A humid breeze slapped a yellowed page of newspaper against his leg, wrapping it around his calf and ankle. He bent down and pulled the paper away, crumbled it into a ball, and tossed it back into the street where it was lost among the general detritus of weeks-old, stained fast-food wrappers, cardboard coffee cups, and other trash of a type not generated anymore in the Quarantine Zone.
Derek looked north up the street and then south. As far as he could see in either direction cars, SUVs and other cannibalized or burned-out abandoned vehicles choked Route A1A.
He looked across the street and watched as three young men dressed in T-shirts and jeans — men probably in their late teens or early twenties, Derek thought — walked up to the display window of a men’s clothing store, formed a tight huddle, and then looked around. One of the young men reached behind his back under his T-shirt and pulled out a foot-long, souvenir-size baseball bat. He used the small bat to smash the store’s plate glass window.
The young men took their time reaching through the broken pane into the window’s display area. They seemed unfazed by the wailing burglar alarm they’d triggered.
Derek considered putting the young men on camera and commenting on their brazen lawlessness as a graphic example of the burgeoning crime rate taking hold in the Quarantine Zone. He decided to let it ride and do nothing. Better, he thought, to avoid calling attention to myself and possibly awakening the frustration and anger of the young men and having them direct that anger toward me. Anyway, he thought, looting isn’t even news anymore.
He watched as a pack of feral dogs quickly crossed the street, their noses gliding just above the ground, sniffing trash and garbage strewn in their path as they jogged onward. Two dogs jumped up against an over-flowing trash can, knocking it over and spilling its contents. The pack leaped as one fluid unit into the trash pile and rooted around, yelping and barking.
Derek brushed himself off and slicked back his hair with his sweating palms. He faced the camera, but warily watched the dogs from the corner of his eyes. He held his clipboard and notes in one hand and his wrinkled, damp, paisley red bandana in the other.
He looked directly into the lens, squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and assumed his practiced, self-assured TV reporter-type demeanor. Out of view of the camera his left foot tapped a drum roll.
The camera’s red light blinked, Derek’s producer said, “Take it, Derek,” into Derek’s earbud, and the cameraman pointed his finger at Derek. Derek began that day’s broadcast.
CHAPTER 35
Quarantine
Day 7
The six soldiers in front of the ER’s entrance barely completed firing their rounds at the approaching civilians when Trace and Isabella instinctively abandoned the blanket, the water bottle, and Pete’s backpack, and rushed away. They didn’t say a word as they put as much distance as they could, as fast as they were able, between themselves and the hostile soldiers.
Twenty minutes later Trace stood at the foot of the bed looking at Pete and Isabella as he thought about the shooting at the ER entrance.
Pete was lying on his back, shivering, covered to his chin by two light wool blankets. His face was red, his eyes watery slits.
Trace thought Pete seemed to be in that nether state somewhere between sleep and feverish consciousness. The blankets rose and fell like automobile engine pistons, pumping as Pete wheezed air in and out of his lungs.
Isabella sat on the edge of the bed. She had one hand on Pete’s covered chest as if to reassure him he wasn’t alone. She wiped his face, neck and forehead with her other hand, using a damp cloth.
Bella looks tired and frail, haggard, Trace thought.
“Bella, can I do anything for you?”
Isabella didn’t turn away from Pete to answer. She looked at Trace from the corner of her eyes, then slowly turned her head toward him.
“I’m just tired and worried,” she said. “I’ll be all right.”
Trace walked over and put his hand on her arm. He lightly pressed his thigh against her shoulder, but felt her stiffen under his touch. He opened his mouth to comment, but caught himself and let it pass. He pulled his hand back and moved away.
A few minutes later Trace sat in the living room. He reached over, picked up the Fort Lauderdale YELLOW PAGES and opened the book to the listing of PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS. He’d already crossed-out more than half the names that morning when he’d tried to find a doctor for Pete before he and Bella had taken him to the ER. Now, he picked up his pencil and cell phone to try the few remaining names on the list.
The results of the morning’s telephone calls repeated themselves in Trace’s head. The doctors’ taped messages were predictably similar: you have reached the medical office of dr. x. we are closed until further notice. there is no medication stored on the premises. if this is an emergency, please visit your local hospital emergency room. Click.
Right, Trace thought. Visit the ER after what they said on TV and after what we just saw.
This time, however, one doctor’s message caught Trace’s attention with its unique ending: if you are calling because someone you know is or might be suffering from the terrorists’ bioagent, Melioidosis, please be aware that the united states food and drug administration has temporarily removed the requirement that a physician’s prescription is necessary to obtain related palliative medications.
Trace redialed to be sure he’d heard the tape correctly. He had. This time, however, he focused on the very last part of the message:
such medication currently is not available at this office. we expect it to be available again as soon as the centers for disease control and prevention delivers a promised supply of this medication and others to fort lauderdale. limited supplies of this medication still might be available at local hospital emergency rooms or from your neighborhood pharmacy.
Trace put down the telephone book and plugged his cell phone into the wall charger. Then he went back to Pete’s bedroom.
“Any change?” he asked.
Isabella shook her head.
He walked to the bed, kissed Isabella, and put his hand on Pete’s forehead. Pete was still burning up. Trace thought the red hue of Pete’s rash seemed more intense than before and that the rash now had become crusty and flaking. He wondered if this was significant, but didn’t raise the point with Isabella. He also worried about Pete’s rapid, shallow breathing and wheezing. He didn’t know what it signified, but he figured it couldn’t be good.
“He’s been shivering,” Isabella said, as if she’d read Trace’s mind. “He’s extremely hot, but he’s shivering. His fever won’t break.”
Trace put his arm around Isabella’s shoulders and said, “Bella, I’m going out again to try to find an open drugstore.”
Isabella nodded.
“I’ll be back before curfew. If not, I’ll call.”
He started to walk out of the room.
“Trace. . . .”
“What?” he said, turning back.
“Be careful. I can’t have anything happen to you, too.”
“Trace, is that you?” Isabella called from the back bedroom.
“It’s me,” he said. He’d made it back just before curfew.
He shook his head in answer to Nanna’s inquisitive look as he walked past her through the living room on his way to Pete’s bedroom.
It seemed to him that Isabella hadn’t moved since earlier in the day. She still sat on the side of the bed holding a damp washrag in one hand and resting her other hand on Pete’s chest.
“Did you get medicine?”
Trace slowly shook his head. “Nothing was open. At least no drugstore I could find,” he said.
Isabella sighed. She patted Pete’s forehead with the washrag.
“What’re we going to do?” she said, looking at Trace. “He’s no better. Maybe even worse.” She turned back to Pete.
“We have to keep him stable,” Trace said, “until the CDC delivers the meds it promised.” He told her abo
ut the recorded message he’s heard before he went out. “We need to break his fever and just hold on.”
“His rash is spreading to his chest,” Isabella said.
“Pete will be all right,” Trace said. “We just have to control his fever until the CDC delivers the meds. Any time now.”
Trace briefly closed his eyes and thought about the SEALs’ Rule of Three. What are the three courses of action he should choose from in this situation? he wondered. What would be the best move to make among them?
CHAPTER 36
Quarantine
Day 9
A little more than one week after the president addressed the nation and declared Fort Lauderdale a quarantine zone subject to martial law, Viktor Rutkowska felt troubled by the reminders of his Soviet/Russian past that the speech stirred up for him. If he had closed his eyes and imagined that the speech had emanated from the Kremlin rather than from somewhere in Maryland, near Washington, DC, the president’s words would have been clear: The president had turned Fort Lauderdale into a gulag-style detention camp.
Viktor decided he had to see for himself what this concept meant in America.
Viktor drove to Route A1A where it bordered the beach. Sure enough, just as the newsreader had said, the border between the beach and the highway, as far as the eye could see in either direction, north and south, was delimited by a steel hurricane fence topped with coiled razor wire.
Just like at a gulag, Viktor thought.
The images this evoked for Viktor were memories he thought he’d disposed of for good. Wasn’t that why, when he left the military and opted for a resort to retire in, he’d chosen to move to the United States to be near his younger sister and her worthless American husband in the tropical climate of south Florida, in the so-called land and home of the free? Isn’t that why he hadn’t settled in the resort town of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea like so many of his retired Spetsnaz comrades?
Viktor turned his jeep away from the beach and headed inland. He would perform two tasks: first he would stop by his gun shop which today, as always, was closed on Sunday, and retrieve some weapons and ammunition to take home just in case he needed them to protect himself. Then he would go to his sister’s house and meet with Svetlana to be sure she understood the full ramifications of what was happening in Fort Lauderdale.
Unfortunately, at age forty-one now, Svetlana had been too young when she lived in Mother Russia to understand the import of the gulags. He, her older brother, would have to explain the facts of life to her. Her unworthy husband probably would never understand.
This was not why I came to live in America, Viktor thought.
CHAPTER 37
Quarantine
Day 9
When Trace returned to Nanna’s condo from the condominium association’s community swimming pool where he’d gone twenty minutes earlier to smoke a cigarette and stretch his legs, he hesitated just inside the door. The apartment seemed preternaturally quiet.
He looked around.
Nanna was stretched out on the sofa, her eyes open. He didn’t see Isabella, but he expected that. She likely still was sitting at Pete’s bedside. When he looked across the living room toward their bedroom, he noticed the closed door.
Nanna sat up as Trace started to cross the room. She held her finger up to her lips in a shhhh signal.
Trace nodded.
“Can I get you anything?” she whispered.
Trace shook his head. “How’s Pete?”
“The same. Bella’s lying down, resting.”
Trace walked back to Pete’s room. The shades were drawn, the lights out, and the room dark. As far as he could tell, Pete was asleep, lying on his side facing the wall. Trace leaned over the bed, but couldn’t get close enough to see Pete’s face. He reached across the bed and put his hand on Pete’s forehead.
Pete didn’t stir.
He seemed cooler than Trace remembered, but not yet normal.
The keening woke them from their deep sleep at 3:20 a.m.
Trace and Isabella launched themselves from bed, tried to rub sleep from their eyes, communicating silently that they must hurry to Pete’s room.
Pete moaned. He tossed and turned and shivered. He intermittingly sobbed loudly. Tears ran down his cheeks. His teeth chattered from fever.
He never opened his eyes.
Trace and Isabella spent the rest of the night sitting by his bed, wordless in their worry. They intermittingly dozed in their chairs, but jerked up their heads from time-to-time when they caught sleep trying to reclaim them. Neither acknowledged to the other the felt futility of sitting by Pete’s bed in the early morning hours, fighting sleep, helplessly watching their son suffer. They held hands.
At 5:16 a.m., Isabella’s hand went limp and became a dead weight in Trace’s. He looked over at her. She was napping. Her chin had dropped to her chest. She snored softly.
He looked at Pete. Something in his posture, in the way he was lying on the bed, struck Trace as different. He seemed smaller, more constricted, more frail than before, but Trace couldn’t bring the change into recognizable focus, nor could he attribute meaning or significance to it. He just sensed there had been some change.
Trace reached over and touched Pete’s forehead. He reflexively pulled his hand back. Pete was noticeably hotter than before.
He sat back in his chair. Tension blossomed in his shoulders and neck bringing with it nascent pain that he knew would develop into a major ache if he didn’t quickly get it under control.
He decided to practice the sitting meditation exercise he’d learned when he studied Chinese martial arts. The exercise was similar to the four-count breathing exercise he’d learned as a SEAL, and achieved the same result.
Trace inhaled slowly and deeply to calm himself, counting to four. He held his breath for a few seconds, then let it out, again to a four-count, fully emptying his lungs. He paid attention only to his breathing. He did not feel the stress leach from his body as he’d expected.
CHAPTER 38
Quarantine
Day 9
The deputy secretary of defense looked at his watch and frowned. He made no attempt to be subtle about his impatience. He was ready to end this meeting with his senior staff and with the senior participants attending from the Departments of Health & Human Services and from Homeland Security. He had already spent more time in this meeting today than he’d allocated to discuss Fort Lauderdale’s quarantine.
“That leaves only you, Dr. Pryor,” he said to the undersecretary for HHS. “What’s your report? Please keep it brief.”
“Yes, Sir. Thank you,” she said, as she stood up and walked to the podium at the front of the small conference room located in the E-ring of the Pentagon.
“We are ready to make air deliveries of antibiotics directly into the Quarantine Zone on behalf of the CDC. We also have some ancillary meds that will give people other relief they might need, meds such as Insulin, heart meds, etc., the usual stuff for chronic ailments.
“The CDC has arranged for the reopening of pharmacies in the Quarantine Zone as soon as the meds are available there. All we need is for you to give the go-word, Sir,” she said, turning toward the deputy secretary. “The national guard is standing by to make the delivery.” She nodded and walked back to her seat.
The deputy secretary walked back to the podium. “There won’t be any go-word,” he said. “There’s been a change of plans.”
The HHS undersecretary looked confused. “I’m sorry, Sir, but did I hear you right? Did you say—”
“You heard me correctly.”
Although the deputy wouldn’t tell the undersecretary or anyone else at the meeting, his boss, the secretary of defense, had made the decision to ratchet up the stakes in the Quarantine Zone by posting notices around Fort Lauderdale indicating that meds would soon be delivered by the federal government, then secretly withholding the meds. This would surely put pressure on the control population so the Pentagon could see how they would
react.
“But, Sir—” the undersecretary said.
“Madam Undersecretary, listen up,” the deputy secretary said, cutting her off. He paused until he was certain he had her full attention. Then he looked hard into her eyes and said, “This is not open for debate. This discussion is over.”
The HHS undersecretary was stunned by this revelation.
“But, Sir, if it gets out that we don’t have medication to offer, even if it’s only to treat symptoms, we’ll have a nightmare scenario on our hands. You’ll be pitting one group of people against another once the quarantine population realizes meds are unavailable or are being rationed. It will be chaos.”
“That’s the way it’s going to be,” the deputy said. He paused and looked around the room. “This meeting is over.”
CHAPTER 39
Quarantine
Day 11
Trace, still curled up in the chair next to Pete’s bed, woke with a start. He looked over and saw Pete sleeping on his side, still facing the wall. He looked at Isabella’s wingback chair pulled up alongside Pete’s bed. It was empty.
He stood and reached for the ceiling, stretching his arms and back; then he rotated his neck and shoulders. He leaned over and touched Pete’s forehead. Still hot.
Trace walked into the living room, looking for Isabella, checking his watch as he did so. It was ten minutes after nine. Nanna was asleep on the sofa. Isabella wasn’t anywhere in sight.
He went to their bedroom where he found Isabella sleeping. He leaned over and kissed her forehead, then tiptoed out and quietly closed the door.
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