Independence Day Plague

by Carla Lee Suson

  He stood and turned towards La Croix, meeting him eye to eye. The room filled with silence as the two men stared at each other. Dorado spoke, his voice calm and firm. “Look, I know you guys are good at the big picture. You’re looking into terrorist threats from the home-grown varieties and NSA and CIA has covered foreign threats.”

  “Your point then?”

  “Two points. One, a second pair of eyes on the same data never hurts anything. We may find something you missed. Second, you might just overlook the obvious because it’s not your normal turf—some local joker with a grudge or some gang grabbing headlines. Metropolitan DC is bigger population-wise than some small countries. You’re busy looking at the rest of the world. If you have info that taps into a local group, we need it. The Virginia Tech shooting and the Santa Fe killings could have been avoided if someone had checked student blogs on the Internet.”

  “And you have the ability to monitor all the blogs on the Internet.” La Croix’ voice reflected a trace of scorn.

  With his face carefully neutral, Dorado watched the man. The FBI tended to be territorial to the point of obstruction. His eyes flickered to the meeting’s recorder. His request was now part of the permanent record of the meeting. If nothing happens on the Fourth then no harm done. If an incident occurs and everyone starts playing cover-your-ass, then the investigating commission will eventually come back to this moment and La Croix would be held accountable to his answer. “No, but neither do you.” He replied neutrally, “The local police know the area and some of the players better than the Federal agencies. We’re in a better position to judge incident potential. We should be in on the assessment of threats involving locals.”

  “What exactly do you want?”

  “To be kept informed of local risk groups. We want timely access to your databases for investigating suspects. You’re looking for terrorists, but we’re going to look for fanatics and gangs. It’ll be helpful to know some of their federal files. In the meantime, if we get something larger than locals, we’ll pass it up the line to you and both agencies work to shut the threat down.”

  “Done.”

  La Croix resumed packing his material. His hand reached for the recorder as Dorado spoke again. “That means easy access to your data files that doesn’t take ten signatures and twenty-four hours to obtain.”

  La Croix paused. “Can’t do that.”

  Dorado smiled slightly. His voice took on a warmer bonhomie. “Sure you can. I am not talking about an unlimited tap. Just set us up with one person as a liaison. Make it one of your info analysts connecting to our info analyst. If we ask for something too secure, then the analyst can kick the requested up to their supervisor. Then you can call me and we’ll work it out.”

  La Croix thought it over while everyone waited. Cardell glowered while Dorado saw McAfee behind him trying to suppress a grin. Finally, La Croix replied, “Okay, I’ll get you a contact by tomorrow morning.”

  As the meeting broke up, La Croix shut the recorder off. Cardell rose, leaned over and sotto voce whispered, “I can’t believe you did that. We don’t need to be making any damn enemies here, Dorado.”

  “We’re not. We’re opening lines of communication." He turned towards the man. "Besides which, what the hell are you doing at this meeting? You’re not part of my team.”

  Chin up, Cardell took a deep breath and stretched to his full five-foot, six-inch size. The effect reminded Dorado of a puffer fish. “I always worked with Benson on these task forces. Starker knows that.”

  “He failed to mention it to me.” The coolness in Dorado’s voice was unmistakable.

  “I approached him about it this morning. Besides which, you need me on this.”

  “And you need the credit on your record.” Brian spoke behind him.

  Cardell whipped around. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

  Dorado jumped in before McAfee could speak, “Bri, not now. Frank, I’ll talk with Starker and get back with you.”

  Cardell snatched his notebook and stalked out of the door, leaving the room empty except for the two men.

  “Don’t antagonize him.” Dorado said quietly.

  “He’s an asshole Napoleon type.”

  “He’s got rank and seniority on you. He’ll cause you trouble later.”

  McAfee grinned, “That’s why I have you to watch my back, Chief.” He turned to reach for his notebook while Dorado gathered his. “What's the point of confronting the FBI guy?”

  “Exactly what I stated: we need the open lines.”

  “The Feds won’t give you anything freely though. Why push it now?”

  Dorado replied, “Politics. It’s now on the record. La Croix will remember that every time he thinks about refusing a request. The son of a bitch knows it makes sense. Cooperation is going to be the only way to get through all this shit. Besides which, Olsen requested it.” He paused and sighed, “Oh, shit.”

  “What’s up, amigo?”

  “We’ll be lucky to keep Olsen once she finds out Cardell is on the team. Lots of bad blood between them.”

  “So get someone else. Use Jacobs, most special projects go to him.”

  “No.” He sighed again as they walked out of the conference room. “I don’t need a prima donna like Cardell. I want Olsen. If I can't dump him, we’ll isolate the son-of-a bitch with some busy work so he can’t hurt the group.”

  “The cost of bread products rose again for the fourth quarter as more farmers are predicted to sell their crops to the highly profitable ethanol factories rather than food industries. Economic analysts state that the country is heading for a food shortage crisis of historical proportions if current agricultural trends continue.

  “In other news, despite requests from the State Department, China refuses to acknowledge any mistake for firing on the frigate, ‘U.S.S. Abernathy,” stating that the ship illegally sailed into their national waters. Press Secretary Larson says the U.S. denies entering China’s national boundaries, Yet, he stated that since no one was seriously injured, the U.S. would still move forward with the peace talks in July.”

  Mitchell sighed, turned the radio off and inserted the microdrive into the recorder. The story had to continue no matter how painful. Afterwards, his words could be immortalized over, and over again on the stack of 100 microdrives without suffering more. The envelopes laid nearby, already addressed to the FBI, world embassies in D.C., telebroadcast groups, media e-papers, the President himself and two authors, famed for their biographical works. The pain of retelling it felt almost beyond endurance. The nightmares continuously haunted his sleep but somehow didn’t seem real, not as truly ugly as having to speak the words now.

  Mitchell rubbed tired eyes. Deep sleep, or at least dreamless rest, was rare the past few days. The retelling forced open mental wounds, which now bled images into his mind. The glow of his antique analog watch displayed green time to being a few minutes before midnight. He pushed the enter key and adjusted the mike again.

  “Imagine if you can, waking up the next day after the feast. The largest worry on your mind wavers somewhere between being hung over and whether everything will be packed in time for the movers. When my wife rose from her bed, feeling stiff and achy, I didn’t pay it too much attention. No one paid attention to the early symptoms.

  “I only worried when Katie complained of cramps by that evening. Within two days, her lymph nodes were swollen, and her eyes looked continuously bloodshot. Only the horrors we worked with would cause this effect…”

  By the second night, the word left unspoken on everyone’s lips: contamination.

  Not everyone fell sick immediately. Small children and babysitters who didn’t attend the festival dinner survived longer. However, the disease had a high infectivity rate. The children fell ill within a week. Treatment options involved drugs that the lab stocked only in small quantities. No cure existed. The only hope was to treat the symptoms until the body's immune system conquered the invader. The lab had stocks for the event
uality of one or two patients, but not all 425 members. No calls for help went through. No one escaped the electrified fences.

  Mitchell trudged through the early morning icy mud towards the Admin building. Captain Phelps called another meeting on the third day of lockdown. The group included a few select members that declared themselves as an emergency council. Inside, Geller, the captain, Sanchez, and surprisingly, Jeanine Iverson gathered around the conference table. Mitchell silently pulled out a chair and sat while Tanaka spoke.

  “I can account for eleven men in the barracks. We found Jergans in the garage mechanic’s bathroom with a bullet in his head. The caterers and waiting staff are still here. They're billeted in the barracks too.”

  “How many?”

  “Nineteen all together.”

  “What’s their condition?”

  “Most complain of headaches, nausea.”

  “How many attended the party?”

  “All of them at one point or the other. The waiting staff and cooks ate the leftover food during clean-up.”

  Phelps sighed and made notes on the pad in front of him. “Jeanine, what have you heard from the other families?”

  Her red-rimmed eyes looked swollen but her voice came out calm and firm. “Almost everyone I talked to suffers from some flu-like symptoms except many of the very young children. It’s pretty obvious that Ray’s right. It’s the Marburg virus, isn’t it?”

  Phelps nodded, “Why would the children be unaffected? Could they be immune?”

  Geller spoke up. “No.” He looked around the room and Mitchell saw the spider web red lines across the whites of his eyes. “If the pathogen is normal Marburg virus, straight from the jungles, some of us have a chance for survival. Normal Marburg incubates for ten days, then takes up to three weeks to kill. We actually increased the infectivity rate and the fatality rate. Less than five percent of the people will survive, probably crippled for life. I’m guessing that the unaffected children didn’t attend the party.”

  “So they’ll survive if we isolate them?” Phelps’s deep voice rumbled.

  “No. They’re probably already infected from their parents. I’m willing to bet the concentration of virus in their body isn’t as high as ours. Marburg's contagious naturally but at a slower rate. The kids will be symptomatic within the next few days.”

  “Oh God,” Jeanine whispered. A tear rolled down her cheek.

  Ray continued. “This disease is progressing at a faster rate than natural Marburg. It's even faster than what we predicted in our computer models. I’m guessing that the food and non-alcoholic drinks were filled with contaminant from our stores. Symptomatically this acts like the designer version.”

  Bio-Lab 4, in an effort to stay up in the bio/chemo arms race, made the RNA virus more virulent, spreading quicker and killing faster than its natural form. With a 95% mortality rate, the lab personnel referred to it and others like it as world-killers. The only purpose of the weapon was to create fear, never used.

  “What about Forester and the others with him? We’ve got to reach someone to warn them. Forester’s out there spreading it.” Albert stared at the touchpad he had been making notes on. “There must be some way to get word out.”

  Geller replied. “I don’t think he’s contaminated. He and his driver left before dinner. Marburg’s vector is through touching and ingesting of contaminated material. I’ll bet neither man ate or drank anything the whole time they visited. And they wore dress uniforms.”

  “So? All the military guys had uniforms. I remember we made jokes about how Steagan’s seemed tight on him.” Albert replied.

  Phelps spoke up, “The dress uniform includes gloves. The cloth gloves hid any latex gloves they wore underneath.”

  Silence flowed across the room. Phelps spoke first, “I don’t buy that crap. I’ve been in the Army for fifteen years and the one thing I’ve learned is that they don't waste their resources. All of us and the products we created are invaluable resources. To kill so many highly intelligent, highly trained people just doesn’t make sense.”

  Geller replied, “The evidence suggests—”

  “I don’t give a damn what the evidence suggests. I think we need to focus on the problem of survival right now. Tanaka reported that we have generator use for the next four days, more if we shut down non-essential buildings.”

  “But the disease…”

  “God dammit, let's focus on the problems we can solve!” Phelps roared. He paused, taking several deep breaths. “I apologize. There’s nothing we can do about the disease but let it run its course. You said we might have survivors. Well, no one’s going to survive in below-freezing temperatures if our generator gives out. I can’t fight a disease on the base but I can fight this. We’ll move the security and caterers into the commissary building. They’ll have room to bed down and food in the dining hall to eat. Tanaka, tell folks that all previous cooked food and raw vegetables must be destroyed, by burning if possible. Eat only food from sealed products such as cans or frozen bags from now on. I think we can assume that any food found in private residences is uncontaminated.”

  Tanaka nodded, “Yes, sir.”

  Phelps, continued, “You three men help move the seriously ill to the hospital building. We can care for them better there.”

  Jeanine broke in, “No. we can’t do that.”

  Phelps turned weary eyes towards her. “Why not?”

  “There’s simply not enough room. The hospital only accommodates twenty at the most. Anything larger than that and we’re supposed to notify the Pentagon. Even if we take all the furniture out and put everyone on the floor, it might fit forty—fifty at best. Most of the buildings can't hold any crowd over 150 sitting or standing. Even the auditorium only has seats for about 350.”

  Phelps sighed and frowned. “Okay, we’ll shut down power to the labs, the admin building, barracks, and garage. We’ll encourage people to share housing too where possible. That should buy us a few more days of power.”

  Jeanine spoke, “What about the product? If you shut down the power to the labs then that means the cryo-units lose power.”

  Phelps replied, “I’m not worried about the damn product. The cryo-units sit in a cold building in weather that isn’t suppose to get higher than fifty degrees during the day and below 30 at night. It’ll be okay.”

  For the next seven days, Mitchell led the strongest of the men in setting up a routine of moving from building to building, moving people together, making everyone as comfortable as possible with food and lighting fires for warmth. Day by day, fewer volunteers arrived to help until he was on his own. He doled out what little medicine they had in the laboratories, hospital unit, and BX. At first, others of the emergency committee helped too until they succumbed to the fever, cramps, and blood loss brought on by the disease.

  By day five, all the children displayed some symptom of Marburg. Those inflicted from the first worsened to agonizing rashes over the body. With the exception of Mitchell, few felt strong enough to leave their beds.

  Geller’s four year old and Anna, Albert’s 18-month-old baby, died first. Mitchell tried to dig graves in the semi-frozen clay soil of the small park but the spade couldn't penetrate the frozen ground. Days passed as he waited to feel the fever and the tingling pain in his fingertips so that he too would join the ranks of the dying.

  By the end of the seventh day, a third of the base members lay dead by disease or freezing during the night, and another fourth suffered with the delirium that marked the last stage where the virus liquefied sections of brain tissue. A few, two teenage girls, an MP and two waiters were extremely weak but recovering as the disease failed to progress beyond the skin rash stage.

  Mitchell watched his wife and daughter entered the second stage of the disease by day four. Katie cried silent blood-tinted tears nonstop and writhed whenever he tried to touch her. The rashes slowly turned to bruises and open tears as blood pooled underneath the skin.

  Caroline and Katie shared t
he same dirty bed, feverishly huddling together under a mountain of blankets to survive the plunging night temperatures. Mitchell brought in a dinner of broth as the setting sun turned the dim bedroom into muted yellow colors. Caroline’s crimson face looked relaxed despite the obvious rose-colored rashes covering her body. Katie slept restlessly, curled up like a baby by her side.

  “Jim,” she whispered, “have they come yet?”

  He carried the thin broth to her bedside. The beef smell mingled with the odor of soiled, blood-speckled sheets. “Not yet. We just have to hang on.”

  “Not coming.” The words slipped out as barely a whisper. He sat on the edge and leaned in closer, knowing that each word tortured her raw swollen throat. “Jim, kill us.”

  “No. You have to hold on a little longer.”

  “It wasn’t field tested.” She sighed which led to a fit of coughing. Katie stirred and moaned beside her. “We’re the field test.” She took a deep breath. “They won’t come until it’s over. Don’t want to die in pain. Help me and Katie.”

  “No.” He tried to smile but couldn’t. He stroked the top of her hand lightly with one finger. “Ray predicted survivors. You can still get better.”

  “Please,” she gasped and coughed more, staining the white sheets with bright crimson speckles. “Give mercy.”

  Tears rolled down his cheek. His voice cracked as he spoke. “I can’t, Caroline. You might get better. You’re only in stage two. I can’t give up on you now.” He covered her heat-rose hand in his. She gasped and he flinched away. “You and Katie need to eat now. We’ve got to keep your fluids up.”

  “Not yet.” She sighed and turned towards Katie’s head.

  The yellow sunlight faded to murky brown darkness while he sat still and hunched, listening to their heavy breathing. Caroline lapsed back into sleep; the broth lay untouched on the bedside. He heard the faint bubbling of the fluids clogging their breathing. Silent tears dripped from his cheeks. Others waited for him to bring their food around too but he couldn’t force himself to stir from the chair. Memories flooded back as he looked at the pictures around the room. In one frame, Katie as a baby looked puckered and angry, then the small child laughing and reaching for a balloon. Caroline and his wedding picture hung in the central spot in a montage of shots of them across the years. The people in the bed were only red shadows of the happy images in the photos.