by JC Ryan
“JR, at dinner time, I want you and—what’s his name?”
“Jeff. You mean the cook’s assistant? Jeff.”
“I want you and Jeff to make sure everyone is comfortable, and then come to the mess hall. We have to decide what to do about the crew that’s due here on Sunday, and I’m going to need your help with Summers.”
“Okay, babe, I’ll be there.”
It was then that she realized she hadn’t yet reported to the CDC. She’d get the night shift, but at least someone would be there to take her report. After that, it was a matter of waiting for someone to help her.
Her call to the CDC was as satisfactory as a call to a government agency ever is, that is, not. After being shuffled from department to department, she threatened to call the State Department instead, since all of her patients were foreign citizens. That got her transferred to someone who was prepared to deal with her without passing the buck again.
“Five dead, forty-five ill, you say?”
“Yes, but these aren’t the only ones dead. Before we knew there was a problem, we rotated the entire crew home for two weeks, and five didn’t return. We now know they have died and fifteen members of their families are ill, along with seventy-five or more others who were unrelated. My employer, Daniel Rossler, attempted to report this a couple of days ago and was told a doctor must do it. I’m a doctor.”
“Two days ago! What took you so long?”
Rebecca took a deep breath to avoid losing her temper. “I have fifty sick patients in Antarctica, and no help. I’ve been a little busy.”
“Sorry, Dr. Mendenhall. Do you have information regarding who treated those who didn’t return to your base?”
“No, but my office does. Call the Rossler Foundation tomorrow morning and someone should be able to help you.”
“We’ll do that. Do you require anything of us in the way of direct help?”
“Not at this time. I understand that my employer is on his way with more medicine, equipment and medical personnel. We’ll keep you apprised of the situation as it develops. Please let me know immediately if you learn of anything that can halt this.”
“Yes, ma’am.” After giving instructions on phoning her or emailing her, Rebecca rang off and looked at her watch. Time to beard Dr. Summers in his den. Or rather, at the mess table.
~~~
“It’s out of the question, Charles. We can’t expose that many more people to this, whatever it is. You’ll have to halt the excavation until we have it under control,” Rebecca was firm, even though she was too weary to have this conversation.
“But, that may be too late! It’s already November. We simply don’t have the luxury of waiting this out.” Charles glared at Rebecca, while Robert, Cyndi, Angela, Nyree and JR looked on. The few remaining occupants of the mess hall were at a table by themselves several feet away, and the conversation at this table was taking place in intense whispers to avoid spreading panic.
“I’m afraid she’s right, Charles. We can reevaluate when my brother and the medical people get here,” said JR. “Until then, we can’t risk another entire crew. I’m going to wave them off for at least a week.”
“This will go in my report as your decision against my recommendation,” warned Charles.
“That’s fine,” said JR. “I’m used to being a scapegoat.” Protests broke out around the table, but JR kept his eyes steadily on Charles, until the other faltered.
“It’s settled then. Robert, what help do you need with your experiments, any?”
“Nothing Cyndi can’t help with, if she’s willing. I’m sorry to hear about Hakim, though. He was a good assistant. Can’t believe he’s gone.”
Nyree and Angela nodded, having lost their assistants, too. It wasn’t that they couldn’t conduct their studies without them, but that there wouldn’t be time for as much. Just then, Rebecca remembered el-Amin’s last words and asked Nyree about them.
“Nyree, Haraz said a few words just before he died, maybe you know what he was talking about. He said, ‘Light. I know.’”
At that, Nyree burst into tears and ran from the room, with the occupants of the other table staring after her in as much bewilderment as those at her own.
“I’m sorry,” Rebecca started. JR covered her hand on the table with his.
“Don’t be. I was afraid of that. I think they became closer than either would have admitted. Just give her some time.”
The table fell silent, each lost in his or her own thoughts, until Angela broke it. “Can we please talk about something other than illness and death?”
Everyone looked at her as if to encourage her to go on. “Robert, I can see you’ve marked a bunch of features on my map. What do all the symbols mean?” she asked.
“Oh, ah. You know we, er, I have been mapping the geothermal features as I find them.” He sketched symbols on his napkin as he continued. “This means hot springs, and the number beside it is the temperature as I measured it when I found the spring. This one means fumarole. And this one, will mean lava ooze if I find any. So far I haven’t.”
JR let out a whoosh of breath, then grinned at the others. “I just don’t like the idea of lava flows in the valley,” he explained.
“I’ve told you and told you, you drongo, this thing isn’t likely to erupt any time soon.”
“Still,” said JR.
“What’s a fumarole?” Rebecca asked, to change the subject.
“You might know it as a steam vent,” Robert answered.
“Are any of the hot springs something we could bathe in?” Summers asked, not to be outdone.
“Most are too small or too hot, or both,” Robert said. “But if I find one that would make a good spa, I’ll let you know. Charles, the first fumarole I found was thanks to your hospital excavation.”
“Oh? I don’t remember.”
“One of your crew came and got me one day and led me to it. It was near the center; I can’t believe you wouldn’t have noticed it.”
“Do you mean that little crack, with the moisture and algae around it?”
“That’s the one. Didn’t you notice steam coming out of it?”
“Not really. Is it a lot? Does it come out all the time?” asked Charles, more curious now than he wanted to admit.
“Well, not a lot, no. But pretty much constant. That’s why the edges are always moist.”
“Interesting,” Charles said, without elaborating.
As they got up to go their separate ways, JR spoke quietly for Charles’s ears only. A moment later, Charles approached Rebecca. “Er, I’m sorry I was so insistent,” he said. “I’m very eager to get this all done before anyone else has a crack at it, you know. But I shouldn’t have taken it out on you, you’re doing the best you can.”
Surprised, Rebecca answered with equal grace. “It’s all right, Charles. I know how much this means to you. I hope we have an answer soon so you can get back to work.”
That night as she prepared for bed, Rebecca realized that no new cases of the flu-like symptoms had presented since Wednesday morning, almost forty-eight hours. That prompted her to take a mental catalog of everyone who’d been at mess that evening, everyone who wasn’t sick, in other words, to make sure that no one was hidden in sleeping quarters, unable to call for help and not being missed. No, everyone was accounted for. No new cases, thank God. To be sure, she wrote down all the names of the symptomless occupants of the valley. Something struck her as she wrote them and checked them off. Not one Middle Eastern name was among them. Telling JR she’d be right back, she hurried to her office and checked her charts. She was right. Everyone who was sick was one of the work crew of Middle Eastern origin, though some had been recruited from the UK and the US. Not one who wasn’t sick was Middle Eastern. But, since when did a virus target someone based on their ethnic group? That wasn’t right, was it?
Rebecca returned to JR in their room. “I think I’ve discovered something, JR, but I don’t know what it means.”
“What is it?”
“This disease, this flu—it may only make Middle Eastern people sick. No one else here with us has gotten sick. What could that mean?” She looked up at his face. JR had turned white and was staring at her in shock.
“It means jihad,” he said.
Chapter 14 - What kind of hell had they dug up down there?
In Boulder, Sarah was sitting in for Daniel, little Nick crawling around the office contentedly. Sally was due any minute to pick him up for a play date with the horses, but he was a good baby and Sarah knew she could handle things until her aunt arrived. Nick had found a plastic model of the Great Pyramid and was trying to eat it when Sarah took the call from the CDC.
“Sarah Rossler.”
“Ah, Mrs. Rossler. I understand we are to communicate with you in your husband’s absence?” Sarah repressed a sigh. She and Daniel were actually co-Directors of the Foundation, and her proper title was Dr. Rossler, but her nine-month absence while on maternity and new mom leave had undermined her visibility, it seemed.
“Yes, you may speak to me. Do you have anything to report on the nature of this disease?” she asked.
“No, ma’am, that hasn’t been determined. I’m calling to update you on the death toll and the number infected, now that we have an accurate count. We were able to trace the movements of the index cases. It’s rather unusual to have five, but as nearly as we can determine, all five died within a few hours of each other. We had to assume that they all encountered the virus at essentially the same time. In addition to their families, they infected several people on their commercial flights home, including two flight attendants.”
“Just a moment. How do you know it’s a virus?”
“All doctors treating the patients initially tried antibiotics, except in several cases where they examined blood samples for the microbe responsible. The antibiotics were ineffective. The microbe resembles the classic form of a coronavirus. RNA hasn’t yet been determined, so we can’t say for certain what virus we’re dealing with, but there’s no question it’s a virus.”
“Thank you for explaining that. I’ll take the numbers now.” Sarah expected more than one hundred, since that had been known last week. She almost dropped her pen, though, when the answer came back. “One hundred and thirty-five known dead, four hundred and five infected.”
“God in Heaven,” she breathed.
“Indeed, ma’am. If it continues at this rate, thousands could die.”
“Thank you for the update. And so far you know of nothing that will stop it.”
“No ma’am. We can’t develop a vaccine before we have a complete DNA sequence, but keep in mind that having the sequence doesn’t guarantee we can develop a cure. We’re working on it.”
“My husband should be arriving at our expedition site in Antarctica any time now. He’s taken a virologist and an assistant with him, as well as a couple of medical doctors. I’ll make sure they report anything they learn to you.”
“Thank you, ma’am. And, may I say, we all appreciate your husband putting this together before it got any bigger than it did. He’s probably saved thousands by his quick actions.”
Sarah appreciated the praise on Daniel’s behalf. She was fully aware that the report would have been even sooner if the red tape surrounding it hadn’t caused a two-day delay. She thought about that for a few minutes and tried to do projections in her head, but her distraction proved too much to handle for that kind of math. She picked up the phone and called Raj.
At her request, Raj came to her office immediately, bringing his special, high-powered laptop with him. When he heard her request, he told her that all that power wasn’t required, and asked to use her desktop instead, so they could save the work to her hard drive. After a few false starts as Sarah faltered in describing what she wanted, he had the skeleton of a spreadsheet, ready to put the initial numbers in for a projection tool that would show them the extent of it.
Using the data Sarah received from the CDC, he quickly established a timeline and extended it horizontally to show future weeks. He added a cell for a what-if number and asked Sarah if she knew how many people on average each patient infected. Using three, because fifteen had become ill after being exposed to the first five, Raj plugged in the variable, which instantly populated the weekly projections. As he read across the row, he asked Sarah what week they were in.
“I think the fifth or so since the first few got sick.”
“Four hundred and five,” he read. “Twelve hundred and fifteen, three thousand, six-hundred and forty-five,” he read aloud, growing paler with each word. He stopped speaking.
“What is it?” Sarah said, from her place on the floor, changing Nick’s diaper.
“You’d better come and look.”
Sarah finished her task, pulled up Nick’s tiny britches and got up, walking over to where Raj had his finger pointed at her screen on Week Eight.
“Over ten thousand!” she exclaimed, running her eyes to the end of Raj’s projection, Week Seventeen. “Oh my God!” The last number she saw in the row was two-hundred and fifteen million.
“Sarah, I may be wrong, but I think that’s more than the Spanish flu killed, back in 1918.”
“God help us,” she said.
When Sally arrived, she found a white-faced Sarah staring at a screen full of numbers in shock.
“Sarah, what…?”
“Tens of thousands, maybe millions. God help us, Sally!” Sarah said, unable to say anything but repeat the desperate prayer of a few moments ago.
Sally struggled to understand what Sarah’s words could mean, while Sarah herself got up and picked up her baby. She held him tightly enough to make him squirm as she buried her face in his neck and sobbed.
When she was able to regain her composure, Sarah told Sally what she’d learned. She couldn’t keep news of this kind to herself, and she had enough foresight to know that when it hit the media, there would be trouble.
She handed Nick over to Sally, along with his diaper bag. “I’ll come for him when I can. Sally, it could be a few hours. I have to make plans. Raj, can you stay here for a few?”
“I understand, honey. I’ll take good care of him, won’t I, Nicky?” The baby laughed and patted Sally’s cheek, then made a grab for her glasses. “Wanta go see the horses?” Sally dropped a kiss on Sarah’s cheek as she left, carrying a squirming Nick and his gear. “Call Luke, honey,” she said. “You don’t need to go through this alone.”
When Daniel and Sarah had formed the Rossler Foundation, they’d received some flak from people who didn’t think there should be so much nepotism in the staff. Sarah’s uncle, Luke, was the head of security, Daniel’s grandfather, Nicholas, the head of research. Now Sarah was happier than ever that she had older and more experienced people, people she trusted with her life, to help her hold things together while Daniel was gone.
She sent for both of them, told them the situation and then turned her computer’s monitor to show them the numbers. At first, they couldn’t believe it. Raj took them through the rather simple formulas, one cell at a time, until they saw that there was no mistake.
Luke saw the security risk. Yes, he was appalled at the numbers, which indicated over one thousand people sick by next week, nearly four thousand by the following week. If it went longer than that, it reached five figures: nearly eleven thousand more people sick by the third week from now. But, he could do nothing about the sick and dying. His concern was the safety and security of the people within this building, which would probably be under siege when it got out that the first patients were all expedition members. What kind of hell had they dug up down there? And how was he going to maintain security when it became known?
Nicholas, Daniel’s octogenarian grandfather, sat down heavily, stunned and grieving for the potential loss of life. When he realized that two of his grandsons were in harm’s way, it bowed him in worry. Sarah wished she hadn’t sent for him, hadn’t selfishly leaned on the old man in her panic.
But, as she watched, Nicholas visibly pulled himself together and straightened his massive frame. “We’ll beat this, sweetie. Daniel’s smart as a whip, and JR’s tough as nails. They’ll figure it out. We just need to keep the home fires burning.”
Sarah didn’t think she’d ever heard so many clichés in one sentence before, but she appreciated his effort, and she was relieved that he’d rallied. “Of course, Grandpa,” she said. “We’ll do that.” When the men had left her office, Luke saying he needed to make some plans for a security response, Sarah sighed deeply and called Antarctica. She desperately wanted to hear Daniel’s voice, but she wasn’t sure he was there yet, and this couldn’t wait. She would talk to Rebecca instead.
~~~
That morning, Rebecca had confirmed that there were still no new cases, but she was discouraged to find that the course of the illness wasn’t varying. All forty-five of her remaining patients were worse, and if Daniel didn’t arrive today, some would die sooner because she didn’t have enough oxygen equipment to keep them all breathing. When JR brought her a phone to take the call from Sarah, she sounded harried.
“Hi, Sarah. I don’t have much time.”
“I know, hon. Listen, I’ve got CDC info for you, and then I’d like to speak to Daniel if he’s there.”
“He’s not here yet, Sarah. I’m praying he gets here any minute. Some of these people don’t have long without the medicine and equipment he’s bringing.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I know. What’s the news from CDC?” Rebecca knew there was probably an email with the same figures in it on her computer, but she hadn’t had time to check within the past few hours. Sarah gave her not only the figures, but her calculations.
“Okay, here’s the way it’s breaking down. There were five index cases,” she started, using the medical jargon as if she hadn’t just heard it an hour ago. “It looks like they’re infecting an average of three each, and so far the death rate is one hundred percent. We’re looking at over ten thousand affected within the next three weeks.” Sarah’s voice had been steady until that moment. Then it hit her that her husband was heading into ground zero. “Are, are you and the others, JR, all…”
