by C. Martens
Explaining how he had taken a call from Ann Callagory with the FBI in Los Angeles, Orem elaborated on what he had been asked and what little was said in return. There was a serious threat within the FBI woman’s questions, and the spy’s radar had been tripped immediately. With a few well-placed inquiries of his own, in ways meant to be subtle, he learned more than was being offered. It helped that Ann had “medicated” more than she meant, too. She let a couple of names slip that she would have preferred to keep to herself. The protracted fit of a hacking cough sealed the deal for Orem. His suspicion was that Ann was infected with something that she presently did not even believe in fully. His assumption was a leap, but he included the information in what he presented, nonetheless.
Neither of the men attending this meeting spoke for some time. They were just as talented in special skills as Orem was, and they were busy building a case within their own skulls. If they were to invest their belief, they would have to convince themselves.
Quietly, but with no sense there would be any objection, the man on the screen asked Orem to vacate the room and wait outside. The two elder men would have a private conversation.
Recalled into the darkened office, Orem was grilled with questions both pertinent and speculative. Then he was instructed to return to his job in the morning, provide Agent Callagory with what she was requesting, and pump her for anything he could get. His report to the NSA was approved to go forward with nothing more added than what the agent had asked for.
When the door closed behind him, the two silvered men assessed each other silently. What was happening was something that The Church had a contingency plan for, even if they did not know all the facts yet. The Danites were prepared. The larger question was whether the threat was real. They would know soon. Their organization did not depend on government approval.
Chapter 6
There seems to be an inverse relationship between the importance of a package reaching its destination and the speed at which it travels. The ampoules of plague and the vaccine that accompanied them sat undelivered due to the vagary of a new hire in the FBI mail room.
Jimmy was waiting. His friend, Andy, had told him to expect a package immediately. Between his own investigations and the increased workload from government cuts, he had no extra time, and so just by chance he happened to catch one of the personnel that pushed the mail cart through the office maze. The kid was a favorite around the facility. He had Down syndrome and was the only person that could be counted on to always have a smiling face within the several tragedies occurring in the office at any one time. Despite his condition, he was one of the more competent, and certainly the most caring, of the low wage postal workers.
“Hey, Billy,” Jimmy smiled big at the kid. “What’s new?”
Billy turned his liquid eyes to Jimmy and shone his perpetual good humor on him. He knew every name of the several hundred people that worked here.
Lisping slightly, as though his tongue was swollen, he responded. “Not much, Jimmy. Another day, another dollar.”
They both appreciated the small talk. Jim because he had much on his plate that was stressful and Billy because some people were uncomfortable with him and sometimes even mean. But Jimmy made him feel good by treating him like everyone else.
“Jimmy, I watched the game like you said. You were right. How do you know who’s going to win?”
“My dad taught me, Billy. I was lucky to have a dad that cared.” He hesitated, not wanting to place a burden on Billy but having a sense of urgency. “Hey, kid, I’ve got a favor to ask. Can you do something for me?”
The smiling young man beamed back, “Sure, whatcha need Big Jim?”
“I’m missing a package, Billy. It’s important. Is there any way you can look around in the mailroom and see if it’s there? It should have been here by now.”
“I can do it.” Billy loved that Jim was asking him to do something personally. Being helpful made him feel good. “I can do it as soon as I get back with my cart.”
Jimmy put his trust in Billy, and after Billy’s traditional hug, he watched the young man push his cart down the aisle between cubicles. He wished there were more smiles in the office.
The label, mailroom, was an anachronism from the past. More properly, it would have been called a package receiving room. There was, for all intents and purposes, nothing ever defined as mail that was posted nowadays. If a letter came, it was from some ancient holdout that declined to understand how to use a technological option. Packages arrived, however, by several methods. Billy found what he was looking for in a corner stacked high with low priority deliveries.
By the time Billy showed up at his door, Jimmy had put the conversation out of his mind. Billy held a small brown package with several bar codes on it. It had a crushed corner, and Jimmy knew that the contents should be cold, so he had some concern. Thanking Billy more quickly than he would have liked to, he rushed to the elevators. Downstairs there was a lab waiting for him. They had been advised that the package was coming after being consulted on some of the particulars of Andy’s story.
Jimmy made sure the package was handed off to the head of the lab, a large man with a thick neck and heavy shoulders from lifting weights. The pretty young assistant that he had bypassed, and who had given him an evil look for it, smiled as he left. But Jimmy only noticed by training. His mind was elsewhere now that they had proof of the awful claim.
§
The old steamer swayed slightly in the heavy seas. Due to the bulk and size of the ship, even these huge coastal waves had little effect.
Andy liked the feel of the bridge. As it was elevated above the deck, the movement was magnified, but not uncomfortable. Besides, a belly full of salted nuts would keep Andy’s stomach from any nausea that might creep in. The trick was to keep his stomach full.
Within hours the shoreline waters would recede into the night, and the seas would calm. Expecting that they would hit nothing but decent weather once out to sea, a couple of weeks of steady steaming would see them in Los Angeles.
§
Meeting at an exclusive country club in the Caribbean, the original members of the group congratulated themselves. Each had made their preparations for survival in the ways they saw fit.
After implementing the worldwide protocol that began the U.S.-based contagion, the GMO scientist would retreat to an island and wait for his wife, the woman that worked for the CDC. She would monitor the progress of the plagues from within the agency and keep all of them apprised as the epidemic developed steam.
The British man with ties to oil had assembled teams to go to all of the zoos in Europe, Asia, and North America to transport animals to selected locations and be released. Members of the teams would stay and assist the animals as best they could to survive and re-acclimate to freedom. He had no illusions, knowing that many would die, but the teams were mostly bots so the expense was negligible. One of the oil man’s early revelations, soon after the demonstration of A.I. capability, was that labor would now be cheap. All of his earlier concern over the machines wrecking each other was unjustified. They could replace each other as necessary.
Knowing what none of the others suspected, Sheik Akil enjoyed the gathering for what it was. In his mind it was doubly enjoyable, because he knew he was saying goodbye to these co-conspirators for the last time. He had used them and would now discard them without a qualm. He toasted them all with his bottled water from China, to which he had an engineered immunity. Last night the ice in the other’s mixed drinks had been frozen from the bottled water that the Sheik had brought with him and was now being served by Abdiel.
§
Her head finally clear after three days off, Ann was glad to be back on the job. Her track record of never taking time off had taken a serious hit. Two of her men were out sick on her return and she would give them hell for their absence. Working through her illnesses was a point of pride, and she felt that she had to be even stronger in her disapproval of others’ weakness wh
en they called in sick.
The morning flowed as she got back into her customary routines. The pace of the day even picked up as the stack of work started to diminish on her desk. So much for a paperless society. Progressing through the work felt good.
The bottom note in the basket was from the lab downstairs. Asking for her to come down, that there was pertinent information available on one of her cases, the note required her immediate attention.
Ann checked herself in the small mirror next to her office door as she departed the room. The big man downstairs was attractive in a beastly kind of way, and she wanted to look her best. They had maintained a casual flirtation for years.
A forceful cough hit her suddenly, and a small chunk of phlegm hit the mirror. Embarrassed, and hoping that she could control herself in front of anyone she saw, she wiped the slime from her reflection with her finger and reached for a tissue from her desk.
The elevator doors opened to brilliant light. The laboratories on the lowest floors of the FBI facility were painfully illuminated and were the brightest in the building.
People bustled about within Ann’s view. The room was large and open. Any partitions were low, so she could see close to twenty people. The head of the department kept an office to the right of the elevator doors so people entering would not have to step through the work being done in order to find him. His young receptionist knew Ann and understood the special relationship the older woman had with her boss, nicknamed “Bull” since childhood and fitting that name well. Ann nodded and smiled at the young lady as she waved the older woman through, allowing Ann unfettered access and a chance to indulge her curiosity as she hunted the head scientist. She moved through the lab, examining equipment and procedures as she pleased. Never touching anything having to do with any experiments or evidence, never touching anything she or anyone else would feel important, she placed her hands on the tops and edges of lab benches as she walked and focused on what caught her interest.
Soon she was speaking with the bull-necked man. In greeting, he held her proffered hand for an instant more than was necessary, and she felt heat coursing up her neck. They exchanged information in professional terms while engaging each other’s eyes more directly than was necessary. Those around them thought the exchange was cute. The subject of office gossip was how the two department heads were not very good at flirting, so obvious and uncomfortable in the act.
A ballistics test had revealed that a weapon thought to be used in a crime had not been. Instead, the gun had traced back to a crime of several years prior. As the heat rose into Ann’s cheeks, she learned that one of the cold cases that had languished from her early years would have to be looked at again. She managed to touch his hand as she gripped the report he extended to her.
“Oh, by the way, that package from Saudi Arabia had some interesting vials in it. We got right on it, and we’re culturing it now. We should know something soon. Maybe by the end of the day, but probably in the morning. You should check in with me tomorrow morning, early.” His eyes spoke volumes.
Ann recognized the implication of an “early morning” invitation and knew the big man was not serious. At least she hoped not. She might have been competent in her job, but she was certainly not with matters of the heart, and although she enjoyed the banter, she would not have known how to advance toward a relationship.
“Well, I’ll just look through this tonight. And the earlier the better.” She actually lowered her lashes at him. “I’ll be thinking about it all night.”
Heat, terrible heat rose to her cheeks, and then to her ears. She had embarrassed herself, and she could see he was also taken back by her forwardness.
His face pinked, and he stammered, “Ah…ah…well, ah…I’ll…ah…see you…ah…in the morning, then.”
Whirling and marching off, Ann retreated. The scientist considered her ample derriere as she moved. He wiped the corner of his mouth with his hand. The woman always made him salivate.
§
The young woman at the laboratory reception desk sniffled as she greeted Ann in the morning. Her live-in boyfriend that worked at the airport had brought a cold home three days ago. He was one of many there that worked through his illness. Now she was intending to do the same, even though Bull encouraged employees to keep illnesses out of the facility.
Ann knew she was not fully recovered as well. A slight nasal discharge and a morning congestion cleared after her first cup of coffee, and by the time she entered the lab, she felt almost back to normal. Once again she moved through the facility leaving a trail of microbes.
“There you are,” Bull bellowed from behind her. “We have an answer. And it’s verified that we have an issue.”
Being excited over the findings, Bull used the excuse to give her a short, tentative hug. Not knowing how to respond, she missed her opportunity to hug back.
Considering what Bull was saying, Ann questioned him. “Is it what Flynn was saying? Is it deadly?”
“Yeah, it is. It’s a clear killer. We’ve already contacted the CDC. The wheels are turning as we speak. There’s some reference material that I have to send them still, but they already have the parameters as I see them. It’s pretty much out of our hands at this point, unless they want something as far as some further investigation or enforcement.”
Hoping that the news was different, Ann still understood Bull’s excitement. It was a good catch, and they were the first to put a glove on it.
“Here, Ann, I’ve got to show you what we have so far. We’ve started to culture the vaccine just so we can pass the information on to the CDC as an independent back-up, and we already have a diagnostic breathalyzer programmed.”
Wishing that she had caught Bull’s hug and reciprocated, Ann waited her opportunity. In the meantime she enjoyed his enthusiasm and asked that he show her everything. They moved into an area designed for quarantine.
Much of what the investigator was shown went over her head, but she was intelligent enough to discern the gist of it. Her ability to extrapolate went a long way toward understanding the broad strokes. She asked pertinent questions, and Bull beamed as he explained what he could in layman’s terms. They were well matched intellectually, so even though Ann had different expertise, Bull was impressed by the degree of her understanding.
Working their way through the counter tops, a young assistant held a small mechanism.
“Dillon, let me use that a minute,” said Bull, extending his hand. “This is the breathalyzer I was telling you about, Ann.”
Placing the unit into Bull’s hand, the young man returned to other activities. He watched from the corner of his eye, though, as his superior mooned over the woman from the upper floors.
Indicating a small orifice built into the mechanism, Bull suggested that Ann try it out.
“When you blow into it, try to get a really good, full lungful into it. It’s the last half of the breath that is really necessary to get a good reading.”
Ann touched his hand as she took it. She wondered if the heat she felt would affect the reading.
“It’ll take about three minutes to get the reading.” Bull watched as she placed her lips on the mouthpiece.
Ann blew. The air from her chest flowed through the device and filtered through sensors as it was analyzed, correlated, and defined. She had used similar technology in visiting her doctor’s office for her annual physical, required by the FBI, and understood that the mechanism had the capacity to diagnose thousands of anomalies.
The lab tech, Dillon, noted the flush on both as the woman blew into the analyzer.
Taking the appliance back, and touching Ann’s hand as he did so, the head scientist looked at the little black machine. The device indicated a good amount of air had passed through. He placed it in his breast pocket and moved on. They still had the vaccine cultures to look at.
A few moments perusing the glass-windowed hot room where the vials rested, a few questions asked and answered, and finally Bull pulled the breath
alyzer from his pocket. His face clouded. As he hesitated, Ann read his face. Why would he be silent? Finally she laid her hand on his arm.
“What is it, Bull?’ She whispered in a low voice, hesitant. “Is there something that’s not right?”
The man looked as though he had been slugged but was also puzzled. “Have you been sick, Ann? I should have asked…but didn’t think.” He looked up from the small display, piercing her with his eyes.
Hesitating herself, Ann paused. Of course she would admit being sick. It was a small thing.
“I’m sorry, Bull, I didn’t even think about it. I took some sick time a couple of days ago. Just a cold, some congestion.”
The big man looked back at the machine. He studied the readings. They could not be right. At least he did not think they were right. More precisely, he did not want to think so.
“Ann, this screen tells me you are not infected with the plague we have in the cultures.”
Well, that was good news, Ann thought. She had started to worry.
“But we need to do some tests, Ann.” He looked into her eyes. “It also says that you are infected with something we haven’t found before. It looks like it’s related to the Arab Plague in some way.”
Bull continued to speak, but Ann did not hear what he was saying. The heat that she had been feeling left her as she went cold. She barely felt him as he took her arm and led her to an isolation room. He opened the door as he reached and pulled a surgical mask from a dispenser on the wall. Placing it over his face, he positioned her in front of a chair and gently pressured her to sit. She did. The fog was clearing, and Ann looked up at Bull, engaging his eyes.