Vektor (57 page)

The video started with a panoramic view of a neatly arranged bedroom, eventually settling in on a stainless steel contraption that Srecko immediately recognized as some kind of restraining device. It looked extremely durable and sturdy, with thick straps affixed at several points along the suspension bars. He tried to envision how she would be strapped into this contraption. The video stayed focused on the device, teasing him. His nephew produced superior work. He glanced at his cell door and reconsidered his clothing options. No. He would wait.

The image faded, replaced with a close up shot of a bloodied woman that he immediately recognized. She looked like she had been beaten and strangled for hours, her clothing and skin slick with blood. She stood there for a moment with a blank look on her face, like she had given up. He kind of wished that they hadn’t skipped the beating part of her experience. Maybe Josif would use flashbacks to show this. From what he could tell, his nephew had quite an artistic talent.

The scene changed again and Zorana was strapped into the contraption, but something wasn’t right. Why did Josif dress her up in white coveralls? He saw Zorana struggle and twist to no avail, which eased Srecko back into his chair for a moment. The writhing stopped a few seconds later, and she lifted her head above the horizontal plane of her body. He violently launched the chair back against the bed and stood up with a disgustedly confused look on his face. Josif was strapped into the harness with duct tape across his mouth. What in the hell was wrong with his nephew? This was the person he had groomed to run the show while he was temporarily stuck in prison?

He suddenly understood what he was watching, when Zorana Zekulic appeared and took a seat on the bed next to his nephew. She grinned madly at the camera and effortlessly twirled a wicked looking, black serrated knife in her right hand. He sat back down and gripped the sides of the chair, squeezing them as Zorana went to work on Josif. He forced himself to watch the rest of the video, feeding the rage that raised his blood pressure and heart rate to dangerous levels. Several minutes later, he watched helplessly as one of her accomplices summarily executed his nephew. Josif had still been strapped to the harness when the man sprayed his brains onto the bedroom wall.

He twitched in the seat, wanting to rip the computer from the wall and smash it over the nearest prisoner’s head. He wanted to kill everything in his path, using everything at his disposal. He was wheezing at this point, breathing through his mouth. This travesty of a video was almost finished. The digital time counter in the lower left corner of the screen showed less than ten seconds remaining. He stared at the screen, as Zorana suddenly appeared, covered in blood and smiling like nothing had happened.

“Hope you enjoyed the video, Srecko. Josif didn’t get to deliver his lines, but I do like the pattern his brains made on the wall. Very artistic. What do you see when you look at the splatter? Quick. First impression. A butterfly? A waterfall? Do you know what I see? I see a good start. You’re next.”

She kissed the camera lens, leaving a smudge that blurred the screen. A few seconds later, the video ended.

Srecko sat down in his chair and leaned his head back to stare at the ceiling. He ran his stumpy, mottled hands through his thick silver hair and closed his eyes. One thing was certain. He was going to kill that bitch and her traitorous husband in person. Josif had proposed a plan to get him out of here, which made more sense now than ever before. He’d spend every last penny…every last ounce of his energy, making sure they paid dearly for this.

He pulled a gnarled cigarette from the crumpled pack in his shirt pocket and gripped it between his lips. He didn’t care if the cells were designated as non-smoking. Not today. He searched around for matches, but found none. On shaky legs, he rose and searched his pockets, still finding no way to light the cigarette he desperately needed. He crushed the cigarette in his hand and threw it against the wall, fully intending to rip his room apart. Instead, he calmly walked toward the door, opting to ask nicely for a new matchbook from his captors. He would need to be on his best behavior to get a chance to put his late nephew’s plan to the test.

COMING in May of 2014

Excerpt from
The Jakarta Pandemic

Prologue

Alex checked his watch for the tenth time in less than twenty minutes. 5:50 p.m.

Where are they?

He had started to lose his patience early, which came as no surprise. He had been lying under the McCarthy’s play set for nearly an hour, as a vicious Nor’easter dumped thick waves of snow on him. This would be enough to test anyone’s patience…and physical limits.

He lowered his night vision scope for a moment and rubbed his eyes. Now, even the green image in the scope added to his discomfort. He just hoped that Charlie was keeping a better watch
over the stretch of ground that defined the ambush site.

He’d better be, or they could stumble right through here undetected.

Alex had doubts about spotting them with his night vision scope. The near absence of ambient light combined with a blinding snowstorm continued to degrade the already grainy image formed by the inexpensive first generation night scope.

He twisted open the green ceramic thermos and poured the last of the hot tea prepared for him by Kate. He sipped the steaming tea from the thermos cap, placed the cap down next to the rifle in front of him, and took another look through the night vision scope. He could still see the Hayes’ house, but the image was even grainier. He knew the batteries were not the issue; he’d just changed them. Soon enough, he’d have to rely solely on Charlie to spot them in time to spring a coordinated ambush. If not, he’d have to take the three men down himself, which wasn't optimal, but was still well within his range of capabilities. He didn’t want to think about what could happen if they slipped by him. Nothing would stand between these psychopaths and his family.

As long as I see them before they’re right on top of me, I’ll be fine.

Alex swigged the rest of the warm tea and replaced the lid. He tucked the thermos into his backpack and checked his rifle again. Looking through the Aimpoint scope, he saw that the red dot still glowed brightly in the center of the sight. He pulled back on the AR-15’s charging handle and ejected the bullet loaded in the chamber, leaving the brass cartridge in the snow where two other bullets lay. He’d ejected one bullet every half-hour to ensure that the freezing temperatures had not affected the weapon’s mechanical action. A malfunction tonight would spell disaster.

He suffered a sudden, violent, and insuppressible full body shiver, which rendered him useless for a few seconds. He couldn’t last out here all night, and he knew it. He looked through the night vision scope again, and the green image confirmed that he was still alone. Staring through the scope, he wondered how it was possible for things to have spiraled so far out of control.

So far gone, in fact, that he now found himself lying under a neighbor’s play set in a blizzard, eagerly waiting to kill. He never thought twice about doing this in Iraq. It was his mission. He didn’t really have any problem with it here either, and he could rationalize this act on several levels. He had to do it: for the good of the neighborhood, and probably society in general, but most importantly…for the immediate safety of his family.

And in the end, that was all that really counted for Alex.

Arrival

Chapter One

Friday, November 2, 2013

Alex was jarred awake by a loud pulsing vibration
.
He squinted in the darkness and labored to turn his head toward the source of the persistent buzzing sound.

Shit, my phone.

The phone’s display illuminated a half empty glass of water on the nightstand. He watched, still helpless, as the phone moved closer to the edge with each vibration. Breaking through the murk of a broken sleep cycle, he reached for the phone to check the caller ID.
Maine Medical Center.
A jolt of adrenaline shot through his body, and Alex headed out of the bedroom to the hallway.

“Alex Fletcher,” he answered in a whisper.

“Oh…Alex. It’s Dr. Wright. I thought I’d get your voicemail.”

“No problem, Dr. Wright. I usually don’t keep my phone on the nightstand. Just happened to end up there tonight,” he said, closing the door to the master bedroom.

“I’m glad you’re awake, Alex. I’m fairly confident we’ve seen our first cases of the new pandemic flu tonight. Cases started rolling into the ERs early this evening.”

“You said ‘ERs’. More than one?”

“Yes. Three cases at Maine Med. Two came from Westbrook and one from Falmouth. And one case at Mercy, patient walked over from somewhere in the west end. I also have a confirmed case at Maine General in Augusta and possible cases at Eastern Maine Med up in Bangor.”

“Confirmed as what?”

“Confirmed as nothing I’ve ever seen before. That’s why I think we’re dealing with the new virus out of Hong Kong,” Dr. Wright said.

“That’s more than six cases. How did this pop up here first and not Boston? It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“Boston has been hit with several dozen cases, possibly more.”

“What do you mean? I didn’t see anything on the news, or on any of the websites. We’ve been keeping an eye on this,” Alex said.

“I don’t know what to tell you, but I know for a fact that Boston has been slammed. A friend of mine at Mass General called to tell me to get ready. He said that area hospitals in Boston saw dozens of cases trickle in overnight Wednesday, with more showing up as the day progressed. Several dozen more by the time I talked to him.”

“Why didn’t the media catch this yet?” he asked.

“Well, between you and me, and I don’t have to remind you that this entire conversation never happened—”

“Of course. Absolutely, Dr. Wright,” Alex said instantly.

“We have been instructed by the state health department to report all cases directly to them so they can coordinate resources and notify federal health agencies. I assume that direction filtered down from DHS. They also asked us not to notify the media, in order to avoid a panic. I can understand part of that logic, but if you ask me, I think they’re trying to keep this under wraps because they’re not prepared. Unfortunately, this is the only direction we’ve received so far from the state or feds. Or maybe that’s a good thing for now. Aside from rushing us more useless avian flu detection kits, nothing else has been done. Alex, I have to let you go. I have a long night ahead of me.”

“Sorry to hold you up. Thank you for the call, Dr. Wright. I really appreciate the heads up, seriously. The preliminary case fatality rates in Asia look high.”

“Yeah, we’re not taking any chances. This is different than the avian flu, which was bad enough. It makes the swine flu look like a common cold. And thanks for making a trip over here yesterday, especially considering the fact that the state’s anti-viral stockpiles will fall under federal control if the flu spirals out of control. Your samples will really come in handy.”

“Could you use some more? We’ve been instructed to keep our distribution of TerraFlu to a minimum, but I have no problem hooking you guys up. Really.”

“I’ll take whatever you can give me at this point, but I don't want you to get in trouble with Biosphere, Alex.”

“I’m not worried about them. What time works for you tomorrow? My schedule is pretty clear, so I can make a trip over any time.”

“How about 12:45? I plan to be back from the hospital at that point. My first patient is at one. We could take care of it then,” Dr. Wright said.

“Works for me. See you at 12:45. Good luck tonight,” Alex said and waited for a reply, but the line was already dead.

He headed back into the bedroom and looked over at Kate, who was soundly asleep. He walked over to her and kissed her on the forehead. She barely moved.

He left the bedroom and walked to his home office, activated his computer, and checked the
Boston Globe
and
Boston Herald
.
Still nothing.

He checked the International Scientific Pandemic Awareness Collaborative (ISPAC) website and navigated to their pandemic activity map. The map had changed dramatically since he’d last seen it and was now interactively linked to Google Earth.

Color-coded symbols represented reported flu locations, and when you passed the mouse over one of the new icons, basic information appeared in a text box, which could be further expanded for more detailed information. Light blue: cases of interest, yellow: initial outbreak, orange: small-scale outbreak, red: medium-sized outbreak, violet: large-scale outbreak.

He zoomed in on North America.

Cases in Canada, Mexico, Central America…wait, wait, look at this, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco.
He looked at the East Coast and saw no colored icons. Alex adjusted the map to focus on southern California and placed the cursor over the yellow Los Angeles icon.

“Los Angeles. Population 4,089,245. Isolated outbreaks. 190+ cases reported. Uncontained. Isolated outbreaks among ethnic Asian populations.”

In a separate desktop window, he navigated to the
Los Angeles Times
homepage. He looked for the California/Local section.
Here we go.
He found an article and began to read:

Hong Kong Flu Hits Asian Community
.

“Cedars-Sinai confirms at least a dozen cases of Hong Kong flu. Mainly confined to Asian community. UCLA Medical Center confirms several cases. Mainly Asian community. East LA Doctor’s Hospital sees its first cases late in the evening on October 31. Community leaders decry nearly one-day delay in reporting cases to the public. Employee at Cedars-Sinai contacts Los Angeles Times with information about suspected flu cases. Cases were being kept isolated from other patients and under a tight information seal. Times reporters launched an immediate investigation into all area hospitals, uncovering several dozen more cases.”