by A. G. Riddle
They had created a sort of makeshift quarantine in the house: Elliott’s son, daughter-in-law, and grandson had kept to the second floor, while Elliott and Rose occupied the first floor. His grandson was running around in the bonus room over the garage, having a great time, while his parents played with him. Each group was heating frozen food from the freezer and eating separately. It wasn’t the ideal Thanksgiving, but it would keep the contagion from spreading.
In the family room, Elliott turned on the TV.
“Despite growing concerns about the flu-like virus spreading across the US, many families chose not to alter their Thanksgiving plans this year.”
The video shifted to a middle-aged man standing in front of a brick colonial home.
“We figured everybody was sick, so, may as well be together. Tradition’s important to us—”
Elliott flipped the channel, scanning for more news.
“The infection rate is now estimated at twenty million in the US alone. The virus, which authorities are calling X1, is intermittent in nature and causes symptoms similar to seasonal flu. Those infected report feeling under the weather for a few days, then well for a day or two before the symptoms return. Officials at the CDC and NIH have urged individuals to exercise vigilance throughout the flu season, including washing your hands and—”
Elliott changed the channel again.
“Triple-A reports that despite an uptick in flu activity, they expect a record number of travelers to take to the roads this Thanksgiving weekend. Air travel is also projected to set a new high. Retailers are banking on strong Black Friday sales with Wall Street analysts calling for a ten percent growth in sales over last year…”
It was a perfect biological storm. A highly contagious virus—amplifying at the precise moment when movement around the country was at its highest.
Elliott walked back into his office, closed the doors, and dialed a number at the CDC. To his surprise, voicemail picked up.
“Jacob, it’s Elliott. Call me. Thanks.”
He dialed the man’s cell and was relieved when he answered.
“Jacob. Please tell me you’ve sequenced this respiratory virus and compared it with the Mandera samples.”
Elliott sat up at Jacob’s response. “What? … I know it’s Thanksgiving—” He paused to listen. “Listen to me, Jacob, this is going to be the last Thanksgiving if those viruses are the same… No, Jacob. Monday is too late. You’ve gotta go back in, finish it. Call your team… What? Jacob—”
Elliott felt like screaming.
He called the EOC once again, hoping to get a different operator. The response was the same: the head of watch had instructed every operator not to give Elliott any status updates. He was officially locked out—at perhaps the most critical time in the agency’s history.
Day 6
300,000,000 infected
70,000 dead
Chapter 45
At first Millen thought it was the wind blowing through the camp, whipping against the empty tents, the flapping and howling only sounding like voices. As his sleepiness faded, he realized the sounds actually were voices—several people, arguing in hushed tones just outside his tent. He rolled over, careful not to make any noise.
The morning sun cast three figures in shadow against the tent’s white fabric, like shadow puppets creeping toward him. They paused, pointed, and continued past him, talking quickly. Millen heard them enter the main tent. Crates being opened, ransacked.
He rose and pulled on his shoes.
The SUV Kito had left him stood at the edge of the camp, nearby. The main tent was on the opposite side of the camp, away from him, and Millen could see the shadows of three figures moving inside. They were turning the place upside down, looking for something.
They obviously thought they were alone now. They spoke more loudly, in a language Millen didn’t recognize. Millen wanted to break for the SUV and get away, but what if they knew something? What if they had taken Hannah and Dr. Shaw?
He pulled on his flak jacket with the CDC logo and grabbed the rifle Kito had left him. It was semi-automatic with a banana-shaped magazine. Millen had fired exactly one gun in his life: a .22-caliber rifle during his stint in the Boy Scouts. The gun in his hand was a lot meaner-looking. And deadlier.
He gripped the weapon, ensured the safety was off, and crept toward the main tent. The flaps were down, obscuring his approach. His fear gripped tighter around him with every step. His mouth watered. He swallowed, gathering up his courage. His heart was beating out of his chest. If he didn’t charge or run at that moment, he figured he’d have a heart attack.
With the gun held out, he ducked and burst through the tent flaps.
Three figures sat around the long table… gorging themselves. Opened MRE cartons lay strewn across the floor and table. Millen recognized them: the three Kenyan villagers they had found hiding when the team had arrived here. The villagers stared at him, eyes wide with fear, then jumped up and stumbled over the folding chairs, falling as they scrambled to escape.
Millen quickly set the gun on the ground and held his hands up. “Wait. Stop. I’m CDC.” He pointed to the white letters on his jacket. “I was here before. American. Help.” He spread his arms, blocking the entrance. A girl, maybe thirteen years old, stopped.
“Yes, I’m an American,” Millen said again. “Here to help.”
Millen finally got the three villagers settled down, and after a few minutes, he convinced them to resume their meal. The teenage girl, Halima, was the only one who spoke English. As they ate, she recounted the raid on the village. Hearing it firsthand was hard for Millen.
When the shooting began, the three villagers had hidden under their cots in the isolation tent. They fled after Peyton told them to. From the bushes at the village’s outskirts, they watched the raid unfold.
“They ran, the dark-haired woman with smooth white skin, a man, and the girl with red hair. They shot her—”
“Who?”
“The red-haired woman.”
Millen leaned back in the chair, unable to speak.
“I’m sorry,” Halima said quietly.
Millen stared at the white canvas swaying in the morning breeze. “What happened after that?” His voice was hollow.
“The dark-haired woman picked her up. They ran to a truck and drove away. There was an explosion. The truck crashed. More shooting. I couldn’t see what happened. I’m sorry.”
Millen nodded. “Thank you for telling me.”
When they were done eating, he asked them where they would go. The teenager simply shrugged.
“I’m going to Mandera,” Millen said. “You three are welcome to come with me.”
She hesitated.
“I’m sure the Kenyan government will be setting up survivor camps soon. There will be food, water. Probably work to do. Be a lot better than staying here.”
The teenager conversed with her two companions. Finally, she turned to Millen. “Yes, we’ll come with you.”
During a deployment, standard operating procedure was to notify ops when changing a fixed position. But since the ops group had evacuated Nairobi, Millen called the EOC in Atlanta.
“You didn’t evacuate?” the operator asked.
“No. I’m still here—”
“Hold the line.”
Millen could hear shouting in the background. It sounded like a hundred voices talking at once, like the floor of the New York Stock Exchange had been transplanted to the CDC. He caught snippets:
“Fifty thousand cases in Kansas.”
“Navy has confirmed cases on three aircraft carriers.”
The operator came back on the line. “Stay where you are, Dr. Thomas. We’ve got a situation here. Someone will contact you.”
“I can’t stay here,” Millen said, but the line was dead.
The call left Millen wondering what was going on in Atlanta—and the rest of America. Fifty thousand cases in Kansas? Had the virus they’d found in Kenya reached the US?
He desperately wanted to know what was happening—and to let someone know where he was going.
There was really only one more number he could call.
Chapter 46
Elliott didn’t remember falling asleep in the chair, but he awoke in the middle of the night with a blanket drawn over him, the remote in his lap, the TV on.
He coughed several times, brought his hand to his neck, and felt his lymph nodes. They were swollen. Sweat covered his forehead. The fever was low-grade, but there was no mistake: he was infected.
On the TV, a reporter on a financial news network was speaking against a chart with a red trendline dropping sharply as it moved right.
“Asian stock markets shed more than forty percent of their value today following news that Singapore would close its borders and declare martial law, and claims that China would soon begin closing its ports to prevent further spread of the X1 virus. The WHO has stopped releasing infection estimates, sparking fears that infection rates may be far higher than has been reported. That fear seems to be spilling over into the markets. In America, the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq will close at one p.m. in observance of Black Friday, and losses are expected to be steep. Futures are trading off twenty percent…”
Elliott’s phone rang, and he stared at the number, still groggy. He didn’t recognize it.
“Shapiro.”
“Sir, it’s Millen Thomas. I called you day before yesterday. I was working with Dr. Shaw’s team.”
Elliott sat up. “I remember, Millen. What can I do for you?”
“The EOC in Atlanta is apparently overwhelmed. I’m here at our camp at the village where the raid occurred.”
Elliott was shocked. All the CDC personnel in Kenya had been evacuated after the raid. “You’re still in Kenya?”
“Yes, sir. I… decided to stay. I thought maybe I could help somehow.”
Elliott nodded. “Okay. What’s happening there?”
“The Kenyan military escort left yesterday; I’m thinking of going to Mandera, but I can’t get any guidance on whether that’s the right move.”
“It’s a better spot than the village, but it’s hard for me to advise you. I don’t know who’s in Mandera or the status of any operations in Kenya. I’m sorry, Millen, I’m out of the loop here.”
“Understood, sir. Well, I feel better knowing at least someone knows my location. I’ve got three survivors here—we found them in the village when we first arrived. I’m going to take them and head up to Mandera.”
Survivors? Elliott felt a glimmer of hope. If they had survived the disease, then analyzing their antibodies—which had defeated the virus—could be the key to finding a treatment.
“Listen to me, Millen. We’ve got to get those survivors back to the CDC for analysis.”
“How?”
“I’ll arrange transport. Just get to Mandera and stay safe. I’ll call you back. Keep your phone charged.”
It took Elliott three calls before he reached someone who could transport Millen and the survivors back to Atlanta. It would be more than three days before they arrived in America—but better late than never.
Elliott napped in the family room until the morning sun blazed through the French doors. The house was still quiet, and he took the opportunity to do some work he dreaded, work he knew had to be done.
In his study, he turned on his computer and made a list of everyone he needed to warn. Then he made a list of his neighbors. He and Rose lived in an established, older neighborhood just outside Atlanta, close to the CDC. The homes weren’t mansions, but they were authentic, well-built, and expensive. Doctors, lawyers, and business owners shared the street with them. Elliott wrote down the names of the neighbors he thought he could rely on, the ones he thought would have steady hands in a crisis.
And a crisis was coming; he was certain of that.
At seven a.m. he brought Rose, Ryan, and Sam into his office and told them his plan. By the time he was done, Rose was crying quietly. Ryan and Sam nodded solemnly and told Elliott he had their full support.
Next, he began making calls to the people he wanted to warn.
By ten o’clock, five husbands and wives sat in his living room.
“I’m sorry to take you away from your families,” Elliott said, “but I believe your families, and mine, will soon be in very real danger.”
Surprised, confused expressions stared back at him.
“What are you—”
Elliott held up a hand. “Just… give me a minute, Bill. It’ll all make sense.
“In 2004, Congress passed the Project Bioshield Act. On the surface, it was a bill that called for five billion dollars to spend on stockpiling vaccines and other countermeasures against bioterror and pandemics. But what the public doesn’t know is that there are secret provisions in the act—provisions that are only invoked in the event of a catastrophic biological event. I believe we are witnessing the beginning of such an event. I believe this respiratory virus—X1—may actually be the early stages of the Ebola-like hemorrhagic fever that is currently devastating Kenya. If they are one and the same virus, I believe that Project BioShield will soon be invoked to try to stop that outbreak.
“When that occurs, the America we know and love will change very drastically. What I’m about to tell you must never leave this room.”
When Elliott was done speaking, one of the men leaned forward and said, “Let’s say you’re right. What do we do?”
“That’s why you’re here. I have a plan. And I need your help.”
Chapter 47
In the metal and glass cell, Desmond lay on the narrow bed, watching the never-ending slide show. A few of the photos were from his childhood, but the bulk of them depicted him at industry trade shows or at business meetings. They began in his early twenties and ran nearly up until the present. Either his captors didn’t have pictures of his personal life, or none existed. The people who came and went outside his cell asked him a range of questions, careful to never reveal anything about their cause and goals, but here and there, he gathered small clues, which he cataloged, hoping they would help him escape.
After they left, Desmond felt his stomach growl. They had fed him very little, perhaps hoping to keep him weak and docile.
Instead, the sensation brought back another memory.
For the first year that Desmond lived in Oklahoma, his uncle left him at a preschool when he was working on the rigs. The kids there were of varying ages, but at six years old Desmond was among the oldest. Several of the other oil workers left their children there too, and he made a few friends. But every time Orville returned to pick him up, he argued with the owners about the price, complaining that it was highway robbery.
One day, Orville announced that he was leaving Desmond at home. He put some money on the counter and told Desmond that if he had to come home to tend to him, he’d make him sorry.
Desmond used the money to buy food at the small grocery store in town. The owner helped him count out the money and stretch it as best he could. His diet consisted of beans and canned meat. Still, he ran out of money a few days before his uncle returned. At the grocery store, he didn’t ask for credit. He asked where he could find a job.
“For a six-year-old?” The skinny man with small glasses laughed.
Desmond looked at his shoes.
“I’ll give you some things on credit, Desmond. You can settle up when your uncle gets back.”
“I’d rather not,” he said quietly.
Thankfully, the grocer told him to sweep out the supply room and stock some of the shelves and sent him home with enough food to get him through a few more days.
When his uncle returned, the first thing he said was: “How much have you got left?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? You spent it all? On what, boy? A new Barbie doll?”
He stormed off, muttering that Desmond would eat him out of house and home.
The man was obsessed with money. He w
ould work on whatever rig paid him the most. He didn’t care how dangerous it was or how bad the camp conditions were. He wanted the money. And he kept it all to himself. He deeply distrusted banks.
“They’re all crooks,” he said, one night when he was into the second half of the bottle. “Fools, too. They’ll loan any Tom, Dick, or Harry money—your money, that is, the same dollars you put in the vault. The thrifts are the worst. They’ll be busted soon, you watch.”
Desmond was actually quite surprised when, a few years later, over a thousand savings and loans—thrifts, as they were known—collapsed, costing American taxpayers over one hundred and thirty billion dollars to bail them out. It was perhaps the only one of his uncle’s predictions and conspiracy theories that came true.
His uncle continued to leave him home alone after that first time, and Desmond soon figured out how to make the money last: he supplemented it with meat from animals he killed. Some he took out of season, but he figured the game warden probably wouldn’t fine a six-year-old boy slowly starving to death.
He made sure to have a few dollars left over, waiting on the counter when his uncle returned—and sometimes he managed to have a bit more, which he saved for himself.
When he’d saved enough, he visited the pawnshop at the edge of town. He had stood outside this shop at least two dozen times, gazing through the window at the bike, imagining himself riding it, all the places he would go.
Now he went inside, laid his money on the glass-top display case, and said, “I’ll take the bike in the window.”
The proprietor picked up the bills, counted them out, and said, “You’re short ten dollars.”
“That’s all I’ve got.”
The man said nothing.
Desmond reached for the bills. “Take it or leave it. I’m going to the hardware store next to make them an offer.”
The man let out a ragged smoker’s cough. “If you were a grown man, I’d tell you to get lost. But I like you, kid. Take it. Thing’s been in the window a year now anyway.”