Tlateloco
Mason was conferring with Suzanne and Lauren in the dining area of the lab and had just checked Jimmy Walker’s name off the list of students on the dig the university had given Lauren. It had been the last name without a checkmark.
He looked at her with warm, sympathetic eyes. “That’s it, then, Lauren. All of the members of the expedition are accounted for. Now we’ve got to see about getting you off-site and back to Texas so you can get back to your life.”
She smiled at him, her face a strange mixture of sadness and anticipation. “So many dead, and for what? To unearth some old bones and artifacts that no one except dried-up old museum curators will ever see.”
He reached over and placed his hand on her arm. “They died doing what they loved, Lauren.” He sighed and looked around at the cramped quarters of the laboratory. “And that’s about all any of us can wish for.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “I’ll get Joel to see if he can schedule a chopper to come pick you up for the trip back to Mexico City.”
“Are you in such a hurry to get rid of me, then?” she asked in a quiet voice, her eyes looking shyly down at her feet.
Mason glanced at Suzanne as his face flamed red in a deep blush. “Why . . . er . . . um . . . no, not at all,” he said, wondering if she felt the same smoldering attraction for him that he felt for her.
He was saved from further embarrassment when the door to the communications room burst open and a wild-eyed Joel Schumacher rushed into the room, his yarmulke askew on his head for the first time in Mason’s memory.
“Boss, you’ve got to see this!” he exclaimed, holding out his iPad.
The device was connected wirelessly to the Internet via Joel’s satellite hookup and a newscast from Mexico City was playing. It was a cable news outlet and even though it originated in Mexico City, the newscaster was speaking in English.
The four of them watched as news of a major outbreak of an unknown illness was credited with killing over two hundred people and sickening thousands more in just the last twenty-four hours. Reports of hundreds of people staggering into emergency rooms and clinics showing massive hemorrhaging, high temperatures, and pneumonia-like symptoms filled the screen.
“Jesus!” Suzanne whispered, her hand to her mouth.
“Damn!” Mason said. “The damned bug has escaped the jungle into one of the most densely populated areas in this hemisphere.”
Lauren put her hand on Mason’s arm. “Are you sure this is our plague?”
“It has to be,” Suzanne said grimly. “The symptoms are too close to our bug for it to be anything else.”
Mason nodded grimly. “And if it’s gotten to Mexico City, then it is probably well on its way across the entire world.”
He handed the iPad back to Joel. “Get me the Battleship on the sat-phone . . . right now!”
“The Battleship?” Lauren asked Suzanne.
The corner of Suzanne’s lip curled in a half-smile, but her eyes remained grim. “That would be Dr. Grant Battersee, the head of CDC and our boss of bosses.”
Mason added almost as an afterthought, “We call him the Battleship ’cause once he gets started on a project he’s as hard to stop as a battleship is under full steam.”
“I’ll gather all of the others here where we can make some contingency plans about what the spread of this pathogen is going to mean and how we’re gonna deal with it,” Suzanne said, pulling the handheld radio off her belt and moving over to a corner to alert the other team members of the new development.
Mason turned to Lauren, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to endure our company for a while longer, Lauren.”
“You mean I won’t be able to return home?”
Mason shook his head. “If they haven’t already done it, once I talk to Battersee, he’ll make sure all international airports are shut down tight with no further travel between countries. Though I’m afraid it’s much like locking the stall door after the horse has escaped, it’s protocol in the event of a major outbreak like this is almost certainly going to be.”
“Be careful what you wish for . . .” Lauren mumbled under her breath as she turned to look out the window of the lab.
“What’s that?” Mason asked.
“Oh, nothing,” she answered. “It’s just that I’d been kinda hoping to get to see you again when . . . all this was over,” she said, and now it was her face turning red.
Mason gently turned her back around to face him. “Lauren,” he started, and then he glanced over his shoulder at Suzanne, who was standing with her back to them talking rapidly into her radio. He placed his palm against her cheek and pulled her to him for a gentle kiss on the lips, and then he leaned back and took a deep breath, as if he’d been deep underwater and had just surfaced. “Lauren, now is not the time to get into it, but believe me when I say I feel the same way, and I hope we get the chance to talk about it when, like you say, all this is over.”
Before Lauren could suppress her surprise at his actions and reply, Suzanne turned around and headed toward them. “The others are on the way here for a C-O-W,” she said.
Lauren looked from Suzanne to Mason with a puzzled expression until Mason said, “Council of War. It’s what we call a conference where we all get together to decide how to handle various emergencies on our field trips.”
Joel stuck his head out of the door and said, “I’ve got Dr. Battersee holding on the secure sat-phone that’s encrypted. I figured you’d want some privacy for your talk.”
“Good man,” Mason said, looking back over his shoulder and giving Lauren a quick wink only she could see as he squeezed by Joel into the tiny communications room and shut the door behind him.
Lauren glanced over at Suzanne and found her staring back at her with a strange, unreadable expression on her face.
Fort Detrick
Colonel Blackman slammed his phone down into its cradle and swung his legs out of bed. “I’m gonna have me a security guard’s balls for breakfast!” he muttered angrily as he marched into his kitchen to make a cup of coffee.
Paco was supposed to drop off the sample from Janus over four hours ago and Blackman had still not heard from the security guard on duty whether he’d arrived yet or not. And to make matters worse, now when Blackman called the guard post in the secure wing he got no answer. That post was supposed to be manned 24/7/365 and he was damn sure gonna make somebody pay for abandoning their post.
He’d just finished dressing and was pouring his second cup of coffee when his phone rang. “’Bout damn time!” he said, thinking it was the guard post calling to tell him Paco was finally here.
“Yeah?”
“Colonel Blackman, this is Sergeant James calling.”
That’s funny, Blackman thought. James was the perimeter guard, not the security wing guard. “What is it, James?”
“I’ve got a car out here in the parking lot with its engine running and a man in the driver’s seat slumped over the wheel. He’s got blood running from his eyes and ears and is unresponsive to me knocking on the window.”
The hair on the back of Blackman’s neck rose to attention as he asked hurriedly, “Did you open the car doors?”
“Uh . . . no, sir. The doors are locked and I was calling to see if you wanted me to bust open a window.”
“Absolutely not, James. Form a cordon around that car of at least fifty feet and do not—I repeat, do not let anyone else get near it.”
“Yes, sir! Is there anything else?”
“Yes, do not let anyone get closer than ten feet to you and as soon as you’ve got the car sealed off, report directly to the quarantine lab and I’ll have someone waiting for you.”
“Quarantine lab, sir?”
“James, remember your training. You may have been exposed to an unknown pathogen and we need to get you decontaminated as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir!” The man’s voice had developed a definite quaver at Blackman’s answer.
Blackman hung up the phone and ran his hands through his hair as he thought about what to do next. If he is exposed to our new bug, he’s a dead man walking, but we might be able to get some good intel from how he reacts to various treatments.
It only took a moment for the other shoe to drop as he now thought he knew why the lab security guard was not answering his calls.
He picked up his phone and called the main security office to order an immediate lockdown of the entire facility. No one was going to be allowed to enter or leave the Fort until he discovered the extent of the contamination.
“Damn you, Paco,” he said under his breath. “You may have killed us all.”
When the security officer answered, Blackman said just two words to get the facility locked down, “Code Red!”
The guard hesitated, and then Blackman thought he could hear the fear in the man’s words as he answered, “Code Red in effect, sir!”
“And I want everyone on base to get into contamination uniforms, with face masks and hats and booties ASAP!” he added, causing a sharp intake of breath from the security guard.
He hung up the phone and walked slowly over to his closet. He opened the door and pulled an orange coverall off a hanger, unzipped it, and stepped into it.
As he zipped it up and took a paper hat and face mask off the shelf, he sighed deeply. He wondered how many people this bug was going to kill before he could gain control of it and whether he would be one of its victims.