The Plague Years (Book 1): Hell is Empty and All the Devils Are Here (4 page)

“The girl did. Her English was good. She said she was sorry.”

“Maybe migrant workers or perhaps college students then,” said Chad. “That fits my assumptions.” 

“Chad, I need a detailed briefing on a worst case scenario for 1:30 pm today. Our friend at the Department of Homeland Security has proposed a ‘low impact solution’ so use that as your base case. Thankfully, he left in a VIP jet last night so we can work in some form of peace. We will be briefing our staff, the Homeland Security people and some VIP’s from other government agencies. This needs to be first rate.

“I’d like you to focus on the continental United States but I’d also like an overview of likely scenarios for Europe, Africa, and Asia. Provide Dr. Riley’s team with your continental analysis as soon as you can but no later than 10:00 am. There will be coffee and pastries delivered in a few minutes and you can borrow my antacids if you need them. Do you need anything else?”

“More time sir,” said Chad. “I made a bunch of assumptions of the first prediction that I would like to run down.”

“That is the one thing I can’t give you.”

May 5
th
, Friday, 10:37am PDT

Mary Strickland was angry. The tasting room at Bookwalter Wineries opened at 11:00 am on Fridays but she had to be in at 9:00. The Bistro had to be ready for the lunch crowd and they had a rehearsal dinner to do at 3:00. The Chef was late, the cook staff was sleepy and to top it off, her husband had just spent fifteen thousand dollars on God knows what to prepare for the ‘End of Life as We Know It’.

“That wasn’t completely fair.”
Mary thought. Chad had always been a smart and thoughtful man. His reasons were logical, if vague.

“Damn that NDA!” she said as she slammed down the wedding menu she had been working on.

“Whoa!” said Heather Tunney. “You have another vegan marrying a cattleman and they’re fighting over the menu?”

Heather was a good friend. They had worked together for six years and shared wine, what their kids were up to, complained about husbands, and were also a very effective team. She was forty-eight, but didn’t look it. She was an athletically slender brunette tending to a little gray. She kept fit from the Pilates they took together three times a week and her addiction to skiing and kayaking. The remark about the vegan marrying the cattleman was an old joke between them from one of the first weddings Heather had catered when she first came to work at Bookwalter’s.

“I wish,” said Mary.

“Hmmmm, could be tough, wanna talk about it?”

Mary hesitated. She had promised Chad to keep quiet about the real reason had spent so much money until tonight when they both had spent a day to cool down.

“It’s my husband,” said Mary.

“Of course it’s your husband,” said Heather with a sympathetic look. “Give Auntie Heather all the dirty details. What did he do this time?”

“Well,” Mary said and then hesitated. She had promised. “Chad bought a truck!”

“You guys need a truck?”

“No!” said Mary angrily. “He is also going to buy a boat. He says he needs the truck to tow it.”

“You guys had a boat for a while. Me and the ex went out on the river with you several times.”

Heather’s winemaker ex-husband had found the love of his life, or so he claimed and had left her, leaving a nasty divorce and three kids in his wake. The object of his affections was twenty-six year old buxom blond whose hair color came out of a bottle. 

“It could be worse,” said Heather with a smile. “You can shoot your hubby’s mistress and nobody will arrest you.”

Mary laughed. That had been one of Heather’s fondest wishes right after her husband left. They had discussed it over more than one bottle of wine and had come to the conclusion that her ex and his ‘true love’ deserved each other.

“You don’t know how much work a boat is though,” said Mary. Then she rattled on about how much berthing space cost, what licensing hoops you had to jump through, and all the gritty details about keeping the hull sound. These had been all of Chad’s reasons for selling their first boat and gave her something to say while she gathered her wits.

“What do they say about the difference between men and boys?” asked Heather impishly.

“The price of their toys,” said Mary with resignation.

“Right, Chad is a good guy. You’re lucky his midlife crisis includes a truck and a boat, not a high school drop out with the finest breasts money can buy.”

That did help Mary, even though the actual purchase wasn’t correct. Chad was a good guy. He just overanalyzed things. That was his job. After he calmed down, she thought, we can see about selling the junk Dave had bought or was going to buy and getting some of the money back. Chad’s salary was good and so was Mary’s, they would come out alright.

Between Mary and Heather, they started putting out the brush fires and getting the day rolling. The Chef was found with a flat tire and retrieved, a few terse words to the rest of the cook staff got them moving and they were open on time. Things moved on normally until they were beginning to receive guests for the wedding.

Mary was working on the final figures for the reception when Heather stuck her head into Mary’s office.

“We have a drunken father of the bride,” said Heather breathlessly.

“Drunk belligerent?” asked Mary as she got out of her chair and grabbed her cell phone. She hated to call the cops unless it was absolutely necessary. It spoiled the celebration.

“Drunk peculiar,” said Heather.

“Great!” said Mary rolling her eyes.

They made their way into the great room. A large plump man in a tux with the tie open and a couple of stains on the jacket, was at the buffet eating shrimp. He was tan the way that comes from a tanning booth or bathing in Nutella. Despite that, he looked an unhealthy pale underneath the tan and was sweating profusely. A small bird-like woman was trying ineffectually to get him away from the buffet.

“Daniel, please, at least wait until the guests arrive!” said the mother of the bride.

“Nonsense, Martha, I paid for this food. These really are good too,” he said grabbing two more.

“Pardon me Mr. Wilson,” said Mary in her best customer voice. “If you are hungry, I can get you seated in the Bistro right away for a quick meal. This snack food often isn’t very satisfying.”

The last thing Mary wanted was a row with the guy paying the bills. She nodded to Heather who pulled the tray of shrimp away. It would be replaced with a new one when the father of the bride was out of sight. She wanted to make sure everything looked as perfect as their advertising brochure said it would be.

“Maybe that would be a good idea. I really could use something to eat. Do you have any red meat in there?” asked Daniel.

“We serve an excellent meat and cheese platter if you would like to nibble and the marbled sixteen ounce ribeye with a blue cheese potato cake and roasted winter squash from the dinner menu is really first rate,” said Mary sounding just like the Tri-Cities Restaurant Guide.

“Now Daniel, you know what your doctor has been saying about your diet”, said Martha who was clearly a worrier.

While they argued about lunch, Mary expertly disentangled the guests from the buffet and guided him toward the dining room.

“This guy is burning up,”
thought Mary as she shook hands with him at the entryway.

“Man is it hot in here”, said Daniel.

Heather and Mary looked at one another. They normally cooled the great room down to 66 degrees as it always heated up when you added a hundred or guests and servers.

“Sir, perhaps you should lie down or maybe I could call a physician. You seem quite warm.”

“Daniel, I told you that you should see Dr. Hanley,” said Martha.

“And miss my baby girl’s wedding? I’ll be fine once I ….” He trailed off and his eyes rolled back in his head. The starch went out of his legs and he began to slide to the floor. Mary caught him and while his wife fluttered ineffectually and slid him clumsily down to the floor. As he rolled onto his side, his jacket slid back and there was a large blood stain on his shirt.

“Heather, would you be so good as to call 911?” said Mary in a voice that sounded far calmer than she felt. “We seem to have a situation here. Also have Alex step out of the tasting room and help Mrs. Wilson greet her guests.”

The ambulance was there in five minutes and a semi-conscience Mr. Wilson was loaded on to the cart. Mrs. Wilson didn’t know if she should stay and see the wedding through or go with her husband. Thankfully, at that point, her daughter made an appearance, mostly dressed and they all went off to the hospital. Most of the rest of the wedding party followed in separate cars.

This was not a good day. Mr. Wilson’s illness did not look like the flu but something more serious. Mary hoped he would be OK but with all this paranoia on the news and the web, she wasn’t so sure. Most of the buffet was headed for the trash. There would be a stink as to whether or not the Wilsons had succumbed to food poisoning courtesy of Bookwalter’s and who was going to pay for the food no one would eat? Then she still had to go home to hash out this silliness with Chad.

May 5
th
, Friday, 3:45 pm PDT

The meeting got off to a late start because the Air Force C-20, which in civilian terms is a militarized Gulfstream executive jet, that was bringing in Lt. General Buckley who commanded I Corps, had to skirt a line of thunderstorms that covered most of central Washington. As a result, a flight that would normally last thirty minutes from Joint Base Lewis/McChord in Tacoma Washington to the Tri-Cities regional airport had taken almost two hours. The general was not amused.

In addition to the General, there was an Air Force full colonel from the 62
nd
Airlift Wing, two National Guard colonels, one Army and one Air Force, a bunch of suits, and Mr. Macklin from Homeland Security.

“The NORTHCOM Commander is in discussions with the SECDEF about activating the CBRN Response Enterprise, and asked me to come research the potential implications of this zombie plague shit...  However, I have a reception to attend at 18:30 hours,” said General Buckley briskly, “for the Commandant of the Marine Corps who, for reasons known only to himself, is touring our facilities at Ft. Lewis. I would appreciate an aggressive meeting agenda. My pilot is monitoring the weather and currently informs me that we have to be wheels up and airborne by 16:50 hours for me to make my schedule. He has my permission to interrupt if weather parameters change. For your information, I have read the preliminary reports concerning the spread rate and the symptoms if the disease. I find it very troubling and some parts are a little hard to believe. So it’s your meeting for the next hour.”

“I would like to thank you for making time to be here General Buckley,” began Mr. Macklin. “We also have members of the …..”

“That’s enough Macklin,” said General Buckley. “Save the hearts and flowers for after I’ve left. Dr. Riley, I believe this is your show.”

“Thank you General,” said Dr. Riley. “Given our time restraints, I am going to ask you to review the briefing notes provided concerning current treatment methods and possible quarantine options which were the first two items on the agenda. I will sum those points up briefly. We have no successful treatment. The main symptoms that matter for this meeting are a delusional mental state and violent, cannibalistic behaviors. There are many flavors of quarantine but the big issues are manpower and which routes to block.

“I’d like to ask Chad Strickland to brief you on the potential spread of the disease.”

“Right, I’ll cut this short,” said Chad. He had expected to sit for forty-five minutes before he even got a chance to talk; now he was on the spot to make it quick and pointed. His time in the Air Force doing intel briefings for VIP’s had shown him that when ‘the General’ wanted to speed things up, you didn’t dawdle.

“I am going to skip a bunch of slides and show you my epidemiology maps. Our current model shows that we should have non-symptomatic suffers of the disease or carriers if you will, in all the western US states by this point. The next slide shows the results of the epicenters in New York and Miami, We can expect to see the same sort of coverage east of the Mississippi before the end of the month. If there is no treatment or any form of quarantine, symptomatic sufferers of the disease will top one million before the end of the month and will exceed thirty million by the end of the summer as the final slide shows with symptomatic sufferers in every state. Furthermore …”

“I think your analyst is exaggerating the issue,” said Macklin loudly. “We have a low impact solution with proper …”

“Enough Macklin,” said General Buckley. “I have heard your point of view all the way over here on the plane. This is Dr. Riley’s show so let him run it. Strickland, continue.”

“Thank you sir,” said Chad. It did not escape Chad’s notice that he was receiving the evil eye from Macklin. “My base assumptions were that there is a class of symptomatic sufferers that lack medical insurance or for various reasons do not wish to seek medical care. And that this class of sufferer will spread the disease aggressively over the summer months. This is because several factors are making them more mobile.”

“Can you be more specific on these factors?” said one of the suits that had come with General Buckley.

“Yes sir,” said Chad. “The migrant worker population is becoming mobile. Here in Washington, grapevine and fruit tree pruning is coming to an end. There is going to be a need for harvesting down south very soon. Colleges across the country are letting students out for the summer. Both of these populations often lack proper medical insurance. Then there are also illegal aliens crossing the borders in record numbers. Many of them are traveling through the epicenters in California to where ever they are going and some of them are likely becoming infected. They tend to avoid any form of official notice. Finally, drug users and other petty criminals are moving out of California to take advantage of the warmer weather elsewhere.”

“What about some form of containment Dr. Strickland?” 

“That is what my group has worked on,” said Dr. Riley as he took the remote from Chad and flipped through a bunch of slides. “Thank you Dr. Strickland. I apologize for the slides being out of order, but containment will be difficult. If we assume normal law enforcement, Civil Defense volunteers and some National Guard support, we get almost no adjustment.”

“Our analysis completely disagrees with this …” said Mr. Macklin.

“I have heard your analysis Mr. Macklin, I want to hear theirs,” said General Buckley. “If this were an Army post, I’d have you ejected from the meeting…”

“Well, it’s not,” said Macklin. “So you will listen to this. Our projects show a significantly slower growth when we use available CIVILIAN assets to block the interstates, rail lines and other major travel modes. Dr. Strickland’s own analysis shows that these are the major routes of infection. Just by blocking those routes, we can very nearly stop all growth.”

“Yes, so you have said often and loudly,” said General Buckley testily. “Yet a very high ranking individual wanted me to hear another viewpoint. Dr. Strickland, it’s your analysis in both cases. Why do you think that following Mr. Macklin’s recommendations would have little effect?”

“In simple terms,” said Chad flipping back through the slides, “it goes back to the demographics of the folks most likely not to seek medical attention and hence become the most likely spread the infection. The Department of Homeland Security’s plan would restrict everyone to twenty-five miles or so of their home and set up regional road blocks that you can’t travel beyond. What if people have no home?”

“How do you mean?” asked an Air Force Colonel who smiled and seemed familiar. Chad noted that his name tag said Antonopoulos.

“There couldn’t be two guys in the Air Force with that name and that moustache,”
Chad thought and put the recognition away for later.

“Simply this: migrant workers live in camps and motor homes that follow the work. They live paycheck to paycheck so when the work dries up, they move. If they don’t work, they don’t eat. If you stop them from moving, the available unskilled labor market will dry up fast. So they will move, even with a restriction, only they will take all the back roads and dirt trails and go around the roadblocks. They know the secondary routes because at least the illegal ones are trying hard to avoid being noticed, and the farms they work at are mostly connected by the secondary roads. They would flee from the Interstate if you even started checking ID’s.

“The second group is the petty criminals. They don’t know the roads as well but they have a very strong interest in not being caught. Their best defense is to keep moving. If they get known, local law enforcement picks them up pretty efficiently. They will also find a way to move on.

“Finally, we come to college students. The road blocks will have the most effect on them as they are by and large, law abiding. But they have a much stronger desire to get home. Enough of them will evade your roadblocks to get home. All it would take would be a Garmin GPS with a current update.

In short, I don’t think the Homeland Security plan will slow that travel down much at all for the at risk populations and the simulations I ran using my assumptions support that viewpoint. Actually, there is some evidence that just putting these restrictions in place will accelerate the spread of the disease.”

“Erskin, State Department,” said a small dark haired man in a finely tailored conservative suit. “There will be international implications if this gets out. Surely some form of Mr. Macklin’s solution could be made to work …”

“I wish it could Mr. Erskin,” said Dr. Riley interrupting him before he could get started, “but the cat is already out of the bag. There are epicenters for this disease in London, Paris, Saigon, Moscow, and Tokyo. The world knows and they know where it came from.

“But if we allowed the disease to spread for a while from these locations,” continued Erskin smoothly, “we could cast enough doubt, especially if the situation became ... chaotic … later.”

“I am going to pretend that I did not hear a representative of the Government of United States of America condemn thousands if not millions of innocent people to a serious illness and a very unpleasant death just to make us look good,” said General Buckley forcefully. His voice was not loud but the menace in it was clear.

“I have also been to a rodeo and a county fair and not only do the at risk demographics described seem plausible, I can tell you from personal experience as a teenager with a twelve pack of beer in the back of a pickup truck that I may or may not have been old enough to have, that the number of back roads, jeep trails and open fields in a rural area are truly immeasurable and many aren’t on any maps. No way can you close them all and lots of folks know about them. It is also clear this is above my pay grade but it is clear that something has to happen soon.”

“That’s what I have been trying to say …” began Mr. Macklin, but the general, who had been to contentious meetings before, spoke forcefully.

“You sir,” said General Buckley pointing vigorously at Macklin, “have been trying to say any damned thing that will get us to soft pedal this internally and I now see via Erskin over there, that you want to keep it quiet internationally too.”

General Buckley then fixed Chad with a stare.

“Strickland, your work has riled up some folks. Do you stand by it?”

“Yes Sir,” said Chad with a gulp.

“You sound former military,” said the General. “Did I read that right?”

Before Chad could speak, Colonel Antonopoulos spoke up.

“He was sir,” he said. “He was my intel analyst back when we were both young in the First Special Ops Wing out at Hurlburt Field.”

“And you let him get out?”

“Guilty, sir.”

“Riley,” said the General as he turned away from Chad, effectively dismissing him, “I will need a secure room with secure com, audio, and document transfer. Are you set up for that?”

“I can do that and video as well if you need it.”

“Good, is there anything else I need to know before I go bet my stars on this?”

“We have some backup data for Strickland’s talking points.”

“Give me the Readers Digest Condensed version.”

“We have had our first three cases just outside of Kennewick last night. We have been able to identify two deceased individuals. They were a newlywed couple who had just graduated from Seattle Pacific University. They were on their honeymoon when they attended a Christian band concert in Portland; ‘Third Day’ was the name of the group. That was a week ago. Their families lost track of them two days before they ended up here. Apparently they were headed home and became symptomatic. We think they contracted the disease through contact rather than fluids exchange.”

“You said three,” said the General pointedly.

“Yes, there was a third case today. He is conscious and lucid enough to question. Apparently, he occasionally visits prostitutes. One bit him. Police are trying to trace her but, like Chad said, petty criminals like that move and know how to fade.

“We are also monitoring the condition of a sheriff’s deputy who got bit attempting to apprehend one of the previous sufferers. She is not yet symptomatic but west coast data shows that the biting is not an uncommon behavior and that she will likely become symptomatic. Enforcement of any quarantine is going to generate casualties among those who are watching the roads.” 

“Any more good news?” said General Buckley with a piercing stare.

“There are details, but they are in your briefing notes,” said Riley. “Dr. Grieb has some information on the vectors of the disease, treatments and such but they are in the briefing package that you have read already.”

“Mr. Erskin and Mr. Macklin, I am now going to go over my boss’s head and will call the NORTHCOM Commander, Chief of the Army, and various other luminaries with Dr. Riley’s shiny phone. I suspect that you will wish use the same device to speak to your superiors but effective immediately, I am declaring this briefing and supporting materials Top Secret, ORCON, and NOFORN. This means that until I or my superiors rescind it, no one can release this information without my written authority. There will also be no release of this information to any Foreign National without my personal written authority.”

“But you can’t do that!” said Mr. Macklin. “I need to report to my boss as soon as this meeting is over.”