Chapter 41
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Atlanta
The first reports of an unknown outbreak in Papua New Guinea trickled in. The first came from the Vatican, alerting the center to a call they had received from a mission based along the Sepik River. A very agitated nun had called them, claiming that everyone was dead. She was unable to give much detail such was her state of distress. Within an hour, another call from a similar area had relayed a similar message.
By the fourth call, less than three hours later, the quality of the message had improved. Medecins Sans Frontières, the leading French humanitarian aid organization, had relayed a message from two of their doctors in the field, using the words ‘extinction level event’. Unfortunately, the call was received just as YouTube footage of the mummified remains of an entire village hit the internet.
The CDC’s state of the art phone system instantly crashed when the world hit the panic button.
Major General Paul Lockhart MD, recently appointed as the new director of the CDC by President Mitchell, welcomed his crisis management team into his office.
“What do we know?” he asked, pushing a number of packing boxes out of the way to allow his team to sit down.
“Very little so far, and none of which we’ve been able to verify beyond the YouTube video that’s now been taken offline. Reports are of a virus of unknown origin wiping out entire communities in less than twelve hours,” said the department head for the Australasian region.
“Twelve hours? That can’t be right,” he said, walking around the table. He liked to walk and think. “It can’t be a virus then!”
If anyone knew it couldn’t be virus, it was Lockhart, former head of the USAMRMC unit at Fort Detrick, historically more famous for trying to create the type of virus he was now tasked with defeating.
“I can’t agree more,” said his head of Virology. There’s no virus on earth capable of that level of contagion, fatality and timescale.”
“Or certainly none we’re aware of. We’re probably dealing with one of the least explored corners of the world. There’re probably animals, insects and flora in there that we don’t even know exist yet.”
“Where is the affected area?”
An overlarge map was quartered to allow it to fit on the table; the portion on view stretched from Australia to South China.
“There,” said the deputy, pointing to the Northeast sector of Papua New Guinea. The area was a mass of green.
“Do we not have a map with better detail, the towns, roads transport links…?”
“This is detailed,” the deputy interrupted, pointing to the coastal towns of Aitape and Vanimo. We’re dealing with a region that is almost entirely inhabited by tribal clans, living a subsistence life on the river banks.” He put his finger on the Sepik River and traced along its length. “This is their highway, their lifeline, and major food source,” he said.
“So we’re dealing with an area almost entirely cut off from the outside world.”
“I’d go so far as to say that they are cut off. If you’re not using the river, you’d have to trek through hundreds of miles of mountainous and dense jungle to reach the coastal towns.”
“Do we know what the situation is with containment?”
“The river is blocked to traffic and quarantine stations are in place, although I believe they’re poorly manned. Papua New Guinea is not known for its military might.”
“Potentially, we’re facing the deadliest virus known to man and it happens here,” he pointed to the map. “Where, with one river being blocked, it’s being contained?”
“It would appear so,” replied the deputy, as skeptical as Lockhart.
“Great place to test a bio-weapon,” he pondered out loud.
“There are approaching 700,000 people potentially affected,” added one of the group.
“So it really is a great place to test a bio-weapon. We’re talking medieval style tribal villagers. Living in close proximity, all drinking the same water and most importantly, buried deep in a jungle that the world knows little about.”
“And will remember even less about in a week from now.”
“Are we talking genocide here?”
“It still happens— Cambodia, Rwanda, the Balkans, Darfur and Tibet, to name a recent few. Whatever the case, we need boots on the ground and fast!”
***
Bea Noble, head of Atlas Noble’s pharmaceutical and medical division, watched carefully as the first results of their experiment were displayed. The unmanned drones hung silently above the area recording every minute of the event via their sensitively balanced infrared cameras. Able to penetrate through the roofs of the simple homes, the infrared could record the impact while the crop duster style aircraft flew the length of the river spraying its deadly load. It didn’t take long; the white bodies that glowed in the monitor began to change to a deep red, to over 110 degrees Fahrenheit as their bodies reacted to the spray. The water molecules were grabbing every ounce of energy from the bodies and evaporating. The red glow was the bodies cooking in their own steam. One after another, the images reddened and then slowly returned to their original white and shortly afterwards disappeared from the screen, their temperature having dropped to below that of a living being. The spray had worked.
Bea watched intensely as they tracked the river, like the crop duster had done before. One after another, the villages died in front of them. Tens of thousands, then a hundred thousand, two and then three hundred thousand human beings died in front of their eyes. Bea could hardly take her eyes from the screen. The genetic soup she had mixed, as described in the ancient scrolls supplied by Anya from her archives, had performed perfectly. Even down to the few anomalies that still glowed white. The charity workers and missionaries lay untouched and unaware of the pestilence of a biblical scale that had visited their villages that night.
Bea thanked the three members of her inner team, the only ones aware of what the real purpose of their trip had been. They were all Nobles. Nobody outside of the family could have been trusted, nor would ever be, with the truth of their operation. One other member was required to be congratulated. Her son, the pilot of the aircraft. A thump above told her he had arrived. She exited the operations center and made her way up the tight and confusing galleyways onto the deck. The C-2A Grumman was taxiing to the far end of the aircraft carrier as the sun rose over a perfectly still Southern Pacific Ocean.
To the rest of the crew on board, he was arriving to join the Atlas Noble Trust’s vital work in assisting the poverty stricken regions of the world. The former aircraft carrier destined for the British Royal Navy had been sold even before it had been built. The ship was a convenient casualty of the recession and Atlas Noble had purchased it and redesigned it to meet their humanitarian needs, creating the world’s most advanced floating hospital with an airwing capable of reaching into almost any part of the world to assist those most in need. Able to sit off the coast, its Grumman C-2As could reach into the heart of countries, far beyond the range of helicopters, delivering medical assistance wherever it was required.
Staffed with almost a thousand doctors and nurses and fitted with the most advanced operating theatres, laboratories and equipment, there was little the floating hospital couldn’t tackle.
There was only one thing that could make the operation more of a success. As the news began to break of the tragedy, Bea headed back to the operations center and picked up a phone.
It took her a few tries to eventually get through. The lines were jammed.
“General Lockhart, please,” she requested.
“I’m sorry, he’s in a meeting at the moment,” replied his secretary apologetically. “May I take your name and ask him to call you back?”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind being interrupted, it is very important.”
“I’m very sorry, Madam, but the only person I’m authorized to interrupt him for is the President.”
“If you wish me to disturb the President just to get him on the phone so be it, but then I’ll be interrupting the President as well,” Bea replied more sarcastically than she had intended.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”
“Bea Noble, I head up Atlas Noble Pharma—”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Noble, I’ll put you straight through,” replied the secretary. “Bea,” said Lockhart louder than necessary. He wanted to let his team know who’d interrupted their meeting.
“Paul, how are you my darling?” oozed Bea, who had known him for many years.
“Worried…”
“I can guess why,” she said, cutting to the chase. “That’s why I’m calling, to offer our assistance.”
“Your assistance?”
“Our hospital ship is only a few hundred miles from the affected area.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Nope, fully manned and as you’re aware, with some of the foremost specialists in the field. We’re good to go and ready for action.”
“I bet they are,” he joked. “Considering you secured them almost entirely from Detrick and CDC.”
“That’s why they’re the best,” she schmoozed.
“Can you hold?”
Lockhart covered the mouthpiece and turned to his team, relaying the information. “Their ship is as advanced as any facility we have on land, it even has a level four biosafety lab and the staff to man it.”
A number of nods rushed around the table. Having that type of facility within such a short range was a godsend and would allow them to work in real time without having to ferry samples back to the US for analysis. BIO safety level four was the highest level of safety and was required for working with the world’s most deadly and contagious diseases.
“That would be fantastic,” he said. “I’ll just need to get you security and presidential clearance for you to act on our behalf before we arrive but I’m sure that’ll be nothing more than a formality.”
“We have a detachment of security on board that can secure any location in the short term. As for presidential clearance, I’m happy to give Dave a call,” said Bea. Her use of the President’s first name wasn’t missed, along with the casualness with which she delivered it. It had been a long time since Lockhart had heard anyone call the President ‘Dave’.
“I’ll call him,” said Lockhart. “I need to update him anyway. I’m sending a team to your location. They’ll fly in via Guam. If you could give Guam your coordinates that would be great.”
“Of course. I’ll get a team in there and start relaying whatever we find. I’ll have my IT boys give your teams back at CDC access to our systems. You can monitor real time whatever we find.”
“You’re a lifesaver and in this instance, it couldn’t be truer!” Bea smiled when the call ended. It couldn’t have worked out better. Atlas Noble was to run the operation of understanding what had caused the genocide of the Iamult people.
Chapter 42
Sophie passed on Cash’s offer and after a quick shower was joining him and Rigs in the fight for transport off the Machu Picchu Mountain. The bus service, constrained to the single and winding treacherous path, was buckling under pressure from tourists to flee the deadly scene. Fortunately, the authorities were having as much trouble reaching it as the tourists had leaving it. By the time the scene was sealed, Cash, Sophie and Rigs were already sitting on a train heading back to Cusco. When the carriage began to move, they caught their breath for the first time.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” asked Cash.
Sophie nodded. “Amazingly, yes,” she said, surprising herself, given what she had just witnessed.
“It would be perfectly understandable if you weren’t,” said Cash.
“I think my mind is far too preoccupied to compute it rationally,” she said turning to him. “It’s like my father’s death. I’m grieving but I know the real pain will come at some point.”
Cash nodded, along with Rigs, it made perfect sense.
“And let’s not forget they were going to kill us,” said Sophie after a pause, “which gives me even more reason to believe that what we are doing is vital. I won’t let my emotions be the reason we fail.”
Rigs closed his eyes. Travelling was a chance to sleep and he seldom missed the opportunity to switch off and fully relax, something he wasn’t capable of doing while awake.
Cash had been the only one to benefit from a night’s sleep. He stared at Sophie as she too closed her eyes, in awe as to how well she was coping. She was one tough and very beautiful woman.
She opened her eyes and stared right at him, aware of his eyes on her. She smiled. “Wake me up just before we get to Cusco. There’s somewhere else we need to go!”
“It’s not straight through. We need to get a taxi from Sacred Valley.”
“The taxi can do a detour on our way to the airport.” She closed her eyes and was asleep in seconds, leaving Cash alone with his thoughts of what could have been. He looked at Rigs. Had he not run out fifteen years earlier, they’d never have met. Rigs never would have lasted in the Marines without him. Without that structure, who knew what would have happened to him. Before Cash, Rigs had no one. No one understood him, his family certainly didn’t, and had had him institutionalized the second they could.
The day he had arrived at the Officer’s Candidate School would have been his last, had it not been for Cash’s intervention. They had found each other. Cash was an emotional wreck after his mistaken assumption about Sophie and his father and was keen to find anything to take his mind off of it. Jake Miller (Rigs) had slunk into the class, a tall, powerful young man, similar in size and build to Cash. Whereas Cash stood ramrod straight and proud, Rigs hung loose, his head angled to the floor, his eyes focused intently on a spot four feet in front of him.
When the candidates were told to pair up, Cash made straight for Rigs. He had no idea why. He just did. Perhaps it was a loneliness he felt after losing Sophie that he saw in Rigs. Perhaps it was his upbringing. Cash never liked to see anyone left out. A kid growing up without a mother produced its own complexities. Whatever the case, he had introduced himself and had received a whispered response. From that moment on, they were inseparable. Both were superb athletes and excelled during training, where Rigs came to life. His mind, preoccupied with the job in hand, freed itself sufficiently to allow Rigs to prove how superb a Marine he could be. Written exercises proved no problem either. Rigs was a highly intelligent student and was within touching distance of Cash’s almost perfect scores. As a team, they were unstoppable. They shattered previous records and set a benchmark for others to aspire to. As individuals, Cash was as highly regarded as any candidate in the history of the Corps. Rigs, however, caused great concern. As a Marine in the face of action, he was second to none, fearless, skilled and expert in almost every conceivable method of killing a person. As an officer in charge of a day to day platoon, he was an unmitigated liability. He simply could not communicate with his platoon unless in the heat of battle. Otherwise, he retreated into himself, avoiding eye contact and wherever possible using Cash as his method of communication.
In theory, he should have been failed. His interpersonal skills were not fit for purpose as a Marine officer. In practice, he was one of the most complete fighting Marines they had ever had the pleasure to train.
The decision was Cash’s, if he were willing to accept the solution they had envisaged. Where Cash went, Rigs would follow, they were to be an inseparable team.
It was a no brainer for Cash. Rigs had opened up to Cash like he had never with anyone before. His rich family had effectively cast him aside at the age of ten. Boarding schools, camps, the family lodge with Uncle Bill. They did anything to keep their dysfunctional child away from their perfect life. Until he had met Cash, the only person with whom he had any type of normality was Uncle Bill. He and Bill had spent summers hunting and fishing and it was thanks to Uncle Bill that Rigs had destroyed almost every shooting
record in the officer candidate school. His parents replaced love with money in an attempt to assuage their guilt, which, from the size of Rigs’ trust fund, was significant. However, nothing could replace the love that parents should lavish on a child. Thanks to Cash, Rigs finally felt he had a family. And thanks to Rigs, up until very recently, Cash had felt the same.
He looked at Sophie sleeping peacefully, and realized he was still very much part of a very loving family, one he had walked out on fifteen years earlier. Had he not, though, Rigs, the man he looked on as his brother, would not have been sitting by Sophie’s side. The world really did work in mysterious ways.
The train slowed down, jostling his companions awake. Dilemmas would be left for another time. They exited quickly and secured one of the few taxis that awaited the train’s arrival. A two-hour drive lay ahead of them. Sophie gave the destination - the airport via Saksaywaman. Rigs sniggered to himself like a child.
“What?” asked Sophie. Rigs stared out of the taxi window refusing to engage.
“It sounded like you said, airport via sexy women,” explained Cash.
“Oh, well it’s nothing like that I’m afraid, boys,” she replied, a heavy emphasis on boys. She closed her eyes and drifted back off to sleep. On arrival, she barely paused for breath, leading the two men to a site that the professor had highlighted in his research notes.
“Don’t you need your equipment?” asked Cash. “No, nothing to measure here, just a wall to see!”
“Why?”
“I’d rather wait until later to explain that. In the meantime, just envisage the work required to build the walls you’re about to see and remember we’re talking six hundred years ago, or if your father’s research is correct, nearer two thousand years ago!”
“Holy shit!” said Cash when he caught sight of the three-tiered zig-zagging wall that formed the walls of an ancient fort.
The God Complex: A Thriller Page 20
