Turning Point (Book 1): A Time To Die

by Wandrey, Mark

  “Thanks for coming on such short notice,” Dr. Amstead said as he led the way briskly down the hall. A young intern carried Lisha’s bag behind them, intently listening to the two doctors’ conversation.

  “My pleasure, Dr. Amstead,” she replied. “How long have you been part of the Wild Fire team?”

  Dr. Amstead missed a step and almost tripped over his own feet. He jerked around to stare at her, then at the intern. The kid looked back in confusion. Dr. Amstead held out his hand. “Give me the bag and go back to class. Now.”

  “Yes sir,” the young man said, relinquishing the backpack. The intern looked over his shoulder with a final furtive glance before trotting back the way they’d come.

  “That program is classified, Dr. Breda.”

  “And about the worst-kept secret in the world,” she replied with a toss of her head. She took her pack back and resumed walking down the hallway, forcing him to trot to catch up. “Organized in the 1960s by the government to respond when aliens land in America, it’s been a multi-million-dollar boondoggle sucking up money for decades.” She glanced over her shoulder as the older doctor caught up to her, the expression on his face showing his disapproval of her opinion. She didn’t care. “It was your Wild Fire network that got me here.”

  “You should realize,” he spoke in his rich northern accent, dark eyes flashing as he brushed his thinning hair out of his eyes, “I don’t much care for your HAARP project either.”

  “Then I guess we understand each other,” she said, turning back. “Science is often founded on mutual animosity between researchers.” He snorted—half laugh, half disagreement—but the older scientist otherwise remained silent. “I guess our line of research makes me the closest thing to what you need, though, so here I am.”

  The biology lab was state of the art. It specialized in research on domestic livestock, like improving the strains of chickens and helping the poultry industry develop more effective nutritional supplements and disease-resistant strains. It was chosen for the current project because it was a Level Two bio-containment lab. Some animal contagions were risky to work with, especially in a country that consumed billions of pounds of chicken every year.

  Dr. Breda stood with her arms crossed and looked around the lab with a critical eye, picking out each piece of equipment she would need. She also noted the sealed chamber at the back and how the lab staff was reluctant to go near it. Something didn’t feel right.

  “Better fill me in on the details,” she told Dr. Amstead. He handed her a tablet and began explaining the case. She’d read it twice on the way to Las Cruces and once more in the cab, but long experience had taught her to always listen to the facts from the source as well as reading the written notes. There were often details to be gleaned that didn’t make it into print.

  Two days ago, a ranger in the Brokeoff Mountains Wilderness Study Area found what he at first thought was a deceased red fox. Upon closer examination, he was unable to confirm the species as Vulpes vulpes. There had been some decay of the specimen as well as predation by unknown scavengers. It was an unusual find because the wilderness area was not inside the known range of that species of fox, so he bagged the specimen to take back to the ranger station. It was only after returning that he noted the lack of substantial secondary evidence of decay. There was no odor and no presence of insects.

  Lisha looked through the thick glass into the isolation chamber where the fox lay. The pictures didn’t really do it justice. Of course, now that it was only a few meters away, it was obviously a fox. What wasn’t obvious was why it wasn’t decaying like a dead animal should. Inside with the dead animal, a technician in an isolation suit was carefully taking pictures, moving the body and examining it in intricate detail. The person, sexless in the bulky protective gear, was using the microscope feature of the handheld camera to take pictures of the fox’s nose, which appeared shredded.

  “Can I see the tissue sample images? They weren’t included in the data packet you sent.”

  “I know,” Amstead admitted and scratched the thin whiskers on his chin. “We had a new set taken this morning. They should be mounted any time now.”

  “What was wrong with the first series?”

  “They got tainted somehow.”

  On cue, a technician brought over an SD card and gave it to Dr. Amstead. He moved to a large display nearby and slid the chip in, accessing the files. In a moment he was frowning. “Same problem.”

  “And that is?” Lisha asked, coming up beside him.

  The older man pointed to an enlarged image showing muscle tissue biopsied from the fox. “There is no microbiological activity,” he said and ran his finger along a capillary, visible in stark relief due to the dye added to the slide. “Even though the dye would kill all the microbes, a carcass like this should be crawling with bacteria and insect larvae.”

  Lisha nodded and leaned closer. The image shifted to another, then another. They all showed the same complete lack of bacteriological life. It wasn’t only unlikely, it was impossible. “Well,” she spoke after a few minutes of observing, “at least the lack of living insects on the carcass when discovered is less of a mystery.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “If whatever killed the bacteria was some sort of chemical, it is probably what kept the flies and scavengers away.” The other doctor nodded, accepting her professional opinion in an area outside his expertise.

  What she didn’t say aloud was what really bothered her. It might be possible to expose an animal to a chemical that would kill all the microbes and bacteria, even in the gut. But that didn’t account for the remains. All the samples were pure, with no signs at all of foreign organisms. It was almost as if this fox was somehow resistant to all bacteria.

  Six hours later she’d learned what she could, having unequivocally confirmed it was a fox of the species Vulpes vulpes, and she put together a vacuum-sealed case of tissue and fluid samples before calling Andre and heading for the exit. Dr. Amstead saw her off with a handshake and his thanks just as Andre’s late model sedan pulled up. It was a long day of travel in exchange for such an interesting mystery. All the way back to LA, Dr. Breda couldn’t shake the feeling this was the beginning of something very bad.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 3

  Tuesday, April 10

  Andrew sipped a canned sweet tea and watched as the Skycatcher came around on final approach two miles from the airport. The pilot was one of his advanced students, and he’d advised against the man taking his final solo today. There was a 17-knot crosswind, and the temperature was hovering around 90. Not ideal flying weather. The wind was from a storm blowing in that threatened to bring hail and probably a lot of sand out of western Texas. The man had been adamant. He wanted his license and didn’t want to wait any longer. The conditions were borderline, but not out of regulations, so Andrew signed off, and up he went.

  He’d made his two previous approaches perfectly, and this was the last. If he brought this one in, he was home free. The wind was picking up, though, and Andrew eyed the radio on the patio table, half expecting him to call for advice. He’d been a capable student but leaned toward uncertainty and indecision in difficult situations.

  The chirp of his smartphone made him jump slightly in surprise. Aside from his mother, who rarely called because she hated “those damn cell things,” and an ex-girlfriend who’d last called to tell him she was getting married, there was only one other person who might be calling. He glanced up at his student’s approach and decided he had a minute, so he snatched the device from his belt holster and flipped up the cover.

  As he’d hoped, it was an email from his commanding officer. He was to report for a readiness assessment at the base on Thursday, April 12th. A posting was being held open for him in the wing’s CAS unit, currently stationed at Riyadh’s King Salman Air Base. If all went well, he’d be on a transport to the sandbox in 72 hours. His heart was racing, and he felt light-headed. Back in the cockpit again after
all these months? He was so caught off guard that when he remembered what he was supposed to be doing, his student was taxiing toward the hangars, having already landed safely.

  His fellow ex-military buddies took him out to dinner that night, all toasting his good fortune and seeing if they could get him drunk. With a fitness evaluation in only two days, and a medical eval in the morning, Andrew kept it at three beers for the night. The next morning, he was in his skivvies doing calisthenics for a bored army physical therapy specialist and answering inane questions like, “Do you ever wish you hadn’t been wounded?”

  “No shit, Doc,” was the answer he wanted to give, “I wish at least twice a day that some damn 18-year-old kids hadn’t crushed my leg with a JDAM.” Instead he shrugged before he spoke. “What happens is often outside of our control.”

  The doctor nodded and made a note. “Ever think about ending it?”

  “Never.” The doctor regarded him with his dark eyes, and Andrew stared right back. That thought had never entered his mind, even as he lay in the hospital bed, and a German doctor told him he’d lose his leg.

  The questions went on as a nurse came in, and Andrew went through the grinder. Up and down steps for 10 minutes as fast as he could. Jumping jacks. Lifting a 10-kilo weight from the floor and putting in on a table as many times as he could in five minutes. After, as he sweated and tried to control his breathing, they removed his prosthetic and examined the stump.

  “A little irritation,” the doctor noted and typed on his tablet.

  “Almost gone now,” Andrew admitted. The doctor gave him “The Eye” once more, but Andrew stood his ground.

  “Okay,” he said and typed some more. Andrew tried not to sweat. Hey, it’s only your life, right, flyboy?

  An hour later, he was buttoning up his shirt in the examination room as the doctor walked by to attend to another patient. Andrew knew better, but he spoke up anyway. “So, Doc, did I pass?”

  “You’ll hear by tonight, Lieutenant,” the doctor said without stopping.

  A cute redheaded nurse came in a minute later to pick up one of the testing instruments. She saw the frustrated look on his face and paused for a minute, and then she caught his eye. He looked up, and she winked. Andrew drove back to his apartment and started to pack.

  * * *

  The clerk glanced at his watch—only 15 minutes to closing. Outside San Antonio, the life in a big-box store could often be crazy on a Tuesday, and he had no idea why. The other clerks claimed Sundays were the worst, but many of them didn’t work Tuesdays. He hated Tuesdays. This one, though, looked to be ending on a high note. Then the clerk spotted him.

  The man, whose name was Vance, was a nondescript white dude in his late forties, wearing his typically faded blue jeans and a camo-pattern T-shirt. He cleared the door 10 minutes before it was to be locked, and he had a massive list dangling from one hand. And he was a regular. Fuck.

  Vance caught the look from the clerk as he stopped to orient himself in the discount store and smirked to himself. He always did his bulk item shopping on Tuesday because the coupons came in the mail that day.

  A few minutes later, two shopping carts in tow, Vance was in the bulk commodities aisle and had his list in one hand as he moved down the row. Kidney beans were on sale, and he had two combinable coupons. He stopped to scowl at the stock; there were only 45-pound bags left on the shelf. With a sweep of the arm, they went into the first cart, and he quickly moved on.

  The clerk glanced at his watch 40 minutes later—a half hour after closing—as Vance deftly maneuvered his two carts up with a smile. The manager spotted his arrival from the office and came out to assist. “Evening Mr. Cartwright,” he smiled.

  “And to you too, Mr. Owens.” Vance liked the older man; he ran a good store. He only wished the guy would hire more amiable cashiers. The young man at the register glared at him as Vance began unloading his heavily-laden carts.

  Twenty minutes into ringing up the load and scanning coupons, curiosity got the better of the kid. “What do you do with all of this stuff, anyway?” The store manager grinned as he placed a huge bag of rice into an empty cart. He knew what was coming.

  “Tee-aught-wawki!”

  “Huh?”

  “T-E-O-T-W-A-W-K-I,” Vance spelled out the acronym. “Stands for The End Of The World As We Know It.” Another blank look. “The government is conspiring with foreign mega-corporations to strangle our food supply and kill 99 percent of all humans on the planet.” The kid’s look turned from confused to bemused, then horrified.

  “Oh, man, really?!”

  “Without a doubt,” Vance said and fished in his pocket for a card. On it was printed an endorsement to support a candidate for president, and a number of Internet links that would educate the kid. The store manager chuckled and kept the goods moving. He’d taken a card the first day Vance came in during an after-Christmas sale. Within a few minutes of checking links, he’d realized this “prepper” was as crazy as a loon, but his money was just as green as any other big customer’s, so he made sure to stay open for him whenever he showed up.

  Vance whistled as he loaded his 10-year-old Jeep Grand Cherokee, emptied of most of the usual accoutrements of his lifestyle for this trip. The clerk finished locking the door and tried to not glare at Vance as he grumbled and headed for his car, a full hour after closing time.

  The drive out of suburban San Antonio in the early spring evening was enjoyable. The weather was clear, and the temperature under 80 degrees. Vance had an ancient and well-played cassette of Boston’s “Don’t Look Back” playing on the venerable Jeep’s stereo, and the back of the car was stuffed full of what he estimated to be three months’ supplies.

  The sun was getting low on the horizon when he glided down the exit off Hwy 90 just west of Hondo. Another 20 minutes brought him to within view of Flag Mountain off State Road 462, and he turned onto an unmarked dirt road—his retreat driveway.

  The cabin was originally built in the 1930s. Abandoned in the 1960s, his father had bought it for next to nothing in 1982. Over the intervening decade, the elder Cartwright had spent many weekends lovingly restoring and upgrading the four-room, 700-square-foot cabin. The 300 surrounding acres were partially wooded and teeming with wildlife. However, just as he was finishing his restoration, Vance’s father had succumbed to a sudden heart attack. His mother had left years ago, so Vance inherited the cabin.

  Vance had left Texas and had been successful selling software in California, but when he sold the company five years ago he found himself back in Texas. He began spending way too much time on the Internet and, a few conspiracy theories later, he was a born-again doomsday prepper.

  Now, five years later and considerably poorer than when he started, Vance had recruited a small number of like-minded families, expanded his cabin, and stocked it with everything he would need to survive the end of the world.

  He gave a little honk as he pulled into the covered space next to the cabin. Lexus, his five-year-old Doberman/Shepherd mix, came running from the woods, tail wagging and tongue lolling. “Hey girl,” he said as he climbed out and got a face-licking. “You ever catch that rabbit?” Lexus didn’t have anything to say and promptly went running off again.

  “How’d the sale go?” asked a familiar voice from the cabin door. Ann stood there with a coffee cup in one hand, brushing her long red hair from her face with the other.

  “Good. You ready to help with the unload?”

  “Tim and Nicole will be here in an hour,” she reminded him; “it’ll be easier with four more hands.”

  “True,” he agreed and shrugged. “Got any more of that joe?”

  “Sure thing, sailor.”

  The trees shaded the cabin well, and the coffee was good as usual. In the years Ann had shared the cabin with him, they’d grown into something more than friends, but less than husband and wife. He’d been within an inch of asking her to marry him more than once, but something always stopped him—maybe his own short marria
ge 20 years before, or her long but equally doomed one that had ended just before they met. She was a longtime friend of the Prices (Tim & Nicole), and that had led them to introduce her. Along with Lisa and Brad Hopkins, they completed the group he’d built around The Retreat.

  “I love coming up here,” Ann said as she sipped her coffee and watched Lexus sniffing around a tree 100 yards away.

  “You should stay more often,” Vance suggested. Was this one of those times when he’d almost ask, only to lose his will at the last moment? He pretended to study the bottom of the heavy ceramic mug through the dark brown liquid.

  “I’d like that,” she said. Something more was unsaid there, and Lance looked up. Sure enough, she was staring at him. He lifted an eyebrow in an unspoken question. She opened her mouth to speak, but took another drink of coffee instead. To his surprise, a tear formed in the corner of her eye.

  “Shit,” he said and moved closer. “I’m sorry I never…you know…”

  “It’s not that,” she sniffed. “I mean, sure, I’d like to be an honest girl…it’s just…”

  “What?”

  She pushed the coffee mug away and looked him in the eye. Something said, “Uh oh…” in the back of his mind just before she spoke. “I’m late.”

  A part of his mind laughed. No, you were right on time for a change. Another part recoiled in instant horror. The confused look on his face must have been obvious because Ann reached into her pocket, produced a small plastic stick and slid it across to him. On its side was a little window where a pink “+” was clearly visible.

  “Oh,” he said, and he promptly fainted.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 4

  Wednesday, April 11

  Lisha watched the wind and rain lash the window pane and tried to concentrate. The rocking of the converted oil rig wasn’t helping her get any work done. The early April gale was only a Category Two on the Saffir-Simpson scale, or so the crew said. To her, born and raised in New York’s Bronx, it was damn near the end of the world!