The Doomsday Infection

by Lamport, Martin

  “Hey, what’s the point being the President, if you can’t have a mistress?” he joked. “I’m hardly up there with Kennedy, on that score. It’s only the one . . .” He spread his arms wide as if to say, ‘come on guys’.

  “I recognized her from Sports Illustrated. She was April’s center spread,” said the guard nervously. “And a former Miss Miami?”

  Hamilton Parker grinned. “So what if she was? I sneaked my mistress out of the zone. She was checked over first and given a clean bill of health.”

  “Open your shirt,” said Quinn.

  “No way!”

  The surgeon general went to grab the President’s shirt when Hamilton Parker pointed his pistol at him. “I don’t think so.”

  When the President fully extended his arm towards him, Quinn could see the tell-tale signs, his finger-tips had blackened. “My God, you’ve got the Bubonic Plague . . . you’ve brought the Black Death into the White House . . .” he gasped as his blood ran cold.

  The guard backed further away and pulled his decorative neckerchief up over his nose, and hoped the thin piece of silk cloth would help.

  “Back away,” Quinn waved the staff in the doorway back. “Seal the office off,” he said, but the Secret Service would not leave there posts.

  Hamilton grinned, hoping to win them over. “I’m fine, seriously. You don’t -” His eyes flipped open in shock, as a bullet from the guard’s sidearm pierced his heart. He dropped to his knees. “What the f -” then fell forward.

  Hamilton Parker III, the 46th President of the United States of America for all of forty-eight hours was dead before his face hit the floor. A cacophony of sound erupted as the Secret service men emptied their chambers into the young guard as if the sheer number of bullets would make up for their lack of action which resulted in the President’s assassination on their watch.

  TIME ELAPSED SINCE LAUNCH: 00:04:00 - 00:04:59

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

  During the fifth minute of launch, the incoming missiles are now in reach of ground-based radar centers. These centers confirm the satellite reports.

  Submariner Pete Williams opened his eyes, and through blurred vision saw the three jets on the radar screen converge and move down from the north of Florida. Ha! Got you first, he thought and slumped to the floor and sucked in a lungful of foul tasting air. He smiled to himself as he thought through the minutes left until detonation and the frantic Commies running around the missile silos preparing to retaliate, hoping to send their rockets before their own destruction. They would not doubt for a moment that the Americans’ knew the location of every one of their nuclear missile silos and that they’d be knocked out in the first wave of missile launches in an attempt to prevent them from responding to the unprovoked attack.

  “You sure this will work?” Sophie asked Luke from the dockside of Miami Beach. He sat in his wheelchair holding the control-bar of a motorized hang-glider, the small engine puttered as they faced the ocean.

  “Nope. But it’s our only chance.” He looked along the jetty and made a calculation, knowing that they needed to reach between fifteen and twenty-five miles an hour before the jetty ran out.

  “By the way,” she added, “You haven’t forgotten that I’m afraid of heights?”

  “So, you want us to escape to the Bahamas on this hang-glider flying how high exactly?”

  She held her hand up to her shoulder, and her brows knitted in what she hoped would be a hard to refuse look. “Can you do it?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Let’s go!”

  She ran down the dockside pushing Luke in his wheelchair and the hang-glider with all her might, the edge of the dock loomed up ahead. She increased her efforts and they started to work up a reasonable speed until they ran off the jetty, the wheelchair fell away hitting the water with a mighty splash and they plummeted towards the ocean . . .

  TIME ELAPSED SINCE LAUNCH: 00:05:00 - 00:5:59

  TIME LEFT TO RETALIATE: 00:05:00 – 00:04:01

  With five minutes gone and with less than five minutes left before detonation, the Russian President must now make the decision if he wants to launch a counterattack. He will transmit the permission codes to the General Staff Command Post, to Air Force and Navy command posts and to the Strategic Rocket Forces command post.

  Quinn stood with his hand raised, swearing the oath, unable to take in the surreal events. “Mister President,” said the senior court Judge, and the senior secret service man handed Quinn the briefcase containing the nuclear launch codes. The brief ceremony watched by video-link by the chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon war room, as Quinn Martell was hastily sworn in as the 47th President of the United States of America.

  The Surgeon General did not have time to absorb the enormity of his promotion. His mind was on the Tomcat F-18’s hurtling towards Florida to release their payloads. A shiver ran down his spine and his mouth went dry, but he stood straight, stiffened his resolve, and turned to the video-link screen. “Recall those jets. Now!”

  “Can’t be done, sir, they’ve crossed the point of no return.”

  “Get on the radio, talk them down!”

  “But, what about plan Z?” queried the General Air Force Chief of Staff.

  “It’s been rescinded. We’ve found a cure.”

  “Praise the lord!” he replied, and then turned to a subordinate. “Get those pilots on the horn, now!”

  TIME ELAPSED SINCE LAUNCH: 00:06:00 - 00:6:59

  TIME LEFT TO RETALIATE: 00:04:00 – 00:03:01

  The Russian General Staff Command Post transmitted the authorization codes, plus the war Plan, which includes targets and the unblocking codes.

  Submariner Pete Williams’s chest heaved as he tried to suck in life giving oxygen, he thought that the missiles should detonate within the next three minutes, he should still be alive to witness this historic event.

  Luke pushed forward on the control-bar and the hang-glider whooshed up into the air a good fifty feet above Sophie’s comfort zone, making her shriek, they banked steeply, leveled the hang-glider, pointed the craft towards the Bahamas and opened the throttle to its maximum fifty mph.

  TIME ELAPSED SINCE LAUNCH: 00:07:00 - 00:7:59

  TIME LEFT TO RETALIATE: 00:03:00 – 00:02:01

  The Russian strategic launchers are prepared. The commanding officer at each site had confirmed that the order is genuine and compared the final authorization code against the code kept in his safe. The officer began to implement launch procedure.

  Lieutenant Carrington saw the jet on his starboard side, bank sharply and head one hundred and eighty degrees, retreating homeward. “You pussy!” he yelled. “You should be ashamed to wear the uniform. It’s a trick you idiot. It’s someone trying to impersonate your boss. You should be court marshaled!” He could almost cry with the weakness of his compatriot.

  Carrington ignored the voice in his own earpiece. He found it easy to tune out the monotonous drone of a person trying to talk him down. It was ridiculous. Did they really think he would fall for that?

  He saw the jet on his port side, bank and disappear from view. “You fool, it’s a trick, can’t you see that?”

  So, it was all down to him. Well, he wouldn’t be deterred so easily. He’d been given a mission and he would finish the job.

  TIME ELAPSED SINCE LAUNCH: 00:08:00 - 00:8:59

  TIME LEFT TO RETALIATE: 00:02:00 – 00:01:01

  The commanding office at the missile site activated the silos missile system with his safety key and with a sinking heart entered the unblocking code.

  Within the Pentagon War room, the silence was deafening. Each person held his or her breath, too scared to breathe as if maybe this would break the spell. One solitary sound broke the silence, the voice of General Air Force Chief of Staff Thornton echoed around the table, as he tried everything within his power to talk Lieutenant Carrington into turning back. He had tried ordering him, tried threatening, and tried cajoling him. However, he could not convince the pi
lot that the order had been rescinded.

  Over the speakers, he heard Lieutenant Carrington’s sing-songy voice, “I’m not listening to you. Save your breath whoever you are. In fact, I’m taking out my ear-piece now, adios!”

  Thornton turned to the video-link screen to the White House, ashen faced and with a half-shrug said, “That’s it, then . . .”

  TIME ELAPSED SINCE LAUNCH: 00:09:00 - 00:09:59

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

  Without notification to rescind the previous order, the commanding officer launches the retaliatory nuclear missiles. . . .

  Lieutenant Carrington saw his target and grinned. He could have fired the missile from a distance but he wanted to get in the thick of it. Cinderella’s fairytale castle at Disney World in Orlando made an appropriate destination, that such an iconic place of joy and wonderment was chosen for the target for such devastation and destruction. He fixed the pink castle on the cross hairs of his manual targeting system, then without a second thought, fired. “Have a nice day!” he quipped, lowered his blast shield, and banked rapidly away.

  Submariner Pete Williams, with his dying breath heaved himself up on the captain’s desk and watched the monitor displaying the detention of a nuclear weapon, bang in the middle of Florida. Well, he had paid the damned communists back ten-fold he thought triumphantly. He tried to suck in air, but there was no breathable air left, and he slumped to the floor and died.

  The USS Amarillo nuclear powered submarine sailed on, unmanned and undetected.

  Sophie persuaded Luke to fly low and they skimmed the surface of the waves. Suddenly a blinding flash behind them lit up the sky in all directions. Sophie went to look as she heard the nuclear explosion rumble. “Don’t turn around, not yet!” shouted Luke and they stared straight ahead for a moment. Then as the light dissipated they turned and were awe-struck to see in the far distance a mushroom cloud develop over Orlando. The blast wave hit the hang-glider a few seconds later, flipping them over, and plunging them downward. . . .

  At the White House President Quinn Martell stared at the video link dumbfounded as the realization dawned that they had done it, detonated a nuclear bomb over Orlando. A shiver ran down his spine, “Gentlemen,” he said in a calm, efficient, yet friendly tone. “What is done, is done, we must try to limit the damage, but as the virus is airborne it is now out of control and heading this way.” He paused as the message sunk in and the men for once, lost their cool, each one worried for their loved ones. “We need suggestions and fast.” He looked around the frightened faces, as a telephone rang incessantly in the background. “Anyone? Jump right in, anything, doesn’t matter how bizarre.”

  General Chief of Air Force Chief of Staff Thornton picked up the telephone and the blood drained from his face, “Mister President, th . . . the Russians have launched a full scale nuclear attack . . .”

  “What?” Quinn said in sheer bewilderment. “Why?”

  “It appears that it is in retaliation for the attack we launched on them . . .”

  Pandemonium broke out in the War Room, as the men suffering from the blow of the Florida nuclear strike, were now going to have to respond to an unimaginable nuclear attack.

  Yet Quinn felt strangely calm, “Gentlemen, time for recriminations is later, we must move, and fast, we can help destroy our own weapons, get me Moscow . . .”

  EPILOGUE

  THREE MONTHS LATER

  In the White House Press Room President Martell delivered a televised speech. “. . . This indiscriminate plague has now all but passed, it came from nowhere . . . after lying dormant for five centuries and has evaporated just as quickly . . . we as a nation lost approximately one third of our citizenship, around the eighty million mark.” He paused for a moment so that the enormity of the figure could be absorbed. “Worldwide, the figure is four billion, roughly half the pre-Bubonic Plague figure . . . it has been calculated that it will be another one hundred and fifty years until we are back to our pre-plague population . . . the nuclear strikes, foreign and domestic accounting for ten million. It has been tough, but if it’s any consolation, it could have been far worse, we as a species could have easily been obliterated from the planet. Mother earth gave us a timely reminder how fragile human existence is, and gave us a swift kick in the backside, as a wakeup call. We won’t get caught again . . . we have survived and grown as a nation . . . thankfully, to an antidote discovered by the doctor standing next to me.” He turned to his left to where Sophie stood alongside Luke. She looked bashful to be in the spotlight, as the photographers snapped her picture, and she blinked as the flashing lights gave a stroboscopic effect. “Her part in this catastrophe and the millions if not billions of lives saved worldwide, is incalculable. It is possible to assume that the human race might not have survived. . . and it is with this gratitude that I give her and her department, unlimited funds, to watch, and wait for the next pandemic - and there will be another one - to act with speed and efficiency to exterminate the contagion.” He paused, smiled and turned to Sophie. “Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to introduce you to the new Surgeon General; Doctor Sophie Garcia-Spencer.

  THE END