Scourge - A Medical Thriller (The Plague Trilogy Book 3) Page 19

  “Thank you.”

  Tristan nodded. “Some people here don’t believe this outbreak was a bad thing. They think humanity needed to be cleansed and reborn. You should at least consider that as you hunt for a vaccine.”

  Sam looked out over the landscape. It was cultivated and decorated, almost like a park set up for the village. Several people were milling around, sipping from tin cups filled with a drink they were getting out of a barrel. “I saw a gymnasium full of children vomiting so much blood they died of exsanguination before the virus actually killed them. I’ve seen ips tear people apart while they’re still alive. There’s no redeeming quality to it. This virus and man cannot live on the earth at the same time. It has to be eradicated.”

  Tristan smiled. “I have no doubt it would feel the same way about us.” She turned to go back inside. “Let me know if you need anything.”

  When she was gone, Sam turned to the two men sitting in front of her. Making a vaccine was, in essence, not that difficult. The creation of the first vaccine by Edward Jenner in 1796 was a breakthrough that, in Sam’s mind, rivaled the moon landing, the wheel, or even fire. Without Jenner’s discovery, humanity would have been wiped out by the deadly strain of Spanish influenza in the early twentieth century, or polio, or smallpox. Then again, man had made it two hundred thousand years without vaccines. Maybe humans were more resilient than scientists gave them credit for.

  The first method of creating a vaccine was the egg-based method. Virologists took strains of weaker virus and created a seed virus by implanting the weakened strains in hen eggs. The virus multiplied in the egg, and each egg produced a couple of doses of vaccine.

  The second method was the cell culture, in which the virus was added to a growth solution, usually mammal kidney tumor cells, and then the virus was separated from the growth solution. Its RNA and structural proteins were removed, leaving weakened surface proteins that were then given as injections or nasal spray. This method was quicker than the egg-based method, as it only took four or five months or so to develop rather than the six to nine months the egg-based method took.

  The final method was the recombinant-DNA method, the most complex of the three. Essentially, a species of fall worm was infected, and a portion of the worms’ genetic code was replaced with a section of code that would force them to produce proteins matching the virus for which a vaccine was sought, usually a flu virus, as it had never been tried on smallpox. The worm was then introduced to other worms, where it reprogrammed them to produce the same protein by infecting them. Then the proteins were harvested and used as vaccines. This method could produce a vaccine within six weeks. It was the only method Sam hadn’t tried yet.

  She would try it, but she wasn’t hopeful. Agent X had shown itself to be resistant to every method of developing a vaccine, mutating, in some instances, within days. The only method Sam could think of that might produce a vaccine was to get the antibodies of somebody that had developed an immunity or had a genetic predisposition to immunity and synthesize it on a large scale. Immunoglobulin therapy, or using the blood of one person to heal someone else, had been used for various autoimmune diseases in the past, and theoretically, it should work on smallpox as well.

  Sam searched through the small doctor’s bag and pulled out two syringes, latex gloves, a tourniquet, cotton balls, and iodine. She looked from one young man to the other.

  “So who’s first?” she asked.

  34

  Pete sat in the back of the jeep, covering his face with a surgical mask. Debra didn’t seem frightened, though she was sitting not two feet away from him, driving the jeep. She kept turning around to check on him. She made it seem as if she were looking for other traffic or at passing piles of junk, but he knew she was taking care of him.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Pete said.

  “What?”

  “Look out for me. There’s no cure, Deb.”

  She shook her head. “Why didn’t I get it? Why would—”

  “Because that’s just life. It’s random. Looking for purpose in it is a waste of time. Don’t do it. And after tonight, I don’t want you seeing me again.”

  She glanced back at him. “Too bad.”

  “I’m serious, Deb. I don’t want you to see me… I don’t want you to see me weak.”

  She laughed. “You men. I swear, Pete, whether you’re fourteen or thirty, you act the same.”

  “Just don’t try to see me after this. Please.”

  Pete didn’t know Clover that well, but he knew what type of man he was. Pete had known that type since he was a child. Being sickly as a kid, he had been picked on constantly. As a method of survival, he had developed a sixth sense about bullies, the type who would derive satisfaction from the pain of others. He learned who they were and what to say to avoid getting beaten by them. He remembered one incident vividly in which he had convinced a bully who had picked on him regularly to attack another bully. The two beat each other to such a bloody pulp that both had to be taken to the emergency room. That was where he learned that these types of men would rather die than be perceived as weak.

  Clover would not be at the barracks, he decided. It would be perceived as thinking he was on equal footing with his men. He would want to make sure everyone knew he was far superior to them.

  Though most hotels had closed up or gone out of business, some still remained that catered to the scientific researchers and wealthier military officers who came through the region. A Hyatt Regency wasn’t far from NORAD.

  As the jeep stopped, Pete hopped out and circled around the passenger side, staying as far away from Debra as he could.

  “Wait here,” he said. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, leave. Leave and don’t go back to work.”

  He turned to walk away and she said, “Peter?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Be… careful.”

  “I will.”

  The hotel’s interior was a mix of plush modernity and expensive antiquity. Luxury items were somewhat commonplace now.

  Just days after the explosions and the harsh military response of absolute martial law in all fifty states, the price of certain items had dropped to next to nothing, and others shot through the roof. Batteries were fifty dollars for a pack of four, but iPods were the same price as a combo meal at any of the fast-food restaurants. Some states didn’t even have electricity. Most companies manufacturing luxury items simply couldn’t sell them anymore, and people were practically giving the goods away. But soon the supply would dwindle and the demand would rise, and even the cheap goods would be too expensive for most of the world’s populations. The only thing Pete saw in the future was cycles of deprivation and starvation.

  He approached the desk clerk. Pete had worn his uniform for this specific moment. “I need Assistant Secretary Daniel Clover’s room, please. I’m to brief him on an ongoing matter.”

  The girl behind the desk said, “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t have a list of permissible visitors for him.”

  “Oh, he knows I’m coming.”

  The girl stared at Pete’s surgical mask. He considered taking it off, but infecting some poor girl just trying to earn a few bucks wasn’t on his to-do list today. He’d rather find another way in. But ultimately, she didn’t say anything about it. The power of a uniform, particularly in a situation where the police didn’t exist and the military had taken over, gave him a lot of bargaining power.

  She picked up the phone, and Pete watched the keypad. She dialed “0” and then “6 1 6.” After speaking softly into it for a few moments, she hung up and said, “Sir, he’s refusing to see anyone.”

  “I understand, thank you.”

  Pete pretended to walk out of the building and then turned around at the last moment. The girl was back in conversation with a male employee, as she had been before Pete had disturbed her. The elevators were across the hall, so Pete hurried there. He went up to the sixth floor and stepped off. Room 616 was just down the hall, across from f
loor-to-ceiling windows looking down on the streets. Pete pressed his ear to the door. There was an ice machine down the hall a bit. He got an armful of ice, brought it back, and dumped it in front of Clover’s door. Then he pressed the doorbell and stepped to the side so someone looking through the peephole couldn’t see him.

  The door opened. Pete saw Clover’s face staring down at the ice. Pete took a deep breath, attempting to calm his jangled nerves, and spun in front of Clover.

  Pete grabbed him by the lapels and pushed him into the suite. Clover twisted and flung Pete into a closet, breaking the doors. Clover came at him with a kick, connecting with his chest. The breath left Pete instantly. Clover kicked at him again, and Pete caught his foot and twisted, sending the man to the floor.

  Pete got to his feet. He jumped on Clover’s back and attempted to pin him down. Clover swung back with an elbow that caught him in the face. Pete stumbled back, dazed, as Clover turned. The older man grabbed a vase sitting on a desk and lobbed it at Pete. He ducked, letting the vase shatter on the wall behind him.

  Clover shrieked like some Amazonian warrior and rushed at Pete. He tackled him at the waist and slammed Pete into the wall. Pete wrapped his arms around Clover’s midsection and tried to take him down, but the older man was much stronger than he was. Pete couldn’t budge him.

  Pete reached for the phone on the nightstand next to him. He grabbed it and bashed it into Clover’s head, over and over, until the phone was in pieces. Clover shot blood across the room then backed away before coming in again with a wild haymaker that probably would’ve broken Pete’s jaw.

  Pete moved just as the fist was going to connect. Instead, Clover’s hand went through the drywall. Pete swung up with a lamp, smashing it into Clover’s face, loosening his hand from the wall and sending the older man onto his back.

  As Pete went to grab something else, Clover got hold of his ankle and twisted him off his feet. Pete’s jaw hit the nightstand, and he tasted blood and felt bits of tooth in his mouth. He tried to rise when he felt Clover’s arm around his throat, squeezing the life out of him.

  The loss of air was instantaneous, and Pete was amazed how limp his body went. He could scarcely move his hands to pull at Clover’s arm. But he could still move his head. He tucked his chin low enough that his mouth was over Clover’s forearm and bit down with everything he had.

  Clover screamed as a ragged chunk of flesh tore from his arm. He pulled away as Pete collapsed onto the ground, panting so hard he thought he might pass out. Clover buckled into a chair against the wall, holding out his arm as though it were a war injury and he were waiting for a medic. The blood from his head and arm soaked the carpet. He took off his shirt and wrapped it tightly against his forearm. The older man leaned his head against the wall, and the two of them just breathed for a long time.

  “What do you want, Pete?” he said, still out of breath.

  Pete clutched the covers of the bed and pulled himself up. He fell onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “You knew… what those drones were. You knew they had the virus.”

  Clover breathed deeply a few times. “I did.”

  Pete watched the man. He had no remorse when he admitted it, no sense that he had done anything wrong.

  “You’re going to kill a lot of people,” Pete said. “Why?”

  “I’m not doing it. I just played my part.”

  “What part?”

  “To keep everybody calm until…”

  Clover grimaced as he tightened the shirt on his arm. Pete swallowed blood and wasn’t sure if it was from his injured mouth or Clover’s arm.

  Pete said, “If not you, then who did this?”

  “You wouldn’t know him.”

  “Terrorist organization?”

  “No. This goes beyond terrorism, Peter. This goes much beyond that. This is about a power struggle that was started a century ago. About reshaping the world.”

  Pete had just enough strength to pull himself up. “You’re a soldier. You’re an American soldier, Danny. How the fuck could you do this?”

  “There are no countries anymore. We’re interconnected, everyone a nation unto themselves. When shit hits the fan like this, you gotta look out for yourself. That’s all I was doing, looking out for me and mine.”

  “How?”

  “In this war, we’re all going to lose. I have someplace now for me and my family. When things hit their worst, we’ll be there, away from all this… shit.”

  “Money? You sold out your own country for money?”

  Clover shook his head. “You think too much in the old ideology. You have to adapt, Peter. That’s all that matters. That’s strength, adaptation. Nothing else is important.” He paused. “If you wanted, I could get a spot for you. I could reinstate your credentials and we could work together.”

  Pete grinned, blood running down from his mouth onto the floor. “You forgot something, Danny.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m infected.”

  Clover’s eyes went wide. In the adrenaline of the fight, he had forgotten he was fighting someone infected with smallpox. Pete stood up and fell back onto the bed from the pain. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.

  “Well,” Pete said, “you should probably get tested.”

  The look of fury in Clover’s eyes was something that normally would have terrified Pete. But now he took it in passively. Clover didn’t have the power to hurt him anymore.

  Finally mustering the strength to stand, Pete got to the wall and leaned against it. He turned to Clover, whose eyes were locked onto him. “Out of curiosity, Danny, who is this man you sold everything out for?”

  “Hank Kraski. I didn’t lie to you about that. I thought you might run across his name eventually.”

  He nodded. “I may pay him a visit, too.”

  “I don’t think you’ll need to, Peter. He may just call on you.”

  35

  With the top of the jeep off, Debra enjoyed watching the sky. As a little girl, she’d lain with her sister in the backyard and counted the stars. Then the next night, they would do it again, wondering whether the same number of stars would appear. And if they didn’t appear, they would wonder where they went. No Google existed then, so they couldn’t look up why some nights only a few stars would appear and others the sky seemed coated in shining diamonds. They imagined that the stars would hide some nights, and others, when they felt brave, they’d come out.

  Pete stepped out of the hotel. He was limping and holding his side, his face bloodied.

  “Peter!”

  She jumped out of the jeep. He recoiled and shouted, “Don’t get close!”

  Debra stopped. They stood far apart. He straightened and said, “You need to get the cities evacuated. They’re planning something big.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “Go to Jacob’s house. Tell him about the drones. Tell him he has to get the cities evacuated. He’ll listen.”

  Debra took a step forward. “I’m not leaving you.”

  “You have to.”

  “No,” she said, emotion tightening her throat, “no, not like this. It can’t end like this.”

  Pete grinned. “You wanna know something? I was going to ask you out the first day I met you. I got right up there, behind your table when you were eating lunch in the mess hall, and then I chickened out. I said to myself, ‘there’s plenty of time…’ There’s never plenty time.”

  “Pete, don’t do this. You can fight.”

  “I’m a danger to everyone I’m around,” Pete said, his mouth overflowing with liquid. He spit a glob of blood onto the pavement. “Go to Jacob’s house and tell him everything. He’ll believe you.”

  She nodded and turned away, wiping the tears from her eyes as she climbed into the jeep. She started it, and Pete took a few steps back. He didn’t say anything as she pulled away, She tried to watch him in her rearview mirror, but all she could see was darkness.

  Pete watched until the ta
illights of the jeep faded into black. A piece of garbage fluttered in the street. Other than that, there was no motion, no sound, not even the wind blowing through the abandoned buildings.

  Pain had an off switch: apathy. All Pete had to do was not care anymore. If he turned off that part of himself, he wouldn’t have to feel it anymore, but he wanted to feel it, to know that he was still alive. Not dead yet, he kept saying to himself. Not dead yet…

  He leaned against the wall of the hotel and slid down. Closing his eyes, he felt sleep washing over him, but he knew it wasn’t sleep. He was losing consciousness from the blows he had taken to his head. He had to stay awake because he wasn’t sure he would wake up if he closed his eyes. But then again… there were worse ways to go than in your sleep.

  Pete wasn’t certain how long he sat there, but something roused him. Screaming.

  He jolted awake. The screams echoed over the empty streets, like waves rolling over them. And they were getting closer. Pete forced himself to his feet. Around the corner up the road, a single person appeared. It was too dark to make him out clearly, but Pete could see the blood soaking his shirt. The man screamed and sprinted at Pete.

  Pete turned, the pain so acute it made his knees wobble. He leaned heavily against the hotel’s exterior, trying desperately to claw his way to the entrance. The man kept screaming, each scream painfully closer than the last. Pete slammed through the revolving doors. There was a lock on top of the doors, and he pushed the pin inside the lock, preventing the doors from turning.

  The man crashed into the doors, nearly breaking the glass. Covered in blood, shrieking, his face pale, his eyes black, he looked like a devil.

  Pete stumbled into the building, one hand pressed against the wall for support. People were gathered around a television. One woman had her hand covering her mouth while tears streamed down her face. One of the men’s jaws dropped so far he looked like it was stuck that way.

  Pete made his way over, shouting, “I need a gun,” and no one even moved. He stood behind them, away from them so he wouldn’t get blood anywhere, and his eyes locked onto the television. A video was running, taken on what looked like a cell phone. A plane clipped one of the drones. The drone dropped from the sky and exploded onto a busy Manhattan street, releasing a light-green mist. No one was reporting any illness or injury, but everyone knew what it was. At least two hundred people had been in the radius of the mist. With an R-naught of twenty, that meant those two hundred would infect about four thousand people, and those four thousand would infect eighty thousand, and so on. There were at least thirty other drones over population centers. Isolation could only go so far. Eventually, everyone would be infected.