The Doomsday Infection (13 page)

CHAPTER 19

03.30 AM

General Malloy called a meeting of the Chiefs of Staff. He addressed them from the President’s summer retreat using the video-link. They were at the War Room, with Quinn Martell there to make sense of the medical information over-load, landing on their desks and translate it into a form of English they would understand.

When they had taken their seats General Malloy cleared his throat and said; “Gentlemen it is my sad duty to inform you that President Burgess died at approximately
0200 hours this morning.” The Chiefs’ of Staff were astounded by the news and the abrupt manner in which it was delivered. “Vice President Parker is being sworn in as we speak, and he has given me the authority to do what I must, however unpalatable it may be, to sort out the Florida problem.”

Hamilton Parker kept his ear tuned to the General’s speech to the Chiefs of Staff via video-link while being sworn in as the next President of the United States of America. He and the general had worked out a strategy earlier and realized they needed the co-operation of the other armed forces, knowing some, by their inherent weak nature would object, yet he had confidence in General M
alloy to lay out the plan and persuade them.

He could hardly contain his joy and sat in the sumptuous leather chair behind the expansive desk in
the Oval Office. He regarded the briefcase upon it. The briefcase that could launch a nuclear war, little more than a laptop these days and he was awe-struck to think of the doomsday destruction the slim case held. He’d had one quick lesson in how to find the launch codes and activate them. He had a boy-like fascination with it, like being told not to touch wet paint, he had an overwhelming desire to open it, press a button and unleash hell! He managed to resist the urge knowing it was only for a retaliatory nuclear strike or even an offensive strike if it came to it. He might need the weapons sooner rather than later, he thought ominously.

He sent the advisors away so that he could concentrate on the General’s statement to the Chiefs of Staff.

General Malloy continued, “He was assassinated by the female terrorist that we have identified as being at the hospital where the Bubonic Plague has so far been tracked back to. For her to be present at both locations as an innocent bystander is too much of a coincidence - and I don’t believe in coincidences. She is now our number one suspect.

A hazy image of Sophie filled their monitors, Quinn Martell recognized her at once. He knew that she
was not capable of the crime, but to announce that he knew her would mean he would have to reveal her name and ultimately it would lead to her capture. He saw the general staring at him and guessed his face had given him away. He thought he better have a cover story. “The President told me that he had invited her himself. She’s an expert on ancient communicable diseases and he wanted to hear from her first hand. She’s the foremost expert on the contagion.”

This threw the general for a moment, and then he
found his voice. “Nevertheless, she’s our number one suspect and -”

“Hold on a moment, general, are you trying to say that out of all the experts in the world he could have called upon to advise him, he picked YOUR number one suspect, and invited her into his home?”

“Well, that’s what happened.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in coincidences?”

“Nevertheless, she has been identified as the assassin and has fled the scene in a stolen vehicle. Hardly the actions of an innocent advisor. We have people watching her apartment and all personnel have been issued with an image of her and instructed to shoot her on sight.”

The surgeon general sighed. “General Malloy, when will you understand that this is not an attack by some foreign power. It is the Black Death, the Bubonic Plague. It’s here, and we need to deal with it. Stop chasing mythical terrorists, you’re barking up the wrong tree. We need to concentrate the military on taking care of the good folk of Florida -”

“Don’t worry, doc,” he sneered. “We’re taking care of the Floridians, and you can trust me on that.”

04:00 AM

Sophie turned around and was shocked and delighted to see Luke. He put his finger to his lips, and she nodded. He took his hand away, and they backed into
the darkness of the bushes. He explained that he’d come to find her, claiming he thought it a good idea to be with the expert on the disease, and that for some reason they seemed to be immune to the Bubonic Plague, he paused then said with a grin. “And I wanted to see you, again.”

They
moved northward, then ducked into a doorway as a patrol zoomed past them tracking down a young girl on a scooter, the gunner on top of the Humvee aimed, fired, and hit her square between the shoulder blades, the bullet exited her chest in a cloud of red blood. She fell forward onto the handlebars, and then slumped from the scooter, which carried on down the street before toppling over.

Sophie gasped in shock. Although Luke had told her what had been happening, it still jolted her to see American troops murdering American c
itizens. She told him about General Malloy killing President Burgess and his plans to annihilate the residents of Florida. He explained that it had already started, he told her of the execution squads and of the mass gassing at the refugee camp. They moved north along Biscayne Boulevard and were fast becoming immune to the atrocities. They kept to the shadows as they saw looters shot, their bodies joining the many others littering the streets, left to rot.

04:15 AM

“Hello?” Submariner Pete Williams called out aboard the nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Amarillo. It’d been over an hour since he last found someone alive, albeit only for several minutes as that sailor too, succumbed, noisily and painfully to the virus. He made his way around the narrow metal tube. Claustrophobia overwhelmed him. He’d never known he’d suffered from it until now, but he had become aware that the tight metal coffin had him trapped. Everywhere he went the sailors were dead, strangely turning black first, some
appeared to have died almost instantly. Dying sat at their posts. Friends he’d seen alive and healthy an hour or two earlier, now stone-cold dead, sat upright in front of their work stations, staring at their computer screens too frightened of their superiors to ask to be dismissed, with what they had perceived a bug, thinking a good night’s sleep would see them alright.

He made his way down to a lower deck where the thrum of the engine got louder. “Hello . . . anybody?” He felt fear rise in
him and tears streaked his cheeks. He didn’t care who would see them. He wished there would be someone alive to see his obvious cowardice. He wondered what would happen if the nuclear reactor overheated? He did not have a clue what to do to stop it overheating. He was the last man standing and had been found wanting.

A more heroic sailor would save the day, and possibly the nearby population, for that matter, whereas he contemplated suicid
e, thinking it preferable to a slow lingering death. He thought the air had warmed up, and that he sucked in the deadly microbes with every breath. He only wanted to get to the surface, to breathe clean air his only ambition now. He didn’t care if no one found him he just needed clean fresh air. However, he didn’t know how to surface the vessel and his despair worsened.

He found himself in the communications sector, and thought of the radio, there must be a link to the mainland. Someone there would know where he was and rescue him. He felt elated and sat before the microphone, he’d seen the guys making calls enough times, he pressed the button, and spoke. “Mayday, mayday, mayday! Hello, can anybody hear me, this is Submariner Peter Williams on board the USS Amarillo, please respond . . .” He heard his voice echoing around his metallic hellhole. “Hello, can anybody hear me, this is Submariner Peter Williams on board the USS Amarillo, please respond . . .”

Fort Jenkins, a short squat building near Key West was a facility big enough to dock submarines for servicing and repairs. It was also responsible for communications between submarines and HQ. However because the USS Amarillo was on a top-secret mission, no messages were expected. The captain of the submarine knew better than to break radio silence, it would cost him his job to do so.

The Submariner did not know how many violations he broke, nor would he have cared, his thin, reedy voice, tinged with hysteria rattled around the room. The message came through loud and clear, sadly there was not one human left alive in the room. The sailors were dead at their posts, and the ever-present rats, greedily devoured the human flesh.

04:15 AM

“We’re pulling the plug on southern Florida,” said Hamilton Parker the incumbent President. He addressed the War Room via a video-link from his desk within the Oval Office at the White House.

General Jack Malloy spoke via the video-link from the ex-
President’s summer residence. Quinn Martell was with the chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon’s War Room.

“You can’t be serious,” Quinn Martell said.

“We’re pulling the plug on Florida, all the way to the outskirts of Orlando.”

“That’s inhumane?” spluttered Quinn.

“Wouldn’t it be more inhumane to the rest of the population to expose them to the deadly virus? Wouldn’t that be morally wrong?”

“Of course, but we haven’t finished our studies. If we could isolate -”

“We don’t have the luxury of time for your flapping around, Quinn. All our evidence is that we cannot wait. It would be too late. Our men on the ground can only do so much.”

“
So we quit, just like that, on millions of US citizens?” Quinn asked in disbelief.

“Most are dead or dying, we’re talking about a handful of survivors that are resist
ant to the bacteria, but they may still succumb.”

“That’s why we must do the tests, we need -”

“It’s too late, doctor,” said the new President. “To be frank, there are too small a number to risk the safety of the rest of us. It’s unlucky for them, sure, but if the shoe was on the other foot, who's to say. . .”

The men around the table murmured their agreement. “It’s time for bold decisions for the sake of the future of our great nation and I’m the man to do it. We’ve already cut all communication to and from the exclusion zone, we’ve got the ports, airport and roads blocked, and patrols mopping up the darkies -”

“The what?” Quinn asked appalled.

“The “darkies”, it’s what the troop’s are calling the plague carriers, their skin darkens in the latter stages of the disease.”

“And if a person is African-American?” Quinn asked. “How do we distinguish between them and a plague carrier?”

“Again, it’s too bad. In all likelihood, they are going to die anyhow. As I said, we’re talking about a handful of people.”

“May God forgive us,” Quinn mumbled in defeat.

“We’re controlling the information, and when the danger is over
, and enough time has passed, our actions will be vindicated. We may even be hailed for our bold, brave decisions, that have not only saved the country, but more likely the world, we’ll go down in history -”

“We’ll go down in history all right,” Quinn scoffed.

“You’re comments are duly noted,” Hamilton Parker said not meaning it for a second. “Now, we have key people in the zone, manning nuclear installations, and other highly sensitive organizations, but they are being stretched thin.”

“We need the citizens to go to the refugee camps. We’re offering food, medicine
and shelter, yet there’s still too much resistance. We have round-up patrols but they are taking up too much of the military’s valuable time. So, I have decided to pull the plug, to force the more independently minded to hasten their way to the camps.”

“What do you mean, Mister President?” asked Quinn. “How are you going to force the population to the camps?”

“We are literally pulling the plug.”

04:30 AM

From Orlando pretty much bang in the center of the peninsular of Florida down to Miami the average
ground height above sea level is just twelve feet. Much of the coastal districts even lower still, and what with the latest trend in scare stories of global warming Floridians now had the specter of a tsunami to contend with along with their annual and often fatal hurricanes. Florida had experienced a tidal-wave centuries ago, an earthquake off the coast of Portugal, had caused a tidal-wave that swamped the present day Miami and almost five miles inland. What with the boxing day tsunami in 2004 and the more recent 2011 event in Tohoku, Japan, triggered by an earthquake that had a devastating effect on the local area and was still fresh in Japan’s collective memory, it was a wonder anyone lived in such low lying areas. It was claimed that Cinderella’s castle at Disney World was the highest non-residential point in Florida.

Luke appr
eciated Florida’s flat as a pancake landscape, because it gave him a birds-eye view positioned from on top of the Coral Tower, the thirty story incompleted condo, that skirted the I-95 freeway gave him an unobscured vantage point.