by David Achord
“Sit here, General,” I said.
“Thank you, Gunderson, but why don’t we relocate to the main floor?”
He turned and exited the room. We dutifully followed and ended up in a conference room that adjoined several offices, most of them unused. It was cold in here, like the rest of the buildings.
“Are you guys having problems with your heat or lack of power?” I asked.
“Not at all, but there seems to be this air of indifference regarding the use of electricity around here,” Fosswell replied and took a seat. “All structures except the living quarters are kept at sixty degrees, upon my order.”
I took another seat, glad I was still wearing my jacket. The others did the same.
Fosswell started the show. “Doctor Kincaid?”
Kincaid cleared his throat.
“The patient, or specimen if you will, is a Caucasian female in her twenties. Prior to the infection, she appeared to be have been in remarkable physical shape with no overt congenital issues. There is a singular bite to her upper right forearm, which may be the reason for her to become infected.”
“You don’t know?” Fosswell asked. “Mister Gunderson here believes you people cooked up a bad batch of vaccines.”
Kincaid and Smeltzer exchanged glances. “At this time, it is too early to tell exactly how she may have become infected. Wouldn’t you agree, Zach?” Kincaid asked.
“The entire population of both communities was infected,” I replied. “The only person in Dayton who was not infected was a person who did not receive the vaccination.”
“That’s a strong case of circumstantial evidence,” Doctor Smeltzer said. “But, I would prefer to wait until the testing on the patient’s blood has been completed before rendering a verdict.”
“Perhaps we should capture a few subjects who are infected but who not have been bitten or injured,” Doctor Washington suggested.
“Sure thing. I’ll drive you guys over to the Eastgate encampment and you can go in there where there are somewhere around a hundred zeds and snatch up whoever you want,” I said.
Doctor Washington narrowed her eyes at me. “We are scientists, young man, not soldiers, or are you too stupid to understand the difference?”
I was quick with a retort. “And soldiers do not take orders from arrogant, pasty-faced scientists, nor do I, or are you too stupid to understand that?”
Her eyes, which were magnified by her glasses, burned into me. I was tired and cranky and I felt my blood rising. I returned her stare, waiting for her to throw out another insult.
“Alright, at ease, you two,” Fosswell said. He then looked at Kincaid. “When will we have definitive results?” he asked.
Kincaid frowned as he pondered the answer. He then looked over at Smeltzer, who got the hint and stood.
“I’ll get started on it right away,” he said. “Doctor Washington, would you assist me?”
“Certainly,” she said, and stood along with him. When they left, General Fosswell looked pointedly at Doctor Throneberry.
“Why don’t you give them a hand,” he suggested, his tone leaving no doubt he was dismissing the man.
“Of course,” he replied, stood, and shuffled out.
I started to stand, but Fosswell held up a hand. I slowly sat back down, wondering what he was up to. He looked over at Kincaid.
“Has Gunderson seen Patient Zero?” he asked.
Kincaid glanced over at me. “I don’t believe he has.”
“Uh, yeah. No, I’ve not seen Patient Zero,” I said, wondering who they were talking about.
Fosswell gave Kincaid a nod.
“Excuse me a moment,” he said, stood, and hurried out of the room. A moment later, he reentered, carrying a laptop. He pulled a chair over beside me, sat, and booted it up. After a few clicks, he turned the screen where I could see it.
The screen showed what looked like a video taken by somebody with a cellphone. The person taking it was obviously nervous or something because the camera was shaky. It showed an older man, perhaps in his fifties, strapped down to a gurney. He was violently struggling against the restraints, and he kept gnashing his teeth. Not unlike the woman currently strapped down in the lab.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“He is believed to be Patient Zero,” Kincaid answered. “His name is Omar Amir, a sixty-three-year-old Egyptologist. He headed a team performing an excavation of a tomb near a location known as Sharm El-Sheikh.”
He tapped a button and another image came up. It was a picture of a rocky cliff in a barren desert landscape. There appeared to be a rough opening on the side of the cliff.
“This is the cave where the tomb was found. If the photographer were to turn around, there would be a magnificent view of the Red Sea.”
Another click and another photo. The photographer was standing at the mouth of the cave.
“At first blush, the inner area of the cave was vacant, uninteresting,” Kincaid said, and then he clicked to a new photo. This was a closer shot of the far wall of the cave.
“Have you heard of the Multinational Force and Observers?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “It’s a peacekeeping force stationed in the Sinai Peninsula, right?”
“That’s correct,” Fosswell said. “They were tasked with keeping watch and ensuring the terms of peace between Egypt and Israel. There is, or was, an encampment near this location known as South Camp Seven, or South Camp. There was a contingent of American soldiers stationed there, usually battalion strength. As you can imagine, when these young soldiers had free time on their hands, their curiosity led them to explore. Some Bedouins showed them this cave and the hieroglyphs.”
Another picture was a close-up of hieroglyphs engraved on the wall.
“Do we know what it says?” I asked.
Kincaid nodded. “The rough interpretation declares the cave to be cursed.”
He clicked on a couple of pictures, showing various angles and close-ups of the wall.
“The wall was handmade and disguised to look like a natural rock formation,” he said, and narrated as he clicked on photos of the wall in various stages of excavation. When it was finished, a hidden room was revealed. There was something else inside.
“Is that a sarcophagus?” I asked.
“Yes,” Kincaid answered. He brought another picture up. It was a close-up of the stone crypt.
“As you can see from the roughness and coarse chisel marks in the stone, it appears to be hastily made, unfinished.”
He went through another series of pictures, showing the sarcophagus from various angles. The final picture was of Amir standing there, looking down it. The next series of photos was more of the same, with various people looking at it. The next photos showed some more hieroglyphs on the lid.
“According to the Supreme Council of Antiquities, this series of hieroglyphs tells of an unknown stranger from far away arriving in Cairo. He is either sick when he arrives or becomes sick soon thereafter. He then dies.”
“Wait,” I said with an upheld hand. “Cairo? How far is Cairo from Sharm El Sheikh?”
“Approximately three hundred miles,” General Fosswell said. “It’s somewhat of a mystery why they transported this person so far.”
“Indeed,” Kincaid said. “The mystery deepens with the interpretation of the last part of the hieroglyphs.” He made a head gesture toward the picture. “It is something of a warning. It warns of calamity and death to anyone who comes into contact with the dead person interred within.”
“Not unlike the fourth seal of the book of Revelations,” Fosswell, said quietly. “Then I looked and saw a pale horse. Its rider’s name was Death, and Hell followed close behind. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill by sword, by famine, by plague, and by the beasts of the earth…”
I glanced at him momentarily before looking back at the laptop and stared at the hieroglyphs. I was keeping my face devoid of emotion, but frankly, the man was starting to
concern me. I reached out and hit the page down button. The next picture showed the lid of the sarcophagus being opened and a solitary corpse inside.
“Notice, the corpse has not been mummified,” Kincaid said.
I felt myself frowning. “I’m not well-versed in archaeology, but I thought the standard procedure was to move a sarcophagus to a controlled environment before opening it.”
Now Kincaid frowned. “You know, I believe you’re right. I don’t know the answer either. But, have a look at this.” He tapped the page down button. It was a picture of the inside of the lid.
“Those look like scratch marks,” I said.
Kincaid nodded. “Doctor Amir thought the same.” He tapped the button again and there was a close-up of the corpse’s fingernails. They were decomposed, but even so, you could see definite signs of damage.
“Do the glyphs tell anything specific about the stranger? Like who he was and where he came from? Anything like that?” I asked.
“If they ever completed the interpretation, that information has been lost,” Kincaid said.
“So, they became infected when they opened it up and came into contact with the corpse,” I surmised.
“That would appear to be the case,” Kincaid said. “Doctor Amir was the first one to complain of flu-like symptoms. He went back to Cairo the next morning. His wife took him to the emergency room. The archaeology team consisted of twenty-six people, including Doctor Amir.”
He shook his head ruefully. “The entire team became sick. By the time anyone realized something was seriously wrong, many other people had visited the tomb. While Doctor Amir was being seen by a doctor, he suddenly attacked the doctor and four nurses. A security guard shot him multiple times in the chest and stomach. It weakened him long enough for them to restrain him, but the damage was done. As we’ve previously discussed, the time of exposure to infection varied from minutes to hours.”
“So, the infection spread exponentially, starting in a cave overlooking the Red Sea,” I said.
“Yes, it would appear so,” Kincaid said.
“Has President Stark seen this?” I asked.
“He has a copy of the file,” Fosswell said.
I nodded, wondering why it took five years before I finally got a chance to see this. I went through each jpeg again, memorizing them. Finally, I looked at the two men.
“It’s fascinating, I’ll grant you that, but I believe you two are using this as a deflection.”
They both gazed at me steadily, betraying no emotion.
“Come on, you two, spill the beans. What the hell happened to the vaccines?”
Kincaid cleared his throat. “Zach, we’re not certain the Ohio batch was compromised. We…”
“I am,” I said, cutting him off in mid-sentence. “Gentlemen, all of those people became infected after being vaccinated. Apply some statistical analysis to your sample base, and you’ll come up with a statistically significant correlation. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Doctor Kincaid cleared his voice yet again. “You can’t be certain everyone at Eastgate is infected and if I heard you correctly earlier, not everyone at Dayton was infected.”
“Brumley was not infected because he did not get vaccinated. But you are correct in one respect, we are not absolutely certain. So, I’ll need to see your vaccination records whereupon I can compare them to the census reports.” I pointed at my backpack. “I happen to have a copy of those files downloaded into my laptop.”
I could see a little bit of tenseness form in Kincaid’s jawline. He glanced over at the general, who gave a slight nod of his head. Kincaid worked the keyboard as I got my laptop and booted it up. After a moment, he turned the screen toward me. The list was on an excel spreadsheet format, as was the census data. Mine was in alphabetical order, the vaccination roster was not, but it was a simple change and made it easier to compare names. Kincaid spoke while I went down the list.
“Zach, we’ve tested the control batch. There’s nothing wrong with it.”
“If the batch of vaccines taken to Ohio were contaminated somehow, will it show up in the woman’s blood work?”
He pursed his lips. “Possibly,” he said. “Or, there might have been some other way the vaccines were contaminated.”
“Like how?” I asked.
“Any number of ways,” he replied.
I looked back and forth at both of them. “You two would agree, would you not, that one possible explanation is the vaccinations were deliberately sabotaged?”
“There is no proof of that,” Fosswell said, almost a little too quickly. “And I’ll caution you not to spread such a rumor when you get back to Weather.”
“What should I tell them, General?” I asked.
He leaned forward in his chair. “Tell them we are investigating all possibilities.”
“Alright, I will, but, if it is sabotage, who do you suspect may be responsible?” I asked. “What about those two John Hopkins scientists? They are viable suspects, are they not?”
There was a long moment of silence before Kincaid spoke. “If you think about it, Doctor Smeltzer and I are viable suspects as well.”
“Are you going to put that in your report, Gunderson?” Fosswell asked with a hard stare.
“I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I have no doubt that someone, perhaps President Stark or someone else, will ask for my opinion. I’m not going to obfuscate my report.”
“And your opinion is that it’s sabotage?” Fosswell pressed.
I cleared my throat before answering. “Yes. Now, before you say it, I’m perfectly aware that my opinion means I am accusing one of you of doing it.”
“Yes, you are,” Fosswell said.
“I will make it clear that I do not know the true answer and it is only my opinion. I’ll also say I’ve spoken to the two of you and told you of my opinion.” I pointed at the two laptops. “This data will be included as well.”
Fosswell apparently had nothing else to discuss and left without a word. Kincaid watched me in silence and waited for me to finish.
“Well?” he asked.
“Of the names on the census and the vaccination records, only the Brumleys did not receive the inoculation.”
“Jackson and his nephew, Jeb,” he said.
“Correct.”
“Remind me again how old they are?”
I blinked and glanced down at the census records. “Sixty and thirty-nine, respectively. Why? Is that important?”
“Oh, I was simply curious. What happened to them?”
“We left Jackson back in Cincinnati, no idea where Jeb is. Probably zombie food by now.”
Kincaid leaned back in his chair, folded his arms, and rubbed his chin, like I’d told him something profound.
“Interesting,” he said.
I frowned at him. “I don’t know if I’d call it interesting. Back before, people were always refusing to get their flu shots because they were convinced there was some massive government conspiracy afoot to poison the population. But,” I said as I turned a palm up, “in this case, he was right.”
Flash, Joker, and I ate dinner with everyone who was present at Fort Detrick, a total of twenty-eight personnel. Well, with the exception of Harlan Fosswell Jr. I had yet to see him.
“The ignition module is bad,” Joker said. “And they don’t have any replacement parts here. In fact, there aren’t any replacement parts at Weather either. We’re going to have to raid some Army bases soon.” He looked over at Flash. “Where’d you wander off to? I looked up and you were gone.”
“You didn’t need me, so I wandered around a little bit and talked to a few people,” Flash said. He smiled and waved at an older black man sitting alone. “That’s Andre,” he said under his breath. “He and I got acquainted. He said I looked like one of his sons.”
I knew Andre and gave him a wave as well. Andre was in his mid-fifties now. He was living in Baltimore with his family during the outbreak. He broke his leg jumping out of a second-stor
y window and had to run/hobble for several miles in an effort to escape a horde of zombies. He set the break by himself, which went about like you’d expect if you set a broken leg by yourself, and he walked with a permanent limp now. I could see why Andre liked Flash. Sure, he had a friendly personality, but frankly, our population of African Americans was small, so it was like they were instant kindred spirits.
“Did he have anything interesting to say?” I asked in the same low tone.
“He said there seems to be lots of secret stuff going on and there’s an air of paranoia. When we showed up, it got everyone stirred up.”
“What do they think is going on?” I asked.
“There’s lots of rumors, but Andre thinks Fosswell is up to something no good.”
“Does he know anything specific?” I asked.
Flash shook his head. “He either doesn’t know for sure, or he’s not saying.”
“Humph,” Joker said as he washed down some food and then looked at me. “Did you get what you needed?”
“As much as I can, for now,” I said. I watched as doctors Kincaid and Smeltzer walked in. They did not acknowledge us and walked to the serving line. I can’t say why I felt the way I did, but I was certain those two were holding back on me. Somehow, I needed to find out the truth.
I looked over at another table, where Shooter was seated with a couple of people, including Stretch. Stretch was a tall, long-legged, light-skinned African American woman who had been dating Cutter for the past year. Until recently. Currently, she was sitting close to Shooter. Closer than normal. Joker must have been reading my mind.
“I found out why Cutter packed up and came back to Weather,” he said.
“Does it have something to do with Stretch and Shooter?”
“Yep. Cutter caught them doing the nasty.”
“Ouch,” I said.
“Who’s Shooter?” Flash whispered.
I looked around and saw Shooter looking at me. I gave him a small head nod. He seemed to think about it for a second before responding in kind. He hadn’t changed much over the years. He was six feet, average build, and a slight dimple in his chin. He’d tell anyone who’d listen it made him look like Kirk Douglas.
