Public Enemy Zero

46

Driven by the rage, the SWAT team members leaped over the edge after him in their full armored gear. Not to save him but to kill him. The cord around Mitchell’s neck snapped and he fell into the water. Black armored SWAT team members rained down around him as they hit the water.

Another wave of law enforcement officers swarmed onto the bridge. Twenty more people were overcome with the rage and leaped into the water. Bystanders were paralyzed with panic as they realized that whatever reflex it was that made people go mad overpowered every other instinct. Men thrashed in the water and began to drown as they bared their teeth and clawed out furiously trying to kill something they couldn’t see.

As the presence of Mitchell subsided, rescuers were eventually able reach the thrashing men and pull them to shore. EMTs and police officers worked quickly to resuscitate those who had gone under.

News anchors tried to make sense of what happened for their viewers while they watched it unfold. Expert pundits began to doubt what they had been told. What should have been a simple surrender was botched in the worst way possible.

The FBI district director barked some orders to his subordinates and then turned to his DHS counterpart. “What the hell is going on?”

The other man shrugged.

The FBI district director answered his ringing BlackBerry. “Yes, sir. I understand, sir.”

The deputy director of the FBI was on the other end of the line and was furious with what he’d seen on the news.

“We were acting under information that this was caused by a weapon of some kind. No, sir, I believe that information is incorrect.” He looked over at the DHS director. “I think we proceed under the assumption that this is a public health crisis and not primarily a criminal investigation. Yes, sir.” He hung up and started giving orders.

The DHS director’s phone was ringing, too. He looked at the FBI district director.

“We’re asking the Centers for Disease Control to step in and provide assistance. We’re going to the patient zero hypothesis.”

From his vantage point, the FBI district director had clearly seen his negotiator break down and attack Mitchell, an attack that he was sure had gone out live to millions of viewers. The response of his SWAT team confirmed, in his mind, that absent any kind of dispersant on the bridge or some other weapon, the most likely hypothesis was the one that Mitchell had been telling everyone all along.

Where the fuck was that weasel Baylor? he asked.

Baylor watched the disaster on his hotel room television. The moment he saw that Mitchell had stripped down to his underwear, he knew the current plan wasn’t going to work. If the canister wasn’t found on his person, then the allegations of it being planted were going to be too loud. He had half a mind to text Mr. Lewis and ask him to go in after the drowning men and throw the canister in the water to be discovered. The problem at that point would be that what they found in the canister wouldn’t be found in the men’s lungs.

The FBI was going to want to do their own tests on the blood and tissue and match it to the material in the canister. It would be apparent to them that whatever caused the reaction wasn’t the same as what was in the spray can. He needed to figure out a strategy for the patient zero hypothesis that could minimize blowback and protect Great Wall.

He called Mr. Lewis to give him instructions on how to proceed.

After rescuers had pulled all of the law enforcement personnel from the water, the search continued for Mitchell Roberts. Rescue divers searched the bottom of the waterway in a spiral pattern moving outward around the bay and Intracoastal. The outgoing tide gave them a half-mile radius to search, and that was growing by a mile every hour.

City and county police were sent to watch along the waterfront to see if he climbed ashore anywhere. Marine Patrol and Coast Guard boats were brought in to canvass the area while helicopters from four agencies swept the area around the bridge and surrounding city looking for any sign of Mitchell.