The Doomsday Infection (17 page)

CHAPTER 24

09:30 AM

On the video screens in the Pentagon War Room, a wobbly picture from a hand held camera showed images of the Four Points Hotel collapsing like a deck of cards, “Oh . . .my . . .God,” whispered Vice Admiral Reed. The dust cloud appeared to topple the cameraman and dust obscured the screen. The forty-story building fell down on itself as if demolished with controlled explosions set by experts.

The men stared in wide-eyed amazement. Hamilton Parker asked; “Any news on General Malloy?”

A high-ranking air-force officer said, “Our latest reports have him in the building, his last message from on top of it.”

“Any chance he could have survived that?” the
President asked.

“There’s always hope, sir. The troops will do their best to find him.”

The President took the news badly, looking decidedly ill, seeming to have lost all his former vigor.  He said no more, leaned forward and switched off the monitor filming him, leaving a black screen and the men in the room looked to one another wondering what to do next without the President to make executive decisions.

09:31 AM

A rumbling of what Luke first thought might be thunder drew his attention back behind him, he watched in disbeli
ef as the forty floor structure, that had once been a shining example of how wondrous a skyscraper could be, collapsed in on itself. The soldiers ran to hide from the approaching dust cloud. Luke felt the vibration through the pavement beneath his feet. A cloud of billowing dust swirled towards him at speed. He instinctively knew they could not out run it, especially in the hazmat suits. He signaled for Sophie to follow him in taking refuge behind a truck and sit low as the dust cloud whooshed past them. Once again, the hazmat suit’s breathing apparatus saved them, but is was still a claustrophobic, disorientating feeling as the dark cloud obliterated the sunlight.

“Where did that come from?” Sophie asked, wiping a film of dust from her visor.

“I’m guessing it’s what’s left of the communications post.”

“Yes!” she said triumphantly. She smiled brightly. “Strik
e one for us!” They high-fived.

He grinned widely. “We’ve gained ourselves a few hours grace while they regroup,” he told her. “And more importantly, it’s a perfect diversion; all eyes will be on the military
bases and installations, expecting more attacks. They’ll go into defensive mode.”

“Thank God, maybe someone will break through the cordon and get news to the outside world
of what is going on down here.”

“And I’m
gonna make sure that ‘someone’ will be us.”

09.35 AM

In the war room, the i
ntelligence came in fast and furiously and without exception each new piece contradicted the last. The heads of the divisions promoted their own intelligence as being correct and the most accurate information. Without the President to oversee the chaos and make decisions it resembled an all out knock ‘em down and drag ‘em out schoolyard scrap. Each division putting their latest predictions onto the giant monitors, each one inevitably predicted a dire future, not one had a glimmer of optimism.

When
, to Quinn Martell’s alarm, a grainy head shot of Sophie filled the screen. Vice Admiral Reed tapped the table to get their attention and the men turned to look at the screen. “This is from CCTV on top of a mobile unit parked down the street from the hotel just before the airplane was used as a mobile bomb to attack the Four Points Hotel,” he informed the gathered personnel, the murmuring stopped as everyone in the room fell silent. The screens showed a poorly lit video of an aircraft trundling by. “If you look at the top right hand corner of the screen," he froze the image. “You can see that the escape-hatch opens, the chute deploys, and the terrorists jump from the plane.” He moved the images on a few frames and Sophie’s face filled the screen.

Hamilton Parker over-rode the footage and his face replaced Sophie’s on their monitors,
and was back to his cocky self. “Well, well, well, look who it is? Anything to say, Quinn?”

All eyes sw
iveled to the surgeon general. “I’m telling you -”

“I
remember you telling us before -” cut in the President, he prowled the Oval Office, fully back in charge. “- That she wasn’t involved in releasing the virus at the hospital, that she wasn’t involved in the former President’s murder, and now, I suppose that she’s not involved in this atrocity? How gullible are you? Let us examine the facts, she was seen sneaking away from the island, the very hospital where this plague started -”

“We don
’t yet know where it started,” Quinn Martell argued back.

Hamilton was on the attack, he held up his inde
x finger to emphasize the point. “Yet, there she is right there in the thick of it, right at the very start. Next the former President is assassinated and who appears on his security cameras fleeing the scene in a stolen vehicle in her bid to escape?” He held up a second finger. “And now an audacious attack on our premier command post in the danger zone, driving an airplane into the building no less, and who appears on nearby CCTV cameras?” He held up a third finger.

Quinn was on the ropes but defended his protégé. “There will be an explanation, if -”

“I think we’ve all heard enough from you, Quinn. We’ve delayed action because of you and your procrastinating and it cost General Malloy his life. I’ve been discussing this with my advisors -”

“His advisors?” mouthed Vice Admiral Reed to Quinn Martell. “What advisors? Surely we’re his advisors?”

“We’re going to Defcon two -”

“
Defcon two?” Queried Reed, “The country has only ever been at Defcon two once, that was during the Cuban missile crisis. We did not do that even after 9/11.”

“This terrorist threat is far worse -”

“It’s not terrorists, for Pete’s sake -”

“We estimate that five million people are already dead from the chemical atta
ck. And if any of these carriers break through the blockade, it will run into hundreds of millions dead,” he paused and ran his fingers through his hair. “Now my advisors figure that the suspect identified as Doctor Sophia Garcia - foreign born I should add - is not working alone, but at the moment she is the only one we can identify for sure. She obviously has an antidote and is able to move freely amongst the carriers. So she, and more importantly her antidote, is the most essential element to the survival of the United States of America.”

“But,” started the Vice Admiral cautiously, “Hasn’t she escaped . . . again?”

“Yes. We figure she has a network of followers aiding her, but as we speak we have operatives on the ground infiltrating these groups and sending out the message that there is an extraordinary reward for anyone assisting with her capture – something irresistible.”

A murmur
quickly started in the room, and the consensus was that this was an excellent plan. They all agreed - except Quinn. “Your plan is solid, Mister President, except for a couple of things,” he said. “The fact that she is NOT a terrorist, and has NOT developed this new strain of the Bubonic plague, therefore, and more importantly has NOT invented an antidote.”

He looked around the faces of the military personnel gathered aroun
d the large conference table but no one looked at all interested.

Hamilton Parker grinned. “Their silence speaks volumes, Quinn. I think we’ve all heard more than enough from you. Your function here a
s the Surgeon General was as an expert on communicable diseases . . . but your expertise has come up short,
you
have come up short. Your services are no longer required.”

“But I . . .” stammered
Quinn in shock. “I have a wealth of -”

“Don’t embarrass yourself, Martell, you’re dismiss
ed,” the President said firmly.

Quinn gazed around the table at the gathered men and woman of the armed forces,
none of whom would even look him in the eye. He stood and gathered his belongings and left the room with as much dignity as he could muster.

Vice Admiral Reed cleared his throat. “We have also isolated this man, as another person of interest, he was seen at the hospital wi
th Doctor Garcia, and we’ve taken this image from the same CCTV camera near the Four Points.” A grainy headshot of Luke filled the screens. “He’s been identified as Luke Spencer.”

CHAPTER 25

12:00 MIDDAY

The noonday sun scorched the street. Richie Carpenter could see a vapor haze trailing up from the pavement surface, making the building opposite shimmer like an oasis. He was on the corner of Sunrise and 48
th
Street, in Fort Lauderdale. The heat as intolerable as ever, had sapped his energy. He lit a cigarette and stayed in the shadows as a military truck zipped past him. He headed to a huddle of people hanging near the edge of a park. All had scarves covering their noses and mouths in a vain attempt to protect them from the virus.

Carpenter, flicked away the cigarette, pulled up his neckerchief, and waved to them in friendly greeting.

Jake, the surfer dude, spotted him and raised his hand slightly in welcome. “Hey, Dude, you clean?”

“I
ain’t a darkie; I’m good, take a look.” He twirled as if on a fashion catwalk and lifted his shirt. He smiled knowing that he would pass their test, as he didn’t have buboes or darkening of the skin.

Jake ginned. “He’s clean, welcome to our gang.” The others eyed him
nervously and nodded to him. “How did you find us?”

“I’ve been tailing you for a while, making sure you guys were clean. How come you
ain’t gone to the refugee camp?” Carpenter asked.

“Don’t trust the government, if you get my drift.”

“I hear you loud and clear, partner.” They slapped hands in their newfound bond. “I thought I could be more use in a partisan gang, than on my own.”

“We
ain’t no uprising,” said Winnie who had stuck with Jake after they’d escaped prior to the gas-attack at the stadium. “We just trying to survive and get out of this hell-hole.”

“I hear you, sister,” he said, noticing Winnie bristle at this remark. “So; you guys
ain’t behind the attack on HQ?”

“HQ?” Winnie asked, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

Carpenter gulped and quickly covered his error. “The Four Points Hotel, has been turned into the military HQ for South Florida, I thought everybody knew? I’ve been watching and reconnoitering looking for a chink in their armor -”

“You a one-man resistance unit?” Winnie asked with a sneer in her voice.

“I’m trying to be. I assumed anyone not escaping or going to the refugee camps must be resistance fighters,” Carpenter replied.

“Not us, we only want to stay alive,” Jake told him.

“Anyhow,” Carpenter continued. “There I was reconnoitering the HQ, when – Jesus! I could not believe my eyes! This jet came whizzing down the street, crashed into the hotel and exploded. Jesus, I ain’t seen anything like it.”

“What happened to the hotel?” Jake asked.

Carpenter made a toppling action with his forearm. “9/11, man, a goddamned 9/11.”

The gang gasped as they digested this newest piece of information. “We heard the explosion, dude.” Jake whistled. “And you thought that we were behind the attack?”

“Fucking A. I was kinda hoping. That’s my sort of retaliation,” he said. “Cut them off at the knees.”

Jake smiled and said. “Good luck with that, buddy. We don’t want a war. We just
wanna get out of here. You’re welcome to tag along. I’m Jake.”

Carpenter shook his hand, “Lei –, Lew –is, Lewis Carpenter.” He covered. “So, how are yo
u planning on escaping?”

Jake started, “Well, we though
t our best chance -”

Winnie cut him short. “You ask a mighty amo
unt of questions for a stranger.” She gave the newcomer the evil eye. “Well, what you got to say for yourself, hmm?”

“No offence ma'am, I’ve been on my own since this started
and I wanted to talk to a fellow human being. The loneliness has turned me into a chatter-box, I meant no harm.”

This convinced Jake, he signaled for him to sit, as did the rest of the grou
p and they settled back down to an impromptu meal. Jake offered him an opened can of beans. He sat and ate the baked beans, cold, and straight from the can. Winnie eyed him suspiciously. She pulled Jake aside. “This is too much of a coincidence. Look at him; he ain’t starving. He ain’t been out on the streets, trying to survive. His shoes ain’t even scuffed.”

“You think he’s a plant?” he asked, then after a moment said. “Why would
the Government do that?”

She pondered the question, and then shrugged. “Well, no, it don’t make no sense, but he’s up to something. I don’t like it.”

“We’ll keep our eyes on him. But I just can’t think why they’d send in spies.”

Carpenter saw Winnie whispering to Jake who seemed to be the self-elected leader of the little group. He took off his boot,
pretended to rub his foot as if it were aching, then twisted a cover from the heel and flicked a transmitter switch on a tiny GPS tracker hidden in the false heel.  

Mission accomplished, thought Lieutenant Carpenter with a smile.