by A. G. Riddle
“Not if we find it first,” Desmond said. “We find the cure, we stop them.”
He walked to the corkboard. “Rapture Therapeutics. Rook Quantum Sciences. Rendition Games. Phaethon Genetics. Labyrinth Reality. CityForge. Charter Antarctica. Those are my companies. They were Citium projects for sure. The cure could be housed at one of these locations or at another Citium company.”
“It’s possible,” William said, “but unlikely. I think the cure will have been developed and manufactured somewhere way off the beaten path. Outside an urban area, probably in the third world, where satellite coverage is minimal.”
“The Isle of Citium,” Peyton said. “In your journal, you said the Beagle stopped there periodically. It fits.”
William nodded. “It’s certainly a candidate, but not my first choice, for several reasons. One: whoever controls the Citium knows I’m still alive—and that I know about the Isle. Two: I’ve been monitoring it via publicly available satellite imagery. I haven’t seen any activity.”
Avery spoke up. “For locations that are considered uninhabited, those satellite images might only be updated every two or three years. Annually at best. The chance of spotting a supply ship arriving or leaving would be low.”
“True,” William said. “That’s a reason to suspect the Isle. My final reason is more practical. The Isle is exceedingly hard for us to investigate. It’s halfway around the world. Getting there will take us a long time, and will probably require refueling—and that’s the easiest issue. If, in fact, the Isle is where the cure was developed and manufactured, it will be extremely well guarded.” He motioned to the group. “We are four people. They’d know the moment we landed on the Isle, and we’d likely be facing a very large defensive contingent.”
“We could make contact with the UK government,” Peyton said.
“True,” her father replied. “But convincing them to believe what we’re saying might be a challenge—if they listen to us at all. They’re likely struggling to survive. We need to act. We need proof before we go to any government for help.”
“Let’s back up,” Desmond said. “Are there any Citium projects or companies that deal with infectious diseases or could be related to starting an outbreak?”
“Not during my time within the organization. If I had known any Citium members were doing anything even remotely like that, I would have turned them over to the authorities, and I’m not the only one. In fact, some of us were working specifically to prevent an outbreak or act of bioterror.”
“How?” Peyton asked.
“It was Yuri Pachenko’s project. I wasn’t privy to the details, but I know he was designing what he called an adaptive antivirus: an agent that could be trained to recognize a virus and bind it, neutralizing it in the body. That might be the Citium cure.”
“Yuri Pachenko,” Desmond said. “He recruited me to the Citium.”
William froze. “So he’s alive.”
“He was in 2002 anyway. That’s my last memory of him.”
“All these years, I wondered if he had died in the purge.”
“Is he an ally?” Peyton asked.
“Perhaps,” William said. “Whoever controls the Citium now may have taken Yuri’s research and completed it. Or perhaps the cure is something else entirely. Yuri may be dead by now.”
Desmond noticed Avery eyeing him. Thanks to his comment about Yuri, she now knew that he had recovered his memories—and hadn’t told her. Her expression was unreadable, somewhere between nervousness and anger—or possibly betrayal.
He tried to steer the conversation back to the task at hand. “What about Rapture Therapeutics? They were doing research into bacteriophages with the potential to eliminate brain plaques in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Could it be related?”
William thought for a moment. “I don’t think we know enough yet. The pandemic is certainly part of a larger end game—the ultimate outcome being the Looking Glass. How Rapture ties in isn’t clear to me.”
“Maybe there’s a way to find out.” Desmond held up his cell phone. “There’s the location from the Labyrinth Reality app. My childhood home in Australia. What if the information we need is in one of my memories located there?”
Avery spoke quickly, as if eager to shoot the idea down. “That’s a pretty big leap.”
“I have to agree with Avery,” William said. “Furthermore, the location is a problem. It will take us a great deal of time to get there—and it’s remote. If the plane is low on fuel, we could be stranded. I think it’s too far away. And we have a better candidate.”
William walked over to the laptop in the kitchen and opened it.
“Five years ago, I bribed an IT employee at an international shipping company. I gave him the names of the Citium subsidiaries and shell companies I knew about. He provided records of any shipments paid for by the organizations or shipped to or from their locations. At first, I thought it was a bust. But one location intrigued me.”
William opened an application Desmond wasn’t familiar with. On the left hand side of the screen was a series of satellite images, each one dated; on the right was a world map with glowing dots. William clicked a dot south of Russia, right at the border of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. An overhead image appeared: a small island on an inland sea.
“Several Citium-controlled companies were sending shipments to this site: Vozrozhdeniya Island. The Russian doesn’t translate well, but it’s roughly ‘Rebirth Island’ or ‘Renaissance Island.’ A fitting name. In 1948, the Soviet Union built a top-secret bioweapons lab on the island. They expanded it in 1954, when it was renamed Aralsk-7. The Soviets’ Microbiological Warfare Group operated there, testing some of the world’s most lethal pathogens. In 1971, they accidentally released a weaponized form of smallpox. Ten people were infected; three died. Could have been a lot worse. People who worked at Aralsk-7 have admitted to working on anthrax spores and strains of bubonic plague—both of which were weaponized.
“The site was officially shut down in 1991. All the military and civilian personnel were evacuated. The town on the island, Kantubek, which had housed fifteen hundred people who worked at the facility, became a ghost town. That’s why I was so surprised that the Citium was flying shipments into the island. Public satellite imagery showed no activity, but as Avery noted previously, for unpopulated areas, the images aren’t updated frequently. I found a commercial satellite company that provided private imaging, and those images proved that the activity at the site has continued—until recently.”
William clicked an image. “These are from the past month.”
He hit the right arrow key, moving through the set. In the first image, the buildings on the island were lit. Desmond could just make out five figures at various points around the perimeter, wisps of smoke rising from what looked like cigarettes, dogs on leashes close beside them. In the next image, a convoy of trucks was backed up to a loading dock. Then the trucks were gone, but the guards were still there. In the final image, Desmond saw no signs of life, only darkened buildings.
“Does it show where the trucks went?” Avery asked.
“No,” William replied. “The satellite contract was only for a limited coverage area. I assume they loaded the cargo onto a train in Uzbekistan.”
That surprised Desmond. “I thought you said they were on an island?”
“It was an island—until 2001. The Aral Sea has been shrinking since the sixties. The Soviets diverted the rivers feeding the Aral Sea for irrigation projects. It’s now about ten percent of its original size. In fact, it’s just four large lakes at this point.”
William turned to the group. “Overall, I think Aralsk-7 would be a perfect site to create the virus. The necessary infrastructure is already there. It’s isolated. It can be defended. The land is split between the border of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Either or both nations could have leased it to the Citium. And, the southern part of the island now has a land bridge to Uzbekistan, offering ground transport.”
Desmond motioned toward the laptop. “But it looks like they’re gone.”
“Precisely,” William said. “We know something’s there—or was until recently. The evacuation of Aralsk-7 coincides with the outbreak—which means they no longer needed it at the exact moment the virus was released. And, with only four of us, it’s a site we have a reasonable chance of infiltrating. Even if there’s a small guard contingent remaining, we’ll have the element of surprise.”
“If they’ve evacuated the site,” Peyton said, “what’s our objective?”
“Information,” William answered. “We’re looking for a list of sites where they shipped the cure. We find that, we’ll have something to send to governments around the world. And if we don’t find that, maybe a sample of the cure. Perhaps it can be reverse engineered.”
“Are there any other sites that could be potential candidates?” Desmond asked.
“No. Well, nothing this close. To me, Aralsk-7 is our best move.” William scanned the room, prompting the others to weigh in.
“I like it better than the Isle. And a lot more than Des’s childhood home,” Avery said.
“Same here,” Peyton said.
“Okay,” Desmond said. He felt drawn to the Labyrinth location at his childhood home. He desperately wanted to know what was there—what he had left behind. But he knew William’s plan was their best hope of stopping the pandemic. That was the priority. His own answers would have to wait. “So how do we get in?”
William pointed to what looked like a starburst carved in the brown terrain.
“What is that?” Avery asked.
“Four runways intersecting; only airport like it in Russia.”
“Why would they intersect like that?”
“The weather on the island changes frequently. Wind direction shifts. Depending on the wind, you have to use a different runway. It’s not exactly an easy landing.”
Avery looked at the ceiling. “Wonderful.”
Day 12
5,600,000,000 infected
6,000,000 dead
Chapter 85
At CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Millen Thomas walked to the Biosafety Level Four laboratory deep inside the building. He stopped at the iris scan and held his head still. When the lock clicked, he pushed the door open.
The entire lab was a self-contained space with twelve-inch-thick concrete walls and a sixteen-inch-thick concrete floor with heavy steel reinforcement. The place was capable of withstanding an earthquake. By necessity, it also had its own air supply. Decontamination procedures involved flooding the space with vaporized hydrogen peroxide or formaldehyde.
In the clothing room, Millen grabbed a pair of surgical scrubs, socks, and underwear from the wire rack. He changed in the locker room, stowing every article of his own clothing. Glasses were the only personal item allowed inside the lab.
In the suit room, he taped his socks to the scrubs. He laid a positive pressure suit on the steel table, attached it to the air supply, and inflated it to check for any leaks. Even a small puncture could be deadly.
Upon landing in the US, the CDC had held him at the airport while they tested him for the virus. The CDC and health agencies worldwide were now calling it “X1-Mandera,” as tests had confirmed that the flu and the hemorrhagic fever were in fact caused by the same virus, which mutated inside the body. Millen had breathed a sigh of relief when his results came back negative. He wasn’t about to take any chances of getting infected now.
When he was sure the suit was airtight, he disconnected the hose, taped his inner gloves to his scrubs and checked them for punctures, then slid into the suit and donned the helmet. He braced himself on the bar-height steel table while pulling on a pair of rubber boots.
The entrance to the lab reminded him of the entrance to a spaceship. A door with a keypad loomed. He punched in his code and watched the red light turn green. The door opened with a pop, and Millen shuffled in and made his way across the room, past several researchers hunched over computers and microscopes. He connected his suit to a hose hanging down, then activated the speaker.
“How’re you feeling today?”
Halima sat up on the bed, recognized Millen’s face through the helmet, and smiled. “Good.”
“Are they treating you okay?”
“Yes.” She pointed to a portable DVD player lying on the bed. On the table behind her was a stack of DVD box sets including seasons of Seinfeld, LOST, Alias, 24, and The Big Bang Theory. “They brought me some TV to watch. It’s incredible.”
The other villager, Tian, the young boy who didn’t speak English, was asleep on the bed beside Halima’s.
“How’s the food?” Millen asked.
“Fine.”
She glanced at the suited researchers behind Millen. “Are they close to finding a cure?”
He knew they had made little progress—and that the last few days had been pretty tough on the Kenyan teenager.
“They’re very optimistic,” he said. That was a bit of a stretch, but the truth seemed too harsh for what she was going through. “We appreciate what you’re doing very much, Halima.”
“I’m glad to do it.” She held up the small DVD player. “Wanna watch LOST? I’m on season two. They just got in the hatch.”
“Wish I could. My shift is about to start. I’ll come back after though, okay?”
Outside the lab, with his suit still on, Millen waded into the chemical shower that lasted three minutes. After doffing the suit, he showered his body, which was covered in sweat, and changed back into his clothes in the locker room.
Many of the offices in the building had been converted to bedrooms where staffers like Millen now lived. He wondered how long they’d be there. Everyone at CDC headquarters was stressed and sleep deprived, but also incredibly focused. They all knew that the next few days would determine the fate of the world. For those like Millen, who had seen firsthand what the X1-Mandera virus could do, there was an added sense of urgency.
Everyone working and living in the building had tested negative for the X1-Mandera virus. Some were CDC employees, but the vast majority had been assembled from the Department of Defense, Department of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, and FEMA. There were a lot of new faces, and the place was chaos most of the time, but Millen was glad for the work. It kept his mind off Hannah—a little anyway. It was a losing battle though. He constantly came up with scenarios in which she was still alive. He imagined her escaping whoever had raided the village. Or that her captors had fallen sick, and now, being a physician, she was in charge; they needed her, couldn’t kill her. Above all else, Millen wished he could turn back the clock and take her with him that morning when he went to the cave. Or at least say a proper goodbye.
He pushed the thoughts out of his mind as he entered the Emergency Operations Center. He needed to be focused for his shift. He signed in and walked past the giant screen that displayed all the cordon zones across the US. Real-time stats displayed requests for supplies and personnel.
Not a single operator sat idle; a hundred conversations were going at once. They all began with, “BioShield Ops.”
A shift supervisor was rerouting a transfer truck full of medical supplies from the cordon in Durham, North Carolina to the one in Cary.
Riots had broken out in San Antonio; troops were being sent from Austin, and the CDC was routing additional medical staff with proper training.
Near Tulsa, a barge carrying oral rehydration salts had sunk.
In the conference room, the other shift supervisors were gathering for the mandatory meeting that took place an hour before their shift began. Millen braced himself for the updates; they were usually bad news. He sat down in one of the rolling leather chairs and waited.
Days ago, he’d watched Doctors Shaw and Shapiro attend a meeting in the same conference room. He had sat in the auditorium then, watching the people at the long conference table discuss decisions that would affect thousands, possibly millions, of lives. Now he w
as in the same position, literally. The weight of the responsibility was daunting, but there was nowhere he’d rather be.
The head of watch strode in and closed the door. His name was Phillip Stevens, and he was a senior epidemiologist at the CDC who had also been deployed to Kenya. Phil had led the contingent assigned to investigate the Mandera airport. His group had been evacuated after Millen’s team was attacked. He was tall, with short blond hair, and didn’t beat around the bush or mince words. Millen liked him.
“Okay, I’ve got some important updates. First, we’re adding six new supervisors.” He pointed to the video camera at the back of the room. “Like each of you, they’ll have twelve operators. Their folks will work in the auditorium. IT has worked double-time to get it set up. That should ease some of the excess call volume.
“Last watch recorded a sharp increase in X1-Mandera fatalities.” Stevens glanced at a page. “New York, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, and DC all report over four thousand deaths each. All told, at cordon sites nationwide, we saw over sixty thousand deaths in the past eight hours. There were only twelve thousand deaths during the shift before that. So we’re looking at the start of a potentially rapidly increasing fatality rate.”
Stevens paused. “That, in addition to what I’m about to show you, requires us to change our current approach. In thirty minutes, at your own pre-shift meetings, you’re going to brief your staff on this decision. It may be the hardest conversation you’ll ever have to have. Some may refuse to carry out our orders. There’s a plan for that. The worst part is, you can’t tell them the full truth about why we’re doing what we’re about to do.
“The truth is this: we have suspected for several days that the X1-Mandera pandemic was an act of bioterrorism. We know now that it was. We know who did it, and we know what they want.”
Chapter 86
Elliott stood in his study, watching the BioShield convoy creep down the street. They usually came every afternoon and distributed food and medicine. Today they were early, and they weren’t distributing food. They were taking people with them, loading them on yellow school buses as they had before. The National Guard, Army, Navy, Marine, and Air Force troops studied tablets outside the buses. They were apparently immune—they didn’t wear space suits, and they displayed no caution as they herded the people onto the bus, often touching and shoving them. Their warm breath came out in clouds of white steam as they worked.
