Area 51: The Mission-3 (20 page)

That might help explain how the disease got out of the swamp, Kenyon reasoned.

They suited up and went onto the island as if it were hot. But they found nothing, and eventually Kenyon had to order them to pack up and head back.

Kenyon never found out where Ebola3 came from; thus the nickname "jaunt" for the entire exercise. But he had learned a lot about taking a Level 4 lab to the field, and for that Norward was now very grateful because most of the equipment on the second helicopter was prepackaged gear that Kenyon had used on the jaunt.

Kenyon had used his expertise to put together easily movable equipment that they had stored at the Institute. If ever there was a need to go virus hunting again, Kenyon had wanted to be ready.

And now they were off hunting. Several dead villages in the Amazon highlands didn't necessarily mean they had another Ebola3 on their hands, Norward knew.

But if they did, at least they wouldn't be starting from scratch preparing this expedition.

In the past several decades Ebola3, Ebola, and Marburg had broken out occasionally in Africa and killed with ruthless efficiency—or propagated with amazing strength, depending on one's outlook, Norward thought. Then it had disappeared. There was still no vaccine for

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those known scourges—never mind something new. It was a sore point at both USAMRIID and the CDC in Atlanta that they hadn't broken any of the filovirus codes. The only thing they had accomplished in the past several years was to come up with a field test to determine if someone had Ebola or Marburg.

But South America was something new. And the bouncer—Norward wondered how that was involved. Was it simply being used because of the time rush? And Colonel Carmen indicating that this trip was occurring outside of official channels added to the mystery.

"Here's our ride," Kenyon said.

The bouncer came in low over the grounds in front of the main building for USAMRIID. The gear that they would need was piled next to them. Norward marveled as the alien craft came to hover, then silently touched down on the lawn.

An Air Force officer came out of the top hatch.

"Major Norward?"

Norward nodded. "Yes."

"We've got your ride." He looked at the lab gear. "Might take us a couple of minutes to get your stuff loaded. This whole thing is kind of unorthodox, but we'll get you out of here as fast as we can."

"How long will it take us to get to the target area?" Kenyon asked.

"We have to stop at the Stennis first to pick up a couple of passengers."

Kenyon shook his head. "We don't have time for any side trips."

"What's the big rush?"

"In an hour," Kenyon said, "certain viruses can replicate themselves almost a million times. That is the rush."

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-12-

Inside the Springfield the crew waited. The three foo fighters were still on station. Captain Forster was prepared to wait until he was just about out of oxygen—two months—before doing anything. He'd heard the Pasadena destroyed by the foo fighters and he had no desire to share that fate.

The bottom line, though, was that the ball was in the court of the politicians, and Captain Forster knew that he might well have to get close to running out of oxygen before any decision would be made. If it was up to Admiral Poldan, commanding the carrier task force just twenty miles away, Forster knew there would be nukes hitting Easter Island until there was no longer an island.

But the ball was not in the military's court.

On Easter Island, Kelly Reynolds's body had all but ceased functioning, held in the field by the guardian. Her mind, though, was still alert. And she still saw images, slices of the past.

The largest statue of all, over seventy feet in length and two hundred tons, lay among four hundred other unfinished statues on the side of Rano Raraku. But there were no people to raise it in warning.

The last Birdman had violated the law. People had

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come from over the sea. From the rising sun, ignoring the warning of the Moai statues along the shore. They had talked to the Birdman, then left. He had gone inside of Rano Kau. He was gone for five days, and when he came back the people had split—those who remembered why they were here on one side against the blasphemers who followed the Birdman.

The latter began tearing down the statues, destroying the warning signs. The former fought them. The bloody civil war raged, but then the Black Death came and killed both sides indiscriminately until all traces of the old ways, the stones, the writing of high runes on the rongo-rongo tablets, all was gone.

The Guide Parker accessed his e-mail. There was only one message waiting and he knew where it was from, given that his address was available to only one place.

As he reached forward to move the mouse to open the message, he noticed his hand was shaking. He tried to steady it, but his nerves were unable to do that.

With difficulty, he opened the message and read it.

The timetable had been moved up. There was no explanation, nor was one required. The orders were succinct and to the point. Parker sent his acknowledgment.

Duncan, Turcotte, and Yakov were walking up a steel staircase toward the flight deck when a crewman stopped them.

"Dr. Duncan?"

"Yes?"

The crewman held out a computer disk. "This just came in for you over the secure Interlink with Area 51."

"Is the bouncer due in soon?" Turcotte asked.

"Yes, sir. Five minutes out."

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"Escort the passengers to the conference room," Duncan said.

Duncan took the disk and she, Turcotte, and Yakov retraced their steps.

"What now?" Turcotte asked.

"I don't know." Duncan turned on her laptop and slid the disk in. She accessed her A drive. "It's an AVI."

"A what?" Turcotte asked.

"A video that can be run on a computer," Duncan said.

"On a computer disk?" Turcotte shook his head. "Guess I'm just technologically impaired. Who's it from?"

"Major Quinn." Duncan was working on the computer. She looked up. "He received it from Harrison."

"Your mystery man," Yakov said.

They heard footsteps in the passageway. The door opened and the two USAMRIID

men walked in. The introductions were quickly made.

"What do you have?" Kenyon immediately asked.

"Nothing more than I sent Colonel Carmen," Duncan said. She gestured at Yakov.

"He believes we have another version of the Black Death."

Norward frowned. "The plague hasn't been eradicated—there was an outbreak in India just last year— but it's not the threat it once was. We can handle that.

And the plague doesn't kill as quickly and thoroughly as the imagery we've seen."

"Something with an effect like that of the Black Death," Yakov amended, "not necessarily the same thing."

"I think we'll have a better idea in a second." Duncan was still at her computer. "I've got a video here from South America. Gather round."

Once everyone could see the screen, she hit the but-

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ton to play the video. A man was standing on the wooden deck of a ship. His skin was covered with black lines.

The man staggered, then went down to his knees vomiting blood and going into convulsions. A second figure appeared, holding something in his hands. The first man gave a strange, choking sound. He vomited a vast quantity of dark red blood.

The second figure leaned over and put his hand into the man's mouth, sweeping around with his fingers, trying to clear it out. He wiped off a mass of black goo onto the first man's shirt, then put the tip of a tube inside the man's mouth. The man violently threw up again. This time it was a mass that went around the tube and splattered into the first man's face and over his chest.

"Breathing tube," Kenyon said. "The vomit and blood must be blocking the throat."

"He's not gloved or masked," Norward whispered in horror.

"Look at his arms," Kenyon said. "Same black tracks. Not as advanced. He's got it too."

The man got the breathing tube stuck in the other's neck. He looked over his shoulder at the camera. "My name is Harrison."

The voice sounded tinny coming out of the small speakers of the laptop, but Duncan recognized it as the same one from the phone.

"This is my guide, Ruiz. Two days ago we came across a village where everyone was dead from this." Harrison pushed the tube farther in. Ruiz's chest began rising and falling. "All right. He's got air," Harrison said. He reached inside an aid kit and pulled an IV out. "But he's lost so much blood, he's going into shock. He'll be dead if I don't get something in him."

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There was a horrible tearing sound from inside Ruiz that those inside the conference room could clearly hear.

"What was that?" Turcotte asked.

"His guts," Kenyon said.

More blood came up out of Ruiz's mouth, around the tube. There was material mixed in the blood.

"That's what we heard tearing." Kenyon might have been discussing last night's basketball game. "His in-sides are disintegrating."

The needle hadn't taken, and blood was seeping out around the hole. Harrison tried again, with the same result.

"Needle won't work," Kenyon said succinctly. "The blood has lost its ability to clot. All he's doing is opening more wounds."

Ruiz's eyes flashed open. It looked to Turcotte as if he was trying to speak, but the tube prevented that. More blood and guts poured out. Then Ruiz's head flopped back and his eyes rolled up.

Blood had poured out of every orifice, pooling on the deck beneath him.

Harrison faced the camera. He seemed unaffected by the other man's death. "Now you want all I can show you, don't you?"

He reached into the aid bag and pulled out a scalpel.

"What is he going to do?" Yakov asked.

Kenyon was nodding. "Good, very good."

Harrison placed the tip of the scalpel on the center of Ruiz's chest.

"Who is this guy?" Norward asked.

"We don't know," Duncan said.

"He seems to have an idea of what he's doing," Norward commented as Harrison slid the blade through flesh. Ruiz's stomach was full of black blood with traces of internal tissue mixed in it. Harrison reached through

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the goo with his hand, pulling up dripping internal organs.

"God," Duncan whispered. "I've never seen anything like that."

"His kidneys are gone," Harrison said to the camera. He pulled something up.

"That's his liver." It was the color of urine and partly dissolved. Harrison put it back down on top of the mass of blood and guts that had been Ruiz. He looked up at the camera. "I don't know exactly what killed this man, but I hope the people who might know are watching this."

Harrison stood and pulled a poncho out of a pack. He draped it over the body, then raised his arms toward the camera. They could see the black welts crisscrossing the skin. "Please hurry."

The screen went blank.

Norward looked around the room and then focused on his partner. "Ebola?"

Norward knew there were now three varieties of the deadly Ebola virus: Ebola Sudan, Ebola Zaire, and Ebola3. Zaire had a kill ratio of 90 percent of those infected, the Sudan variety not too far behind. It might not be a virus, Norward hoped. It might be nothing— but he knew nothing didn't kill like that. It had to be something.

"No." Kenyon was certain.

"South America." Norward recalled what he had been thinking on the flight to the carrier. "What about Bolivian Fever?"

"No."

"Venezuelan equine encephalitis crossing over to humans?" Norward desperately wanted it to be an enemy they knew something about.

"No." Kenyon tapped the computer screen. "Where was this shot?"

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"Western Brazil, near the border with Bolivia," Duncan answered. "The town of Vilhena."

"Is the town quarantined?" Norward asked.

Kenyon laughed. "Come on, man, get real. We just saw this. They don't have a clue there, although whoever did the quick autopsy for our benefit, he's smart.

This Harrison fellow definitely has a good idea what he's got there. The only ones who really know right now are us. And from this, well, we really don't know too much, either."

"Have you ever seen this before?" Norward asked, aware that the others were waiting on their words.

Kenyon shrugged. "I didn't see a damn thing other than a crash and burn."

A crash and burn was the Institute's term for the final stages of a victim carrying a deadly agent. The bug had taken over the body and consumed it and was ready to move on, having killed its host.

"Could it be Ebola3?" Norward asked, referring to the fourth of the deadly filoviruses to come out of Africa.

"I doubt it." Kenyon scratched his chin. "Only way we're going to find out for sure is to go there."

"Go there?" Turcotte shook his head. "How do we keep from getting infected ourselves?"

"We go in suited," Kenyon said. "Let's go—time's awasting."

"How do you work it?" Che Lu stared at the strange piece of machinery. She did not want to ask Lo Fa about the red stains on the radio's metal.

Lo Fa shrugged. "I do not know." He pointed. "The instructions are written on it, but they are in Russian."

"Russian?"

"It was carried by the team of Russians who went

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into Qian-Ling. The army took it off the bodies. I took it off the army."

Lo Fa called to one of his men. A young man, barely more than a child, came up.

"Can you read the Russian?" Lo Fa asked.

The boy nodded.

"Can you work the radio?"

The boy ran his fingers over the writing, his lips silently moving. "1 think so," he finally said. He pulled a small satellite dish out of a canvas pack attached to the radio. He flipped open the leaves, putting the small tripod on the ground. He hooked a cable from the antenna to the radio, then flipped a switch. He took a handset that looked like a phone off the side of the radio and extended it to Che Lu. "You may dial the number you wish to call."

Che Lu was amazed. "That is all?"

The young man shrugged. "That is what it says."