Joe Rush 02: Protocol Zero (16 page)

“No roads out of Barrow, but anyone could leave by snowmobile or SUV, use their GPS, and hit the tundra,” Karen said. Which was why the Rangers would cordon the town.

The world closing in. We rounded a corner and saw, in an efficient show of force, at sea, the U.S.’s sole working icebreaker, the Coast Guard’s
Wilmington
. And the nuclear sub, the
Virginia
, a dark moray eel shape, risen through light slush. Barrow had no harbor. Neither ship would land.

Karen said, “The
Wilmington
’s got a chopper, and Coast Guard snipers. The
Virginia
, drones. I’m on call if they have problems. They’re to block offshore.”

“Thirty-six wasted hours,” I said, remembering General Homza telling me on the phone.
I’ll head the task force, personally. When we land, I’ll call you. Stay put.

Great. Can’t wait.

An hour later, Karen and I—in the crowd at the airport—watched white parka–clad troops hemming us in, as efficient as hindsight. I thought,
A day and a half of passengers scattering from Barrow across Earth, while the CDC people ran tests, gasped over the results. Refused at first to believe that rabies killed five . . . And now, nine.

Eddie—back from the field—pushed through the crowd, stood beside us, and put it more graphically. “Idiots.”

The Rangers moved efficiently as the crowd grew more agitated. On the tundra, the last few feet of open view was sealed off by concertina wire—a razor wall. Oh, the city had known that rabies was loose. They’d been alerted by the mayor and Ranjay. But they’d been given an impression that the danger was smaller. They’d been told to watch for sick animals, to make sure their pets were inoculated. They’d not been told that rabies may have assumed a new form.

Now the mayor looked like a fool before his own people. He was angry and—like anyone with family here—afraid.

Rangers moved onlookers back, maintaining a thirty-foot buffer area inside the wire. In the airport they’d be double-checking hangars and offices. Our old Navy base to the north would return to its original function, housing military personnel. The huts were being gas-bombed right now, to kill germs. No one was allowed back in for the next few hours.

In quarantine drills I’d practiced, soldiers set up tent cities outside the infected area. Impossible here. Too cold. In drills
,
supplies arrived on roads. Here there were none. In drills
,
medicine worked. And these troops had been vaccinated, but if we faced a new strain, we all risked infection. There were no good choices, I thought. Only degrees of danger.

Standing atop the bank building, as Karen, Eddie, and I did with Merlin and the mayor ten minutes later, we got a complete view as Hercules aircraft disgorged more Humvees, .50-caliber machine guns on top, beginning patrols along the perimeter. Rangers toting M4 carbines stood on higher rooftops, setting up terrestrial jammers.

“Full cooperation from communication companies,” Eddie said. “As pre-agreed for in a protocol four event.”

No cell-phone calls or YouTube presentations would be leaving Barrow to go viral. No chance of millions of people in Moscow, Tehran, Beijing, and Mexico City watching minute-by-minute panic:
American town quarantined!

The crowd continued to swell.

Guards opened a gap in the wire and a lone Humvee drove inside. A single officer got out and climbed onto the vehicle’s hood to face the crowd, now easily more than a thousand people.

“Major General Wayne Homza,” Karen said.

From a distance, he looked shorter, bullish, but size meant nothing. His voice was deep and resonant, containing the right mix of authority and respect for the audience. His posture was as straight in person as on screen. I liked that he exposed himself. My respect rose a notch. I hoped he was more than just a self-serving featherweight attack dog. I saw formidability. He’d need flexibility as well.

He announced, voice clear in the silence, “We’re handing out free surgical masks and rubber gloves for anyone who wants them. Go home. Stay calm. Food will be distributed. Doctors will be at the hospital. Anyone experiencing headaches or fever, please go to the emergency room, at no charge.

“In one hour I will meet with you at the high school. It’s too cold for all of us to stand around out here. I will answer all questions. We’ll talk, calmly and rationally. One hour.”

A man’s voice cried out from the crowd, clear to us on the roof. “We need to hunt the bowheads now! They are here.”

“Sorry, sir. No boats going out.”

I recognized the man as a whaling captain. “We promise to come back. We need to hunt before they pass!”

Homza nodded sympathetically, but answered, firmly, “We will supply all the food you need.”

“I don’t want
your
food.”

“Sir, I’m not partial to Army food, either, half the time.” He smiled. “But we’ll make do for the time being. For safety.”

“Ours? Or yours? Once the whales pass they are gone until spring.”

The mayor turned to me speculatively. I’d dreaded this moment. Protocol four calls for local authorities to be notified before quarantine, but Washington had decided that an unannounced arrival would be best in this case. I’d argued over it. I’d said, “General, if the town was New York, would you keep people in the dark?”

“I won’t honor that insult with an answer.”

Merlin asked me now, “Joe, did you know about this?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t tell us.”

“No.”

Eddie looked from my face to Merlin’s. “He was ordered not to. He was threatened.”

The mayor made a disgusted sound, spun on his insulated boots, and headed for the rooftop doorway. Merlin looked sad. “Who’s side are you on, Joe?”

Eddie said. “You know the answer. Uno, tell him. Say something, man!”

Karen said, “How can you ask that, Merlin?”

The point was, I hadn’t told them.

Merlin turned to leave.

•   •   •

PANIC RIPPED THROUGH THE HIGH SCHOOL AUDITORIUM. CLASSES WERE
suspended: No gatherings of more than five to form in public for the time being, General Homza said, but since there had been no advance warning of the quarantine, the auditorium was filled with one last community meeting, people who wanted answers; angry, yelling, fearful parents, whole families, old and young, everyone shouting at the same time:

—Why are troops here?

—This is the United States of America! You can’t do this to us!

—You’re treating us like criminals!

—We are French tourists. You must let us go!

The big room seemed smaller, and I could sense that razor wire outside, a half mile off, as if it had drawn town boundaries in, constricted even the air supply. A half dozen Rangers stood in front of the stage like security guards at a rock concert, hands at belts, sidearms conspicuous, but no M4s in sight. Gutsy call, General.

Karen whispered, “In this town there are probably as many firearms as people.
”

On stage, Homza, floodlit, looked out at the standing-room crowd, people shoulder to shoulder, packing exit doors, sitting on steps, in aisles, spilling out into hallways, glued to intercom boxes overhead. More like firewood waiting to ignite than people. A cross-section of America: Eskimos and whites, blacks, Samoans, Cambodians, Pakistanis. I saw elders with walkers, guaranteed front row seats. I saw community college students. The handful of neighbors from the base were grouped together.

I saw, in all eyes, fear.

“I am Major General Wayne Homza, heading the task force charged with protecting you, and keeping any disease here from spreading. You’re afraid, I know. Angry that we’ve shut you in. I’d feel the same way. It’s no fun to make sacrifices. God chooses us for different challenges and gave this one to you. But by keeping whatever has happened here local, we may save lives. Yours. And others.”

The president, I knew, would probably be on TV, telling the nation that a U.S. town had been quarantined,
“An unprecedented act for the safety of its citizens and all villages on the North Slope.”
That hopefully the situation would be temporary. The rabies would disappear. That the disease might not be contagious. That nations which had received travelers from Barrow had been notified. That his difficult decision had been based on a CDC recommendation to protect four hundred million Americans. That his heart was heavy.

The general acted more diplomatically with civilians than I’d thought him capable. He said, “I hope that we will, together, defeat a danger. I’ve brought along top epidemiologists to pinpoint the illness’s origin. And special agents from the Army’s investigative units to coordinate the investigation with your officials, determine whether a crime or terrorist attack has occurred.”

Eddie whispered, “Coordinate? Or take over?”

Homza was no fool. Safety aside, he had to realize that the outcome of this quarantine would determine his professional future. The last thing he needed was a riot. He said, “I want our stay to be brief. We will do everything possible to make you comfortable. I will take questions now. Please line up at the microphone and identify yourself before speaking. Remember, our precautions are for your own good.”

“No, they are for
your
good. Martha Nukinek died yesterday and my neighbor, Mr. Kunisakera, is in the hospital,” said the first questioner, a slim woman with a moon face, long black hair, and wearing a thigh-length snow shirt. She carried her infant in a sling.

The general nodded sympathetically. “No one wants this thing to spread. You must see that.”

“Don’t tell me what I must do! You people have wanted to kill us ever since you tried to blow up Point Hope.”

The place erupted with shouting.

“
Why can’t I use my cell phone!”

“You’re working for the oil companies!”

Homza, by the fifth question, was drowned out. What would he do? He was used to people following his orders. I saw him pause, unrattled. His eyes calmly found me, third row up, right side. He’d known I was there all along, I realized. His head flicked. It was a summons.

“I’m going to have someone who many of you know up here,” he said. “Many of you remember Colonel Rush, who was here once before, when he stopped another outbreak.”

He waited for me like a master calls a dog. A dog told to “shut up” one minute and to “speak” the next. A dog threatened with a cell if he disobeyed. He shook my hand when I reached the stage, so the crowd would see friendship; I felt the hard grip, saw the challenge in his eye. He said, “You know what to do. You know these people.”

He meant,
Are you one of us? Prove I can trust you.

I looked down from the stage, beyond the guards, at a handful of supportive faces; Merlin, shrewd, Karen, nodding as if to say,
You’ll do the right thing,
then turning to scan the crowd with a fierce, protective attitude that sent a bolt of love into my heart.
That’s
my man up there! I’ll kill anyone who harms him!
I saw a flash of red hair and a beautiful face: Tilda Swann taking phone videos. She couldn’t broadcast them yet but she was making a record.

Mostly I saw lots of strangers, ready to erupt.

“Some of you know me. I’m Colonel Joseph Rush. I’ll answer your questions. But, please, one at a time.”

“What kind of doctor are you anyway?” demanded a professor from the community college.

“I work in a toxics and disease unit. Public safety.”

“What experiments have you done on rabies?” asked a part-time worker at the oil field at Prudhoe Bay.

“None, ma’am. My partner and I have been up here all summer, studying microbes. Standard study.”

Tilda Swann pushed her way to the front row, and held up her phone. Mikael Grandy in back, filmed also, looked excited. Happy.
What a great story!
He panned the crowd. He pushed his way down the aisle, lens on Karen, as the night manager at the elders home screamed at me, “You gave people this disease!”

“Sir, that isn’t true.”

At the mike stood a huge Samoan, the high school football coach, shirt hanging loose, rolls on his chin; I knew him vaguely from Saturday morning basketball . . . skins against shirts . . . scientists teamed with locals. His family of five boys stood beside him as he barked: “I heard that you soldiers got vaccinated but there’s no serum for our kids?”

I was ordered to take it. Essential personnel need it, they said. If you get sick, no one can do the work.

I explained, calmly, “Anyone who came in contact with victims will receive preventative inoculations. That includes nurses and families of detectives working the case.”
Locals, not just outsiders.
I saw sporadic nodding in the audience. I said, “Also Dr. Bruce Friday, who was sprayed with saliva while rushing a man to the hospital.”

The coach insisted, “Why can’t we all get it?”

Because there’s not enough to go around.

“We’ll be flying up additional serum,” I said, hating being the one to explain the too-late policy. “If you have been in contact with a sick person, if you have exchanged fluids with them, saliva, liquids, you are top priority for the next round.”

But if more symptoms appear, or if the disease is fast spreading, it will be too late for you.

The next questioner was one of the younger whaling captains, maybe thirty-nine years old. He said, “I heard that Longhorn North flew medicine in for
their
people. They get special treatment! They’re not essential personnel!”

“That just is not true, sir.”

What is true, though, is that they’re
going
to fly in vaccine. A private supply, that the company bought. How the hell did people here find that out already? The Longhorn people will receive standard inoculations for people who may have already been infected; one rabies shot on the first day, plus a dose of immune-globulin, then three more shots scheduled on the third, seventh and fourteenth days, a painful process guaranteed to stop rabies . . . unless this is a resistant strain.

A middle-aged woman—lawyer, for the borough—took the mike. “I heard there are three thousand doses stored at the airport, and you refuse to release them!”