The President hefted himself up in his bed. “And this Intel is sound?”
“Rock solid.”
He flopped back onto his pillows. “How in hell are we going to implement the counter-measures? Any sort of panic and we’ll have riots on our hands. Can you imagine what would happen to the stock market? We need to handle this with finesse, while at the same time try to quarantine southern Florida.” He assimilated the information, then asked. “What’s the projected death toll percentage?”
“Almost one hundred percent.”
“My god… the Miami area has two and a half million people alone.”
“Even if we act now we’ve still conservatively estimated the death toll to be five million.”
08:30 AM
Luke sat back in his business class seat and thought back to the day before. Christ, was it only yesterday that a helicopter blade sliced his good buddy in half? So much had happened since then. He cursed his boss’s reluctance in backing him on his story and contemplated running the story on an anonymous website, but thought against it. He did not want the authorities on his back — again. Someone sneezed behind him and he felt a chill go down his spine. It made him realize how many people were sneezing at the airport. Could that have been a coincidence, or had the virus spread already? What would happen if infected people got onto an airplane? What would happen if an infected carrier had gotten on this airplane?
Was there someone else on the airplane who had visited the island hospital? What was the incubation period? How many people had visited the island in the previous three days? How many had they interacted with? Alternatively, had it started elsewhere and that person infected the hospital. It was an easy target after all, with the patients’ immune systems already in a weakened state.
Sophie had told him a sneeze, or something as innocuous as touching a door-handle could pass on the disease. He looked around and could not see a likely suspect, but then what does a person in the early stages of the virus look like?
A fat man sitting across from him did not look well; he sweated profusely, and rubbed a handkerchief across his face. He sneezed loudly, and then engaged the button that slowly reclined his chair into the lying position. Luke could see massive sweat stains under the man’s arms, yet the air conditioning worked fine, keeping business class at a comfortable temperature. Luke jolted forward as he saw the fat man scratching under his armpit. He recalled Sophie telling him a major sign of the Black Death were the buboes under the arm. Oh, maaan. The realization hit him like a punch to the face. The Bubonic Plague was on board the airplane.
He watched as the man jack-knifed and had a convulsion that ended in an almighty sneeze. Luke imagined that he could see the microscopic droplets propel from his mouth spreading to the aisle, covering the unsuspecting flight attendant, who in turn sauntered down the airplane spreading the virulent disease to the other passengers. The confined space was the worst place for a contagion, he thought. This was not the environment for a carrier to be on board, as the re-cycled air pumped throughout the craft, fatally infecting all three hundred and fifty passengers and crew. Should he tell them? Would they believe him? Even if they did believe him, what could they do about it?
09:00 AM
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense and named after its five sides, a fact that had driven conspiracy theorists nuts for years. It’s a pentagram after all, they said, and the number five had significance amongst occultists. It had five sides, five floors above ground, five circular corridors, how could it not be sinister, they speculated. The fact that the five-sided inner forecourt covered five acres was the final proof. The forecourt was known as Ground Zero, years before President Bush had coined the phrase, in the aftermath of the World Trade Center Twin Towers attack of 9/11. The terrorist attack upon the Pentagon being exactly sixty years to the day that building work on the pentagon began.
Ground Zero, the term coined during the height of the Cold War with Russia, because in the event of a nuclear attack the first warheads would target that very spot.
Across the Potomac River from the White House the Pentagon is the world’s largest office block, containing over thirty thousand military and civilian staff, seventeen miles of corridors and twenty fast food franchises including McDonalds, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell to name a few.
The structure, so enormous that President Dwight Eisenhower, while still army chief of staff after WWII, managed to get lost in its vastness, when out for a stroll and had to ask a group of stenographers the way back to his office.
Deep within its bowels, the Joint Chiefs of Staff gathered in the War Room, hastily assembled by President Burgess. The war room was a hive of industry, a multitude of personnel buzzed around in the background, fielding telephone calls and tapping away at computers.
The leaders of the different branches of the armed forces watched a debate between the disembodied surgeon general on the small desk-mounted monitors each had in front of them around the massive conference table, and President James Burgess whose face filled a video-link from his compound in Florida above their heads on giant screens.
The President brimmed over with health and vitality surprising the men assembled as they had heard through the rumor-mill that the President was at deaths door having had a colossal heart attack. Little did they know that the President was still in bed, careful camera angles from his trusted staff and plenty of make-up helped with the deception.
“—So, we should be cautious?” the President asked tentatively.
Quinn looked uneasy talking openly in front of the gathered personnel. “We’re beyond cautious, Mister President. This is a full blown pandemic.”
President Burgess nodded slowly taking in the information. “Well, there you have it, Gentlemen. Any questions?”
General Jumpin’ Jack Malloy, commander of army forces said, “I have one, the Bubonic Plague? I’m having trouble comprehending this. Correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t it been eradicated?”
Quinn Martell took the question. “That’s the whole point, we became complacent. While we’ve been expecting a chemical warfare attack we’ve forgotten about this archaic pestilence.”
“But there’s a cure for this,” the general said.
“No inoculations stored anywhere in the United States,” Quinn said.
The shock reply reverberated around the conference table.
“None?” exploded General Malloy.
“Not a drop.”
“Why not?”
“A decision was made long ago,” Quinn said. “Between the Center for Disease Control, my predecessors in this office, and the World Health Organization in Geneva, that it wasn’t a threat anymore,” he paused, to let them consider this, and then continued. “However, this is a new strain, for which there is no cure. And, the way the population moves around so fast today, it’s going to be nigh on impossible to stop.”
General Malloy held up a restraining hand, “I still think a terrorist attack is more likely. I’ve taken over from Homeland Security and they told me that their people on the ground down in Florida have been digging around and watching this unfold and believe it to be terrorists.”
“That’s because they’re looking for terrorists. They’re not considering any other possibilities.”
The general glowered at him, and then carried on, “We’ve been monitoring e-mails and cell phone chatter from that district, and the details are leaking out despite our efforts to contain it. I’m telling you that the rumors are spreading like wildfire. All sorts of tales from the vicinity, and at least thirty low level wannabe terrorists groups are claiming responsibility for the attack, none of which have such capabilities — yet,”