Containment Failure (A Special Agent Dylan Kane Thriller, Book #2)

by J. Robert Kennedy

  “This is Colonel Jackson of the National Guard. You are in violation of a Federally mandated quarantine. You are ordered to turn around and return to your homes. If you do not turn around, we will be forced to open fire. Lethal force has been authorized.”

  He never thought he’d say those words, not to American citizens. There were almost a dozen people down there, and from what he could see, they were families. Three perhaps four, that had found a way out before the cordon around the city could be completed. This was happening all around the city, and teams were being dispatched as UAV’s patrolling the skies found them, their infrared sensors picking them out easily.

  So far nobody had challenged the teams, all returning peacefully, but this time he had no boots on the ground to stop them. They were at least ten minutes away, and the only thing that stood between this disease possibly spreading and containment, was him and his helicopter.

  The group in the hedge however didn’t appear ready to cooperate.

  “Let’s throw a little dirt in their faces. Put a few rounds between us and the hedge.”

  “Roger that.”

  The pilot opened fire with the .50 caliber, tearing apart the farmer’s field along a thirty foot swath in front of the hedge hiding the escapees. When the chatter of the cannon stopped, several people tentatively stepped forward, their hands raised. They appeared to be a family, a man and woman with two small children. Another family with a small child bolted back toward the city.

  “Let them go,” said Colonel Jackson. “They won’t be trying that again.” He activated the external speaker. “Return to your homes and you won’t be harmed.” He paused, and when they didn’t move, he raised his voice. “Now!”

  The man pushed through an opening in the hedge and raced after the other family, his wife close behind, their children held close. Jackson was about to activate his mike when a third group suddenly emerged from the hedge, racing right toward them then under the chopper. The pilot banked, reacquiring the targets, Jackson on the mike.

  “Halt immediately! You are in violation of a mandatory quarantine. We are authorized to use deadly force. I say again, halt immediately, or we will open fire.”

  The family, a husband in the lead, urging his wife and what appeared to be a teenaged son forward, showed no signs of slowing down.

  “Fire some warning shots in front of them.”

  “Roger that.”

  The cannons rumbled, flame bursting from the barrels as the ground was torn apart in their escapees’ path. He could see the father turn back, the words he yelled obvious even at this distance.

  “Keep going! They won’t shoot us!”

  Colonel Jackson felt his chest tighten. They weren’t going to cooperate, and they were under a false assumption that he wouldn’t eliminate them. When he had been briefed about the quarantine, and told of the shoot to kill orders, even he had questioned them. But when it was explained what they might be dealing with, and how just one infected person could lead to its worldwide spread, he had understood.

  It was shitty, but they had no choice.

  “Fire again.”

  “Roger that.”

  Again the bullets tore into the ground, this time closer, and again the family showed no signs of stopping.

  He activated the speaker.

  “You have five seconds to comply, otherwise lethal force is authorized.” He lowered his voice slightly, relaxing the mechanical nature he had been trained to use in military communications. “Please stop. We have no choice but to fire. Don’t make me do it.”

  The father slowed down, looking back at the helicopter hovering in front of them, the pilot having repositioned. The man looked back at his wife, then shook his head, running toward a farmhouse nearby. A farmhouse that probably had people in it, people outside the quarantine zone, who had done nothing wrong but be in the path of these frightened people.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, turning off the speaker.

  “Eliminate the targets.”

  “But, sir, they’re just scared parents with their kid!”

  “You have your orders.”

  “Sir…” The pilot’s voice drifted off, then a burst of static indicating a deep breath filled the headset, then a monotone voice. “Understood.”

  He banked toward the fleeing family when Colonel Jackson saw something from the corner of his eye. His head spun and he saw two troop transport vehicles racing down the road, the first vehicle turning onto the road leading to the farmhouse.

  “Hold your fire!”

  “Roger that, holding fire.”

  Troops in NBC “bunny” suits jumped from the back of the truck and raced toward the family, quickly surrounding them, the commander on the scene waving at the chopper, indicating the situation was under control.

  “Return to base,” ordered Jackson, releasing a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. He knew this was something being repeated all around the city, and he knew these poor helicopter crews were going to face the same decision they had. Kill innocent Americans, or let them go. He didn’t know if he could count on his men to follow their orders, it going completely against their training.

  And right now, at this moment, he didn’t know if he could punish them for disobeying, his own emotions so conflicted.

  God help us.

  Interrogation Room B, CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

  “Why don’t you give up the act, and begin cooperating?”

  “I want a lawyer.”

  Agent Sherrie White smiled, shaking her head. She had been trained to not let her frustration show, but she was getting tired of the stonewalling already. Her witness had been allowed to stew for about an hour, provided nothing but water and a television tuned to CNN—her suggestion to let the woman know what was going on. But it wasn’t working.

  “You’re not entitled.” She leaned on the table, her knuckles pressed hard against the pressboard. “Do you have any idea what the hell is going on?”

  “I want a lawyer.”

  “You do realize that you are in it up to here”—she motioned with her hand at her throat—“with this virus mess?”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, then returned to normal.

  “I want a lawyer.”

  But it was too late. Sherrie knew she had caught her.

  “So you have no idea what’s actually going on here.”

  “I want—”

  “—a lawyer. I know you want a lawyer, and you’re not entitled.” Sherrie sat down across from her, leaning in, looking directly at the woman. “Do you want to know why you’re not entitled?”

  No answer other than the woman looking away.

  “Because the situation with this virus is so dangerous, the President has essentially suspended all the rules. I can do anything I want to you. I can torture you, I can kill your kids, hell, I can even torture your kids. I can kill you. It doesn’t matter. I won’t get in trouble.”

  The woman said nothing, but her eyes flared slightly again at the mention of her kids. Sherrie didn’t know if that meant they were her own kids, or if she had just grown attached to them after so much time living together.

  “Do you want to know why I can do this? Why the President felt he should give this power to agents like me?”

  Again no answer, but the woman’s eyes had drifted to the television still playing in the background.

  “Because what the public doesn’t know, is that this virus has mutated, and can now be spread person to person with ease, and has a near one hundred percent fatality rate.” Another flare of the eyes, this time not hidden as she focused more on the screen. “Do you understand what that means?”

  Again no response, but there was a slight shift of the body toward Sherrie, suggesting she wanted to know the answer.

  “It’s judgment day. The end of days. A plague that will wipe out ninety-nine percent of the population, and right now there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  The woman was
definitely a little paler, her mouth open slightly as she watched the CNN feed, her eyes darting back and forth as she read the ticker.

  “Now I’m sure you’re wondering what this has to do with you. But I think you’ve already guessed. You’re impersonating the wife of Dr. Victor Urban. Dr. Urban is, or was, a renowned viral researcher with BioDyne Pharma. He is responsible for the current situation. He released the virus, demanding payment or he’ll do something even worse next time. This is his third attack in a year, each one separated by six months. The problem is, next time, there won’t be anyone around to care. We need to find him before it’s too late. We need to prevent any future attacks, but also see if he can help us find a cure for this existing virus.” Sherrie leaned to the side to catch the woman’s eyes. “Help us.”

  A tear rolled down the woman’s cheek, and in the corner of Sherrie’s eye she could see body bags being loaded in the back of an army vehicle. Finally the woman turned to Sherrie.

  “I had no idea. I was paid fifty grand for every month I had to take care of these two kids. I had to pretend I was this guy’s wife, live her life, and I’d get the cash deposited into an account each month. All I knew was he was some doctor, some researcher. They got me a job in Canada, moved us there almost immediately after I replaced the mother, and it didn’t take long for the kids to start calling me Mommy.” She sniffed. “I don’t think they even realize I’m not her anymore, they’re so young.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Jessica Flowers.”

  “When were you born?”

  “August fourth, seventy-seven.”

  That should be enough for the guys on the other side of the window.

  “What happened to the real Melissa Urban?”

  She shrugged.

  “No idea. I received a package in the mail. Inside was a set of keys, a license plate number and two addresses; one for where the car was, the other for the house. There were detailed files on the wife and kids, her habits, list of places to avoid, everything, and a date and time. I got my ass there, found the car in a mall parking lot, drove to the house, the kids came home from school, and I took over her life.”

  “Do you still have this envelope?”

  “It’s taped under the drawer of the nightstand in the master bedroom, right hand side of the bed.”

  “And the bank account number you’ve been getting your deposits sent to?”

  She nodded toward the envelope of personal effects.

  “In my wallet.”

  Sherrie emptied the envelope’s contents onto the table. Grabbing the wallet and opening it up, she looked at Flowers. “Where?”

  “Let me,” said Flowers, reaching forward.

  Sherrie leaned back, distancing herself.

  “No, tell me where it is.”

  She had been trained to not let the suspect touch anything that might be concealing something, such as a cyanide pill, and wasn’t about to lose their only potential lead.

  “First section, folded up piece of yellow paper at the bottom.”

  Sherrie flipped open the front section and immediately spotted the small paper. Reaching in, she pulled it out and carefully unfolded it, revealing a bank account number. She put the folded open paper flat on the desk so the overhead camera could pull the number and send it to whatever analyst was available.

  “So in all of this you never saw anyone.”

  An emphatic headshake. “No.”

  “No further correspondence?”

  “Just the initial instructions.”

  “How did you know to move to Canada?”

  “It was in the original instructions.”

  “And how long were you supposed to do this?”

  “Two years.”

  “Exactly?”

  “Exactly.”

  “How were you originally contacted? You said all the instructions were in the envelope, but how did you find the job?”

  Flowers suddenly looked uncomfortable, and Sherrie knew she was about to get some other tidbit out of her. But Flowers said nothing, instead looked at the television, then at her fingernails.

  “You can tell me now, or we can toss you in a cell and beat it out of you. Like I said, no rules.”

  “My brother.”

  “Explain.”

  “My brother is sick, terminal. He had less than six months to live, nothing had worked, so we started making plans. Then some guy shows up in his hospital room and says he can cure him, but I have to do something in return.”

  “Pretend to be someone’s wife.”

  Flowers nodded.

  “And what happened.”

  “My brother was given some sort of treatment. A doctor came once a week to his room and gave him injections, then he started to get better. Within weeks he was perfectly healthy. That’s when I received the envelope with the instructions on my end of the bargain.”

  “And nothing seemed odd about this?”

  “Of course! I’m not an idiot. But these people had saved my brother, and I had agreed to do whatever they wanted. It wasn’t like they were asking me to kill someone, and they were even offering to pay me, despite what they had already done.” She looked at Sherrie then shrugged her shoulders. “I couldn’t see a downside.”

  “Except that it was illegal.”

  “Well, yeah, I guess. But maybe the mother had agreed.”

  “You don’t actually believe that, do you?”

  Flowers eyes and voice dropped.

  “No.”

  “So there were two men? The first who came to you with the offer, the second a doctor?”

  Flowers nodded.

  “Would you recognize them again if you saw them?”

  “I think so.”

  Sherrie brought up a grid of random mug shots that generally matched Dr. Urban’s description, including one of the man himself. She pushed the tablet toward Flowers.

  “Recognize anyone?”

  Her finger immediately went to the photo of Urban.

  “That’s the doctor!”

  “Did he ever say anything?”

  “No. Well, that is except to say the first time he entered our room that he was here to administer the injections, and he wasn’t to be spoken to.”

  “Did he seem comfortable? Angry? Agitated? Scared?”

  Flowers’ eyes took on a distant look as they reached back in time.

  “He seemed in a hurry, that’s for sure. Maybe a little scared? I don’t know. We were just so excited that somebody was helping us, especially after the first treatment showed improvement.”

  “And they never told you what this treatment was?”

  “No.”

  “And what did your brother have?”

  “HIV. AIDS. Full blown, final stages. The drugs weren’t working anymore. Not that they ever really did with him.”

  “And what did the doctor’s say?”

  “They still don’t believe the tests. They’re claiming it’s in remission, but they can’t find the virus in his blood anymore. I think the treatments cured him, killed the virus, and now he’s got a second chance at life.”

  Sherrie had almost stopped listening. Clearly the antiviral had been used on Flowers’ brother, and he had been cured. The antiviral was obviously fantastic, but none of this was making sense. Why would Urban arrange the replacement of his own wife but not take the kids?

  He wouldn’t.

  Which meant he was being coerced.

  Which changes everything!

  Mike Milner Residence, 837 Gravier Street, New Orleans, Louisiana

  Special Agent Dylan Kane watched as the ambulance carrying the crispy but alive Sergeant Michael pulled away. Isabelle was still shaken, but seemed to have her wits about her. Officer Macleod’s body hadn’t been removed yet as the crime scene team was still photographing everything, and at the moment, her body was evidence.

  His stomach rumbled and he gave it a pat, glancing around to see if there was any place to eat where they were, but
there was nothing save apartments.

  And one corner store tucked in the bottom of the building they were standing in front of. He strode toward the entrance and looked over at Isabelle.

  “You want something?”

  She shook her head.

  “You can eat after that?”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “A man’s gotta eat. I don’t know when I’m going to get another chance.”

  “You go ahead,” she said as a body bag was carried from the front entrance. Kane paused, turning to face the young officer and pay his respects, his eyes closed momentarily in silent prayer. When the coroner pulled away, Kane resumed his hunt for food, quickly closing the distance between him and the entrance to the corner store.

  As he opened the door he heard the clicking of sensible shoes running up behind him. He turned and smiled at the detective as she came to a stop beside him.

  “Got your appetite back?”

  “Nope.”

  She pointed at a camera in the front corner of the store meant to cover the entrance. It also had a full, unhindered view of the front entrance of the apartment.

  Kane’s eyebrows climbed his forehead in appreciation.

  “I’d have caught that if I wasn’t so damned hungry,” he said with a smile, his stomach growling in evidence.

  “Riiight,” said Isabelle, drawing out the word.

  “I’m hurt you don’t believe me.”

  “A guy parachutes into the center of a quarantine zone is surprised I don’t believe much of what comes out of his mouth?”

  “Ouch,” said Kane, following her into the brightly lit store. “I’m a very honest guy once you get to know me.”

  “Oh, I have no doubt. And there’s no way you’re FBI. Those moves you put on me back there were Special Forces of some type.”

  Kane momentarily tried to think of when he had put the moves on her, then realized she was talking about saving her life. He gave her another once over and decided that if he were given the opportunity, he would indeed put the moves on her. Though older, her body was terrific.

  And she could probably deliver a good ass kicking if he didn’t watch himself.