Z: The Final Countdown

by Bob Mayer

  “All right.”

  Riley gestured and Kieling rose and joined them. Together, they walked back to Quinn’s group. Riley looked at the dead man lying there, then at the others.

  “This is my top. Trent,” Quinn said. “This is Bentley,” he added, pointing at the man holding a bloody hand. “He’s the one who knows what’s going on.” Quinn kicked Bentley. “Open the cases.”

  “I can’t,” Bentley said without much conviction.

  Quinn’s hand strayed to the knife on his web gear.

  Bentley knelt and turned the combination knobs. He flipped the lid open. Inside sat a large metal box, battered and heat streaked.

  Kieling looked at the box. He reached to his belt and pulled off a multipurpose tool and used the Phillips head to work on the screws holding the top on. Bentley sat back down, nursing his wounded hand.

  Keiling flipped the top off. Inside lay sophisticated machinery.

  “What is it?” Riley asked.

  “Could it be a camera?” Quinn asked.

  “No.” Kieling lifted the machine out and turned it over. “No lens.” He was looking it over very carefully; then he pointed. “This canister.” It was as large as a gallon milk jug. “I’d say it’s a dispenser.”

  “Of?” Riley asked.

  “Z.”

  “Z?” Quinn repeated.

  “The virus.”

  Quinn’s eyes opened wide and he turned to Bentley. “You mean this thing we got. He made it?”

  “He either made it or he knows who made it,” Kieling said.

  “You—” Quinn was speechless. His knife was out and he was just about at Bentley’s throat when Riley intercepted him. “Easy. We need answers from him. We need him alive.”

  “I’m not talking,” Bentley said. He glared back at Quinn. “You can use your knife all you want, but I’m not going to say anything more.”

  “Let’s take it back,” Riley ordered. “And all of you.”

  “What about safe passage?” Quinn asked.

  “You’re free to walk to the border if you want to,” Riley said.

  Quinn looked at Trent, then at Bentley. “We’ll go with you.”

  Sandoa, Zaire, 17 June

  The young French doctor looked up at the sound of trucks rumbling down the road. Three lorries turned into the dirt courtyard of the hospital and soldiers piled out, weapons at the ready, their faces covered with surgical masks.

  “What do you want?” the doctor asked.

  “We understand you have men here. Sick men who came across the border from Angola,” the officer in charge said in perfect French.

  The doctor involuntarily glanced over his shoulder at the hospital. “This is an international—” he began.

  “You are in Zaire,” the officer intoned. “You are under our laws. There is a quarantine in effect along the border. These men entered illegally.”

  “They are ill,” the doctor said. “They require—”

  “Where are they?”

  “In the isolation wing,” the doctor said. “But they—”

  The officer ignored him, gesturing. A squad of men ran forward, kicking open the door to the wing. Inside, the surviving members of Quinn’s patrol that had been released at the border two days ago lay on cots, tended to by two local nurses. The nurses were the first to understand what was going on and sprinted for the back door. They were cut down by bursts of fire from AK-47s before they made it halfway.

  The soldiers walked down the aisle, spraying the beds with automatic fire, ignoring the pleas of those still well enough to beg. The massacre was over in a few seconds.

  “You will be held accountable!” the doctor screamed from the doorway.

  “Did you tend to these men?” the officer asked.

  “You will be held accountable by the international community!” the doctor repeated.

  The officer pulled his pistol and shot the doctor through the forehead. “Burn the hospital,” he ordered. “I want nothing left standing!”

  Cacolo, Angola, 17 June

  “This,” Kieling said, using a ruler to point, “is some sort of chamber in which the virus was manipulated in zero g. I can’t tell you much more without taking it apart.” He moved the ruler. “The virus was then shunted down this tube, to this dispenser. It must have been held there until the booster came down. Then it was sprayed out. Someone probably saw it come down and came to investigate and they were patient zero.”

  Riley had the imagery. “There’s a village here about twelve klicks from the crash site. It’s blue. Everyone’s dead.”

  “That’s where it started.”

  Riley looked up at Bentley. Comsky had wrapped a bandage around the man’s hand, but he had held true to his word and said nothing since they’d boarded the Black Hawk and flown back to Cacolo. Riley had gotten on the radio and transmitted everything they’d learned so far to Major Lindsay at the AOB, who was forwarding it back to the Pentagon.

  “He doesn’t seem too worried about catching Z,” Conner noted.

  “Do you have a vaccine for this?” Kieling asked. Everyone in the tent turned and stared at Bentley.

  Bentley simply looked away.

  “We know he works for Skeleton,” Quinn offered.

  “Who is Skeleton?” Riley asked.

  “Security chief for the Van Wyks,” Quinn said. “Does all their dirty work. I’ve met him. He’s former Rhodesian SAS. A big fucker. You won’t mistake him when you see him. About six foot eight, completely bald, and he’d as soon cut your heart out as talk to you.”

  “Headquartered in Luderitz?” Riley asked.

  Quinn nodded. “Right. How’d you know that?”

  “We intercepted your SATCOM and found out where it came down,” Riley said.

  “Bentley’s got to be vaccinated,” Kieling said. “He wouldn’t have handled this”—he tapped the device from the booster—“like he did, if he wasn’t vaccinated.”

  “A vaccine don’t do us much good,” Comsky noted.

  “But it will save a lot of lives,” Kieling said. “Z hasn’t finished burning yet.”

  Riley walked over to Bentley. “You need to talk to us.”

  “Let me at him,” Quinn said, drawing his knife. “Son of a bitch killed us. I’ll make him talk.”

  “I have a better idea,” Kieling said. He stood. “I’ll be right back. I have to get something from Tyron at the habitat.”

  Oshakati, Namibia, 17 June

  General Nystroom looked at the new orders that had just arrived, then slowly put them down on the small folding table inside his command vehicle.

  “Where did this come from?” Nystroom asked.

  “Silvermine.”

  “I need to talk to Pretoria,” Nystroom said.

  “Sir, none of our communications links outside of Silvermine are functioning. Silvermine has closed down all other SATCOM channels.”

  “It figures,” Nystroom said. He looked at the orders again. “All SADF are ordered to deploy southward.”

  “Southward?” the officer was confused.

  “Luderitz,” Nystroom said.

  “With what mission, sir?”

  “It does not say, but I believe it will have something to do with defending that city.”

  “From whom?”

  “I don’t know, but we are now in a place I never wanted to be,” General Nystroom said. “Order all our South African forces to be prepared to move within the hour. Tell the allied commanders they are on their own.” Nystroom sighed. “Please leave me. I have some thinking to do.”

  Pentagon, 17 June

  General Cummings looked at the map. “Luderitz. What do we know about it?”

  A staff officer was ready. “The Van Wyks corporation has a compound there. Paramilitary forces to control the miners and protect the mines. G-2 is coming up with the order of battle.”

  “What’s the status on our forces with regard to strike capability?” Cummings asked.

  “Jets from the Abr
aham Lincoln could conduct a limited air strike if they had in-flight refueling.”

  “What about air force units in Namibia near Oshakati?”

  An air force officer shuffled his feet. “Uh, we’re having some problems there, sir. It appears that we no longer have ground support from the SADF. The whole logistics train is falling apart. We could probably put some planes in the air, but support for continued operations would not be in place for at least two days.”

  “You didn’t consider the possibility that your forces might have to be self-supporting, did you?” Cummings asked the air force officer.

  “Sir we considered it, but the expense would have—”

  Cummings ignored him. “I want the Abraham Lincoln to turn south at flank speed. I want the Ranger Task Force on board to be given the latest intelligence. I want the ro-ro with the Twenty-fourth Infantry Bradley task force to go south also.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Colonel Martin had been listening to all this planning and finally he had had enough. “Excuse me, sir, but we seem to be forgetting one thing.”

  “And that is?” Cummings snapped.

  “Z.”

  “What about it?”

  “It’s still burning, and if Pieter Van Wyks made it, then he has it there in Luderitz. If he does have a vaccine—which we haven’t determined yet—I would assume that his men are vaccinated. Ours aren’t. We can’t do a damn thing until we get ahold of that vaccine, because even if we win the battle there, we could lose the war in the long run.”

  Cacolo, Angola, 17 June

  “What’s that?” Riley asked.

  Kieling held a small black plastic kit. He didn’t answer Riley. He opened the case and withdrew a hypodermic syringe. Then he drew out a small bottle of murky liquid. He inserted the needle into the bottle and drew back on the plunger, filling about an inch of the clear plastic tube with the liquid. He took out another bottle and did the same.

  Kieling walked over to Bentley. “We’ve all got this thing—we call it Z—I don’t know what you named it. I think you’re vaccinated for Z.” Kieling shook the needle. “But this—this is Marburg. It might not kill you. Fifty-fifty on that. But it’ll make you very sick even if it doesn’t.” Kieling looked at the others in the tent. “Marburg seems to especially like the eyes and the testicles. Gets in there and really does a number.

  “I also put Ebola in here,” Kieling continued. “So if the Marburg doesn’t kill you, the Ebola will. I’ve never seen what the two combined do to a monkey, never mind a human. But it will be nasty.”

  Bentley was staring at the needle. He finally spoke. “You can’t do that to me. You’re a scientist.”

  Kieling laughed harshly. “I’m a human being first. A human being who has Z. And you, you’re an animal that deserves to die, if you were in on the making of Z.” He pressed the tip of the needle against Bentley’s neck.

  “Please,” Bentley begged. “Take it away.”

  “Is there a vaccine?” Kieling asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Van Wyks has it.”

  “You’ve been vaccinated?”

  “Yes.”

  Kieling nodded. “We might be able to get it out of him. Out of his blood. But it will take time.”

  “Is there a cure?”

  They all turned and looked at Conner, who had asked the question.

  “Is there a cure?” she repeated. Bentley looked away.

  “Answer the lady, you son of a bitch,” Quinn yelled. Bentley looked around the tent. Half the people there already had the beginnings of red welts on parts of their bodies that could be seen.

  “Is there a cure?” Conner demanded one more time.

  Bentley looked her in the eyes. “Yes. There’s a cure.”

  Chapter 18

  Pentagon, 17 June

  The War Room listened to the excited voices from Cacolo, relayed through the 82d Airborne Headquarters in Luanda. There had been a bit of confusion at first, trying to identify Riley and his role in things, but General Cummings had quickly cut through the military hierarchy and accepted the situation on the ground in the quarantine site as it was, with Riley in nominal charge.

  “We need to get to Luderitz and get in there,” Riley concluded, his voice abnormally loud over the room’s speakers.

  “I have forces moving,” General Cummings said. “Unfortunately, we still have a problem, Mr. Riley. There may be a cure in Luderitz, but that doesn’t mean there will be one still there after we attack. And if the cure is destroyed and they use this disease in defense, we’re back where we were an hour ago; actually in a worse situation.

  “Let’s not go off half-cocked. The Abraham Lincoln has just begun heading down there. The naval task force won’t be in position for a while. We have time to come up with a plan.”

  “Sir, we don’t have time here. We’re dying!”

  “A lot of people will die if we go in there unprepared,” General Cummings reasoned. “There’s more going on here. We have South African Defense Forces moving south in Namibia toward Luderitz, and I don’t think they’re going there to be on our side. There seems to be confusion in Pretoria in the SADF headquarters. There’s fear some sort of coup may be in progress.

  “What I want to do is get you and your people in position to help us. From what you’ve told me, you think you know the vector this takes, is that correct?”

  A new voice came. “This is Dr. Kieling. I’m with USAMRIID. This thing is spread by air—not through the respiratory tract, but by bursting blisters on those who have it in the advanced stage.”

  Cummings glanced at Colonel Martin, who nodded his agreement. “All right, then, we could isolate you on board the Abraham Lincoln, could we not?”

  “Yes, sir, we could remain as isolated there as we are here.”

  “Then you need to take your Black Hawk and have the AWACS guide you in to the carrier. I’ll inform the ship’s captain to prepare for your arrival. In the meanwhile, I want to get a better look at what’s around Luderitz. I’ll contact you once you’re on board the Abraham Lincoln. Out.”

  Cacolo, Angola, 17 June

  The mood was very different as the Black Hawk took off and headed southwest. Riley knew that hope was a dangerous thing. It was fuel, but if hope was smashed, then everything could go in a heartbeat. Of course, he reminded himself, in this situation any hope was better than the reality they had lived with the last several days.

  He sat with Bentley to his right, handcuffed to the seat frame. Kieling was on the other side of the captive, and Riley wanted to continue the interrogation. Quinn and Trent were with them. The mercenaries had insisted on coming, and Riley saw no reason not to allow them. They were all in the same situation, which meant they had the same goals.

  Cummings had had a good point, something that Riley had not considered in his excitement over the possibility of a cure. Invading the Van Wyks compound might lead to the destruction of the cure, and many other non-infected people becoming infected.

  “The cure,” Riley began. “How effective is it?”

  “One hundred percent, if you catch the patient before he has developed other symptoms to the point of irreversible damage,” Bentley said.

  “What form is it taken in?” Kieling asked.

  “A shot. We call it Anslum four. What you call Z we call Anslum four.”

  “Where is the Anslum four kept?” Riley asked.

  “In a vault in a level four containment facility in the basement of the main building at the Van Wyks corporate headquarters,” Bentley said. “It is well guarded.”

  “Is it booby-trapped in any manner?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “If we go in to get it, will the Anslum four be destroyed?”

  “There is a manual destruct under Mister Van Wyks’s control,” Bentley said.

  “And they are all vaccinated, aren’t they?” Riley asked.

  “Yes.”

  “So they don’t ne
ed the Anslum four?”

  “No.”

  “The manual destruct. Where is it?”

  “On the top floor. In Mister Van Wyks’s office. And in the lab itself.”

  “What else is on the top floor?”

  “Mr. Van Wyks lives there. His chief of security, whom we call Skeleton, is also there. A very dangerous man.”

  “Why?” Kieling said. “Why was this done?”

  “What? The destruct?”

  “No. The virus. Why did you make it? Why was it put down in Angola? Why?” Kieling demanded. He still had the Ebola/Marburg needle in his hand and he shook it in front of Bentley’s eyes. “Why?”

  “I do not know,” Bentley said.

  “Bullshit,” Riley yelled. “You went through great effort to develop a deadly virus. Why?”

  “It was on orders from Mr. Van Wyks.”

  “Orders?” Kieling repeated. “You make something that could devastate the population of this planet and say orders were sufficient justification?”

  “I did not know why Mr. Van Wyks wanted the virus developed. I was told the booster coming down in Angola was an accident. It was our fourth batch.”

  “Fourth?” Kieling asked.

  “Yes. We had to use zero gravity to mechanically manipulate the genetic code of the virus. Our first capsule went up two years ago. The second and third ones last year. We kept perfecting the process and the product. This one was supposed to be brought down like the others: over the Kalahari, recovered, and examined in the bio-level four lab. It was all an accident.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Riley said.

  “It is the truth.”

  “It might be what you think is the truth,” Riley said. “It might even be the truth, but I don’t think it is. Too many coincidences. It just happened to come down in the middle of the Angolan diamond mine area. It just happened to occur during this peacemaking operation.” He stared at Bentley. “Do you believe those were just coincidences?”

  Bentley avoided his gaze. “I don’t know.”

  “Didn’t you wonder why he was trying to invent a killer virus in the first place?”