by Mark Kelly
Raine stood up and puffed out his chest as he spoke. “You know who I am, right? That phone is the only way to communicate with the men who are risking their lives to hunt down Simmons.”
Everyone on base—perhaps everyone in the entire world—knew who Professor Tony Simmons was. Raine had made sure of it by spreading the lie whenever he had the opportunity. Simmons was the man who had started the pandemic. The man responsible for the largest genocide in the history of mankind.
Conflicted, the private scratched his cheek for a second and then spoke. “I hope you get the bastard, sir. He deserves to die, but you still need to get a certificate of approval for the phone from Colonel Pickett.”
“I will, private. I’ll head over to his office right now,” Raine lied. He had no intention of groveling to Pickett. The man was a stickler for rules, the type of person Raine took great delight in ignoring.
“Okay, that’s great, sir, but I’m still supposed to report anything I see.”
Raine stood and stepped out from behind his desk. “I’ll get a certificate. Let’s just keep this between the two of us for now. No need to get the colonel involved. I’m sure he has bigger things to worry about.”
Raine held out his arms and ushered the private out of his office. He shut the door and hurried back to his desk. He had to call Alice and tell her the good news. The call on the sat phone must mean Baker’s alive and hopefully Simmons is dead.
Raine reached for the black rotary phone that sat on the corner of his desk. The phone, a relic from the 1960’s, was connected via a hard-wired land-line to the National Bio and Agro-Defense BSL4 lab, where the USA had relocated its research on the pandemic bacteria when Fort Detrick became too dangerous. Even though the lab was only one hundred and twenty-five miles north of McConnell Air Force Base, Raine didn’t go there very often. Life on the base was safer and more comfortable.
He picked up the handset and tapped his finger impatiently on the desk while he waited for someone in the lab to answer.
“Lab here,” a muffled voice said.
“It’s John Raine, get me Dr. Mayer.”
“She’s running a PCR right now.”
“I don’t care if she’s running a marathon, go get her,” Raine snapped.
A minute later, Alice Mayer came onto the phone. “What is it, John? We’re starting to make progress locating the mutation. Another few months and we might have something to trial. I was in the middle of sequencing a—”
“Good news, Alice. Baker called.”
Her voice quivered and trailed off as she spoke. “Did he find Tony? Is he…”
She can’t even bring herself to say it, Raine thought. “I don’t know if Simmons is dead. I hope so. That would be good news, wouldn’t it?”
“What if it isn’t good news, John? What if he’s still alive and has told someone what we did?”
“Don’t be stupid, Alice. Of course, it’s good news. Why else would Baker have called?”
