by Carr, Jack
As they caught up, he grabbed his laptop. The doctor in him couldn’t help but scour a few medical sites to check for reports of flu spikes. He noted a few cases around the country but nothing too out of the ordinary.
Before going to bed, he ensured the house windows and doors were locked and that the alarm was set.
Just after 1:00 a.m. his phone vibrated to life on the nightstand. He grabbed it and slid his finger across the screen to answer. He listened in silence.
“Dr. Jay, something is going on,” his head ER nurse said, with an unusual edge to her voice. “We are being flooded. Everyone is so sick.”
Julius swung his feet from the bed and worked his way to the bathroom in darkness, carefully closing the door so as not to disturb his wife.
“Sorry, Nancy, just waking up. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like the flu but much worse, and everyone has it at once.”
“What do you mean, everyone?”
“They look so sick.”
He could tell she was looking at patients as she spoke.
“Nancy, what do you mean, everyone?” he repeated.
“I mean we are running out of places to put people. The waiting room is completely packed, and they just keep arriving.”
“Take a breath. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
“I apologize, Doctor. I know you are off today, but we are going to need you. This is different.”
There was something about the way she said different.
He ended the call and looked at himself in the mirror, noting the dark bags under his eyes, the result of working too many vampire-hour shifts over the years. Running his hand over the gray stubble on his chin, he decided to forgo the shave. He moved as quietly as he could from the bathroom to the walk-in closet and dressed before reentering the bedroom.
“Is everything okay?” his wife asked, pushing herself up on her pillow.
“Oh yes, don’t worry,” he whispered. “The ER is just a bit overworked tonight. Typical Friday in Texas. I’m going to go help out for a few hours. Go back to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning, and then we have ten days off.”
He leaned over and gave her a kiss.
It didn’t enter his mind that he would never see his family again.
When he arrived at Richardson Methodist Medical Center, his parking place was blocked by a truck with the engine still running. Vehicles occupied every space in the lot. Most were double-parked. Two ambulances were unloading patients in the arrival area, the lights swiveling with reds, yellows, and blues. A third pulled in as Dr. Jay passed.
This couldn’t be from the flu, could it?
Not wanting to add to what was a palpable and growing panic, he stifled his desire to run. Instead he walked swiftly past the growing line and into the ER, his brain flashing back to the field hospitals of Iraq and Afghanistan as he processed the scene. Nurses and doctors moved from patient to patient, stepping over piles of vomit that orderlies hurried to clean up, maneuvering mop buckets from one mess to the next. Nancy was right, this was different. People were everywhere: in the hallways, waiting rooms, and examination rooms, some supported by worried family members with terror in their eyes. Children, babies, the middle-aged, and elderly of all races endured their wait together. Whatever was happening certainly did not discriminate.
The unmistakable stench of bile overwhelmed his senses. He found himself wishing he was home, showering away the smells and memories of trauma wards and war zones.
Dr. Jay remembered an attending physician early in his residency telling his interns, The pungent smell of stale blood gets on you and sticks with you, and you cannot wash it off no matter how many showers you take.
That physician had been right.
Blood in the vomit? The olfactory system in his “old brain” was warning Julius to get out and get away from the smell, away from the danger.
Not today.
Dr. Jay clicked into military mode and began barking orders.
“Nancy, set up an area in the cafeteria to isolate,” he said, pointing down the hall.
“We’re on it,” she said, delegating the task to two junior nurses so she could take on the role of Dr. Jay’s executive officer.
“We need to get this cleaned up,” he said, pointing to the vomit, remembering the blood on the floor of the field hospitals overseas. “Make it a priority.”
The staff had seen Dr. Jay like this before in the trauma room during emergencies.
“Nancy, get me the BioFire results from last shift of the flu patients. The labs from last two days. Get them, now!”
The BioFire Assay was a blood test that checked for twenty-six known virus strains. The hospital had been testing patients with flu-like symptoms in the wake of COVID. BioFire was one of the biotech companies that had made it big during the pandemic and had developed the standard test to check for COVID, H1N1, rhinoviruses, and agents known to cause viral illnesses.
“Here they are, Doctor,” Nancy said.
Julius pulled down his “readers” and stared at the results. All the patients were negative.
“What the fuck is going on,” he whispered, leaning against his office door, looking from the data to the chaos of the hallway. This wasn’t a plane crash, vehicle accident, or shooting, but it was without a doubt a mass casualty event.
“Get me the CDC hotline, and numbers for the sheriff’s department and mayor’s office,” he said.
“Julius, are we going to be okay?”
“We will be fine.”
Dr. Jay was not a good liar.
A nurse passed by in the hall, assisting a patient to an exam room. He looked up while attempting to cover a cough. Julius saw red hemorrhage in the conjunctiva of his eyes.
“And get every staff member in full PPE: gown, gloves, goggles, and N95 masks. Do it now, and don’t touch anything or anyone until every member of the staff is protected.”
“You’ve got it, Doctor,” she said before moving off down the hall to carry out her orders.
Julius watched her go and then rushed to the lavatory, thoroughly washing his shaking hands before donning his PPE gear.
A hemorrhagic fever outbreak in Texas?
Before emerging into what was now ground zero, Dr. Julius Mieczkowski dropped to his knees and began to pray.
CHAPTER 28
The White House
Washington, D.C.
SECRET SERVICE AGENT FRANK Sharp did not have to work the night shift. He was senior enough to avoid that duty. He was known as an agent who did not mind getting his hands dirty and liked the example it set, especially if he took the duty on a weekend, which he did at least once a month. He’d be relieved in a couple of hours and have the rest of Saturday and Sunday off. He was honored to hold the line, a sentinel in an agency whose motto, “Worthy of Trust and Confidence,” still filled him with pride.
Authorized by President Lincoln in 1865, the Secret Service was established under the U.S. Department of the Treasury and tasked with suppressing counterfeit currency. After the assassination of President McKinley in 1901, that mission was expanded; the Secret Service has been standing guard ever since, though now it was part of the Department of Homeland Security. The threats had changed, the enemy had adapted, and yet one element remained the same: a Secret Service agent with a gun standing next to the president of the United States.
Sharp looked at his watch. It was just before 6:00 a.m. He knew the president was up; a light was visible under the door. Two more hours and Sharp would be on his way home. He’d already been divorced twice and knew that if he didn’t want to make it a hat trick he should be spending the night at home rather than electing to stand guard outside the president’s door. He was debating how to make it up to wife number three, when his earpiece cracked to life with a code word that would significantly alter his plans. It was a code word that had never before been used.
He immediately turned and gave two sharp knocks on the door to
the president’s bedroom.
“Yes,” Sharp heard the president say from the bedroom.
Sharp opened the door and scanned the room. The president approached from the bathroom, attaching a second cuff link to his dress shirt, socks and shoes off, preparing for the day.
“Sorry, Mr. President. We have to go to the Basement.”
“What’s going on?”
“Unknown, sir.”
“Not the bunker?” the president asked, referring to what was officially designated the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, or PEOC. Located under the East Wing of the White House, it was originally constructed during World War II for FDR, to protect the president and his staff from possible German rocket bombardment. Eisenhower upgraded it in the 1950s and it remained relatively unchanged until September 11. Those attacks confirmed that it was time for another upgrade.
In 2010, fences with attached privacy screens went up around the North Lawn of the White House. All construction workers underwent extensive background checks and signed nondisclosure agreements. The administration announced that it was a long-overdue infrastructure upgrade. In reality it was to build the most secure facility ever constructed. It was protected by concrete thick enough to withstand the radiation of a nuclear bomb and had its own air supply to combat a biological or chemical weapon attack. Stocked with food and water to last over a year and utilizing the most advanced communications suite available, the Basement was designed as a final fallback position to be used only in case of war. Each president since its completion was given a tour upon taking office. None of them had ever been evacuated to it during a real-world crisis.
Had different code words been used, a scrum of agents would have materialized around the president and escorted him to the PEOC or the White House Situation Room. Though rumors abounded, the Basement was officially known to only a select number of individuals in government. Agent Sharp was one of them.
Agent Neely joined his partner and fell in behind the president as they made their way to a hidden elevator with its own power supply to begin their journey underground.
“What did they tell you?” President Christensen asked.
“Nothing, sir. Just Sentinel and Ender.”
Since the days of Camelot, the first family had been assigned call signs. The White House Communications Agency provides a list to candidates. Before he could choose his own, Christensen had been assigned Spirit as a nod to the New York Times article and photo that had shot him to prominence. He thought that was on the pompous side, so his national security advisor had suggested another name from the list: Sentinel.
Ender was a code word everyone briefed on its significance prayed they would never hear.
Agent Sharp put his finger to his ear. His normal radio was about to go dark as they descended toward the EMP level-four protected facility. Once they entered the Basement their only connection to the outside world would be through a hardened stand-alone communications system.
“The national security advisor, DNI, and CIA director will be here in twenty minutes,” the Secret Service agent said.
The president nodded. He would not know more until they arrived. The vice president was still on a tour of Asia. Depending on what he learned in the briefing he was about to receive, she might be ordered back to the United States to lock down at NORAD in Colorado. An Ender meant they would not be colocated until the crisis, whatever it was, subsided.
The elevator doors opened, and Agent Sharp led the way through a cold concrete tunnel. Agent Neely took rear security. Pipes and emergency lighting guided them to a steel blast-resistant door that resembled a bank vault. It was open as per protocol to facilitate a faster evacuation of the president. Neely closed it behind them as Sharp walked through an anteroom to another set of doors. Sharp entered a code, pressed his thumb to a biometric reader, and looked into a screen that scanned his iris. The president did the same. The locking mechanism disengaged, and the door swung open on its massive hinges. Neely maintained his position in the anteroom to meet the incoming members of the executive national security team as the door closed, locking the president and Agent Sharp five stories beneath the White House.
CHAPTER 29
Fairfax, Virginia
HALEY GARRETT’S PHONE WENT off with an unknown government number coded 00011 just before 7:00 a.m. She looked over at her husband, but he had already snuck off for his morning run. She answered on the third buzz.
“Yes?”
“Is this Dr. Haley Garrett?”
“Yes, who is this, please?” she asked, already irritated at the tone of the caller’s voice.
“Doctor, this is Deputy Director of CISA Isaac Glover.”
CISA?
Haley searched her memory filled with government acronyms as she shook the cobwebs from her head.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency?
“What can I do for you at”—Haley turned her phone in her hand to look at the clock—"six forty-seven on a Saturday morning?”
“We understand that you are the lead on a hemorrhagic virus outbreak in Angola.”
“That’s right. I was point on that outbreak. It burnt itself out. My office would be happy to forward you the report.”
“I’ve read the report, Doctor. There has been another outbreak.”
“Damn it. Same area?” Haley asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes and still wondering why the deputy director of CISA was calling her so early on a weekend.
“No.” Glover cleared his throat. “We are going to need you at CDC now. You will be briefed when you arrive. CISA will be handling all responses from here. You are not to discuss this with anyone.”
“Discuss what? You haven’t told me anything,” Haley said, raising her voice.
“This has been designated a national security critical infrastructure threat. Any violation of these orders is an act of treason.”
Is the deputy director of CISA reading from a prepared document?
“What are you talking about?”
“A CISA representative will be at your office shortly to coordinate. Thank you for your cooperation.”
“Hey…” Before she should get another word out, the line went dead.
CISA?
She knew that CISA had been created in 2018 and that it was a stand-alone agency reporting to the Department of Homeland Security. She had taken part in an exercise a year ago in which CISA co-opted control of the CDC in a simulated bioterrorism attack against the United States. Her part in that exercise had consisted of sending a couple of emails. She had not thought much about it at the time.
Nothing in Deputy Director Glover’s voice indicated this was another exercise, but she wouldn’t know for certain until she got to work.
She slipped out of bed, splashed cold water on her face, dressed, and texted her husband a message saying she’d been called into work. He’d see it when he returned from his morning run promptly at 7:30 a.m.
As she waited for the coffee machine to do its magic, she began connecting the dots. If CISA was confirming that she was the lead on the Angola outbreak and was calling her in on a Saturday morning, there really was only one reason; the outbreak didn’t die out on the Dark Continent. It was alive and it was now on U.S. soil.
Without waiting for the coffee to finish, she grabbed her purse and headed for her car.
CHAPTER 30
The White House
Washington, D.C.
DIRECTOR MOTLEY WAS THE first to arrive. She had been given a familiarization tour of the Basement, as had all members of the National Security Council, but just like the president, this was her first time entering the secure facility in a time of crisis. National Security Advisor Greg Farber and Allen Cruse, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, emerged from the tunnel talking in hushed voices, followed by the secretary of state, the secretary of the Treasury, the secretary of defense, the director of national intelligence, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. T
hey were all flanked by Secret Service agents.
Each of them typed in a code, pressed their fingers to the biometric scanner, and stared into the screen that read their irises to confirm identities and access.
Cruse looked more like a construction foreman than he did a government bureaucrat. His height and girth suggested a past-his-prime linebacker when in fact Motley knew he was one of the smartest people in Washington. With a background in secure data storage, he was instrumental in advocating and building the “cloud” a decade before most had ever heard of it. Oracle often took a backseat to Microsoft and Apple in name recognition, but that didn’t bother the founder, executives, or shareholders. Few realized that a sliver of every electronic interaction around the globe touched an Oracle platform, including those of Microsoft and Google. It was imperative that those transactions be secure.
For the data that powered the nation’s military and intelligence apparatus, security was even more paramount. Oracle had cornered the market for secure government data storage long ago. Cruse had been in on the ground floor, learning from Oracle’s founder and helping him turn his vision into a reality. As the landscape in Palo Alto began to change, Cruse didn’t jump ship for Google, Facebook, Uber, or Airbnb. He continued to adapt and build the Oracle “cloud” into the most secure data storage platform available. He had been rewarded with multigenerational wealth. He could have been enjoying a life of leisure but had decided to serve, first as the senior advisor to the assistant secretary of homeland security for infrastructure protection and later as senior advisor to the secretary of homeland security. In that role he had applied his intellect to the study of emerging threats to the United States, threats that included nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.
The previous administration had identified a vulnerability and the president had recognized Cruse as a talent. Truth be told, Motley had identified the vulnerability and recommended the creation of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency with the sole task of protecting government infrastructure. Cruse was the first person nominated to lead the new agency and still the only person to hold the post. Motley now wondered if she had created a monster.