He didn’t like the sound of that at all. Nobody in any official capacity on any level was talking about this? Something about this entire situation reminded him of a very unofficial story he’d heard from a colleague at Edgewood. He wasn’t sure why it rang that bell, but couldn’t shake the thought that the circumstances were similar.
“Indianapolis area police and fire departments have confirmed that they are overwhelmed by an inexplicable surge in domestic calls involving serious injuries. A paramedic on the northeast side of the city was quoted as saying that ‘the whole city seems on edge, and it doesn’t take much anymore to push anyone over it.’ What does this mean for Indianapolis and its suburbs? We don’t know, but stay with us for the latest updates as the situation develops, or visit our website at www.latestnewsIndy.com.”
Chang checked the website, not the least bit surprised to see HTTP ERROR 500 (INTERNAL SERVER ERROR). Interesting. The easiest and arguably most vulnerable source of news external to Indianapolis had been cut off. Without pausing, he typed a combination of letters he’d never expected to type again in his life. There was no point. It was only a rumor at this point, and a completely unverifiable one at that. He’d never seen the evidence, which had supposedly only surfaced once, on Reuters, before the website crashed and stayed crashed for two weeks.
Worse yet, the crashes weren’t limited to the Internet. Several Reuters correspondents and editors met with accidents or suddenly quit their jobs over the same time period. The story became so toxic, literally, that nobody would touch it. It had become Russia’s Tiananmen Square, except it was rumored to be about a thousand times worse, and nobody could or would confirm it. Whatever happened had been worth killing over and continuing to suppress with a dedicated cyber-slash operation.
He pressed enter and shook his head.
No results containing your search terms were found.
Your search – Monchegorsk – did not match any documents.
The Russians had made an entire city disappear in the supposed aftermath of a devastating bioweapons attack against the city’s water supply. To this day, the area was closed off, and nobody within the Russian government acknowledged it. He couldn’t help wonder if the information blackout developing in Indianapolis was a similar effort by the U.S. government.
Chapter Fifteen
David Olson removed his Glock 17 service pistol from a small shelf-mounted safe in the walk-in closet and tucked it into the retention holster on his right hip. The pistol went into the safe when he got home after a shift and didn’t come out until he went back on duty. He kept his off-duty pistol, a more concealable Glock 19, with him at all times when this pistol was locked in the safe.
There was no official requirement to lock up his primary service weapon. He just liked the ceremony of it. Changing of the guard. With the pistol fit snugly in his duty holster, he placed his off-duty weapon and a spare magazine in the safe, leaving the door partially open for his son. He didn’t think Josh needed to be walking around the house with the pistol, but he wanted his son to have quick enough access if things got any stranger out there.
David stopped in front of the mirror on the way out of the bathroom and double-checked his uniform and patrol rig. Everything looked in order. A quick glance at his watch told him he was pushing the time. He had eighteen minutes to pull into the station and report for duty. It didn’t leave much wiggle room, especially if he ran into a problem en route or right outside the station, like the Fishers municipal building.
Halfway down the stairs, he called out to his son. He didn’t have time to search the house, and he had important instructions to pass along. It could be a while before he returned. He planned to do everything in his power to get back by midnight, but he knew how these things worked. If the situation on the streets was getting worse, like the officers in the Fishers station had indicated, the likelihood of signing out for the night was slim to none.
Josh responded from the kitchen, drawing David deeper into the house. He glanced around as he walked down the center hallway. Windows everywhere. Josh might be better off hanging out in the basement when it got dark. People would be drawn to his house, knowing he was a cop, which would put Josh in a bad spot if it looked like someone was home. He needed to be reporting for duty right now like a damn hole in the head. His son was a capable young man, but whatever was going on out there was something different. He could feel it.
He found his son eating toaster waffles at the kitchen island, thumbing through his smart phone.
“Sorry about the omelets, buddy,” said David. “I owe you a Denny’s run or that fancy place your mom takes you.”
“It’s fine, Dad,” said Josh. “You don’t want to lose your job over a few omelets.”
“Not just any omelets,” said David.
“I’ll survive,” said Josh.
He opened the refrigerator to survey its contents. Leftover pizza boxes, a plastic tray of precut vegetables, a tub of ranch dip, a brick of cheddar cheese and a carton of eggs. The freezer didn’t add much to the equation. An oversized bag of hash browns, three frozen pizzas, an opened box of waffles and several bags of mixed vegetables that had been in the freezer for longer than he cared to admit. A bounty by bachelor standards—but not a sustainable amount of food.
He’d been too tired yesterday to shop for the entire week, so he’d focused on getting through the weekend with Josh. Now he really wished he’d taken another twenty minutes and loaded up the fridge. Before closing the door, he quickly inventoried the beers. A full six-pack of Heineken and three loose Coronas. Joshua snapped his eyes away from the refrigerator when he turned around.
“I count nine beers,” said David.
“Dad.”
“Just making an observation.”
Joshua started laughing.
“What?” said David.
“Nobody steals beers from their parents. It’s too easy to notice,” said Joshua. “They raid the hard alcohol bottles a little at a time so it’s not obvious.”
“I don’t have any bottles of liquor,” said David.
“Then you don’t have anything to worry about,” said Joshua before getting back to his plate of circular waffles.
He couldn’t help but laugh at that. The kid had a point.
“All righty then,” said David. “Here are the rest of the ground rules.”
Joshua looked at him funny, like he’d been taken off guard. “Ground rules?”
“Yeah. Things are inexplicably weird out there, so I need you to play along with me on this.”
“Okay,” said Joshua, still eyeing him skeptically.
“I need you to stay inside and stay away from the windows. No exceptions. When I drive out of here, I want everyone to think this house is empty. We’ll shut all of the shades now and keep them that way.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if everyone thought you were home? If people think you’re gone, they might try to break in,” said Josh.
“I don’t think we’re at the point of people breaking in, but if people are scared about what they’re hearing on the news, they might come by to see if I have any inside scoop. I don’t want to put you in the position of having to answer the door. Especially if there’s some flu virus spreading. Better they think the house is empty.”
“What about the lights at night? You can tell they’re on with the shades shut.”
“That’s the second bit of bad news. About an hour before sunset, I want you in the basement. Grab some spare blankets from the hallway closet upstairs and nail them up to cover the windows in the finished part of the basement.”
“Like use real nails?” said Joshua.
“Whatever it takes to get them tight against the windows. Use two blankets folded over on each window, if that’s what it takes. The window wells are below ground level, so if you put a thick layer up and keep the lights to a minimum down there, I think you’ll be totally good to go. I’ll leave the alarm in alert mode, so you’ll hear a double beep on the p
anel down there if any of the exterior doors or windows are breached.”
“Do you really think it’s that bad out there?” said Joshua.
“You saw the news, right? It’s already pretty bad,” said David. “If there’s a pandemic flu going around, this could get way worse. People will get desperate.”
“What do I do if someone tries to break in?”
“Hide and call the—” started David, remembering the situation in Fishers. “Call me. I’ll make sure someone gets out here fast.”
His son didn’t look very convinced by the plan, and frankly, David had little faith in it either. He wasn’t sure why he’d even said it.
“Here’s what you do. Before you retire to the basement for the evening, grab the Glock 19 from the gun safe in my closet. I left it open for you. Bring it with you into the basement and keep it close by, but don’t take it out of the holster. There’s a round in the chamber. You pull the trigger and it goes off. Understood? If someone breaks in, you follow my original instructions. Hide and call my cell phone. Do not go investigating. The pistol is an absolute last resort. Understood?”
“Yes,” said his son, completely serious.
“About eight o’clock, you should be fed and ready to barricade yourself in the basement. I keep a spare set of keys in the same safe with the pistol. One of those keys locks the basement door from the inside. Make sure you lock that door. If you get hungry after hours, grab an MRE from my survival stash.”
Joshua nodded. “What about Mom? What if she shows up or calls?”
David hated to double-down on his lie, but saw no other option. He was already up to his neck in it, having told Joshua that it looked like she had gone away for the weekend. He was afraid to tell him anything different. The kid might get a bad idea and rev up one of the old motocross bikes for a very ill-conceived search and rescue operation.
For now, he needed Joshua to believe that his mother was safe. It bought him another twenty-four hours to square away the situation with his police department, so he could watch over his son twenty-four seven. She wasn’t “due back in town” until tomorrow evening, when David had originally agreed to bring him back. He had no idea what he’d tell Joshua tomorrow night.
“If your mom shows up, call me immediately.”
“I can let her in, right? I mean, with the flu and everything, do you think it’s safe?” said his son.
“You know your mother. She wouldn’t do anything to put you in danger. If she shows up, I’m sure she’s fine. Just let me talk to her first. She might not know about the outbreak.”
“Okay.”
“What else?” said David.
Joshua shook his head. “I think that’s it. Be careful out there.”
“I will,” he said.
David gave his son a one-armed hug, ruffling his hair after he let go. He planned on being more than just careful out there. He was all Joshua had left right now.
“Be good and stay out of sight. Keep your phone charged, too. I’ll check in with you every few hours.”
“When do you think you’ll be back?”
“I don’t know. I’m going to try for tonight. If that doesn’t fly, sometime in the morning—whether I have to quit or not.”
David’s eyes caught the microwave clock. Shit. There was no way he was going to make it to the station by noon. Sergeant Jackson would just have to wait a few more minutes.
Chapter Sixteen
Eugene Chang paced back and forth at the far edge of an elaborate slate patio, pausing occasionally to check his phone for voice messages or emails. He was beyond frustrated and scared at this point. The sun hung low on the horizon, and he hadn’t received a single return message from any of his Edgewood colleagues. He could understand why his CDC contacts might choose to remain incommunicado, but not Stan Greenberg or Christine Bell. Unless he’d totally misread the political and bureaucratic situation at Edgewood, there was no excuse for their silence. Not in light of what Chang had discovered and passed along to them.
The two researchers had dedicated the bulk of their professional careers to preventing the very disaster now unfolding in Indianapolis. The only possible excuse he could imagine was the detection of a nationwide bioweapons attack that triggered some kind of government-wide gag order. Jesus. Maybe that was it. It would certainly explain the simultaneous crashing of every website the public might use to learn about the virus.
The concept behind controlling information at the outset of a bioweapons attack had some merit, regardless of the inherent ethical dilemmas. Keeping the public in the dark long enough to mobilize an initial containment response gave the government a better chance of slowing or stopping the inevitable panic-induced exodus from the hot zone. Keeping infected victims from vanishing to points unknown was one of the most effective strategies for combating a lethal virus outbreak. The longer the government could delay mass panic, the better for everyone—outside the hot zone.
Sadly, the tactic condemned the blackout area to accelerated casualty rates. A tragic consequence deemed to be an acceptable compromise to prevent or reduce the geographic expansion of an outbreak hot zone. There was no good answer in the face of this kind of disaster. People would die in great numbers. It was just a question of containing those deaths to the smallest area possible.
The Russians had supposedly quarantined the entire city of Monchegorsk, systematically killing the sick population or anyone that protested. He doubted they had started out killing, but with thousands of sick and deranged patients, it had probably just evolved as the easiest and most effective tactic available to an army unequipped for a major medical disaster. He wondered if the same thing could happen here. He hoped not.
Chang glanced at his phone again, thinking that it would only be a matter of time before cell service was disrupted, at least temporarily. Then entire server networks—all while they worked on establishing and enforcing quarantine zones.
That thought got him wondering if he should call Jeff at the airfield and postpone the mechanic’s proposed repairs to the left wing. He wasn’t overly worried about finding himself trapped in a quarantine zone, since his house was well outside Indianapolis, but it couldn’t hurt to be ready for a quick departure. Airfields would be priority quarantine targets. The repairs could wait. He called the number he’d entered in his phone’s contact list yesterday and hoped Jeff hadn’t gotten to the repair yet.
“Jeff Simmons, Montgomery Aviation.”
“Jeff, this is Eugene Chang.”
“Hey, Dr. Chang. Funny you should call. I just took the wing apart. Well, not the whole wing. You know what I mean,” said Jeff. “I got it all ready to make the adjustment. I should have it done by the end of the day tomorrow. Maybe earlier.”
“You’re going to hate me for this, Jeff, but I really need the plane back in one piece, ready to fly as soon as possible. I know it’s getting toward the end of the day, and Friday at that, so maybe tomorrow morning? I’m really sorry about this. I will most certainly pay for the time you’ve already spent and the time tomorrow morning.”
“It’s no trouble at all, Dr. Chang. Seriously. My wife’s got something going on at the church this evening, so she won’t be home until late. I’ll put your plane back together after we shut down. Technically we stop services at sunset, but I usually wait another fifteen minutes or so in case someone fell behind on the flight plan and was hell-bent on making the airfield. Shouldn’t take me more than an hour after that. Ten thirty or so, and I’ll be done.”
“Jeff, I can’t have you staying that late,” said Chang, hoping Jeff didn’t change his mind.
“I don’t mind at all. I already ate a sandwich for dinner. We’re getting ready for a bunch of Friday afternoon flights to return. This is normal for me when I work the back end of Friday. That’s why my wife volunteers at the church.”
“Well, I really appreciate it, Jeff. Something came up that might take me right back out of town.”
“Anything related to that c
raziness down in Indy?”
Chang was caught off guard by the question, unsure why Jeff asked it. He couldn’t possibly know what Chang did for NevoTech. He wasn’t even sure if Jeff knew he worked for NevoTech. It had to be a mostly innocent question, tainted by Chang’s own knowledge of the situation. But how did he answer his question like someone who didn’t know a lethal bioweapon had been released? He was about to lie, when he remembered the NevoTech parking sticker on his windshield. Damn. Better to tell a half-truth.
“Quite possibly. I do some consulting work outside of NevoTech on vaccines. Looks like a late season flu outbreak in Indianapolis. Really late. As in—unusual,” he said, hoping to leave it at that.
“Hit Cleveland, too.”
“What?” said Chang.
“I had a guy fly in a few hours ago to visit his brother in Fishers. Said Cleveland was kind of a mess. I can tell you this. He sure as hell didn’t know Indy was in the same boat. If his brother’s family hadn’t been waiting in the lounge, I think he might have headed right back to Ohio.”
“Interesting,” said Chang. “Have you noticed anything odd in your neighborhood, like the police coming out more often? People seem to be really freaking out over this flu.”
“Nearest neighbor is a half mile away. I live just outside Sheridan on Route 38. Nothin’ but farmland out there,” said Jeff. “Never could stand neighborhood livin’. Everyone up in your business and everything.”
“You may be onto something, Jeff. Between you and me, I’d stay put this weekend unless you’re working. The farther from Indianapolis you stay, the better.”
“Hell, I haven’t been down to Indy in years,” said Jeff, pausing for a moment. “Hey, I gotta let you go, Dr. Chang. They’re stacking up on us. I’ll have your bird fixed up good by eleven at the latest.”
“Thanks, Jeff. Let me know what I owe you.”
“Will do,” said Jeff, and the call disconnected.
Chang turned toward the house, thinking about Cleveland. Two cities now. A coordinated attack meant a massive government response. At a minimum, it would involve a full-scale National Guard mobilization in each state impacted, along with the Guard units in neighboring states. If the number of cities hit stretched National Guard assets too thin, Department of Defense-backed deployments might be considered. An emergency session of Congress would be called to legislate a temporary exception to the Posse Comitatus Act. Failing that, the President would authorize the implementation of whatever nationwide contingency plan existed for this kind of attack.
HOT ZONE: A Post-Apocalyptic Pandemic Thriller (The Zulu Virus Chronicles Book 1) Page 10
