by Bobby Akart
Greece – In Athens, Hunter visits with his contemporaries at the Greek National Intelligence Service. By coincidence, Mac is investigating a case at the Hellenic Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. The two cross paths at a hotel and have dinner together. A spark of interest takes place after they overcome their first chance meeting in the jungles of Guatemala.
Park Place on Peachtree – Mac’s condominium in Buckhead.
Previously in The Pandemic Series
Book One: BEGINNINGS
The Pandemic Series begins with the kidnapping and interrogation of a young French research scientist in a remote biosafety laboratory in Franceville, Gabon. The terrorist cell run by Ali Hassan, the son of a top-level ISIS leader, also established a complex surveillance apparatus of the young scientist’s family.
Forced to do their bidding in order to save the lives of his family, the French scientist modified the Madagascar strain of the pneumonic plague. His work was groundbreaking, although it was clearly a crime against humanity. In the end, he didn’t save himself, or his family.
Initially, Hassan used the remote jungles of Guatemala as his testing ground. However, a series of events accelerated his plans as outbreaks of the disease occur in Trinidad and Greece.
Hassan, his trusted allies, and thousands of sleeper cells around the world sprang into action. First, they secured their loved ones away from the harmful potential of the disease. Second, they issued a call to action—the flag of Allah and jihad has been raised.
Hunter and his comrades at the DTRA comprising Project Artemis began to chase leads and search for the bioterrorists. Mac and her fellow disease detectives at the CDC raced to identify the disease, and determine if a vaccine or cure was available.
As the disease spread and the death toll rose, Mac became increasingly frustrated with the President and his administration for not warning the public. She was admonished to do her job and not approach the media with alarmist statements. However, like her mother, Mac believed in transparency and the ability of the public to make decisions for themselves.
When the Congress set up special hearings on the Guatemala breakout and its potential impact on the United States, Mac made a decision. Wearing her dress white uniform indicating her status as a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Public Health Service, she decided to add to her attire. She added white gloves, an N95 particulate mask, and protective eyewear.
Her appearance immediately created a ruckus within the large gathering of media covering the hearings. It also raised the ire of the partisan congressmen who supported the President in his re-election efforts.
Perhaps it was Mac’s attire, or maybe it was the typical partisan bickering which had consumed Washington, but the hearings immediately turned contentious. With the CSPAN cameras rolling, Mac was grilled with questions and placed under considerable pressure. She was asked to describe how the disease affects the human body and she gladly answered in excruciating detail.
Unscripted, but as if on cue, a man in the gallery began to cough up blood, causing a panic by all the attendees. During the stampede for the exits, the man vomited up blood, which immediately drew comparisons to plague-like symptoms. Throughout the ordeal, Mac sat silently, alone, staring at the CSPAN cameras which never turned off.
Meanwhile, in a thousand cities around the world, ISIS operatives continued to relentlessly pursue their Caliphate. As the mayhem took place in Room 2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hassan and his trusted Islamic brothers approached the outskirts of Los Angeles.
From the final chapter of BEGINNINGS …
The rental car sped past the sign that read Welcome to Los Angeles, population 3,957,875.
“We are here, Hassan.”
Hassan nodded. “We are everywhere, my brothers.”
The saga continues in — THE INNOCENTS
Enjoy!
Epigraph
Pandemic ultimately derives from the Greek pandemos, meaning of all the people:
pan - all + demos - people.
*****
Once a pandemic is upon you, the primary focus has to be for you to extricate yourself from urban cities or areas of high population density.
*****
And God sent a plague upon Egypt and there was great moaning throughout the land.
*****
Rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno
A rare bird in the lands and very much like a black swan.
~ The Roman satirist, Juvenal in 82 AD
*****
Extinction is the rule, survival is the exception.
~ Carl Sagan, Ph.D.
*****
All empires collapse eventually.
There have been no exceptions in the history of mankind.
Their reign ends when they are defeated by a larger and more powerful enemy, or
when their financing runs out.
~ Bobby Akart
*****
Because you never know when the day before, is the day before.
Prepare for tomorrow.
~ Bobby Akart
Prologue
And so it begins, the plague enters on the quiet feet of The Innocents.
United States Coast Guard
Vessel Traffic Service
Houston-Galveston
Senior Chief Petty Officer Walter Bronson grew up fishing the coastal waters of Texas. Born and raised in Matagorda, Texas, a small town located where the mouth of the Colorado River empties into the Gulf of Mexico, SCPO Bronson knew every inlet, shallow bay, and shipwreck for the over three hundred miles of Texas coastline. From amberjack to yellowfin tuna, SCPO Bronson could tell you when and where the mackerel were runnin’.
Today, SCPO Bronson and his team at the United States Coast Guard Vessel Tracking Service, the VTS, in Houston were chasing another form of game fish—unidentifiable small vessels traversing the Gulf of Mexico.
The United States had over ninety-five thousand miles of coastline and hundreds of ports. For small vessels, every beach, tributary, and inlet created a suitable port of call—locations ideal for smugglers of all types. The small-vessel community consisted of a diverse group of boat operators with different backgrounds and intentions. For the most part, they were responsible mariners who complied with applicable laws and accepted boating standards.
Since 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security had stepped up its monitoring of the nation’s coastal waterways as part of its overall sea surveillance. The DHS, and its partners the DTRA and the USCG, used a variety of tools ranging from a vessel tracking system to drone technology.
Any tracking system required coordination between the vessel, a radar station on shore, and the method of communications between them. The most basic function was to determine a vessel’s location at any given time and periodically transmit the data via satellite.
As the war on drugs escalated, of utmost concern to the United States government was the importation of dangerous narcotics onto American soil from South America. After 9/11, the government’s mission expanded to include the infiltration of terrorists. Today, a primary focus of the DHS was to identify ships involved in human trafficking from locations around the globe.
SCPO Bronson was an experienced fisherman and, through the use of advanced technology, had become an expert in identifying suspicious, unidentified vessels navigating the Gulf of Mexico. Over the last week, he’d seen a significant increase in go-fast boats, vessels with long narrow designs and specially designed hulls, which enabled them to reach very high rates of speed. During the 1920s in America, the era of Prohibition, these boats were used to transport illegal liquor from the Caribbean to the Florida coast. Known as rumrunners, they later became the boat of choice for drug smugglers.
SCPO Bronson’s team had identified several of these vessels speeding from various points along the Texas and Mexico coastline, then back into the south-central quadrant of the Gulf of Mexico north of the Yucatan Peninsula.
SCPO Bronson reported this to
his superiors at the Coast Guard and they coordinated a grid search using unmanned aircraft, or drones. In the past, the USCG relied upon its cutters to patrol the coast, as well as reports from America’s Waterway Watch, a program encouraging boaters and residents of coastal communities to report suspicious activities to the Coast Guard. Several reports were received from residents near Port O’Connor, Texas, just south of SCPO Bronson’s hometown.
He enlisted his old fishing buddies to create a night watch stretching from Port Aransas near Corpus Christi to Freeport, just south of Houston. This seventy-mile span of beach front was protected by Matagorda Island. However, the land was desolate and ideal for a smuggler to get in and out under the cover of darkness. From there, someone entering the country illegally could easily access the spiderweb of state highways that emanate toward Houston, Austin, and San Antonio.
“Sir, we have all the participants patched in,” said a young petty officer, who knew more about computers than fishing, but then we all have our roles to play. He banged away on his keyboard and the screens in the Houston Regional Command Center sprang to life, showing a series of satellite images and computer-generated tracking models.
“Thank you. Welcome. I’m Senior Chief Petty Officer Walter Bronson. You’ve been briefed on our observations as well as the data generated by the Earth Scan Lab at NOAA. We have located the source of the unidentified small vessels that continue to encroach upon the Texas shoreline as well as dozens of locations along the Mexican coast from Campeche on the Yucatan Peninsula to Laguna Madre, just south of Brownsville.”
The screens changed and showed satellite images of a variety of boats ranging from cigarette boats, the modern name for the rumrunner, to a damaged Zodiac, which was beached near a rock jetty.
“We have identified several fast-boats moving from the Texas coast in the general direction of Campeche. Further, the Mexican authorities shared this image of a wrecked Zodiac military-spec inflatable near San Fernando, just south of Brownsville. One body was found washed ashore nearby with a bullet in the head. However, the body had been impaled with a piece of driftwood. The bullet was apparently used to expedite the occupant’s demise.
“The FBI is working to identify the individual, but he is generally described as being of Arabic descent. In addition, the Zodiac MilPro FC 580 is not a civilian pleasure craft. It is government issue and utilized by all of our Special Forces units, especially SEAL teams. However, I’m told by the DTRA that the FC 580s have been sold to the Saudis as part of a military aid package.”
One of the teleconference attendees asked a question. “Senior Chief, is it your analysis that the Zodiac accident and the fast-boat intrusions are connected?”
“It is, sir. The pattern is unmistakable. Bring up the next graphic, please.”
A map of the Gulf of Mexico appeared with multiple lines drawn from points along the coast from Houston to Veracruz, Mexico. All led to approximately the same location in the middle of the Gulf—indicated by a star.
“We believe these incursions are being launched from a ship in this general area and fan out over hundreds of miles of coastline,” started SCPO Bronson, pointing toward the star. “Based upon the data gathered from all sources, the first of these trips began eight days ago and suddenly ended the day before yesterday.”
“Have you identified a ship that might be launching these vessels?”
“Not yet. The National Reconnaissance Office will have a bird overhead in eight hours. Once we receive the intel and confirm it with our tracking data, we’ll be able to confirm our theory.”
*****
In Fort Belvoir, Jablonik scratched his head. He needed to put a team together to investigate this potential terrorist operation and its connection, if any, to the plague outbreak. But his top specialist, Nathan Hunter, was in Washington, caught in the middle of pandemic pandemonium.
PART ONE
WEEK FIVE
Chapter 1
Day Twenty-Eight
Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC
“Dr. Hagan! Dr. Hagan!” Mac could hear the young intern’s voice through the muffled shouts and screams emanating from the hallway of the Rayburn House Office Building, but the blinking red light on the C-SPAN camera had placed her in a trance. Finally, the young woman slapped the chairman’s gavel on the desk and shouted again, “Dr. Hagan! Please come this way!”
Startled, Mac snapped out of her hypnotic state and turned around to view the room. She was alone. The doors to the hallway had been closed, leaving Mac alone with the C-SPAN viewers. The smell of vomit reached her nostrils, which had the effect of someone swiping ammonia inhalants under her nose. At that point, her mind became focused, and she remembered the reason for the uproar.
“Doctor!”
Mac casually walked around the table and up the steps to the rear door behind the congressional seating. She entered a hallway full of staffers scurrying about in what could best be described as orderly chaos.
“This way!” shouted a voice to her right.
“No, go outside like in a fire drill!” shouted another to her left. People pushed and shoved in both directions. She resisted the urge to take charge. Deep down, she doubted anyone would follow her lead at this point. Having been abandoned by the intern, Mac opted to go outside, the correct choice in a biological hazard situation.
As the sun hit her face, screeching sirens pierced her hearing. The Capitol Police had closed Independence Avenue and Capitol Street around the building. Occupants were streaming out of every exit and running away towards the Library of Congress and the United States Capitol. Mac was impressed with the responsiveness.
In a public health emergency, during the first twenty-four hours, or the acute phase, specific functions and tasks were assigned to first responders in three response time frames—immediate, intermediate, and extended.
Those first two hours of the immediate phase were the most critical. During the assessment phase, local law enforcement must decide whether this was a public health emergency, how many people were threatened, and what geographical area needed to be contained.
Mac surveyed the scene. The predominantly white and gold Fords were parked at various angles blocking vehicular traffic. Several black armored vehicles took up positions to provide tactical teams a base of operations. Dozens of officers began to fan out in order to surround the building, but it was clear their task was not to keep people from entering the complex but, rather, to keep the Rayburn occupants in.
They’re treating this as a bioterror attack.
Mac reached into her pockets for her cell phone and then realized she’d left it inside the building. She turned to walk back inside when a wave of people poured through the doors, screaming. A woman with blood on her sleeve was close behind them, not in pursuit, but in a panic like everyone else. This is not an evacuation, it is mayhem.
Hunter! Where was Hunter?
Now, Mac had become frantic. If the person who spewed blood inside the hearing room was contagious with the plague, Mac was fairly confident she hadn’t been exposed. The man had been at least twenty feet behind her and the bloody sputum had been directed downward onto the floor.
However, if Hunter came looking for her during the upheaval, he might have come into contact with the sick man. She had to go back inside to retrieve her briefcase and call Hunter.
Mac turned and pushed against the crowd, which was now thinning. From the noise level surrounding the building, it appeared the challenge for the Capitol Police was to keep the occupants of the Rayburn building from leaving the grounds. Police barricades were being set up along the sidewalk, and officers were shouting through bullhorns, instructing the panicked crowd to remain calm, but stay in place.
“Nobody is allowed to leave the cordoned-off area!” shouted the officer. Mac was stuck.
Mac made her way back inside, where the relative silence stood in stark contrast to the ruckus from just five minutes prior. She tried several door
s, looking for the one entering the hearing room. Finally, she made her way inside Rayburn room 2123 and closed the door behind her.
Mac replayed the events in her mind. Not the man coughing and the subsequent mass exodus. Rather, she replayed the questioning from the congressmen, the squabbling between them, and the answers she gave.
Did I overstep? Was the panic my fault? Am I destined to be ostracized like my mother?
She walked to the left and down the stairs through the media pit. She retrieved her briefcase and notes, together with those of her attorney, who had made a cowardly, hasty exit. With the doors shut and the opportunity to view the scene firsthand, Mac carefully made her way to the area where the man had been sitting.
She still wore her mask, gloves, and goggles, but they were nowhere near sufficient to deal with a hot zone. Mac studied the initial blood spray. The amount of blood mixed with the frothy blood-streaked mucus was minimal. The lack of significant volume told her that the man could have a variety of infections such as tuberculosis, bronchitis, cancer or pneumonia, which was an indicator of pneumonic plague.
In fact, this man could test positive for at least a dozen or more common diseases besides her pneumonic plague. Listen to yourself, Mac—“your pneumonic plague.” Was she looking for a disease to deflect attention to, making her no different than the politicians she battled an hour ago?
Her phone rang and she rifled through her briefcase to find it. The display made her smile.
“Hunter, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m outside near the entrance where we came in. The sergeant at arms locked the door to the hearing room. I probably didn’t need to go in there anyway. Where are you? I’ve looked all over out here.”
Mac was relieved and made a hasty retreat from the bloody mess and toward the rear exit. “I’m fine. I came back inside to get my things. I’m coming outside now.”
