Pestilence Boxed Set [Books 1 & 2]

by Craig McDonough

  “Let’s just put this behind us for now. We’re still a long way from being out of this.”

  She was right, Mike said to himself as he slipped the van into drive and moved on. Where to from here, he didn’t know. But they had escaped the clutches of their captors and certain death. They were free and had a story to tell or at least Grace and Tilford did.

  They weren’t the only ones to escape that night; at the Riverside hospital in Des Moines the wind raced through the shattered windows and over the rivers of blood and carried the Baltic flu into the night air.

  A new pestilence had arrived in the United States. Not that it wasn’t meant to, just earlier than intended.

  18

  Eighteen

  Calgleef watched as the attendant came up the aisle and rustled the NSA agent awake. “Phone for you, sir.”

  That brief interaction told Calgleef he wasn’t dealing with any run-o-the-mill agent here.

  “Yes,” he said into the satellite phone, “go ahead… WHAT? HOW IN THE FUCK DID THAT HAPPEN?” The agent practically erupted; his voice carried the length of the executive jet. Calgleef watched as the spook ended the call, then hurled the phone down the aisle.

  Do I dare ask and risk being thrown off the plane? Calgleef wondered.

  The agent sat back, rubbed his forehead and stared at Calgleef without really seeing him. It was obvious he was going over the ramifications of whatever information he’d just had delivered.

  “Is… is there anything I should know?” Calgleef summoned the courage to ask.

  The agent dropped his hand into his lap. “Yes, as a matter of fact. Your friend, Miss Delaney, has escaped captivity along with the others she was brought in with.”

  “What? That’s dreadful news!”

  “No shit?”

  Calgleef eyed the government agent intently. His demeanor had changed from calm, almost arrogant, to angry and volatile with a single phone call. Considering the work he specialized in, Calgleef reasoned that it would not be a good idea to piss this guy off.

  “How is that possible?” Calgleef struggled to keep his voice low. “They were surrounded by twenty armed men in that warehouse.”

  “We believe it occurred during the transfer.” The agent didn’t say, “Led to their execution,” but the inference was there. “The driver didn’t make his scheduled call, and the transponder in his sat phone stopped working abruptly, but there’s a secondary one inside the van. We’ll close in on them soon. It won’t be ideal conditions where we can manage the process, but we have no choice. However, should they make contact with anyone… shit. I don’t even want to think about it!”

  Calgleef knew that disposing of Grace Delaney and her pals wouldn’t be easy—if not impossible—if there were witnesses.

  “What do we do then?”

  “At the moment we just play it by ear, as they say. Authorities will be alerted of the fugitives’ status and that they need to be apprehended at once. The media will be informed not to have any contact and report to us should any attempt at contact be made.” The agent lifted the shade over the window a touch and peered out into the night sky. He enjoyed the contrast offered by the colors on the tops of the clouds. “Delaney will try to make contact, I would assume, with the media; she has a helluva good a story to tell. But for their own safety’s sake they may decide to lie low for a few days or even weeks, I know I would.”

  “So what, what are you saying?” Calgleef noted the change in the NSA spook. His disciplined manner returned, and the answers he sought came to him as he spoke.

  “We may be able to continue on unchanged. These people will be listed persona non grata, and no one is going to give them any media time… we can practically guarantee that.” A sinister tick developed in the agent’s right eye. “We’ll send out a media release that they’re infected with the Baltic flu and need to be reported to the CDC immediately. This will reduce the chances of them making serious contact and will work to our favor.”

  “Are you serious? Informing the public that the flu has broken out could jeopardize everything!”

  “Perfectly serious, my good fellow. The CDC will inform state and federal authorities, who, I’m sure, will pass measures to seal off the entire city, then our friends won’t have anywhere to run. You’ll make that happen as soon as you get to your office, make the calls, wake whomever you have to. Don’t worry, it’s a national emergency if ever there was one and you’ll have assistance from us on all counts.” The spook paused for a moment.

  “This will guarantee the implementation of the vaccine program across the country—and much faster. It might also mean that production will need to be continued overseas or a second company could share the manufacturing rights. The population of the entire country will be so fearful of the flu, they’ll be lining up for blocks to get the vaccine. Now, do you follow?”

  The agent’s plans told Calgleef he was a big player with Thorn Bio-Tech. He had to be to plan something as large as sealing off a whole city.

  “Well, if you think that’s best, just tell me what you want from me,” was all Calgleef could say or think to say. The sudden level of power displayed by this agent was more than impressive; it was scary.

  “Distance yourself from this officer of yours. Issue statements that she was a wild card, disobeyed orders, that sort of thing. I’ll have a dossier drawn up and forwarded to you with all you’ll need to know when answering media questions—and I’m sure you’ll be asked many. You just get the ball rolling; as the director of the CDC, that’s your job anyway. The National Guard and the police will do the hard work of erecting the chain-link fences, and from there it will be practically out of our hands, you follow?”

  Calgleef followed all right: Do as you’re told, and don’t get cold feet. That’s what it amounted to. Yes, he followed.

  The agent was right that no one would want to risk exposure, and the diabolical plans may just yet go ahead. Calgleef wondered whether or not Delaney and her group would flee the state. She wasn’t a native of Des Moines and hiding out in a foreign city wouldn’t be easy, at least that’s how he thought of it. If they hadn’t got out of the city limit’s then placing it under quarantine would prevent their escape—and prevent the bacteria from spreading. There wouldn’t be any better encouragement for the vaccine. Whatever type of a fiend Calgleef had become, he was still the director of the CDC and was aware that the flu was out there, spreading, infiltrating, penetrating. The coming pestilence, which he knew it would be inevitable, didn’t discriminate. They would all be vulnerable.

  “Yes, I think you’re right, I honestly do.” Calgleef settled back in his seat; he could relax. He would call Thorncroft after landing but assumed someone from the NSA or another government department had done so already, in which case he could expect a call from the pharmaceutical mogul. The connections his agent could depend on showed without a doubt how far reaching this scheme was.

  Like a hideous giant spider, Thorn Bio, weaved a web of evil around the globe; the NSA agent just confirmed that—like the fly—they were all caught in it.

  19

  Nineteen

  “We need to dump this van and get something else,” Grace said to Mike.

  “Agreed. We won’t get far in this, that’s for sure. And there’s a chance this thing could be bugged too.”

  “There’s some lights up ahead. We might get lucky there.”

  Mike glanced over and nodded. Grace had seen better days, he noted as the lights from the street lamps showed her ragged hair and creased doctor’s coat and a drained look on her face. Tired and unkempt as she may be, her natural good looks and well-proportioned figure were still there. Mike never liked thin women all that much; he like a lot of meat with his bones and some gravy and large baked potatoes—two of them. Mike wasn’t stupid he’d seen the looks Grace and Tilford had exchanged. He understood and respected it. But it didn’t stop him from admiring her and not just for her beauty.

  “It looks like an all-n
ight bar. We’ll—”

  A fast-approaching helicopter came from left side of the highway. “Spotted!”

  The wide arc of the chopper’s powerful spotlight lit up the road ahead of them.

  “If I can get up next to this truck, it might buy us enough time.” Mike yelled.

  “Time for what?” Grace bent down to look for the chopper.

  “That, I haven’t figured out yet, but if you’ve got any ideas, now’s the time.”

  Mike drew up next to the eighteen-wheeler and snuggled alongside just as the circle of light thrown down by the chopper hit them.

  “At the angle they’re on, they won’t see us, and we might be able to get to the bar before they do. We’ll take whatever’s’ available, smash-and-grab style, so as soon as we stop you run around and open up the back for the others… and if that reporter mouths off, leave him there.”

  Epilogue

  “Good, thank you,” Thorncroft said into the phone as he considered his wine. It was the early hours of the morning in England, and he’d been up all night “working” out his frustrations. He wasn’t all that displeased with the latest turn of events—he’d found a silver lining in the dark clouds. He was alarmed when first told of CDC officer Grace Delaney’s escape and the possibility she and her companions could do irreparable damage to his plans, but relaxed when he was told they wouldn’t last a day on the loose; if they did, it would be in a quarantine situation with no access granted to anyone. The fear of the Baltic flu would be emphasized over and over in media releases from the departments of the CDC and the FDA and why it was imperative to public safety that no one come into contact with them.

  Thorncroft’s caller also informed him, “We have them located near a roadside bar and should pick them up anytime now.”

  Thorncroft was also pleased that Calgleef had received a subtle reading of the riot act and was seemingly well onboard.

  Moya was no longer an issue. There would be some questions for Thorncroft as he paid his former representative large sums of money. That a whole city would have to be sealed off—which he was informed about before it was even considered by the relevant authorities—concerned him about as much as losing an hour’s sleep. It would hasten the need for the vaccine and there wouldn’t be any time for testing or tenders asked for; his contract was sealed tight. He was delighted in a way that only obscene profits could do; well, young men did too.

  No, Thorncroft wasn’t too displeased at all, considering all that had happened. Shoot-ups, riots and wild claims on the internet that the establishment are in control of everyday life and the end is nigh, are so prevalent that much of this information went by unnoticed. Even when some of it were true.

  Thorncroft looked out the bedroom window of his two-story estate. A streak of light across the sky in the East, heralded the coming of the day. There was still work to be done for sure, but also a time to celebrate. His contract with the US government was set in cement—as long as nothing untoward occurred.

  “This is indeed a time for celebration!” He grabbed a bottle of Dom Pérignon from the bar fridge in the on—suite of the master bedroom and headed back to the bed, dropping the towel from around his waist.

  “Jason, Jason. Wake up, young man, it’s time to make your daddy happy again!”

  The Baltic flu had gone from humble beginnings in an obscure European town to spread over three continents, but it was its emergence in the United States with its privately owned and controlled health system that paved the way for the biggest killing—in financial terms— that’s how Thorncroft looked upon it. There was no concern for any other implications: a worldwide pestilence, raging like an out of control forest fire. The poor, the frail, the young and the old would be the most susceptible—at first—but then the rich, the elite and the politicians would be just as vulnerable to the indiscriminate tentacles of the virus. They just couldn’t see it because of the dollar sign’s in their eyes.

  Millions would perish as the pestilence took control; no one would be safe.

  The End of Pestilence: The Infection Begins.

  Will the virus sweep the USA or will the corrupt make a fortune as people suffer. Can Grace Delaney find a way to inform someone in authority before its too late?

  Discover the answers to these and many more questions in;

  Pestilence 2: The Infection Spreads.

  Pestilence

  Pestilence 2

  The Infection Spreads…

  Copyright © 2017 by Craig A. McDonough

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Created with Vellum

  Truth is stranger than...

  Yes, I’m sure we’ve all heard that saying. But, how often do we say it or hear it? The news—particularly on the Internet—delivers weird, strange and unbelievable reports on a daily basis. Then there’s news where the perpetrators of the incident—and not the incident itself—is difficult to believe.

  For many it’s impossible to even consider government officials had any involvement in 9/11. Yet, there is also a lot of people who find the official version of the events, just as hard a pill to swallow.

  Is it we don’t believe or don’t want to?

  Pestilence is such a story. Fiction, yes. Taken to extremes, yes again. But that is what fiction is; to take a story beyond the everyday, add a touch of the “unbelievable” in the world created by the author. And yes, this is my world; I created it and I have the final say of what takes place.

  Rumors of pharmaceutical companies involved in creating /prolonging disease, so they can sell vaccines/medicines are not new. And corruption—government and otherwise—has been with us since man stopped dragging his knuckles on the ground and walked upright.

  Truth is stranger than fiction, and I don’t believe we know anything close to the truth in many matters (including the assertions regarding pharmaceutical companies) but for a fiction writer this subject is a blank canvas, and your imagination a palette of endless colors to draw from as you fill it in.

  Please enjoy Pestilence: The Infection Spreads.

  …And try to remember, they’re not really after you!

  Craig A. McDonough

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  1

  One

  Grace Delaney never thought the situation would escalate to these extremes. Like a bad B-grade spy thriller, she was on the run from the law enforcement of her own country—and a covert agency. Officers from that agency or similar—Mike Weaver, suspected CIA or NSA—had arrested her earlier and apparently were prepared for her and those around her. She had to be silenced, she knew too much—or at least enough to cause severe damage to the plans. With a deadly virus now on the loose in Des Moines, it would make the perfect explanation. Everyone in her group had come into contact or had worked directly with the virus, and a story of their demise wouldn’t be hard to fabricate. To throw a wrench into the works, Grace and her group managed to escape, and should they be able to get a message to someone who would listen, the problems would devastate the conspirators. Grace knew enough, and what she didn’t, she could piece the rest together to draw a damn good picture that the pharmaceutical company, corrupt government departments—and maybe some politicians themselves—were deliberately responsible for the release of the virus on American soil.

  All for money.

  The official guidelines as laid out by her department—The Centers for Disease Control—weren’t followed and Grace confron
ted the director at the time. But what she thought was cutting or avoiding red tape was really laying the foundation for a massive cover-up that might go all the way to the top.

  All this ran through her head as Mike squeezed between the eighteen-wheeler and the edge of the road in an attempt to avoid the pursuing helicopter. The goal was to get into the parking lot of the roadside inn up ahead, before the bright beam of the spotlight picked them up. The interstate truck provided the cover they needed from the police helicopter. At least they hoped it was police, then they might have a chance. If it were the agents that had secretly imprisoned them…

  “Right, get out as soon as I stop, but use the other cars for cover, okay?” Mike told everyone as he reached up and pulled the bulb from the interior light. “And leave those white coats in here.”

  Slippery Dicks: Where the Juice Always Flows, was a well-patronized—if out of the way—nightspot. Mike pulled up next to a line of cars. There were no spaces available and no light in the parking lot—and that suited them fine.

  “Let’s get inside,” Grace said to the others.

  From their position, they watched the chopper fly low along the highway, then rise after it had passed the inn.

  “In there?” Richard said to her.

  “If these cops only have descriptions of us, we’d be hard to find in a large crowd.”

  “She’s right. We can’t outrun a helicopter, and they’ve probably figured out by now this is the only place we could have gone and will land in a moment. We don’t have much choice,” Tilford elaborated.