Extinction Horizon

-7-

Kate tapped her finger on the conference room table, staring at the wall-sized HD television screen. The display augmented the features of CDC Deputy Director of Infectious Diseases, Jed Frank. He was middle aged with an intelligent and plain face. Deep grooves lined his forehead above arched brows. Kate had only met the man a handful of times but didn’t remember him looking so old, or so worried.

No, she decided after scrutinizing him further. There was fear in his glazed eyes. She recognized it immediately. She’d seen the same look in Africa when she’d encountered scientists who’d come face to face with a Level 4 contagion. Ebola, Marburg, Yellow Fever, Bacterial Meningitis; they all had the same effect on even veteran doctors—transforming men and women into terrified shells of their former selves.

“Good afternoon, Doctors Allen and Lovato,” Frank said, regarding them both with a nod. He brought a Styrofoam cup of coffee to his lips but did not take a drink. Instead, he looked down at it like it was poison and set it aside. Without further delay, he said, “As you’ve already heard, we have a reported case of Ebola in Chicago. I’ve deployed Doctors Lucas and Roberts into the field. They are on their way to the Windy City as we speak. I’ve canceled my speaking engagement here in Los Angeles, and I’m boarding the first flight back to Atlanta.”

Michael ignored the formalities and asked the most obvious question first. “Is it contained?”

“In short, yes. But…”

Kate felt like chewing her fingernails, an old habit she had developed as a kid. She waited anxiously for Frank to gather his thoughts. He was the freaking Deputy Director of the CDC! Was it really that bad in Chicago?

“It’s been difficult to get an accurate report on the situation. I just got off the phone a few minutes ago with the Director of Northwestern Memorial Hospital, but what he described doesn’t make any sense.” Frank shook his head. “There are three victims total. Two male Homeland Security Officers and a male passenger. We haven’t been able to confirm what flight the man got off of yet.”

“What? That should be the first thing you do, so you can quarantine the other passengers,” Kate blurted.

Frank licked his lips. “I know that, Doctor. But this passenger didn’t have any identification. The man wasn’t even wearing a shirt.”

Kate knew right away what the signs meant. The man was likely burning up from a fever and had removed his clothes in order to cool down.

“What about video feed? There are cameras all over O’Hare,” Michael said.

“Local law enforcement is checking them now. So far the man appears to have emerged out of nowhere.”

“If this man has Ebola, then surely a flight attendant or pilot would have confirmed they had a very sick passenger,” Kate said.

“And we have no such reports,” Frank replied.

Michael cleared his throat. “So we have no idea where this man came from?”

“We’re working on it,” Frank said. “Listen,” he continued. “We’re following every protocol in the book, but none of this makes any sense. We’re in unprecedented territory.”

Kate couldn’t sit still. She had so many questions, and she knew they weren’t going to get anywhere with Frank. To make things even worse, she was worried about Javier. His apartment was so close to the airport.

She resisted the urge to ask to take the first flight to Chicago, knowing Michael would never allow it, especially with Ellis in the field. She finally bit down on one of her fingernails.

Frank looked at his phone again. “Hold on,” he said, palming the air in front of the camera.

“This is Doctor Frank,” he said in the background.

Kate listened intently in an attempt to hear the conversation.

“Excellent, email the video over ASAP,” Frank said. He reemerged and faked a smile. “Good news. Dr. Roberts is on the ground and is emailing footage of the incident between the passenger and the two Homeland Security officers. Give me a second and I will forward it to you, Michael.”

Kate stood and walked over to retrieve his laptop. She returned a moment later, setting it in the middle of the mahogany conference table.

“Okay, sending now,” Frank said.

Michael typed in his password and brought up his inbox. Seconds later the email came through. He clicked on the link and repositioned the screen so Kate could see.

The grainy feed provided a perfect view of the entire terminal. They watched dozens of commuters hurrying to their next destination. Then an abrupt screech erupted from the middle of the pack. The audio was crystal clear, but Kate couldn’t tell if the sound was human. It sounded like an animal in distress.

Chaos ensued shortly after, and the hallway became a mass of terrified passengers screaming and running in all directions. When the passage cleared, a single man stood in front of the camera. Visible spasms shook his shirtless body as he walked slowly across the carpet. He jerked from left to right, his body twisting with every step.

As he got closer, Kate saw his face. Crusted blood surrounded a swollen mouth transformed into a suction cup. Blood oozed from his eyes. He tilted his head like a curious dog.

“What in the hell?” Kate muttered.

What they were witnessing made no sense. At that stage of infection, he theoretically shouldn’t have the energy to move. This man wasn’t only moving; he seemed to be possessed with energy. And his lips. What the hell had happened to his lips?

The man suddenly hunched over in apparent pain and clamped his bloated lips around his arm. He tore away a chunk of flesh and let out a howl that reminded Kate of some of the exotic animals she’d heard in the remote jungles of Africa.

“My God,” Michael whispered.

Kate didn’t reply. She was trying to find a way to justify what they were watching. Was it possible he had suffered brain damage? She knew of cases where Ebola patients had gone insane and mutilated or attacked medical personnel, but that didn’t explain his mouth.

She looked back at the screen just as two Homeland Security officers entered the hallway. They kept their hands on their holstered guns. Kate could hear one of them yelling, “Get on the ground.”

The man twisted his body at an odd angle, his joints clicking as he moved. His posture was grotesque, like his body didn’t fit together anymore.

Kate had never seen anyone move like that, especially not a person with a suspected Ebola infection. She stared with morbid fascination, wondering what exactly was happening to the man in front of them. His lips and joints. They didn’t fit with what she’d seen in the past.

They continued to watch in silence, Kate furiously chewing on her fingernails. She had moved to her index finger as one of the officers finally pulled his gun.

“Get on the fucking ground!”

The man snarled and lunged forward with incredible speed. With a running leap, he straddled the guard. He wrapped both legs around the officer’s waist. Kate wasn’t prepared for what came next. She’d always thought her stomach was like a maximum-security prison, but she’d also never seen anything quite like this. Nothing so barbaric.

The other officer quickly grabbed the infected man, trying to pull him off his partner. The result was a tangled mass of limbs and screams as the three fell to the ground.

Several gunshots rang out, and the infected man’s body rolled onto the carpet. He shook violently, clawing at his wounds before leaning over and vomiting black gore onto the floor.

The injured guard crawled away, clutching his neck and moaning while the other officer tried to help him up.

More shouts echoed in the hallway as paramedics and additional security arrived. The video ended with the camera focused on the man. His twisted body was now limp, surrounded in a puddle of dark red blood.

It took Frank several seconds to gather his thoughts before he returned in front of the video feed. He very methodically reached for the Styrofoam cup of coffee and took a slow sip. He wiped his mouth and in a deep but serious tone said, “Call everyone that knows anything about Ebola. I want everyone we have working on this,” he said. “Everyone.” Frank reached for his phone. “Shit, I have to take this.” His voice was shaky, uncontrolled.

“I’ll get to work on the—” Michael began to say.

“Wait,” Frank said, picking up the phone and holding out a finger. “Yes, this is Dr. Frank.”

A pause.

“That’s not possible. They can’t already be showing—”

Another pause.

Kate bit her lip.

“But the incubation period is normally—”

Silence.

“San Nicholas?” Another pause. “What do you mean everyone there is dead?”

More silence.

“Okay, I understand, Chad. Keep this quiet until we know more.”

Kate flinched when Michael’s phone vibrated on the table. He pulled it toward him to look at the screen. She caught a glimpse of the caller ID.

Gibson/USAMRIID.

Michael ignored the call and waited for Frank to return to the screen. Moments later the Deputy Director dropped his own phone onto his desk and swiveled his chair back in front of his laptop cam. The deep wrinkles on his forehead were even more pronounced.

“That was Dr. Chad Roberts again. He’s at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Both of those Homeland Security officers are showing signs of infection. Rashes, bruising, and hemorrhaging from multiple locations, and that’s not all.” He paused and shook his head solemnly. “Both men are showing abnormally violent behavior. They had to be restrained. A nurse and an EMT have been bitten.”

He shook his head a second time, muttering something to himself. “The good news is Chad thinks they found the original flight. Homeland Security boarded it an hour ago. It’s a Navy plane. The pilot and two Navy officers were found dead. Brutally murdered, and apparently cannibalized.”

The word paralyzed Kate with fear. There was no need to ask what any of this meant. She knew the CDC’s worst fears were now a reality. Ebola had not only made landfall in the U.S., but it had evolved into something even worse. The virus was notorious for mutating, which was what made it so deadly, but this time she was afraid it had made a leap they couldn’t stop.

Michael’s voice pulled her back to the room. “Does law enforcement think the man in the video killed the crew of the plane?”

Frank nodded. “They are checking the flight data as we speak.”

“San Nicholas,” Michael suddenly said. “That’s one of the secret locations for USAMRIID.” He looked back down at his cell phone. “Colonel Rick Gibson just called me. Shit,” he muttered. “I sent Pat Ellis into the field per Gibson’s request just yesterday. I figured it was a routine training mission.”

Frank’s eyes hardened. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Jed, you’re in L.A., and the USAMRIID activates the EOC for training ops all the time.”

The Deputy Director shook his head. “Call Colonel Gibson and find out what he knows. Then let me know what the hell is happening.”

Michael nodded and rose from his seat.

“We need to lock down that hospital,” Kate said. “Isolate everyone that has come into contact with suspected cases. Everyone.”

“We’re working on it, Dr. Lovato. Trust me,” Frank replied.

“How about a sample?” Kate added with urgency. “This may be Ebola, but it has to be a different strain. I’ve never seen anyone that looks like a…” She peered back at Michael’s laptop and considered the word on the tip of her tongue.

Monster.

She couldn’t bring herself to say it.

Frank lifted a brow like he knew what she was thinking. “Chad is already getting samples, so you will have them in twelve hours.”

“We will get started as soon as they come in,” Michael replied. It was then she realized she was shaking. She slowly sank back in her chair, her mind drifting to Javier. She could feel her phone burning a hole in her pocket. As soon as they were done she was going to call him and tell him to quietly get out of the city.

“Oh, and Michael,” Frank said. “Keep me apprised. You got that?”

“Yes, sir,” Michael said. He stood and patted Kate on her shoulder. “You know what to do.”

She nodded, but deep down she was terrified—deep down she wasn’t sure if she did know what to do.

Beckham hesitated when he saw the Blackhawk on the tarmac. He didn’t trust the Medical Corps insignia on the side or the guards standing out front with their M4s. If Major Caster had held a gun to his head, then what would stop these fuckers from doing the same?

“Let’s go,” one of the men yelled, waving him forward.

There was motion inside the chopper. Beckham spied three silhouettes, one of them nearly twice as big as the others. It had to be Horn.

Beckham hurried across the concrete, shivering in the new clothes the technician had given him after the short briefing. He decided if Gibson was going to have him taken out back and shot, then his team would already be dead.

A flashback to the decon shower hit him before the wind from the whooshing helicopter blades. He could still see Tenor’s blood churning around the floor drain. It was a painful reminder that half of his team was already dead.

He formed fists, his knuckles popping. Less than twenty-four hours. The amount of time it took to wipe out half of his team. Years of training—of life—all gone in an instant.

There was no controlling his anger. Noble and Caster hadn’t given Beckham’s team proper intel. If he had known what they were dealing with, maybe he could have saved his men.

Ducking, Beckham shielded his face from the gusts of wind and moved to the chopper. He grabbed a handhold and took a seat. No one spoke a word. The exchange of nods was all that was needed.

Beckham’s body quivered, but not from the cold air. He shook from the rage growing inside of him. The smell of the chemicals lingering on his skin filled his lungs as he breathed deeply. He sat there knowing that somewhere, halfway across the country, pairs of Army officers were arriving at the homes of Tenor, Edwards, and Spinoza to feed their families lies. Just like the lies he’d been fed during the “short” briefing a few minutes earlier.

When the chopper finally took off, Beckham broke the silence, whispering to Horn, “What did they tell you?”

Horn grunted. “Said that we encountered a group of mad scientists in Building 8 infected with an experimental drug.”

Beckham almost laughed. They’d told him the same thing. There was no mention of Ebola or VX-99, and he knew there never would be.

“We’re lucky to be alive,” Riley remarked. “After seeing what they did to Chief Wright and the pilot.”

“This is fucking bullshit,” Horn said. Veins bulged from his forehead. “How do we know they’re really flying us back to Fort Bragg?”

“If they were going to kill us, they already would have…” Beckham’s voice trailed off. Now he wasn’t so sure.

He blinked away the paranoid thoughts and attempted to manage his anger, but he couldn’t stop thinking of the haunting images of the charred bodies of his men. He’d led them through Fallujah, the Mog, and countless other missions in places most Americans didn’t know existed, all without a single casualty. But it had been on American soil, deep beneath the surface, that he’d lost half his team, and now he was heading home to bury empty caskets. At least, that’s what he thought was going to happen. His gut told him they might be flying somewhere else.