“I appreciate it.”
“See you soon, Jake.”
“I hope so.”
Robert walked outside and felt the warmth of the morning sun on his face. It held the promise of yet another miserable, humid day.
“All yours Sergeant!”
“Yes sir!”
By midday the heat was unbearable in spite of the succession of dark, foreboding clouds, and an occasional gust of wind that carried the scent of approaching rains.
Robert cleared the guards posted at the entrance of the large conference tent and went in. Admittance was restricted to a certain group of people who would filter the findings down the chain of command according to clearance levels.
He left the interior flaps open to allow natural light to filter through the black nylon screening.
Dr. Paul Bryce was waiting patiently at the makeshift speaker’s podium, which consisted of two milk crates on a table, partially hidden by a white sheet. He looked eager to get started. He was as astute-looking man, prematurely graying with a receding hair line and thin, steel-rimmed reading glasses. He was conservatively dressed in khaki pants and a white, short-sleeved dress shirt that was ratcheted at least one button too high.
Robert had heard his colleagues refer to him as a prodigy, a brilliant intellect, which was quite a compliment coming from this group of overachievers. He looked older than he was, but when Robert factored in his energy level, he figured Bryce was likely mid-thirties.
Beside him was another doctor who stood just to the right of the podium. His eyes raced around the room clearly mouthing a head count, and gave Dr. Bryce a nod indicating that everyone expected was present.
“Everyone please be seated and we’ll begin,” Dr. Bryce announced.
The stragglers took a seat at one of four long folding tables.
“Most of you already know me as we’ve worked together in the past, but for those of you who don’t, I’m Dr. Paul Bryce, field director with the Center for Disease Control. I’ll announce our findings and then I’ll answer your questions.”
Everyone settled, adjusting their pens to paper. A few had tape recorders.
“First I’d like to commend everyone with the World Health Organization, the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, my own people with the CDC, and all the other agencies who have come together and performed as one seamless agency. I would also like to thank Major Robert Williams and the men of the 7th Special Forces Group out of Fort Gullick. The Panama National Guard is not present, but their quick response and professionalism have been critical in the success of this quarantine.”
There was a short round of applause. Some of the group turned to acknowledge Robert.
“The owner of Pan-Am Lumber was infected, but that was due to his voluntary exposure and not to any breach. The good news is that there has been no transmission of the pathogen from the camp to the helicopter pilot. The only thing which showed up in his blood work is an unusually high alcohol content.”
Robert waved his hand and laughed. He was not alone. The levity helped put everyone at ease, and the tension in the room seemed to dissipate as Bryce continued.
“Gentlemen, we’ve been extremely fortunate. USAMRID has located the two men who fled the camp with the radio. We believe they succumbed before they could make contact with anyone. This thing kills fast gentlemen, extremely fast which has favored the containment of this pathogen.”
Several of the men in the audience nodded and exchanged looks.
“There are three men hanging on at area one, but we do not expect them to survive.”
Robert’s face tightened. It looked like Jake wouldn’t get the chance to see Howard again after all.
“The pathogen has an incubation period between three and four days, is extremely infectious, and so far has a 100% mortality rate.”
More looks and murmuring in the crowd.
“Our mission here has changed to containment only. I don’t need to tell you the dangers of allowing a breach of this disease outside the safety perimeter.”
He paused and looked out into the crowd.
One of the men from the CIA couldn’t wait for the question and answer period, and called out, “What the hell is it?”
Bryce looked annoyed, but he answered. He seemed as eager to get to the heart of the matter as the rest of them.
“Our findings indicate that it’s a strain of mouse pox, which until now has been mouse specific and found only in Australia.”
The man who asked the question just stared, as if the mere thought of such devastation emanating from such a source was unbelievable.
He was obviously not alone, as hands started to rise amongst the doctors. Rumors had been floating around among the scientists, but this was the first confirmation.
“How did it get here?” Somebody blurted out, followed by another, who shouted, “Have we identified the host?”
Others shouted questions, and Dr. Bryce cleared his throat to regain control.
“Everyone, please!”
The room fell quiet.
“We’re checking the lumber company records, trying to find a connection with any supplies that may have originated in Australia. It seems most likely.”
“What about containment of the host?”
“We’re working out the details with Panamanian officials, but basically, after we evacuate the site, the military will carpet-bomb the area, which we believe will eradicate the host.” It was quiet as everyone considered that idea.
“Do we know how the disease was transferred to patient zero?”
“As you all know, changes in certain viruses can and do occur spontaneously in nature. From our limited interviews with some of the men before they died, we believe a man in camp was bitten by a mouse which was in their food stock. Again, we may have caught a break here because it’s believed he killed the mouse. At least, we hope so. That doesn’t mean there were no other infected mice, but...”
His voice trailed off, but everyone understood the implication. There was a hell of a lot of luck involved. The questions resumed.
“Have we located the mouse?”
“We’re still looking.”
Bryce finished answering questions as the rumble of thunder signaled the approaching rains. When he was finished, the doctors milled around discussing the findings of his report. The meeting had left many of them stunned, and scientists, like anyone, need to process such information by that age-old social convention: gossip.
Rain pounded on the taunt canvas of the tent like an angry drummer while some two hundred feet away, the last of Howard’s employees died in feverish sleep, the second-to-last known casualty of the virus.
In the days after Howard’s passing, everyone involved was quarantined: the CDC, the Seventh Special Forces Group, the World Health Organization and the Panamanian National Guard. The twenty-one days passed without incident. Everyone knew the world had dodged a bullet.
The mouse pox had touched down and burned out like a violent killer tornado that hits a small community, obliterating all life in its path. It could just as easily have hit a large city, and instead of a curious blip on the radar of world news and a handful of deaths, become a plague the likes of which the world had never seen.
Robert would often think back on those events with one thought shared by all who had witnessed them.
God help us all if it ever comes back.
Chapter 4
Bloated corpses occasionally washed up on shore, tumbling in the surf like horrific driftwood. The flesh was white and rotten, hanging off the bone like gelatin. Sharks and other marine life had been feeding on the dead, making identification impossible.
Doomsday scenarios of super volcanoes in Yellowstone and meteors crashing into earth had always been the stuff of science-fiction, but even the wildest novelist could not have envisioned this.
A large section of the western continental shelf had collapsed without warning, triggering tsunamis that d
warfed Sumatra. China was hardest hit. The most populous country on earth was devastated and in crisis. The Pacific Rim felt the direct effects of the monster wave, and the entire world felt the ripple.
The number of dead was staggering: 2.7 million and counting.
China had finally encountered a problem it couldn’t solve and quickly reached out to the world as never before. The response was a testament to the capacity of human compassion. In a time of such monumental crisis, at least the distinctions of race and division vanished in complete global cooperation.
What wars and peace conventions alike had failed to do, the Great Wave of 2012 accomplished, at least for a while.
It brought the nations of the world together.
In the four months after the tsunamis, scientists around the world speculated on the likely cause of the underwater landslide. Some research pointed to shifts in the ocean currents due to the melting polar caps. Another theory was that the oceanic plate had sub ducted under the continental plate, causing a collision of the converging tectonic plates which forced a large section of the shelf to simply break off.
The last scenario was that as the earth’s core temperature gradually rose, pressure was released by underwater volcanoes, and a series of eruptions may have touched off the massive landslide, causing the tsunamis.
Regardless, the drastic weather anomalies of climate change, formerly known as global warming, were being held responsible for the catastrophic disaster.
After all of the fear and dread preached by the voices of doom, and all of the ridicule thrown the other way, it was ironic that in the end, it still was nothing like anyone had expected.
It was much worse.
There was no more argument. Nature had ended the debate.
A warm zephyr danced across the face of Leslie Sardis, creating momentary respites from the mid-morning heat. She maneuvered her way through the busy streets of St. Petersburg, Florida, rushing back to her children’s school only two hours after she’d dropped them off.
The private school was embedded in a mix of mobile homes, condos and modest bed-and-breakfasts catering to the snowbirds of winter and the tourists of summer. The palm tree-lined streets looked random, as though the head of the city’s planning commission was a blind man with his hand out.
Leslie swung her Cadillac Escalade into the school’s driveway tight against the curb and climbed out of the car.
The breeze from the open window on her drive over had made the heat almost bearable, but as she walked to the front door of the school, Leslie was hit by a blast of humidity that seemed to drain all energy. She imagined herself trudging through knee-deep mud with an x-ray blanket draped over her shoulders.
She walked inside, grateful for the coolness of the air-conditioning. The hairs on the nape of her neck were electric, and goose bumps speckled her arms. She made her way to the head office. Christopher and Cassandra were seated there, waiting for her.
“Mom!” they sang out together, jumping to their feet.
The vice-principal Marion Beatty appeared out of the inner office to greet Leslie. “Hello, Mrs. Sardis.”
He was a paunchy man, thirty pounds overweight, with long, wavy hair and a walrus moustache, which was the source of a rather unflattering but apt nickname the students had given him. He constantly joked with the kids, who were really quite fond of him, and he never once revealed that he knew and loved the “secret” nickname.
“It’s good to see you Marion. I’m just sorry about the circumstances.”
“How are you coping?”
“As well as we can, I guess. We’re planning to hide out with my mother in North Carolina,” she answered.
He raised an eyebrow, a sly grin on his face.
“Think that will be easier than facing off against a category four hurricane?”
“Marion!” Leslie laughed.
“My mother’s just up the road in Savannah but, I’m going to stay with the Hiltons, if you catch my drift.”
“You’re terrible!”
Marion laughed heartily. If he had any concerns about the storm, he was doing a great job of masking it. But of course he did. Everyone did. There was something different about this. Gabrielle was no ordinary hurricane.
“I take it the school has been notified of the mandatory evacuations order.”
“We’re already at half staff and attendance is down.”
She nodded sympathetically.
“Gabrielle indeed. Angels name with a killer’s rage.”
“Ironic. You’d think they could have picked a more suitable name.”
“I know. Poor Haiti, another fifty-two deaths.”
“They haven’t even rebuilt from the earthquake three years ago and it seems they get nailed every year during hurricane season, “Marion said.
“It’s this heat. I heard we broke another record. Eight days straight. It’s wicked for this time of year,” Leslie said.
Record high November heat had spawned the monstrous category four hurricane which tore through the Caribbean and now sat poised for more destruction over the warm waters of the Gulf. Gabrielle was expected to make landfall in the keys or somewhere along the Gulf Coast of Florida within a day.
“How are the roads?”
Leslie rolled her eyes. “Worse than usual. Thank God a friend in the Governor’s office told me they’d be announcing the mandatory evacuation order at noon.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ll be in the conga line behind you.”
Leslie returned his broad smile, although her heart wasn’t in it. The entire morning had been frenzied, and she was already exhausted.
“The kids have their assignments?”
“Absolutely,” he said, “plenty to keep them busy.”
“Well then guys,” Leslie said
Marion tousled the kid’s hair and leaned down, his big walrus mustache twitching mischievously as he spoke. “See you in a week you two. I’ll walk you out Leslie.”
“Thanks.”
He squeezed her arm and escorted her out of the office. The kids were halfway down the hall, laughing and roughhousing. Leslie watched Christopher pulling his sister’s ponytail as they ran to the front doors.
Leslie shook her head and smiled. “Look at them. Not a care in the world.”
Marion laughed. “Kids are resilient. They wouldn’t worry about a hurricane unless it blows their bike into the neighbor’s pool.”
“Too bad they have to grow up.”
Marion held the door for Leslie and gave her a warm but serious look. Leslie smiled in return, but felt a chill run through her. It was the look he’d given her. Something about it was disconcerting, but by the time she climbed into the SUV and got buckled in she’d forgotten all about it.
Just before she drove away, Marion leaned in Leslie’s window and said, “You be careful out there.”
“You too.”
Leslie crossed the Howard Franklin Causeway in heavy traffic. The salt air had flooded the vehicle’s interior and blended with the nauseating smell of car exhaust. She brushed aside a lock of hair and peered into the rear view mirror.
The kids were still in their school uniforms, tan and green. Cassandra rested her head against the window, gazing through her reflection at the choppy water below. The thin white wire of her i-pod’s earpiece twisted in two small loops and disappeared under a wedge of her sun-bleached hair. She must have felt her mother’s eyes, because she rolled her head slightly, gave Leslie a quick smile, and slipped back into her daydream.
“Mom, how’s dad going to know we’re at grandmas?” Christopher asked, not looking up from his videogame. He seemed curious but unconcerned, the simple question reflecting the youthful innocence of a ten year-old.
“I e-mailed him. He’s calling tonight.”
“Does he know about the hurricane?”
“Yes, honey.”
That seemed to satisfy him, and he was lost once more in the virtual hunt for zombies after the apocalypse.
As much as she hated those games, Leslie was glad for the distraction now.
She grabbed a hair band from the seat beside her and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. Loose wisps fluttered as the air flowed over her through the open window. The breeze had always given her a sense of freedom, but was doing little to ease her anxiety.
She was used to Paul’s absences, but this time it was starting to get to her.
The two met in Africa when Leslie was a fledgling journalist. She was twenty-three and outraged that foreign aid to the continent never seemed to get to where it was most needed, and Paul was a fledgling photographer outraged at the dearth of good scotch at their hotel.
They were married six months later, and Leslie traded her dreams of a Pulitzer for pregnancy and play dates. But once the children were in school, she took a job at a local newspaper where she could work from home and dove back into her career. Every instinct she had was that the situation was going to get worse before it got better, and she needed her husband home.
Paul had been gone over a month. He was freelancing for National Geographic in China. He’d been sent there to capture images of the devastation and human suffering as the survivors struggled amidst the cleanup efforts undertaken by the military and foreign aid workers.
A light rain fell as they drove through Orlando, but by Jacksonville, it had cleared. Spears of sunlight pierced the broken cloud cover hinting at the possibility of a clear day tomorrow, north of Florida.
Grooves worn into the sun baked highway by the commercial trucks, commuters, and sun seekers that travelled the I-95 north of Jacksonville guided the car tires in a rhythmic beat. Leslie looked at the small pools of water collected in the low dips of the road. She wondered how large they would be later. They pulled at the vehicle like someone tugging at the wheel, waiting for just the right moment of inattention to cause serious harm.
“Mom, are we going to make it to grandma’s house tonight?”
There was no answer.
“Mom.”
“What honey?”
Nothing like kids to put an end to any woolgathering.
Playing God Page 3