SIck

by Brett Battles

  Another picture, a couple and a teenage boy.

  “The Parsons, I believe.” He looked at Matt. “What’s the point of all this?”

  Matt nodded at the screen. More pictures came up. This time there was no pause for Ash to identify them, but he recognized the faces of many of those he’d seen around the base.

  The last image was a collage of all the photos.

  “These are the sixteen families that you lived with, the ones that were exposed to the same disease as you and your family. They all have something very important in common.”

  “You’ve already told me they’re dead.”

  “There’s something else.”

  The picture of the Diaz family replaced the collage.

  “Manny Diaz,” Matt said. “His father died when he was seventeen, and his mother a month after he received his commission. He was an only child. Carol Diaz, maiden name Yeager. Mother died when she was eleven, father two years later. She was an only child.”

  The picture of the Diaz family was replaced by one showing the Crosses.

  “Martin Cross. Parents killed in a car accident when he was a freshman in college. He was an only child. Emily Cross, maiden name Vernon. Adopted by an older couple, both of whom died of natural causes within one year of each other while Emily was in high school. She was their only child.”

  Matt continued to go through the pictures, telling the basically same story every time. The final picture was one that hadn’t been shown before.

  “Daniel Ash. Parents died in an auto accident when he was twenty. Not an only child, but his brother Jeff sustained brain damage in the accident and lives in a nursing home. Ellen Ash, maiden name Walker. Mother died of cancer when she was—”

  “Stop,” Ash whispered. “Please.”

  The screen went black, and the room fell quiet.

  After a few moments, Rachel put a hand on Ash’s arm. “We know this isn’t easy. But we needed to show you the truth.”

  “The truth of what?” he asked, shaking her off. “That everyone I used to live around lost their parents? It happens. It’s probably not as unusual as it sounds.”

  “It’s not just the parents,” Matt said, still at the center of the table. He gestured at the screen. “None of your former neighbors had any close relatives at all. They were isolated.”

  Ash gritted his teeth. “I have someone.”

  “You do,” Rachel said. “But I think you understand the point Matt is getting at.”

  He shot her a look, then let out a breath as his gaze fell to the table. “Okay. Fine. So we were all isolated. So what?”

  “So that makes all of you the perfect test subjects,” Matt said.

  “Test subjects?”

  “If any of you died, it would be fairly easy to cover that up, don’t you think?”

  “Wait. Are you trying to tell me what happened at Barker Flats was done to us on purpose as a test?”

  Matt looked at him, saying nothing.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Ash said.

  Matt changed the picture on the screen. Now, instead of a photo, there was an online news article.

  “This appeared on a local Ann Arbor, Michigan, news website five days ago,” Matt explained.

  LOCAL MAN, WIFE DIE IN HOUSE FIRE

  First Lieutenant Martin Cross and his wife Emily were killed tragically last night in a fire that consumed their home. Army investigators at the base in South Korea where they lived believe the fire was started by faulty wiring, though an investigation is ongoing.

  “South Korea?” Ash said.

  Matt brought up two more articles, both for families that had been at Barker Flats. Their deaths were being called accidents, too. One family was said to have died in a car accident in Germany, while the other apparently had been caught in a storm while on a fishing trip off the Philippine coast.

  “These are the only articles that have appeared so far, but we have no doubt that within the next three to four weeks, the rest of your neighbors will get their obituaries, too.”

  “This isn’t possible. Someone’s playing a game here.” Ash shook his head at the screen. “These aren’t real.”

  “They’re very real. If you want, I’ll take you to a computer and you can search whatever site you’d like.” When Ash didn’t say anything, Matt hit another button. “Do you recognize this man?”

  Ash looked back at the screen. The photo that was now displayed was a head-and-shoulders shot of a man in his late fifties with thinning gray hair. He was wearing gold-rimmed glasses and didn’t look happy. It had obviously been cropped from a larger picture and blown up.

  Ash’s first thought was that he’d never seen the man before, but there was just the hint of recognition—something in the man’s expression—that made him unsure.

  “I…don’t think so,” he said.

  “Not at Barker Flats?” Matt asked. “Maybe in the distance or in passing?”

  Ash studied the photo again, but nothing new came to him. “I just don’t know. Who is he?”

  “His name is Dr. Nathaniel Karp. He’s the man who infected your family.”

  16

  Jimmy was DOA when the ambulance arrived at the Sage Springs Hospital emergency room. The drive from the camping area at the dunes took nearly an hour, but Jimmy would have died even if the hospital had been right next door. Still, the two doctors who were on duty that night, Dr. Fisher and Dr. Morse, made a valiant attempt to bring him back, but to no avail.

  Sage Springs boasted a population of only 12,347. And while the hospital was the best medical facility within a seventy-five-mile radius, it was by no means a top-of-the-line operation. That meant the staff it employed, while dedicated, often consisted of doctors and technicians who had graduated at the lower ends of their classes.

  Drs. Fisher and Morse were no exceptions. That, of course, didn’t mean they lacked the skills to do their jobs. They were intelligent, caring men who, on that night, made a critical mistake.

  The assumption they made, based on the information radioed to them from the ambulance, was that the incoming patient was suffering from either a severe case of the flu or pneumonia. Unsure of how contagious the patient might be, they had ordered all staff that would come in contact with him to wear masks and gloves at all times. They couldn’t have known it, but the bug was airborne and able to infect new hosts through eyes, ears, and any other entry point to the body, such as a cut. This was unforeseeable, and not their mistake.

  Their mistake came once they’d pronounced Jimmy dead. Seeing how his body had been ravaged by the disease, and hearing from the ambulance attendants that others at the campground had reported Jimmy and his friends appeared fine earlier in the day should have made them realize something unusual was up. If they had recognized that, they could have immediately declared a quarantine on the entire hospital and limited the deaths to just those in the building.

  But when the declaration finally came, it was several hours too late, and the town of Sage Springs paid a heavy price.

  • • •

  Dr. Karp was shaken from his sleep at 5:26 a.m.

  Standing beside his bed was Major Ross, the man who served as his military liaison.

  “There’s a problem,” the major said. “We’re set up in Conference Room D. Be there in five minutes.”

  “What is it?” Dr. Karp asked.

  But the major had already walked out of the room.

  The doctor pushed himself out of bed, swearing under his breath. Ross had never given him an order before. That wasn’t the nature of their relationship. But an order was certainly what it had sounded like, and Karp didn’t like it.

  Just to remind the major who was in charge, he let seven minutes pass before stepping into the conference room. Given that Ross had said “We’re set up,” Karp expected more than just the major waiting inside, but no one else was there.

  “What’s going on that you couldn’t tell me in my room?” the doctor asked.

  “Dr.
Karp?” The voice came out of a speaker in the middle of the table. The doctor immediately recognized it as belonging to the Project Eden Director of Preparation (DOP).

  “Sir, I’m sorry,” the doctor said. “I didn’t realize you were involved in this meeting. Major Ross gave me no information.”

  “Because Major Ross has no information,” the DOP explained. “He was merely doing exactly what I told him to do.”

  Feeling suddenly uncomfortable, Dr. Karp said, “Of course,” then took a seat a couple of chairs away from Ross.

  “Major, have you been able to reach Mr. Shell yet?” the DOP asked.

  “He’s on hold, sir. I can connect him now, if you’d like.”

  “Please.”

  Ross leaned forward and pushed a couple of buttons on the conference phone. “Mr. Shell, are you there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Director, we’re all present,” the major said.

  In the silence that followed, Karp wondered if the major had accidentally disconnected the DOP, but then the man’s scratchy voice came out of the speaker again.

  “At 6:22 p.m. Pacific Time last night, park rangers serving the Mesquite Dunes Recreational Area responded to a call from a camper concerned that someone using the campground had overdosed on drugs. The party in question was seen stumbling through his campsite before collapsing onto the ground. As a precaution, an ambulance was dispatched to the scene. The rangers arrived first, though. What they found was not a camper who had OD’d, but rather one camper who appeared to be very sick, and three others who were lying in their tent, dead.

  “The surviving man was rushed to the hospital in Sage Springs, but died before reaching the facility. At 2:37 a.m., two of the nurses on duty started to become ill. A check of the other eighteen people in the building revealed that all but three were experiencing similar symptoms. These included headaches, body aches, and a general sense of exhaustion. One of the nurses had been on duty when the dead man arrived in the ambulance. She was smart enough to put two and two together, and immediately made calls to her county health department and the Center for Disease Control.

  “I received a copy of the alert the CDC put out thirty minutes ago. This is not a public alert, and no media has been notified as of yet. CDC officials are on their way to the scene. In the meantime, the hospital has put itself under quarantine.”

  The doctor frowned at the speakerphone. “What are you trying to suggest, sir? That this illness has something to do with us? That’s not possible.”

  Silence again, then, “The gas station where your man Ellison was found and eliminated is only thirty miles from the campground at Mesquite Dunes.”

  That gave the doctor pause. “Still,” Dr. Karp finally said. “Mr. Shell’s team burned the body and the car he’d been in. There’s no way he could have been the source.” Then a terrible thought hit him. “Unless he talked to someone first. But I find it hard to believe he would have done that.”

  “There is another way,” the DOP said.

  “What?” Karp asked, not seeing what it could be.

  “One of the victims at the campsite was a man named Len Craddock.” The DOP let the name hang out there as if it should mean something to the doctor.

  “I don’t know who that is.”

  “I do,” Mr. Shell said through the speaker, a hint of dread in his voice. “He’s the person who discovered the body of the gas station attendant.”

  Dr. Karp could feel the skin tighten across his arms. The station attendant had been killed because he’d witnessed what was done to Ellison. His death had been made to look like a robbery and having someone find his body had been part of the plan.

  “But it’s my understanding that precautions were taken,” the doctor said. “The car and the body were removed. There was nothing there to infect him.”

  “Records indicate that the call Craddock made to the police was placed through a pay phone outside the station,” the DOP told them. “The only other call on that phone that day happened minutes before Mr. Shell’s team arrived on scene.”

  “Oh, dear God,” Karp said.

  “Mr. Shell?” the DOP asked.

  Shell took a moment before he spoke. “There was obviously an oversight, sir. I will deal with it.”

  “Yes, you will. You will also help ensure this does not spread. Dr. Karp, Major Ross, you, too, if necessary.”

  “Perhaps it would be best for an immediate quarantine zone to be set up,” Major Ross suggested.

  Dr. Karp frowned. “I’m not sure if that—”

  “What?” the DOP asked. “Necessary? It’s an excellent suggestion, Major. Our people are already on it. We cannot afford mistakes. The only way we will succeed is to control events, not have them control us.”

  “Sir, if I may ask,” Shell said. “Has anyone tried to trace the number Ellison called?”

  “Why?”

  “It could help in locating Captain Ash. Given this new development, I think it’s even more critical that we bring him in. He can link this outbreak to Barker Flats. And while a connection from that to Bluebird would be impossible, it could raise concerns and interfere with some of our future work, creating unnecessary delays.”

  “Yes, Mr. Shell. We have discussed that here. In addition to helping with the outbreak, you need to continue hunting for Ash. Any additional men you need, please request from your department head and they’ll be immediately assigned to you. As for the phone number, it was to a disposable phone purchased in Milwaukee, and no longer seems to be in service.”

  The doctor was relieved. He’d dodged a bullet with the outbreak, since most of the blame seemed to be falling on Mr. Shell. He was still vulnerable on the Ash issue, but there was a way he might be able to improve that situation, too.

  “Director? I have an idea about how we might be able to flush out Captain Ash.”

  17

  Ash pushed himself out of his chair and moved over to the monitor, his eyes firmly affixed on the image of Dr. Karp.

  In rapid succession, he asked, “Is he some kind of spy? Who does he work for? Does the Army know?”

  “Dr. Karp is an American citizen,” Matt explained. “Until three years ago, he worked for the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. He was then transferred to a classified assignment. That assignment eventually brought him to Barker Flats.”

  Ash looked at Matt, confused. “Are you trying to say that the U.S. Government did this to my family?”

  “We’re saying that Dr. Karp and the people he’s involved with did this to your family.”

  “But you just said he works for the Army.”

  Matt paused, then said, “The Army pays him a salary, yes.”

  “So you are saying the Army did this to us. There’s no way I’m going to believe that.”

  “The Army didn’t do this to you.”

  Ash stared across the table. “You’re not making any sense.”

  “Captain,” Rachel said, her voice soft. “You have unfortunately found yourself in a situation that is much, much larger than you can imagine. We have been…following this for many years, and sometimes it’s too much for even us to grasp.”

  “Oh,” Ash said, taking a step back from the table. “Oh, I get it. You’re one of those conspiracy groups, aren’t you? What is this? Some kind of indoctrination? Trying to recruit me? Well, thanks for your help, but it’s time for me to leave.”

  He turned for the door.

  “If you’d stayed in your cell in California, you’d be dead now,” Matt said. “That much you can’t deny. We got you out. We saved your life. The least you could do is give us a few minutes to hear us out.”

  “I think I’ve already heard enough.”

  Matt started to speak again, but Rachel silenced him with a look as she stood up and moved between Ash and the door.

  “Captain, I understand your doubts and concerns. You are free to go, of course. But we don’t think that would be wise.”

 
“And staying here would be? With a bunch of crazies?”

  She studied him for a second. “Just give me one moment.”

  She walked over to a cabinet along the wall. From Ash’s angle he could see the envelope he’d brought from the desert sitting on the shelf inside. But if that’s what Rachel was retrieving, she didn’t get a chance to pull it out.

  As she bent down, the door suddenly thrust open, and a man Ash hadn’t seen before rushed in.

  “PCN,” he said quickly.

  Matt touched the controls, and the television switched from the image of Dr. Karp to the Prime Cable News network. A Breaking News banner was running across the bottom of the screen, while the rest was taken up by a female anchor at the network’s New York studios.

  “…confirm twenty-two deaths at this point. Roadblocks have been set up around the town, and no one is being allowed in or out.” The image changed to a shot of a desert highway. Parked across the road about fifty feet from the camera’s position were several military vehicles and a couple highway patrol cars. In the distance beyond them was what appeared to be the edge of a town.

  “Residents of Sage Springs have been advised to remain in their homes until otherwise instructed. We’re told that a first-response CDC team is on scene now, and that more medical personnel are en route. To repeat, there has been a report of a severe outbreak of what looks like a deadly version of the flu in the town of Sage Springs, California.” The anchor put her hand to her ear. “All right. We have Tamara Costello now just outside the roadblock. Tamara, can you tell us what’s going on there at this moment?”

  The voice changed but the picture remained the same. “Catherine, we have just been asked to tell anyone who has been in the vicinity of Sage Springs or the Mesquite Dunes Recreational Area in the past twenty-four hours to call a special hotline the California Department of Health has set up. I believe that number should be on the screen now.”

  As if she were running the control room, the Breaking News banner was replaced by a new graphic that read Crisis in the Desert on one side, and had a phone number on the other.