“Did he die from wounds or the disease?”
“He most definitely died from his wounds.” She told him remembering the two halves of his body.
“And you couldn’t…?” he mimed sewing.
“He was sliced in two.”
“Damn.”
She put her hand on top of his in sympathy, and left it a moment too long and felt embarrassed. She quickly changed the subject. “So, have you had a brilliant idea yet?”
“I have, as it happens.”
“What?”
“Can you Scuba-dive?”
14:00 PM
Quinn Martell, the silver-haired Surgeon General, replaced the telephone on his desk and pondered the facts he had received from the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. He leaned his elbows on his leather-topped desk and steepled his fingers below his chin, as he decided his next course of action. Apparently, the entire staff and patients of a Miami hospital had died overnight. The information had been shaky to say the least. Luckily, the local police acted quickly and sealed off the island as the disease spread to the nearby retail outlets.
Normally disease control was a civilian matter, but the CDC had decided that the scale of the outbreak needed swift action and had called in the military to seal off the island and therefore the spread, but they did not have any notion of what the disease was, or indeed if it was even a disease. He stood and paced the office, caught his reflection in a mirror and ran his hand through his silver gray hair. A hospital was a deadly place for infections, sure, but it could be as likely a chemical spill of some sort, or even a combination of chemicals had reacted and made a deadly vapor.
If that had happened, it would have dissipated and blown out to sea. He hoped that to be the case. Sad as it would be for the deceased and their relatives, but nowhere near as disastrous as a deliberate act of terrorism. He’d feared an attack for some time. It would be relatively simple to knock up a batch of something potent. You could easily find instructions to make deadly potions on the internet.
Why anyone went to the trouble of inventing a chemical weapon, when there were so many virus’s without antidotes in the world. He shut his mind to the thought. That would be his worst fear, a pandemic without a cure. That was why the CDC and the World Health Organization based in Geneva constantly monitored international outbreaks.
The top of his list would be a natural virus, Ebola or SARS, God forbid. The US could count itself lucky when it came to illnesses. When even today, one to two million people worldwide still die every year from malaria. Not forgetting influenza, that still had a habit of spreading around the globe culling the population in great numbers.
He contemplated phoning President Burgess currently convalescing at his summer residence in Florida, not that the public knew the truth of his condition. As far as they were aware, he was suffering from a nasty bout of pneumonia. A select group knew that he’d had a heart attack — a big one — and that he was laid up and strapped to machines that kept him alive. He pressed a button on his desk and spoke to his secretary, “Get me the President.”
14:30 PM
President Burgess’s beachside mansion stood north of Palm Beach on the east coast of Florida surrounded by the glamorous homes of the rich and famous. The President’s summer compound had the protection of the ocean on one side and high walls on the other. Regular military patrols guarded the gates and grounds. President James Burgess sat in his bed wired to the ever-present machinery.
He recognized the number showing on the screen of his i-pad and connected excitedly. “Quinn, old buddy, how the devil are you?” the President said overjoyed to see the face of his old Harvard roommate on the screen.
Although both men were busy practically twenty-four hours a day they still managed to get in the odd round of golf when they could. However, he knew that he would not be calling to catch up, and knew it must be serious. “What’s the reason for this unexpected pleasure?”
“There’s been an incident down in Miami, Jim.”
“The riot, I saw it on TV.”
“Not the riot. This has the potential to be far, far worse.”
The President noted his friend’s hesitancy, and prompted. “Go on.”
“We might have an outbreak.”
“Where?”
“It’s concentrated at a hospital on a stretch of land off the coast.”
“Why hasn’t anyone told me?”
“Homeland security got wind of it and sat on it,” Quinn told him.
“Homeland security?” the President said. He sat upright in his bed and one of the monitors started to ping rapidly. “Why?”
“They think it’s a terrorist attack.”
“Either way, no one’s told me.”
“Hamilton Parker knows, I understand.”
“The Vice President? Why tell the VP and not me?”
“He led us to believe he’s unofficially running the country due to your incapacity.”
“Watch him for me, would you? He’s one slippery sonofabitch. Terrorists or not, I should be told. I’m still the goddamned President, for Christ’s sake!” His face turned bright red. He clutched his heart and flopped back on the bed.
21:10 PM
“It’s better to leave it until nightfall,” Luke said. “Because the scuba-gear makes bubbles, and they’ll be harder to see in the dark.” They entered Big Benny’s Sporting Goods Store. The store’s inventory mainly catered towards surfers, with the odd harpoon gun, and some diving paraphernalia. Luke picked up the harpoon gun and loaded it. “We might need this.”
Sophie regarded the scuba gear. “I’m not so sure, I’ve never done this before, aren’t there rules, I mean, aren’t you meant to have lessons?”
“The river’s only ten foot deep. We’ll simply walk along the bottom unseen.”
“That IS brilliant.”
He beamed. “I told ya,” he said and poked through the stock and found them a scuba-tank kit each. “You put this in your mouth,” he told her, showing her the breathing apparatus. “Breathe in and out and that’s all there is to it.”
A wild-eyed man leaped up from his hiding place behind the counter and pointed a flare-gun at them. “Freeze motherfuckers!” He motioned for Luke to put the harpoon-gun down on the counter.
Sophie raised her hands tentatively. Luke ignored the man. “Luke, put your hands up,” she hissed.
“Why?”
“Because he has a gun.” She nodded towards it.
“That’s not a gun. It’s a flare.”
“It’s a phosphorus flare, if it doesn’t kill you outright, the flare would burn a hole right through your chest.”
His eyebrows knitted together. “Fair enough.” He raised his one good arm.
The man screeched at them. “What have you done?”
Luke looked puzzled by the question at first, and then said. “This is nothing to do with us.”
“You work at the hospital. You must’ve leaked some chemical or something. My old lady is suffering bad.”
Sophie moved forward slightly. “Let me see her. I’m a Doctor.”
The man stepped back and pointed with his flare-gun to the woman laid prone on the floor behind the counter. One glance told Sophie all she needed to know, she shook her head gently. “She’s too far gone. I can’t help. She’s got it.”
The man’s eyes widened. “What’s she got?”
She paused reluctant to say the words aloud, as if by not saying them would somehow stop the virus’s progress, but eventually she muttered, “The Bubonic Plague.”
The man wailed, tears streaked down his face and he raged again, thrusting his flare-gun in her face. “Make her better. I order you to make her better!”
“There isn’t a cure for this strain.”
“Make her better or I swear I’ll shoot you!” His knuckles whitened as they slowly pulled back on the trigger….