CANNIBAL KINGDOM

by John L. Campbell

  Soo Yim ignored her friend. “Don’t want to insult the gods. And life is meant to be lived.” She took a long drink. It was cold and tasted of minerals.

  Bhandri smiled. He did not drink, but it didn’t matter.

  What would come to be known as Trident raced through Soo Yim’s body. The simple act of bringing it up from the deep, cavern pool (not a spring as the young Korean woman believed, and the whispering they heard was not a breeze through a cave) carried it up through a natural pressure seal of cold air that existed far below and had kept it contained for centuries. Now everyone in the cave was exposed, whether they had taken a drink or not.

  When they headed out for the journey back down the mountain, Bhandri left the cup and twine on the floor near the crack. He told himself he might bring more tourists here another time, but in truth he simply didn’t want to touch the cup anymore. As appealing as the idea was – having his own, private tourist destination – he didn’t think he’d be back, and was happy to put the cave behind him.

  On their way back to Jakarta, Bhandri stopped for gas. He, Soo Yim, his nephew and the others passed Trident on to everyone at the station. When he dropped them off at the Royal Marriott, the little Indonesian waved and drove away with a smile and a pocket full of cash. He and Faisal would now carry Trident into one of the world’s most populated cities.

  Soo Yim got the chance to add yet another experience to her collection; the American President had been staying in the hotel, and the girl was thrilled to see him being escorted through the lobby to his motorcade, his Secret Service detail holding people back. The President was a friendly man, however, just as she’d seen on television, and when Soo Yim pushed against one of the agents and thrust out a hand, the man shook it briefly, smiled at her and moved on.

  Happy and tired, the young woman headed for her room, infecting staff and guests along the way, she and her flight crew spreading Trident throughout the entire hotel before leaving in the morning. Tomorrow they would fly to Paris, beginning a journey that would bring Tapak’s dark gift to the world.

  Aboard Air Force One, President Fox and his entire entourage were bringing it to America.

  INCUBATION

  -4-

  SOO YIM

  Paris – October 26

  The whirring of treadmill belts and the thump of athletic shoes was almost enough to drown out the wall-mounted TVs. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked down from the third level of the busy Paris health club onto a crowded city street.

  “Where are we going tonight?” Soo Yim said, loud enough to be heard over the noise. She was in black Spandex and a bright pink, nylon tank top.

  On the treadmill beside her, the tall blonde shrugged. “I’m bored with all of them,” Alexa said.

  Soo Yim smiled. Whether Alexa was bored or not, she was confident her friend would make the rounds with her at the city’s most popular night spots. The Swede’s looks made her an automatic to bypass the lines and get right in, and Soo Yim – pretty in her own right – would follow in her wake. Both loved to dance, loved the clubs, and Alexa especially enjoyed all the attention she got from the men.

  “I’ll pick the spot,” the Korean girl said, and her friend shrugged again. Several minutes later, Soo Yim stopped the treadmill and stepped off, wiping the sweat from her face and neck and hanging the towel over the handrail.

  Trident made the transition at once. Not that it had to; Soo Yim’s sweat, touch and breath had already covered the machine with infected particles. In fact, all two hundred-plus visitors and staff in the Paris health club had been infected within twenty minutes of the two girls’ arrival. Twenty of them had already picked it up from other locations, and the club was well on its way to being contaminated even before the two flight attendants got here.

  Fluid transfer.

  Contact transfer.

  Airborne.

  Like the young woman who had unleashed it, Trident was a traveler.

  Eight days had passed since Tapak’s dark gift came up from that Indonesian well and hit the air. The girl hadn’t even needed to drink it; she, her crew and their two guides had been infected before they left the cave. Their journey back to the city, the hotel stay, and Bhandri’s trip home had started the infection of both Jakarta and, through a simple handshake, the United States as well.

  Every single person touched by Trident immediately passed it on, spreading it rapidly, and leaving the organism on everything; doorknobs and drinking fountains, restrooms and light switches, ATM machines and bus benches. The silent little plague molecules transferred by the slightest touch and drifted through the air. Goods on grocery store shelves and shopping cart handles, TV remotes and elevator buttons, bar surfaces, glasses, magazines in waiting rooms and escalator handles, mail and money and karaoke machines… It got into the water supply. It got into air conditioning and ventilation systems. Every sneeze, cough and handshake, every hug and kiss and lover’s embrace, and every conversation. Trident traveled.

  By the time all of Indonesia was infected, Soo Yim and her crew – along with a spread of millions of others – had moved on to bring the plague to the world.

  In these eight days, the South Korean flight attendant had visited six major European and four major Asian cities, spent time in hotels and restaurants, ridden trains and taxis and subways, shopped in dozens of stores, seen a movie, gone to two yoga classes and infected nearly a dozen international airports, their travelers and employees, and every aircraft she came in contact with.

  With every transmission, Trident extended its reach. Those carriers went to banks and schools, trade shows and concerts, sporting events and church. No place was spared; it lingered on playgrounds and swing-sets, bottles and blocks at daycares, found its way into theme parks and hospital operating rooms.

  Soo Yim might have been the index patient, or patient zero, but she was now just one more carrier among billions.

  After two days in Paris, where she and Alexa had been attending an annual flight attendants conference with more than ten thousand in attendance, it was almost time to get back in the air. Paris was great, but the girls were eager to get back to work. Tomorrow morning they were headed to New York, a city they both loved and one that offered some of the best night life in the world.

  Trident was already there, of course. By now, the two young women were contributing little to the rapid and constant international spread of an infection that would – once it revealed itself – bring the world to its knees.

  The clock was ticking, and would soon expire.

  The girls showered, dressed and headed out, hailing a cab. The young Frenchman driving had just started his shift in a cab that had been unused for two weeks, parked at the back of a garage, and he had been home for more than a week, sick with the flu. Neither he nor his taxi had been infected. Soo Yim and Alexa quickly rectified that.

  Eight days from initial exposure, and Trident remained dormant and benign.

  But not unnoticed.

  -5-

  DEVIL DOG

  The White House – October 26

  After a morning run on the treadmill followed by a shower, Garrison now walked the colonnade from the residence to the Oval Office, a Secret Service agent trailing behind and looking out over the Rose Garden. The President looked too, not for anything dangerous as his agent was doing, but at the foliage of the grounds dressed in its autumn colors. It was 5:35 AM and he breathed deeply of the October air, enjoying the cooler temperatures that had finally come to Washington after a prolonged Indian Sumer.

  Enjoy it while you can. He would be back in the sky in a matter of hours, heading out on a two day blitz of the south, southwest, California and ending in Ohio. Less than two weeks until the election, and he had some damage control ahead of him. Visiting Indonesia on a mission of diplomacy instead of sending in SEALs to wipe out terrorist camps had cost him with the Republican base.

  As he approached the French doors with their vaguely out-of-focus, bulletproof glass, the two Marines
in dress blue uniforms posted there stiffened and saluted crisply, one of them smoothly opening the door on the right.

  “Good morning, Marines,” Garrison said as he entered.

  “Good morning, sir,” they replied in unison.

  The United States Marines serving at the White House and on Marine One had been standing just a bit taller for the last four years. For the first time in American history, they had one of their own in the Oval Office.

  His senior secretary came through a side door just as he entered, placing a legal-sized folder on his desk. “Good morning, Mr. President.”

  “Thank you, Grace,” he said, tapping the folder as he passed but leaving it there, heading for a side table where coffee waited. “How packed am I this morning?”

  “You’re wheels-up at eight o’clock, sir. You’re busy until then.” The older woman checked her watch. “You have fifteen minutes before the show starts.”

  Garrison smiled. No one knew about the show better than Grace. He was surprised she didn’t call it the circus. She’d been with him through his entire term when he’d been a senator, and now here during his first term as President. He knew he would be lost without her. He thanked her as she left.

  He liked these quiet times before the starter’s pistol went off and the workday began, a day that could easily (and often did) run seventeen to twenty hours long. These precious morning minutes gave him a chance to reflect, to think about what he wanted to accomplish – not just for the day but as President of the United States - before becoming a slave to his schedule.

  That was just what awaited him inside the folder his secretary had deposited on his desk, and he opened it to find seven pages stapled together; the day’s agenda. As he scanned the pages, a man in his thirties with a dark suit and military haircut entered from a side door, a similar folder tucked under one arm.

  “Good morning, Mr. President.” The younger man placed a paper cup on the desk containing two white and yellow pills, then went to the side table for a glass of water. “You forgot these upstairs, sir.”

  “Right,” said Garrison, washing them down with coffee and waving off the water. “Thanks, Danny.”

  The younger man nodded and looked over his own copy of the President’s itinerary, retreating to an adjacent room to give his boss a last few minutes of peace. He was Garrison’s personal assistant, or body man, someone who handled the hundreds of under-the-radar needs of a busy professional, from ensuring his bags were packed and aboard Air Force One to arranging meals (or gently scolding when the President skipped them.) Unofficially nicknamed the Chief of Stuff, the body man was a powerful, though often overlooked individual in the White House. Along with the actual Chief of Staff (the hammer in any administration) he controlled the President’s schedule.

  Danny was also a former combat Marine, a sergeant who had served under Garrison’s command in Afghanistan. During his third tour (and Garrison’s second) the two men had found themselves alive and alone after their column had been attacked, the only survivors from their Humvee. While a firefight raged up and down the line with the rest of the column, Garrison and Danny had run into automatic weapons and mortar fire, making three trips to drag critically wounded Marines out of danger and behind the safety of a burning armored vehicle. Both had been hit by small arms fire but kept going, and all five Marines lived. Both men had received the Navy Cross for their actions.

  Garrison had long ago decided that the younger Marine would have a job in the administration as long as he held the White House.

  The forty-nine-year-old Virginia native leaned back in the high leather chair behind the Resolute Desk, a gift from Queen Victoria to President Hayes in 1880, and constructed from the timbers of a British Arctic exploration ship. He noted that today’s schedule had him going until 1:00 AM, another twenty hour day and almost all of it campaign-related. It was the part of this job he cared-for the least, and one which – for the past year – had seemed to eclipse the actual duties of the presidency. “Didn’t care-for” was putting it mildly. He did the dance, but he despised campaigning.

  It hadn’t always been like this. Garrison Fox was no career politician, and campaign used to have a different meaning for him.

  At twenty-two he graduated third in his class at Annapolis, receiving a degree in poly-sci and a commission as a second lieutenant of infantry in the United States Marine Corps. In 1991 he found himself with the first allied infantry force to enter Kuwait during Desert Storm. Garrison’s unit cleared mine fields and harassed the retreating Iraqis, and the young officer managed to bring all his men home alive.

  The next year, a newly promoted captain, Garrison and his company launched an amphibious assault from the USS Tripoli into Mogadishu, Somalia. Captain Fox’s Marines along with the rest of his battalion captured the city’s port and secured the airfield. Two of his men were wounded, and a bullet had passed so close to his face that he swore he could feel the heat on his cheek, but again, everyone came home alive.

  Garrison drained his coffee and poured a second cup, staring out the windows behind his desk and watching the light come up.

  The Marines turned into a career, and eleven years later in 2003 Garrison was a lieutenant colonel in his second tour in Afghanistan, his fourth combat deployment and a war very different from those he had fought before. This enemy wasn’t in retreat, or some poorly trained militia working for a local warlord. Here the opposition was fearless and highly motivated, and Marines under Garrison’s command lost their lives. He felt every death. He was wounded in his first tour when a sniper’s bullet hit the meat of his shoulder and nicked the bone (he still felt the ache on chilly mornings) but he’d been luckier than many. Now the recipient of a Purple Heart, he was back in the field the following year, when he and Danny would throw themselves into harm’s way to save their fellow leathernecks. After that it was back to Washington as a full-bird colonel and well on his way to earning his star, an officer being groomed by the Pentagon.

  But Garrison Fox, as much as he loved the Corps, had had enough. He wanted to do more for his country. At thirty-eight he resigned his commission to run for Virginia’s open seat in the U.S. Senate, a contest he won in a landslide.

  He was popular, a tireless advocate for national security, a strong economy and debt reduction. A decorated war hero, he was a man loved by the military and law enforcement, whose good looks and charm also gave him high marks among female voters (something that both pleased and embarrassed him.) He had no skeletons or scandals, and was vocal about the things in which he believed; honor, integrity, family, service to others, duty to country. His wife told him he had been born in the wrong century, though she was fiercely proud of her man. Garrison couldn’t have seen the world in any other way.

  After a single term in the Senate, at age forty-five Garrison Fox ran-for and was elected President of the United States.

  He drank his coffee as staff members entered the office and gave him quiet good-mornings.

  It had been quite a journey. Along the way he had married his college love, now First Lady Patricia Rand-Fox (a woman who still made his heart beat faster when she entered a room) and fathered two amazing kids.

  A man could do worse, he thought, smiling out the windows at the morning sun.

  Six o’clock chimed softly on the clock over the fireplace, and Garrison greeted his visitors; Thomas Darrow his Chief of Staff, a naval officer who would present his daily national security briefing, and the White House press secretary. Another Naval officer, this one a lieutenant commander with medical insignia on his uniform, entered carrying a small black satchel. He stood quietly against a wall.

  Garrison nodded to this last arrival, then looked at the others in turn. “Is the world on fire, or can we push back fifteen minutes?”

  The Chief of Staff looked at the NSA briefer, who nodded and said, “Things are pretty quiet out there, Mr. President. Nothing that requires immediate action.” The man let out a small giggle.

  The Preside
nt raised an eyebrow, and Thomas Barrow looked over the top of his glasses, glowering at the briefer, who had suddenly turned bright red. The man looked down and shook his head, uttering a soft apology.

  Garrison looked at him for a moment, then at Barrow. “Give me fifteen.” He motioned to the medical officer to accompany him into an adjacent room, the President’s private office. Behind him, Tommy pulled the NSA briefer into the hall for a withering tongue lashing. While the doctor removed a blood pressure cuff and stethoscope from his bag, Garrison sat on the edge of a desk and picked up a phone. He was immediately connected with his personal secretary.

  “Grace, can you put me through to Dr. Rusk?” A few minutes later, while his blood pressure was being taken, Garrison was on the line with Sec HHS, his Secretary of Health and Human Services.

  -6-

  LABCOAT

  Atlanta - October 26

  Moira Rusk walked the carpeted hallway, tapping and sliding a finger across the electronic tablet in her hands, engrossed in what she was doing and unaware of the people who sidestepped her, or the young man who nearly slammed into her with a cardboard tray of full coffee cups. Dressed in a gray business suit and low heels, she was a woman in her late fifties, tall and slender, with collar-length hair that was more white than silver. She pushed her glasses higher onto the bridge of her nose and tapped the tablet again, almost running into a woman with an armload of files.

  She chewed her top lip, a habit that revealed itself only when she was nervous, a state she didn’t often experience. Moira was an extremely intelligent, highly educated woman who didn’t scare easily and who had seen many of the horrors life had to offer. She wondered if she was seeing one now.