Virus Hunters 2: A Medical Thriller

by Bobby Akart

  After her initial protestations, she chose not to say anything else. When Kwon didn’t respond to her at first, she thought he’d evaded capture. She was certain, at this moment, he was most likely coming for her, so any efforts she made to call out to him might put him in danger.

  At first, two powerful hands held her arms behind her back. After a few minutes, as she was dragged down an incline into a darker, colder space, her kidnappers stopped and restrained her with the ties. She twisted her wrists in an attempt to break free of the multiple zip ties used to bind her wrists.

  Now she was lying on a cold, somewhat rough floor. The dampness was soaking into her clothes, but she tried to ignore the chill that was coming over her body. She summoned all her mental acuity to take in her surroundings. As she did, her mind raced to stories of prisoners in Russia, North Korea, and China being interrogated and tortured.

  When Joe and Dr. Reitherman had tried to warn her off of this ludicrous idea, they told her anyone considered a threat to the Communist government simply disappeared. There would be no arrest. No trial. No prison cell. She would simply vanish.

  They were right.

  And it had happened so fast. One second, they were running from their pursuers, a combination of Security Police, local law enforcement, and most likely the MSS, whom Kwon seemed the most concerned with. Then it dawned on Harper. Neither she nor Kwon had seen evidence of the MSS agents chasing them. They were all uniformed officers. No, the MSS was involved, and Harper began to believe that was who snatched her off the street.

  Great, she thought to herself. At least I could’ve demanded a lawyer with the other guys.

  Or not.

  Footsteps. Someone was coming. Without warning, two sets of hands brusquely pulled her upright and, in the same motion, untied the grain sack and pulled it off her head. Harper’s vision was blurred and she tried to adjust to the minimal light available to her.

  Before her stood a smallish woman, probably in her late sixties and modestly dressed. Next to her was a young man. College age. He had his arms crossed and stared down at Harper.

  She continued to adjust her eyes to allow the faint light in the room to enter her retina. They adjusted and converted the light into signals to the brain. She began to make visual recognition. The young man resembled the photograph of Zeng Fangyu on the posting at the dormitory.

  Harper coughed as she attempted to speak. A man reached around her and spun off the cap of a bottle of Nongfu Spring water. Harper opened her mouth and the man poured too much into it at first. Harper drank half, then choked slightly and allowed the rest to drip down onto her netizen tee shirt.

  “Thank you,” she said softly. “Please don’t hurt me. I am trying to find someone.”

  “He found you,” said the young man, speaking in third person. “Why do you seek him?”

  Harper knew nothing about being held hostage and how she should act. However, she remembered her grandmother always saying, kill ’em with kindness. So she gave it a try.

  She had to assume her captors, if they were the MSS or police related, which she doubted, knew of her identity. She told the truth because she was most likely going to die anyway.

  “My name is Dr. Harper Randolph. I am an epidemiologist with the American CDC. I am looking for Fangyu. I believe he is the nephew of Dr. Zeng.” Harper continued to keep Kwon’s name to herself. She wasn’t out of the woods yet and knew Kwon would come for her.

  “Why do you seek Dr. Zeng?” the young man asked after he translated for the older woman.

  “I need his help. We have a viral disease in America that we cannot identify. I believe Dr. Zeng can help me stop the spread. It has already killed and time is running out.”

  The young man translated. Then he turned to the two men standing behind Harper. He gave them instructions. Seconds later, her zip ties had been cut loose and she was being helped to her feet.

  The woman stepped forward and studied Harper’s face. She motioned for the young man to join her. She instructed him in Chinese to speak to Harper. She never took her eyes off Harper’s face.

  “I am Fangyu. I know you are sought by the Security Police. We have eyes and ears everywhere.”

  “Hello and thank you for taking this off my wrists,” said Harper. She rubbed the deep indentations left by the hard-plastic zip ties. She took a chance, mainly because she was concerned Kwon might come for her with guns blazin’, or at least fists.

  “I have a friend. He is Dr. Li Kwon. He is here to assist me find you and search for the cause of this disease. He might be coming—”

  Fangyu raised his hand and began speaking to the men who stood in the shadows behind Harper. They left the enclosed area where she was being held. Her eyes darted around and she glanced over her shoulder to see them leave.

  “What’s wrong? Did I do—?”

  She heard a man coughing and then his voice. “Harper! Are you okay?”

  It was Kwon. Her reaction was spontaneous and startled their captors. She ran into his arms. It was an emotional response. A natural showing of relief that she wasn’t alone in this dark dungeon.

  The usually stoic Kwon gently hugged her back, but his eyes remained focused on Fangyu. He spoke to the young man in a low, growling snarl that frightened Harper somewhat. She needed to speak fast before Kwon killed everyone associated with their abduction.

  “Hey! Hey!” she began, standing in front of him so her body blocked his access to Fangyu. “It’s okay. Actually, I think they saved us. Right?” she asked Fangyu directly by turning to face him.

  “Yes, but there is not much time,” he replied. “They will be coming for you. We must go to another place and seal off this aqueduct.”

  “Are we, um, under?” asked Harper.

  “Yes. This is the Underground Great Wall. Now come with us, as we must leave.”

  Harper and Kwon whispered to one another as they were led through a series of tunnels, some partially filled with water and others completely dark, illuminated only by Fangyu’s flashlight. After twenty minutes of wandering through the maze of openings and aqueducts, they arrived at the karez beneath First Affiliated Hospital.

  “Wow!” exclaimed Harper, whose spirits had lifted considerably when she realized she wasn’t going to die. “This is amazing. I always wondered what the Batcave looked like.” She laughed as she made reference to the famous base of operations for the fictional character Batman.

  Out of the shadows a smallish man appeared, wearing black slacks and a plain white shirt. He stood with his hands behind his back and his belly protruding somewhat. Fangyu rushed to his side and explained in a hushed voice. As he spoke, the man nodded his head repeatedly. Then he approached Harper and Kwon.

  “I am Dr. Zeng Qi. I am the man you seek.”

  Harper stepped forward and the large men who’d manhandled her earlier moved quickly to guard Dr. Zeng. Kwon, in turn, did the same, leading to a standoff between the potential adversaries.

  Dr. Zeng ensured there wouldn’t be any need for violence by walking forward to meet Harper face-to-face. He smiled as he spoke. “My nephew tells me you are with the American CDC.”

  “Yes, Dr. Harper Randolph. This is my associate, Dr. Li Kwon.”

  Dr. Zeng glanced at Kwon. “If there were not two of you, I would declare you to be insane. Perhaps both of you have lost your minds.”

  Harper laughed. “Actually, as the Chinese proverb goes, insanity is doing the same thing in the same way and expecting a different outcome. I do not believe anyone would be so stupid as I am to try this.”

  The English-speaking citizen journalists, along with Dr. Zeng and Fangyu, burst out laughing. “This is very true, Dr. Randolph. Perhaps I should have used a different word.”

  “Unwise?” suggested Harper.

  “Yes, much better. Unwise is appropriate. Come, there is much to discuss.” He motioned for them to follow as he made his way to the office space created for him by the citizen journalists.

  For the next
hour, the two Americans and Dr. Zeng immediately got down to business. Using his makeshift blackboards, they compared notes and began to create a revised case definition based upon the timetable in China. It was clear the four Chinese soldiers who’d succumbed to the novel virus in Las Vegas had brought it with them. Now they had to determine where they had contracted it.

  Dr. Zeng relayed to the two visitors the information found in the most recent cryptic posts from Lhasa. Dr. Zeng repeated the conclusion he’d reached the day before.

  “The answers are not here, Dr. Randolph. The body of the helicopter pilot is in Lhasa. That is where we must go.”

  “You don’t know where it is, do you?”

  “I do not. However, I do know where to begin looking.”

  Fangyu had entered the space and overheard the last part of the conversation. He was holding his cell phone for them to see the screen. A video was cued up.

  “You cannot fly to Lhasa, Uncle. Look.”

  He pushed play. The video, taken by Fangyu’s fellow citizen journalists, showed the military descending upon the airport and bus stations. They had the train terminal surrounded. Everyone coming and going was required to show their documentation. American travelers, mainly tourists, were being pulled into a special holding area for further questioning.

  “They are looking for us,” commented Kwon.

  “All of us,” added Fangyu. “It is no longer safe here, Uncle. We must leave. If the destination is Lhasa, we must go as soon as possible before roadblocks leading out of Urumqi are established.”

  “We have a car,” said Kwon. “And we have weapons.”

  Dr. Zeng and Fangyu glanced at one another. “They are forbidden.”

  “Kidnapping and persecution by the Communist Party should be forbidden, too,” countered Harper. “We will take the guns.”

  Dr. Zeng patted his nephew on the back. “It is necessary. Time to go.”

  Chapter Forty

  China National Highway 109

  Xinjiang, China

  While Kwon and Fangyu used the tunnels of the Underground Great Wall to emerge in a location closest to the location of the CIA safe house, Dr. Zeng and his wife said their emotional goodbyes. Harper, with the aid of the citizen journalists, was brought up to speed on the news reports out of the U.S. concerning the virus.

  The governor of Nevada had relaxed the lockdown requirements after a heated exchange with Mrs. Mayor and an emergency court hearing in front of the Nevada Supreme Court. There were more cases reported in Los Angeles and Phoenix, Arizona. Contact tracing reported by the CDC indicated there were ties between the Phoenix patients and the Gold Palace. Reporting also indicated those individuals had been participants in the poker tournament.

  Meanwhile, the Chinese state media continued to downplay the new illness as related to yak meat. Harper read about the European epidemiologists who’d traveled to the northeastern part of China in search of clues. She shook her head in dismay as she realized the Europeans were being used as pawns to advance Beijing’s cover-up. It was no wonder Beijing needed her captured and silenced.

  Two young men appeared in the karez and announced that Kwon and Fangyu were ready for them. Dr. Zeng said goodbye to the mostly college-age students, and Harper thanked them for their efforts. She also encouraged them to keep up the good fight. She even taught them two words in English. They were words used by her family since she was a young child to express love for their country.

  Choose Freedom.

  They were quietly chanting the rallying cry as she and Dr. Zeng left. It warmed her heart that these brave young people were willing to risk their lives to battle the oppressive government led by the Communist Party. Now she would do her part to help save their countrymen.

  The four passengers piled into the Volkswagen C-Trek. During the process of loading their luggage into the hatchback opening of the wagon, Kwon discovered what the third magnetic keycard was used for. Under the rear carpet, where the spare tire was supposed to be located, was another compartment. He used the third keycard to unlock it, revealing a voluminous empty space to hide the laptop, their guns, money, and any documents they wanted to keep from prying eyes.

  They agreed to swap driving duties, as the entire trip would take nearly thirty hours through a mountainous desert. Fangyu had made the trip before and cautioned they’d have to stop for gasoline at every opportunity. Purchasing gas would be tricky, as the driver must scan his identification to pump fuel. The Chinese authorities tracked the movements of their citizens as much as possible.

  Fangyu, like many of his compatriots, had multiple false IDs to use for this purpose. Their network of citizen journalists spread the word as people died in local hospitals. It took up to seven days before the government surveillance apparatus updated their computers and deleted the deceased’s information. Fangyu was constantly altering the app’s contact information and updating it with a new dead person’s biographical data.

  There were many different tracking apps in China. One was the virus app that was required to enter many public buildings, restaurants and malls in China. It was similar to the one proposed in the U.S. during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The app enabled the citizen to show their health status to the gatekeepers, as they were known, in order to gain access to these types of public buildings.

  To enter, you provided your phone to the gatekeeper. A green light let you in anywhere. A yellow light could send you into home confinement. The dreaded red light resulted in a strict two-week stay in a jail holding cell or a quarantine facility. The Chinese people praised the app. To them, within the context of a potential epidemic, divulging their movements and health status was a way to save lives.

  When it was proposed in 2021 by the U.S. Congress, most Americans rebelled against the invasion of privacy and the restriction upon their freedom of movement. The two societies viewed the app from two wholly different perspectives, a natural result of living in a free country versus a Communist state.

  After the virus app was conceived, the government came up with other ways to track its citizens, including the TownGas app. Designed to be used in China’s new smart gas stations, it was part of an overall effort to transform the nation into a cashless society. As time passed, currency was replaced with plastic. Then plastic was replaced with applications on smartphones. Each transaction was recorded by the issuing banks, and that information was shared with the centralized government. Incredibly, despite the potential for privacy abuses, the cashless system instituted in China was looked upon as a model for the rest of the world’s economies, including the U.S.

  Harper enjoyed exchanging information with Fangyu about the American way of life compared to the only thing he’d ever experienced—Communist rule. Throughout the conversations she had with Dr. Zeng and his nephew, she managed to take in the sights.

  The overland trip from Urumqi to Lhasa was extremely challenging, yet interestingly alluring. After they passed through Turpan, the last major city before they turned south on Chinese National Highway 109, the group enjoyed a serene and mesmeric view of the sun setting over the mountainous desert. The sky was crystal clear except for a few clouds. There were no buildings. No electricity-generated lights. They also had the road to themselves.

  “No-man’s-land,” commented Kwon as he took his turn behind the wheel. “I have never seen a place so remote.”

  “Mind-boggling, right?” said Harper inquisitively.

  “It is very beautiful,” said Fangyu. “If my calculations are correct, when we approach the Tibetan border, we will see the sunrise illuminate the east face of Mount Everest. Its snow will glisten like diamonds.”

  “Snow?” asked Harper.

  “Yes, year-round. Also, just today, there was an unusual snowstorm along the northern foot of the Himalayas. The scenery is far more pleasant once we enter Tibet. The dark is the best time to travel through the desert of Xinjiang.”

  Kwon glanced at Harper in the rearview mirror. “I would like to pull
over and retrieve our weapons prior to the gasoline stop. They won’t do us any good in the trunk.”

  “Agreed,” said Harper.

  Fangyu looked down at his watch. “At this speed, we should be ready for gasoline in approximately three hours. At midnight, retrieve the weapons and let me drive until the next fuel stop. Then, as the sun rises, Uncle can drive if I am tired. He is most awake in the morning.”

  Fangyu smiled and pointed at his uncle, who sat behind the driver’s seat. He was asleep with his mouth wide open. The group shared a laugh at his expense. It would be their last lighthearted moment for a while.

  Chapter Forty-One

  China National Highway 109

  Xinjiang, China

  The long, boring drive during the evening had been uneventful. They swapped drivers and Fangyu topped off their fuel tank. Kwon, following their progress on the GPS app installed on his Blackberry, had instructed Fangyu to pull over a couple of miles before the Tibetan border.

  Although the provinces and autonomous regions of China were part of one large country, Tibet and Xinjiang, the autonomous regions, were governed differently. In an effort to reinforce to travelers they were entering a separate and distinctly governed region of China, checkpoints were commonplace at most roads that led into Tibet.

  A number of government-issued documents were required. There was the Tibet Travel Permit as well as the Alien’s Travel Permit. Depending upon your destination within Tibet, visitors would obtain a Restricted Areas Permit to visit religious grounds, and a Frontier Pass if they planned on traveling to Mount Everest.

  Fangyu pulled off the remote highway onto a dirt road leading to a rock formation overlooking the massive Lake Manasarovar with the snow-capped Mount Kailash glowing from the early morning sun in the distance. The high-altitude freshwater lake was fed by the Kailash Glaciers. When they parked, Dr. Zeng informed them the lake was revered as a sacred place for Buddhists and Hindus.