Viral Justice

by Julie Rowe

  “Yes. I had a bit of trouble with a group of thugs who thought they were going to carry my friend and me off, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.” Alicia nodded at the woman and continued in Arabic, “She has come to donate her blood.”

  “To make a medicine,” the woman said firmly.

  Max looked at the woman. “Thank you. Your generosity will save lives.” He included Ali in his glance. “I must get back to the lab. Please excuse me.” He left as precipitously as he’d arrived.

  “Your husband is a learned man,” the woman said to Ali.

  Alicia managed to contain her start of surprise, but Hunt didn’t bother camouflaging his bark of laughter. So much for pretending to be a young man.

  No point in pretending she was something she wasn’t. The female part, not the wife. “When it comes to caring for others, he is, indeed, intelligent and thoughtful. His own care...” She shook her head. “I must constantly remind him to look after himself too.”

  The woman nodded sharply. “That is always the way between husbands and wives. My name is Fatima.”

  Wait, she and Max acted married?

  “I am Alicia, but please call me Ali.”

  Fatima was looking at the children, the teen and his little sister. “Where are their parents?”

  “Dead of the illness.”

  For a moment Fatima’s face reflected intense grief, then she smoothed it over. “May I care for them?”

  “I think,” Ali said slowly, “that would be good.”

  “Is there food?”

  “Yes, here.” Ali showed her a collection of Meals Ready to Eat, as well as bottles of water. Ali demonstrated how to use the heat packs on the MREs and Fatima seemed impressed with the crappy food.

  She went to the children and asked if they’d had anything to eat.

  Hunt continued monitoring the blood donations and when she caught his eye, he shooed her away.

  She walked the short distance toward the lab and found Max writing in his journal. He didn’t look happy.

  “Got any answers?” she asked quietly.

  “Yes, unfortunately.” He sighed. “None of them good.” He looked at her and his laugh held a razor-sharp tone of irony. She was surprised it hadn’t cut anything off her.

  “Tell me, Max.”

  He blew out a breath. “This H5N1 flu is different from the one we’ve seen so much of in the past few years. This one has a preference for human lung tissue, not avian, or we’d be seeing dead chickens everywhere and we’re not.”

  “That sounds deadly.”

  “Lethal. On a large scale.”

  Large scale? He was talking about that worldwide pandemic again, but it had to start somewhere.

  “Where did it come from? I mean...did people catch it from the local chickens first and it changed? Or did it come from somewhere else?”

  “Chickens?” Max said, staring off into space. He glanced at his journal and flipped through several pages. “Death occurs within twenty-four to forty-eight hours after symptoms begin to take their toll.”

  He paced the length of the room and back again. He looked at his own latest entry. “This is very close to the Indonesian strain, but not quite.” He shook his book at the air. “Not quite.”

  “Max?” she asked carefully. “You’re not going all mad scientist on me, are you?”

  He muttered to himself for another minute, then seemed to find something significant in his journal. He stared at the page, then closed the book with a snap. “We have to prevent people from getting sick. We need to create a vaccine.”

  “You said a vaccine would take a few months, so that’s out.”

  “Maybe not. I said the drug companies would take three months to create large-scale doses of a vaccine. If I do it the old-fashioned way, I could cook up a vaccine here, but we’d have no way to test it to find out if it actually works.”

  “Well, get started already.”

  “It could just give us the disease.”

  Fuck, he wasn’t giving her too many options that had a reasonable chance at success. “Can we call in an extraction?”

  “If we leave we condemn most of the people here to death, and so far, we have a disproportionate number of previously healthy adults dying. That would leave a lot of children to fend for themselves with only the very elderly to care for them.”

  “What about all the millions in the rest of the world?”

  “I can’t risk exposing the extraction team to the virus. We could all be infected. I could request more supplies, but the militants might get it, and those supplies in their hands would not be good.” He paced the room again, rubbing his eyes with one hand. “Things are too volatile. We’ve got an unknown number of militant extremists in the area, missing aid workers and a deadly outbreak in progress.”

  “Maybe there’s no perfect answer. Maybe we need to decide on the one that has the best chance of succeeding?”

  “I wish I knew which one that was.”

  “It’s been a while since you got some sleep,” she said, taking a closer look at his eyes. Yup. Bloodshot. “You’ll think better if you sack out for a little while.”

  “A nap,” he said pointing an index finger at her. “I can’t afford to lose too much time.”

  “Thirty minutes?” she offered.

  “Yes, okay.” He nodded. “I need a clear head for this.” He headed toward her patch of wall where she’d zonked out for a little while. “Have Hunt collect a unit of blood from everyone who’s had the flu and survived.”

  “He’s working on it.”

  “Good, good.” Max sat down then lay down on his side, his head on his backpack. “I’d like a few more donors.”

  “I’ll see what I can do after you wake up.” She walked to the doorway. “Sleep.”

  He closed his eyes and appeared to drop off immediately.

  The man was going to work himself to death. When this was all over, she was going to have to insist on a few changes in the way he did things. Take care of himself better. Ali shook her head, then went to check on Hunt and the donors.

  Fatima was donating blood now, along with the teenager she’d decided to take under her wing. His baby sister slept between them.

  Ali grabbed a bottle of water and a couple of granola bars and put them where Fatima could reach them.

  The woman didn’t smile, but she nodded.

  Hunt looked up when she came in and gestured with his chin at the door. He followed her out.

  “Sorry, didn’t want to wake up the ones who are sleeping. They’re all worn out.”

  “Max is sleeping too.” She glanced into the room. “How many donations?”

  “Six.”

  “Max wants a couple more for sure,” she told Hunt. “He’s figured out which flu virus it is and he’s pretty scared. He wants to try to create a vaccine.”

  “Here?” Hunt’s skepticism wasn’t a surprise. “Now?”

  She shrugged. “He said something about doing it the old-fashioned way.”

  Hunt glanced into the room and Ali followed his gaze. Berez was coughing, a wet, rattling sound that had her gut tight with worry.

  “He started coughing after we got here, and it’s only gotten worse since. He’s got a fever too. Max gave him some acetaminophen and a decongestant while you were outside, but it hasn’t made much of a difference.”

  “Did Max take samples from him?”

  “Yeah, a couple.”

  Then there was nothing she could do but watch over him and his family, and wait.

  She looked at Hunt and noted darkened eyes. “How are you feeling? Any symptoms?”

  “I have a headache, which is unusual for me. Max took a nasal sample from me too. You?”

  “I’m tired and
sore, but that’s to be expected after a couple of bouts of close-quarters combat.”

  “How many times have you gotten in a fight this trip?”

  “Twice. A bunch tried to carry Fatima and me off.”

  “Did they appear well trained?”

  She thought about it. “They seemed to know one end of a rifle from another, but were ineffectual against me and my knives.”

  “Their lack of training is an advantage for us.”

  “That and the fact that they don’t expect someone my size to know how to fight back.”

  “When was the last time you heard from Nolan?” Hunt asked.

  “About forty-five minutes ago. He was in the tents, I think, negotiating with some elders. He was supposed to send the other team medic.”

  “No one has shown up.” Hunt frowned. “He’s fifteen minutes overdue for a check-in.”

  “You want me to track him down?”

  “No, not yet. If things have gone bad, we’re going to need your weapon and your aim.”

  Footsteps approached from the direction of the entrance of the building. A moment later, one of Nolan’s team appeared in the gloom.

  Mike Holland was the team’s other medic and looked like an extra out of one of those Viking shows. His hair was regulation, but his blond beard and mustache were a little overgrown.

  “Hey,” he said to her and Hunt. “Sorry I’m late, I had a tail I had to get rid of.”

  “You were followed?”

  “Not very well. It didn’t take me two minutes to figure out the two fellows behind me were out for more than a casual stroll.”

  “What’s going on?” Hunt asked.

  “A whole lot of dying,” Holland said, pulling a granola bar out of a pants pocket, ripping it open and eating it. “It’s more than moderately horrible.”

  “What about militants?”

  “Oh they’ve been busy, mostly questioning and killing people. Between them and the virus, there isn’t going to be anybody left alive in this place.”

  “What are they questioning people about?”

  “They keep asking about Americans and other strangers in the village. They’ve grabbed people from homes and tents alike and taken them somewhere. We don’t know where, though we’re searching for the place. Nolan has talked with a fair number of the surviving village elders and found out that this sickness just appeared a week ago, like someone dropped a bomb on the place. The refugees had arrived two weeks prior.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Ali said.

  Hunt grunted. “That sounds like a weapon.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Max woke to the sound of his name. He forced his eyelids open, though they seemed to weigh far more than gravity could explain.

  Alicia knelt next to him, a small smile curving up one corner of her lips. “Hi, sleepy head.”

  Relief surged through him. She was here. She was safe. “How long did I sleep?”

  “Thirty minutes, as ordered.”

  He pushed himself into a sitting position then took in a couple of deep breaths. Alicia was only a couple feet away. Behind her sat a line of laboratory equipment and the sight brought the situation into clarity.

  He refocused on her face and realized there was one other thing he could do to help the people who lived here.

  “Do you have the flu?” he asked her.

  “I feel fine, normal, so I don’t think so.”

  “What about Tom and Bull, do either of them have it?”

  “Tom thinks he might be coming down with it. I don’t know about Bull.”

  Max pushed to his feet. “Let’s ask them.”

  “You thought of something?”

  “Yes,” Max said, walking out of the room and into the one where Hunt and Holland were collecting blood from the last person. Tom was there too, helping out.

  Max walked up to Tom and put a hand on the other man’s forehead. “You’re a little warm. Are you coughing? Any trouble breathing?”

  “The cough only gets bad when I lie down. No trouble breathing.”

  Max put his stethoscope in his ears and got the other end past several layers of clothing so he could listen to Tom’s lungs and heart. “Chest is clear.” He removed the stethoscope and wrapped it loosely around his neck.

  “Here’s the big question. Have you had a flu vaccination in the past six months?”

  Tom’s confused face cleared. “Yes, sir.”

  “Does that mean...” Ali began.

  Max was quick to cut off that thought. “I don’t know. The vaccine you got was for a different strain. It was close, but not quite the same. Still, it might provide some protection.” He looked at her, Tom and Hunt and held their gazes so they paid attention. “One case doesn’t mean we’re in the clear.”

  “But, there’s hope?” Tom asked.

  “There’s hope,” Max assured him. “I need you to keep a detailed journal of how you feel. If it gets worse, I need to know how it gets worse. Okay?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Max looked around, but Bull wasn’t in the room. “Where did Bull go?”

  “Next room over,” Tom said. “He complained that it was too crowded in here.”

  Max got up and went to the next room. Bull was a dark, quiet figure on the floor.

  “I’m sorry to wake you,” Max said as he crouched next to the big soldier.

  No response.

  Max shook the other man.

  He felt cold, his muscles too lax.

  The stethoscope told him what he already feared. He looked over Bull’s body to see if there were any physical indicators of what killed him, and discovered a trail of blood from his ear. When he turned him over, blood had leaked out of his other ear as well.

  Max got to his feet and walked back into the other room. Everyone’s energy levels seemed a bit higher.

  This was going to suck.

  “Bull is dead.”

  Every American turned to stare at him. No one moved for two seconds, then Tom exploded to his feet and was out the door and in the next room before Max could take another breath.

  Max followed, but didn’t approach. Most soldiers needed space at a time like this.

  “Was it the flu?” Tom asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to do an autopsy to determine the cause of death, but I don’t remember hearing him cough a lot.”

  “He did have one, but it wasn’t bad.” Tom shook his head. “He said he felt really tired and had a bad headache. That was a couple of hours ago.” He turned to stare at Max, a resigned expression on his face. “He had his flu shot.”

  “It might not protect everyone. I won’t know more until an autopsy is done. It’s too early to speculate.”

  “How could he die in just two hours?”

  “During the Spanish flu pandemic at the end of the First World War, millions of people died. Some of them died within hours.”

  “Why is there blood coming out of his ears?”

  “The virus must cause damage to the mucous membranes, leading to hemorrhages. I’m very sorry.”

  “Not your fault, Colonel. He knew the risks just like the rest of us. But if you find out this bug was man-made, I want a crack at the fucker who cooked it up.”

  “There’s a lineup for that, but I think I could squeeze you in.” Max took a good look at Tom’s face and saw anger and grief, but what one would expect. “I have to call the base. Can I leave you in charge of the body?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Very good.”

  When Max turned to leave, he found Ali in the doorway. She looked sad and angry, but the expression she gave him was supportive.

  “Reporting this to the general?”

 
He nodded and went around her to go to his lab. “I’m going to ask for another supply drop. A small one this time.”

  She followed. “How small?”

  “I’m thinking it could be dropped by a drone on a specific target.” He began to clear a space to set up the equipment he was going to need to separate out and harvest the antibodies in the donated blood.

  “That would be better than the stampede we had for the last one.” Her voice was dry.

  “Yes and no. The distraction was valuable.” He glanced at her and she seemed awake and very able to do anything needed. “There’s one thing I’m going to need if I’m going to try to create a vaccine from this specific virus. Something that would not likely survive a supply drop.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A dozen or more eggs.”

  “Eggs? Like chicken eggs?”

  “Yes, fertilized.”

  “I’d be happy to go shopping for you, Colonel, but how can you tell a fertilized egg from an unfertilized one?”

  “It’s called candling. You literally shine a light behind the egg and look for shadows that aren’t just a yolk and egg whites. With so many people dead, I think we should be able to find enough eggs from chickens with no current owners.”

  “Yeah, probably.” She sighed. “I suppose you want these eggs sooner rather than later.”

  He smiled. “You read my mind.”

  She sighed and sang, “Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to grab eggs I go.”

  She was almost out the door when he called out to her. “Ali?”

  She looked over her shoulder at him. “Yeah?”

  “Be careful.” He couldn’t show her how worried he was, couldn’t tell her that if she didn’t take care of herself he’d be very, very angry. All he could do was ask.

  She paused, then walked back toward him.

  And kept coming until she stretched up on her toes and kissed him square on the mouth. “I,” she whispered against his lips, “will be very careful if you promise to do the same.”