“Okay.” He looked Roth in the eye. “The risks of bringing that aircraft back to the mainland of North America, let alone to any warmer climate, are enormous and, in my view, unwarranted. In theory, the absolute worst-case scenario with a pathogen as bad and infectious and contagious as we think this one could be is that it could lead to an uncontrollable epidemic. Even a worldwide pandemic. I do not want to engage in scare tactics, but truthfully, sir, if such a wave of infection ever got started, it could theoretically depopulate the entire continent of human life! At the very least, it would kill tens of millions. I know science fiction writers have been playing with this theme for years, but this is not fiction! This type of pandemic threat is very real—thanks, to a great extent, to modern aviation.”
There was silence again, until Mark Hastings spoke up in a constrained voice.
“There’s no hope for those aboard Sixty-six? They’re doomed, no matter what?”
Sanders looked at him and raised an index finger.
“Well, maybe, but let’s qualify that. They are probably doomed to die, at least eighty-five percent or more of them, if … IF …”—he waited until he had everyone’s undivided attention, knowing the answer would once again anger Roth—“IF this deceased passenger had in fact been suffering from the precise same malady that killed the two lab researchers in Bavaria. Remember, there has to have been an active case aboard to infect any of the other passengers. If the professor didn’t have an active case, he couldn’t have been throwing viral particles in the air.”
Roth sat forward suddenly. “Thank you, Dr. Sanders. Anyone have anything to add?”
No one volunteered.
“Very well. This is, of course, open to discussion and dissent, but I’m ready to recommend to the White House that we … deny this aircraft reentry into the United States, and impound them—or quarantine them—in Iceland when they land.”
Rusty Sanders had been leaning against the wall. Now he rocked forward on his feet and raised the palm of his right hand.
“Sir? There’s one more very important priority.”
“Go ahead.” Roth folded his hands to listen.
“We need an autopsy on Helms as fast as possible. I’d recommend we get an Army pathology team from Fort Detrick—one skilled in chemical and biological warfare, with full biosafe space suits—on the way by the fastest aircraft, and I’d like to brief them first. You can’t detect a virus like this directly, but even a field autopsy can reveal whether the man died from something more than a simple coronary.” Sanders stood and watched Roth’s face as it alternated between interest and anger for his having brought up the same subject again.
Interest won out.
“See to the arrangements, Dr. Sanders,” Roth said.
There was a small knock at the door as Sherry Ellis, the attractive analyst who had briefed him earlier, moved into the room.
“Sorry to interrupt, but you need to hear this,” she said.
“What now?” Roth asked, shaking his head slightly.
“Our Russian scientist called Zeitner fifteen minutes ago. He wanted to make sure Zeitner understood that the eighty-five percent mortality rate for omega-class pathogens was just a threshold qualification.”
“We understood that,” Rusty Sanders answered.
Sherry nodded and raised an index finger. Her face was ashen. “Yes, but he wanted to let Zeitner know that they had never classified a pathogen as an omega which had less than a one hundred percent kill rate.”
The reaction was stunned silence.
ABOARD FLIGHT 66
In her twenty-three years with the airline, Barb Rollins had never faced a truly serious emergency. “Oh, sure,” she’d tell nonairline friends, “I’ve been scared a few times—mainly when we run out of coffee on a breakfast flight full of suits.”
She closed the cockpit door behind her now and stood in the darkened alcove for a second, her mind racing. The lead flight attendant was expected to be the mother hen of the cabin crew, but she didn’t feel much like a leader. She felt like a scared little girl. There was an unseen predator stalking them, a predator too small and too clever to be fought directly. The thought that it might already be racing around inside her bloodstream was terrifying.
Passengers in the upper-deck area were looking, she noticed, and she smiled at them as she negotiated the stairway to the main deck, standing on the bottom step for a few more seconds.
You’re overreacting, Barb! she told herself. At worst it’s just the flu! But the small, cold center of worry churning her stomach refused to go away. Why would governments react so violently to just a flu bug? What had her passenger really had? What were its symptoms? How fast would it hit them?
James Holland had done a beautiful job with the PA, explaining in smooth, reassuring tones about the fuel stop in Iceland and the uncertain quarantine destination in the United States and the gross overreaction of foreign governments. But it wasn’t enough to stem the feeling of deep alarm and fright that had gripped everyone in the passenger cabin. If they had to wait more than four days, they’d miss Christmas at home, wherever home might be, but the questions fired at her with the staccato pace of a machine gun were almost all about the nature of the disease that had left Frankfurt with them.
Back in Frankfurt the toys and presents and the holiday atmosphere had spilled onto the airplane as if the big Boeing were a giant sleigh, and she’d teased Holland that he should have been flying in a Santa suit. There were students coming home to their families for Christmas, GIs and military families doing the same thing, and a large tour group on their return leg. There was also a scattering of serious-minded businesspeople, plus a few lonely individuals who seemed oblivious to the season, but they were in the minority.
Barb headed toward the back, strolling carefully down the aisle through the coach cabin, letting her eyes make contact with as many people as possible, the way she routinely did. She loved people, though her New York manners got in the way sometimes. More than anything else, she knew, she needed normalcy just now—routine. She needed to think of this as a routine flight.
She flashed her patented flight attendant smile at everyone, while another part of her consciousness stood aside and assessed each of her passengers as if she were narrating a taped memo:
There’s the young man in the bulkhead seat with his leg in a cast. I helped him on. Very courteous. Crutches are stowed in the first class closet. Skiing accident, where? Oh yeah, Switzerland. Handsome young boy, and handling the pain well. Probably shy. He’s spotted that stunning young German girl in the aisle seat, but he doesn’t want his parents to know he’s aching for her. Raging hormones! Probably nineteen, and dangerous. There! He’s stealing another glance at her. He doesn’t see me watching, uh-oh, he sees me. Now he’s mortified. And she’s glancing at him! Interesting.
Hormones … yeah, and there’s that couple that can’t keep their hands off each other, and now she’s snuggled in close and they’ve got a blanket. The old blanket trick! She’s smiling at me. She thinks I can’t tell where their hands are! Barb laughed to herself. She’d done the same thing herself a few times. The trick lay in not wearing too big a smile.
An overweight gentleman was sitting with a very elderly lady. She guessed a mother and son, but guesses were often wrong. The man was looking to his left at a couple across the aisle, and Barb followed his gaze to a young woman in silent hysterics, her husband in the seat next to her trying to calm her. One of the telephone handsets was clutched to her chest, her fist in her mouth. She was sobbing with wide-eyed grief.
Barb leaned over the man, quietly, and gestured to his wife with a tilt of her head. “Excuse me. Is something wrong? Can I do anything for you?”
Keith Erickson looked up, his eyes filled with concern.
“I … I can’t reason with her. When the captain said we might be several days getting home … she’s been distraught over being away from our children. When he said we might miss Christmas …”
&nb
sp; Lisa Erickson looked up at Barb and took her fist out of her mouth. A tiny, agonized voice followed.
“He doesn’t mean it, does he? We can’t miss Christmas! My babies need me! I can’t be away!”
Barb leaned farther in toward the window, toward the wife.
“Mrs.… ah …”
“Erickson,” her husband said. “Lisa.”
“Lisa, now listen. We’re all going be just fine, and you’re probably going to get home by Christmas Eve. The captain was just giving you the worst-case scenario, you know? Everything will be fine. You need to use the phone?”
Lisa Erickson nodded like a frightened child, in staccato motion, then turned to the window and reinserted her fist.
Keith Erickson motioned Barb closer and spoke in her ear.
“I’m sorry. We’ll be okay. She’s already been using the phone. She’s just … very upset.”
Barb found Brenda in the rear galley sitting alone by door 5L while the rest of the cabin crew worked on an accelerated dinner service. Barb put her hand on Brenda’s shoulder and got a tired smile in return.
“How’re you doing, kid?”
“Fine,” Brenda lied. Barb could see the turmoil inside. She didn’t want to contribute to it, but there was an additional duty the captain had saddled her with and it had to be done.
Barb kept her voice low. “You heard the captain’s PA, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. This is the weirdest flight of my life.”
Brenda looked up and Barb could see tears filling her eyes. Her voice was small and shaky when she spoke at last.
“I’m scared, Barb. I’m … going to get sick. I … had direct contact with him! Whatever he had, I’ll get for certain, and I … I don’t know what it was he had, but it killed him, and I …”
Barb sat down beside her and put her arm around Brenda. The younger woman was shaking.
“Brenda, it’ll be okay! It will! There’s no guarantee that you’ll catch whatever he had, and Mr. Helms was decades older than you and probably in bad health. We don’t know.”
Brenda’s head was down, cradled by her hands. She shook it side to side slowly.
“Countries don’t refuse landing clearance to big airliners at Christmas because someone has the flu. If Europe and England are scared of us, we’re in real trouble. I’m in real trouble!” she corrected herself. She looked up at Barb. “That’s why I’m not helping in the galley. I’m probably … dangerous!”
Barb shook her head no, but she was right. “Brenda, did you forget? The captain wanted you and Dee and anyone else who touched him to be reseated upstairs in the upper deck. We’ve got a number of rows of empty seats up there.”
Brenda’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh my!”
“It’s okay,” Barb said.
Brenda nodded. “Yeah, I know. I’m fine. But that just … just …” Her right hand was flailing the air.
“Confirms?” Barb said, regretting it instantly.
Brenda sobbed openly once and nodded.
“Right.”
“Go on, now. Pull yourself together,” Barb told her gently. “Find Dee and get upstairs. This is a paid break, by the way.”
The image of the deceased passenger burning up with fever when she had helped him on board tumbled through Brenda’s head with chilling clarity. He had been sweating, and he’d complained of feeling strange. She remembered the feel of his mouth as she tried to breathe him back to life, and she remembered the panic in his eyes before he lost consciousness. How long, she wondered, do I have?
KEFLAVÍK AIR FORCE BASE, ICELAND
From the control tower the persistent snow flurries carried sideways on a twenty-knot wind from the east obscured much of the runway, but for the past hour the frantic movement of Air Force vehicles in the Arctic night had escalated. The acting tower chief, a senior master sergeant, had already been snapped at once for calling base operations and asking what it was all about, but curiosity was about to kill him. Something was up, and no one wanted to tell him what it was.
“Eddie, look at that! They’re moving the jumbo-sized airstairs down to the west end.” He handed the field glasses to the staff sergeant working ground control. “Earlier they sent a couple of power carts, some light carts, the large tow tractor, and now the big airstairs.”
“Aren’t those for seven-forty-sevens and other jumbos?” the staff sergeant asked.
“Yep. Which has to mean …” The chief made a sweeping motion toward his partner, waiting for him to finish the thought.
The staff sergeant looked puzzled for a second.
“What? Oh. Well, either a commercial jet is diverting in here, which we’ve heard nothing about, or, you must be thinking, Air Force One.”
The chief nodded. “Air Force One is a seven-forty-seven, right? What else could it be?”
The staff sergeant put down the glasses.
“Hate to burst your bubble, but the President’s in D.C. He gave a speech this evening. CNN carried it.”
The chief grabbed the glasses again. The field was awash in vehicles scurrying back and forth to the west end of the field, and two F-15s from Keflavík were flying in the vicinity—a highly unusual occurrence.
“You don’t suppose …” the staff sergeant began.
“What?”
“That story that’s all over CNN about a U.S. airliner being refused landing permission all over Europe because someone’s sick aboard?”
The chief lowered the field glasses and looked at the sergeant.
“Yeah?”
“Could they be coming in here?”
The chief turned to look at the radar scope just as a target crawled onto the display from the west.
ABOARD FLIGHT 66
In the cockpit of Quantum 66, James Holland double-checked the instrument landing system frequency and called for gear down and the final checklist. The pair of F-15 Eagles on either side pulled away slightly as they made the radio calls to Keflavík tower and received landing clearance. At four miles Holland reached up and flicked on the landing lights, expecting a surprised response from the tower controllers. The lights of a 747 couldn’t possibly be mistaken for a flight of Eagles, but there was no response. Holland eased the power back in the flare as Robb called out the last fifty feet in ten-foot increments, and the huge Boeing touched down gently and rolled out adjacent to the tower.
Immediately two small trucks with the lighted sign FOLLOW ME appeared to the right of the runway as a voice came over the tower frequency.
“Sixty-six, follow the ‘Follow Me’s.’ Do not open any doors or hatches, and do not shut down your engines until instructed. Do not open your cockpit windows either.”
“Sixty-six, roger,” Robb replied.
Holland worked the nosewheel steering tiller and the throttles to pivot the 747 around to the taxiway and trundle slowly back to the west. There was a contingent of vehicles waiting, he saw. No fuel trucks, but 747-sized mobile airstairs and a small retinue of other vehicles—including a large articulated fire truck. He expected to see the firemen in bulky, protective garb, but neither pilot expected to have one of the firemen in a big space suit, complete with the full face mask and headgear, holding two lighted wands to guide them to a stop.
Holland followed the man’s signals and turned the 747 back to the east and into the stiff wind, then cut off the taxi lights and brought the ship to a halt. There were several figures moving around in front of the aircraft, and he squinted at them for a closer look. They, too, seemed to be firemen, all of them in the same full-body protective suits. That was very odd. He looked to the left at the airstairs, but no one was moving them into position. Instead, more firemen were now moving around on both sides, each of them carrying something.
“What’s going on out there?” Robb asked.
Holland moved his head to the left, trying to confirm what he was seeing. The snow and the subdued light from several portable light stands made it difficult to tell for certain.
“I’ve go
t a squadron of firemen on this side,” Robb said, “and more coming. What in hell? Do we have hot brakes or something?”
“Turn on the landing lights!” Holland commanded, his face still turned to the left side of the aircraft. His voice carried a note of urgency, and Robb complied, flooding the scene ahead of them with lights and causing the men outside to raise their arms against the sudden brightness.
Dick Robb strained forward in his seat, looking at the strange suits ahead of the airplane. They weren’t the normal silver protective outfits worn by firemen. In fact, they weren’t firemen’s suits at all.
“What the hell are those? What on earth are they wearing?” Robb asked. “And are those guns they’re carrying?”
Holland turned back toward Robb after confirming that virtually everyone outside was encased in the same sort of outfit. A cold feeling of fear began to gnaw away at his stomach.
“Oh shit!” he said.
“What?” Robb asked again.
“Those are protective suits … chem-warfare suits. I’m all too familiar with them from the Air Force.”
“Protective suits? Protecting against what?”
Holland looked him in the eye.
“Us.”
ELEVEN
KEFLAVÍK AIR FORCE BASE, ICELAND—FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22—10:15 P.M. (2315Z)
A small buzzer sounded in the cockpit as James Holland shut down the 747’s four engines. Someone forty feet below had opened the ground communications panel and pressed the call button.
Robb and Holland simultaneously punched on their flight interphones and a voice filled their headsets immediately.
“Anyone hear me up there?”
Holland pressed the transmit rocker switch on the control yoke.
“This is the captain. Who’s this? And what’s going on down there?”
“I’m one of the ground crew, sir. Stand by. We’re running a line out to the command vehicle. The colonel … the base commander … wants to talk to you.”
That feeling again in the pit of the stomach. It was becoming too familiar. Why didn’t they just call on ground control frequency?
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