virus.” She glanced at Luke, slumped in a wheelchair and she saw the first signs of him regaining consciousness.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, unable to believe the news.

  “I’ve checked and double checked, plus he’d had a blood transfusion two days ago, due to an injury, and I myself had a full transfusion after a recent auto-wreck,” she told him. “There is no mistake. The patient may have only just caught the decease - less than a day I would have said - judging by the spread of the virus, but it looks as though a quick exchange of blood, seems to flush out the system and replace the virus before it has a proper hold.”

  Quinn went through an array of emotions, and absorbed the information. “That’s fantastic!” he exclaimed. “Finally, at last, our troubles are over, we can start to -” a gunshot from inside the Oval Office stopped him dead in his tracks and he dropped the cell phone in alarm.

  TIME ELAPSED SINCE LAUNCH: 00:01:00 - 00:01:59

  TIME LEFT TO RETALIATE: 00:09:00 – 00:08:01

  The Russian operators at the General Command Post check on the reliability of the report. If they decide it is valid they then send out alerts to the President and the Strategic Rocket force that control the Russian Federations nuclear missiles. The President then has to send out the authorization launch codes to the missile silos.

  “Hello? Professor Martell? Are you still there?” Sophie felt frustrated with the break in communications then looked from the window as more jets roared away. She collected Luke in his wheelchair, “Come on, we need to get out of here.”

  __________

  The young uniformed guard unlocked the Oval Office door and Quinn pushed passed him. President Hamilton Parker perched on the edge of his desk, literally holding the smoking gun. Vice-Admiral Reed lay dead on the floor, blood still pumped from the bullet hole between the eyes.

  “What have you done?” gasped Quinn.

  “What have I done? What have I done! Only taken control of our destiny, that’s all! No more prevarication. I’m done with procrastinating like that useless bag of shit.” He pointed using the pistol at Vice Admiral Reed’s lifeless body by his feet. He scratched his crotch, which Quinn noticed. “What is the point of an admiral who is unwilling to defend the country, I ask you, what is the point? Claiming his conscience would not let him be attached to plan Z.”

  Quinn watched the President’s behavior, his posturing and boastful manner almost bordering on manic. He looked terrible, sweat soaked his shirt and he could not stop fiddling with his crotch. “You cold-bloodily murdered the Vice-Admiral, because he didn’t agree with you?” Quinn asked stupefied.

  “He was a traitor, and that’s punishable by death. I’ve just saved the tax payer a lot of time and money on a lengthy court martial. He would not take action for the benefit of the country.”

  “We’ve found a cure, Mister President.”

  “What!”

  “We’ve found a cure, sir, no need to initiate plan Z.”

  “Hamilton Parker, lit a huge fat Cuban cigar, blew out a satisfying lungful of smoke and smiled, “Well, I wish you’d told me that earlier, Quinn” he said sarcastically.

  “Excuse me?”

  Because it’s already too late.”

  TIME ELAPSED SINCE LAUNCH: 00:02:00 - 00:2:59

  TIME LEFT TO RETALIATE: 00:08:00 – 00:07:01

  The Russian General Staff Command Post turns on a special communications circuit, connecting the post to all missile silos and mobile launchers – the Topol 14 wheel-based missile launchers, the RT-2 train car ICBM Launchers and the ever-present nuclear submarines. The crews make preparations to counter-launch.

  Lieutenant Carrington could hardly believe that he was heading to Florida again, scrambled for the second time in twenty-four hours. This time on a mission beyond imagination. As one of the volunteers to fire nuclear warheads, he’d had to undergo a battery of rigorous tests to show that, in a crisis he would do his duty and actually fire the doomsday weapon. He’d passed the psychological tests with flying colors, but nothing could have prepared him for how he felt now, right now, actually in the arena of combat, whether or not they would have the fortitude to fire the weapon. It’s not like he would be firing on a foreign power, an enemy of the state, but fellow Americans, not the disease-ridden carriers, but healthy, law abiding individuals, who had committed no other crime than to live in the wrong area.

  The results of peacetime nuclear strike tests had been buried, concluding that not all the US weapons would be fired. The military personnel had failed at the last moment. In fact, less than half of the missiles had not launched, and these were only tests. The personnel, not what the military consider the ‘best of the best’ were mostly young, at their first posts and finding the monotony mind-numbingly boring. Yet at the last moment unwilling to fire, reluctant to be responsible for the sheer numbers of deaths of Russians or whoever, and the counter-strikes leading to multi-million deaths of American citizens.

  Lieutenant Carrington had no such qualms and was in fact, looking forward to the destruction. He banked the F-18 Tomahawk and headed directly to his target in Orlando, chosen as the optimum strike point. He contained a smile as the culmination of all his training had finally come to fruition. He was determined and ready for all they could throw at him. He knew of all the tricks they could play, sending him messages telling him it was a mistake, or a false alarm, but his training had taught him to resist all such subterfuge. He savored the notion. Do your worst, he urged, do your worst.

  TIME ELAPSED SINCE LAUNCH: 00:03:00 - 00:3:59

  TIME LEFT TO RETALIATE: 00:07:00 – 00:06:01

  Within the forth minute of missile launch the President of the former Soviet Union, would confer by telephone with his Chiefs and early warning centers to confirm that the missiles are heading for Russia.

  “What do you mean, ‘too late�
��?” Quinn whispered aghast.

  “I have ordered nuclear strikes on Florida; three F-18s are speeding towards Florida as we speak.”

  “Three?”

  “We’ve calculated that two spineless cowards are expected to chicken-out and not fire on their own countrymen. It’s pathetic. Our military personnel are an embarrassment.” He scratched furiously at his crotch.

  The significance of the scratching and the sweating of the armpits finally dawned on Quinn. “Have you – have you been to Florida recently . . .?”

  “Not me, no.”

  “The Secret Service arrived at the door and drew their weapons alerted to trouble by the sound of gunshot. They saw that the President held a pistol. Quinn held up a hand for them to stay where they were.

  “Have you been in contact with anyone who has visited Florida recently?”

  “No, I swear.”

  “Not interacted with anyone other than staff and family?”

  “Nope. Cross my heart,” he teased.

  The young guard coughed. “That’s not completely true . . .,” he said. He felt himself backing away from the President as if he radiated death. “There was that young blonde.”