Scourge - A Medical Thriller (The Plague Trilogy Book 3)

  SCOURGE

  A Medical Thriller by

  VICTOR METHOS

  When a man dies, a world is lost.

  ― Heraclitus

  PROLOGUE

  Undisclosed Location, Soviet Union, 1988

  Michael Tippets had been with the World Health Organization for over eleven years, and never, not once, had he been as anxious as he was now.

  Standing outside a bio-warfare facility in the heart of the Soviet Union, he wasn’t certain what would happen. The only thing he could say with any degree of certainty was that the world wasn’t prepared for what he was going to find when he got inside. The facility, known as Caucus 3, was a nightmare factory, one the world might not have known about if not for one particular man.

  The Special Intelligence Section of the British government, better known as MI6, had recently encountered what they called a “walk-in”—a defector from a hostile government who wished to debrief and seek asylum. The man’s name hadn’t been released, but he claimed to be a microbiologist. Since no one at MI6 could verify anything the man told them about microbiology, Michael was called in.

  The subject was debriefed in a room with a table, chairs, and a window looking down onto the grubby streets of London’s south side, inside a building with a boarded-up pub on the ground floor, an office that no one would look at twice upon passing.

  Michael took his seat at the end of the table as two MI6 operatives he’d been told were experts in debriefing and negotiation began to question the subject.

  The subject appeared terrified, his hands trembling and his voice cracking. He chain-smoked during the entire debriefing and asked for vodka several times. The operatives informed him they didn’t have any alcohol now but would be happy to take him to a pub afterward. A mistake, Michael thought, not to have alcohol. It might have weakened his inhibitions.

  The man spoke in a thick Russian accent, though with perfectly grammatical English. He was a professor, he said, and enjoyed teaching. But the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, the KGB, had other plans for him. He had been recruited in 1982 for a secret program known as the Serviat. The purpose of the program was to develop biological weapons for use in war.

  Michael didn’t have much to say. He knew most countries developed biological weapons and wasn’t surprised. But then the subject said something that sent an icy chill up Michael’s back.

  “What specifically were you working on?” one of the operatives had asked.

  “Smallpox and plague.”

  “What were you—”

  “Excuse me,” Michael interrupted, unable to hold his questions in. “Did you say smallpox?”

  “Yes,” the subject replied, looking at him for the first time.

  “Are you telling me you have been working with live Variola major?”

  He nodded. “Yes. The plague is just as deadly. We have heated it up.”

  Michael couldn’t speak. His throat suddenly felt dry, though he couldn’t bring himself to reach across the table and pour a cup of water.

  The operative looked from the subject to Michael. “What’s that mean?” he asked. “To heat it up?”

  “It means that you evolve an antigen to be resistant to antibiotics. You take natural bacteria and expose it over and over to antibiotics. In a short time, you’ve evolved a new strain of the bacteria, immune to our only weapon against it.” He looked back at the subject. “The Soviets have a strain of Yersinia pestis that is immune to the effects of antibiotics?”

  “Yes.”

  The implications were horrifying. Plague, once known as the Black Death that had wiped out a third of Europe’s population in the fourteenth century, and smallpox were not precision instruments like nuclear weapons. They were chaos incarnate in the form of organisms not meant to attack only military targets but civilian populations as well.

  What Michael knew, that the Soviets didn’t seem to care about, was that these agents couldn’t be controlled. They would spread among whoever was attacked, of course, but diseases could not be contained. They would escape the confines of whatever nation was struck and eventually return home. Chaos did not sit still. Chaos did not have loyalty to its creators.

  The actions the world had taken at that point were not entirely clear, but Michael had heard bits and pieces. President George H. W. Bush and the American intelligence community were taken aback. Within the CIA—and most intelligence services—to be informed of something so important by another nation’s intelligence service was not seen as a success but a failure. The Americans weren’t sure what to do exactly. But Margaret Thatcher was sure. Michael had heard she personally called Mikhail Gorbachev, yelled at him, and demanded that he open his biological warfare plants to the US and UK inspectors immediately. The leader of the most feared nation on the planet was awestruck, or intimidated, by the prime minister’s boldness and agreed.

  That was why Michael was here, standing outside the most secure facility in all of the Soviet Union. He’d been in the nation for five days now, and most of his time was spent in long, alcohol-laden meals waiting for the botched transportation to arrive and take him and his colleagues to their next destination. At first Michael had thought it was simply the inefficiency of communism, but now he knew they were stalling on purpose. The last three facilities he’d inspected were empty, but the equipment remained. He had no doubt that the Soviet Union was manufacturing the largest supply of biological weapons the world had ever seen and hiding the evidence.

  And this, Caucus 3, was the surprise facility he had insisted on seeing out of order. It was too large for them to clear out right away. He had no doubt the evidence he needed to determine the extent of their program would be found here.

  The massive steel double doors opened. A man in a smock and hardhat met them. He held out his hand and smiled.

  “Dr. Tippets, welcome to Caucus Three. I’m sure you’ll find everything in order. I am Dr. Volkovich. Don’t hesitate to ask any questions if you feel so inclined.”

  “Thank you, Doctor. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Michael had a team of six with him, and they followed him into the facility. Volkovich spoke to them about friendship and cooperation, about a new horizon for the future in which the Soviet Union could count the US and UN as allies in the fight against tyranny and oppression. Michael wasn’t really listening. He was more interested in the factory before him. He had been wrong.

  They had cleared everything out. No workers were inside, and nothing was functioning. Only the equipment, too difficult or time consuming to dismantle and move, remained. But the equipment was enough.

  Near the heart of the factory were two large vats. The vats were made of semitransparent plastic, perhaps a few inches thick, and topped with blue cones that had tubes thrust out from the apex of the cone. The vats were empty. Michael stopped in front of them.

  “This is it,” he said. “I would like to test the interior of these vats.”

  Volkovich swallowed. “For what purpose?”

  “Because I believe these vats were holding a biological agent expressly prohibited by the United Nations resolutions, which the Soviet Union took part in crafting. I want them tested, now.”

  Volkovich shook his head. “There is nothing there of interest. Let me show you—”

  “Doctor, I believe we were to be given a free hand in the examination of this facility. If you do not allow me to test these vats, I will have no recourse but to inform my government and the WHO that you refuse to cooperate and that I am of the opinion that the Soviet Union is engaged in large-scale production of biological agents for attack on civilian
populations.”

  Volkovich looked down at the floor. He had a sadness in his eyes, like a man held hostage. Michael suddenly sympathized with him. He had likely been forced into this position against his will, probably with threats of violence and imprisonment. But these weren’t rifles they were talking about, or some sort of new grenade. Smallpox and plague were the two deadliest diseases in history. To play with them was foolish beyond measure—a child playing with a gun.

  “I’m afraid, Doctor,” Volkovich said sadly, “that I cannot allow you to open and test these containers. It’s for your own safety.”

  “What do you mean? We’ve been fully vaccinated against Variola, and plague does not survive long exposed to air.”

  “I’m afraid… your vaccinations wouldn’t protect you.”

  Michael was silent a long time, processing what the man had just said. Why wouldn’t his vaccinations…?

  “No,” he gasped. “No, you couldn’t be so reckless. Not even you.”

  Volkovich shied away and sat down on a bench, leaving Michael staring up at the massive vats in front of him. They had done it. They had developed a strain of smallpox resistant to vaccination. They were no longer talking about wiping out thousands of people in a civilian center with plague. Michael now knew they were talking about the extinction of the human species.

  “We’re all madmen now,” he muttered.

  BOOK ONE:

  The United States

  Present Day

  The young man noticed his fingers were turning white and loosened his grip on the briefcase. He sat in the passenger seat as the jeep bounced down the uneven road. Abandoned cars lined the shoulder like skeletons from a long-forgotten war. And out there, from somewhere, they were being watched.

  The young man swallowed. “How much longer?” he shouted over the din of the engine.

  The driver, a heavyset soldier in a gray camo uniform, didn’t look at him while speaking. “Another five minutes, give or take.”

  The young man glanced up at the husks of skyscrapers, broken testaments to humans’ ingenuity and their capacity to destroy themselves. “What exactly do we do if… you know, we’re attacked?”

  “I’m armed. They usually stay away from vehicles, though, something about the noise.” The soldier finally looked at him and then turned his eyes back to the road. “What’s your name?”

  “Mitchell. Um. Dr. Mitchell Southworth.”

  “Well, Doc, I hope you know what the hell you’re doin’, ’cause you’re about to be dropped into a war zone.”

  Mitchell watched the soldier for a long time. The man’s face seemed carved from stone, a scar running down from the top of his head to his neck. Mitchell had scars as well, but his weren’t visible.

  The hospital looked like it had just barely survived a bomb blast. The exterior paint was chipped and cracked in spiderweb patterns, windows gaped, the shards of glass long since removed. Several military personnel, armed with large rifles, stood by the entrance. They were wearing full biohazard gear. A few more sat in chairs.

  “This wasn’t originally a hospital,” the soldier said as he pulled up to the entrance. “It was just a clinic. But it’s easier to guard—only two ways in or out. You learn both those ways, you hear me?”

  Mitchell nodded slowly and then stepped out.

  The jeep rumbled off, leaving him staring at the taillights in the early morning. A sign painted on a white sheet hung over the entrance: hospital, all welcome.

  “Can I help you?” one of the guards asked.

  “Yes, I’m here to see Dr. Samantha Bower. Oh.” He pulled out his identification. “Dr. Mitchell Southworth with WHO.”

  “Yes, sir. Go right on in.”

  At the entrance stood two infrared scanners that had to be passed like metal detectors. Heat, Mitchell thought. They were looking for heat. How clever.

  The first sign of infection with Variola major, specifically the strain of smallpox now known as Agent X, was fever. Detecting elevated heat given off by a person acted as a sort of virus scanner. Imperfect, of course, but it would probably do the trick most of the time.

  Before Mitchell could pass by, a scream tore the air. He whipped his head around. A woman dashed for the entrance to the hospital. From head to toe, all he could see was blood. It seeped out of her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth—black thick blood. Her eyes were black as well, and the scream escaping her lips gurgled as she vomited.

  The woman tried to jump on the first guard, still screaming. The second one lifted his rifle and, as casually as shooting a target at a firing range, blew the woman’s head off.

  The corpse collapsed with a wet thud. The blood spread in a widening circle. The whole thing had happened so fast that Mitchell’s heart had only now caught up and begun to pound.

  The guards pulled the corpse away, leaving a trail of blood and brain matter. Several large dumpsters sat on what used to be a driveway next door. One guard held the corpse’s ankles and the other the arms as they lifted it and threw it in. One of them sprayed something into the dumpster and then lit it on fire. The guards stood around watching the flames as if they were in front of a campfire.

  “Sir.”

  Mitchell turned. His throat felt dry, and his heart wouldn’t slow. “Yes?”

  “Are you coming or going?”

  “Um… coming. Coming. I’m here to see Dr. Bower.”

  “Step through the scanners, please.”

  Mitchell walked slowly through them, afraid that setting them off might force him to share the same fate as the corpse in the dumpster. Compassion and mercy were no longer traits someone could expect from others.

  Once past the scanners, he was told to head to the end of the corridor. Offices lined the hallways of the hospital, most of them turned into patients’ rooms. Cramming several patients into each room seemed a bad idea to him because of the risk of cross-contamination. The limited space probably left the administration no choice.

  In one room, several men and women in scrubs of varying colors sat around a circular table. The scrubs were stained, worn, and old.

  Mitchell said, “I’m looking for Dr. Samantha Bower.”

  “Ain’t seen her in a while. But she goes up on the roof a lot,” one of the men said.

  “Thanks.”

  The elevators appeared to be fifty years past their prime. The metal groaned, and an odd clicking sound emanated from the doors as they opened. Mitchell stepped in and hit the button for the top floor.

  The doors opened to a corridor that led to the roof. He opened the steel door and saw a woman sitting at a table, an umbrella shading her.

  “Dr. Bower?”

  The woman looked at him. “Yes?”

  Mitchell thrust out his hand, and Dr. Bower stared at it. Remembering that handshaking was not a custom adhered to anymore, he withdrew it. Mitchell looked over the city. It looked like something out of a third-world country, not Miami, not one of the largest cities in the richest nation in the world, but something dilapidated and abused.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” he said. “How quickly things fell apart?”

  “Depends on your perspective, I guess. Some people think nature’s just taking back what’s hers.”

  “We’re part of nature.”

  “Are we? It didn’t seem like we acted that way.”

  Mitchell sat down across from her, placing the briefcase next to him. He opened it, took out a digital recorder, and placed it between them before pressing the record button. “I’m Dr. Southworth. I guess you know why I’m here.”

  “I do.”

  “You were there at the beginning, Dr. Bower. That’s why I asked for this interview. I need to know everything. I need to know how we got to this, how the world ended.”

  She shook her head, staring off at the horizon. “It hasn’t ended yet, but it might.”

  He adjusted the recorder and leaned back in his chair. “Let’s start from the beginning, please.”

  1

  “The
detonations were the beginning,” Sam said. “The virus had appeared in South America and Hawaii before then, but we thought it was a fluke, the kind of aberration of nature that pokes its head out sometimes. A Spanish flu virus once appeared in the early twentieth century, killed three percent of the world’s population, and then disappeared without a trace. There are things in nature we just don’t understand, and sometimes they show us glimpses into that unknown, as if we can touch it.

  “So after Hawaii, procedures were put in place, FEMA better trained on containment, and the Centers for Disease Control set up better communication with the World Health Organization and the United Nations. We saw that there really weren’t individual nations any longer. Humans could travel as far as they wanted, faster than ever. A virus could appear in Bangalore and be in Manhattan by the end of the day. The speed of our travel has made us susceptible to contagion in a way we weren’t meant to be. Hunter-gatherers didn’t infect other bands of hunter-gatherers with their antigens. They were spread too widely. So when the poxvirus hit, the strain we now call Agent X, we weren’t prepared for the speed it could travel.

  “There are two measures to the spread of an antigen: R-naught and T scores. They both describe the same phenomenon, how fast a virus can spread. Ebola has an R-naught of one, meaning each person infected generally infects one other person during the contagious stage of the disease. Traditional smallpox is five. Agent X, the mutated strain of Variola major, has an R-naught of twenty, making it the most contagious disease in history. Only measles, with an R-naught of eighteen, compares. So after Hawaii, at the CDC where I worked as a virologist, I began running infection grids to predict the spread of Agent X if it ever appeared again. Another virologist there, Dr. Ngo Chon, worked with me to come up with the simulations. We discovered that human beings would have to live farther than fourteen days apart if we were going to slow the spread of the virus. That meant that one infected group had to be farther than two weeks’ travel away from other hosts. Two weeks was long enough that the infected host would become immobile before coming in range to infect others. Living two weeks apart was practically impossible. We couldn’t come up with a scenario where Agent X wouldn’t spread to every population center in the world within three months.