A Time to Die (34 page)

Belinda shook her head. “That’s as much radiation as the average American absorbs in an entire year! How long is that exposure, and from what?”

Vance had been hearing whispers on the web of a nuclear bomb going off in Mexico when his connection failed. It wasn’t enough to go to them with details, so he hadn’t mentioned it. He was about to say something about it when the broadcast restarted.

“Civil defense through FEMA has issued a warning for the Gulf Coast of Florida from Naples to Pensacola. An incident within Mexico has released significant amounts of airborne radiation which has crossed the Gulf of Mexico and is currently impacting the Florida coasts. This radiation is hazardous, and extended contact has the risk of being fatal. Residents should stay indoors. Avoid going out doors except in emergencies. Exposure levels of over 3,000 micro Sieverts per hour are possible. We say again…” Vance turned down the volume. The room was deathly silent. There was his confirmation.

“Try the BBC,” Tim suggested. Nicole nodded.

“Do it,” Ann prompted. Vance turned to the preset, afraid of what he’d hear. He almost laughed in relief when he heard the British accented announcer. Then he listened and felt his blood turn to ice.

“…all contact. The same for Cairo, Bombay, and Riyadh. Capital and densely populated cities all along the Arabian Peninsula are going dark at the rate of one an hour. The plague, only just declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organization has struck with frightening speed. The WHO experts, as yet uncertain of methods of transmission besides getting bitten by an infected person or animal, have recommended that all people stay in their home and listen for advice from government officials.”

“That sounds familiar,” Vance snorted.

“Animals?” Harry asked. “God, did he say animal bites?”

His wife was nodding. “He did. And if that means it’s passed by animals, it can be passed by insects like mosquitos and biting flies.”

“Thank goodness we’re in South Texas,” Ann whispered.

“Still,” Vance said, “we have sand fleas and other critters. Tim, get your wife, break into stores and get the bug spray out. Ann, let’s give all the dogs flea and tick treatment. We don’t want to risk them getting it.”

“We brought some for our girls,” Tim noted as he and his wife headed down to the underground storage.

Vance swirled around the dial for a few minutes, listening. The fact that so much news was still out there, flowing one way only, into his radio, told him a lot. He plugged in a microphone and warmed up his transmitter. “This is San Antonio calling, WBB7884,” he sent his identification. “Call sign P, I say again, call sign P. Standing by.”

He released the mic and waited. It only took a second. “Call sign P, this is Flagstaff calling, KFR9113.”

“Peter, good to hear your voice,” Vance said with a sigh. Things weren’t completely gone.

“You too, Vance. Shit’s hitting the fan.”

“Agreed. Sending code, ready to receive?”

“Ready,” the man on the other end said.

Vance flipped a switch and grabbed a keyboard. The little computer would translate what he typed and send it to his friend hundreds of miles away via Morse code pulses. But those pulses were in a code, only decipherable via a code key they’d shared many months ago. A cypher based on the date, day, and hour of the transmission. The computer he used, tied into the shortwave set, automatically selected the correct cypher.

“Internet here is down, over.”

“Here as well. What do you think the source of the interruption is, interrogative?”

Vance thought for a moment. “Did you hear about the nuke in Mexico, interrogative?”

“Speculation only, over.”

“No speculation. Tune 129.45 kHz. Will stand by, over.” Vance reached under the table and retrieved a bottle of water from the cooler, marveling at the results. A simple action and he had pure, ice cold water. For how much longer. Then the radio started beeping, Peter was back.

“Oh my God, over.”

“Exactly. I believe the POTUS used the internet kill switch. The shit has hit the fan. Cities on Arab Peninsula are going dark. BBC is full of the stories, over.”

“Wow, over.”

“I’m advising everyone to bug out if they can, over.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for an official declaration of emergency, interrogative?”

“I don’t think there will be one. The kill switch tells me everything I need to know, over.”

“I’m afraid you are right, over.”

Vance nodded and typed. “Sending signal, please pass it on, over.”

“Acknowledged. God be with you. Signing off.”

“And you as well, signing off.”

He glanced up and saw Ann standing reading over his shoulder. She had one hand over her mouth, the other protectively over her stomach. He nodded to her and could see tears welling up in her eyes.

“I never really thought this would happen,” she whispered.

“I did,” he said and spun the dial to a preset and unplugged the code machine, instead using the mic again. “This is San Antonio calling, this is San Antonio. Code B, I say again, code B.” He repeated the call, without his license number, for a full five minutes, then shut down the transmitter. Less than a minute afterwards he heard another voice. “This is Flagstaff, code B.”

Then another voice. “This is Little Rock, code B.” And another. “This is Wichita, code B.” And a weaker voice. “This is Ft. Collins, code B.” And then a barely audible one, full of static. “This is Davenport, code B.”

Vance turned from the radio to his girlfriend and she came into his arms. “What do we do now?” she asked.

“Survive,” he said. Outside there was a loud gunshot.

* * *

Dr. Lisha Breda listened to the phone ring, and ring, and ring for over a minute before she put it on the cradle. “Edith?”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“Are you sure of this number for the CDC?”

The young woman carefully put aside the case and slides she’d been organizing, removed the gloves and dropped them in the bright red pail at her feet, then flipped up her computer. A couple taps brought up the answer. She repeated the number. Lisha listened then looked at the screen on her phone. They matched. “That’s listed in the database as the Director’s line.”

“Do I have any other numbers listed?” Lisha asked.

“Someone named Dr. Cury?”

Lisha nodded. They’d worked together before. Cury was more than a little to the outside of normal, but an absolutely brilliant virologist. “Give me that number.”

The phone only rang twice before it was picked up. “Got those test results?”

“Not right now,” Lisha laughed.

“What?” asked the confused voice on the other end.

“David, this is Lisha. Remember, from the symposium in Nice two years ago?”

“Lisha Breda, the insufferable flirt?”

Lisha blushed and chuckled. She did tend to become a tad flirtatious after a few glasses of wine. “Yeah, that’s me. How have you been, David?”

“Great, was hoping to see you again sometime.”

Lisha nodded. I bet he was. Antisocial introverted type. Flirting with him had been like giving a steak to a starving puppy. “Listen, David, I didn’t call socially. I have some really important data that I want to get out into the field, and all my other contacts have gone dark.”

“I know, they’re restricting phone traffic. I’m surprised you got through to me. This is the first call outside of the CDC I’ve gotten all morning.”

“I have a friend at FEMA,” Lisha admitted, but stopped there. She might need him again, and burning the man was a guaranteed way of ending that friendship permanently.

“Handy. What do you have?”

“I have some data on an invasive virus that is likely global by now. I think it’s behind all these outbreaks of insanity we’re seeing.”

The line was silent for a long time. “Lisha, what do you know about strain delta?”

“Is that what you’re calling it?”

More quiet followed. “Lisha, I don’t know what I can say.”

“I didn’t call you to help me, I called to help you. I have a series of encrypted files I’m going to send through this call, if you initiate a link.”

“I can lose my job for doing that, we’re under lockdown. Fuck, I shouldn’t even be talking to you now!”

“We’re going to lose the country if you don’t get on top of this, and fast. Damn it, David, it’s in the food supply!”

“Only raw or undercooked fish,” he admitted. “We’re sending out an advisory on that as we speak.”

“No David, it’s working its way through all the food chain right now. I’ve found it in everything from phytoplankton to shark. And cooking doesn’t kill it!”

“Of course it does, no earthly organism can survive temperatures in excess of 200 degrees!”

“Exactly, no earthly organism.” She paused to collect her thoughts. “We can’t beat around the bush on this one, David, it’s not terrestrial in origin, and you have to know that. No terrestrial virus uses silicon binding at the molecular level. No terrestrial organism reproduces independently in three forms, then if any two are combined, create a fourth completely different organism through some form of mitosis! And certainly no damned terrestrial organism goes right for the brain and starts trying to rearrange synaptic pathways.”

“Jesus Christ, Lisha, where did you get all of this?”

“We had an outbreak here at HAARP.”

“Oh no, bad?”

“Bad enough. I lost half my staff. We kept one alive for testing. Then a few hours ago, we had some fresh fish caught and decided sushi night sounded like a good idea. We lost three more, one of them is in my lab right now being observed as he loses his mind. David, please, let me send you this while I can?”

A second later a data link was established over the phone line. Lisha didn’t hesitate, she had the files compressed and ready to send. The second the line went active, she stabbed transmit and sent them on their way. It took a couple minutes for the files to go, but David must have been reading them as they were arriving because he spoke up only half way through.

“Lisha, are you sure of this temperature data?”

“Tested a dozen different ways,” she replied. “The two non-infecting versions of the virus can survive temperatures of over 300 degrees. The more dangerous one, the one that enjoys human brain tissue so much, is considerably more vulnerable. We’ve killed it at temps as low as 160 degrees. Still higher than any terrestrial infectious organisms, but it doesn’t matter.”

“Why?”

“Well, it can’t exist outside of a living host. I don’t know why, but in any media we try it dies within twenty minutes. David, you have to do some tests on this with other organisms. All we have are rats, rabbits, and guinea pigs. The infectious version only catches in the guinea. I restructures the brain, though not as aggressively as human beings. I’ve seen reports about unusual behavior from higher order mammals. I’d get some monkeys, but the director’s specifically forbidden that mode of research, and besides, I can’t get any of the suppliers on the phone.” Lisha didn’t say it, but she was afraid that based on the stories relayed intermittently through the surviving media, civil authority was breaking down.

“I can’t thank you enough,” David said once the last of the files had transferred. “Better stay out there for a while, until this blows over.”

“Hadn’t planned on any shore leave,” she said.

“I’m going to jump the chain of command and change the directive on cooking. Good lord, that temperature is high enough to survive commercial pasteurization!”

“Yes,” was all she said.

“Only preserved foods,” he thought aloud and she could almost hear him thinking. “It’s in the food supply, we’re going to have mass starvation at the very least.”

“Only of those that avoid infection,” she pointed out. Lisha heard his phone ring.

“That’s my lab supervisor,” he told her, “I’m going to order a primate series. I’ll try and get you the results. I can’t share with anyone else…”

“I’ve already managed to get messages to associates in France, Australia, and Russia.”

“I see,” he said as the phone rang again. “Take care, Lisha.”

“You too, David.”

* * *

A Global Hawk drove flying at 10,000 feet along an anonymous section of border fence continually replayed its data to the USCBP Command Center in Laredo, TX. There a team of ten experts, mostly ex-military, operated the drones that fed their data to officials in charge of border interdiction. This was the much vaunted ‘virtual fence’ that many progressive politicians liked so much more than a physical border fence. A kinder, gentler way to monitor the border. If groups were noticed violating the border, officers could be dispatched to intercept them. Or not, depending on the political wind. Thus was the advantage of this system.

The Global Hawk was nearing bingo fuel, the point it would have to be directed to return home and be serviced, when an operator spotted something. It banked on long sleek wings, powerful telescoping lenses focused and took images that were instantly relayed via satellite to the command center.