The Omega Covenant

by Richard Holcroft

  “But you don’t know what the series was to be about?”

  She shook her head. “Not specifically. Just that certain people in Washington and at the Pentagon weren’t happy about it and were going to squelch it if he went ahead.”

  Marchetti hadn’t worked in Washington, but he knew that embarrassing Pentagon officials was not a ticket to a long and successful career in journalism.

  Janine continued, “I do know Brad had evidence the administration had plans to create a phony attack on an American ship in the Persian Gulf in hopes it’d trigger the reaction they wanted from Iran. If it didn’t work, they’d create the reaction themselves.”

  “To get us to retaliate?” Marchetti asked.

  “Right–to justify an attack by the US and Israel on Iran’s nuclear power plants because the state department got snookered so badly in its agreement with Tehran. They were desperate to get out of the deal, and this would be their solution.”

  “A ‘false-flag’ operation,” Tom explained, “like the Gulf of Tonkin.” Janine looked as if she didn’t understand. “A North Vietnamese ship allegedly fires at one of our destroyers; Congress, with the urging of the president, passes a resolution authorizing military action; and we fire back. Bingo, we’re at war for the next ten years.”

  “Typical,” she said and shook her head. “When women get upset they go shopping; when men get upset they invade a country.”

  Tom and Marchetti barely smiled.

  Janine continued, “Apparently, this was to be a similar operation. Brad was outraged over the whole thing and the lives potentially at stake; the CIA and Pentagon were outraged that their planned operation had been leaked.”

  “Where did he get his information?” Marchetti asked.

  “Some of it came from a contact at the CIA, but he also planned to see someone here on the island who’d worked at the Pentagon. He and Brad were to meet for coffee or lunch on the south side of the island, but Brad never made it. Island police, responding to a motorist’s call, found his car wrapped around a power pole.”

  Tom shook his head. “Where was this?”

  “Three miles southeast of Waimea on Highway 50, near Pakala–the eastbound side of the road where the highway crosses a stream. “

  “When?”

  “June 5th... about two in the afternoon.”

  “And no witnesses?”

  “No, which is not surprising. Even at that time of day, it’s lightly traveled once you get west of Port Andrews.”

  “They do an autopsy?” Marchetti asked.

  Janine again shook her head, looking exasperated. “A partial one, which I thought ridiculous.”

  “In what way?”

  “The chief of police on Kauai is an elected position, and by virtue of his office he’s also the coroner. He relies on appointed coroner-physicians to perform autopsies, but the physician Chief Silva called in for this case was a buddy who I believe simply went through the motions in forming his conclusions.”

  “And what were they?”

  “That Brad was speeding, lost control of the car, and left the road. When toxicology came back negative, he went with that conclusion.”

  “What kind of physician do these coroner assistants have to be?”

  “The statute doesn’t specify–only that they be board-certified in anatomic or forensic pathology. This particular doctor was chiefly involved in research but board certified in forensics.”

  “Then he should be well qualified,” Marchetti added.

  She shrugged and said, “Not necessarily.”

  Tom asked, “So you think he covered up something related to the crash, or simply lacked requisite skills to properly investigate a vehicular death?”

  She thought for a moment. “Let’s just say I don’t think he was willing to go over all necessary hurdles to get to the truth.” She appeared to drift off to a related thought for a few moments and then returned to the conversation. “My main problem with the whole episode, however, was not with the coroner or physician; it was with the crime scene investigators. I simply don’t believe Brad was speeding on that highway–at least not for the thrill of it, or because he was late for a meeting. He could have been trying to get away from someone, though.”

  Sounds familiar, Marchetti thought. “Anyone at the Post pick up the story where Brad left off?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “What happened to the stuff he was working on–notes, contact numbers, photos, things like that?” Tom asked.

  “I have it all locked away. His brother came in from California and claimed the body, but the only personal items he took with him were Brad’s clothes, a few photos, his wallet and checkbook.” She thought for a few moments and then continued, “Plus, cash that amounted to about four hundred dollars and copies of letters from his family–said he’d send for the rest in a month or two. After he left, I gathered what remained and put it in a safe in my office.”

  “What about the car?”

  “The police said they went over it thoroughly after the crash, and all they found were his reading glasses, a map of the island, his cell phone and iPad still in working order. I have those items, too.”

  “Then I’d say the safe would be good place to start,” Marchetti said. “Have you looked at any of the material yourself?”

  She nodded. “A lot of it appears routine for someone doing an investigative piece on such a controversial subject. But there was one entry in his notebook that caught my eye.”

  “What was that?”

  “On one of the pages dated the day before he died, he wrote that someone broke into his house in Southern California. He also thought he was being followed the previous month.”

  Marchetti looked surprised. “He mention anything like that to you personally?”

  “No, but the last few days we were together he was real worried about something. Besides the break-in, he thought someone may have hacked into his computer.”

  “Hacked in how?”

  “He wasn’t a tech geek, so he didn’t know how exactly. But a couple of mysterious emails started showing up in his mailbox soon after he arrived here. He figured some kind of spyware may have been embedded in one of those.”

  “I get them all the time,” Marchetti said.

  “Yes, but after that, he began getting vile threats warning him to back off the story. Whoever was sending them seemed to know things only he and his source would know.” She paused for a few moments and wiped her eyes. “I still feel terrible about it all. There were plenty of warnings; I could have done more to help.”

  9

  Atlanta Medical Center, July 3rd

  The basement level morgue, pristine and antiseptic, was eerie and foreboding to all but the most experienced postmortem personnel. The young male body lay in a grotesque, contorted pose on a sheet-covered gurney. He appeared to be in his early thirties but could have been younger, hard to tell. Dried blood covered his upper lip; the whites of his eyes were a deep, ugly red. His face was scarred and sad, as if he’d suffered terribly before he finally succumbed.

  Doctors who’d treated the patient the past week and a half were puzzled about the nature of the infection and subsequent cause of death. They finally asked that someone from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) come to the hospital for a look. Dr. Janet Silverthorn from the Office of Infectious Diseases immediately left her office on Clifton Street and headed for the medical center, five miles away.

  She arrived at the complex twenty minutes later and took the freight elevator down two levels to the basement morgue. After signing the entry logbook, she went to a dressing room where she donned fresh surgical scrubs and disposable shoe covers.

  She’d gone through the routine many times before, but this time felt different. From the brief description CDC received concerning the deceased, this was not a routine case. She was on edge about what she’d find.

  Silverthorn placed her personal belongings in a small locker and walked
to a storage room on the other side of the morgue. There she’d don another layer of protective clothing: surgical gown, waterproof apron, surgical covers on her shoes and cap for her head.

  Satisfied she’d covered all skin areas, she headed for the morgue and introduced herself to the two doctors from the medical center waiting for her in the small anteroom adjacent to the morgue: Drs. Norman Selkirk and Catherine Cook.

  “What’ve we got?” Silverthorn asked.

  “An unusual case,” Selkirk said. “Similar to one they’ve got in New Orleans, which worries me.” He picked up the man’s chart. “Thomas Flynn, thirty-two-year-old CPA from Buckhead. Reportedly in good health prior to onset of symptoms: marathon runner, non-drinker or smoker, regular checkups.”

  “Diagnostic history?”

  “Admitted to ER six days ago with a 103-degree fever complaining of intense headache, backache, and extreme weakness.” The three put on the remaining isolation gear–bio-filter masks, safety glasses and rubber surgical gloves–and entered the stark, antiseptic-looking autopsy room. On the rear wall were two counter-to-ceiling glass cabinets on either side of a double row of crypts covered with stainless steel doors. Two autopsy tables, also stainless, occupied prominent positions in front of the crypts. Dual light fixtures containing soft white florescent bulbs hung from the ceiling.

  The assisting technician lowered the sheet to the deceased’s waist, and Silverthorn gasped. The smell and sight of death didn’t usually get to her, but this man’s grotesqueness made her gag. Masses of bleeding made his skin look charred, almost black in spots. A red rash covered the rest of his chest and most of his face in a spattered polka dot pattern. His hands were gnarled and crusty, the skin covering them a dark, cherry color.

  “Blood tests showed a significant decrease in coagulation factors,” Dr. Cook said.

  Silverthorn’s initial reaction was that type of result may have led to the excessive bleeding under his skin. “He on a blood thinner–warfarin, maybe?”

  Cook shook her head. “No vitamin K deficiency, either.”

  “Recent blood transfusions or evidence of liver disease?”

  “None we’re aware of, nor any low coagulation factors in family members. We’ve asked everyone close to him we can find.”

  Silverthorn reached for Flynn’s medical record and scanned the last couple of pages. “You had him on a couple of antibiotics I see.”

  “Right. We started him on penicillin for the fever and thought his symptoms might have been a severe reaction to the drug. But when his eyes started hemorrhaging, we knew it was more complicated than that and switched him to clindamycin.”

  She thought about his symptoms for a few moments. “The fact that he worsened after the antibiotic would indicate some type of virus and not a bacterial infection.” The two doctors nodded in agreement. “Are you both up to date on your inoculations?” They both said they were. She then asked the tech the same question.

  The young tech shrugged. “As far as I know.”

  Silverthorn looked back at the doctors. “I assume you’ll do an autopsy?”

  Dr. Cook looked almost apologetic. “The family insists it doesn’t want one, and the hospital typically doesn’t do one, either, absent very unusual circumstances.”

  She shook her head. “I’m old school, and this falls into that category. We still have a lot to learn from an autopsy, but I’m not going to fight city hall.” She thought for a moment. “It’s my suggestion we do a complete blood and lesion profile at CDC. Depending on what we find, we might want to push harder to get the family to change its mind.”

  They walked back to the changing area where they removed their protective gear and discarded it in biohazard containers. Once she was back in street clothes, she reached inside her thin briefcase and handed each doctor a several-page CDC pamphlet. “I know you’ve done this before, but to refresh your memory, these are our guidelines for collecting and sending us a specimen. Basically, it explains procedures regarding protective clothing and eyewear. Try to draw blood from an area near the skin blotches, and take a few biopsies, as well. Getting a lesion specimen may be difficult in this case, since so few of them are above the skin, but get one if you can.”

  “And send the specimens to you?”

  “Right. Put one 10 cc. sample of blood in a plastic vial with formalin, another without the formalin. Label and place the specimens in a biohazard bag with dry ice and send them attention to me at the address there,” she said, pointing to a label affixed to the pamphlet. “Or I can send a technician over to assist if you prefer. It’d be no trouble.”

  “That’d be a good idea,” Dr. Selkirk said. “We definitely don’t want to screw it up.”

  Silverthorn nodded. “We deal with this sort of thing all the time, so I agree that might be best, although this case is certainly a strange one.” She glanced at the body again from a distance and then turned away. “I’ll have someone over this afternoon. Make sure you wash any towels you use for cleanup in hot water and detergent. And keep anyone who isn’t current on all vaccinations away from the body–and this room. We don’t know what we have here, but we want to keep it contained if it turns out to be serious.”

  Silverthorn made her way back to the elevator. As she rode back to street level, she rested her head against the elevator wall and exhaled deeply. In twelve years of dealing with infectious diseases, she’d never witnessed anything like this before. She’d seen photos of similar cases in medical school, though... and if that’s what they had, she’d just been staring into the pit of hell.

  10

  Dr. Silverthorn couldn’t believe it. From what she’d seen and learned, they had two identical cases in emergency rooms in New York and New Orleans and now a death at a hospital only five miles from her office at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Similar cases in Little Rock, Memphis, Baltimore, and Boston, as well. All in the last few days, she noted, with the same symptoms: a routine visit to emergency, with the patient complaining of fever, headache, and other flu-like symptoms. Treated by emergency room personnel who sent them home with instructions to drink plenty of water and take ibuprofen. Readmitted a day or two later feeling worse and covered with tiny, pink spots all over their face, torso, and extremities.

  Twenty-four hours after the spots first appeared, they turned into raised pustules filled with fluid. When emergency room doctors in New York and Boston suspected chickenpox, infectious disease personnel declared a contagious disease emergency and rushed the patients into isolation rooms designed primarily for tuberculosis patients. Hospital staff soon ruled out the chickenpox theory, however, when the rash started appearing in places the chickenpox virus normally doesn’t afflict–soles of the feet, for instance.

  The news from CDC was bad. When swabs taken from the deceased patient at Atlanta Medical Center were examined by electron microscopy, they indicated the presence of an orthopox virus–making it a possible, particularly virulent cross-species infection, since it could include the pox virus from monkeys, as well. But a conclusive test from laboratories at either CDC or the US Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases would still be needed for confirmation.

  She dropped what she was doing, called down to Biosafety Level 4 lab, and asked them to rush the results of the Thomas Flynn sample to her as soon as it became available. Two hours later, the lab physician, looking grim and exhausted, entered Silverthorn’s office and spread the printout on her desk. Silverthorn scanned the results and slumped back in her chair in horror. No question about it now. A disease around for twelve thousand years until declared globally eradicated three decades ago had reappeared and was now killing Americans.

  “Smallpox,” she said to CDC’s supervising physician, Dr. Raymond Heche, barely able to utter the word.

  Heche looked at her in disbelief. “Janet, it’s way too early–”

  She slowly shook her head. “I’m afraid it’s not. We’ve got similar cases popping up in five major cities,
a new one suspected in Boston, and a confirmed case here at the Medical Center who just died. I’ve notified every major hospital in the country. Those with suspected cases need to test for smallpox and get swab samples down here pronto.”

  He studied the distress on her face. “Good grief,” he said and shook his head. “Most physicians have never even seen a case of anthrax, much less smallpox. It certainly wasn’t covered much in med school; it’s ancient history to us.” He pulled a tissue from his back pocket and wiped his brow. “We need to get the word out to NIH and the surgeon general immediately. Then to the White House and everyone else in the emergency notification loop as fast as possible.”

  “We’ve already started.”

  “Just the one death so far?”

  She nodded. “But more in the next few days, I’m sure.”

  Heche rubbed his forehead in deep thought. How could this have happened? “Okay, if that’s the case, we also need to form a response plan immediately. We’ve never dealt with anything like this before–not smallpox.” Silverthorn grabbed her iPad and began taking notes. “Set up a conference call,” he said, “with all major hospitals affected, plus others in their vicinity. Include our own people, representatives from health and human services, and appropriate state and local health and law enforcement authorities, as well.”

  “The FBI and National Security Council need to be in on this, too. If indeed it’s smallpox, it means terrorists. No other way it’s out there.”

  Heche nodded. “See if we can find out how many of our people have been immunized. I don’t want to send unimmunized medical workers into isolation rooms just to talk to infected patients.”

  “Which would include just about everyone on staff. I doubt we’ll find one percent of the medical population who’ve been immunized for smallpox unless they’ve recently been in the military, perhaps.”

  “Right, so identifying immunized people is one of our first orders of business. We also need to get information from families of the infected patients about where those patients have been, and that means immunizing as many health care workers as possible, quickly.”