Degeneration (6 page)

Lloyd looked around and saw that all three of the other soldiers in the tunnel had stopped
walking and was staring at him, probably worrying
about his stability after
the ordeal with the c
orporal.

“Sorry,” Ll
oyd said as he started walking again.

The other soldiers
exchanged uneasy glances and continued walking.

Lloyd kept his gaze fixated on the ground
,
unable to shake the feeling of guilt gnawing at him inside.

At the end
of the tunnel
, they passed through a set of plastic flaps and entered a large white ten
t. They were herded off by
white-suits, stripped
naked, and
given a cold chemical shower while
white-suits scrubbed them
with stiff
-bristled
brushes.

After getting decontaminated, the soldiers were herded onto a black helicopter en route
back
to Fort
Bragg in North Carolina for debriefing. The helicopter sat
on the helipad for twenty minu
tes and still hadn’t taken off.

Inside the helicopter, t
he soldiers
were
slouched on the metall
ic benches inside the cabin. The adrenaline had worn off and exhaustion started to kick in.

Lloyd,
however, wasn’t feeling well. H
e stared out the small window and wat
ched as Sgt. James
engaged in a heated argum
ent with one of the white-suits–

“Look, I understand that, Sergeant, but I can’t let you take off yet! Protocol demands that they all be placed in
an
observational quarantine for forty-eight hours to see if they exhibit any symptoms!” the white-suit said, pointing at the helicopter. The white-sui
t slid off his protective
facemask and held it under his arm. He loo
ked like he was running off
two hours of sleep.

“Oh,
goddamnit!” Sgt. James
said, throwing his arms up into the air. “If you people were so safety-conscious then we wouldn’t have to be here in the first place
and I wouldn’t be short two good men
! I don’t know how many times I have to e
xplain it to you, but my orders are to bring
them directly to Fort Bragg for debriefing
from the Pentagon! I won’t have my men sit inside a fish
tank so you people
can feel better about your fuckup
!”

“I understand that
, but the risk of–”

“What risk? None of my
men are infected! I told you, there is bra
ss waiting to debrief them. Should I tell DC
to pack up and come back in forty-eight hours?”
Sgt. James
mockingly asked.

Lloyd watched with tired eyes.
I wish I could read lips
. He
watched as
another white-suit
ra
n over to the
one
arguing with Sgt. James. The new white-suit was holding a satellite phone.

“Sir, it’s… You should take this,” th
e white-suit said, handing the phone to his co-worker.

He
took the phone, annoyed, and pressed it against his ear.

“Flight Operations, go ahead,” he said
into the phone. His face sunk and lost color. “Yes, sir, I understand. . . Yes, sir, thank
you. And sir, it’s an honor
.”

He
disconnected
the
call
and looked over at
Sgt. James
, still obviously in disbelief.

“Apparently, the Secretary of Defense
himself i
s waiting for
you,” he told Sgt. James.
“You’re been given your clearance to go.”

Sgt. James said nothing, turned,
and stormed towards the cockpit. 

The white-suit turned and walked
off of the helipad. As he walked away, he gave the control tower a ‘thumb-up’.

Within minutes, the helicopter was in the air. Lloyd watched
the chaos on the compound
below as white-suites rushed into the plastic draped building wielding chemical sprayers and flamethrowers.
They would have killed me
, Lloyd thought.
They would have killed me for nothing, just because they are afraid.

Llo
yd coughed, and closed his eyes; it felt good to finally be out of that hazmat suit. He coughed again and drifted into an uneasy sleep, infecting the other soldiers with each breath he took.

5

I
n his office on the fifth floor of the Pentagon, Gen
eral Falton sat flanked by Lieutenant
General Yates and Colonel Mathis. Th
ey stared at the laptop
in the center of the polished table with pallid expressions.

Colonel Mathis, head of the 161st Bioterrorism Response Regiment stationed in Fort Bragg, reached a hand across the table and played the digital recording for the fifth time.

Pilot:
“Mayday! Mayday! Eagle One to Hawk Nest
[interference] multiple causalities aboard. Request
ing
emergency landing! [screaming in background]”

Control:
“Hawk Nest to Eagle One
what is the nature of
your
emergency? Are you taking fire?”

Pilot:
“NEGI–
[interference] Threat is aboar
d! Threat is aboard–
[interference] [loud banging in background]
they’re trying to get in the–
[interference]”

Control:
  “Break, Break, Break, Eagle One
, what is the nature of the threat
, over
?”

Pilot:
“I don’t fucking
know! Sgt. James is dead! He– [interference] Oh God! They’re
– [louder banging] [screaming] [gunshots] [heavy interference] [silence]”

Col. Mathis stopped the recording and looked
at General Falton.

General Falton, a forty-eight year old battle-worn soldier
, headed the United States’ s
ecretive
bioweapon division since the early eighties. His once proud military physique had given way to a plump midsection and sagging should
ers.
Stress
had
slowly whittled away at him, raised his blood pressure, elevated his cholesterol, and cost him his hair; serving through Regan’s Cold War tensions, Clinton’s scandals, and both of the Bush eras with each of their respective wars came with a heavy pr
ice. However, it was a price he was willing to pay
for a legacy and a healthy retirement sum.

And then along came the worst
disaster in the
bioweapon
program’s history, t
hreatening everything that
he
sacrificed
his life
for
.

Gen.
Falton sighed and
contemplated
in silence for a moment.

“That’s it, then,”
Gen.
Falton finally said. “
It
came abo
ard, somehow. Fort Detrick
?” He rolled his alumni ring around his finger, thinking.
Unbelievable, why did this have to happen to me now?

“It
has been scr
ubbed,” Col.
Mathis said. “Secondary teams have reporte
d no traces of ‘PT-12’
,” he said quickly
and then gnawed on his lower lip, fidgeting.

Col.
Mathis, twenty-nine, was an ambitious ma
n who was moving quickly up the
chain. Unlike most soldiers, he came into the service with a doctorate degree already under his belt
and, as such, was the perfect candidate for the 161
st
. H
is military future looked promising, but then
‘
PT-12
’ came along. What was worse wa
s that he knew he would be the one at the
end of the pointed finger.

“Your team blew it, Colonel,”
Lieutenant
General Yates muttered in hi
s gruff smoker’s voice. “The 161
st
are
supposed to be the e
xperts with biological weapons
, and yet they knowingly breach quarantine protocols to… leave early?”

Lt. Gen.
Yates, a hardened veteran of the Gulf War, st
ared coldly at the young colonel
. In h
is eyes, the colonel was a boot-
licking schoolboy who was
too focused on
a
ss-kissing his way up
the f
ood chain. He knew the most wartime
action
the boy saw involved
a video game controll
er, and yet here this young–

“
I never gave any clearance for t
hem to leave!” Co
l
. Mathis defensively
said, face f
lushing. “In fact, the Fort Detrick incident c
ommander told me that somebody called and gave the team authorization t
o leave without my knowledge or–
”

Lt. Gen. Yate
s
’ face contorted and his chest tightened.

“First off, I remind you, Colonel
,
to mind your tone! Secon
d, you’re in charge of the 161
st
, so nobody should have made a
move without your knowledge! When the investigation is over, this will all fall
on you!
Your mistakes have cost the–”

“
I went to Fort Detrick to
personally
oversee this mission!
I cannot and will not be held respo
nsible for the inept actions of–
”

“Enough! Enough, damnit,”
Gen. Falton said
, waving a dismissive
hand at both of heated
men.

Col. Mathis and Lt. Gen.
Yates
glared at each other with their
fists clinched at their sid
es and their
mouths clinched shut.

“
It’s
too early to start pointing fingers,
” Gen. Falton grumbled, knowing full-
well that he w
as the one who made the call that
gave the helicopter cleara
nce to take-off. After all, William T. Hart, the Secretary of Defense, was waiting
,
and you do not keep a man in that
position waiting. How the hell was he supposed to know someone on the fl
ight was infected
? 
No, if anybody was to blame, it was the careless people who did the decontamination procedure
,
he
reasoned.

“Is there any hope
for clean containment?” Gen. Falton asked, looking over at Col. Mathis
with fragile expectation.

“No, sir, the helicopter was en-route to base at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina. It has veered off-
course and
is now
flying over Raleigh
, North Carolina, population of five-hundred and nineteen thousand
.
It is gradually losing altitude and the pilot is presumed
to be
in
fected
,”
Col.
Mathis said. “
Given the nature of ‘PT-12’,
Raleigh is
compromised the minute he crashes
.”

“Are we sure it will come to that?
”
Gen. Falton asked
,
sighing.

“Since he is still
capable of
flying, he didn
’t get bit, that much we know. If it was a bite transmission he
would have
succumbed by now. But, given the virus’ airborne qualities,
yes, he will inevitably
turn and
crash.”

“Why in the hell is he flying towards Raleigh?” Lt. Gen.
Yates
asked, narrowing his eyes.

“It’s only a slight deviation from the normal flight path,” Col. Mathis said. “He could be looking for a hospital helipad.”

“Regardless
, at this point we have to assume Raleigh will be compromised. Given that scenario, what is the outlook?”
Gen.
Falton asked, furrowing his brow.
He knew how dangerous ‘PT-12’ was.