Broken Justice

by Ralph Gibbs

  “Can he do that?” the person standing next to Danica asked no one in particular.

  “Try to avoid public places if you can and don’t venture outside unless necessary. I know, at this point, you must be scared, and I wish I could tell you everything will to be fine, but it may not be. We might be in for a rough time. But we Americans are used to rough times. We’ll weather this just as assuredly as we have weathered other tough times. In the meantime, look after one another and regardless of your religious beliefs, love thy neighbor. God bless you and God Bless the United States of America.”

  “Did he just declare martial law?” someone asked.

  “No,” someone else said. “All he said was a national emergency.”

  “Is there a difference?” another asked.

  “Go ahead and call up Matthew,” Mrs. Turner told Dominick.

  Dominick nodded and picked up the phone.

  “It’s a fucking power play by Democrats,” someone behind her yelled. “They’ve been trying to establish communism for years. FEMA is just a ruse. Mark my words, they’ll be sending us to re-education camps before the year is out.”

  “So much for love thy neighbor,” Danica said under her breath.

  “Mr. James,” Mrs. Turner said, “I’ll thank you to watch your language and to keep your voice down. If you want to discuss politics, do so off school property. If you cannot do this, I’ll have security escort you outside, and you can wait for Theo in your car.”

  “That’s just the sort of response I’d expect from a libtard,” he shot back. “It’s bad enough I have to send him here and let you brainwash him . . .”

  Danica didn’t wait for Mr. James to finish. She left the office to wait in the hall. It seemed a lot of people were coughing and looking worried. Bailey and Matthew rounded the corner. Bailey made his way slowly to his sister, while Matthew broke into a run the moment he saw her.

  “Hey, Dany,” Matthew said. “Are we going home?”

  “We are,” Danica said. She looked at Bailey. “You feeling okay?”

  “Not really,” he said weakly.

  Danica touched his forehead. It felt normal. She would use the thermometer to check his temperature when they got home.

  When she reached her car, she found the vehicle she’d blocked had left by jumping the curb, driving over the football practice field and onto the adjacent road. Seeing a line of cars behind her, she followed their example. As soon as they turned into the driveway of their house, Bailey threw up.

  “You couldn’t wait till you got out of the car,” Danica said.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, starting to cry.

  “Hey, I’m kidding,” Danica said, trying to soothe her brother. “It’s okay Bailey.” She reached over and felt his head. This time it felt warmer, and she could see red blotches on his neck. “Okay, let’s get you inside and into bed.”

  “I want Mommy,” Bailey cried.

  “I’ll call her when I get you to bed. Matthew, go inside and watch TV.” Bailey headed up to his room as Danica tried calling her mother. The call went straight to voicemail. Upstairs, she found the thermometer, checked his temperature, and found it to be just over a hundred. She pulled back his shirt to see what looked like several pimples.

  “You have a little bit of a temperature, but not much,” she told him, not saying anything about the pimples. “Nothing to be worried about. Go ahead and get under the covers, and I’ll try Mom again.” The call went to voicemail.

  She hung up the phone and looked out the window. The neighborhood seemed wrong. Normally there would be people outside walking their dog, mowing or watering their lawn. Today, it was eerily quiet. She could see several cars in people’s driveways, but no one wanted to venture out. How did it get like this so fast when this morning everything seemed so normal?

  “Welcome back,” a voice on the television said. “We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer and you're in the Situation Room.”

  “Aren’t you too young to be watching CNN?” she asked Matthew as she sat down next to him on the couch.

  “My mother lets me watch the news all the time,” he said.

  “This hour, we’re joined by CNN’s Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash; political commentator and former presidential advisor to Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, David Gergen; author, political analyst as well as two-time interim chairperson for the Democratic National Party, Donna Brazile; and our own John King.”

  Danica noticed all of Wolf’s guests were wearing surgical masks.

  “I’m sure there are cartoons you could watch,” Danica said.

  “I like the white-haired man,” Matthew said. “He’s smart.” Danica would have argued harder but wanted to know what was going on.

  “We were going to be joined by CNN medical correspondent Andrea Hammond on the ground in Greece where this epidemic is suspected of originating, but we are getting word that she was sent to the hospital. We understand she may have contracted this virus. Our hearts go out to her family and, indeed, to all the families of those who are suffering during this horrible, horrible epidemic.”

  Danica heard three gunshots in the distance. “Damn,” she said, rushing to the window. The streets were still empty. She spotted nothing, so she went to sit down beside Matthew and watch Wolf Blitzer. The words “BREAKING NEWS” scrolled across the bottom of the screen in bold red and white letters. In the studio, Wolf, holding a white notebook in his hand, turned to his in-house panel. “Less than half an hour ago, the White House closed the airports, saying . . . ” Wolf looked at his notebook, “. . . and I quote ‘Any aircraft in the air after 4:00 PM will be shot down.’ What do you make of that? That’s a pretty extraordinary action.”

  “Extraordinary? Without a doubt,” John King said. He was standing by a large display screen map of the United States that showed the capital of each state in white. “Necessary? Probably. Look, if our sources are right, this is a pretty serious situation, and the president has to do everything he can to stop the spread of this disease.” John started to do something with the screen, but before he could Wolf interrupted him.

  “Our sources are saying this is the Athenian Plague,” Wolf said. “What do you make of that?”

  “It’s hard to know what to make of it,” John said and shrugged. “If it is, we’re in for a serious time of it.”

  “Do we know where the outbreaks are?” Wolf asked. It seemed to be what John King waited for.

  “We do Wolf,” John said. John reached up and touched the screen. When it did nothing, he tapped it again. The map of the United States, which was gray, changed to white and was littered with angry red dots, with the highest concentration centered on major cities. No state, including Alaska and Hawaii, was spared.

  “That’s a lot of red,” Wolf said.

  “It is,” John said. “As you can see, and would expect, in the case of a major outbreak, the heaviest concentrations are in the big cities. Take a look at how large the red is in Richmond, Virginia. That’s the site where several tourists arrived back in the United States after visiting Greece. Officials now say that it’s likely the entire flight was infected.”

  “Aren’t they screened when they come back into the United States?” Wolf asked.

  “True,” John said. “But, you must remember, no one knew of the virus at the time and if you say you feel good, not much they can do. There’s no blood test upon entering the United States.”

  “It seems to have spread very fast,” Wolf said. John King nodded. “How did it spread so fast? In 2014, there was an outbreak of Ebola, a deadly African disease, but it didn’t spread as fast as we see now.”

  “That’s true,” John said. “But we are talking about two different transmission types. To contract Ebola, you had to come in contact with the bodily fluids of the infected: blood, puke, sweat, something like that. Not easy. This virus, on the other hand, is transmitted like the common cold. And we all know how quickly th
at can spread. I want you to see something Wolf.” John tapped the screen again, and the red dots disappeared, only to be replaced by two red lines. “There were three hundred and forty-eight people on Flight 236.”

  “To remind our viewers, Flight 236 is the aircraft believed to have carried the first infected couple into the United States,” Wolf said. “What do we know about them, John?”

  “That first couple was from New York,” John said. “They flew into Richmond and boarded a connecting flight back to New York. Authorities haven’t released their names. A second couple arrived in Richmond a few days later. They know the man is a prison guard somewhere in Virginia. If he went back to work, he likely infected the entire prison population.”

  “Not to sound callous, but as they’re locked up, at least the prisoners won’t be infecting anyone else,” Wolf said.

  “True, but sadly, that was two different flights that were infected,” John said. John King reached up and tapped the screen. Red lines spread out from Richmond, Virginia to more than two dozen major cities. A few moments later, more lines appeared leading from the bigger cities to many smaller towns, and then smaller lines appeared.

  “The CDC mapped the flight plans of every single passenger on Flight 236. As you can see, many of these passengers caught connecting flights to either their final stop or an interim stop. I didn’t show the second flight that arrived from Greece, but it’s just as heavy. This plague has been spreading for a while now. The problem is, we didn’t know it at the time because it was reported as chickenpox, but we now know that’s not true.” Wolf turned to the panel sitting at a blacktop table that resembled a bar.

  “What about that,” Wolf said to the panel. “Did the president of the United States withhold valuable information, information that might have saved lives, and did he lie to the American people?”

  “I don’t think there can be any doubt that he lied to the American people,” Donna Brazile said. “This is a threat to national security and something he would have been briefed on weeks ago.”

  “You don’t believe he thought it was chickenpox, as initially reported?” Wolf asked.

  “No,” Donna said, looking down at the desk and shaking her head.

  “But he sent his wife and child on vacation,” Wolf said. “Why would he do that if he didn’t think it was chickenpox?”

  “I don’t think he knew,” David Gergen said. “At least not then. But he had to know shortly after. I suspect his advisors were afraid of panic and counseled him not to say anything. That was bad advice. They made a grave error by not informing the American people as soon as they suspected, and we’re going to pay a heavy price.”

  “But the Athenian Plague?” Wolf said. “That seems a bit farfetched. That had to be hard to believe?”

  “Forget the name,” Gergen said. “Call it whatever you want. He should have said something the moment he suspected we were at the beginning of a pandemic. However, the blame doesn’t lie solely with him. It was our failure too.”

  “What do you mean?” Wolf said.

  “As members of the press, it’s our job to be skeptical of what any administration tells us. Instead, we took their word that it was chickenpox,” David said. “We should have stayed on top of it. We should have listened to our sources. Maybe we could have forced the administration to reveal the truth.”

  “That will have to be a question for another time,” Wolf said, turning to the camera. “Right now, we’re joined by Meredith Johnson, daughter of renowned American Greek historian Sarah Johnson. Meredith is almost as famous as her mother. She is the author of three works on Greek history, including the book, The Athenian Plague: How it changed History. Mrs. Johnson, thank you for joining us.” The woman joining Wolf via video was an older white lady easily in her fifties, with light, shoulder-length curly brown hair. Danica could see outlines on her face indicating she wore glasses, but for the interview, she either wore contacts or went without. She did not wear a surgical mask as the other guests did.

  “Please, Wolf, just call me Meredith,” she said, clearly nervous.

  “Meredith, do you believe this is the Athenian Plague?” Wolf asked.

  “I honestly don’t know, Wolf,” she said. “I’m a historian, not a doctor.” She reached up as if to remove her glasses, but remembered she wasn’t wearing any. “However, what I can tell you is that it has the hallmarks of the Athenian Plague.”

  “And what hallmarks are those?” Wolf asked.

  “Well, for starters, it has all the major characteristics of chickenpox and smallpox,” Meredith said. “So, I can see why it would have been mistaken for the more common childhood disease.”

  “In the research I conducted, most seem to think the Athenian Plague was smallpox,” Wolf said.

  “In that regard, the Athenian Plague often reminds me of the mystery surrounding Jack the Ripper,” Meredith said.

  “Jack the Ripper?” Wolf asked, looking, and sounding, genuinely confused. “How so?”

  “Everyone writing about Jack the Ripper claims to know who the killer was. But, while it makes for good reading and sells books, the truth is, no one knows who he or she was.”

  “She?”

  “Why not? It’s as good as any other guess. Besides, we now know women can be serial killers too. It’s the same with the Athenian Plague. Everyone claimed to know what it was, but they could never be a hundred percent positive. Early scholars believed it was the bubonic plague. However, in the 1800s, scholars started to really study the evidence and determined the Athenian Plague was something different. By 1955, there were two main theories.

  “Based on the recorded observations of a measles outbreak in the Fiji Islands in 1875, Professor Shrewsbury postulated in 1915 that the Athenian Plague was a form of measles.”

  “I thought measles was mostly a childhood disease,” Wolf said. “This one is infecting everyone.”

  “That was brought up,” Meredith said. “Professor Shrewsbury theorized that in a virgin society, that is, one that has never seen an outbreak of measles, no segment of society, including adults, would be spared. One of the main reasons this gained a following was because measles can affect animals. I think this is one area where many of your guests have been remiss.”

  “How is that?” Wolf asked.

  “Just like the plague of Athens, this virus is attacking animals.”

  “You know this for a fact?” Wolf asked.

  “I’ve seen the reports,” she confirmed. “On the other hand, Professor Salway and Dell in 1955 theorized it was Ergot, which is a fungus that grows on rye.”

  “A fungus?” Wolf asked.

  “Yes.” Danica could see that Wolf was having difficulty believing the current outbreak was due to a fungus.

  Meredith continued. “You might know it better by its more common name, St. Anthony’s Fire. At the time, it wasn’t as farfetched as it sounds. People suffering from ergotism develop many of the same symptoms as those suffering from the Athenian Plague. Abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting, high fever, delirium, insomnia, and a burning sensation that even the softest touch inflames. More importantly, people affected by ergotism developed skin blisters, and some came down with cases of gangrene. The fungus has killed thousands over the years, and it can affect animals as well.

  “There have been so many theories over the years that I could spend all day, and have, discussing the different theories. Bubonic plague, typhus, typhoid, smallpox, ergotism, or measles.” Wolf was about to say something, but she started speaking again before he could. “However, let me boil it down for you. There are three current theories. Professor Littman, who is probably the leading authority on the Athenian plague, second only to Dr. Billstrom, published a paper in 1969 where he made a convincing case for smallpox. I think anyone witnessing the current outbreak can see why. By 1992, taking a more scientific modeling approach, he also added typhus as a strong candidate. And in fact, epidemic typhus is the current leading contender.”

  “So, th
is is epidemic typhus?” Wolf asked.

  “It most certainly is not,” Meredith said. “As I said, this is the Jack the Ripper scenario. They speculated, but just as Dr. Billstrom predicted, no one seems to have gotten it right. In fact, my sources tell me that this is something entirely new, or, I guess, new again.”

  “Do you agree with them?” Wolf asked.

  “I agree with Dr. Billstrom,” Meredith replied. “She theorized that the Athenian Plague was its own disease, which is the third line of thinking. It wasn’t a popular theory.”

  “Why not?” Wolf asked.

  “One of the tacit beliefs about virus’ is they don’t die out,” Meredith said. “The theory is almost as solid as the theory of evolution. Virus’ mutate and adapt. For example, scientists believe smallpox has been around since 10,000 BC.”

  “Smallpox was eradicated,” Wolf said. “Wouldn’t that contradict the theory?”

  “Then why do we still vaccinate against it? No, smallpox is still around. It’s just waiting for us to let our guard down. But the Athenian Plague was different. It did the impossible. Contrary to what we believe about the virus, for whatever reason, the Athenian Plague seemingly died out, never to be seen again. That’s why it was so hard to pin down; that’s why it was believed to be smallpox for so long.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Wolf asked.

  “The CDC has studied the DNA of this new plague, and there is nothing in the database like it,” she said. “Oh, there is some relation to smallpox, but it has as much in common with smallpox as you do with your great-great-great-great-great grandfather. For all intents and purposes, the Athenian Plague was caused by, what we are going to have to call, the Athenian Plague and not smallpox, measles, ergot, typhus or typhoid. The Athenian Plague is its own disease, and it’s back.”