by JC Ryan
It was demoralizing to Sarah to learn that the foundation was running just fine with neither Daniel nor her at the helm, until Luke pointed out that it meant they could take a vacation now and then, with Sinclair and Nicholas running a tight ship in their absence. Even have another baby, if she wanted to. She began to enjoy her rest, especially after she was past the danger point and no longer had to freeze in the ice bath every couple of hours.
Both on a local level, between the Rossler Foundation and the expedition, which had now moved completely into the valley, and a world-wide level, it began to look like things would eventually return to normal.
Chapter 33 – We’re going home!
The fifty-four souls who for one reason or another were stranded at Purgatory Canyon reacted with joy when Daniel informed them that the President was allowing them to go home. Even though it was near the end of the travel season, transportation was arranged. Summers begged to be allowed to stay, but in the end understood that even he couldn’t cope with six months of solitude, and got on the helicopter when it was his turn.
Even though they were overjoyed to be going home after all, the core group of scientists knew that there was a cost. President Harper had warned Daniel that there would be Congressional hearings. It was ironic that the people who had been applauding their effort to find the cure a few days ago were now asking whether they had known about it from the beginning. This, along with ugly assertions that it was certainly suspicious. A handful of scientists without sophisticated equipment were able to ‘find’ the key, when world-class laboratories had made no progress? Highly unlikely. The emphasis on find was always meant as a veiled hint that they had the knowledge because they developed the virus in the first place. The group was in for some uncomfortable times, but Daniel assured Harper that they would come through just fine, as they were blameless.
Chapter 34 - As if the microbes had been dumped from the air
Esther Harper was worried about her husband. He’d been through many crises in his six years as President of the United States, but the current one was by far the worst he’d had to face. First, all those poor Middle Easterners, dying like flies, countless numbers of them. You couldn’t even begin to visualize those numbers—how was it possible there was anyone left? Nigel seemed to feel guilty about every single one of them, even as he staunchly defended the Rosslers as blameless, just the victims of a grisly time-bomb from the 9th Cycle. As she now understood it, the fault was in fact within the DNA of the people who had fallen ill, something that was introduced into their genetics thousands of years ago. It was no one’s fault at all, really.
She didn’t pretend to understand it, but she could see her husband aging in front of her eyes, like a time-lapse photograph. When he took office, Nigel was a hale and hearty man. He’d been tall, fit and trim, and his dark wavy hair was frequently cited by the silly gossip rags as the reason for him being the heartthrob candidate.
Now, he was stooped with the weight of millions of deaths, his eyes were always bloodshot, and the hair was now a beautiful shade of silver, not a single strand of dark brown left. Esther wasn’t a shallow woman. She would love her husband and stand by him no matter what. She’d weathered the vicious rumors that he had affairs, because she knew better. She’d survived the grueling second campaign. And she would survive this; but she wasn’t sure about Nigel.
Unaware of her concern, Harper dragged himself out of bed at five forty-five and took a quick shower, then dressed in readiness for his briefing on the morning of March 6th. He had a feeling of dread, which he didn’t understand. For the past week, the new numbers of cases of the virus had dwindled, and even those who did report in were being given the gene therapy as soon as they reported. The death toll had dropped dramatically as well. Almost everyone who started showing symptoms since the second shipments of medication survived, except those who refused it. Surely God couldn’t have yet another lightning bolt up His sleeve. And yet, Harper reflected twenty minutes later, he could be wrong.
He’d known that the mutated form of the virus had swept his nation as if the microbes had been dumped from the air. Everybody got sick at once. The CDC couldn’t even determine an index case, because one day no one was sick, and the next hundreds of thousands had it. But, medical professionals had responded well, and so far it appeared this form of the flu was no worse than the garden variety that came in seasonally, took off a few elderly or immune-suppressed kids, and disappeared with the spring.
The fact that this thing had started in the spring was an unconscious fact in the back of his mind, unnoticed as yet. Still, a week later, people were already recovering, not going through that agonizing two-week decline. And quarantining was working, or appeared to be. He’d ask Rebecca Mendenhall what she thought the next time they spoke. She not only had a good head on her shoulders, but she was always able to help him understand without using all that medical jargon.
This morning’s briefing, though, brought the news that the mad Ayatollah Kazemi had a theory about where it had come from. His accusation was that the United States, in particular, had devised this illness and set it loose among its own people to act as a distraction. He was now saying that, not only did America turn loose the original virus among Middle Easterners, but also this mutated form was set loose among Americans so that he and other Muslim leaders would think they’d been mistaken. As if now that there were non-Middle Eastern victims, he should just forget about the original crime. In his ranting, he named Harper personally as the mastermind behind this plot.
What was worse, there were plenty of gullible Americans who bought it. Responsible media was saying there should be an investigation, but those who had a grudge against Harper from before were proclaiming this idiocy as truth and calling for impeachment. Harper was speechless with rage that his character would be impugned in this way. He had his faults; what man didn’t? But, how had it come to this?
“I want that lunatic silenced,” he roared. His advisers wisely kept their mouths shut. Naturally, they couldn’t carry that out as an order, Harper just needed to vent.
Then he had a more practical idea. “Get the Press Secretary in here right now. I’m going on national TV and tell them that this is such a crazy idea that it must be that crazy man who thought it up. Maybe he had this mutation designed and deploying it is an act of biological warfare. If I find out that’s true, we’re going to wipe Iran off the face of the earth once and for all. I’m tired of dealing with those assholes.”
It may not have been the most politically correct statement to make, but most of the people in the room agreed with the sentiment, and those who didn’t were smart enough to realize it was just a fit of temper, and that Harper would have a more reasoned approach to whatever they could find out about the origin of the mutation. After all, never in the history of the United States had a president been called upon to deal with so many crises not of his own making. A lesser man might not have been able to do it at all. A fit of temper now and then didn’t make him a bad man, or a bad president.
~~~
After a week in the hospital, Sarah was released and Luke’s quarantine was lifted because his blood showed no sign of the virus. When baby Nick saw her, he squirmed out of Sally’s arms and made a beeline for Sarah on all fours, then pulled up on her legs and almost swarmed up her body like a monkey. Sarah reached down to pick him up and staggered with his weight.
“Can we call Daniel?” she said. “I want him to know I’m home.”
Luke had been updating Daniel almost hourly, not only about Sarah, but also about the political shit-storm that was raging around them. But he knew Daniel would want to hear from Sarah anyway, so he went to their home office to get a laptop and set up a Skype video call.
Even while Sarah had been sick, she kept seeing in her mind’s eye the numbers mounting in the spreadsheet, with that terrible caption on week nineteen: Total ME Wipeout. Raj had an interesting way of separating the end of his world from his work. After all, he and
Sushma shared the genetics that left them vulnerable to the virus. That made her ask after them.
“Are Raj and Sushma okay?” she said to Luke, as he returned with the laptop.
“Oh, yeah. You know Raj took Sushma and went to what he called his safe house as soon as it became clear what this virus was doing. He’s been working from home since right after you had him make that projection, and they’re living on disaster supplies he laid in when he bought the place.”
“Oh, that’s right, I forgot,” she said. “Where is he again?”
“Somewhere in the mountains around Lake Tahoe, I think. Not sure. Anyway, neither he nor Sushma has been out of the house in weeks, but we hear from him daily. They’re fine.”
“Thank heaven for his paranoia,” Sarah said, smiling. “Where are Grandpa and Grandma, and Sinclair and Martha?”
“On their way. They didn’t want to overwhelm you. They’re bringing dinner.”
If only Daniel were home, all would be right in Sarah’s world. She sighed contentedly. “Let’s make that call.”
“Hi, sweetheart,” Daniel said, the look on his face saying more than any words could. For Sarah, the rest of the people in the room disappeared, all but little Nick on her lap. She held him tight and pointed at Daniel’s face on the screen. “Look, Nick, its Daddy!”
“Mama,” responded the baby.
“Looks like you need to get home ASAP, sweetheart,” she laughed. For a few minutes, all the cares of the world disappeared as the pair realized how lucky they were, even if they were thousands of miles apart. Both had come through with their health intact, and Daniel would be home in a matter of days.
Chapter 35 - The homecoming
The helicopters would be outside to pick them up in a matter of hours, so everyone was busy wrapping up their packing and last minute errands.
Robert and JR arrived at the hospital site to make sure Summers was ready to go. They found that the fumarole had been enclosed within a waist-high barrier, and paused to look into it.
“Looks innocent enough,” Robert remarked.
JR, who was still skittish about the lava plume below them, didn’t think so. The thing was sinister, with its topping of sickly-looking green algae and the steam wisping off it from time to time.
“How do you reckon the virus got in there?” he asked, not really expecting an answer.
“Well, if someone fell in and was sick, it might migrate to the algae for self-preservation,” Robert mused.
JR looked at him in horror. “Do you mean to tell me those bugs have will and volition?”
“That’s more a question for Hannah, I think. But I can imagine a microbe switching hosts if the first one is no longer viable.”
“Like, all his blood boiled away?” JR said, with a touch of the macabre.
“Exactly,” said Robert. JR shuddered and strode off, forcing Robert to jog a little to catch up.
~~~
The homecoming was subdued, not because the expedition members weren’t ecstatic to be home, but because the mutated strain of flu was still keeping the population of the US in limited contact with each other. Before they could leave a quarantined area of the airport, they each had to submit to a blood test to determine that they weren’t carrying it. Now that the original H10N7 was in retreat, their antibodies to that strain didn’t pose a problem.
Robert had come to the US with them this time, having accepted a permanent position on the Rossler Foundation staff, much to Cyndi’s delight. He would make himself available for the coming Congressional investigation, and then return to Australia to wrap things up there and pack the rest of his belongings for the move. Rebecca had also been invited to do so, but hadn’t yet made a decision, as much of her planning depended on what JR intended to do from now on. The military personnel had been met at the plane by other military personnel and spirited off without so much as a goodbye to their erstwhile detainees, and the recovered flu patients were similarly grabbed and taken to nearby research facilities. Daniel was concerned about them, but could not prevent their being taken into custody.
Naturally, the support workers made a beeline for their own homes, so it was just the core group that was met by a chartered 15-passenger van and taken to Daniel’s home for a private celebration of their return. Sarah, still a little weak, but radiant, threw herself into Daniel’s arms as soon as he stepped in the door.
“My love, I’m so happy you’re home,” she whispered. In answer, Daniel gave her an enthusiastic kiss, and an apologetic look.
“I hope you were expecting guests, Baby. I seem to have brought a few.” With that, he threw the door further open and in streamed the happy expedition members, sure of their welcome. Sarah hugged JR next, and then Rebecca, followed by each of the others, even Hannah and Ben, whom she’d never met. Ryan, Emma, Luke, Sally, Nick, Bess, Daniel and JR’s parents, and even Sinclair and Martha followed suit. Raj and Sushma only were missing from what the Rosslers considered the family group, as Raj had yet to be talked into leaving their safe haven for any reason whatsoever.
The celebration went far into the night, but at last the guests all went either home or to a hotel where the out-of-town guests had been booked because there were too many to stay with the locals. Daniel and Sarah stepped quietly into Nick’s room to take a look at their sleeping child, who had warmed up to Daniel as if he’d never been gone. After kissing him gently on the forehead, they went arm in arm to their room, where they clung to each other emotionally. Assuring each other that they never wanted to be separated for so long again, they sealed their promises with that physical connection that transcends all words, and afterward went to sleep in each other’s arms.
~~~
There were still numerous cases of flu to contend with in the Middle East, even though new cases had diminished dramatically with the gene therapy. However, the US had turned its attention to the cases at home. Doses of the gene therapy were still being manufactured as rapidly as possible and shipped to the Middle East, where the only people who were still dying from the virus were those who were under the spell of Kazemi or his ilk. It wasn’t so much that the citizens of the US were heartless—after all, there was plenty of medicine to go around, and they’d pay for it with their taxes for many years to come. They just had notoriously short attention spans.
Fortunately, as Sarah’s case had shown, they proved to have much milder symptoms, little more than the seasonal flu that usually swept the country in the fall. A course of antiviral medication, the usual precautions to get plenty of water and rest, and to stay home until all symptoms were gone, were all it took for most people to recover without complications. Early detection, compliance with quarantines and the radical response that medical authorities took with the first wave of cases stopped it from becoming the disaster that everyone feared it could have been.
The usual percentage of immune-compromised individuals died before a vaccine was developed, with the help of Sarah and others who’d come down with it initially. Afterwards, it receded into the public’s usual case of apathy for an old news story.
Abroad, however, and in Harper’s daily security briefing, the threat represented by the radical Muslim religious leaders, continued to be of concern.
Chapter 36 - Let us strike on their sacred holiday
Despite the fact that the virus was winding down in the rest of the Middle East, Kazemi, still claiming to be the al-Mahdi, continued to rail against Western bio-warfare. His points were heeded by many, even among the former patients, now recovered thanks to Western gene therapy. They didn’t understand and couldn’t appreciate what had been given to them—a repaired gene that would immunize them against this strain of flu for the rest of their lives, at a staggering cost.
It was fortunate that the 10th Cycle library had helped with the development of a relatively simple procedure. Had an in-body method been required, the cost of saving even one life would have approached one million dollars. As it was, the average cost of manufacturing, ship
ping and administering the gene therapy was less than a quarter of that per dose. Nevertheless, when considered in terms of nearly a billion patients, saving them was more costly than waging war against them.
None of that mattered to Kazemi. He couldn’t comprehend that anyone, even infidels - and who knew what they would do? - would bankrupt their treasury to save a lukewarm ally, much less a bitter enemy. He therefore believed that there was a hidden agenda, and that it would come out in more violence against his people. It was his intention to strike first.
Accordingly, he called his lieutenants together to make plans for another coordinated strike. Even if he no longer had the will to use what few nuclear weapons he had left to command, he did have a horde of suicide bombers and they could cause havoc if deployed correctly.
“Ahmad, how many martyrs are ready to die for our cause?” Kazemi asked, when all were together.
“A little less than eight thousand, Your Honor. More than half of the original twenty thousand who volunteered are now dead of the infidel flu,” he added, by way of explanation. He wisely left out his following thought; that many of them might have been saved if it hadn’t been for Kazemi’s ill-informed ban on his people using the gene therapy.
“They shall receive the same reward in paradise,” intoned Kazemi. “They are still martyrs in our cause.” Ahmad had the impious thought that he’d rather go out shooting back, or even as a suicide bomber, than sick and burning up with fever or his kidneys exploding. Kazemi was still talking.
“They will not expect us to hit the same targets again. See that we do. Also, this time take out the embassies of the United States wherever they are. I want the US to have no capability left for diplomatic relations. Take out all foreign embassies in Washington. Let the countries blame the US for not protecting their diplomats.”
