Calypso Directive

by Brian Andrews

  “All right boys, I’m sure this is all very interesting, but we have a timetable to meet. Our ride is waiting,” Albane said. “VanCleave, we’ll be live in twenty minutes.”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  “Yes, I understand, Madame Viskaya, but we were not made aware of this inspection, so I have no authorization to let you into the facility,” the sturdy woman at the reception desk insisted.

  A small crowd had gathered in the lobby of the Chiarek Norse research hospital. The day manager had been called down from her office, and despite her bulldogged stance, was beginning to sweat. Two security guards had also joined the mix. The senior guard, a heavyset middle-aged man with dark circles under his eyes, and the door guard, a tall, muscular boy of about nineteen, had taken post on opposing corners of the desk. Like a pair of unmatched bookends they stood at attention, gargoyle and knight. Standing opposite the day manager was Veronika Viskaya with her hands planted firmly on the desk leaning forward over a stack of official Ministry of Health inspection documents she had ramrodded through the proper channels an hour earlier. To her left stood Albane Mesnil, and to her right Kalen Immel. They were dressed in fine dark-colored suits tailored in the physique-accentuating European fashion. Veronika had taken the lead and assumed a direct and assertive posturing. Kalen feigned boredom, frequently yawning and checking his watch. Albane had remained silent, but was passively garnering the attention of the male security guards.

  Think Tank Scenario Bravo Fourteen Delta was proceeding precisely according to plan.

  “Of course you do not have pre-authorization. This is a surprise inspection. If the Ministry were to inform your management in advance, it would no longer be a surprise, now would it?” Veronika barked in Czech.

  “This is a secure building, and I simply cannot let someone walk in from the street and grant access for a tour,” the day manager retorted.

  “I don’t think you understand. I have official government paperwork here that says that you must make your facility available for a health and safety inspection. We have received information that a biological contamination breach occurred at this very facility within the past seventy-two hours. An inspection is mandatory. We are not asking for your permission, we are informing you that we will be conducting the inspection and demand your cooperation.”

  “I am sorry, Madame Inspector, but we are under strict instructions that no unauthorized personnel may enter these premises at any time for any reason,” the woman replied with conviction. “I am authorized to order the guards to use force to protect this mandate.”

  Veronika looked at Albane.

  Albane removed her eyeglasses, carefully folded them, and placed them inside her breast pocket. She then stared directly into the reception attendant’s eyes, holding the gaze in silence until the other woman looked away. Then she removed her mobile phone from its belt holster and began to dial.

  The woman fidgeted. “What are you doing? Who are you calling?”

  “This facility is hereby closed, until further notice by the Ministry of Health. I am calling the state police,” Albane replied stoically in Czech.

  “What? You can’t do that!”

  “I can, and I am.” Albane leaned forward, pretending to strain to read the name tag on the woman’s shirt. “Not to worry, Ms. Provst, in my report I will be sure to document that you were steadfast in your truculence and hindrance of official Ministry business. I’m certain that your management will take your loyalty into consideration when they are rehiring security positions six months from now when the facility reopens.”

  “What? You can’t close this facility for six months! How am I supposed to provide for my family?”

  “It is funny that you keep telling me what I can and cannot do. The Ministry does not care about your opinion. Now, either you give me your full cooperation this instant, or you and your coworkers will all be arrested by the state police. Do I make myself clear?” Albane slammed the bottom of her clenched fist on the reception desk with such force that Ms. Provst, the security guards, and even Veronika, were startled.

  “Okay. Please, please do not call the state police. You will have our cooperation. I have never had one of these inspections before. What do we need to do?”

  Albane put her mobile phone back into its holster. “It’s quite simple really. Madame Viskaya will stay here and interview you. Once your interview is complete, then you can begin filling out the official paperwork, while she interviews the guards. My colleague and I will tour the facility and then conduct a record review.”

  “How long will the inspection last?”

  “That depends on what we find, now doesn’t it?”

  “We have a shift change soon.”

  “That’s okay, we don’t mind. You will need to make sure that someone is available during the next shift to answer our questions should we have any. If the hour grows late and the record audit is not complete, we’ll return in the morning to finish.”

  “But, I’m not sure that—”

  Albane interrupted, “But, nothing. We are wasting time.” She then retrieved her eyeglasses with hidden nano-camera technology from her suit pocket, and put them on. “The first thing we’ll need to look at are the blueprints of this building.”

  C. Remy—RS:Coordinator: “Technical online?”

  E. VanCleave—RS:Technical: “Technical online.”

  C. Remy—RS:Coordinator: “Technical, report status of acquiring network access.”

  E. VanCleave—RS:Technical: “Negative access. Bio is a go for entry.”

  C. Remy—RS:Coordinator: “Bio, online?”

  A. Archer—RS:Bio: “This is Bio, I copy you.”

  C. Remy—RS:Coordinator: “You are a go for entry. Social has scanned the building plans. I am uploading the data now.”

  A. Archer—RS:Bio: “Is my route inside the building mapped yet?”

  C. Remy—RS:Coordinator: “Standby. I’ll advise you when it is . . . Electrician online?”

  Local Embed—Electrician: “This is the Electrician, online and in position at the underground electrical distribution box. Standing by to cut power on your mark.”

  C. Remy—RS:Coordinator: “Roger. What about the backup generator?”

  Local Embed—Electrician: “Disabled.”

  C. Remy—RS:Coordinator: “Roger . . . Physical, this is the Coordinator. All Resources are in position, you’re a go for blocking the door.”

  The middle-aged security guard flashed Albane a furtive grin; she pretended not to notice. After twenty-three years working security, smiling was as foreign to the muscles of his face as performing a cartwheel is to a nursing home patient. Even after the tongue lashing Albane had given Ms. Provst, Officer Clive Moderkiek had eagerly volunteered to escort the inspectors during their tour of the facility. It was not for fear of losing his job; he wasn’t worried about that. It was simply to be near her. He had never encountered a woman as beautiful and confident as this Inspector woman before, and now he was captured by her gravity.

  “Officer Moderkiek, please show us where the contamination breach occurred,” Albane directed in Czech.

  “Do you mean the emergency exit where the patient escaped?”

  “Yes. We can start there and work backward. I want to see the exact path that he took. I want to know how he escaped from his room and got outside this building.”

  “Okay, no problem. All compromised areas have been thoroughly decontaminated. Follow me,” Moderkiek said. Leaving his colleagues behind in the lobby with Veronika, Moderkiek led Albane and Kalen past the elevator bank and through a closed door with an exit sign overhead.

  “This is an old building. The elevators were not installed until the 1980s. At one time, this stairwell was the main stairwell for traveling between all the floors of the building, but now it functions as the emergency exit. During the incident, the patient jumped from the fourth floor and landed here,” Moderkiek explained.

  Albane looked down at the concrete floor. �
��How did he accomplish such a feat without injury?”

  “I wasn’t on duty that night, but the story is that he tied bedsheets together into a rope and used it to repel down to the ground.”

  Kalen snorted.

  “Interesting. What did he do next?” Albane asked.

  “He went through this door to Corridor E. At the end of the corridor is the emergency exit door which leads to the street.”

  “Show us.”

  “There is nothing to show. It is a typical emergency exit door.”

  “I want you to show us anyway.”

  The guard nodded obediently and led the pair down the long empty corridor until they arrived at the red metal door. “See, just a door.”

  “Does this door have a magnetic lock?”

  “No,” the guard replied quizzically.

  “So my colleague can just push it open?”

  “Of course, it’s an emergency exit . . . Hey, what are you doing? Don’t open that. The alarm will sound!”

  A shrill pulsating alarm reverberated in Corridor E, and white strobes on the emergency exit sign above the door flashed. Kalen had opened the red door and was pretending to peer outside onto the street. With his hip depressing the horizontal rocker bar, he used his body to block the guard’s view of the lock mechanism. In his left hand, he held a small cylinder—the size of a tube of lipstick—which contained a quick-dry epoxy adhesive mixed with propellant. He sprayed the adhesive liberally over the door latch mechanism while it was retracted. The epoxy film hardened on contact, instantly seizing the latch. Behind him, he could hear the security guard yelling, arguing with Albane. He released the rocker arm, looking down to make sure the latch did not spring back into position. It did not. He then let the door swing shut and turned to face the others, while slipping the epoxy back into his pocket with the fluidity of a magician.

  “What the hell did you do that for? That is a security violation. I have to file a report on all security violations,” Moderkiek complained.

  “Officer Moderkiek,” Albane said, “This emergency exit door was the point of a major contamination breech. We are here to evaluate the level of biosecurity for this facility. I see absolutely no controls in place at this boundary for biosecurity. This door can be opened by anyone.”

  “With all due respect, Madame Inspector, this door is an emergency exit. It is supposed to be free to open without any interference. If this door were locked, then during a fire anyone trapped inside corridor would die! Fire escapes are not biosecurity boundaries. Biosecurity is established via access checkpoints on each floor of the building, according to the classification of the work being conducted on the floor. The convention we use here is that Building Level Four, in other words the fourth floor, has BioSafety Level Four controls. The third floor has BioSafety Level Three controls. That way it is not confusing. You can only imagine the mess we’d have if the third floor had Level Four controls and the fourth floor had Level Three controls,” Moderkiek explained, chuckling as did.

  “Yes, well, that is one way of doing it, I suppose. We can talk about that later with our supervisors. Now, take us to the biosecurity access point on Level Four. We want to see the controls you have in place there.”

  • • •

  C. Remy—RS:Coordinator: “Bio, this is the Coordinator. Take station at the emergency exit door.”

  A. Archer—RS:Bio: “This is Bio, roger that. Moving into position.”

  C. Remy—RS:Coordinator: “Electrician, standby to cut power.”

  Local Embed—RS:Electrician: “Standing by.”

  A. Archer—RS:Bio: “Coordinator, this is Bio. How is the video feed from my glasses?”

  C. Remy—RS:Coordinator: “Receiving your feed on two-second time delay. It looks good.”

  A. Archer—RS:Bio: “I’m in position now.”

  C. Remy—RS:Coordinator: “Electrician, cut the power.”

  Local Embed—RS:Electrician: “The power is off. Standing by to restore power on your mark.”

  C. Remy—RS:Coordinator: “Bio, you are a go for entry.”

  A. Archer—RS:Bio: “Roger, I’m going in.”

  AJ pressed the flat bottom of the star-shaped knob against the metal surface of the emergency exit door and turned it ninety degrees clockwise, just like Kalen had instructed him to do. From the street, the emergency exit door had no handle, so AJ needed to make one. Kalen had called the device a vacuum clamp; it worked like a suction cup, except it was orders of magnitude stronger and could adhere to virtually any solid surface. Turn it ninety degrees clockwise to engage, ninety degrees counterclockwise to disengage. Presto, instant doorknob.

  AJ took a deep breath and pulled. The emergency exit door swung open with ease, the latch mechanism still frozen in the retracted position by Kalen’s epoxy. AJ removed the vacuum clamp, slipped it back into his pocket, and stepped across the threshold. Corridor E was pitch dark, save the shrinking triangle of daylight that disappeared quickly as the door swung shut behind him. He had only eight minutes of darkness to complete the mission and no time to waste second-guessing. He needed to move. He extended his arms and walked at forty-five degree angle to his right, until his hand bumped into the wall. He turned his hand to the thumb down position so that his right palm laid flat against the wall. With a surface to guide him and aid his balance, AJ shuffled down the corridor.

  C. Remy—RS:Coordinator: “Bio, report?”

  The sound of C. Remy’s voice suddenly in his ear startled AJ, almost causing him to trip.

  A. Archer—RS:Bio: “I’m inside, moving down Corridor E, but it’s pitch black.”

  C. Remy—RS:Coordinator: “Why aren’t you using your light?”

  A. Archer—RS:Bio: “Because . . . because I forgot I had a light.”

  AJ reached into the left pocket of his navy blue maintenance worker coveralls and retrieved the LED minilight. The beam from the flashlight illuminated a fifteen-foot cone in front of him. He jogged to the end of the corridor and then pressed his ear up against the door. He heard nothing. With the building power off and the elevators inoperable, traversing the stairs would be his biggest risk of counterdetection.

  He turned off his light, opened the door, and crept into the bottom of the stairwell. Overhead, he heard another door swing open, followed by the sound of footsteps, then the door slammed shut with a reverberating echo. On a metal landing somewhere above him, two men began arguing heatedly in Czech; their individual flashlight beams zigzagged wildly over the concrete walls as they gestured.

  He hesitated.

  He had two choices: Slink up the stairs to the second floor now using their argument as a distraction, or wait for them to leave. With option one he risked an ill-fated mid-stair encounter; with option two he risked being pinned down too long to complete his mission.

  His heart pounded.

  He wanted someone to tell him what to do, but this time, he was on his own.

  • • •

  A BEAD OF sweat rolled down Albane’s forehead. It was hot, uncomfortable, and rank inside the yellow biosafety suit, but she was smiling. Smiling in the dark. Scenario Bravo Fourteen Delta was going swimmingly. As soon as the power had gone out Officer Moderkiek had begun to panic. He had instructed his two charges to stay put at the security checkpoint at Corridor C, while he went back through the double doors to talk with another guard about checking on the emergency diesel generator. But staying put was the last thing she and Kalen intended to do. Nicolora had unexpectedly changed the Op Plan to include accessing the Level Four laboratory. No further explanation had been given. The instructions were simple, search for and retrieve any samples related to Vyrogen’s secret formula. Entering the Chiarek Norse facility had gone smoothly. Exiting with the samples in hand and without blowing their cover was another matter altogether. Their success going forward hinged solely on Kalen’s talents.

  Albane nudged Kalen.

  “Ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s go. Before Mo
derkiek comes back.”

  In all the years Moderkiek had worked in the building, he could recall losing power only once, and that time the emergency diesel generator on the roof had kicked on automatically. He was angry. The timing of this power outage could not have been worse for the Chiarek Norse security detail. First, the infected American escaped, and now this. With government inspectors present no less! He wanted to scream, and so he did, at the Corridor B security guard. Arguing with his colleague didn’t solve anything, but it did make him feel better. It was imperative that someone check the diesel generator, but he did not want that someone to be him. He had assigned himself the responsibility of escorting the beautiful inspector woman, a responsibility he had no intention of delegating. Unfortunately, the Corridor B security guard was steadfast in defending his obligation to remain at his post at the BioSecurity Level Four boundary door. As much as Moderkiek wanted to overrule the junior guard, he could not. As the senior guard on duty, if he could not find another guard to check on the diesel generator, he would have to do it himself.

  From the corner of his eye, Moderkeik caught a glimpse of a flashlight moving in the stairwell below. He abruptly stopped yelling at the Level Four guard and peered down into the darkness. Someone had just entered the stairwell on the ground floor. Good. Whoever it was, Moderkeik would order him to check the diesel generator, so he could quickly return to his official escort duties.

  AJ’s legs seemed to make the decision for him, because he felt his body moving while his brain was still engaged in debate. He powered on the LED flashlight and aimed the beam downward toward the stairs. He could not afford an untimely tumble. Besides, all facility employees would be using flashlights—to do otherwise would be conspicuous.

  To his dismay, the stairwell fell silent. A deep, angry voice bellowed in Czech above him. He knew the utterance was directed at him, but since he didn’t speak Czech, he was unable to translate.

  He kept moving.

  The voice called out again.

  He did not look up. Only a few meters left to go. As he reached for the door handle to access Level Two, he heard footsteps echoing above. He yanked and the door opened freely. He was in.