Z (15 page)

Trent paused. “What about pay for those who go?”

“They got their half up front. The other half is waiting in Kinshasa. Give them the codes for their accounts.” He paused. “Unless Skeleton has reneged on everything, in which case it won’t matter much.”

“If Skeleton reneged on their money, we’ve got the diamonds,”

Trent noted. “We can always black-market them. We won’t get as much, but we’ll get something.”

Quinn’s hand strayed to the pouch around his neck, but his mind was elsewhere. “We’ll have something better than the diamonds.”

Trent was puzzled. “Eh? What’s that?”

“Whatever this guy is coming after, it’s worth a million to Skeleton. And, after we get him where he wants to go,” Quinn added, “we’ll have both the guy and whatever it is.”

Cacolo, Angola, 15 June

Riley looked across the cargo bay of the Chinook. Comsky was staring down at his hands, and beneath his stubble of beard, the medic’s face was pale. It had taken a while for the Chinook to show up, then a bit longer for them to get the disabled Black Hawk hooked up for sling-load. The smaller helicopter now hung below the double bladed Chinook and they were just about back to Cacolo. The pilots of the Chinook had to fly slower than normal to keep the load from getting out of control. Ku’s body lay in the center of the cargo bay, tightly wrapped in waterproof ponchos. The Black Hawk’s copilot’s body was still trapped in the airframe suspended below.

Riley stepped over Ku’s body and squeezed in next to Comsky. “What’s up, Ape Man?”

Comsky pointed at his hand. There was a gash on the back, running from his middle knuckle to his wrist. “I cut this in the crash.” He nodded at the corpse. “I’m fucked. I had his blood all over me.”

“AIDS?” Riley asked.

Comsky laughed, but it was not a pleasant sound. “Shit, Dave, that’s the least of my worries right now. Yeah, there’s always a chance he had HIV. But whatever took Ku down wasn’t AIDS. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“You sure it was a bug?” Riley asked. “Maybe he had cancer or something.” Conner had come over and she knelt down next to them, listening in on their conversation. Captain Vickers was lying on the floor, just in front of Comsky, her eyes closed, strapped in tightly to a stretcher.

“I pray it wasn’t a virus,” Comsky said. “But there was no wound or anything from the outside. And it wasn’t cancer. The way he was bleeding and his insides getting torn about. I never heard or seen anything like it. Something ate him up from the inside out. When that happens it’s usually some sort of virus. That’s why I wanted them to get that footage to Fort Detrick. That’s where the army has its specialists on viruses.”

Riley grabbed hold of Conner as they felt the helicopter jerk. The sling-loaded Black Hawk had been put down. The sling was released. The Chinook moved over, then set down, and the back ramp was opened; but they were halted before they could get off. Major Lindsay was the first man up the ramp into the helicopter, and he did not look happy. Captain Dorrick was behind him. He indicated for everyone to remain in place. They all waited as the pilots shut the helicopter down. Dorrick was holding back, afraid to come too close to anyone, but Major Lindsay walked right up into the middle of them.

Silence descended. Lindsay looked down at the form in the poncho, then back up. “I don’t know what is going on, but we’ve got big trouble.” He looked at Conner and Seeger. “Whatever you filmed lit a fire under somebody’s ass in the Pentagon. We’re shut down here. Nobody comes in or goes out of the AOB. Beyond that, I’m to keep everyone on this helicopter separate from the rest of the population here at Cacolo. Captain Dorrick will take you to your new billets. I’ll be by to debrief you in a half hour.”

Riley turned and looked at Comsky. The medic’s face was now ashen and he was looking at his hand as if it were some strange specimen he’d discovered.

“Excuse me, sir,” Comsky said. He pointed down at Lieutenant Vickers. “She needs medical attention.”

“My orders are to make no exceptions. You’re going to have to take care of her yourself,” Lindsay said. “Your medical kit is in the isolation area.”

Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, 15 June

Since viewing the videotape, Tyron had been on the move, gathering equipment together and packing. Two helicopters had landed on the lawn in front of the Institute. One for Tyron and Kieling and their personal baggage, and the other for the specialized gear they would need to take biosafety level four precautions to Angola with them and to try and find out what had killed the man in the video. They were now flying to Andrews Air Force Base, where the colonel had arranged their overseas transportation.

Tyron had let Kieling take charge. The other man had much more experience in traveling and going places. In fact, Tyron was now counting his blessings that Kieling had gone on the “jaunt” three years ago. The jaunt was part of the lore at the Institute, and Tyron had heard more than a few stories about it.

There were two things that were of primary importance to be discovered when a new virus appeared. The first, of course, was to determine exactly what the virus was and to isolate it. The second was to find out where it came from. With those two facts, they at least had the basics needed to try and defeat the bug.

In 1994 a virus had erupted out of southern Zaire. Of course, since southern Zaire wasn’t a media hotspot, the word got out slowly. The disease burned along the Zaire-Zambia border with a kill rate of over 90 percent of those infected. Thousands upon thousands of people died.

After two weeks ripping through the countryside, the virus made a toehold in the Zambian city of Ndola. The Zambian president had the city cordoned off by troops. Roads were blocked, the airport was shut down, and travel was prohibited. The president was prepared to lose the city to save the country.

And just as swiftly as it had appeared, the virus went away. The last of the victims died and their bodies were burned. Life went back to normal along the border, save for the forty thousand people who had died. But forty thousand dead in Africa barely made a blip on the world media. Except among those at the Institute.

From Zairean doctors, they managed to get samples of the virus in the form of frozen tissue samples sent by plane. They quickly isolated the deadly agent. It was a filo-virus, a cousin to Marburg and the two Ebolas. But it wasn’t any of them, and for lack of a better name the new virus was christened X. The name filo-virus was derived from the Latin— “thread virus.” Had they not already seen Marburg and Ebola at the Institute, they might not have so quickly caught on to X, but as soon as the strange, thin, elongated forms showed up in the electron microscope they zeroed in on it.

They had X, but they didn’t know anything else about it other than that it killed. So Kieling proposed to go and track down where the virus had come from. He took a trip to Zaire and investigated. Like a detective, he backtracked the line of death that the few survivors remembered. As best as Kieling could determine, X had probably originated not in Zaire but somewhere on the southeast side of Lake Bangweulu in Zambia. He managed to hire a small plane pilot to fly him up there. They flew over mile upon mile of swampland bordering the lake. It was a dismal-looking place, full of wildlife and little visited by man. Kieling tried to get the pilot to land at a small town on the edge of the swamp, but as they descended, the odor of rotting corpses was so great they could smell it in the cockpit of the plane and the pilot refused to land.

Kieling came back to the Institute and proposed an expedition to Lake Bangweulu to try and find out the birthplace of X. His justification was that if it had come out once, it might come out again, and the next time it might not go away. Forty thousand dead and a 90 percent kill rate made for a very effective argument. The funds were appropriated and Kieling went back to Zambia with a team of experts and the proper gear to work with level four bio-agents in the field, something that had never been done before.

They went into the swamp and, after two weeks of searching, found an island where Kieling suspected the disease might have originated among the local monkey population. A few local survivors told him that swamp people went to that island occasionally to capture monkeys for export to medical labs for experimentation. That might help explain how the disease got out of the swamp, Kieling reasoned. They suited up and went onto the island as if it were hot. But they found nothing on the island and eventually Kieling had to order them to pack up and head back.

Kieling never found out where X came from, thus the nickname the “jaunt” for the entire exercise. But he had learned a lot about taking the lab to the field, and for that Tyron was now very grateful, because most of the equipment on the second helicopter was prepackaged gear that Kieling had used on the jaunt. Kieling had used his expertise to put together easily movable equipment that they had stored in Conexes in back of the Institute. If ever there was a need to go virus hunting again, Kieling had wanted to be ready.

And now they were off hunting. One dead man in a video didn’t necessarily mean they had another X on their hands, Tyron knew. But if they did, at least they wouldn’t be starting from scratch preparing this expedition.

In the past several decades X, Ebola, and Marburg had broken out occasionally in Africa and killed with ruthless efficiency—or propagated with amazing strength, depending on one’s outlook, Tyron thought. Then they had disappeared. There was still no vaccine for those known scourges—never mind something new. It was a sore point at both USAMRIID and the CDC in Atlanta that they hadn’t broken any of the filo-viruses’ codes. The only thing they had accomplished in the past several years was to come up with a field test to determine if someone had Ebola or Marburg. X was still an unknown.

The choppers came in the flight path for Andrews Air Force Base and landed near a group of hangars. Several air force officers were waiting for them.

“Major Tyron?” the ranking man asked, running up to the chopper.

Tyron nodded. “Yes.”

The man pointed at a hangar. “We’ve got your ride in here.” He looked at the other chopper where men were taking off the lab gear. “Might take us a couple of minutes to get your stuff loaded. This whole thing is kind of unorthodox, but we’ll get you out of here as fast as we can.”

Tyron looked around, wondering why there would be a problem loading the gear. “What type of plane are we going to use? C-141?”

The air force general smiled and gestured for Tyron and Kieling to follow him. “No. We were told to get you there as fast as possible.”

They walked in through a small door on the side of the hangar. A sleek B-l bomber painted coal black sat inside.

“Cool” was Kieling’s comment.

“The B-l normally has a crew of four,” the general explained. “We’re taking off the offensive and defensive systems operators and replacing them with you two. We’re putting your gear in the bomb bay. That’s what’s going to take a few minutes as it’s not exactly configured for cargo.”

“How long will it take us to get to Luanda?” Tyron asked.

“At Mach one point two five,” the general said, “about eight hours. You’ve got enough fuel to get there without in-flight refueling.” The general looked around, making sure that no one else was in earshot. “If you don’t mind, could you tell me what the big rush is?”

“In eight hours,” Kieling said, his eyes still on the bomber, “certain viruses can replicate themselves almost six million times. That is the rush.”

Cacolo, Angola, 15 June

“Go slow and explain it so that we can all understand,” Riley said.

“Who the fuck put you in charge?” Master Sergeant Lome demanded.

The group gathered in the GP medium was tense and confused. Major Lindsay had had several tents set up a quarter mile away from the main encampment. The isolation area was surrounded by rolls of barbed wire, but Riley had the feeling the wire’s purpose was to keep those inside where they were rather than to protect against attack. Everyone who had been exposed to Ku’s blood on the mission where he had died was there: Riley, Conner, Seeger, Lome, Lieutenant Vickers, Comsky, Brewster, Oswald, Tiller, and the crew of the Black Hawk.

Prior to entering the quarantine area, Riley had assisted Comsky and Lome in extricating the copilot’s body from the wreckage of the Black Hawk. It was not a job anyone from the AOB was going to volunteer for.

Given that no one really seemed to understand what was going on, Riley had suggested that Comsky explain the need for the quarantine, and Lome’s patience had worn through.

“No one put me in charge,” Riley replied in a steady voice. “But you’re not in charge either. Not of me or Conner or Mike,” he added, pointing at the SNN crew. He looked at Comsky. “He’s the man who has the most knowledge about what we might be dealing with here, so if anyone should be in charge he gets my vote.”

“Who said this was a democracy?” Lome snapped.

“Oh, give me a break,” Conner Young said. “It’s a democracy because we’re all in the same crap pile. Equal risk. Equal vote. Get it?”

“I don’t need to take any shit from you civilians,” Lome said.

“Sergeant Lome,” a woman’s quiet voice called out from a cot in the shadows near the tent wall. “As far as I can tell,” Lieutenant Vickers said, “I am the ranking person in this tent. So let Sergeant Comsky answer the question.”

“Ma’am,” Lome said, refusing to give in, “you might outrank me, but standard operating procedure says that while you are in charge in the air, in an emergency on the ground, it is the senior army person who is in charge.”

“That’s standard operating procedure only in case of an aircraft crash for escape-and-evasion purposes,” Riley countered. He looked around. “You don’t have an SOP for this situation and Lieutenant Vickers does outrank you. Do you want to go to Major Lindsay with this?”

“Fine,” Lome snapped. “The lieutenant is in charge. Go ahead.”

Vickers turned her head toward the medic, who looked as unhappy as a man could appear and wasn’t showing much interest in the feuding. “What makes you think Sergeant Ku died of a viral infection?”

Comsky blinked and made an effort to focus in. “I didn’t think it at first, but as I ruled out other causes for what was happening to him, that came to mind. There was no external wound. He’d been appearing sick for a while. The vomiting. The bleeding from everywhere. I’d read about the bleeding around the needle that happened when I tried to run the IV. That’s what happened in some cases of severe viral infection.”

“So he had a bug,” Sergeant Oswald said. “Does that mean we have it? I heard what you told Top at the crash site.”

“We’re not sure he had a bug,” Comsky said. He looked around gloomily. “But the fact that someone back in the States ordered Major Lindsay to quarantine us isn’t good.”

“So he probably had a bug,” Conner Young said sarcastically. “Are we all agreed on terminology?”

“Going back to the original question,” Vickers said. “Does that mean we have it?”

Comsky shrugged. “Depends on the transmission vector. For example, AIDS requires body-fluid—blood or semen—contact. If this has the same type of vector, most of you are okay.” He looked down at the bandage on the back of his hand.

“Unless we have an open wound,” Vickers said, running a finger along one of the cuts on her face.

“And had contact with Ku’s blood,” Comsky added. “But if it’s like influenza and it’s transmitted through the air, then we’re all fucked.”

A long silence descended.

“Hell,” Comsky finally said. “On the positive side, most deadly viruses are not easily transmitted. The odds are great that it isn’t transmitted through the air, because most viruses don’t last long when exposed to ultraviolet light. That’s why they usually go through a body fluid. And anyway, we don’t even know if it is a virus.”

“I might be a little slow here,” Riley said, “but would you explain what a virus is?” Riley knew that he had to get Comsky’s and everyone else’s mind away from dark thoughts, and the best way to do that was to get their minds working on something professional. Besides, Riley knew, people worked better when they were aware of the facts of a situation.

Comsky collected his thoughts. “There are different types of invasive organisms. The two major forms are bacteria and viruses. Tuberculosis is a bacterium. AIDS is a virus.”

Comsky’s demeanor had changed. He was back in the classroom at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, where he’d received his basic and advanced medical training. Riley knew that Special Forces medics were highly trained professionals—not functionaries who simply handed out bandages. “Most people think of these things as little bugs that are out to kill humans, but really they’re just creatures trying to live. In some cases we just happen to be the host through which they live and reproduce.” Comsky paused. “Well, actually, bacteria are alive. Viruses aren’t and they are.”

Riley looked around. The medic certainly had their attention.

“Bacteria,” Comsky continued, “are living cells. They cause problems in humans because our bodies mount a response to their infection, and in many cases, the response is so strong it destroys good cells along with the bacteria.

“Sometimes it’s the bacteria cells themselves that cause the problem. Cholera is a good example of that. The toxins from the bacteria attack cells in the intestine, causing severe diarrhea, which dehydrates the body to the point where many of those infected die.

“We didn’t spend as much time on viruses in our medical training,” Comsky said. “If I remember correctly, a virus is genetic material—DNA or RNA—inside a protein shell. They sort of just hang around and exist. Then they come in contact with a host. The problem, for the host that is, is that to reproduce, a virus needs a living cell. In the process of reproducing, a virus kills the host cell.”

“Why didn’t you spend as much time on viruses?” Riley asked. It seemed to him that if they were so deadly, there would be more attention paid.

“Because you can treat most bacterial infections,” Comsky said, “although there are more and more strains appearing that have mutated and are resistant to traditional drug treatments such as penicillin. But there are very few antiviral drugs. The best defense against viruses is vaccination.” He looked down at his hand. “And you have to have a vaccination before you get infected for it to be effective. So, most of the time, finding out that someone has a viral infection doesn’t do you much good, because in many cases there are no cures.”

“So if we got some sort of virus from that guy,” Sergeant Oswald said, bringing the entire conversation full circle, “then we’re screwed.”

“Roger that,” Comsky said.

So much for improving morale, Riley thought.

“How long do we have if we got this thing?” Oswald demanded, cutting to the chase.

Comsky shook his head. “I don’t know. Ku went down fast out there, but it must have been in him for a while.” He laughed, but it was not from the humor of the situation. “That’s the paradox of viruses that has saved mankind from being wiped out. The quicker a virus kills its host, the less chance it has of being transmitted. If a virus takes someone down in a day, it only has a small window to be passed on. If it takes years, like AIDS, then it has more of a chance to be spread. Thus the more effective a killer it is, the less chance that a virus will propagate.

“To really answer the question,” Comsky continued, “we need to find out where Sergeant Ku might have picked this thing up.”

Sergeant Lome liked that. It was a course of action, at least. “I’ll tell Major Lindsay to get on it.”

Lieutenant Vickers turned to Comsky. “I think you’d better get to work on my ankle and set it as best you can.”

Abraham Lincoln, 15 June

“Say again, sir?” the galley steward wasn’t used to the ship’s executive officer coming into his domain in the forward mess unless it was for an inspection. And he wasn’t quite sure he had heard the officer’s request correctly.

“I want you to load the largest coolers you have with ice and get them up on the flight deck right now!” the officer repeated.

“Yes, sir.” The steward appropriated several large coolers used to transport frozen food on the ship between the forward and aft galleys. He had his shift position them one by one underneath the massive ice-making machines in the kitchen. The galleys were capable of providing over ten thousand meals a day, so they had every piece of equipment imaginable.

They trundled the coolers to an elevator and went up to the flight deck, where a C-2 cargo plane waited. The ship’s XO was waiting there, anxiously waving them up the back ramp, where they secured the coolers. As soon as they were done, the ramp closed and the plane was rolled into place and launched.

As it disappeared to the east, the crew was left to ponder what the urgent need for ice was in Angola.

Oshakati, Namibia, 15 June

General Nystroom pulled his reading glasses out of the case in his breast pocket and slowly read the message that had just been transmitted to him. It was succinct and to the point.

TO: NYSTROOM/EYES ONLY FROM: HIGH COMMAND/SILVERMINE CEASE ALL OPERATIONS NORTH OF BORDER—HOLD IMPLEMENTATION OF JACKET THREE PENDING FURTHER ORDERS—REVIEW CONTINGENCY PLAN THAT FOLLOWS AND PREPARE TO CARRY IT OUT END OF MESSAGE

Jacket Three was the operations plan for the invasion of southern Angola. It was the entire purpose of all their actions for the past four months. Nystroom shook his head. Why were they stopping him now? His forces were ready to go. Every hour they delayed gave the rebels more of a chance to reconsolidate their forces from the destruction the planes had wrought.

And how was he to cease all operations north of the border? Was he supposed to just order his scouts up there to hide? Or was he supposed to pull them back?

“Is there more?” Nystroom asked his communications officer.

“No, sir. Just that one page.”

Where was the contingency plan, then? Nystroom wondered. Were the Americans backing out? He’d heard nothing. The 82d was deploying as planned according to his liaison officers.

If the Americans were still on schedule, was there some change back in his own command? Or was there another factor? Nystroom threw the message down. Damn political bullshit.

National Security Agency, Fort Meade, Maryland, 15 June

Waker read the text of the message that had been transmitted from Silvermine to General Nystroom one more time. Breaking the South African code had been easier than he had expected, but he wasn’t too thrilled with what he had just uncovered. He didn’t know why the South Africans were holding up on their part of the operation, but he knew he needed to pass this information along to his higher headquarters. Waker put the appropriate address on the decoded message and e-mailed it along a secure network.

Cacolo, Angola, 15 June

It was one of the strangest things Conner had ever watched. She’d had Seeger film Comsky packing Ku’s body—or rather the lump wrapped with ponchos—in ice inside a large cooler the plane had brought in. They put the body of the copilot in another cooler. She knew her film was being intercepted by the Pentagon and that everything from here on was going to be held until this thing, whatever it was, played out. She also knew that the recent action would probably never make prime time. It had not been a pretty sight.

“Comsky!”

They all looked out toward the wire. Major Lindsay stood there in the darkness.

“Yes, sir.”

“I found out something about Sergeant Ku.”

Comsky walked over to the wire, the rest of them following. Conner noted the six feet of air that separated them from the man on the other side. Was that enough to keep Lindsay safe? Was there even something on this side to worry about?

“I talked to Major Gungue and we tracked down the officer who was in charge of Ku before he got picked up to be your team’s liaison. A lieutenant Monoko. They were stationed at the Angola-Zaire border at a town called Luau.”

“Has anyone checked that place?” Comsky cut in.

"“Yeah, we called out there on the radio. No sign of disease. But we did find out something interesting. On their way back from Luau it seems that Lieutenant Monoko got lost. They wandered around the Lunda Norte region for a while before Monoko figured things out and got them here. Hell,” Lindsay said, “they weren’t even supposed to be here.

“But anyway,” he said quickly, “they came across a village where everyone was dead. A bunch of bodies had been stacked and someone had tried to burn them, but the job hadn’t been finished. Lieutenant Monoko said Ku got some blood on him from one of the bodies.”

“Have you found the village?” Riley asked.

“No. Monoko’s not exactly sure where it was. We just have the approximate area.”

“How long ago did this happen, sir?” Comsky asked.

“Six days.”

“Anything else, sir?”

“The people from Fort Detrick will be here before dawn,” Major Lindsay offered. He stood for a few moments, shuffling his feet, then headed back to the AOB.

“Six days,” Comsky muttered. “That’s fast.” Comsky turned away from the wire and walked off into the darkness on the other side of the tent, pondering the new information.

Slowly the rest of them wandered away inside the small area allowed them.

Conner Young returned to the tent and lay down on a cot. She was bone tired but couldn’t get to sleep. Riley had been right. The biggest story was probably going to be out here—and she was beginning to believe that she might end up wishing he was wrong, something she could not have imagined twenty-four hours ago.