Sam nodded while keeping his focus on Ted. “The victims are like—”
“Zombies?” Chad said, finishing the chief of staff’s sentence for him.
“I didn’t want to say it earlier,” Sam said. “These people are obviously alive, but my God, they’re like the flesh eaters we see on TV.”
“Actually, they’re worse,” Chad replied. “Zombies don’t think. They aren’t alive. That’s why it’s vital we keep this section of the hospital on lockdown until more help arrives. No one leaves. No one gets in without my approval.” He watched Sam’s mustache begin to move but something caught the man’s attention down the hall.
Chad flinched at the sudden sound of glass shattering. A current of anxiety rushed through him when he heard the screams. His heart fluttered. He knew exactly what the noises meant.
At the far end of the hall, a female patient lay on the floor, a halo of glass surrounding her twisted body. The two police officers Sam had posted outside the isolation rooms ran toward her, their weapons drawn. “Don’t move,” one of them shouted.
The woman slowly rose into a crouching position while tilting her head to the side. A curtain of hair fell over her face, making it impossible to tell which patient she was. Blood trickled down her chin and plopped onto the cold floor. Chad narrowed in on it. That single ounce of bodily fluid was extremely contagious.
“Stop her!” Sam yelled. He took a step back, smacking into Chad as the woman craned her head in their direction. She pawed the hair out of her face, the broken straps from her restraints hanging loosely at her wrists. It was then Chad saw the blood oozing from her crazed eyes.
“Oh my God,” Sam sputtered, his voice floundering. He backed against the glass window, where Chad could see Ted trying to get a better view.
Before the officers could fire off a shot, the woman plunged forward, the joints in her legs clicking as she burst across the floor on all fours. She moved with impressive speed, the blue of her gown blurring as she tackled the policeman closest to her. Chad had never seen anyone move like that, and he’d never heard joints snap like that either. The woman was transforming right in front of his eyes.
The second officer pulled her off his partner. He held her squirming in the air with his thick arms.
“Restrain her,” Sam yelled.
Chad watched in horror as the woman frantically kicked out of his grasp; a swift foot to the cop’s genitals finally sent him crumpling to the ground. The second officer seized the opportunity to jam his Taser into her spine. The jolt of electricity sent her tumbling to the ground. He drew his handcuffs and reached for her flailing arms. When he finally grabbed a wrist, she jerked her head and released a black stream of projectile vomit in his face.
Stumbling, the officer pawed at the slimy blood in his eyes. The woman wasted no time. She straddled him, wrapping her arms tightly around his back before biting his nose off.
Chad ran for the exit. He didn’t need to see anymore to know what was about to happen. With the officers compromised, the entire wing would fall. He had to seal off the room. There was no helping any of these people. They had to stop the virus here, before it was too late.
When he got to the double doors he halted, realizing he’d left Ted behind.
“What are you waiting for?” Sam yelled, holding the door open with his right foot. “We can’t help them!”
A sound like several balloons popping echoed down the hall as one of the officers fired their weapon. Chad flinched at the sound and then slipped through the opening, locking the door behind them. “I’m sorry, Ted,” he said under his breath.
Kate could hear the CNN reporters discussing the mysterious virus on the television in the background, but she wasn’t listening. Not anymore. She’d stopped the moment they referred to the outbreak as “the zombie apocalypse.”
The scare tactic would do nothing but instigate more fear. It might boost their ratings for the evening, but the adverse effects would ripple through Chicago. Mass panic would ensue. She’d seen hot zones in the world fall apart from news reports that were much less threatening.
She pulled her phone from her pocket, aching to hear from Javier. Where the hell was he? They were accustomed to not talking for days, but surely he’d seen her message by now.
The vibration of Michael’s phone startled her back to reality. She watched the black device rattle slowly across the table. They’d waited all evening for Colonel Gibson to call them back.
Michael snatched the phone off the table. “This is Dr. Allen,” he said. “Yes, I’ve heard. I’m going to put you on speaker so Dr. Lovato can listen in.”
Pressing the screen, he then put the phone on the table and said, “Okay, can you hear us?”
“We have a hell of a situation on our hands,” Gibson said. “We’re in the process of deploying all of our resources to Chicago. FEMA has called up their emergency assets, the Governor of Illinois has declared a state of emergency, and he has activated the National Guard.”
“I really would like to know what the hell is going on,” Michael said. “I still don’t know where Dr. Ellis is.”
“He’s en route to Fort Bragg,” Gibson replied.
“What? Why?” Kate blurted.
“What I’m about to tell you is top secret, although I’m sure the news media will get ahold of their version of the story in the coming days,” Gibson said. Static crackled over the speakers and his voice cut out. When it came back on, he said, “I’m about to board a chopper. Might be a bit shaky on reception for a few minutes.”
Michael frowned and reached for the phone, pulling it closer to them.
“When USAMRIID activated the EOC two days ago, it was due to a situation at Building 8 on San Nicholas Island. I was told that one of our scientists, a Dr. Medford, was experimenting with VX-99, a chemical weapon used in Vietnam.”
Michael gasped. “I thought the stockpile was destroyed!”
“Not the entire stockpile,” Gibson said. “Medford seemed to believe he could use VX-99 to destroy the Ebola virus, but before he could send us the data, the facility went dark. We lost all communication with Building 8. Normally we’d have sent our own team, but there was simply too much at stake. We called in a Delta Force team. Your man, Dr. Ellis, was added to the mission due to protocol. I included two of my own scientists to help the operators gain access to the facility. They were supposed to get in, retrieve a sample of Medford’s work, and get out. Things obviously didn’t go down like that.”
“Is Ellis okay?” Michael said. His voice sounded strained, deviating from his typical calm demeanor. Kate realized this was no longer a conversation between old friends.
“He’s fine. Our team cleared him hours ago. He’ll be back in Atlanta by the time you wake up tomorrow. The same can’t be said for two of my staff. They didn’t make it out, and neither did several of the Delta operators. I’ve seen the videos. Building 8 was compromised. Dr. Medford was infected with his own creation.”
“How the hell did it get to Chicago?” Michael asked.
“On a layover flight. A scientist from Building 8 named Jim Pinkman was on his way here to brief me.”
“I need to know what we are dealing with here,” Kate interjected. “What is VX-99? What chemical did Medford use?”
“We don’t know. That’s why we sent Delta in to retrieve a sample.”
“So we don’t even know what we’re dealing with?”
“No, Dr. Lovato, I'm afraid we don't. All data and records relating to VX-99 were destroyed. Except it appears that Dr. Medford secured a sample of the chemical and used it in his experiments at Building 8.”
Kate felt like she was going to throw up. How had this happened? How the hell had Dr. Medford made such a fatal error? And why had Gibson kept this a secret until now? Was he hiding something else? The events had all created a perfect cocktail for the deadliest virus the world had ever seen.
She jerked, startled as her pocket rumbled from the vibration of her cell. She qu
ickly pulled it from her jeans and looked at the screen to see a text from Javier that read, How are things at the CDC, sis? The news is scaring me.
Kate slowly slipped the phone under the table and typed a text that read, I’m fine. Are you okay?
The hissing of wind crackled over the line.
“I have to go,” Gibson said. “But Dr. Allen, I need you to—”
The call dropped before the colonel could finish his sentence.
“Dammit!” Michael shouted. He slapped the table with his right palm.
Kate stared in shock at her friend and mentor. She’d never seen him lose control. Not like this.
His voice returned to the same cold systematic tone. “Kate, this could be it.”
“What?”
His eyes narrowed and she suddenly felt exposed, like he was looking right through her.
“The extinction event. The one you wrote about in your thesis.”
She shook her head. “No, we can stop it.”
Her phone buzzed again, and she pulled it out of her pocket. Another text from Javier blinked across the screen. Things are bad here. What kind of virus is this? They are saying it’s turning people into zombies.
-9-
April 20th, 2015
DAY 3
It was 4 a.m., but Kate wasn’t sleeping when she heard the rap on her door. Her eyes were glued to the ceiling of the small room she used for overnight stays.
The door creaked open, followed by a voice just louder than a whisper. “Kate, you awake?”
“Did we get them?” She sat up and reached for the lamp next to her bed. The light spilled over the room and illuminated Michael’s exhausted features.
He nodded. “Let’s go.”
They passed the small break room at a brisk pace. No time for coffee.
By the time they suited up and reached the lab, her heart had started the climb to her throat. She could hardly swallow. She’d seen some horrible things in the past, but this was different. This time it had hit home. The constant flashbacks to patient zero at O’Hare replayed in her mind. No matter what she did, she couldn’t get the gruesome images out of her head. And the call with Colonel Gibson had only added questions, not answers about this new virus. The involvement of VX-99 deepened that mystery. Why had the scientists there been working with a weapon that was, by international law, not even supposed to exist? She knew little about the chemical properties, but had her doubts that it would actually destroy the Ebola virus.
“Ready?” Michael asked.
They stood outside the door to the BSL4 lab. Inside, the samples were already waiting in the biosafety cabinets. The next task would require a clear mind and the utmost patience. Kate sucked in a breath of filtered air, listening to the echo inside her helmet. A lot of people were counting on them, including her little brother. She needed to be strong for Javier. No. She had to be strong for Javier.
“Ready,” she said, flashing a thumbs up.
Michael keyed in his credentials, swiped his badge and waited for the glass doors to slide open. Kate had heard the hiss a thousand times before, but this felt different. She flinched when the doors parted.
“First things first. Let’s isolate the RNA,” Michael said.
Kate nodded, but she knew exactly what she was doing. She wasn’t scared of the risk of infection; she was scared of the events transpiring in Chicago just miles from where her brother lived.
They started working at separate stations in the sterile environment. Kate used a sample marked “saliva” and isolated the virus. Next, she began the painstaking process of disrupting the virus shells and separating out the RNA. The work was labor intensive, and by the time Kate finished, it was already mid-morning.
“How are you doing?” Michael asked.
“Almost there,” Kate replied.
He craned his head in her direction in response to her cryptic comment.
“Sorry,” she replied. “I’m almost finished purifying the RNA from these samples, and then I’ll prep them for the sequencer.”
“Good.”
The purification took longer than she thought, and she finished just before noon. De novo sequencing would map the entire genome of the virus. The machine was state of the art, with the ability to sequence thirty billion individual bases in a day. The Ebola genome had a relatively simple genetic structure, with only nineteen thousand bases and just seven genes, so it wouldn’t take long to get a result.
After setting up the sequencer, she joined Michael at his computer.
“Do we even know which strain Dr. Medford was working with?”
“Colonel Gibson claimed they were working on a cure for the new strain,” Michael replied. His voice was cold and clinical. That was always how he sounded when he was immersed in his work. “We should know by the end of the day.” He finally looked away from the monitor. “Let’s finish up in here, let the sequencer do its job. I want to call Jed for an update. Once the genomes are mapped, we can run them through the bioinformatics software and see if we can’t find a match.”
The program compared the sequence results with all genomes in both the NCBI and CDC database. The results would give her a better idea of what they were dealing with.
“A match,” Kate mumbled.
Her eyes connected with Michael's ever so briefly. She wanted to see if she could get a read on the man. “Do you really think this is Ebola?”
His features hardened behind his visor. “Some of the symptoms are similar, but the behavior and some of their physiological changes don’t make any sense.” He shook his head and mumbled something Kate could hardly make out. “The lips. What could cause that?”
“I can’t get the images of Jim Pinkman out of my head,” Kate replied. She shuddered inside of her suit.
Michael reached out with a gloved hand, stopping just shy of her shoulder. “We’ll figure this out, Kate.”
She focused on the sequencer. The boxy machine was busy mapping the genomes for the most deadly virus she had ever encountered, and the results had the potential to change the world forever.
The flight to Fort Bragg and a horrible night of sleep had provided Beckham with ample time to think. He was done with the self-pity, the feelings of failure. He was a goddamned Delta Force Operator, not some grunt. He hadn’t risen to the rank of master sergeant by being a weak-minded coward. He’d done so by leading. If he could have traded places with Spinoza, Edwards, or Tenor he would have.
In a heartbeat.
But Delta operators didn’t get the luxury of living in a science fiction world. Their world was war. There were no time machines or do-overs. They didn’t have the luxury of second chances. The wrong decision resulted in missing limbs, death, and ruined lives. All he could do now was honor their memory and make damn sure his men hadn’t died in vain.
Horn and Riley were waiting for him on the stoop outside his quarters. They both looked exhausted and acknowledged him with slow nods.
“How are the girls?” Beckham asked.
“Good,” Horn replied. “Wife’s really upset. She keeps asking what happened. I didn’t know how to respond.”
Beckham nodded. Sheila was a tough woman, the kind that could keep his best friend in line. Horn had hardly been able to convince his wife to let him go to the Keys for a few days, but that was before…
“Ready for this?” Horn asked.
Beckham nodded. The other operators would all be there. They would all know by now that Spinoza, Edwards, and Tenor were gone. Every single one of them had lost other brothers-in-arms. It was part of the job, part of their life.
They walked the remainder of the path in silence. Horn gave Beckham a short pat on the shoulder when they arrived and then opened the door. The sound of a blaring television greeted them. The other teams were huddled around the monitor, watching a news report. Colonel Clinton stood behind the wood podium, his arms crossed, his face set in a stoic grimace.
Horn let the door shut quietly behind them. The metallic cl
ick prompted every head to gravitate in their direction. Beckham had entered the room knowing what to expect, but when he saw the grim looks and downturned faces, the loss struck him even harder. He’d lost half of his team. Half of the men he’d lived and bled with for years.
He wanted to drop to his knees, to scream at the top of his lungs. Instead, he held his head high and led his men down the aisle of leather chairs. Every step prompted a new expression of sympathy.
“Sorry about your team, Beckham,” one operator said.
Another shed a tear and whispered a prayer.
There were other noises too, a faint voice from a reporter on the news. “Zombie apocalypse takes Chicago by storm.”
Beckham nearly halted in the middle of the aisle. Had he heard right?
Two other operators offered sympathetic nods as he walked by. He heard one of them say, “No way these things are real zombies.” Beckham instantly picked up on the hint of reservation in the man’s voice. He sounded unsure. Operators were never unsure.
Beckham focused on a headline scrolled across the screen, wondering exactly what the hell was going on.
Suspected cases as far north as Warren and as far south as Monee …
“How could it spread that fast?” Riley asked.
“They better shut that fucking airport down,” Horn said.
Riley let out a controlled laugh. “They better send us in to shut down the entire fucking city.”
Beckham didn’t laugh. He kept his focus on the television, resisting the urge to clench his fists. He couldn’t stop thinking of the briefing and the lies they had been fed.
The solid rap of Clinton’s palm on the podium pulled everyone back to the center of the room. “Listen up,” he said, scanning the room with focused eyes. The room immediately went silent; a sign of respect that only a veteran commander could conjure in so little time.
“I’m sure you are all aware of the losses Team Ghost incurred yesterday morning. Staff Sergeant Carlos ‘Panda’ Spinoza, Sergeant Will Tenor, and Sergeant Jim Edwards were all killed in action. Funeral arrangements are pending notification of next of kin.”
Extinction Horizon (The Extinction Cycle Book 1) Page 11