General Malloy couldn’t bring himself to utter the words, the Black Death, or Bubonic Plague. It was too archaic, to have the power to bring Florida to its knees. It had to be a hi-tech virus, man-made in a laboratory, just as he knew there would be an enemy foreign power behind the attack, and he was going to make them pay for that. He smiled to himself; he had recently received information that they had a lead in that direction.
“Finally,” he said to the expectant crowd of military men and women. “We have information about the suspected terrorists. They were seen escaping the island on a Jet Ski. These terrorists obviously have an antidote as they walked freely amongst the dying. It also appears they harpooned a man in their escape to freedom.” He waited for the information to sink in. He had their attention and he loved it. “A naval vessel tracked them, however the fugitives gave them the slip, but they are still in the exclusion zone and rest assured that we will track them down like the animals they clearly are. As of now they are public enemy number one.”
“Do we know who they are, General Malloy?”
“There is a woman of foreign appearance, possibly middle-eastern and she’s accompanied by a Caucasian man. We’ve managed to pull off some images from the hospital CCTV which seems to be the epicenter of the chemical attack.”
“Can we see them?”
“We’ve had the images beefed up and if you watch those screens these are the faces that are being beamed live to our troops in Florida to assist in there capture.” Slowly from the top of the screen, a series of lines whizzed across the screen until there were two grainy photographic images of Sophie, and Luke.
CHAPTER 10
21:15 PM
Luke sat in the left hand seat, the pilot’s seat, in the cockpit of the Boeing 777, flight 416 returning to Miami. The aircraft flew on automatic pilot on a heading back to Miami International. The enormous craft’s computers in theory could land the airplane. Luke doubted that the American public were ready for that innovation yet, they like he, needed the reassuring announcements of a calm, authoritative captain, and they would happily put they lives in his hands and not think about it again for a few hours until they were safely back on terra firma. He could not imagine many folk brave enough to fly on a pilotless airplane flown by computers, although the military had used pilotless spy-planes and drones for years, on a lesser scale but the same principle. No, Luke knew his major problem would be on the final approach and he would need to start preparing shortly.
Sheila Stone the chief flight attendant sat in the co-pilot’s seat, and murmured encouragement, although Luke could tell that she was rapidly succumbing to the virus. The Asian man sat strapped into the rumble seat behind him.
“You can do this, Luke,” she said. “I have faith in you,” Sheila encouraged.
“Yeah I’ll give it a go,” he shrugged nonchalantly. “How hard can it be?”
Sheila chuckled, which caused her to spit up a mouthful of blood.
“We’ll land in Moscow within the hour.”
“Moscow!” the Asian man said in alarm.
“He’s teasing,” said Sheila. “A little cockpit humor.”
“I do not care for this sort of joke,” said the Asian man.
“I mean,” continued Luke. “It’s like a car with an up and down stick.” He smirked.
The Asian man eyed him worryingly. “I thought you were telling me earlier that you flew?”
“I do fly — hang-gliders.” He noticed the Asian man’s face drop. “It’s the same principle, left, right, up and down, finding thermals. Oh, and I did have one flying lesson in a Piper Cherokee.”
“One lesson! We are going to die. We are in the hands of a lunatic,” the Asian muttered. “One lesson?” he then mumbled a silent prayer.
The radio crackled into life. “This is Air Traffic Control. Flight 416 please respond?”
Luke smiled inwardly at his early efforts to get air traffic control to believe that a civilian was flying the airplane and that the pilot and crew were dead.
Sheila took charge of the radio. “Flight 416 responding, go ahead.”
“We’re going to need you to adjust some controls, and get used to the feel of the airplane.” Luke followed the instructions and the aircraft started to slow, and consequently lowered in the sky.
“Stand by, 416… we need to get the sick to hospital. Can you estimate the number of the dead and dying?”
Sheila answered. “Approximately three hundred.”
“Could you repeat that flight 416?” asked the air traffic controller.
“That’s three, zero, zero, passengers and crew dead. That’s three hundred,” she said. “Maybe more.”
“OK, you have priority. Runway 27 has been cleared for you. However we do have a problem, they is another flight right in front of you. You’re both on the same heading, you have priority, but we have lost radio contact with them. We have them on radar and you are practically on top of each other.”
Luke glanced from the cockpit, scanning the dark outside but could not detect the nearby hazardous airplane. “Negative — nothing in sight.”
“We’ll keep you informed. What is your speed and altitude?”
Luke scanned the relevant dials. “Altitude three hundred feet. Airspeed two hundred knots.”
“You’re flight instructions will follow shortly. The autopilot will bring you in. You’re doing just fine, flight 416. These planes genuinely do fly themselves, you know. Sit tight and we’ll be talking again shortly.”
Sheila pointed to the lights of the Miami skyline in the distance giving him comfort, he was tantalizingly close to home, and smiled, finally having a glimmer of hope, when he saw a massive ball of flames as the preceding airline crashed into the sea several miles short of the city.
Sheila cried out in alarm, and Luke patted the back of her hand, then as the ATC read out instructions, he made the corresponding procedures and acknowledged the action with them. He stared dumbfounded at the burning wreck, unable to speak.
The Asian man cleared his throat, and tapped a monitor, “I’ve noticed that since they have changed our altitude that we are veering off the pre-arranged flight path to the airport.” Luke glanced at the monitor and saw that the diagram of the aircraft was now far lower than the predetermined course that would safely land them at the airport. The Asian man nervously asked, “You don’t think…?” He pointed at the burning wreck ahead, unable to vocalize his thoughts fully.
Sheila finished the question. “…That they would deliberately ditch us into the ocean, rather than have us crash into any of the tower blocks of downtown Miami?” She arched an eyebrow. “Hmm, let me see, an airplane with three survivors, or the likelihood that we take out a large section of downtown Miami?” she said sardonically. “What do you think, Luke?”
He answered by pushing forward on the thrusters and the engines responded smoothly, the nose of the craft lifted as they gained height.
The ATC were on it in a flash. “Flight 416 we’ve noted a difference in your altitude. Please respond?”
Sheila went to acknowledge, when Luke cut her off. “I don’t think so, do you?”
22:00 PM
The heat sapped Sophie’s energy. She could only imagine how the sergeant was coping in his hazmat suit.
“What else?” asked the sergeant as the jeep zipped along the freeway unhindered as they had the entire northbound freeway to themselves.
“Well,” she started, thinking best to keep the murdering armed thug busy. “With the Black Death, the symptoms include high fever, aching limbs, darkening of the skin, like we saw with your colleague, swelling of the lymph nodes, swelling of the glands in the neck, under the armpits and around the groin. Buboes develop and burst, you get ring like marks on the skin, then the blood coagulates, and of course towards the end even urine can thicken and even turn black.”