The Plague Years (Book 1): Hell is Empty and All the Devils Are Here (2 page)

“Very well, continue,” said Riley. The tone was soft but the edge was clear. The buzz of a moment before died away completely.

“The document before you is a non-standard NDA. I am required to say, by Dr. Riley and “Mr. Macklin” from the Department of Homeland Security, that you have no choice in signing this agreement. This is not true and very possibly illegal. I believe, and legal precedent supports this opinion, that you have the right to terminate your employment and leave the room if you so choose. This document further stipulates that disclosure of any facts connected to Project X will result in immediate termination of your position. Further, you will be subject to forfeiture of $100,000 in damages, all legal expenses to be borne by the signatory. Further litigation is possible.” 

“Now Dr. Riley, Mr. Macklin, and friends, I am resigning effective immediately. Mr. Macklin, you may send your goons after me if you like. At my age, it won’t take much force, but you will have to expend some to take me in. I haven’t had a good legal fight in years and I think I am overdue.”

Clinton dropped his office keys and ID on the table and started for the door. A tall dark haired man in an expensive suit stood up and spoke.

“Counselor, please, have a seat. I think perhaps we have been a bit heavy handed.”

“The correct term is coercive and very probably illegal Mr. Macklin.”   

“Clinton, you have made your point,” said Dr. Riley. “Macklin, I should have said this from the beginning. The current NDA we operate under is sufficient. If you wish to have our services in the time frame you have asked for, it will have to do. We are a non-profit that contracts with the government, not part of the government.”

“We don’t have time for this!” said Macklin as he rolled his eyes. “My instructions are quite clear. We have to keep a low profile …..”

“Your outburst certainly isn’t helping,” said Dr. Riley before Macklin could finish. “I am convinced of the importance of the project and that we need answers in hours, not days. You can’t coerce commitment. Either you trust these folks or you don’t.”

“Very well, let’s get started,” said Macklin angrily.

Macklin composed himself, walked to the front of the room and nodded to the projectionist who turned down the lights. A PowerPoint presentation flashed on the screen.

“The following presentation is covered under your CURRENT NDA,” said Macklin frostily. “All of you are in the room because you are currently working on models predicting the spread of Pandemic Influenza and Infectious Diseases abbreviated as PI&ID, save Dr. Rousseau and Mr. Burnside whose purpose in this meeting will become clear.”

The first couple of slides were typical government boiler plate about the mission of Homeland Security and the classification of the briefing.

“Two months ago,” said Macklin, “there was an outbreak of a heretofore undiscovered disease currently identified as AH10N3. Some of you are already working on its vectors. The epicenter of the outbreak seems to be in northern California bordering on the Sierra Nevada Mountains in and around Sacramento. The disease has made the media reports but the number of fatalities and the symptoms have been significantly under-reported. There are an estimated twelve hundred deaths from this disease.”

The room was filled with gasps and exclamations.

“We are working on the model and the numbers you gave us are less than ten percent of that!”

“Hell, we need to trash the whole thing!”

“Whose idea was this anyway ...”

“Ok folks, settle down,” said Dr. Riley. “This isn’t helping.”

“The reason,” said Macklin continuing his briefing, “this information was withheld was that there were more delicate issues to deal with. We need to minimize a panic response. At this time, there are over two thousand infected individuals restrained in hospitals, isolation wards, and private sanitariums all through California and Nevada.

“The disease has a period of three to seven days where it is symptomless. Then the patient develops dementia, a reduction of liver function that results in the build-up of heme in the blood, and a ravenous hunger which we think is the body’s reaction to the lack of nutrients in the blood. As it progresses, the patient becomes adverse to exposure to bright lights, irrational, and calorie requirements increase to ten thousand a day and more.

“Even with a diet in excess of ten thousand calories they lose weight, suggesting some form of intestinal condition where they lose efficiency in reducing food nutrients. They also slough off tissue at an alarming rate, and become more and more irrational. Paranoia and violent behavior are common as is the desire to eat any meat proteins, including human. Unfortunately, they often attempt to bite their care givers and this often transmits the disease. Here is a slide showing the spread of the disease.”

The map on the screen started out in the Sierras but subsequent slides showed the incidence of new cases tended to follow interstates and rail lines. The growth rate was accelerating.

“We have reason to believe,” said Macklin, “that there is an untreated indigent population of homeless, migrant workers, undocumented aliens, and other individuals who, for various reasons, wish to avoid official notice. We believe this is how and why it has spread so fast.

In the last two weeks, epicenters have appeared in New York, Miami, London, Paris, Saigon, Moscow, and Tokyo. These we believe came, ironically, from an allied academic conference on disease control that was held at the University of California at Davis, not far down the road from Sacramento, three weeks ago. Several prominent researchers are among the first fatalities.

The best data we have, all the data, has been loaded onto your network for you to begin your work of charting where it will show up next.”

“What is the survival rate on this disease?” asked Dr. Riley anticipating everyone’s question.

“No one has recovered to date,” said Macklin. “Many patients have died due to injuries sustained in attempting to escape their restraints. Others simply stop eating and waste away.”

“Are there any effective methods to control the spread of the disease?”

“The vector is confusing,” said Macklin. “We think the pathogen may have mutated several times since it was initially observed suggesting a virus, but that is pure conjecture. Exchange of bodily fluids such as sexual activity, biting, or ingestion of waste products are very effective means of transmission. Coming in physical contact with the infected or touching surfaces previously contaminated by some form of bodily fluid excreted by the infected have a lesser but not negligible chance of passing on the infection.

“What the department needs from your group is an analysis of the infection rate and the potential effect of possible counter measures. Dr. Riley will personally supervise the first which will begin work on the effect of various counter-measures.”

“If there have been no cases of remission, what counter measures can be of use?” asked Dr. Jurgen.

“We are looking into various quarantine methodologies and other forms of segregation,” said Dr. Riley before Macklin could answer. “We have proposed various forms of ring quarantines but they have been put on hold by Homeland Security for now.”

“Gunter,” Riley continued, “You will head up the secondary group which will focus on the real time secure data feeds and tell us where the current cases are and the most likely locations of the non-symptomatic sufferers.

“Your personnel assignments follow the current groups with these exceptions”, said Riley as he flashed up a slide with a very short and fat org chart. There were just three groups. The two groups Dr. Riley had outlined and the Security Group.

“The third group is the security group headed by Dr. Rousseau”, said Macklin. “In order not to create a panic, we need to keep all data very well controlled. Effective immediately, no one works from home, not even over a VPN. Everyone will check in and out through the check points Mr. Burnside is having erected even as this meeting is going on.

The last thing we need is rumors of this work leaking out. There could be pandemonium. Mr. Burnside will also be enacting a series of protocols to monitor your behavior so that others will not be able to piece together what is going on.”

There was a rumble at that. Research groups are often very trust based and didn’t take well to government monitoring and control.

“Mr. Burnside, would you brief the staff on exactly what that entails?” said Macklin.

Herb got up and headed to the podium. He had been in the Military Police for over twenty-five years in the Army, but he had also grown up in the area. This job was his way of returning home to watch over ailing parents. He also coached Little League in the spring and AAU Swimming in the winter and was known as a soft touch for every kid selling anything for any cause.

“Well folks” said Herb in his down home southern way, “I just found out about this new security protocol this morning but expect it to be up and fully functional by tomorrow morning. We will be monitoring your credit card purchases, large cash withdrawals, excessive internet or phone usages, in short, anything that would tip us off that you were talking out of turn or making a bunch of purchases that might get people talking.”

“This is like something out of a bad spy movie…..”

“Who Ok’d this ….”

“Now before you get all excited about this,” said Herb keeping his voice deliberately calm. “It wasn’t my idea. You can thank the folks from the other Washington for this. But make no mistake; I will enforce this to the letter of the law.”

The rest of the briefing went on for another hour and half saying basically the same thing over again in great and glorious detail. Chad got back to his office at 12:30. He had three cups of coffee at the meeting along with two doughnuts and his stomach was twisted in a knot. He figured that since he was going for a late lunch with Dave at 3:30 anyway, he would hack out a preliminary estimate. The data was in standard formats and he was able to get his first map overlays completed in half an hour. He spent the next hour checking them and then he did a preliminary run and a forecast. The results were sobering.

Chad sent an e-mail to Dr. Jurgen asking for an appointment as soon as possible to go over his preliminary results. He got a response back almost immediately that he should come at 2:30, forty-five minutes from now. So he quickly typed out a memo detailing his results and printed a couple of maps he would need to explain his point.

At 2:30, he walked down the hall to Dr. Jurgen’s office.

“Well Chad,” said Jurgen, “what have you got for me?”

“Well sir, I went forward with the basic assumption that the primary vector was the transient population of undocumented agricultural workers, drug users, and others who wish to be invisible and who are moving along the roads and rails via hitch hiking and riding freight trains. We are at the end of the pruning season for fruit trees and vineyards so the migrant workers are on the move.

“Add to that the fact that Washington State and the other local universities and colleges either just graduated or will be graduating their senior classes, we are going to have a lot of traffic on the roads that are predisposed to picking up hitchhikers. They have been moving all over the area for the last week.

“My best guess at a ninety five percent level of confidence is that the first case of pre-symptomatic infection is already in this area. My best guess is that we will start seeing symptoms in the area in the next three to ten days.”

There was a long pause while Dr. Jurgen read completely the memo that Chad had written and examined the maps.

Finally, he looked up from the maps.

“Are you sure Chad?” Dr. Jurgen asked looking over the top of his half glasses. “If what you say is true, we will have to activate a bunch of security protocols in the next couple of days, not in the weeks we thought we had.”

“If anything, I am being conservative sir,” said Chad.

“Um well, I am going to have to give this to Dr. Riley and the Homeland Security team. Tell me, have you had lunch today?”

“Uh, No I haven’t. I was going out to the Inca for a late lunch with a friend. I thought I would crank this before I left.”

“Ah … The Inca, they make the best Mexican food around here and that’s saying something. Look, could you bring me back a chile relleno? Theirs are the best, and I suspect I won’t get much to eat this afternoon once this gets out.”

“Sure, you want the red or the green tomatillo salsa with the chips?”

“Green please, I’ll pay you when you get back.”

Chad pondered that as he walked out to his car. His relationship Dr. Jurgen was professional and collegial, but not friendly. Dr. Jurgen didn’t mix all that well with the rest of the staff, following the old German professorial model. It didn’t fit, him asking Chad to bring him lunch, and Mexican food of all things. He had a legendary dyspeptic stomach that would have made actually eating a chile relleno with green tomatillo salsa verde treacherous.

And then there was the way Herb had said that the security monitoring protocols were not in full effect until tomorrow. Herb was a professional, and if he had been tasked with securing an ice cream stand on the moon in four hours, he would have it done.

Then it clicked. Herb was telling everyone to take care of anything that would arouse official suspicion today. Dr. Jurgen was giving him a reason to be out of the building before the restrictions went into place. He had at most, two hours before the security parameters change.