by Nick Thacker
But it wasn’t the suits that Ben noticed first.
It was the guns the three men were holding.
“Stop, or we’ll shoot!” one of the men yelled. Julie immediately turned and ran the other direction. Malcolm and Ben had no choice but to follow. Ben waited for bullets to slam into their backs, but they didn’t come. Instead, he heard their footsteps as they started to run, and their conversation.
“Sir, should we engage?” one of the men asked.
“Negative. Only if there’s danger of a breach,” another answered.
They ran toward the single door at the opposite end of the hallway, and Malcolm pressed the horizontal bar to open it. It pushed in, but the door wouldn’t budge.
“Of course it’s locked,” he said, cursing.
“In here!” Julie shouted from the right. Ben turned to see where she was and found her inside a large office room, full of cubicles and computer stations. The men followed her in, and she closed the door behind them. “It’s an office, but it was cleared out when they quarantined the hallway. There’s another entrance a little ways back, so we’ll need to block that door, too.”
She ran to the other end of the room and looked at the door. Ben came over to help, and together they slid some of the tall filing cabinets against the door. Malcolm did the same at the door through which they’d entered, and then converged again at the middle of the room.
“And what’s on the other side of this door?” Malcolm asked, motioning toward a third door that looked like it led outside.
“No idea,” Julie said, “but it’s not good news. If it leads outside…”
“Can’t we just open it and see?” Ben asked. He walked to the door, pushed the horizontal bar on the front of it, and found it to be locked. “Well, there goes that option.”
“It doesn’t matter, now,” Julie said. “That door, and the one at the end of the hallway, leads outside.” She pointed at the lit exit sign hanging above the door. “That means we’ve defaulted to another protocol.” She slumped down into an office chair that had rolled into the gap between two cubicles.
“‘Another protocol?’” Ben said. “What does that mean?”
“It means those guys are going to start shooting as soon as they get these doors open.”
As if on cue, a pounding bounced through the small office.
“They’re here,” Malcolm said.
“Why will they start shooting, Julie?” Ben tried to get her to explain what she was talking about. “You heard it, right? He asked if they should engage, and the other guy said ‘no.’”
“Because, they’re operating under distress protocol for containment breach situations in the event of a possible outbreak.”
Both men stared blankly back at her.
“That means they’re operating according to CDC Threat Assessment standards. If there’s a possible breach in a contained facility — like this one — they move to contain the threat. If they can’t, or they believe the threat to be ‘imminently plausible,’ as it’s written, they move to eliminate the threat. Since these doors lead outside, they’ll move to close down our escape routes.”
Ben still didn’t understand.
Malcolm picked up the thread. “It’s a utilitarian decision.”
“Exactly,” Julie said. She was no longer paying much attention to the conversation, instead focusing on the barriers between them and the men with guns.
“A what?” Ben asked.
Malcolm answered. “It means we’re now the threat, Ben. They’re going to try to prevent as many long-term casualties as possible…”
“…By eliminating the threat,” Ben finished.
“Yep,” Julie said. “It’s in the playbook. We’ve got the virus running through us. Keep the total death count to a minimum, you know?”
It was a tough reality, but it made sense. Ben nodded, suddenly taking a serious interest in their defensible position. “Do we have anything in here we can use as a weapon?” He looked around, but couldn’t find anything worth trying. Computer mice, keyboards, monitors…
“Okay,” Ben said to the others. “They’ll probably split up — five in all, three armed. So expect one, maybe two guys with guns to come through each door.”
The pounding continued, now coming from behind each of the two hallway doors. Ben stationed himself against one door, with Malcolm and Julie behind the other. Julie reached up and flicked a light switch on the wall next to her, plunging the room into near darkness. He watched as his door pushed in a little more each time the man pounded into it.
With a final crash, the man fell forward into the office room, his body almost completely covered by the hazmat suit.
That’s my edge, he thought. The man’s suit covered his head as well as his body, blocking most of his peripheral vision.
Ben maneuvered around the filing cabinets, stopping when he was almost behind the opening door. The man entered the room and brought his gun up, searching for a target…
…Just as Ben smashed the door forward as hard as he could with a solid kick. The door rocketed toward the man and caught him in the back and head. The man yelped and flew forward, dropping his gun and falling to the floor.
A second armed man entered the room behind his comrade, but Ben had already moved around him. The man stood up just as Ben pointed his gun at him.
“Stay there, sir. I will shoot you.”
The man’s eyes were visible through the suit, and Ben focused on them. He steeled himself, not daring to flinch. The man finally relented, dropping his gun on the floor and raising his hands above his head. Ben heard another crash behind him — the third gunman had broken into the room.
The man in front of Ben flicked his eyes up and away from Ben, then back.
Shit.
Ben anticipated the shots, not a moment too soon. He dove toward the unarmed man in front of him and fell to the side, just as two shots rang out behind him.
“Ben!” he heard Julie yell from the other side of the room.
He was on the ground, groping around in the dark, looking for the gun he’d felt slip out of his hands. The second man to enter the room was on him in a heartbeat, wrestling Ben to the ground.
Ben was helpless. The man on top of him was larger, heavier. He wrestled Ben’s hands behind his back and grabbed a fistful of Ben’s hair.
Another gunshot.
Ben flinched, but the man’s hand released his head, and he felt the weight lifted off his back.
He rolled over, raising his arms to defend a blow he knew would come, but instead he heard another gunshot.
This time, a cry rang out from the third gunman who’d entered, and he watched as the man fell to the ground. A third and fourth gunshot sent Ben’s wrestling partner into the filing cabinets against the wall.
Ben looked up to see Julie standing over the third gunman’s body, her jaw clenched in rage, holding a gun.
“You okay, ranger?” she asked.
He did a mental check of his muscles and bones. Finding everything to be in working order, he sat up and nodded. “Yeah, I’m good. Thanks.”
“No, thank you,” she said. “Thanks for throwing the gun my way. Good thinking.”
He stood. “Uh, yeah. No problem. Where’s Malcolm?”
“The door hit him when that guy busted it open. I think he just got knocked out.”
“Same thing happened to this guy. He’s probably going to wake up soon, though. We’d better get out of here before he does, and get you back to your office.”
She frowned at him as he walked over to check on Malcolm. “Ben, we’re not going to the office. Didn’t you see those other two guys?”
Ben suddenly remembered that there were five men in the hallway pursuing them. Three were sprawled out on the floor in front of them, but the other two…
“Who were they?”
“It was Livingston. And Stephens.”
38
“What’s next?” Julie had assumed her usual air of confide
nce as she looked up at the two men.
Malcolm and Ben stared across the table at Julie. They had just stopped at a hotel near the hospital and were sitting in a room Malcolm had booked under his assumed pseudonym, ‘Roger Ebert.’ The fact that Roger Ebert was the name of a famous movie critic who’d died only a few years before elicited only a shrug from Malcolm. “I’d always thought his reviews were terrible anyway,” was his response.
The plan was to stay there until they’d formulated a better plan.
“We need to get a bomb crew out to Yellowstone,” Malcolm said.
“Whatever other departments are on this have most likely already done it, so it would be a waste of time to try to call it in and set one up ourselves. Julie can call and make sure on the way.”
“On the way where?” she asked.
“We need to get you help. Obviously we can’t go back to that hospital, but there has to be somewhere else that’s set up a quarantine.”
Julie looked down at her arms, then over at Ben’s. “You’re in the same boat, Ben. And besides, it doesn’t look like it’s gotten worse.”
Ben frowned. “You’re right,” he said as he scratched at his forearms. “This is about what it looked like before I got to the hospital.”
“Mine got a little worse while I was there,” Julie said, “but it hasn’t spread since then. Hey, what about you?” Julie looked at Malcolm.
“What about me?”
“You’re fine. No virus, no rash.”
Ben also turned to scrutinize the older man. “You have some explaining to do, Dr. Fischer. Showing up out of nowhere and telling me about that Dragonstone company. How’d you figure all this out?”
Malcolm sighed. “Yes, you are correct, Ms. Richardson. I have no rash, and I won’t get it. I believe the virus, while highly contagious, is non-recurring.”
“Non-recurring?”
“It means it won’t come back,” Julie said. “Like chickenpox.”
“But that means…”
“Right. It means I’ve already had the virus. I believe I was subjected to the virus six months ago, while I was comatose. I believe I contracted it then, as they were testing treatments for it. I’m not sure they succeeded, but I did overhear them say the virus had ‘run its course through my system,’ and that I was immune.”
Julie was bewildered. “What are you talking about?”
“Well,” Malcolm began, “about a year ago I was on a research trip with some students from my university, up in the Northwest Territory —”
“You’re that professor!” Julie said. “Those students…”
“I am. The team disappeared, and news agencies rode the media wave for months after we disappeared, but no one from the expedition was ever found, as you remember.”
Julie’s eyes were wide as Malcolm continued. “But it wasn’t an innocent accident, like many thought. We didn’t fall through a frozen lake or get eaten by bears. My students were murdered.”
This revelation took Ben by surprise as well. “Murdered? What do you mean?”
Malcolm swallowed, trying to summon the words. “I… I haven’t spoken of it since then, but… there was a helicopter. We’d made a discovery, and I assume one of the students was working against me. They must have alerted the murderers to our location, and what we found.
“It was a powdery substance, some sort of whitish powder that had the consistency of sand. And coins. Strange coins we’d never seen before. My guess is that they were tokens of some sort used by the indigenous tribe from that area, likely the same people who created the powder.”
“Created?” Julie asked.
“Yes, now that I’ve had time to think about it, I believe the powder was the remnants of a native plant, the decayed remains of the dried leaves. They may have used it during its original life, but after decaying and drying, and lying undisturbed for so many years…”
“You think it’s somehow related to the virus?”
“I believe it is the virus, at least in part,” Malcolm said. “Anyway, I’ll get there. So we found these things in a cave, but we did not get to excavate. When we got back to camp…”
“The helicopter,” Ben said.
Malcolm nodded, swallowing again. “Yes. The helicopter came, and took me with it. The rest of the students…”
He didn’t need to finish the sentence.
“Whatever company massacred my team must have cleaned up well. The search parties that went out found our tents and equipment all set up and staged miles away from our actual location. They left nothing that would have pointed to any suspicious activity.”
“But the whole thing was suspicious,” Julie said. “It was a big deal. Every news outlet in the country was reporting on it, and there were conspiracy theories about it too.”
“I know, I know. But like I said, the company did their job well.”
“You keep mentioning a company,” Ben said. “How do you know?”
Malcolm nodded. “They took me somewhere that had state-of-the-art medical facilities and questioned me. They didn’t torture me, as I doubt they thought I would ever leave the facility, but they weren’t satisfied that I knew next to nothing about this powder. They put me in a medically-induced coma, only bringing me out of it after months of being under.”
“My God,” Julie whispered.
“I did have plenty of time to think — it was odd, being in that state. I could sort of form thoughts and run through the things that I could remember, though it was a slower process than if I had been lucid. But it was when I was awake, or at least mostly awake, that I tried to piece together the information. The doctors working in my room each wore the same logo on their coats, and they worked in regular shifts — a large operation. Eventually, I caught a glimpse of the company’s name. ‘Drache Global.’”
“Drache?”
“Yes,” Malcolm said. “Drache Global. A pharmaceutical company, based in Canada. I’d never heard of them, but I promised myself that I would get out of there and figure out who they were. I had plenty of time, remember, as I was basically lying on a hospital bed for months. I formulated a plan, and I got out one night.” Malcolm looked at the wall, examining the lattice-shaped wallpaper.
Ben could tell there was more to the story behind the man’s escape, but he didn’t press him about it.
“I got out, and I ran. I ran for my life. I wanted to hide, but I wanted more than anything to right the wrongs done to my students and their families. I had to figure out what Drache Global was.”
“And did you?” Julie asked. Ben noticed she had placed a hand on Malcolm’s forearm on the table.
“Sort of. That’s what led me to the hospital you were brought to, Julie. Drache Global, like the hospital, is owned by a group of shareholders. It’s a corporate conglomerate. Publicly listed, but not easy to piece together who the real owners are. I researched and cross-referenced as many of their board members as I could manage, but found very few promising leads.
“I spent many hours in the depths of libraries and scouring the web, and all I was able to figure out was that they’re semi-legitimate, at least on the surface. They’ve worked on countless grant proposals, major nonprofit medical research projects, and more public goodwill campaigns than a politician. But I think there’s a simple thread connecting them to some other organizations with bipolar personalities.”
“What thread is that?” Julie asked.
“They have the same names,” Ben said.
“Yes,” Malcolm said, smiling. “Very good. Dragonstone, Drache Global, Drage Medisinsk. They are all very similar, using different languages that all mean ‘dragon.’”
“Why would they broadcast that? If they were trying to operate under the radar, why share a common name?” Julie asked.
“Plenty of companies borrow that name. It’s not particularly unique, even within the medical and pharmaceutical research industries. And I believe it’s more like a calling card. A brand, if you will.”
“So you think this ‘dragon’ company is working across its sister organizations to create a worldwide virus?” Ben asked. He scratched his forearms. While still itchy, it did in fact seem like the virus had slowed to a halt.
“No,” Malcolm answered. “I believe it’s the work of a handful of people, not a worldwide corporate effort. Secretive or not, I cannot believe something that large-scale could go unnoticed by world governments. I also believe they aren’t targeting the entire world, but the United States. Through the spreading virus, the bomb at Yellowstone…”
“Okay, but what’s the big deal about the bomb? Shouldn’t we focus first on the virus?” Julie asked, impatient. She dialed Randall Brown’s number again, but it was still off.
“We can’t focus on the virus now,” Ben said. “The bomb is a larger threat. Much larger.”
“Why?”
“Because of where it’s located. If it is, in fact, where they said it is, it’s sitting on top of the largest active volcano in the entire world.”
She looked at him incredulously.
“I’m serious,” he continued. “The Yellowstone caldera is an active volcano, lying directly underneath the park. Scientists have argued about it for decades.”
“What about it? That it’s an actual volcano?”
Malcolm answered. “No, that’s a scientific fact. It’s actually considered a ‘supervolcano.’ What they’ve been arguing about is exactly when it’s scheduled to erupt again.”
“Right,” Ben said. “Some say it’s ‘due,’ while others just say that it’s a complete mystery. What I don’t think they’d argue about, though, is that if there were a bomb underground, anywhere in that area, and it went off…”
“It would cause a chain reaction?” she asked.
“To say the least. The crust there is thinner than most other places on Earth, and it wouldn’t take much to upset the enormous mass of molten rock below it.”
Julie thought about this for a moment. “What would the blast radius be?”
Ben and Malcolm looked at each other, but Ben answered. “I’m not exactly sure, but the last time it blew, it apparently shot ash about twenty miles into the air, and was somewhere around 1,000 times more powerful than Mt. St. Helens.”
