The Anthrax Protocol

by James Thompson

  After a while, Lauren glanced at Mason, “Why do you suppose this anthrax bacillus doesn’t infect animals as the normal type of anthrax does?”

  Mason shook his head. “I don’t know for sure since we’ve been too busy looking for a cure to do a complete DNA sequencing on this particular hot-bug, but I would guess that the same mutation that caused this species to be transmissible from person to person also caused it to be unable to infect animals.”

  She wagged her head. “Thank God,” she said. “Can you imagine how much more horrible the plague would be if it was also killing all warm-blooded mammals like the old anthrax did? We would be awash in dead animal bodies and then we’d have other plagues caused by illnesses related to that.”

  “I truly doubt mankind could have survived such a plague,” Mason said seriously. “If we can extract a cure for the infection from these plants and even better a vaccine to prevent future infections in the next few days and get the results to the CDC within the week, I think we may be able to keep the worldwide death toll down to fifteen to twenty percent of the population rather than the thirty to forty percent if it is allowed to run its course unhindered by medicine.”

  Lauren shuddered. “Fifteen to twenty percent of almost four billion people is still horrendous.”

  “You’re right, of course, but right now we must focus on the almost one billion people our cure will save rather than the billion already lost.” He sighed and wiped a hand across his face. “God, the responsibility of what we have in those bags is almost too much for one man to bear.”

  “You’re not alone, Mason. You’ve got me and Motzi and a whole lot of Marines who are going to help you get the needed cure, not to mention the support and help from members of your Wildfire Team.”

  Just then Commander Piner stuck his head in the door. “I’m told we’ll be in range for your transfer for your flight to your coordinates in Mexico in about six hours, just before sunrise. So, if you’re gonna arrive there bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, you’d better get some shut-eye. Dr. Sullivan, since we’re not yet coed on this vessel, I’m giving you my stateroom to sleep in.” He glanced at Mason, “Doc, you and Motzi can bunk down here in the wardroom.”

  “What about the Marines?” Mason asked.

  “Those guys could sleep standing up if they had to, but we’ve fixed up a tarp on the rear deck to keep the sea-spray off of them so they’ll be fine in their sleeping bags.”

  Aware of Piner’s eyes on them, Mason walked over to Lauren and gave her a brotherly hug and then he and Motzi dove into their packs to get their sleeping bags ready while she followed Piner out the door toward his cabin.

  Mexico City

  It was almost midnight before Bear and his team landed at the Mexico City airport. As they piled out of the chopper, they unloaded two duffle bags of assorted plants and flowering bushes, each different type bound together by twine into bunches. They’d spent about an hour roaming around the jungle and picking up anything that looked the least bit exotic or special before they climbed aboard the helicopter for the trip to Mexico City.

  “What about the blood samples we don’t have?” Jinx asked Bear quietly as they unloaded their gear.

  “Leave that to me,” Bear said. He turned to their pilot and said, “A couple of my men have come down with jungle fever, but I want to make sure they don’t have the plague. Can you direct us to the airport doctor’s office?”

  At the mention of the word plague, the pilot blanched almost white, adjusted the white cloth mask that virtually everyone was wearing nowadays, and pointed toward the left wing of the airport terminal. “What do I tell General Mendez? He is waiting to talk to you about your mission.”

  “Tell him we’ll meet him in the airport manager’s office as soon as I’m sure my men don’t have the plague . . . unless he’d like to meet us before we know for sure?”

  The pilot held up his hands palms out. “No, no, I am sure the general will be happy to wait until your men have been tested. I will tell him myself.”

  “Thank you,” Bear said with a smirk, and then he and his men took off at a jog toward the airport doctor’s office.

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later, they were outside the airport manager’s office with a briefcase containing thirty vials of blood and twenty spit-soaked Q-tips in vials labeled for DNA testing.

  “You don’t think we took too much of that doctor’s blood, do you?” Babe asked, a concerned look on his face.

  “Nah,” Bear replied. “He’ll heal up fine as soon as he wakes up from that shot of phenobarbital you gave him.”

  He knocked once and entered the door without waiting for a reply. Behind a desk at the far end of the room sat a corpulent, sweating, mustachioed Mexican in a Mexican Army general’s uniform.

  “You must be General Mendez?” Bear asked, striding forward to shake the man’s hand.

  “Sí, and you are Señor Bear?”

  “That’s right, General. I assume you can contact Colonel Blackman so we can conclude our business?”

  Mendez nodded, his eyes narrow as he glared at Bear’s men standing behind him. “Your men, they are all right?”

  “Yeah, just a touch of jungle fever, no sign of anthrax, the doctor said.”

  “And the specimens? You have them?”

  “Yep. Here they are,” and Bear handed the duffle bags and briefcase over the desk. “Be careful with that case, it contains the blood and DNA samples Dr. Williams took from the villagers.”

  Mendez unzipped the duffle bags and bent to look inside them. “And this Dr. Williams?”

  “He is swimming with the fishes in the river, along with his bitch friend and the native boy,” Jinx piped up from behind Bear, a snarl on his lips.

  Mendez pursed his lips and smiled. “Colonel Blackman will be most happy to hear that.” He stood up and put his general’s cap on his head. “I will leave immediately by jet airplane to take these samples to the colonel.”

  He stopped suddenly, his mouth agape when three MP5 machine guns were suddenly pointed at his midsection.

  “Uh, I’m afraid that is not going to happen until I talk with Colonel Blackman, General.”

  Mendez’s lips tightened, but he stepped back behind the desk, dialed the phone, and handed it to Bear.

  A moment later, Blackman answered, “Hello, General. Did everything go all right?”

  “It’s not the general, Blackman. It’s Bear.”

  “Oh . . .” there was a pause. “So, Bear, is everything on track?”

  “Yep, the general has all the plant specimens as well as the blood and DNA samples Dr. Williams took. Now all that has to happen for him to be on his way to you with them is for you to pay me and my men our fee.”

  “But, that wasn’t our deal!” Blackman bellowed. “You were to be paid when I got the samples and made sure they were legitimate.”

  “That deal was made before you assigned us to terminate your spy, Janus, in order to tie up loose ends. Now my men and me are figuring we might just qualify as loose ends, too, so we’d just as soon be paid now and then we’ll be glad to finish your dirty work for you, Colonel.”

  “I will not be blackmailed like this!” Blackman shouted. “I’ll have you and your men hunted down and . . .”

  “Hold this phone, General,” Bear said and handed the phone to Mendez while Blackman was in midshout.

  “Jinx,” Bear said.

  “Yes, sir,” Jinx replied and he took the duffle bags and briefcase from Mendez and stepped over and sat them in the corner of the office.

  Hoss then pulled a small bottle of alcohol from his coat pocket and began to pour it over the duffle bags and briefcase while Bear took out a Zippo lighter and snapped its flame to life.

  As he bent over to hold it next to the alcohol-soaked duffels, Mendez shouted, “Wait!”

  He began to speak rapidly into the phone, describing what Bear and his men were up to.

  After a few seconds, his face pale, he handed the pho
ne back to Bear.

  “You were saying, Colonel?” Bear asked sarcastically.

  “Okay, you win. I’ll have the money transferred to the account numbers in the Caymans you gave me. But . . .”

  Bear cut him off. “You’ve got fifteen minutes, Colonel, and then we have ourselves a wienie roast.” He hung up the phone and looked at his watch.

  Glancing at Mendez, he stepped over behind the desk, pulled Mendez to his feet, and pushed him aside. He sat down and put his iPhone on the desk and keyed in the Internet function and logged onto the Cayman bank’s website where they did business.

  A moment later he smiled, keyed in his account number, and transferred all of the money Blackman had just deposited into another account that Blackman knew nothing about.

  He stood up, and Jinx sat down and did the same with his accounts, as did Hoss and Psycho after him.

  When they had all moved their money out of Blackman’s reach, Bear shook Mendez’s hand. “General, we’re gonna borrow your helicopter for a short ride to where we have our plane stashed. We’ll radio you the coordinates of where it can be picked up in a couple of hours. It was nice doing business with you.”

  Jinx gave a mock salute as they left the office. “Tell your friend Blackman we’ll be in touch . . . and to keep looking over his shoulder.”

  Hoss touched his forehead. “A pleasure, General.”

  Psycho just pursed his lips and gave a smacking kiss good-bye.

  Babe just nodded, and then smiled a smile that made the hair on the back of Mendez’s neck rise.

  Suddenly he felt a rumbling in his stomach and then a horrible stench arose from his chair. He realized he’d soiled his pants and ran quickly toward the nearest restroom.

  Tlateloco

  Mason and Motzi were awoken at five o’clock in the morning to the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, scrambled eggs, crisp bacon, and what looked to be homemade biscuits.

  Just as they were digging in, Lauren appeared in the doorway looking fresh as a daisy.

  As she helped herself to coffee and breakfast and sat down to join the men, the commander walked in, a sheepish grin on his face.

  “Uh-oh,” Mason said. “What’s up?”

  “In a clear violation of all standards of political correctness, the men made me promise to give you this, Dr. Sullivan.”

  He handed her a rolled-up piece of thick paper.

  She unrolled it, read it, and then burst out laughing, her face flaming red.

  Mason raised his eyebrows and she showed it to him. It read, “Dr. Lauren Sullivan” in an elaborate handwritten calligraphy script across the top of the page. Below it read, “Voted the doctor most Marines would love to be lost in the jungle with.”

  Mason also laughed and showed the paper to Motzi, who raised his eyebrows in question, obviously unable to read the fancy script. “I’ll bet the vote was one hundred percent,” Mason said.

  The commander blushed again and he said, “Actually there was one dissenter. The cook voted for you, Dr. Williams.”

  “You’re kidding,” Mason said, with a puzzled look on his face.

  The commander shrugged, “It’s a new Marine Corps. We don’t ask and they don’t tell.”

  Now both Lauren and Mason laughed out loud, with Piner joining in.

  Mason glanced at a still puzzled Motzi and between guffaws he said, “I’ll explain to you later.”

  “Enough fun and games,” Piner said when he’d finally managed to quit laughing. “Get geared up, you guys. We’ll be in range in fifteen minutes and we need to get you on the chopper.”

  As Mason rose, he said, “I didn’t see any helicopters on deck when you picked us up.”

  “You’re right, Doc. The Makin Island has steamed on an intercept course with us all night and is now only a few miles away. She’s sending over one of her CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters.”

  “Sea Stallion?” Lauren asked.

  “You’ve probably seen earlier versions on old films of the evacuation of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War,” Piner said. “They’re the ones you saw picking up people from the embassies and military camps. They’ve been updated quite a bit, and now they’re great for transporting personnel and are just right for jungle overflight and letting you guys down in small areas surrounded by trees and jungle bush.”

  “Can they land on the deck to pick us up?” Mason asked.

  Piner shook his head. “No, but they’ll hover just a few feet above the deck and we’ll make sure you are all lifted aboard.”

  “What about the Marines?” Mason asked.

  “Who do you think will be standing in line to help lift Dr. Sullivan aboard?” Piner replied with a wink.

  Then he smiled. “But you and Motzi just might have to get aboard on your own.”

  Chapter 40

  Just before Mason left the ward room on the way to the helicopter pickup, his sat-phone buzzed and he took the call.

  He turned his back to Lauren and Motzi and spoke in low tones for several moments, and then he nodded and hung up the phone.

  Lauren gazed at him through squinted eyes. “You got that cat-that-ate-the-canary look on your face, boss man. You’re up to something . . . I know you.”

  As Motzi followed Piner out onto the deck, Mason pulled Lauren aside. “That was Bear. His team concluded their business with Blackman last night, and they are in their plane on the way to disappearing forever.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “So? What’re you guys now . . . best buds? He call you to say bye-bye?”

  Mason put his hand on her shoulder. “Right before we split up yesterday, I asked him to tell me about Janus since he was leaving Blackman’s employ anyway.”

  “And?”

  “He said he didn’t know Janus’s real name, but that his best guess was that Janus was a female on the Wildfire Team and that she must’ve had some feelings for me ’cause she tried to get Blackman to guarantee that I wouldn’t be killed by Bear and his men when they stole the specimens.”

  “Then it’s got to be either Shirley Cole or Suzanne Elliot, right?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, and what’s more, Bear said that he told Blackman that they’d killed all three of us while stealing the specimens so if Blackman tells Janus that, then the one of the two women who is most surprised to see us alive will probably be Janus.”

  As they walked toward the waiting helicopter, Mason hung back and motioned for Piner to join him.

  “What’s up, Doc?” Piner said with a grin. “I’ve always wanted to say that,” he added.

  Mason smiled, having heard the old joke a million times. “Here, Commander,” he said, handing the man a small duffle bag.

  “What’s this?”

  “These are most of the specimens we retrieved from the natives in Mexico. I need you to get these to the CDC in Atlanta as soon as possible so they can start working on a cure for the plague.”

  “But, I thought that’s what you’re gonna be doing down at your lab in the jungle.”

  Mason nodded. “We are, but the CDC has much better equipment and lots of really, really smart doctors who can probably do a better job there than we can in the jungle. I am taking a few of the plants and blood samples with us, but the world is counting on you getting the rest of these to Atlanta as fast as humanly possible, Commander.”

  Piner nodded, a serious look on his face. “I’ll get this duffle over to the Makin Island and have one of their helicopters rendezvous with the nearest ship with a jet onboard, and I’ll tell them to have the pilot use the afterburner the entire way, Doctor.”

  Mason clapped Piner on the shoulder. “Good man!” He glanced over to where several Marines were jostling to see who would be the one to “help” Lauren up onto the deck of the hovering helicopter.

  “Do you think they’ll fight like that over me?” Mason asked, smiling.

  Piner shook his head. “Doubtful, Doc, doubtful.”

  And he was right. Mason had to fight his own way up onto the chopper with
no help from the Marines, who just stood there smiling, all their eyes on Lauren.

  As they settled into their jump seats, Mason cast a suspicious eye on Lauren. “By the way,” he said, “Motzi and I had to shower in the ship’s crew showers last night.”

  She cut her eyes toward him and with an impish grin, said, “Uh-huh?”

  “You’re looking very clean this morning . . . just where did you shower?”

  “In the crew’s shower,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Yes, but two very nice young Marines volunteered to stand watch to guard my modesty.” She smiled, “They said the entire crew had drawn lots to see who got to stand guard and that they’d won.”

  In spite of himself, Mason laughed as he took her hand in his and squeezed it as they lifted off from the ship.

  * * *

  Janus spat into the sat-phone, “You bastard! I told you not to let your dogs hurt him!”

  Blackman replied. “I already told you, Janus. Those were my instructions, but when dealing with the kind of men we use to do this kind of job, accidents will happen.”

  “You’ll pay for this, Blackie.”

  “Oh, don’t be so melodramatic. This is as much your fault as it is mine, Janus. After all, it was you who came to me asking to work with me against your masters at the CDC.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “Anyhow, now that the samples are on their way here, you can be of more use up here in Maryland than you can down there in Mexico. When Bear and his men arrive to . . . uh . . . take care of the rest of the Wildfire Team, why don’t you return with them and come to work for me full time? I can always use someone with your . . . special skill set.”

  “How would we explain my survival when the rest of the team ends up dead?”

  “Oh, we can say you were out gathering samples of plant life when the lab must have been attacked by a band of narco-traffickers looking for drugs. I can have Bear drop you off a few miles from the perimeter guards and you can approach them with a horrible story about the deaths of your friends and the destruction of the lab.”