Black Flagged Apex

by Steven Konkoly

  He clicked the first one in the queue, which started a recorded digital feedback stamped “2:24 AM,” sending video to two of his screens. He watched the screen on the right, which showed three figures emerge from the back of the target building’s backyard and approach the rear deck. The second screen zoomed in on each of the figures in rapid succession, intelligently deciding to capture close-up images. Oddly, all of them were dressed in dark clothing, wearing ski masks.

  “What the hell?” he muttered.

  “You say something?” Howard called from the kitchen.

  “Dave, get over here!”

  Reeves leaned forward in the chair and watched the three figures pause at the bottom of the deck on the screen.

  Howard appeared in the opening and leaned against the white, paint-chipped doorframe. “What?”

  “Take a look at this. I think our friends had visitors…holy fuck! Someone took out our guys!” he yelled and shot up from the chair.

  “Take it easy, Ethan. What did you see?” said Howard, who calmly walked over to the card table hosting all of their computer equipment.

  “Multiple flashes inside the house. We need to get over there now!”

  Reeves scrambled around the chair and moved quickly across the room. He reached into a black and gray nylon backpack lying next to the opened sleeper couch, removing his badge, service pistol and a spare magazine from a hidden compartment. Howard leaned over the table and started working the computer mouse.

  “Will you settle down? What are we looking at…what the?”

  His voice trailed off as he replayed the video and watched the figures disappear from sight. The camera panned out, and everything looked normal for a few seconds. The first flash came from the front window, followed immediately by flashes from the side windows, which they had previously determined were bedrooms.

  “Shit!” Howard yelled.

  He nearly fell backward over the chair, colliding with Reeves as they both sprinted for the kitchen. Howard grabbed his holster and badge from one of the kitchen cabinets and followed Reeves out the back door and down the crumbling stairway to the cracked, weed-filled concrete patio. They sprinted across the street with their guns drawn and approached the rear deck.

  “We’re fucked,” Reeves hissed when they reached the back door.

  “Nobody’s fucked here. This…”

  “This kind of shit happens all the time? You were about to say that, weren’t you?” Reeves said.

  “Maybe. Let’s throttle back and do this by the book. I’ll go first, staying low. You cover. We’ll work our way through the rooms. No assumptions. Someone might still be alive in the house, and they won’t be happy to see us,” Howard said.

  Reeves took a deep breath. “Got it. I’m good,” he said and adjusted the grip on his Glock 23.

  “Ready?” Howard said.

  “Ready.”

  Reeves watched Howard turn the doorknob and push the weathered door inward. They both braced themselves against the doorframe and aimed into the duplex. The door led into the kitchen.

  “You smell that?” Howard whispered.

  “Smells like someone took a shit on the floor,” Reeves replied.

  “That’s what dead people smell like before they start rotting. Cover me.”

  Howard crouched and moved slowly through the kitchen, aiming at the only doorway leading further into the house. When he reached the doorway, he took up a position on the left side of the door, staying low. Reeves followed the same path and stacked up behind Howard. Once in position, Howard aimed through the opening into a long hallway. Reeves stood up and aimed over Howard’s head. He saw two doors on the left, which they knew were bedrooms, and a door on the right, which had to be a bathroom. Howard edged into the hallway and nodded at the first door on the right. They moved up to the closed door. Once in position, Reeves pressed up against the left side of the hall and aimed down the hallway. Howard slowly worked the doorknob before quickly pushing the door open, pistol extended forward with both hands.

  “Bathroom’s clear,” he whispered, leaving the door open.

  He turned to face the first door on the left, repeating the process as soon as Reeves took up a position on the right side of the hallway. Instead of pausing at the door, he followed it into the room, feet scuffling just out of Reeves’ sight.

  “Clear,” he heard from inside the room.

  Reeves moved into the bedroom doorway and braced his forearms against the doorframe, focused on the hallway leading to the front room.

  “One of our subjects is dead. Al Farouq. Two shots to the forehead. We call this in and wait,” Howard said.

  The smell of feces had worsened after Howard opened the door, activating his gag reflex. Reeves turned his head and glanced into the room, taking small breaths through his mouth. He had to see this. He’d imagined shooting these guys in several of his daydream scenarios, and simply couldn’t believe someone had actually beat him to it. The image took his breath away, almost forcing his coffee back up.

  A single figure lay on the bed, perfectly arranged for sleep. The pillow looked dark brown under Farouq’s head, clearly soaked with coagulating blood. The fitted mattress sheet at the head of the bed was similarly stained, along with the top sheet, which was still pulled up to the man’s chin. A small puddle of blood had started to form on the floor under the corner of the loosely hanging top sheet. He could imagine a much larger pool spreading under the bed, where the blood had surely soaked through the mattress. He snapped his head back to the hallway, which Howard was counting on him to cover.

  “Shit. We’re screwed,” Reeves whispered.

  “This is not going to be good. That’s for sure,” Howard replied.

  “What do we do?”

  “Not much we can do. We call this in and check the rest of the bodies.”

  “Look on the bright side,” Howard said.

  “There’s a bright side to this?” Reeves asked.

  “Yeah, we won’t have to spend another night in that rat-infested shithole. Let’s get this over with,” he said and moved back into the hall.

  They had three more dead bodies to confirm.

  Chapter 2

  7:25 AM

  White House Situation Room

  Washington, D.C.

  Frederick Shelby sat in one of the prime seats at the long conference table. Two seats away from the president of the United States, he was content to be included in the upper echelon of attendees. The conference table had been reconfigured to seat an expanded group of the most important people in the U.S. government, in what could easily be described as the most important conference room in the entire world. Technicians had worked feverishly yesterday to configure the room exclusively for the command and control of the government’s response to the terrorist plot uncovered by the CIA.

  Video conference cameras adorned the table, next to each imbedded computer terminal. Flat-screen monitors covered nearly every square inch of eye-level wall space, each presenting a different map, data table or news report. The constant flow of information on the screens brought the static walls alive with vivid, high-definition colors. The information flowing to these screens was controlled by analysts sitting at the mobile “watch floor” station in the far corner of the room.

  This two-tiered hub consisted of four stations packed closely together, each housing three flat-screen monitors for operators to analyze and manipulate. The mobile station’s electronics suite had been modified to communicate with the nerve centers of every agency and unit involved in the operation. All crisis-related communications sent to the White House would filter through the station and be appropriately disseminated. In anticipation of the complicated, multi-agency effort required to handle the crisis, the president decided to transfer complete responsibility for information management from the White House situation room’s central watch floor to the mobile hub. If necessary, situation room technicians could add another mobile station and double the conference room’s informati
on management capacity.

  He stared down the long table, very much enjoying the picture he saw. The generals and admirals were about as far away as possible from the president, without putting them at a kiddie table, which was where they belonged in his opinion. Especially after last night’s debacle and the clear implication that someone in their ranks had tipped off Sanderson. He had been so close to catching Sanderson, only to have the rug pulled out from under him, in what could only be described as a calculated, carefully planned publicity stunt. Fortunately, he had kept his cool. A few more choice words the other night, and he might be a lot further away from the president. Everyone sat quietly as the flat-screen monitors simultaneously changed to a CNN broadcast.

  “CNN ran this twenty-five minutes ago, and we’re already getting hit left and right with domestic requests for information and civil emergency funding. Pay attention,” the president said.

  International news correspondent Michael Foreman appeared on the screen next to an inset map of western Russia. As he started speaking, the map zoomed in to the Kola Peninsula and the location of Monchegorsk appeared. The words “Breaking News” were stacked above the CNN tagline “Civil Unrest Reported in Russia.”

  “This is Michael Foreman with breaking news in Russia. A shockingly bizarre Reuters news story is quickly shaping into a potential nightmare for the world community. Samantha Rivers reports live from St. Petersburg.”

  “Thank you, Michael. I’m standing outside of St. Petersburg square, next to a group of protesters that will join thousands of their fellow countrymen inside the square to demand open access to Monchegorsk. As it stands, only military traffic is allowed on the main highway leading out of St. Petersburg to the beleaguered city, strictly enforced at checkpoints and by ominous patrols of armored vehicles. Until earlier today, most of the media crews had been operating out of Petrozavodsk, a little over two hundred kilometers to the north. Hundreds of military vehicles poured through the small city on their way north to Monchegorsk, which is another two hundred and fifty kilometers north. Abruptly, military and police units forced all media crews back to St. Petersburg, where we have been told to remain indefinitely.

  “Confirmed news from the area is scarce, but persistent rumors of a deadly epidemic continue to surface. So far, nobody has been able to confirm the shocking and unbelievable footage sent anonymously to Reuters, suggesting that the Russian military is systematically destroying the city and killing its inhabitants. Russian officials have made no comment. One thing is for certain, the Russian government has taken extraordinary measures to seal off the area surrounding Monchegorsk. What is truly frightening is the fact that the world hasn’t seen an emergency government response on this scale from the Russian government since Chernobyl.”

  “Thank you, Samantha. And now we turn to CNN’s very own national security advisor, Brett Russell.”

  The screen froze, and the president returned his gaze to the table.

  “And therein lies our problem. The media didn’t skip a beat making this a national security issue, and they don’t know the half of it…yet. We need to accelerate our efforts to safeguard the American public, and I’m not sure it can be done without drawing attention to the fact that the Monchegorsk situation is directly related to our national security and could very well be the tip of the iceberg. I want to leave this room with an effective, short-term strategy that we can improve upon for the long term. Here’s what I think. We can’t deploy the National Guard to watch over the nation’s water treatment plants without answering some difficult questions. Homeland is already getting crushed with inquiries from state and local law enforcement agencies. We prudently raised the threat level to Orange, without providing details about the threat. This is highly unusual. We’ve only raised the threat level this high five times on a national level, and we’ve always provided details. I don’t feel this strategy is sustainable beyond noon today. I want to hear your thoughts.”

  Frederick Shelby made a quick decision to jump into the thick of things. The FBI’s task force stood at the vanguard of efforts to stop whatever might be headed to U.S. shores, and he wanted to make sure everyone in the room understood that fact. The squeaky wheel got the grease, or in this case, the resources.

  “Yes, Mr. President. I think we all need more information on the incoming threat. What exactly are we dealing with? I’ve read the reports, but the information is vague at best. I think we could better shape the nation’s response with more precise information,” Shelby said.

  Many of the attendees muttered agreement with his comment, while a few displayed mildly disapproving faces. He committed these to memory. It was always good to know who might not be on your side when things went sideways. The secretary of state, secretary of defense, White House chief of staff and, no surprise here, the director of the CIA. Even Sarah Kestler, the White House counterterrorism director looked a little annoyed.

  “Our CDC liaison answers the technical questions about the Zulu virus,” the president said.

  “Zulu virus?” one of the generals said.

  A tall man with exceedingly dark hair and matching eyebrows stood up from the far end of the table. He looked nothing like a scientific type to Shelby.

  “Good morning. I’m Dr. Marston Phillips, assistant deputy director for the CDC’s Office of Infectious Diseases. This is my colleague Dr. Pradeep Chandrashekar, who heads the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response,” he said, gesturing to the man in a dark blue suit seated next to him at the conference table.

  “So, to answer your question briefly, we are looking at a weaponized form of herpes simplex encephalitis, genetically modified to aggressively attack the brain’s temporal lobe. Worse yet, we suspect that the modification has reduced the virus’s lethality.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing?” interjected James Quinn, national security advisor.

  “Normally, yes. Left untreated, herpes simplex encephalitis has a high fatality rate. Near seventy percent.”

  The entire room broke into murmurs at the presentation of that statistic.

  “Treated aggressively, we can reduce this to thirty percent,” the scientist continued.

  “Thirty? That’s still extremely high,” the national security advisor said.

  “Correct. For an infectious disease, this is a worst-case scenario in terms of lethality, but keep in mind that viral encephalitis is not a highly transmittable disease, like the avian flu. This is partly why cases of viral encephalitis are still extremely rare,” Phillips said.

  “So this should be relatively easy to contain if released on U.S. soil?” the homeland security director asked.

  “May I?” Pradeep Chandrashekar asked.

  “Please,” said Phillips, who sat down to let his colleague continue.

  “If the Zulu virus is released into a public water source, containment of the disease itself will not be our biggest challenge. Physical containment of the impacted community and the management of information will be your biggest priority. Weaponized encephalitis is the ultimate biological weapon.”

  “But if it’s not contagious, at worst we’re looking at highly localized terrorist incidents. Tragic and horrific, but manageable,” the White House chief of staff said.

  “You’re missing the bigger picture here, Mr. Remy. Herpes simplex encephalitis does more than produce casualties, and if the virus in question has been modified as suggested, the impact of its release can’t be understated. Here are the statistics for the unmodified virus. In those treated aggressively, less than three percent regain normal brain function. This can vary from very mild to severe impairment, depending upon several factors. Early treatment with high dose, intravenous acyclovir is the only modifiable factor scientists have identified. However, this may not be an option in our situation. Testing isn’t complete, but the initial research conducted by Edgewood indicates that the weaponized strain in question races to the temporal lobe, leaving little hope of recovery.”

  “How can you kn
ow that for sure?” Shelby asked.

  “We can’t, but based on the information surrounding the current situation, we have to assume a worst-case scenario,” Phillips interjected.

  “And what is that?” Shelby continued.

  “If released in a municipal water supply, unknown to the population, it has the potential to affect nearly everyone. Take a small town of twenty thousand people. Even if we discovered the attack immediately after the virus circulated through the drinking water and treated everyone in the town with acyclovir, 95% of them will suffer neurological impairment at varying levels. 19,000 citizens. Neurological impairment will range from…” he paused and glanced at the president and the director of the CIA, who shared a glance, and nodded almost imperceptibly toward Phillips.

  “Full homicidal rage and hyper-aggressive behavior to minor seizures. Brain damage in almost every case. Edgewood’s initial report indicated that we would likely be dealing with the more serious end of that spectrum. The reports gathered by…” He stopped again and looked to the CIA director.

  Shelby started to get even more annoyed. He could tell that Phillips was uncomfortable taking the conversation any further, and he knew exactly why. Prior to entering the conference room, Shelby had been cornered by the national security advisor, who informed him that there could be no direct mention of Sanderson’s team during the meeting. They could be called “intelligence assets in Europe” or “on-site ground assets,” but specific reference beyond that was forbidden.

  They didn’t have time for the paperwork before the meeting, but information regarding Sanderson’s present and future involvement with the government would be classified Compartmentalized Information Security (CIS) Category One. The Black Flag program was once again one of the most highly classified secrets of the United States government. Obviously, Phillips had been given the same speech. He wondered who else had been yanked aside by the national security advisor. Not everyone, or they wouldn’t have to dance around this issue during the meeting. The president ended the uncomfortable pause.