The Dead Don't Bleed: Part 1, The Outbreak (4 page)

Carl acknowledged the instructions and he heard the phone click over as he was switched to hold.

Dr. Woods put the call on hold for a moment so Carl could not hear the conversation on this end. The situation was looking bleaker by the minute and the last thing he needed was for some intern who was already in the thick of things to start getting on Facebook and Twitter with sensitive information and caus
e a panic. In these early stages of a crisis or potential crisis it was important to get in front of it right from the start. They had learned that allowing inconsistent or inaccurate information to be released would quickly turn a bad situation worse. Right now there were still too many questions that needed to be answered before they knew what they were dealing with.

He had been
awoken from a sound sleep by an emergency call from his office concerning what was reportedly a minor earthquake in the south central New Jersey area. The quake itself was not worthy of concern from his office, it had occurred in a rural area underneath an idle mining operation. These type of minor quakes were not unusual with some deep mine shafts, more than likely a portion of a deep shaft had collapsed into a fissure or sinkhole and registered as a small earthquake. The reason he was woken up concerning this incident was twofold. Satellite imagery had noted a plume of atmospheric discharge of some kind that was forming directly over the mine. Something was being ejected high into the sky from within the mine complex and that plume was spreading out steadily to cover several square miles from its center. The second and most urgent reason for waking him and concerning his agency in this incident were reports from three major hospitals servicing that region. In the hours following the earthquake, dozens of patients had arrived in emergency rooms with unexplained and severe flu like symptoms. His job was now to determine if there was a connection between the material being ejected from the mine and this outbreak of an unidentified illness in the immediate area.

In response to any potential natural disaster the federal government had set up a system of alerts to immediately form the appropriate response teams. The failure of
FEMA to timely and properly deploy their assets prior to and immediately following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 resulted in mandates to insure a similar failure never happened again. The new strategy was to prepare for the worst as early as possible. It was better to over-react and find their efforts were not necessary than to under-react and get caught with their pants down again. The protocol in cases of natural disaster put FEMA immediately in charge as the lead agency. Since this particular incident involved an unknown illness or disease, he would have access to experts from the Centers for Disease Control, a representative of that agency was already on the way to meet him in the crises center of the FEMA building at the 500 block of downtown Washington, DC. All coordination with any other agencies involved from the local sheriff to National Guard response would now be controlled from this room. The building was equipped and centered around a state of the art secure communications center where coordination at multiple levels of disaster response could be carried out.

While he was waiting for their CDC liaison to arrive
, he pulled up a chat window on his secure computer and fired off a message to the duty office at the NSA monitoring station who had been providing them with real time satellite imagery of the region affected by the earthquake and the expanding plume of material. What he was interested in now was an infrared shot directly down into the mine. This would show him the depth from which the material was originating. His hope was that it would give them an early indicator of what they may be dealing with. The initial opinion he received from the director of the Geological Survey department was that a pocket of methane gas was involved. Since this was a sand mine the director had reasoned that loose sand was the major component in the growing cloud and that methane particles were being formed together with sand particles and dispersed onto the surface as the plume expanded outward. While this was only a theory, the reported symptoms of patients being admitted to local hospitals was inconsistent with methane exposure. Determining the depth of the collapse and size of the underground pocket where this material was originating would narrow the list of suspects and also give them an idea of how much more of this plume they could expect. Since methane was only known to be found in shallow pockets of no more than three hundred to one thousand feet below the surface, anything deeper would exclude methane and maybe identify another possible culprit.

He didn't have to wait long for a response and in a moment the high definition image started
to materialize on his screen. The infrared imagery depicted the target area in a range of colors from red and yellow to gray and black, the density of the colors in this case indicated different depth measurements as well as concentrations of heat sources. The image he was looking at now had already been vetted by NSA analysts and a rough measurement guide had been included to the side of the image. Dr. Woods studied the imagery and was surprised by the findings, there had been a collapse in the deepest shaft of the mine as they had suspected. The primary theory was that a fissure of some type may have existed underneath one of the shafts. These fissures can be hundreds or thousands of years old and range in size and depth. Water buildup in the mine shaft above the fissure from recent bouts of heavy storms probably resulted in the collapse of the shaft into the fissure. The imagery confirmed what they had already suspected, the source of the plume was a gas of some type that was being released from the fissure. Something that had been trapped below the surface under great pressure was now being vented into the atmosphere and would continue to do so until enough pressure was finally released to allow it to settle back down. He was already sure that this was not a methane pocket that was being released, it was too deep underground and was registering as a cooler temperature than the surrounding rock. In contrast, methane was typically found much closer to the surface and would present itself as much warmer on an infrared slide. What really surprised him was the depth of this particular fissure, if the measurements he was looking at were correct the pocket of gas that had been exposed by the mine collapse ran to a depth of four point two miles beneath the surface. The deepest drilling operation in the world under the Gulf of Mexico only ran down to a little over two miles. Whatever was coming out of that hole was a substance that had never been discovered before.

Sharing the NSA imagery with the rest of the assembled crisis team
, Dr. Woods listened patiently as theories were discussed. The growing consensus was that no matter what it was that was erupting up into the atmosphere above the mine, they needed to obtain samples of it as soon as possible and have them analyzed. The latest satellite readings of the area showed that the plume of material had already radiated out to cover an area of fifteen square miles out from the mine shaft. The good news from the last imagery was that the eruption of material did seem to be abating, so it was a possibility the underground pressure was already starting to wane. That should limit the exposure area of any toxic substance to the south central portion of the state. Even though it was a very large area that was effected, most of it was relatively rural, only two or three mid-size population centers were at risk of exposure at this time. Chances were that most of the victims showing up at local hospitals were suffering from a respiratory condition as a result of fine sand particles mixed with whatever gaseous substance had been trapped in that fissure. It was a similar condition to areas surrounding volcanic activity. Following a volcanic event ash and sulfur were released into the atmosphere, when breathed in they created a sludge like lining in the lungs that would cause respiratory problems. For most people it was treatable and they would fully recover in a few days, the very old and very young were the ones at the highest risk and it was common for some fatalities to result in these events.

What was really troubling were the reports of flu like symptoms being exhibited by victims, high fever, vomiting and general weakness were not expected symptoms of a respiratory related incident. He had personally listened to that intern with the Geological Survey office describe his own symptoms and those that he had personally observed from another victim in a town within the
affected area.

Right on cue the door to the crisis center flew open and a haggard looking gentleman that Dr. Woods recognized immediately as his counterpart at the CDC and their resident adviser from that agency, Dr. Kyle Martin, stormed into the room. Dr. Woods could already see by the expression on his face and how he nearly sprinted to the front of the room with a folder of paper in his hand that he was bringing them less than encouraging news.

"It’s bad," Dr. Martin said without preamble as soon as he had everyone's attention, "I just got off the phone with administrators from two of the three hospitals servicing the effected region in New Jersey. They have already reported multiple and I mean dozens of fatalities. Preliminary tests are showing that it is a viral infection and is airborne."

This revelation caused an excited murmur to spread through the small crowd in the crisis center.

"Could this be some type of terrorism? A biological attack of some sort?" asked the representative from Homeland security.

"Possible, of course, but unlikely. Considering the rural area and the randomness of the earthquake and resulting discharge from underground. Staging such an event is beyond my area of expertise but I would not think it possible. Also, the symptoms being reported closely resemble the H2N2 Asian Flu, but the rate of infection and speed with which the victims are advancing through the stages of illness are staggering. No known engineered element could possibly reproduce those effects."

"What are our options for containment?" Asked Dr. Woods.

Dr. Martin turned to a computerized map that had been projected onto the wall behind him, it showed a blowup of the region in New Jersey already known to be under the growing plume. Using two fingers he expanded the map to show a wider area of the state and surrounding region, then he drew a rough circle on the map.

"This represents roughly a perimeter out to twenty five miles from ground zero. Meteorological estimates will need to also be taken into consideration, but in my opinion this is the distance we need to start looking at immediately for containment. Ground all flights, stop all ground transportation in and out of this perimeter. You will note that on the fringes of the perimeter I have drawn are two major cities, Philadelphia and Trenton, New Jersey. The biggest problem area is New York City, the outskirts of which are only fifty miles from the mine. Gentlemen, the incident may have started in a rural area but you can see from this map how we could quickly lose control of this thing if we don't act immediately."

Dr. Woods studied the map for a moment and made some notations in his notebook.

"There were three hospitals which reported receiving patients, what have you heard from the other one?" he asked Dr. Martin after noting that he had told them he only talked to two of those hospitals before arriving with his report.

"The medical center in the town of.." He referred to his notes for a second, "Whiting, New Jersey has gone off the air. The last reported contact with them was over three hours ago when they contacted our office stating that several of their own staff were exhibiting symptoms of the virus. Since then we have been unable to reestablish communication with them." Dr. Martin circled the city on the map. "As you can see, that town is just under nine miles from ground zero, it
has the largest population center within ten miles."

A general discussion followed on recommendations for implementing an immediate quarantine of the area until a more definitive answer about what they were dealing with was discovered. It was at this point that Dr. Woods remembered he still had the Geological intern waiting on hold. He mentioned this to Dr. Martin who suggested having the young man return to the town of Browns Mills and seek medical treatment at a
doctor’s office there. Based on the data they had received so far, the intern was more than likely already past the point of no return. The last thing they needed to do was tell him anything more than he already knew and risk him panicking and trying to leave the area.

Dr. Woods picked up the phone and stabbed at the blinking hold button.

#

Carl had been waiting for close to twenty minutes on hold at this point and was getting a little pissed off. During his time on hold he had been hit by three more rounds of dry heaves and was sure that his fever was growing worse. Despite having nothing left in his stomach to vomit up he was now starting to feel the urge to hit a bathroom for a case of what he was sure would be some rather unpleasant diarrhea. In the last several minutes that he had been watching the explosion of material from the mine in the distance he was sure that
there had been a noticeable decrease in activity, it looked to him like whatever was being shot into the sky was starting to run dry. At least he would have something more interesting to report when the FEMA doctor came back on the line then just his increasing need to find a high capacity toilet in the very near future.

He was growing more and more concerned about his own personal health. That doctor had seemed very interested to hear about his symptoms and those of the cashier back at that gas station. Taking into account all that had happened this morning he had to believe that somehow his becoming sick was directly related to whatever was happening with the sand mine. Since the doctor didn't offer up any immediate remedy for his ailments he also had to believe it might be something they were not sure how to deal with. Carl was about to give up on the FEMA doctor when he heard a voice once again coming over the phone speaker.