“Plausible. Plausible, Mr. Jenkins, but I don’t think so. If you cared so much about your country you would have informed our elected leaders when you discovered it. There would be a multibillion-dollar program to deconstruct the virus already in place, to defend against misuse of it, and to genetically engineer it so it could be used for the good of everyone, under controlled circumstances, as a cure. Instead, you kept it hidden on an island, owned by a shell company, run by your own personal mad doctor and secured by amoral thugs who kept their own researchers prisoner. So even if I didn’t get half of Los Angeles infected, now it’s too big for just INS, Incorporated. You had to call in Homeland Security. People will talk. There’s nothing more of an oxymoron than a ‘government secret’ in the age of the internet.”
“You know Daniel, I let you blather on because it amuses and gratifies me to see you lying there like a twisted freak.”
“So you must trust these men implicitly? You’re not afraid of them hearing anything you say?”
“They are utterly loyal to me.”
I glanced at them, seeing nothing to contradict what he had to say. Still, the longer I kept him talking, the more time the other parts of the plan had to succeed. Maybe I might even get through to one of his minions.
“Did you tell them it will cure anything? And give you functional immortality? Live a thousand years like a man of twenty? Never have to watch what you eat, or worry about all the pains of growing old? Do they think a couple of grunts like them will get a piece of that? That it won’t be reserved exclusively for the rich and powerful?”
“They will get it, just as soon as I do. As soon as the bugs have been worked out. They don’t want to end up in a pathetic situation like you are now.”
I chuckled. “Just a little longer, and everyone will have a better world, right? It’s always a little bit longer, until they find a cure for cancer, or nuclear fusion gives everyone clean energy, or we balance the budget. But those things never come, Jenkins, because the rich and powerful don’t want them to come. If they did, the little people wouldn’t have to be afraid anymore, and people like you would have no leverage. Nothing to hold over their heads. But the Eden Plague can free them now, and we can still work on making the virus better as we go along.”
I wasn’t sure how convincing I was, or how much of this I even believed my own self, but I had committed myself to the course and I wasn’t going to back out now. And maybe this was penance for my crime, even if it accomplished nothing else.
“You think I’m evil, Markis? You’re a pie-in-the-sky raving lunatic. You want to just roll the dice on a slice of Soviet-designed biological warfare and hope it all turns out all right.”
I shrugged, as well as I could. “At least I put my money where my mouth is. What have you risked, Jenkins?”
“As little as possible. That’s how great things are achieved.”
“Really? I think truly great people would say just the opposite.”
Jenkins stood up. “We’ll just have to see who achieves greatness, then,” he sneered. “Good luck from that position.” He picked up the chair, backing out of the room. The other two followed.
“I could use some food, if you want more than a corpse to torture later.”
He laughed. “I think I’d rather see you suffer some more the way you are. Bon appétit.”
The door shut with a heavy slam. Bon appétit’s cat-claws ripped at my guts.
Eventually I slept.
-25-
Infection Day.
Jervis A. Jenkins III sat in the command vehicle half a mile from the terrorist’s underground lair. Outside, C Squadron, Special Forces Detachment – Delta, commonly known as Delta Force, deployed across the mountainsides. Measurement and signals intelligence, MASINT, had identified the hidden entrances using infrared and radar imagery comparisons, and each was being covered by a squad of elite special operators.
Jenkins looked down at the piece of paper in his hand, becoming almost orgasmic every time he read it. The President’s signature at the bottom, handwritten, not autopenned, authorized him to take control of the counterterrorism operation under the ‘clear and present danger’ clause of the Patriot Act. It was probably extralegal, perhaps illegal, as it severely bent if not broke the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prohibiting the use of Federal troops for law enforcement within the United States.
The power to break the law with impunity was intoxicating. Jenkins reveled in it.
Even now, select committees of the US Congress were being briefed and martial law would soon be declared, assuming they agreed. Even if they didn’t, that damn infected cruise ship was now under the guns of the Atlantic Fleet, and would stay quarantined offshore for as long as necessary. He wished he had been able to persuade the President to sink it, but like all politicians, the man had wanted to keep his options open, and a massacre was always bad for re-election.
It was a stroke of luck, the anonymous tip that turned the Markis group in, that pinpointed this bunker.
When he’d been briefed on the facility later, by an ancient civil engineer they had dug up – who had worked on it shortly before it was sealed up in the fifties – he’d been appalled at how the Pentagon had lost track of it. He wondered how many other installations like this were scattered around. It could have been a nightmare.
“I wish we’d been able to bring Markis to see us capture his people and their hidey-hole,” he mused as he pushed buttons, checking feeds from the various personal cams attached to the helmets of selected operators. “Better to have him locked in the secure facility, though.”
His driver and the communications techs, contractors rather than regular military, laughed at their boss’s comment. As well as they were being paid, they’d better laugh.
A buzz, then terse voices reported their positions and readiness. Most of the teams were just to cover the exits, to keep the rats from escaping. They had orders to shoot first, then capture wounded if it was absolutely safe.
These men were among the best elite hostage rescue and direct action specialists in the world. They had been briefed about the plot to spread a genetically engineered virus that would make Ebola look like the sniffles, and every one of them was cocked and locked, burning with eagerness to take down the enemies of their country, their families, and their way of life.
Jenkins loved this kind of control, and laughed inside. Fine upstanding stupid square-jawed suckers, so easily fooled by real leaders like me, using their pure innocent patriotism against themselves. He looked at his watch, checked with his comm tech one more time, then said, “All right. Execute.”
In two different locations simultaneously, exactly-calculated shaped charges blew hatches open, leaving smoking holes but not collapsing the tunnels behind. Then tactical stacks of operators, heavily armored for this short-range op, piled into the tunnels in lockstep, rushing down the corridors toward their selected targets.
Alpha Team got to the big cavern first, and designated men spread out to find vehicles that could be started. Within fifteen seconds, six men roared up the vehicle tunnel toward the inside of the bunker’s main entrance, to open it to more forces outside.
The rest fanned out, quartering, searching and clearing each room, finding no one until they met Bravo team coming from the other direction, in what looked like a cafeteria. It was obvious the terrorists had prepared food here in the kitchen and eaten in the dining room. One of the soldiers reached down to pick up a crayon drawing of a truck in a tunnel under a mountain, a yellow sun shining incongruously above, its rays like petals of a flower.
“Patricks, if it ain’t intel, put it down. We got the whole place to clear.”
“But sir…” He held it up. “They didn’t say there were kids here.”
“Shit.” The lieutenant changed freqs to the general net, and transmitted, “Common push, this is Delta Alpha One, we have evidence of children here, over.”
A series of double-clicks and pops came in acknowledgment, but
nothing else. Chatter was discouraged, communications discipline was strict. Alpha Team spread out, with one more thing to think about. Nobody wanted to kill kids.
***
My next awakening was brief. I heard the door open, saw the barrel of some kind of gun pointed my way, heard a hiss and felt the sting of a dart. It was a blessed relief from the twisting in my belly and the pain that ran through my starving, concentration-camp body.
I came around in a different environment completely, an IV in my arm and a feeling of well-being coursing through me. I lifted my left hand. It looked thin, but not skeletal anymore. They must have fed me through the IV, or maybe stuck a feeding tube down my throat while I was sedated.
This place looked more like a hospital room, though I noticed locked restraints on my legs. I also felt heavy, tired and a bit euphoric. Probably valium or some other kind of drug to keep me under control. It didn’t matter. It was out of my hands now. I had to just hope and pray that others could execute my plan. It was hard to be optimistic right now. I wondered how Elise and the rest were doing.
***
Thirty-five minutes later, the major in charge of the Delta squadron reported the bunker was clear. “No one at all secured, though, sir,” he said to Jenkins, who slammed his console in frustration.
“Drive us in there, now. I want to see this place. And tell the intel people to get in there immediately and start figuring out where they went!”
The command truck lurched into motion, joining the convoy of military and government vehicles rolling into the mountainside entrance. The cavern soon filled up with two dozen Humvees, trucks, vans, and Suburbans, parked haphazardly among the old five-ton trucks and ancient jeeps. Men in combat fatigues mingled with groups in biohazard suits. There were reports of a laboratory, and a body on ice, and they were taking no chances.
As the last of the vehicles passed through the inner tunnel archway, they felt a shock go through the mountainside. A rolling wave of dust flowed out of the big tube, chasing the trucks, and the people inside moved en masse toward the personnel doors away from the cloud.
“Don’t worry, the virus won’t let them kill us,” Jenkins said with a confidence he didn’t really feel.
“Not on purpose,” muttered one of the techs.
The executive stepped onto the back bumper of the command vehicle, looking around at the confusion. It quickly sorted itself out without his intervention. These people were professionals, and as soon as it was clear that the roof wasn’t coming down, they kept on with their business.
Two minutes later, smoking a cigarette inside the nearest bunker office, Jenkins heard a series of smaller blasts. Immediately, the overhead sprinkler system burst forth with a fine rain of water.
“Oh, come on.” He looked at his soaked cigarette, then threw it down. “Somebody get that turned off! We can’t work in this!” He ran back to the command vehicle, taking off his suit coat and grabbing some paper towels, drying off. “At least it will settle the dust.”
He ran the soaking papers over his face, and then froze. Stared at the soggy mess in his hand like it was a snake getting ready to bite. “No…” he whispered, as he smelled the slightly sweet cloying odor that he knew from before, in the laboratory of INS, Inc. The odor of the virus breeder gel, generated by the decomposing unicellular organisms that had been burned out, used up by the turbocharged metabolism imposed by the Eden Plague.
He slumped in the contoured seat. It was too late. There was no way he could get out – no way he could avoid the infection. There was only one thing he could do, and he had to do it right now, while his mind was still his own.
Before his resolve failed.
“Major, I need to see you in the command vehicle.”
The Delta commander trotted up, wiping liquid off his face. “Sorry, sir. I was looking at this.” He held up a box full of papers.
“Come in, Major. Shut the door. You guys, take a break. Go to the john or something.” The other three men left, giving them privacy.
“What is that?”
The major reached into the box, showing him a thick stack of waxy pieces of paper, the name of the world’s foremost private package company on the backs. “I think they are those things that are left after you put address and customs stickers on packages.”
Jenkins stared at the scores of sheets in the man’s hand, the hundreds in the box, and he knew in that moment that they had already lost. They had failed, and he didn’t want to live in a world where he’d wrecked the train so badly; nor one where in a few hours his infected brain would be begging to please admit what a mistake he made, and ask forgiveness of someone; nor one where he would cheerfully give up all his enormous wealth and privilege so he could slave for the good of mankind.
A world where he didn’t get to torture Daniel Markis, or even hate him for winning the game.
“Major, I have some terrible news.” He stared at the man for a moment, until he had his full, weighty attention. “I have made a horrible mistake. This liquid dispensed out of the sprinklers is filled with the biological weapon. Everyone inside is now in the first stages of infection. If any one of us gets out of here, he could spread the disease, and millions will die. Our families will die. The United States might not survive it. We have only one choice.” He spoke the lie with complete conviction.
The major licked his lips, wiping his mouth convulsively, eyes bulging. He took a deep breath, straightened up, and finally said, “Yes, sir. I understand.”
“Not everyone will have the fortitude you do. Even if your men maintain discipline, some of the others won’t. So before we become incapacitated, your men must seal off all exits, permanently. Use explosives, collapse the tunnels.”
“That will be easy. The terrorists already did most of it for us. That was the explosions you heard.”
Jenkins sat back in relief. “Good. They did us a favor. They wanted us to think ourselves trapped and try to escape, not realizing that the sense of duty of good men like ourselves would keep us here anyway. We will maintain discipline and work as long as we can, and we will see if some miracle cure will come to us, but for now, just make sure no one leaves.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jenkins dismissed the major and then got out of the vehicle. The sprinkler system had run out of liquid. The air smelled like dirt and sweet cloying humidity, and the ground was covered with a thin layer of mud. His shoes made squelching sounds as he walked across to the armored sedan.
A back door opened, and he slid inside next to the National Security Advisor. The man had an old-fashioned car-telephone handset pressed to his ear.
“Yes, Mister President. One moment please sir. What is it?”
“You have him on the line?”
“Yes, the ultra-wideband repeaters we planted were able to find their way through the rock fall.”
“Good,” Jenkins said. “Put us on speaker, please? Mister President, we have a situation.”
Nineteen minutes later the B2 Spirit stealth heavy bombers orbiting above certain locations released their special payloads.
A new sun briefly blossomed in the West Virginia mountains. Then another, larger one in Los Angeles. The President came on nationwide television almost immediately, preempting all broadcast channels.
“My fellow Americans: A few minutes ago, terrorists detonated an improvised nuclear device in Los Angeles, California, and another in rural West Virginia. They have attacked a cruise ship in the Atlantic ocean, and all aboard were lost. There may be more attacks to come. Ladies and gentlemen, we must act now.”
“Therefore, in consultation with, and with the full support and ratification of both houses of Congress, the United States is declared, as of this moment, under martial law.”
***
Vinny Nguyen drove the old jeep through the West Virginia nighttime, northwestward toward Pittsburg, Cleveland, and eventually Canada, he hoped. He should meet up there with the rest of the community, who had filtered out of the bunker
over the last week.
He had dug his way through the last few feet of soft dirt after he had triggered the explosions that sealed Jenkins and his people in, and then wirelessly activated the modern electronic valves that flooded the complex with contaminated fluid. He smiled as he thought about the trap he had laid, and the flawless way his systems functioned.
At least he died happy as blackest night turned to atomic day.
***
The video went viral less than an hour after the nuclear explosions. Despite the best efforts of the National Security Agency, US Cyber Command and every other arm of the US Government, it was posted and reposted to servers all over the world, to social networking pages, to websites and just simply e-mailed to people everywhere.
DJ Markis’ face looked at the camera, calm and composed. He smiled briefly, looked down at his script, and then spoke in a strong, confident voice.
Hello, my fellow homo sapiens. I’m Daniel John Markis, and I’m here to tell you about a better world.
But before that world arrives, there will be some problems. Your own governments and leaders will try to suppress this video and the knowledge in it. But it won’t work. Information wants to be free.
Then they will try to suppress the miracles. But that won’t work either. The miracles have already been sent to too many places.
You will have heard scattered reports by now of miraculous cures of terminal illnesses, in Central America and Mexico, in Los Angeles, in the US State of Georgia, in Bermuda and many other places. But the miracles are right next door to you now.
Over one thousand packages have been sent by private service to hospitals in a thousand cities around the world. The greatest number were sent to places where poverty and disease is rampant – to places like Calcutta and Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro and Cairo and Cape Town, as well as the great centers of civilization like New York and London and Paris and Moscow and Beijing.
The Eden Plague Page 19
