A Glimpse Of Decay (Book 1): Red Storm)

by Santiago, A. J.

  “Evacuated?”

  “Yes, evacuated. Contact has been lost with the majority of the villages and towns near the border, and power has been lost from Chelyabinsk south into Kazakhstan. There is a wave of refugees heading south, and some are heading west towards the Caspian Sea. Ferries are set up to take people over to Georgia, but Azerbaijan is refusing to allow anyone into their country.”

  “It sounds like the world is falling apart,” Massimov stated in a nervous tone.

  “Yes, it does sound that way. As soon as we off-load you and the other passengers, we’ve been ordered to refuel and head north. We’ve been tasked with checking on some of the villages that the government has lost contact with.”

  “Hey, can you at least give me a hint at what he was saying,” Roberts complained to Massimov, frustrated that the crew chief was speaking in Russian.

  “There is an American plane at the airport,” Massimov said. “You and your colleagues are going to take our resurrected woman to one of your facilities to figure out what in God’s name brought her back to life, although I think you already have a good idea as to what’s really happening.”

  “Who ordered this?” Roberts asked. Massimov’s words had caught him off guard, and he felt a little insecure and uncertain. Decisions were now being made by his superiors, decisions that he wasn’t being notified about.

  “Probably people who get paid to make these kinds of decisions…politicians. Either way, you got what you wanted.”

  “Got what I wanted?” Roberts asked.

  “Yes, you’re getting your bio-weapon. Now you can study it and figure out how to make it work for you.” Roberts could hear the cynicism in Massimov’s voice.

  “I don’t know why you can’t believe me when I tell you that we’re here because we want to help. We’re not here trying to profit off of this.”

  Massimov looked away from Roberts as he balanced himself. The helicopter was banking left as it circled the airport in preparation for its landing. “Major, I’ve been in medicine long enough to know that whenever government gets involved with science or medicine, a profit is always made, no matter what.”

  “What’s going on?” Michael asked as he shuffled himself along the bench towards Roberts.

  “There’s an Air Force plane waiting on us. We’re going to take the patient and head somewhere else.”

  “Okayyy, and so where are we going to?”

  “Don’t know, guess they’ll tell us when we get on the ground. I would probably say maybe the B.S.L. Four lab at Fort Detrick.”

  Irene, who could barely hear what was being said between Roberts and Michael, reach over and tapped Michael on his shoulder, asking him what was going on. Michael filled her in on what Roberts had just told him. Leaning back on the bench, she felt a sense of security come over her. Something about being around more Americans in this madness made her feel safe, and she couldn’t wait to get off of the helicopter.

  After receiving clearance to land, the pilot brought the helicopter down near the large American transport plane. With its grey paint scheme, the aircraft looked like a giant whale with oversized flippers. The crew chief got everyone to their feet and had the guards prepare the gurney for transportation. As the cargo ramp lowered, they were greeted by armed members of the Kazakhstan military. They were quickly rushed across the tarmac to the waiting American plane. Massimov and Mamani followed behind.

  As Roberts prepared to make his way up into the American plane, he turned to Massimov. “Thanks for everything you’ve done for us. Good luck and God be with you.” Roberts extended his hand.

  Massimov stood in silence and stared directly into Robert’s eyes. “I just pray to God that you are genuine about wanting to find a cure for this. I hope that my inner feelings are wrong and that you’re not just here just to reap the benefits of someone’s science project that went bad.” Massimov turned without shaking Roberts’s hand, walking away in silence.

  “We need to get a move on, sir,” said an airman who was standing at the rear of the giant plane. Roberts looked at the man for a second and then trotted up the ramp. Four armed American troops strode down the ramp and took the gurney from the guards and the crew chief. They wheeled it up into the plane and disappeared into the cavernous hold.

  Irene stepped over to Mamani and the two embraced as Michael looked on. Irene began to sob out loud, and in a motherly response, Mamani began to run her hand through Irene’s hair.

  “Be strong my child,” she said to the crying American. She looked over at Michael and he walked over to the two women, joining in the embrace. “Both of you need to be strong. Tough, trying times are ahead, and the two of you are going to be very important in how things turn out. Take care of yourselves and God be with you.”

  Michael tried to fight back the tears, but he became too choked up and when he tried to say something, he began to cry. He knew that they were witnessing something that was cataclysmic and potentially apocalyptic, and he also knew that if they didn’t get an understanding of what was really going on, he feared the future of Mankind was truly in danger.

  “Ma’am…sir, we need to go,” the airman bellowed out. The engines of the transport plane were revving up and the roar drowned out everything else. Michael and Irene turned and made their way up the ramp, and as it slowly raised, they looked back one last time at Massimov and Mamani.

  “Okay, let’s get you seated,” the airman said. “If you’ll follow me this way to the passenger compartment, we can get you all situated.”

  The two doctors followed the young airman as he led them up a stairway to the passenger area. It was then that Irene noticed Roberts was nowhere around. “Where’s the Major?” she asked the airman as she wiped away her tears.

  “He’s making sure our guest is safely secured in a containment vessel.”

  “Good,” she said. “If you had seen what we have seen, you wouldn’t want that thing loose on this plane.”

  “If it were up to me, we would kill that damn thing right now,” Michael said. “Oh. But wait a minute, it’s already dead. Go figure!”

  “Um, I really don’t know anything about that, but what I do know is that we need to get you seated so we can take off.”

  As Irene and Michael strapped themselves in, Irene asked, “Where are we going?”

  “Straight over to Fort Dietrich,” the airman answered. “We’ve got a research team waiting for you and your patient.”

  “But what about us…Michael and me.”

  “As far as I know, the two of you are going there too.”

  “But this is way beyond us now…the government doesn’t need us anymore. I need to get home to my family and I’m sure Doctor Robinson needs to do the same.”

  “Sorry mam, I’m just relaying to you what I was told,” said the airman. He turned and made his way further into the airplane.

  Michael looked over at Irene, his eyes still red with tears. “What’s going to happen to us? I need to get home to Atlanta and to my wife and children. They can’t hold us as prisoners like this!”

  “Where in the fuck is Roberts!” Irene barked. “We need to talk to him now!”

  ***

  “It’s as we had thought, Admiral,” Roberts said as he talked to Jenkinson through the satellite phone. “They have developed some sort of agent that has been able to reanimate the dead. I guess our suspicions were right all along…they were still working on it. And now it’s loose. The Russians have even used a nuke to try to stop it.”

  “Those sons of bitches!” Jenkinson exclaimed. “We’re getting preliminary reports right now about a detonation over the Ozersk region. I guess that’s the nuke. Oh, and I’m sorry that I didn’t let you know that I had decided to go ahead and send a transport for you. Our satellites had picked up on the Russian bomber leaving its base, so I decided to get things moving before anything bad happened to you.”

  “Thank you very much sir for keeping our safety in mind. Also, I think this is going to be a wors
t case scenario. It is being transmitted at an unprecedented rate, and I believe that the only way it can be contained is through military action. If this gets back to the United States, the effects will be catastrophic. Our social services will be overwhelmed within a matter of days, if not hours.”

  “I am going to notify the chairman and the other chiefs, as well as the Secretary of Defense…I just don’t know when. Until now, the chairman, the National Security Advisor, all of them…they were all under the assumption that we were going there to investigate a possible chemical release. I thought it was best that no one else knew what was really going on. Not even the president knows about our true suspicions. As you’ve seen in the past with the classified information leaks and those fucking traitors who were looking to make a quick buck, this shit would have been all over the front page if we had followed the normal protocols. We’d have mass chaos and hysteria in the streets right now.”

  “Well sir, I definitely think that we need to start some sort of mobilization. If by some chance this does get state side, we have to be ready. In just the few days we spent on the ground in Kazakhstan, I was able to see just how fast it moved and what kind of effect it had on the government. They are currently trying to contain the outbreak through airstrikes, but I think it’s too late for them. You know the American people, as well as the politicians would never condone military action of that type on U.S. soil. There would be protests and political posturing and by the time they figured out what to do, it would be too late.”

  “When you get to Maryland, there will be a team waiting for you and the two civilians. I need everything you can give me, Conrad. Infection rates, theories, scenarios, any possible vaccines, vulnerabilities, strong points…I mean everything, son. We will have several subjects there available for exposure, testing and research.”

  Roberts pulled the phone away from his ear for a moment and looked at the handset. He couldn’t believe what he had just heard. He repositioned the phone and said, “Primates?”

  “Humans,” Jenkinson said dispassionately.

  Roberts took a moment to process the last bit of their conversation and then said, “I’m concerned about the deployment of the nuke.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, that might have complicated matters.”

  “In what way?” the admiral asked.

  “Well, if the agent is spread through an airborne process, then with a nuclear detonation, there is a chance that the fall out will reach the stratosphere and circulate around the globe. Kind of like with Chernobyl. There was radiation showing up on the west coast just a little over a week after that explosion.”

  “Damn, so the Russians might have just infected the rest of the world with their demon seed?”

  “Yes sir, there’s a strong possibility that they may have done just that.”

  “Then God help us. I’ll get ahold of the chairman and we’ll be awaiting your arrival. Take care of yourself, Conrad. And don’t worry, your family is already in a safe location, just like we had talked about earlier.”

  “Thank you very much, sir. Knowing that, I can throw myself at this thing completely now that I know that my family is being taken care of. I’ll see you in Maryland.”

  Roberts pushed down the small antennae of the phone and tucked it away in his cargo pants. He knew that he needed to return to Irene and Michael to explain to them what was going to take place, but he found himself needing a brief moment of solitude before he did so. The enormity of what was facing him was beginning to overwhelm him, and even though he liked to think of himself as being tough as nails and unbreakable, he felt doubt and fear creeping into his mind. He found a little corner in the plane and he knelt down, reciting a prayer that his mother had taught him as a boy.

  ***

  White House Situation Room, Washington, D.C.

  “How big was it?” President Dominic Haddock asked his National Security Advisor. Caught off-guard by the sudden event, had barely been able to change from his gym clothes to some casual attire consisting of khaki pants and a button-down shirt. As he sat at the conference table, he patted a small tissue at the sweat that was still beading on his forehead from his vigorous work out. He then flipped through several pages of data that had been handed to him. Although he was reading the information on the paper, he couldn’t process it. He was still in shock from learning that the Russians had just detonated a nuclear weapon.

  “From everything we can gather, seems like it was air launched…maybe with a two-hundred kiloton blast radius…enough to do some heavy damage to whatever they used it on,” said National Security Advisor Neal Perryman. He loosened his tie, unbuttoned the top button to his shirt and he stood over the president’s shoulder, going over the tables and charts on the papers that the president was looking at.

  “Okay Neal, get me President Moroshkin.” Haddock was trying to suppress his frustration. “Those arrogant bastards! They just can’t go and drop a nuclear bomb and not tell us about it!” Realizing that his angry and elevated voice had caught the attention of some of the staffers who were nervously working the communications stations nearby, he apologized. “Sorry about that.”

  “You have every right to be upset,” Perryman said. “This is the first time a nuclear weapon has been used since the end of World War Two, so I’d say it’s rather understandable that you’re upset that you weren’t notified about it. As far as Moroshkin goes, we’re trying, but we keep getting the same damned response. I really think that he’s on the move right now. I think that maybe he and his staff are being evacuated to a more secure location.”

  “You think so?” Haddock asked.

  “I do. For them to drop a nuclear bomb and not notify anyone of their intentions indicates that things are getting way out of control over there. It makes you wonder who is really calling the shots.”

  “Well, I want to find out what’s making them nuke their own backyard…like right now,” the president said. “Get the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff over here. I want a report on what his team has learned over in Kazakhstan.”

  “He’s already on his way, as well as the Secretary of Defense.” Perryman stood up and walked over to a bubbling coffee brewer, pouring a cup of coffee into a large blue ceramic mug. He walked back to the conference table and handed it over to the president. “Here, I know you’ll need this…you always do.”

  Haddock took the cup and looked at Perryman with a grateful expression. “How many world crisis have we handled since we took office?” he jokingly asked.

  “Enough to know that you like it strong and black,” Perryman said.

  “That’s the only way it was meant to be taken,” Haddock said. “Now, let’s go ahead and go through the normal routine…all forces on world-wide alert and we need to move another battle group to the Arabian Sea. Also, we need to get a dialogue going with the N.A.T.O. members.”

  “Homeland Security is on the way here too, along with the Director for C.D.C.,” Perryman added. “If that disease or virus or whatever it is that’s going on over there is spreading, we need to know what we can do in order to deal with it if it reaches here. We can start to formulate a public service message.”

  “I was mulling that one over,” Haddock said, “about notifying the public right now. I don’t necessarily want to spark a panic if I don’t have to.”

  “I think it’s the right move, Mister President,” Perryman said. “We’re not sure how far this is going to spread. It seems like it’s moving pretty damn fast right now. We’ve got some reports indicating that communications have been lost with some of the affected areas. If that’s true, then whatever it is, it must be catastrophic. I’m sure most of Europe is already bracing for this. We might as well be ready too.”

  “And we’re pretty sure that this is a result of the accident there in Ozersk?” Haddock asked.

  “That’s what we’re getting.” Perryman sat down and flipped open a brown folder, thumbing through the file inside. “Looks like this place
was pretty much under the radar when it came to bio-weapons research. The Russians did a damn good job of keeping the town under wraps. We knew that they were still making nuclear material, but we didn’t have any real confirmation that they were actively making any biological stuff. From the way everything is playing out, it seems like whatever they were doing, it blew up in their faces. Literally. Problem is, we don’t know what they were working on.” Closing the folder, Perryman sighed and added, “Unfortunately, whatever they were working on scared them enough to make them use a nuclear bomb on it.”

  “And of course, they aren’t acknowledging anything,” Haddock said. He sighed and took a sip from his coffee mug.

  “Naturally,” Perryman agreed. “Would you?”

  Haddock leaned back in his chair and curled his bottom lip, nibbling on it slightly. “That’s a hard one.” He rubbed his fingers over the stubble on his chin. “The ethical thing to do would be to notify at least someone about what happened, but then again, you know how ethics get thrown right out of the window when it comes to national interests.”

  “Spoken like a true politician,” Perryman said in a satirical tone.

  “Well, sometimes politics has to come into play not only here, but on the global stage as well. Especially when it relates to your standing in the world order. And we all know the Russians don’t care for their current position in that order.”

  “Like I said, spoken like a true politician.”

  “Uh, well, we better go ahead and get the Attorney General over here too. If something does start on this side, we need to be up to steam on what our law enforcement agencies can and can’t handle…especially if things get to the point of martial. Also, I want the National Guard on alert. I want certain elements to be in place so we can have at least some kind of head-start on this. Primarily medical units and the military police.”