The Viral Epiphany (33 page)

           
“I heard the announcement on the P.A.” the President said quietly, “What happened? Did someone get hurt?”

           
“No sir.
 
May I come in?”

           
“Certainly,” the President opened the door wider and the Captain entered the room as the President closed the door behind him.
 
Grace was sitting up on the bed, but she only nodded to the Captain when he came in

 
         
“It looks like one of our sailors has just died of Asian Fever,” he said very quietly.

           
“What?” President Cranston gasped. “How could that happen?
 
How could one of the crew get the disease?
 
You’ve been at sea for months!”

           
The Captain hesitated for a second before answering, “Sir, I gave the crew liberty in New London. He must have contracted it there.”

           
“Liberty! Who told you to give them liberty?” the President almost shouted. His face began to turn slightly red.
 
“You should have asked permission!”

           
“I’m sorry, sir.
 
It’s standard practice, no permission is required.”
 
The President stared at him for several seconds, furious.
 
Then his anger began to die down as he realized there was nothing that could be done now.
 
His anger was soon replaced by a growing fear as a new realization came to him.

           
“There may be others on the boat with the disease!” the President said.

           
“Yes, sir.”

           
“It could be spreading everywhere now, couldn’t it?”
 
The Captain didn’t answer him directly but only nodded slightly.
 
The President looked back at Grace who was listening intently but showing no emotion.
 
“But maybe not, maybe he’s the only one,” the President said hopefully.
 
“We need to get rid of the body right away!
 
It could contaminate us!”

           
“Sir, what do you mean?” the Captain said.

           
“Captain, don’t you see?
 
It could contaminate the boat. We need an immediate burial at sea!”

           
Captain Andrews thought about this for only a moment and then replied, “Sir, there were other men on duty in the torpedo room too. What about them?
 
What about the corpsman?
 
What about the other crew who have already been in contact with the man who died?”

           
President Cranston said nothing for a minute. He knew the captain was right.
 
It was too late.
 
He looked back at Grace, not sure of what to say to her, and was surprised to see that she remained calm.
 
Somehow, as she had suffered through her own ordeal on the submarine she had undergone a change.
 
A sense of inner calm now showed clearly on her face.
 
“Alan,” she said,
 
“didn’t you say that you had heard that some researcher had created a vaccine for the disease?”

           
“Hmm?
 
Oh, you mean the guy in Ireland. Well, I wouldn’t hold out much hope for that, dear.”

           
“Excuse me, sir,” the Captain said, “Someone might have created a vaccine? Of course I don’t know anything about it, and it may well be that it’s all bull.
 
But sir, we’re pretty much out of options.
 
I think it might be our only hope!”

           
“He’s absolutely right, Alan!” Grace said as she stood up. “We should contact him and find out the details.”

           
President Cranston looked at Grace in surprise.
 
“Grace,” he said. “I…I…” He simply stood and looked at her for several seconds.
 
Then he smiled warmly at her and said, “OK, we might as well try.”

Five minutes later he called Harry Fields at the Centers for Disease Control and obtained the telephone number for Dan Quinn. Minutes later Dan’s mobile phone rang and a look of bewilderment crossed his face as he looked at the caller ID information and read:
SSN Seawolf.

What in the world?
he said to himself as he answered the call, “Hello, this is Dan,” he said.

           
“Is this Doctor Daniel Quinn?” the President asked.

           
“Yes, it is.”

           
“Doctor, the is the President of the United States, Alan Cranston. I’m calling you because I have heard from the CDC that you may have created a vaccine for Asian Fever.”

           
Dan wasn’t sure whether to believe this person or not.
 
Could this really be the President?
he wondered. He quickly concluded that, because he had mentioned the CDC and because the caller ID said
SSN Seawolf
that it must be him. “Yes, sir,” he replied cautiously, “that’s correct.”

           
“Doctor, I need some information quickly.
 
How soon does the vaccine take effect?”

           
Dan looked over at Sheila who was sitting across from him at the small dining table in Brendan’s apartment.
 
He wrote on a small piece of paper:
The President of USA!
Then he said, “Our estimates are that one achieves full immunity within twenty four hours of being vaccinated,” he replied.
 
Sheila’s eyes and mouth opened widely in surprise.

           
“What if a person has already been exposed? Will it still work?” the President asked.

           
Dan took a few seconds to think before he replied.
 
Then he replied, “I believe, from what I have been able to ascertain, that the incubation period for the disease can be anywhere from two or three days to perhaps over a week.
 
Our computer simulations indicate that, if symptoms have not yet been observed, the vaccine should provide immunity even in infected individuals.”

           
“I see,” the President said with a trace of hope rising in his voice.
 
“How much vaccine do you have available?”

           
“Right now, I only have five doses left; however, one of our pharmaceutical companies has just started production today so I believe we’ll have several thousand doses by tomorrow morning.”

           
“Several thousand?
 
How many doses are they making?

           
“We’re planning to have five million doses available in Ireland within the next two weeks, sir.”

           
President Cranston paused and did some mental calculations then asked, “That’s interesting…Five million doses in two weeks? Would you be able to supply us with about 120 doses by tomorrow?”

           
“I believe we could, but how would I get it to you?

           
“We’ll come and get it, Doctor.
 
We’ll be arriving by submarine within twenty-four hours.”

           
“Submarine? You’re coming to Cork by submarine?” Dan looked at Sheila and saw that her surprise matched his when she heard the words.

           
“Yes, doctor.
 
We’ll be there as fast as we can!
 
I’ll call you again when we get there.”

The President hung up and turned to Captain Andrews, “OK, Captain.
 
Let’s see how fast this boat can take us to Ireland!”

“Yes, sir” the Captain said.

 
He quickly ran to the control room and shouted, “Helm! Set new course for Cork, Ireland.
 
Maintain depth three hundred feet.
 
Emergency speed. Now!”

“Aye, aye, sir,” the navigator replied,
 
“Set course for Cork, Ireland.
 
Depth three hundred feet. Emergency speed.”
 
Seconds later, as the President and everyone else on board began counting the minutes, the
Seawolf
turned eastward and, as the large propeller blades began churning furiously in the water, the fast attack submarine began hurtling through the cold darkness of the Atlantic Ocean depths towards the south coast of Ireland.

Thirty-Three

           
It was his intelligence that separated Franklin James Singleton III from most men.
 
It had been like that since he was a child, when he had first been introduced to the symbolic world of mathematics, a world where everything behaved according to discrete, predictable rules; a world of abstract perfection.
 
Franklin himself, on the other hand, was the polar opposite of perfection.
 
His associates usually described him as rude, caustic, emotionless, cruel, arrogant, thoughtless, selfish, or an enormous bastard - or, sometimes all of the above.

Franklin was the only scientist employed in Omega’s Labyrinth 1 complex who regularly dressed in the same clothes for three days or more, who only wore clothing that he felt was comfortable, and who never paid attention to his appearance regardless of whom he was meeting.
 
He was grossly overweight and didn’t care.

           
Today, Franklin was sitting at conference room table in Lab 1 wearing an old pair of blue jeans, brown loafers, and a much too tight, red plaid shirt that had two, day-old, amoeba-shaped, coffee stains on the front pocket.
 
He sat in his chair and took a bite out of a chocolate-covered donut while he waited. Franklin’s shirt was stretched so tightly around his abdomen that it had opened into little peepholes between the buttons, revealing oval-shaped patches of sweaty, alabaster-white skin and curly black hair. He was absently chewing the donut and staring into space when the door opened. General Baker walked in and sat down across from him.

           
“Good morning, Franklin,” General Baker said.
 
He was always cordial and deferential to Franklin because, despite his obvious shortcomings, Franklin was a mathematical genius, undoubtedly one of the top ten minds in the country.
 
A month ago General Baker had requested that Franklin be transferred from Labyrinth 2 to Labyrinth 1 to work, for a brief time, on refining Lab 1’s disease propagation models. Accurate modeling of the effects and spread of Asian Fever had now become of critical importance to the nation.

           
“Hi, John,” Franklin said to General Baker.
 
He was probably the only employee in Lab 1 who never acknowledged military rank.

           
“I heard you have some interesting results for me,” General Baker said.

           
“Interesting is not the word, John.
 
It’s really fascinating.
 
Here, let me show you.” He popped the last piece of donut into his mouth and washed it down with a gulp of his extra large latte.
 
Then he picked up the remote control for the large screen display system that covered one wall of the conference room and pushed the start button.

           
An aerial scene of a city filled the screen and as Franklin pressed one of the buttons the camera zoomed in on one of the major intersections.
 
“This is Times Square, New York,” he said. “It’s an image taken from one of our low Earth orbit Sentinel Satellites.
 
Notice that it’s almost two in the afternoon, and there doesn’t seem to be anybody on the street at all.”

           
General Baker studied the image for several seconds and then nodded.
 
It was true he couldn’t see a single person.
 
“What’s the resolution?” he asked.

           
“This is taken at the highest resolution. It can pick up items smaller than a dime.”

           
 
“Incredible,” General Baker said.
 
“What does the next slide show?”

           
Franklin laughed lightly and then he said with a condescending smile, “John this isn’t a slide, this is live video.
 
There’s nothing moving in Times Square!”