by JT Sawyer
Andre shot upright and flung his half-finished cigarette into a bucket of water near the gutter. He opened the front door and briskly entered, allowing Reisner the critical seconds he needed to complete his manipulation of the handcuff. Pacelle returned a minute later with his laptop and a small router. After a few seconds of furious typing, his eyes narrowed and he let out an exasperated sigh.
“I have verified what you said as being accurate. The eastern grid was always a weak link in our defenses despite numerous subject-matter experts like myself trying to convince Congress to harden our defenses there.” He looked up at a passing cumulus cloud then down at Reisner. “The only reason I didn’t haul all your bodies down to the main road for the beasts to consume you is that I was intrigued.”
“Not your style.”
“After all these years, William Reisner comes knocking on my door, and now it seems he needs my help.”
“This isn’t about you and it’s not about the bad blood between us, dammit.” He sat down and crossed his legs. “But you can see that already. I can tell by that look on your face that you know the threat is grave, Andre.”
He closed the laptop, tapping his spindly fingers along the edge like it was a piano. “So, I trace the computer worm back to its sender and wreak havoc on their systems, then we shake hands and wave goodbye, is that it?”
“Something like that.”
“And if you’re not with the Agency then who is pulling your strings?” He removed a .45 pistol and rested it on top of his closed laptop.
“It’s complicated. My team and I are temporarily attached to the Navy until this all gets figured out or we’re needed somewhere else.”
He glanced down at Reisner’s hand then back up at him. “Very well, I accept, but there’s one condition.”
“There are no fucking conditions, Andre. The human species is on the brink of going out forever.”
“Yes, this terrible, terrible virus. A scourge upon the earth. As I recall, some of the first outbreaks occurred in China—and now they’ve unleashed a cyber-attack on us.” He rocked forward in the chair. “I wonder what that’s all about, Agent Reisner,” Pacelle said with a tone of sarcasm. “Frankly, I don’t give a shit. We’ve been way overdue on culling our herd and removing the troglodytes that make up ninety percent of the population.”
“I can see your time alone in the forest has soothed your cynicism.”
He reached in his pocket and removed a set of small keys, then flung them on the ground at Reisner’s feet. “These are for your comrades. The little gold one goes to your cuff, if you haven’t already picked the lock.”
Reisner moved his hands around and flung the cuff on the ground between them, then bolted forward with blinding speed, snatching the pistol. He levelled it at Andre’s head. “And your ‘one condition’?”
Andre extended his hand. “Accept the apology of a flawed man who once drank too much.”
Reisner pressed the barrel of the gun into Pacelle’s forehead, his lips quivering. “You think saying you’re sorry is going to cause me to throw an arm around you and forget about Mira’s death?” He lowered the pistol and stepped back. “Is that part of your sobriety, where you fucking make amends with the people you screwed over?”
“I’d hardly call it sobriety, more like the regret that comes with living beyond one’s years.” Andre stared into Reisner’s eyes. “I was one part of the equation that caused her death, and I take responsibility for my actions.”
“The hell are you talking about—you were instrumental in what happened on that mission.”
“The map is not always the geography, William.”
Reisner narrowed his eyes even further, trying to decipher Pacelle’s words amidst the fog of anger clouding his thinking. He pivoted around and trotted down the steps. “I’ll be back in a few minutes and then we can begin. If you want to impress me, Andre, stick with what you’re good at.”
Chapter 14
Selene was sitting in the office outside of the lab on the Reagan, poring over research notes from Hayes. The ticking of the vintage silver timepiece beside her laptop served as a metronome to keep her exhausted mind focused.
There were references to viral studies that Hayes had been involved with during the past twelve years, largely supported by long-since defunct U.S. pharmaceutical companies. Strangely, Hayes’ name never turned up in any scientific papers, conferences, or briefings, so she suspected he had been strictly on the payroll of a clandestine agency like the CIA or one of its allied affiliates. Selene could tell from his research notes and experiments that the man had an IQ off the charts, and with each turn of the page, she found herself both admiring him and being revolted by the figure who had laid waste to the human race. All it took was one man with the money, brains, and motivation to escort the devil to our shores.
She still didn’t understand who he had been working for and what their agenda was, other than to fashion a bioweapon. She knew Russia, China, and the U.S. had created and maintained stockpiles of biological pathogens over the past fifty years to use as deterrents and also for formulating vaccines in case of a terrorist attack. Selene had even worked with the Army’s medical researchers during the last Ebola outbreak in Africa, and found them to be excellent scientists in both the scope of their knowledge and their personal ethics. But whatever Hayes had developed was diabolical in its nature and was beyond any oversight committee.
Was he under orders from the CIA to develop and disperse this virus, or was it some rogue individual in the government? She sat back in her chair, wondering when Will would return from his latest mission. Since his mysterious arrival in Taiwan and the ensuing events in tracking Hayes’ lab to Jebwe Island, Selene had long suspected that Reisner and his team were part of an initial recovery unit sent to eliminate the Agency’s signature back to the origins of the virus.
She was certain Will had those answers, but he seemed bound by his allegiance to an agency that no longer existed. What was he protecting? Surely, the admiral must know by now that Hayes was working for the CIA. Are McKenzie and Reisner working on a cover-up to prevent this from getting back to the rest of the military or our allies?
Her head swirled with ideas and speculation, and she felt like she was immersed in a murder mystery. She rubbed her eyes, then refocused her attention on the scientific journals before her. Deal with the origins of the virus first, Selene, then talk with Will when he returns.
She had conflicting emotions when she was near him. After he rescued her in Taiwan, he seemed genuinely concerned about her safety. Despite their rocky beginnings, she felt he was interested in her but at the same time could switch over to being so aloof that it made her wonder if he saw her as simply another asset to protect or if there was something more.
After a few minutes of typing in notes on her laptop, she heard the familiar footsteps of Victor Tso as he entered the room. Her esteemed colleague was her single source of sanity on board the Reagan. Working alongside him again, as she had briefly at the hospital in Taiwan during the early days of the first outbreak, made her feel grounded. He seemed much better at focusing on the task of deciphering the virus, and less concerned about the perpetrator. However, she also knew Victor was grateful to have his family and remaining staff on board and was unlikely to ruffle feathers with talk of his suspicions.
“Any breakthroughs combing through Hayes’ notes or laptop?”
“Yes, actually,” she said, swiveling around in her seat. “I stayed up late last night in the lab, comparing the influenza virus that was present in patients during the initial outbreak with viral strains obtained from one of my colleagues at the CDC in Phoenix, the only one still in operation.”
Selene waved him over and slid the laptop closer. “As I suspected, there is no match with any of the current models of influenza virus dating back over the past sixty years.”
Tso pushed his reading glasses up further on his nose and moved his face closer to the screen. “Yes, indeed. So, i
s this something novel in nature or did Hayes fashion this?”
“Neither,” she said with a faint smile. She clicked on a new screen and pulled up the database from Johns Hopkins Medical Center, where she had worked as assistant director of the Department of Epidemiology and Microbial Diseases up until the outbreak struck. “This particular strain is an exact match with the 1918 Spanish Flu that wiped out close to half a million people in just over a year.”
Tso’s eyes widened. “So, where did Hayes obtain such a specimen—the Army’s labs?”
“Most likely, he got it—” She stopped abruptly, not wanting to address her suspicions about the CIA’s involvement. “Well, there could be a number of sources—stolen stockpiles from the former USSR or other nations.” She stood up and arched her back, letting out a faint yawn.
“The real question is, how do we get a sample of the 1918 virus so we can start with the pure strain and reverse engineer what Hayes created?”
Selene picked up her silver timepiece, stroking her finger along the tarnished edge. It held a faded photograph of her grandfather, who had died from complications from the flu when she was a little girl. His death was the catalyst that propelled her into science and medicine. Now, the demise of millions of people around the world had become her catalyst again, and she hoped her knowledge in the battle between mankind and microbes would be enough to push the human species back from the brink of extinction.
Selene glanced at the timepiece and then clicked it shut. “Kansas.”
Tso looked at her with a surprised expression. “I don’t follow.”
“It’s unlikely we can get an actual sample from the military labs or the CDC in Atlanta, since they have gone silent, according to Admiral McKenzie. But Fort Riley, Kansas was the epicenter in the U.S. during the initial 1918 outbreak. The first wave of the virus occurred there. I was there five years ago as part of a conference on emerging zoonotic diseases and for the opening of the museum on base.” She paced in a circle, her eyes searching the ceiling as if she was studying a map.
“Patient Zero was an army cook, of all things. From there, the virus spread out and the infected troops carried the pathogen overseas. The cemeteries in the region around Fort Riley and other army bases around the U.S. are filled with the graves of soldiers who perished from it.”
“Lung tissue samples—you think that will work, given how long they have been in the ground?”
“Yes; it’s not the tropics, where things rot quickly, so the corpses should be in a relative state of preservation—at least, enough for me to excise some tissue from deep in the alveoli. Plus, back then they used to fashion the coffins out of turpentine-soaked wood to prevent rot and rodent infestations.” She threw her hands up in the air. “Researchers have reactivated dormant strains before—colleagues of mine at the CDC recreated a flu virus from the lung tissue of a mass burial in East Africa that dated to the 1800s.”
“Now, you just have to convince McKenzie. He’s the one who grants departure requests these days, and Kansas isn’t a short helicopter flight away.”
Selene looked back at Tso. “There is no alternative. In order to understand how the virus mutated the oribatid mites and the accompanying parasites inside the human host, we need to start with the original virus. Only then can we hope to come up with a mechanism for a vaccine to prevent further transmission.”
“Even then, we are looking at a year or more to produce a cure, assuming we have access to another CDC facility. McKenzie mentioned something about a Navy hospital ship off the coast of Baja. If we could transfer our work there, that would provide us with a suitable lab to further our research.”
Her eyes darted around the room. “Maybe we don’t have to go as far as Fort Riley. There were few areas left untouched by that virus, especially within the military barracks spread throughout the U.S.” She scooted back over to her computer and began an archival search for army bases from World War I.
A few minutes later, Selene unplugged her laptop and tucked it under her arm. Before exiting the room, she looked back at Tso. “What’s that saying in Asia about the journey of a thousand miles beginning with a single step?”
Chapter 15
“Aren’t we supposed to get him back to the Reagan?” said Connelly as she glanced over the computer servers spread around Andre’s workbenches beside the woodstove.
Before Reisner could answer, Pacelle bellowed out over his shoulder, “Look around, my dear—this is all specialized equipment, some of it constructed by yours truly. By the time you were to get me and all my hardware back to your precious ship, and then I reconfigured everything, another day would pass, allowing those Chinese bastards to launch another strike.”
“As much as I hate to admit it, he’s right,” said Reisner. “We don’t know how close they are to another attack or what their capabilities are, not to mention we still have to figure out a way to get back to our plane.” Reisner moved over to a table in the corner near the kitchen, where Nash and Porter were sitting, examining the exterior security monitors.
Reisner pointed to a pulsating red blob to the north, down near the intersection with the main dirt road. “How many creatures are we looking at along our exfil route?”
Nash enhanced the image until they could make out individual figures. “Jesus, it looks like four, maybe five hundred paras in that cluster.” He panned the cameras to the east, west, and south, which showed similar numbers spread out in a jagged circle about a mile in diameter.
Reisner pointed to a finger-shaped area to the north that was black. “What is that?”
Nash zoomed in on the formation. “Looks like a rock formation of some kind.”
“That’s Gobbler’s Nob,” shouted Pacelle from across the cabin. “It’s a two hundred-foot cliff face that leads up to a plateau. Beautiful place to study birds in the summer. The western Goshawks are impressive to witness in action from there.”
“This nutjob is a birdwatcher?” whispered Porter. “No wonder he’s a hermit. If I had retired from the Agency, I’d be living in a cabana on a beach somewhere, observing bikini life, not birds.”
Reisner tapped the screen. “Connelly and Porter, I want you to recon that area and see what the climb up looks like and if there’s any other high ground in the region we can use to our advantage. Even though the truck is only a half-mile away, I doubt we’re going to be retracing our route back the way we came.”
The two operators grabbed their gear and headed out the back door. Reisner returned to his position alongside Pacelle, his head swirling at the complex binary codes dotting his laptop. The man typed at blinding speed while his head swiveled constantly between three different computer monitors attached to his laptop. The screen on the left revealed a blur of numerical figures and schematics while the one on the right showed a network of red lines extending out over Asia, with a large mass centered near Nanjing, China. The middle computer showed a map of the power grids remaining in the U.S., with a tangle of lines originating in Portland and fanning out to all the western states as far as Denver. The Midwest and Southern grid began in Minneapolis and spread out to the remaining states as far south as Arkansas.
Reisner pointed to the Lone Star State, which was completely blank. “Did Texas already go down?”
“Nah, they have their own power grid separate from everyone else.” Andre shook his head, not looking away from the middle screen. “Fucking cowpie-lovers—I’m not even sure Texans would notice if the lights went out in their state anyhow.”
Andre nodded to the right, where a tablet sat on his desk. “I accessed the military personnel and armaments for the People’s Liberation Army for you. Perhaps your Admiral McKenzie already has such information, but this dossier is a little more detailed.”
He scrolled through the files, pausing upon the name of General Lau. He recognized the name from briefings with the Agency section chief when Reisner worked in Southeast Asia. Lau had also been on the Agency’s radar in the past few months because of h
is hardline stance on nuclear proliferation at a recent UN summit.
“Now, this guy was scary even before the apocalypse. Lord help us and the Chinese people if he’s still alive and steering the chain of command.” He read the man’s bio, recalling that he had been head of the PLA bioweapons division years earlier.
Reisner examined the list of remaining weapons systems and armaments along with their locations that were registered as intact by the PLA. “I need to get this to McKenzie.” His eyes locked on the last entry, which indicated a Shang 1 Class submarine that was last listed as heading east from the South China Sea. The timestamp corresponded with the presence of the USS Reagan shortly after Reisner and the others escaped from Taiwan.
“What are your chances of homing in on the location of a nuclear submarine?”
Pacelle arched his neck back in a stretch as he paused from typing. “Not likely—not unless I had five more of me and a research center at Langley.” He leaned forward and tapped his fingers on an oblong black box on his desk that had several cables running from it to the laptop in the middle. “But this beauty I invented myself—it’s a tool designed to slice through the deceptive layers of coding in malware, and allows me to understand the cyber-attack on the East Coast. In essence, it will unravel the programming language in order to read it and show me the exact location of the sender, assuming they didn’t route it through dozens of cloaking devices.”
“So how long before—” Reisner was cut off by Pacelle’s upraised hand, indicating he needed to concentrate.
Pacelle bit his lip, narrowing his eyes as he took a pause from typing to study a series of binary codes on the left monitor. “Nasty bugger—this is a worm that has been talked about in the cyber-security industry for years: a hypothetical doomsday virus designed to breach not only power grids but also operating systems for transportation lines, nuclear reactors, and water treatment facilities.”
