Tap, tap…slide…tap.
In her entire professional career she had never been so frustrated. The damned thing just wasn’t acting properly, and she didn’t mean the tablet. The goddamn thing on screen…although she’d seen nothing like it – not true, it was like something else, but only a little – had to follow the basic rules, and it wasn’t. Moira didn’t like the unexplained. Unlike most physicians, who took that as a challenge, it was the one thing that truly frightened her.
Her cell phone began ringing with Every Breath you Take, by The Police, specifically the verse with, “I’ll be watching you.” Virologist humor.
“This is Moira Rusk,” she answered, still looking at the tablet as she walked.
“Madam Secretary, this is the White House calling. I have the President on the line.”
“Just a moment,” she said. At least the White House secretary didn’t call her Labcoat, her Secret Service code name. She moved into the next open office door she saw. A young woman sat at a computer, and Moira caught her name off the plastic photo ID card clipped to her jacket. “Miss Roberts, will you find Dr. Fisher and have her meet me in conference room three in about half an hour?” The woman nodded and disappeared, and Moira shut the door, taking her seat. She knew there wouldn’t be a problem with her commandeering the office. Not only was she a U.S. Cabinet Secretary, she was one of the top physicians in the country, and that practically made her royalty in this place.
“Go ahead,” she said into the cell phone.
“Moira, it’s Garrison Fox.”
“Good morning, Mr. President. Are you in the air or on the ground?”
“Still earthbound.”
“And have you seen Lieutenant Commander Wheeler this morning?”
The President chuckled. “As a matter of fact he’s with me right now. You do enjoy mothering me, don’t you?”
Moira didn’t smile. She was looking at the image on her tablet, biting her top lip. She swept it away and tapped, bringing up some information.
“So where are we on this thing?” Garrison asked.
“Let’s talk about you first,” she said. “The good news is that your body has almost completely killed off Trident. Per yesterday’s blood test, there’s only a trace of it left, and I expect your immune system will have finished it off by the end of the day.”
Trident wasn’t her term. A doctor in Indonesia, the first to spot it and call it out, had named it for the unique, three-pronged construction of the organism, a pitchfork shape that otherwise chillingly resembled Ebola.
“What about my family?”
“The same,” she said. Along with the President, the First Family (as well as many others) was having their blood monitored daily. “The First Lady and both your children are nearly free of it, just like you.” She heard a small, expelled breath on the other end of the phone. She was relieved too, but the irritating thing was that she couldn’t say what she was relieved about.
Trident had shown up worldwide, acting like a virus.
And it was absolutely without symptoms.
“Unfortunately,” she continued, “it doesn’t appear as if the antivirals you’ve been taking as a precaution are what’s killing it off. I’d like you to complete the regimen just to be safe, but that’s not our solution.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because we’re administering antivirals across a wide range of patients, and they’re having no effect. We are seeing cases identical to yours – the body attacking and killing it – but that is happening only about ten to twenty percent of the time. In all the others, it’s as if the body doesn’t even recognize that Trident is present.”
“And it’s still benign?” the President asked.
“So far. People all around the world have died, of course, and die every minute, but for all the normal reasons. We’ve seen no connection to Trident.” It had been eight days since the organism, something previously unknown to science, had shown up in routine blood testing in Indonesia. In that intervening time, at had been reported globally and was now everywhere. Internationally, physicians had identified how it spread (through almost every conceivable form of transmission) and that it was a hearty little bastard. Some viruses were tough, but this thing was ferocious. It could live in sunlight, cold, rain, surfaces exposed to the elements, and God could it travel! The medical community was calling it a virus, but no one was really sure.
“How are you doing?” the President asked.
Moira leaned back in the chair. “Fine. Never been healthier. Yet it’s not only filling my bloodstream, it’s spread to every tissue and organ. Not a single effect. Not for me or anyone else, here or in the world.”
The President was quiet for a moment, and Moira thought about how surreal it was that almost everyone here at CDC, the Center for Disease Control, was infected with an aggressively moving, highly contagious organism that didn’t cause so much as a sniffle. Its lack of symptoms was perhaps the worst part.
“You’ve been talking to Bob Chase about the NRP,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“Daily,” Moira replied. Bob Chase was the Secretary of Homeland Security. In every conversation their one and only topic had been the National Response Plan, also known as the National Response to Pandemic.
“What do the two of you think?”
Moira chewed her lip. She knew Homeland Security would have been briefing the President, but she also knew that her Commander-in-Chief wanted a doctor’s opinion.
“Executing the truly dramatic aspects of the NRP is a big step, Mr. President,” she said. “Without any signs that Trident is malignant, I can’t advise that course of action.” God, she hated sounding like a politician instead of a healer. “It’s killing me to say that,” she added.
“Because you’re afraid that it’s dormant,” Garrison said, “a sleeping monster that could wake up at any time.”
Moira nodded at her cell phone, reminded yet again of how very smart the man was. “I don’t have any evidence of that, Mr. President. We need more information, but yes, that’s exactly what I’m thinking.”
“Okay. You keep at it, and I want you and Homeland to have a no bullshit talk about the NRP. It would cause a shit-storm, that’s for sure, but maybe cleaning up after that would be preferable to…” he trailed off.
“I will,” Moira said. “And I want you to inform Lieutenant Commander Wheeler immediately if you feel anything other than normal, including fatigue.”
Garrison laughed. “Moira, I’ve been fatigued for four years.”
“And I know you’re hearing me, Garrison.”
“Still mothering. Yes, ma’am, I know how to follow orders. Got to run.”
The President clicked off, and Moira once again used her tablet to call up the magnified image of Trident. As always she marveled at how it resembled Ebola in both texture and structure, but then deviated with those three little prongs.
“Trident…you better not turn out to be a damned pitchfork, she whispered, then left for her meeting with Dr. Fisher.
If not for the blue and white sign out front, most people would think the CDC nothing more than another office building complex, dominated by a pair of high, rectangular towers. In many ways it was, but there were secure areas within that housed the most deadly organisms known to man.
The conference room on the eighth floor of the east tower was small and unremarkable; eggshell-colored walls, beige carpeting and a table ringed with simple swivel chairs. A flush-mounted computer terminal set in the table and a seventy-two-inch wall-mounted flat screen were the only other features.
Two women sat in here, Moira with her tablet and an attractive but weary-looking woman in her early forties with dark smudges around her eyes. She wore a white doctor’s coat and was seated in front of the terminal.
If there were three top talents for virology in the world, two of them were sitting here, Dr. Fisher being the highest ranked in Moira Rusk’s opinion. The younger woman could easily have been a
ppointed Secretary of Health and Human services, but Moira had more natural political savvy. The Surgeon General had announced his attention to retire at the end of the year however, and Karen Fisher was on the short list to replace him. She would have Moira’s enthusiastic endorsement. The two women had been friends for many years.
Moira was drinking tea from a paper cup, and she blew on it. “Thanks for taking the time, Karen. The boss is getting edgy about this.”
“I’ll bet. What does Homeland Security say?”
“Bob’s reluctant to pull the trigger, as you can imagine,” Moira said. “It’s understandable, and I can’t say I disagree. Not yet. But Jesus, this thing…”
Dr. Fisher nodded. “I’ll show you the Power Point so you can walk him through it with what we have so far. I dumbed it down.”
Moira smiled her appreciation. Bob Chase, the Secretary of Homeland Security, was an intelligent man, but no one other than a physician or researcher in this field wanted to stare at screen after screen of enzyme and protein tables. It had to make sense so he could present to the chief executive, even though Moira knew Fox wouldn’t sign off unless she said go.
Dr. Fisher brought up an image of the world’s geography, with a small red pulse centered on Indonesia. “First appearance was on October eighteenth at the Pondak Indah Hospital in Jakarta. A bus driver came in with breathing problems. Standard blood testing revealed that he had pneumonia, but it also showed Trident running like a madman through his bloodstream. The lung issue turned out to be unrelated, but a sample was sent to Dr. Wulandari because the internist had never seen anything like it.”
The image of a middle-aged Indonesian man in glasses came on screen. Wulandari was the third in Moira’s “top-three” ranking. Probably more like second.
“Wulandari named it Trident because of its structure. Due to its sudden appearance, behavior and uniqueness, he called us.”
“The bus driver isn’t the index patient, though,” said Moira.
The other woman shook her head. “Not a chance.”
They both knew that the odds of the original exposure subject walking into a doctor’s office, in a city of millions and without symptoms, were tantamount to the same Powerball number coming up three times in a row. “It’s a good indicator that it’s Indonesia, though,” said Fisher. “Specifically Jakarta. Dr. Wulandari reported that the patient hadn’t traveled, and wasn’t in contact with any foreigners, just locals on his bus route. And unless or until Trident starts showing effects, patient zero will remain a phantom.”
The younger doctor advanced the screen image. “By the time Wulandari’s samples arrived on the nineteenth, Trident was already showing up in the States, and being reported in other countries all over the world.”
“Air travel,” said Moira.
“Yes. The best friend a virus ever had.”
“And no reports of malignancy from overseas?”
“Not one,” said Fisher. “It’s only been found during routine testing. Now people are looking for it, of course, but no malignancy whatsoever. It sure doesn’t behave like something with good intentions, though.”
The older woman chewed her lip. Without causing so much as a rash, the bizarre little organism was already causing global hysteria. The word was out, and the media was stoking the flames of fear. News programs interviewed supposed medical experts who touted theories about its nature and potential. Some claimed it was a new strain of Ebola, others that it was a sister to the Zika Virus. Moira had given two press conferences already, assuring the nation that it was the CDC’s priority, and repeating that there was no new information, no indicators of malignancy, and so no need to panic. Her statements hadn’t slowed the media one bit. They knew when they had latched onto something juicy. There was talk of plague and an extinction-level super flu, others who debated that it was simply a natural event, a part of human evolution with potentially beneficial healing properties.
The internet and social media was even worse. Tales caught on about accidentally released government germs, the beginning of a biblical Armageddon (especially since there hadn’t been a single documented occurrence of Trident showing up in animals, only humans,) biological warfare launched by the Chinese and even alien testing. Everyone had an opinion. Moira Rusk tried to contain the speculation, but an absence of hard information was merely fuel for panic and wild theories.
Another graph came up on screen. “As we’ve discussed before,” said Fisher, “so far about ten percent of the population appears to have a natural immunity, for lack of a better word. Their bodies see Trident as hostile, and immediately destroy it. Early indicators are that this immunity extends along genetic lines, and we’re seeing Trident being extinguished within entire families.”
Moira nodded. That could explain why the entire first family was successfully fighting it off. She made a mental note to order testing among the President’s relatives. Then she frowned. The genetic theory would explain the children and one parent, but there would be no biological link to the other spouse, and yet both President and Mrs. Fox were demonstrating this immunity. Might they both be part of that ten percent immunity pool? What were the odds of that?
About one in ten. Not so long odds.
Fisher continued. “This immunity percentage appears consistent around the world, with no variables due to ethnicity, gender, age or health condition. In another ten percent, Trident struggles and appears to be slow to spread and quickly weakening.” The screen jumped to a close-up of the organism, a sample from one of the patients she’d just mentioned. It appeared withered and deformed. “There’s no indication that this second group is actively fighting it off, but it still appears to be dying. My guess is that, for whatever reason, this group represents an unsuitable host for Trident. They’re just lucky. No one has done the genetic work yet to find out why.”
“And the other eighty percent?” Moira asked.
“It’s alive and well,” said Fisher, “continuing to spread throughout the body; first in the bloodstream and eventually taking up residence in organs and tissue. Our Indonesian bus driver, and many like him, seems to be the farthest along in the spread. Everyone else is – and I hate to use this word, Moira – infected to varying degrees. It’s given us a picture of the day-by-day growth over the past eight days.”
A new image came up, this of several Trident organisms slowly moving across the screen. One by one they seemed to bulge for a moment, and then a new, identical organism emerged from the original.
“It’s replicating,” said Fisher. “Not feeding on cells, simply duplicating itself.”
In less than a minute, one of the originals bulged and gave birth again.
“Using those infected the longest as a baseline, we can determine an individual’s length of exposure. We’re also able to estimate, at its current speed of growth, that Trident will have completely spread through a patient in nine or ten days.”
“And then what happens?” Moira murmured. It wasn’t a question directed at her friend. She watched the strange images, chewing her lip while the tea went cold in front of her.
“A side note to this,” said Fisher, “and I don’t know right now if or how this information will be useful, is that Trident is vulnerable to intense heat. It kills the organism.”
“Maybe that’s good news.”
The younger woman shook her head. “The kind of heat I’m talking about also kills the host. House and car fires, where the body is charred, a power plant worker in Japan who caught a fatal dose of radiation…autopsies showed that Trident was exterminated in those cases. In almost every other kind of death, the organism not only remains alive after the host is deceased, it continues to replicate and spread, even as the body decomposes.”
“Like bacteria consuming a corpse,” said Moira.
Fisher shrugged. “Sort of. But bacteria feed. Trident isn’t eating anything. It just carries on as the body breaks down. Not even formaldehyde can flush it out. Nothing can, so far.”
&n
bsp; Moira drummed her fingernails on the conference table and scowled at the screen. “Next steps?”
Fisher quickly ran through a few more slides of information that contained her summary and shut down. “The labs downstairs are working on it twenty-four-seven, the same overseas, and I’m in regular contact with our colleagues at USAMRIID and around the world. We have a good number of voluntary test subjects here at the facility, a representation of every length of contagion, and we’re tracking its progress constantly. We’re also thinking that the immune and resistant twenty percent will be our source for an eventual cure or inoculation, but it’s very early.”
“Not much information,” said Moira. It wasn’t intended as a rebuke, and Fisher didn’t take it that way.
“I agree,” said the younger woman. “Certainly not enough to make an informed decision about initiating the NRP.” She sighed and rubbed her eyes. “You’ll know more when we do. Are you heading back to Washington?”
“No, I’m staying right here.”
A tired smile. “We can sure use the help.”
“Good briefing, Karen, thank you.” She gestured at the darkened flat screen. “Send me your presentation?” Dr. Fisher said that she would, and Moira returned to the office the CDC had loaned her for the duration of her stay. Her thoughts were filled with the image of an alien, three-pronged organism that offered more questions than answers.
-7-
FEATHER MOUNTAIN
Western Pennsylvania – October 26
The temperature inside the small wooden building hovered at just under ninety degrees, a pair of open windows doing little to mitigate the late October heat. Several flies buzzed through the heavy air, but the men sitting in here on folding metal chairs did not wave at them or wipe at the sweat on their foreheads and necks. It would be undisciplined. Instead they listened to the man giving the briefing, someone whose bored voice was as irritating as the droning of the flies.
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