Lodi, OH
Tom was on phone duty while Henry and Kurt took a rest. The reports were starting to come in. Ethan returned, giving the good news that Kent still had power and it wasn’t a hot zone. It had taken some effort to get into the secured lab which had bulletproof glass and a fingerprint security system. It was, like Ethan described, Fort Knox. They shut down power, went in through the wall, and were able to breach the system.
The generators kicked on, which provided a positive atmosphere. Once they managed to get into the lab, they were able to initiate the extinguishing system. Failsafe locked and loaded. They hurriedly initialized it, left the lab and waited outside.
It worked.
They stayed until they saw the explosion in the building. It was burning, but it was in the distance.
That was good news to Tom. So far, only two labs reported a breach and were a hot zone.
Lexi Martin’s words stuck with him. Her fears that they hadn’t contained the viruses, and that they had broken barriers already. That whatever escaped the lab was still out there, despite the fact that they burned the labs.
However, that couldn’t stop them from hitting the other labs. In fact, Tom used Lexi’s own words back at her, telling her that it was better to stop the bleeding then to bleed out, and that’s what they had to continue to do. Step one, stop the labs. Set two would be to deal with and prepare for the aftermath.
Plus, they had to know where there was the most danger. There were five labs left and those were in Mick’s hands. He was on his way.
Tom had the sense that the immediate threat would be over, because Mick was handling it. Tom knew Mick well, and he knew that, at any cost, Mick would successfully complete a mission.
Fort Detrick, MD
Mick knew right away that something had gone wrong, but not what they expected. As instructed, they suited up and were fortunate that Briggs had biohazard suits remaining from the flu epidemic.
The gate was up; the guard booth was empty.
Mick stopped the jeep and opened the door. “Radio on,” he said as he got out.
“What’s wrong?” Doc asked.
“Suit is tight. I’m okay.”
“Just be careful.”
“I’m good.” Mick, leaving the jeep door opened, walked to the guard booth. There were no signs that anyone had been there. Leaves had blown in through the open guard booth door. There was one thing Mick did notice: despite how long the booth could have been open, the video monitors inside still worked. Images flashed and changed on all but one monitor.
“They still have power in there.”
“That’s good right? That means this isn’t a hot zone.”
“Hopefully.” Mick tapped the dead monitor. “Building five isn’t on. At least the monitor isn’t.” He stepped out of the booth.
“Is there a lab in there?” Doc asked.
“There’s a lab in every building. Just a matter of which one.”
“You know with our luck it’s the weaponry one.”
“Let’s not think that way.” Mick slid back into the jeep and drove through the already lifted gate arm.
They were armed with C-4 devices with timers and incendiary grenades for immediate problems. The clocks on their oxygen tanks were ticking and they had a lot of ground to cover.
Lodi, OH
Tom rushed into the Lodi Diner or ‘war room’ as Henry and Kurt called it. They were smiling. While things weren’t all that optimistic in the west, they looked better in the east.
“Phone call,” Tom announced.
“Tell us that is Mick with good news,” Henry said.
Tom shook his head. “Nothing from Mick yet. This is Lars. You wanna take this?”
At Henry’s nod, Tom set the phone down. “Lars? We have you on speaker. Are you okay?”
“Yes. Thank you. I’m well. They’re treating me well,” Lars replied.
Tom exchanged quirky looks with Henry.
“I’ve very pleased that Erie is so productive. Residents survived and are trying hard to move on from this tragedy.”
Kurt mouthed the words, “Does he sound odd?”
Henry nodded. “Lars, what’s up?”
“Well, I have tragic news. Rose Marie is not doing well. In fact, I am going to stay but I need you to get here in a few days to take her home so she can die with her family.”
Tom’s hand shot to his mouth. His heart sank. “Dear God.”
Lars continued. “I’m going to give you a breakdown of Rose Marie. I have her stabilized here. Unfortunately, I’m not in a hospital. I am in an old breast care center that was used for a flu station.”
“Can you get her to a hospital with better equipment?”
Lars chuckled airily. “I probably couldn’t move her to the McDonald’s across the street, let alone any further distance. But she has to come home to die. Until then, she has issues and maybe you can come up with a solution that can save her.”
“We’ll try, but you are Lars Rayburn. If you can’t do it, I don’t know what we could do here,” Henry stated. “I’m sorry about Rose.”
“Yes, tragic. I’m the mad scientist, remember? This is a bit out of my realm. Do you have a pen handy to write down what is wrong?”
“Yes, yes, we do, go on,” Henry said.
“Okay, well Rose Marie definitely is complaining of discomfort in the smack center of the umbilical region. There are slight problems in the epigastria region, but as you well know, vital organs are above that, so that area has to be looked at cautiously. The left and right iliac along with the hypogastria regions are inconsequential. There may be a little blockage, but I think that’s an easy fix. Her injury is located in the right lumbar region. There’s a breach of skin there, an opening, but a slight tightening extends up to the right hypochondria. Biggest issue is, despite the open wound on the right, her left lumbar region is troublesome and thick and with what I palpitated as a small blockage in the upper left hypochondria. Got that?”
Henry blinked several times. “I wrote down everything you said. But Lars—”
“I have to go. I have to attend to Rose Marie. See what you come up with please. She doesn’t have much time.”
Before Henry could ask any further questions, Lars hung up.
“What the hell?” Henry dropped the pen.
Kurt reviewed the notes. “An injury and blockage? Maybe he is speaking about a clot.”
“Or constipation.” Henry shook his head. “I think they have him drugged.”
Tom nodded. “I agree. He was very cold about an old friend dying and he kept calling her Rose Marie when he knows damn well her middle name is not… Son of a bitch! We’re dumb.” He swung out his hand. “It’s code!”
“What?” Henry asked.
“Code. He said he would come up with a code and he did. Bet me. He gave us information.”
“Kurt,” Henry said, “he may be right. Grab a map of Erie and Tom, call Commander Briggs.”
Fort Detrick, MD
They had to run. With only two hours on the tanks they underestimated the time it would take to get into each sealed lab room. The first lab in the first building was a test. In four buildings, the containment rooms were sealed. A small amount of C-4 was used to blow the secure door, and when they opened the biosafety cabinet, the cylinders were filled with the virus samples. Each cylinder contained six samples, each within a metal test tube structure and each of them contained a glass vial. All unbroken, all untouched.
They wrote down the inventory, secured a timed device to the cabinet, another in the room and moved on.
They had fifteen minutes when they rushed into the final building. Not a lot of time. At the security desk, Mick saw the reason for the black monitor. The entire panel had been destroyed.