by JT Sawyer
Runa gave a sideways glance at the news images. “The reports indicated that Fujian Province was ground zero, based upon the work of Doctor Selene Munroe, an epidemiologist who is now in Taiwan. So you released it on mainland China via drone?”
“Yes; after Hayes had perfected the bioweapon, we did an initial run and used the UAV to disperse an airborne release of the infected mites over the tea plantation. The mites were the only carriers. Their function was two-fold: to transmit a low-grade virus and to infect the tea crop, which happened via a naturally occurring parasite that lived on the mites.” He rested his elbows on the table, steepling his fingers. “It was the perfect weapon because even if the influenza strain didn’t create sufficient illness amongst the workers, the mites would reduce tea production—affecting the second largest economic industry in China.”
Runa raised his eyebrows. “Striking at a major cash crop would be a crippling blow to the Chinese, but why now?” He rolled his eyes and nodded. “Is this connected with their involvement in Iran?”
Siegel let out a partial grin. “I’ve always thought that you’d make a good pitcher, but you seemed so content playing third base.” He leaned back, his demeanor returning to someone used to giving briefings and delegating orders. “The Chinese were about to embark upon the development of the largest oil refineries in the world in the fourth largest oil fields on the planet in Iran. Our interests and our allies weren’t about to sit back and watch that unfold.”
Runa shook his head. “So the recent merger with the Saudis and several oil firms over here was just pushed through because they were confident you could deliver?”
Siegel held his chin up, his lips almost forming a smile until he looked at the television, which showed Manhattan on fire. He let his shoulders sag as he slid back into his chair. “Hayes had been experimenting with splicing an avian flu strain into the mite’s genetic structure to see if a virus could be constructed that would have a predictable mutation. According to Hayes, the mites were merely a conduit with a very short lifespan, but it was the parasites they carried which were highly adaptable and could flourish in a variety of inhospitable environments.”
He glided his fingers over the photographs, staring at the bodies of the two Chinese operatives in the Atropos lab. “This was going to be the perfect plan—we could have adjusted another country’s economy by surreptitious delivery of a low-grade virus. No more wars waged over oil; no troops on the ground in the Middle East; no bickering over policies that were subject to the whim of another administration. Instead, we could just create a brief ripple in a rival nation’s economy to realign things with our interests.”
Runa slapped his palm on the table, shocking Siegel out of his haze. “Now millions of people are infected and our economy is fucked—maybe even our entire world. And the Chinese must not have gotten the memo about ignoring CIA ghost ships operating offshore—they’ll trace all of this back here if they haven’t already.”
Runa walked towards Siegel and swung his chair around, thrusting his face towards his sulking boss.
He waved his hand in the air. “I’ve been to the CDC labs before—I’ve seen how they operate. There are dozens of researchers who each have oversight on how things unfold in their operations. Instead, you put the fate of the world on one man and you acted as the puppet master.” He grabbed Siegel’s arm and shook it. “You smug son of a bitch. You gave Hayes the keys to a kingdom no one man is supposed to have absolute domain over.”
Siegel held his head in his hands, looking down at a silver flash drive. “There is still one place that could provide an answer—if it’s not too late.”
Siegel stared at the photograph of his wife and son, mumbling to himself, his chest shuddering with each word. The nation he had sacrificed so much for during the past thirty-three years was now overrun by horrific monsters in mere days. All he had done to protect American interests and security was crumbling around him, and he knew none of his colleagues would ever remember him as a hero or a statesman but as the progenitor of the ending of the world. His legacy was gone; his family missing; his closest colleague before him lost to his cause.
Runa turned and moved to the door, requesting the two agents outside to enter. “Under Directive 341, I am herby relieving you of your duties as—”
When Runa turned around, he found himself staring at the barrel of Siegel’s pistol, which the man must have withdrawn from his desk. Siegel motioned for the guards to keep their hands at their sides.
“I was a patriot, Jonas,” said the pale-faced man, his hand trembling. “I gave up three decades of my life for this Agency and this country.” He waved the pistol in the air then held it steady again. “Do you think anyone will remember that now? Instead, I’ll be the one at the top of the list in the history books, just above Hitler and Stalin—David Siegel: Mass Murderer Who Nearly Wiped Out the Human Race.” His eyes were wild and his right cheek quivering. “I never meant for this to happen. You have to believe me, Jonas.”
“I do, David, now just put the gun down and help me figure out how to stop this virus.”
He glanced down at the flash drive on his desk and slid it forward. “Remember me as a good man—as your friend,” he said, then turned the gun towards his head and pulled the trigger.
Chapter 19
As the Huey descended over Taiwan, making a direct line for the hospital in Taipei, Reisner looked at the river of people running through the streets below near a business district a few miles outside of the city, where several neighborhoods were ablaze. At first he thought they were fleeing from the encroaching flames, but then he saw hundreds of faster-moving humans descending on them, followed by brutal maulings, driven by some cannibalistic rage. It was like a scene from the Atropos magnified a thousand-fold. Is this all the result of Hayes’ research? How could it have spread this fast? This morning there were a number of outbreaks around the world and now a country of this size is being overrun by those things.
As they approached the hospital, Reisner saw dozens of military personnel firing upon throngs of crazed patients a few blocks from the hospital grounds before they were overtaken. God, what are we walking into here?
With their oxygen canisters nearly depleted, Santos quickly circled and then abruptly set the Huey down on the helipad with a thump that made everyone inside slam against the walls of the cabin. Reisner wanted to yank open the side door and then tear off his suit. He looked out and saw an Asian man in a yellow biohazard suit trotting towards the helicopter while a crew of six others remained behind, holding large silver canisters with hoses attached in one hand and stainless-steel square containers in the other.
Reisner scanned the perimeter of the helipad, expecting a full biocontainment and decontamination chamber like he’d seen during the CDC training he underwent last year, but there was only Tso and his people alongside a white-walled tent that was anchored with cables to the cement, its canvas sides rumpling in the helicopter-assisted wind.
Once the Huey’s rotors came to a standstill, Tso motioned for his team to move up, then he pointed to Santos and yelled for everyone inside to stay put. Tso’s team surrounded the Huey and began spraying the helicopter with a sudsy white liquid that coated everything from top to bottom.
Reisner felt his oxygen mask flutter as the last remnants of O2 fluttered through his hose. The canister at his side seemed to be featherweight now, and he tapped on the side, hoping it might miraculously produce a few more minutes of the precious substance. Reisner felt like his suit was shrink-wrapped to his skin, and he could hear the labored breathing of Connelly, Nash, and Porter as they squirmed in their seats.
He saw Tso pound on the side window, waving his hand to unlock the door and step out. Reisner slung it open and grabbed Porter’s arm, sending him through first. The nimble operator stepped down into an ankle-deep container filled with chlorine dioxide that a young woman had just finished pouring from a gallon jug.
Porter was sprayed down by two workers and the
n he was escorted to an identical decontamination area thirty feet away, where he underwent the same procedure, after which he was walked to the canvas tent.
By the time the others had disembarked, Reisner was gasping for air. The blue sky above seemed to be pressing down on him and the ground seemed uneven as he stepped out of the Huey. He paced his breathing as the disinfecting spray washed over him. His legs felt rubbery as he walked to the second decontamination area. With each breath, the rubber gasket of his mask sucked against his cheeks like it was trying to merge with his skin. After the second spraying, he staggered out of the foot container towards the tent. It seemed like it was miles away as his chest sucked in its last inhalation, every ounce of his suit seeming to extract the remaining molecules of air still trapped in its folds.
He staggered forward almost to the cusp of the thirty-foot-long tent, then felt his boots weld themselves to the ground. He rested both his hands on his knees and leaned forward. As his throat constricted, he looked up and saw the tent flap move aside, the comforting blue eyes of a woman looking down at him from her yellow suit. She was speaking in English, her gentle voice directing him inside. He reached his hand up towards her, then saw the tent spinning. Reisner clutched his mask and began tearing at the hood around it, trying frantically to tear it free.
As the mask came loose, he saw the woman rush forward and grab his right arm. Someone else had secured his left and he felt himself being dragged forward into the tent. The woman thrust an oxygen mask over his face and he gulped in the cool, clear air. Two minutes later, he felt the steadiness return to his legs and he walked forward a step.
“Keep moving, it’s almost over,” said the woman with a voice that sounded like someone from the eastern United States. “There are three showers ahead and then you’re done.”
She removed the mask and motioned him to move under the first shower then to disrobe, dropping his clothes onto the pile of others from his team. Ahead, he could see the naked figure of Connelly walking out of the last shower ahead. The sight of her body increased his stride and he felt himself moving forward with less difficulty. Connelly was handed some hospital scrubs and quickly dressed, then was escorted out of the tent.
Reisner peeled off his suit along with the rest of his garments, then walked into the second shower naked. The citrus and bleach odor coated him in a thick lather but caused his eyes to burn. He stepped out of the drainage basin for the second shower and into the third, which was a warm-water rinse.
The woman in the yellow suit had been paralleling his movement while shouting directions on how long to wait and when to move. At the end of the tent, she handed him a towel and a set of blue scrubs then motioned for him to leave.
“What about you?” he said.
“I’ve gotta go through the same procedure you just did,” she said, walking to the opposite end of the tent and entering the first shower. “And you can go on into the building now,” she said as she began to peel off the yellow biohazard suit. “I don’t need any help.” She waved him on with both her hands before she began peeling off the rest of her clothing, her honey-blonde hair falling over her shoulders.
Reisner nodded, then dragged the towel across his face. Helluva way to be introduced to someone.
As he entered the rear double-doors of the laboratory, he saw the rest of his team sitting in the doctor’s lounge to the right. They were swigging on water bottles and watching the television. At first, he thought it was footage from Taiwan, but then he saw multiple camera perspectives listed, each from a different city around the world: New York, Rio, Moscow, Tokyo, Sydney, and dozens of others were showing the same scenes of destruction and cannibalism.
Reisner wasn’t sure which was worse: walking into the room and seeing the global violence unfolding or realizing that Byrne and Dominguez wouldn’t be stepping into the room with them.
The world had changed since they left Virginia twenty-four hours earlier. He had been deployed on missions before where he returned home to a different reality, but this time was different. Now, there might not be a means to turn things back. He just hoped the contents of the flash drives and the captain’s computer had survived the decontamination process. Maybe those would provide information on what they were up against and how to combat the menace that had sprung forth from the recesses of the Atropos.
Chapter 20
Los Angeles
Lena Becker awoke from her nightmare in a cold sweat. The swaying motion she felt throughout her body made her think for a moment that she was back on the Asian Princess Cruise with her husband Ted.
She pushed herself up from the cocoon-like embrace of the couch and ran a hand through her silver hair. A clump of it came free from her scalp, and she stared at it with wide eyes. Then she glanced down at her hand, noticing the paper-thin appearance and the color, which appeared almost transparent. The brilliant butterfly tattoo on her inner forearm seemed accentuated against her opaque skin, and she fought to recall why it was there. She wiggled her fingers and could see her tendons move beneath the surface. Lena gasped.
“Shit—” She immediately closed her mouth at the shrill sound that fluttered out, barely making the word she had in mind audible.
She flung the lock of hair on the carpet and stood up, rushing past the body of her deceased husband on the other couch and her two daughters lying motionless on the floor. Their mouths and noses were crusted with dried blood from the unrelenting vomiting from the night before, though not as bad as her three grandchildren in the living room, their bodies wrapped neatly in bedsheets, with crucifixes on each chest. With the hospitals overflowing from countless flu victims and the paramedics unresponsive to her calls, she had, like many others in her neighborhood, tried to assist her loved ones at home, but to no avail. The virus had claimed so many people in only 48 hours that she thought the world was splintering apart. No longer were the streets filled with the sound of ambulances or police cars, only the faint rustle of the wind.
She staggered to a vanity mirror on the wall beside a mahogany armoire, knocking over several vials of prescription medications. She glanced up in horror at her deeply furrowed face. The skin was oily and she could see a spiderweb of blue-gray capillaries beneath the surface. Are those veins or something else? What is that moving? She touched her right cheek and noticed several threadlike segments weave beneath the surface.
Lena stepped back from the mirror, wanting to scream, but instead felt a strange calm enveloping her, followed by considerable pressure building along the base of her neck. She rubbed the tender spot, and this time felt something large and flat squirming beneath her muscles, like it was beginning to constrict her cervical region. Again, she felt an impulse to cry out, but then another wave of peace flooded over her, even washing away the anguish that had flooded her soul with despair as she watched her family die one by one. She looked in the mirror at the dead bodies of her loved ones behind her, wondering why she hadn’t met a similar fate.
She slowly turned around and stared at their empty faces as if they were reaching out to her. No, it was something in her, grasping—extending itself outward. Lena could feel her skin prickling and her body shudder, as if all her senses were coalescing into one instrument. A sudden burst of heat began throbbing at the base of her neck, forcing her to exhale deeply. Her limbs felt like they were imbued with strength beyond her sixty years, as if she had somehow vanquished the rare blood cancer which had sapped her energy over the years. As the heat grew in her neck, it radiated throughout her body. The buildup was overwhelming, forcing her lips to part as she emitted a shrill sound that filled every inch of the house.
Lena moved forward over the bodies spread around the room, sending wave after wave of uncontrollable shrieks as her senses continued to heighten. She looked down at her pulsing, translucent hands and removed a diamond ring from her right finger, letting if fall away to the floor like a used husk. Suddenly, she didn’t remember what it was for or who the others were that were lying about the a
rea, except that they needed her protection. The supine figure on the other couch held some vague memory in her brain, but all she knew was that his limbs were beginning to move with each shrill sound she projected, while the two women began twitching their legs. She could sense others stirring in the living room, then suddenly she felt a wave of others crying out to her. She felt thousands upon thousands of others now as her senses began bristling, extending beyond the walls of the house. She felt movement in the streets and homes and countryside miles in the distance; the presence at the base of her neck began throbbing rhythmically. She sensed the others looking to her for guidance as a compulsive drive to command them permeated her psyche. Everyone must awaken, for we have work to do, a voice whispered in her head. She thrust her pale arms in the air and let out a deafening, high-pitched shriek that rattled the windows and filled every fiber of her being with purpose. Rise up now and follow me. We must move quickly if we are to survive.
Chapter 21
Tso and the American doctor had just entered the room, toweling off their hair, when Reisner felt the building rattle from an explosion outside. The lights flickered and a rivulet of drywall dust fell from the ceiling.
Tso handed Reisner the laptop and three flash drives along with his cellphone. “Not sure if any of that works after being sprayed and then being saturated with UV light, but it’s all there. Your weapons are being disinfected in another containment unit.”
Reisner approached Tso and extended his hand, introducing himself and his team members as being with the U.S. State Department while Tso gave a brief background on himself and Selene.
“As you probably noted upon arriving, my country is under attack from this virus. The military arrived on the scene too late—their numbers are few now, from what outside reports I’ve been able to hear.” He held both his hands up. “We are safe in here—this is a sealed facility with automated security protocols on each level in case of a breach, and I’ve just sealed the lobby windows and exits with the steel shutters we had in place for a catastrophe. There are only about sixteen of my staff left on site.” He lowered his head then took a deep breath. “They are the lucky ones—most of my colleagues in the hospital next door have succumbed to the virus.”