Emergence: Infection

by JT Sawyer

  EMERGENCE

  Book 1

  Infection

  By JT Sawyer

  Copyright © 2017 JT Sawyer

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be transmitted in any form whether electronic, recording, scanned, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction and the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, incidents, or events is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Edited by Emily Nemchick

  Cover art and formatting by EbookLaunch.com

  Join JT Sawyer’s Facebook page to follow his book research and to get updates on future releases. You can also sign up to be a part of his reading team at http://www.jtsawyer.com

  About the Emergence Series

  I want to thank you, my readers, along with fans of my other books, for diving into this journey. When I first began writing post-apocalyptic thrillers in 2014 with the First Wave Series, I tried to take my experience teaching survival courses for a living, along with all the sci-fi stories floating around my head for decades, and meld the two interests into a book that was both exciting and plausible. Four different series later, I am still enjoying the ride and I hope that Emergence will be a re-invention of the zombie genre unlike anything you’ve ever read before.

  During the months of research I did for this new series, I had the pleasure of speaking with epidemiologists, public health officials, virologists, and military special operations personnel (and my fictitious characters, who informed me when I was off track). I am grateful to everyone who shared their expertise and insights into the ever-changing war against microbes, and the heroic efforts of the fine men and women in viral hot zones around the world.

  As a writer, Emergence signifies a return to the post-apocalyptic world: a place that is at once terrifying and one where hope and fortitude allow the human spirit to triumph against overwhelming odds—something our species has excelled at through the millennia since we emerged from the primordial dust.

  Welcome to the Emergence Series! Stay tuned for additional releases. Volume Two will be available in winter 2017.

  Emergence Book 1: Infection

  Emergence Book 2: Infestation

  Emergence Book 3: Incursion

  Emergence Book 4: Eradication

  Emergence Book 5: Extinction

  Table of Contents

  About the Emergence Series

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Epilogue

  Thank You

  Additional Titles by JT Sawyer

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean

  Curtis Michener felt his body ripple and something abrasive rub against his bare arms. A lone seagull’s taunting call from above pierced through his ringing ears. He pried open his crusty eyelids and saw three tiny crabs scampering away on the beach.

  Michener sat up, feeling the weight of his black boots and pants. He glanced down at his blood-stained fingernails and felt his heart race. Jumping to his feet, he swiveled his head around, scanning the beach for hostile movement while reaching for his belt. He patted the empty holster by his side and remembered the horrific hours before sunrise: the explosion in the control room, the panic as everyone tried to flee, and the staccato of gunfire. His ears filled with the sound of high-pitched predatory shrieks that seemed to resound throughout his brain, though he couldn’t locate any animals in the canopy above him.

  Michener collapsed to his knees and pounded his fist in the wet sand as he stared at the damaged satellite dish on top of the operations center. His contract job as a security guard on the beautiful but remote island a thousand or so miles west of Hawaii only had two more weeks to go and then he would have been going home to San Antonio, Texas. Everything had been on schedule until Doctor Trevor Hayes showed up a few days ago and began another sampling of a mysterious drug he was supposedly working on for an agency in the U.S. At least, those were the rumors bandied about amongst his colleagues, who had seen the wiry, gray-haired scientist coming and going from his lab.

  Michener didn’t ask questions of the researcher or his staff from the vessel that moored along the west coast of the island every month for a few days. He kept his head down and performed his work. The sizeable paycheck he’d receive at the end of his term would enable him to pay for his mother’s cancer treatment, and he needed every penny. She was struggling with a rare genetic blood disorder, though her physician had assured Michener that he showed no signs of the cancer.

  Have to get help—to notify someone. He clawed at the sand, grabbing a handful and throwing it in the direction of the mangled body of one of his colleagues, which had been reclaimed by the sea. He tried to recall how she died but his memory seemed to be retreating from his grasp.

  Michener stood up, his joints aching. The pungent smell of seaweed and decaying fruit filled his nostrils. His empty stomach churned as he staggered along the beach towards an outcropping of palm trees. He couldn’t tell if it was the intense sunlight that was causing him to sweat so profusely or if he had a mild fever. His skin looked translucent, almost like old parchment. He looked at his forearm, where the tendons showed clearly beneath the surface, along with something else that was pulsing in the muscle. Michener stopped and ran his fingers along his lymph nodes under his neck, then examined the color of his nail beds. He let out a sigh. You’re going to be alright. Just have to call in what happened. They’ll know what to do.

  Michener’s chest heaved and he felt his ribs constrict. He paused and leaned against the trunk of a palm tree. The wave of nausea was overwhelming now and a stream of red vomit spewed without restraint from his lips. He felt a ribbon-like movement along his tongue, like he had a piece of floss stuck in his mouth. Michener stood straight up, thrusting his finger into his mouth, but felt the mass suddenly withdraw into his throat—or what he thought was his throat. It suddenly moved further back, like it was pushing into his vertebrae. Then it stopped and he felt a sense of warmth wash over him, wiping away the panic.

  His head was on fire, and he just wanted to crawl into the cooling waters of the sea. Michener suddenly had a flash of a recent memory, and his mind drifted ba
ck to the blaring alarms resounding through the halls of the research center twenty-four hours earlier. His boss’s voice indicating that a breach had occurred in the patient containment room but the threat had been neutralized. The rumor amongst the other members of the security detail was that one of the scientists had suffered exposure to a dangerous pathogen in the lower level research center. Within eighteen hours, others were complaining of flu-like symptoms and filling the small infirmary. He was the first one to arrive on the scene when two women with bloodshot eyes collapsed with high fever and then died a few hours later. His mind went blank again. Am I dehydrated or hallucinating?

  Michener wrapped his arms around his sides as he felt his body tremble like something was wriggling beneath his muscles. He felt like his core was being engulfed by flames. The heat rose from the base of his neck until it radiated out through his limbs. His scalp was burning and he flung his head back as a shrill sound issued forth from his crusted lips. God, make it stop. Make it go away.

  Michener wanted to run into the ocean and dive to the lowest depths until the searing pain stopped. He glanced at the waves to his right, and stood. As he pivoted to run, he felt the pressure on his ribs ease and his breathing return to normal. He sucked in a breath of salty air as the tremors in his limbs subsided. Michener took a step forward, the nausea disappearing and his body feeling like he’d just emerged from a cold river. It’s over, thank God. Maybe that’s all that will happen.

  He sat down against a boulder in the shade as a surge of energy pulsed through his veins, and he felt renewed. Suddenly he understood and he knew now what he had to do and why he had survived where the others perished.

  “There is work to be done,” he said aloud, only no words came out, just a ghastly shriek whose intonation he understood. “There is work to be done when the others awaken.”

  Chapter 1

  The sun was just cresting the treeline behind a dilapidated two-story farmhouse in the Virginia countryside. Will Reisner stepped out onto the rear porch, the coffee cup in his hand sending up faint rivulets of steam in the chilled autumn air. He glanced at the maple and ash trees, whose red leaves flickered as if being conjured by the rosy fingers of dawn. The smell of decay was already upon the land, as wet leaves cloaked the ground, covered in a thick layer of frost. The last time he’d stood here, the trees were just budding out with green life and the blue jays were busy finding food for their hatchlings.

  He took a long sip of his tarry coffee and studied a red-tailed hawk circling above. Reisner pulled his vision back to a dangling gutter that had become partially dislodged from the roof. He was looking forward to staying put for a while and getting busy with his hands around the property.

  He pulled the collar up on his long-sleeved shirt in response to the crisp morning air, which was a sharp contrast to the arid settings he’d just come from working as a CIA paramilitary officer. Most of his summer and early fall had been spent in Yemen, Iraq, or Syria, and the endless heat had parched more than his clothes. Reisner rolled his head in a slow circle, trying to work out the kink in his neck from a long flight back from Egypt last night.

  After his connector flight landed in Richmond, he had driven his car on a circuitous route as he left the city, glancing in his rearview mirror for anything out of the ordinary. It was done out of habit, the way he had been trained. Such habits had kept him alive for the past twelve years in an occupation where covert operatives had a shelf-life sometimes measured in months. His instructors at Langley, and later at the Farm, had once remarked during his indoctrination training that most field operatives could endure about a decade of punishment before their injuries, physical or otherwise, caught up with them.

  Reisner and his team of recovery personnel had just returned the day before from North Africa after extracting one of the Agency’s field operatives. While his work officially fell under the auspices of the State Department, most of the higher-ups at the Agency knew that Reisner’s paramilitary unit was intended to be more fluid in their application than other covert teams at the Agency. Reisner and his elite unit were responsible for hastily recovering compromised agents on the run and, on occasion, providing low-profile rescues for US-backed foreign dignitaries needing to quickly depart their country during imminent collapse in the event of civil war.

  Unlike the SEALs or Delta, there were no Blackhawk helicopter insertions, Humvees, or obvious military presence. Reisner had at his disposal a network of Agency resources, from private jets to maritime assets, along with a small intel unit that was dedicated solely to overseeing his team’s ground operations when abroad. His boss, Jonas Runa, answered solely to the CIA director.

  Runa had allowed him to hand-pick his team, and Reisner had sought out the best from both civilian and military operators such as the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, Naval Special Warfare, Combat Search-and-Rescue, the 75th Ranger Battalion, and from within the ranks at the Agency. Candidates underwent an extensive 16-week course in hand-to-hand combat to augment their already extensive skillset with firearms. Since they were most often in situations abroad where they were providing escort and protection for critical personnel in public settings, they needed to rely on close-quarter combat skills more than firearms skills. As a result of this need, Reisner had sought out the best instructors in the world to provide his team with rigorous training that rivalled that of even SEAL Team 6 or Delta Force.

  Reisner finished his coffee and set the mug down, glancing at his scarred knuckles and then up at a recent bruise on his left forearm. He usually wore long sleeves to cover the other permanent tattoos adorning his arms. An observer would never notice his nose had been broken twice before or that one of his back teeth was false.

  The past few years of working covert ops had been more taxing on him, especially with everyone in the Agency feeling the congressional budget cuts, which meant fewer personnel and more strain on the existing teams. Like many other operatives, he had joined the Agency to right the wrongs in the world, but as the increasingly nebulous nature of the missions stacked up over the years, his concept of morality seemed to shift like a line drawn on a windswept dune, continually altered by muddled political agendas.

  He walked back into the house and commenced with washing the frying pan he’d made an omelet in and then prepared another cup of coffee. While he had a small apartment in the city, he had taken his privacy and security one step further and purchased this ramshackle dwelling under a shell corporation so it was untraceable. Only a handful of his friends knew of its location. His time alone was just that and he had made every effort to ensure no one knew of his whereabouts when he was off duty.

  He thought of his kid sister Jody, who lived about an hour away, and considered dropping by her house sometime. Reisner rubbed his chin at the prospect and remembered how he had failed to call on her birthday and hadn’t been able to respond to her messages for the past month while abroad.

  Reisner felt a pang of loss for missing out on so much of Jody’s life over the years. They had always been close in younger days but he felt awkward at holiday gatherings and didn’t like having to maintain the lie she had come to believe was his life. Most of the time, he counted the days until the next assignment, but after endless months abroad in war-ravaged countries, he was looking forward to a few weeks off. Now that he was back in the States, he had told Jody he would be at the barbecue at her house this weekend.

  The simple interior of his place was in accordance with the weathered appearance of the outside. He only had the basics in terms of furnishings, and he never bothered to clean the cobwebs from the ceilings or archways between rooms, so the place wouldn’t hold much interest to anyone peering through the windows in his absence. The only items of value were stowed in a carefully constructed vault within the root cellar located in the basement, where he kept a three-month supply of food, water, medical supplies, and just enough weapons and ammo to get more of the former items, if necessary.

  Before he could turn on the gas burn
er for the coffee pot, he saw his cellphone crab across the speckled white countertop. He gave it a disapproving glance and watched it rattle, then turned on the stove, appreciating the primitive simplicity of the flame before him over the irritating device that continued to disrupt his morning. After another buzz, he pressed his hand down on the phone and clutched it. There were only four people who had the number for the encrypted device, and he knew exactly which one it was.

  “Reisner,” he said, partially withholding his seething tone.

  “I figured you’d be up already,” said a deep voice on the other end. “Unlike the rest of your team, who are probably hibernating after the flight back.”

  Runa was the last person Reisner wanted to talk to right now, because it meant his short-lived time off was about to come to an abrupt halt. The burly African-American man was the head of the Special Activities Division at Langley, and had been Reisner’s boss for much of his time at the Agency.

  “We need to meet—as in you and all of your team.”

  “We already debriefed yesterday when we got in.”

  “This is about something else.”

  He muffled his sigh. “I’m assuming you didn’t mean meet via teleconference,” he said with a hint of hope in his voice, looking at his partially unpacked duffel bag near the door.

  “I’ve been asked to provide a team that is razor sharp, and yours fits that bill perfectly given the missions that you’ve just been conducting. I’ll need you and your team at the airfield by noon—you know the one.” Runa cleared his throat. “I know you’re all spent from your recent op, but this is something that can’t wait.” He paused for a second. “And prep for a three-day recon.”

  Reisner could tell from Runa’s pensive tone and long silence that the matter was urgent. Such interactions had only happened on a few occasions and Reisner could sense the man’s concern. Runa normally had a stoic expression on his face and was exactly the kind of hardened figure you wanted covering your back at Langley.

  What the hell has got him so rattled? He looked down at his watch, which indicated 9:30 AM. “I’ll be there shortly, as will the rest of my team.”