Pandemic: Beginnings: A Post-Apocalyptic Medical Thriller Fiction Series (The Pandemic Series Book 1)

by Bobby Akart

  “I understand, Mac. I’ve been ringing the clarion bell to my peers for decades that a bioterrorism attack on American soil would require a response that is fundamentally different from a natural disaster or even a bombing. Fighting an infectious disease depends on the speed and accuracy with which physicians can reach a correct diagnosis and laboratories can report accurate findings.”

  Mac reviewed a chart handed to her by one of the CEFOs, and she initialed it. She continued. “Plus, in this case, we are dealing with a highly contagious infectious disease with a rapid spread rate. The public has to be warned.”

  “We need to talk about that aspect,” said Dr. Spielman.

  “Dr. Spielman, this outbreak could reach pandemic levels within days. In the U.S., we are ill-equipped to handle the large numbers of patients needing immediate and sustained medical care.”

  “I know, Mac. I agree with you one hundred percent, but the fact of the matter is the cases discovered here so far are limited to the two dozen or so bodies in a remote area of New Mexico. We’ve had no reports of symptomatic patients appearing in any of the towns or cities along the southern border.”

  “Yes, I know, but—” started Mac before Dr. Spielman interrupted her.

  “A team has already been dispatched to Las Cruces to set up a regional command center. The New Mexico Department of Health is very capable, as is Dr. Okoli, whom I’m familiar with. They will coordinate the efforts on the ground in conjunction with our team’s containment suggestions.”

  “Shouldn’t we notify the public? Don’t they have a right to be warned?” asked Mac.

  “Mac, here’s the problem, which you have pointed out more than once. The early symptoms of the plague look remarkably like the common cold or perhaps the flu. If we sound the alarm prematurely, clinics, doctor’s offices, and hospital emergency rooms will be inundated with people complaining of headaches, coughs, or overall weakness. Not only will the system collapse, but the health care providers will become jaded to the actual symptomatic patients.”

  “Dr. Spielman, you know I can’t disagree, but if we don’t put out some kind of warning, this strain of the plague will spread faster than wildfire.”

  “Yes, which is why we’ll issue general public service announcements like we did with H1N1 and Ebola. The first thing that we’ll do is set up a dedicated toll-free number for the public to receive a recorded message. We’ll create a specific page on the CDC.gov website, providing a list of symptoms, proper hygiene habits, tips on traveling into infected areas, and community planning so that people can feel like they’re doing something to prevent transmission of the disease.”

  “What about the media? Can’t we make some type of announcement to let people know?” asked Mac.

  “Yes, that’s in the works, but it’s being handled in Washington. Our job is to get the word out to health care providers, and for you, it’s getting a handle on every aspect of this strain so we can defeat it, or at least contain it.”

  Mac feared this plague outbreak could not be contained.

  Chapter 76

  Day Twenty-Six

  CDC

  Atlanta

  Mac returned to her office with Janie in tow. During her absence, Janie had conducted the team meetings to get updates on the new cases and the spread of the disease around the world. It was time to update the whiteboard.

  Janie, referring to her notes, systematically brought the numbers up to date. Seven new countries were added—Niger, Columbia, Brazil, Honduras, Belize, Mexico, and now, the United States. In the remaining countries that reported deaths and infected patients, the numbers had doubled, except in Greece and Bulgaria, where the number of infected had increased tenfold.

  “No burnout on this one,” commented Janie as she completed the task. She took a seat across from Mac and waited for further instructions.

  Mac reviewed her emails and then looked at Janie. “How’s your family?”

  Janie was caught off guard by the question, but replied, “They’re doing fine. Thanks. They still live here in Atlanta with my younger sister. She’s a junior at Georgia Tech.”

  Mac continued to scroll through her inbox. “Janie, tell them to be careful. You too, okay?”

  “Yeah, Mac, of course. You’ve got a bad feeling, don’t you?”

  “I do, and I want to scream run and hide at the top of my lungs, but everyone around me is telling me I can’t do that. They don’t want to cause a panic. They don’t want to instill fear in the public. Well, I think fear is a great motivator. Why shouldn’t we instill a little fear into the public to raise their level of awareness? Would that really be so bad?”

  Janie hesitated. “People can’t handle the truth, Mac. People can’t handle it when the cable goes out for an hour. People can’t handle it when their favorite sports team loses a game. People can’t handle diddly-squat.”

  “Diddly-squat?” asked Mac as she laughed. “Is that something you learned in your psych classes at Emory?”

  “No, it’s kinda a Southern thing. But you know what I mean. People are like sheep, Mac. They have to be told what to do and be coddled. If we freak them out, we can’t help the ones that really need help.”

  Mac thought of this for a moment. She understood Janie’s logic and appreciated her honest, straightforward opinion. “Janie, honestly, is that the mistake my mother made? Did she unnecessarily spook the public?”

  “Listen, your mother was a dedicated public servant who served her country admirably, blah-blah-blah. Just like the Washington big-mouths said before they ran her off. The fact is you and I both know that she loves people and would give her own life to save any stranger in America from Ebola or any other deadly pathogen. You, Mac, are just like her. Make no mistake about that.”

  Mac sat quietly as her PC produced a notification of new emails arriving in her inbox. “Janie, you know I have to go in front of Congress in two days. What should I do? Tell the truth or downplay it the way they want?”

  “It depends. Do you wanna keep your job? Here’s what my daddy always said. When he was in banking, he’d say that bankers don’t lose their job for not making enough loans, they lose their job for making the one bad loan. The same thing applies to any of us working for the government. You go along to get along, but if you wanna ruffle feathers, you better be prepared to get kicked out of the nest.”

  Mac again laughed and was feeling much better after a dose of Janie. “Thanks, Janie. Now, fly out of here and save the world!”

  “Tweet, tweet,” she said as she hustled out of the room.

  Mac turned her attention to the new email, one that she’d been waiting for from Dr. Walter Latham, her former microbiology professor, who was now a senior fellow at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She’d contacted him about the possible genetic modifications of this strain of Y. pestis.

  She opened the image he sent with his email and looked closely at the strain produced under his scanning electron microscope, which generated a detailed micrograph of the bacteria. She immediately noticed the differences.

  Gone were the clean, rod-shaped lines. The bacteria were surrounded by additional genetic material, which created a mutated, bastardized version of the pure form that existed in nature.

  Mac continued reading Dr. Latham’s email.

  Mac, I’ve certainly enjoyed studying this groundbreaking organism, although I suspect that it’s giving you fits.

  Y. pestis, as you know, has a history of undergoing genetic change. My colleague, Dr. Zimbler, discovered the single gene that reshaped the bacteria from causing a primarily gastrointestinal infection to the more serious and often fatal respiratory disease. Over the millennia, the plague has adapted to its hosts and learned to avoid its attackers by acquiring small bits of DNA.

  With Dr. Zimbler’s revelations, we now have a better understanding of how the Y. pestis bacteria adapts via genetic modifications. Over time, through the genetic adjustments involving the surface protein Pla, the pneumoni
c form of the plague enhanced its ability to infect the lungs, which was all this ancestral strain of Y. pestis needed to produce a fatal lung infection, followed by death due to pneumonia.

  Now, enough of the class lecture, you’ve heard enough of those. Here’s the bad news.

  It will take several days, if not a week or more, to identify the new genetic markers associated with the subject strain. I will answer your anticipated insistence that there’s no time to wait for the testing, but alas, you must.

  In order to unravel the molecular changes that underlie this new strain of the world’s deadliest and most infamous bacterium, I’ve got to bring in my entire team of microbiology and immunology students from around the country. It’s summer break, but I have no doubt they’ll jump at the opportunity to assist on this one.

  Naturally, I will keep you informed. Until then, I bid you adieu!

  Days. Weeks. Ugh.

  Chapter 77

  Day Twenty-Seven

  The Hunter Residence

  Lake Barcroft, Virginia

  Hunter picked Mac up from Reagan-Washington National Airport and took her on the nickle tour past the Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery before their arrival at Lake Barcroft, a community southwest of Arlington. Hunter wanted to show Mac the sights, but she was more enamored with his Corvette. He suspected he’d have to give it to her at some point. The price of true love was never too high.

  Mac’s gaping open mouth without saying a word actually spoke volumes as he drove up the quarter-mile-long driveway to the stone Tudor house nestled in the woods overlooking Lake Barcroft. As he pulled through the circle driveway toward the front door, Mac looked quickly from the stately two-story home, back to him and again toward the house.

  “This is yours?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” Hunter shut off the engine and exited the car.

  Mac hadn’t moved, not because she expected Hunter to open the door for her, but rather because she was in shock, or awe, he couldn’t decide which. Maybe both.

  “Who else lives here?” asked Mac as Hunter opened her door.

  “Nobody, just me,” he replied calmly.

  Mac stopped dead in her tracks and grabbed Hunter before he could open the trunk and grab her bags. “Hunter, this home is, well, incredible. I had no idea that…”

  He turned and took her head in his hands. “Mac, there’s a lot you don’t know about me. I don’t want to distract you from your big day tomorrow, but I promise I’ll reveal all over burgers and beer in the backyard.”

  She pouted slightly and he kissed her lips, erasing the pout and replacing it with a smile. Hunter led her inside and set her bags in the foyer. “Wow,” said Mac as she took in the interior. The home was nearly eighty years old and was the original residence of former Senator Thomas Connally from Texas. This is where the Connally family resided while the Senate was in session. When the Senator lost re-election in 1952, the home went on the market and was purchased by the Hunter family.

  “I’ll tell you more after you get settled in and we have a couple of beers in us, deal?”

  “Deal.” Hunter took her into the master suite, which consumed half of the upstairs. A set of double doors opened onto a balcony overlooking Lake Barcroft and the massive stone inlaid patio behind the home. A set of terraced gardens meandered down to a cedar-shingled boathouse, which contained a vintage pleasure boat.

  Hunter set her bags on his bed and kissed her on the cheek. “Take your time and make yourself at home. I’ll go down and prep dinner plus I’ll put some beers on ice. Meet me out back. I’ll fire up the grill.”

  “Sure,” replied Mac. Hunter smiled when his back was turned to her. She hadn’t spoken a dozen words since they arrived. Maybe he should have told her about his family sooner?

  “Hunter, are you Batman?”

  Hunter laughed so hard that he couldn’t speak for a moment. Mac had an incredible sense of humor and never ceased to put him in stitches. He wasn’t sure how to reply because the look on her face showed she’d asked the question in all seriousness.

  “No, I don’t have a cave or a butler.”

  *****

  Ten minutes later, Mac walked through the rear doors leading onto the patio, wearing a pair of cotton terry shorts and a white tee shirt with a red biohazard symbol emblazoned on the back. The shirt read Warning: Patient Zero.

  “Are you hungry, or do you want one of these first?” said Hunter as he pulled a beer out of a built-in cooler next to the grill. The ice immediately began to melt, dripping water back onto Hunter’s bare feet.

  “Oh, yes. Please, a beer first, convo next, and then burgers, and another beer, and then you-know-what.”

  Hunter delivered the beer and accepted a kiss as a gratuity. “Come on, we’ll walk down to the lake and I’ll tell you about my family.”

  Mac wrapped her arm in his as they walked through the cool grass that wound its way through a series of flower gardens. Crape myrtle trees were beginning to bloom pink and white flowers, complementing the variety of roses and annuals that surrounded them.

  “Hunter, I have to admit that I’m totally surprised at all of this,” said Mac as she waved her hand around. “Seriously, I thought you’d have a condo, with a flat-screen, and maybe an Xbox sitting on top of an overturned plastic milk crate. I mean, not that you couldn’t afford better, but you’re a bachelor that travels the world, blowing things up and stuff.”

  Hunter chuckled as she spoke. They reached the large deck surrounding the boathouse and sat in a couple of Adirondack chairs overlooking the lake. An osprey sailed by, drawing a bead on a small bass that hopped out of the dark water.

  “My father was J. Gordon Hunter, the founder and CEO of Hunter Laboratories based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Its official name was the J. Gordon Hunter Laboratory, specializing in navigation systems for NASA and later for the military’s drone program. Dad started out as an aeronautics professor at MIT but developed a series of patents that intrigued the government. With some venture capital, he built Hunter Labs into a major player in the defense industry, even making it on the cover of Forbes magazine once.”

  Mac studied Hunter as she finished her beer. She began to peel the label and asked, “Do your folks live in Cambridge?”

  Hunter shook his head and looked down. “No, they were both killed in a terrorist attack while on a trip to Paris. I don’t have any brothers or sisters.”

  “I’m so sorry, Hunter.” Mac set her beer down and took Hunter’s hand in hers.

  He smiled and whispered, “Thank you. It’s still painful because it happened while I was at VMI. In fact, it was the summer after the Yankees came to your school. It made the news and Derek Jeter got wind of it. That’s when we became friends.”

  “That’s horrible. I can see it has an effect on you still.”

  “It does when I talk about it, which is not very often. I’ve never had anybody like you to confide in. Neither my buddies in The Unit, nor at Project Artemis, would understand what I’ve had to deal with, you know? It wasn’t just the loss of my parents, but also the business side of my parents’ estate.”

  “Are you the owner of Hunter Laboratories?” asked Mac.

  Hunter finished his beer and set the bottle on the deck next to Mac’s. He took a deep breath and looked across the lake, where he spotted another osprey sailing effortlessly just a few feet above the water.

  “No, the stock shares are held in trust for me until I turn thirty-five. At thirty, I could’ve taken a seat on the board and assumed operational control, but I didn’t. Instead, I had the lawyers negotiate a sale to Raytheon a few years ago.”

  Mac sat quietly for a moment. “You didn’t want to run it yourself?”

  “Nah, I never had my dad’s drive or desire to deal with the business world. It’s complicated, ruthless, and brutal. I’m all of those three as well, but in a different arena. I never understood his kind of sharks.”

  “So they sold it?” she asked.

  “I know
you wanna ask how much,” said Hunter jokingly.

  “Okay, if you insist.” Mac said with a chuckle. “How much?”

  “One-point-one billion,” replied Hunter with a straight face.

  Mac sat dumbfounded, mindlessly watching the wildlife scurry to and fro across the lake. Then she burst out laughing. “You’re a billionaire! You’re so full of crap. Really? A billionaire! Wait, how old are you, anyway?”

  “Thirty-three. I have to wait two years for the trust fund to vest.”

  Mac furled her brow in a childish way. Then she started stomping her feet on the deck, first one, then the other, the vibration causing the bottles to tip over and roll around beneath them. “Still, my boyfriend is a billionaire! And he’s Batman. Batman the billionaire. I’m calling my mother. She’ll have me committed when I tell her this!”

  Hunter smiled. This was why he wanted to make sure Mac loved him before she knew who he was.

  Chapter 78

  Day Twenty-Eight

  House Committee on Energy and Commerce

  Rayburn House Office Building

  Washington, DC

  Mac insisted on appearing in front of Congress without Hunter being in the room. She was already nervous and his presence would make it much worse. Despite his protestations, Mac held firm, but to pacify him, she would let one of his attorneys sit with her during the process. She said Hunter could wait in the courtyard and flirt with interns.

  Mac’s letter from Congressman David Masterson, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, instructed her to arrive prior to the 10:00 a.m. hearing, which was to take place in room 2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building.

  Most Americans are familiar with the United States Capitol and its distinctive dome rising into the sky. But the majority of the business of the United States government is conducted in three House office buildings—Longworth, Rayburn, and Cannon. Rayburn was identified as Building 2, and Rayburn 2123 was the first room that appeared when Mac and the attorney entered off of South Capitol Street.