The Viral Epiphany (29 page)

For example, those of you who happen to live in areas that have the highest incidence of disease have received black plastic cards.
 
Black, the color of the inner ring of the UNAPS logo, indicates that you must remain in your containment area until further notice.
 
Some people who live in areas where there are somewhat fewer cases have received red cards, which is also the color of the next ring on the UNAPS logo.
 
These people can travel within their own areas and also within the black areas.
 
Your letter will explain the system in detail.”

Randy looked down again at his letter to see what containment area applied to him.
 
As indicated on his card, it was
Manhattan Island - south of 14
^th
Street only
.
 

“Bullshit!”
Randy shouted at the television as he threw the letter down, “How the hell am I supposed to go to work now?
 
How are we supposed to eat?”

The image of Dr. Goodfellow’s reassuring smile faded away and was replaced with the UNAPS logo for a few moments until a voice said, “We now return to regularly scheduled programming.”

Randy turned off the television and looked at the cards again for a few seconds. “This is total bullshit,” he said and threw the cards back on the table.
 
Two hours later, after his wife had returned from work, he left the apartment and boarded the bus to 49
^th
Street.
 
No one on the bus asked for his containment card when he boarded and when he arrived at 49
^th
Street no one asked for his card when he got off. He walked into the Pizza shop, put on his apron and began serving customers.
 
It didn’t look like anybody was paying attention to the new containment card plan.
 
What the hell was I so worried about?
Randy thought as he served a large “special” to a group of young Koreans,
that Goodfellow guy’s a raving lunatic!

                       
           
           
*
         
           
*
         
           
*

At 8 pm that evening, Dr. Charles Goodfellow arrived at his newly designated “Asian Fever Control” headquarters.
 
The site was one of three alternate Commander-in-Chief headquarters located in the Washington D.C. area.
 
This one was located in the mountains of West Virginia, deep under a peak called O’Leary’s Mountain.
 
The somewhat antiquated control room was a holdover from the days of the cold war when nuclear annihilation seemed to be an ever-present possibility. The underground complex was equipped with enough food and water to supply thirty people for up to two months.
 
More importantly the air supply was filtered by a HEPA filtration system that was equivalent to any such system in use at the CDC’s virulent disease laboratory.
 
This would now be the virus-proof redoubt from which Charles would conduct his vigorous, if remote, assault on Asian Fever.

He was awaiting a conference call to determine the effectiveness of the new locality control program.
 
However, when the phone rang it wasn’t the conference call; it was Harry Fields, the director of the Centers for Disease Control.

“Hi Harry,” he said, not really happy to hear from him, “what can I do for you?”

“Hello, Charles, I just wanted to pass on some information I just received.”

“Sure, go ahead. Good news, I hope!”

“It may well be.
 
I just received a call from a friend of mine in Ireland. His name is Dan Quinn.
 
He’s a very well known bioresearch scientist in Cork.”

“Cork?
 
Ireland?”

“Yes, he tells me that they have managed to make a vaccine for Asian Fever! Isn’t that great news?
 
This could be what we have been hoping for.
 
We need to get together with him right away!”

“Look, Harry,” Charles said, with a hint of frustration in his voice, “I’m making the decisions, remember? Now, this Irish guy might be a friend of yours, but I’ve never heard of him.
 
How can you believe he really has a vaccine?
 
I mean, what – Ireland?
 
Come on; let’s be real here.
 
Hey listen, Harry, I have to get off the line I have an important conference call coming up. OK? I’ll talk to you later. Bye. ”
 
He hung up the phone and waited, chuckling lightly as he recalled the conversation.

The phone rang a minute later and the conference call began. The news was not good.
 
The plan for voluntary compliance with the new locality card plan wasn’t working. Spot checks by local police found that people were ignoring the plan everywhere.
 
When the call had finished he asked Admiral Mason to stay on the line.

“Admiral, I’m going to need your people to step in and make this plan work.
 
Understand?” Charles said to Admiral Mason.

“Yes, sir. I understand.”
 
The conversation with the Admiral had been, as Charles expected, very brief and businesslike.
 
However, it did produce a result.

                       
           
           
*
         
           
*
         
           
*

The convoy of the 28
^th
Infantry Division’s Stryker troop transport vehicles left Philadelphia two hours after Charles had talked with Admiral Mason.
 
It traveled north along the New Jersey Turnpike and reached the outskirts of New York City at nearly 4 a.m.
 
The light fog that drifted across the highway made the passage of the National Guard troops even less noticeable than it might have been.
 
As the convoy neared the city one group of ten Stryker vehicles turned towards the Holland Tunnel.
 
Five of these units stopped and took up positions on the New Jersey side of the tunnel while others traveled through the tunnel, under the Hudson River, and took up positions in Manhattan.
 
The main convoy then continued past Hoboken, and more Stryker armored units deployed at each side of the Lincoln Tunnel.
 
The process was repeated yet again when the convoy came to the George Washington Bridge.
 
The remainder of the convoy crossed the bridge and began taking up positions along the major access roads into Manhattan from the north. By sunrise the 28
^th
Division had positioned units along all the major routes into and out of Manhattan and at least one Stryker vehicle was parked at the corner of all major intersections within the city.

           
While the 28
^th
Infantry Division took up its positions around and within New York City, brigades of all the remaining Army divisions such as the 82
^nd
and 101
^st
Airborne Divisions, the First Armored Division, the 10
^th
Mountain Division, and more took up similar positions in and around the fifty largest cities in the United States.
 
By noon New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles – and all the largest cities – were surrounded by heavily armed U.S. Army troops.
 
It was then that enforcement of the locality cards began.
    

           
Randy Jacobsen couldn’t get to work today.
 
He had to get off the bus at 14
^th
Street when the soldiers at the checkpoint told him he was not allowed to go any further. He walked to the sidewalk and looked around.
  
People were coming out of the buildings to see what was going on. Newly arriving Stryker vehicles were now blocking all the avenues that led to the northern parts of Manhattan.
 
Then, in what seemed to Randy to be only a few minutes, the crowd on the street grew from a few hundred people to several thousand.
 
The 14
^th
Street soldiers cautiously retreated inside their armored vehicle.
 
From somewhere within the crowd someone threw a tomato at the Stryker.
 
A minute later a computer monitor, thrown from one of the office windows high above, crashed onto the Stryker and exploded into hundreds of plastic and glass fragments. Seconds later, as a roar went up from the crowd, the soldiers inside the armored vehicle fastened the hatches shut.

Twenty-Nine

           
The winds roared as they flew over the craggy rocks and then they turned and twisted and roiled through tall oaks and maples.
 
In some places the recorded wind speed exceeded 150 miles per hour as the storm continued to rage over Ireland for nearly three days.
 
Never in living memory in Cork, or any other part of the island nation, had there been driving snow accompanied by the earth-shaking crashes of thunder and blue-white bolts of lightning.
 
The brilliant flashes momentarily illuminated the thrashing trees and lit up the snow and sleet that blew sideways and even upwards.
 
And never had the seas appeared so mountainous. Enormous waves had relentlessly heaved themselves upon Cork’s jagged coast only to shatter into wet, salty spray that flew above the trees. The scent of the sea was carried far, far inland by the storm’s incessant gusts.

           
The morning of the third day dawned calm and clear.
 
As people began to venture out of their homes again, the assessment of the damages had begun.
 
Homes that had been built of stone, with roofs covered with gray slabs of slate, were mostly intact.
 
The Irish had learned centuries before to make good use of the rocks that were found almost everywhere in the land to build their homes.
 
Homes made of wood and roofs of asphalt shingles might be fine for some parts of the world, but for this sometimes-wild land, it would always have to be houses made of stone.

           
While many trees had been uprooted and blown down, and roads were blocked in nearly every town, the townspeople of County Cork pitched in alongside the County workers and soon, even as the sun quickly melted the snow, most of the major roads were passable again.
 
Besides those who were involved in the cleanup there were others, the curious, who were eager to survey the impact of the storm.
 
Many people made their way to the southern coast, only a few miles from Cork city to see what had been washed up onto the shores. The excitement of possibly finding some long lost treasure that had been cast up upon the shore was irresistible.
 
One of these people, Owen O’Donovan, had driven down to Dunowen Head at the entrance to Clonakilty Bay, shortly after sunrise. He was amazed to see upon the rocks the battered, blue and white remains of the wreckage of a very large boat, the
Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray
.

           
She had been, perhaps, a trawler, and the name on the bow indicated that she was, more than likely, from France. The largest piece of the hull was at least fifty feet long. This was the section that contained the forward cabin and part, maybe half, of the aft deck.
 
It appeared that the boat had been ripped apart when it hit the rocks.
 
There was no trace of the stern section of the boat nor was there any trace of the crew or passengers.
 
Owen called the Clonakilty
Garda
station with his mobile phone and the
Gardai
and the Irish Coast Guard had begun a land and sea search for survivors along the Cork coastline at 8 a.m.

           
An hour after the search for survivors had started along the southern coast, Dan, Sheila, and Brendan sat down in the office of the local manager of Americus Medical Agents, the largest of several American pharmaceutical manufacturing plants in Cork.

           
Dan introduced Sheila and Brendan to Martin, and after they had all sat down at the small conference table and been given cups of tea Dan said, “Martin, let me come right to the point.
 
We think we have a viable formula for a vaccine for Asian Fever.”
 
Dan went on to tell him how Brendan had analyzed the mammoth tissue and then used the university’s computer system to create a theoretical vaccine.
 
He then went on to tell Martin how they had recently tested it using Dan’s vaccine program.