“Hello! Can I have your attention, please?”
Silence immediately descended on the plane, and everyone turned toward him.
“My name is Jon Smith and I’m a doctor with the U.S. Army. If you’ll give me a minute, I’d like to tell you what’s going on.”
His voice didn’t quite achieve the calm authority he’d hoped for, but in truth, he was lucky he could talk at all. The sensation of Dahab’s grip on his throat was still palpable beneath the finger-shaped contusions.
“The man who was killed was a terrorist.”
The volume went up again as people shouted a barrage of questions: Could he have accomplices on the plane? Was there a bomb? Why had he been allowed to board?
Smith waited for the cacophony to die down before starting to flesh out the story told to the flight crew.
“He wasn’t armed and there are no explosives. He had a drug-?resistant form of tuberculosis that he planned on trying to spread throughout Europe.”
More shouted questions as the level of fear notched noticeably higher.
“Please! Let me finish. I want to stress that this strain of TB can be cured with special antibiotics. However, those antibiotics are expensive and we only have a few thousand doses stockpiled. Obviously, that would be a serious problem in a pandemic, but it’s
Jon Smith stood at the back of the cockpit, looking through the windscreen at the scene below. There were three C-5 transport planes on the ground, and medical tents were in the process of being set up. Various military vehicles were lined up along the runway, and green-clad figures rushed through the glare of portable spotlights. This wasn’t going to do much for the passengers’ peace of mind, but the time for subtlety was long past.
They touched down and bounced around a bit before rolling to a stop in front of a steel barricade. Armed men in biohazard gear immediately surrounded the plane, and blocks were put around the wheels to make certain the plane couldn’t take off again. The frightened voices of the passengers rose to a volume that almost obscured the ringing of the pilot’s sat phone.
Smith picked up. “Go ahead.”
“What’s your situation?” Fred Klein asked.
“Unfortunately, the patient didn’t make it. We’ve wrapped up the body and put it in the back.”
“Possibility of spread?”
“To the passengers and crew, I’d say minimal. To me and Peter, medium to high.”
“I’m going to get you two off the plane. We have a situation that needs your attention. Everyone else stays put until we finish setting up. Go to the door closest to the cockpit. We’re bringing up a ladder.”
“Two minutes,” Smith said. “I need to brief the passengers.”
“Two minutes.”
He went back out and found Peter trying to make his way to the front of the plane as people grabbed at him and pointed out the windows at the soldiers.
“Hello! Can I have your attention again, please?”
They all looked to him, and Howell used the diversion to limp to the front of the plane.
“Peter and I are getting off,” Smith started before once again being drowned out.
“Everybody calm down and listen to me! We came into direct contact with the infected man, so we’re the most likely people here to have contracted the illness. We’re being taken to quarantine so there’s no chance of us passing it on to any of you. More medical personnel and equipment are being flown in and you’ll be let off when they get set up.”
“When do we get the antibiotics?” someone shouted.
“Most likely you won’t need them, because I doubt any of you are going to get ill — this strain isn’t particularly contagious. Look, I know a lot of the doctors out there and they’re the best in the world. You’re in good hands.”
Someone outside banged on the door and he twisted the handle. By the time he got it open, the man on the ladder was already on the ground and retreating to a sandbagged machine-gun placement.
A few of the passengers surged toward the door, but Howell blocked them. “Please stay back,” he said, retreating toward the ladder. “I could be infected.”
That slowed them enough to allow Smith to climb onto the ladder and quickly descend, trying not to think about the battery of guns trained on his back.
62
“Keep moving, sirs.”
Smith glanced back at the soldier coaxing them forward and then at the armed men in hazmat suits falling in around them. The private jet he and Howell were walking toward seemed to have just come off the assembly line, with nothing that would betray the identity of its owner or suggest any connection with the United States. Smith dutifully climbed the steps to an open hatch, pausing at the threshold before committing to enter.
A thick wall of plastic had been erected to his left, sealing off the front third of the plane. To the right, all the seats had been removed with the exception of the rearmost two, and portable filters had been installed to keep the air supplies separate. A bottle of single-malt scotch gleamed on one of the cushions, and the other contained two glasses and two pairs of handcuffs. The incredibly thorough hand of Fred Klein.
Howell followed him down the aisle and fell into one of the seats, examining the bottle and reclining in the soft leather with a satisfied groan. Smith held out the glasses and the Brit filled them, raising his in salute. “To the fleeting pleasures of the here and now.”
It was as good a sentiment as any, and Smith tipped the glass up, reveling in the smoky sensation of the liquor burning its way down his raw throat. When he leaned back, he spotted a shoebox-sized device set up near the plastic wall. It was topped with a line of green LEDs and, unless he missed his guess, was filled with enough plastique to completely disintegrate the plane should it become necessary.
“How are you gentlemen feeling?”
Smith leaned forward and squinted, trying to put the man emerging from the cockpit with the voice that unmistakably belonged to Fred Klein. His normally medium-length hair was cropped close to his skull, and his glasses had been replaced with blue contacts. The rumpled suit that he seemed to have been born in was gone, too, in favor of a heavily starched U.S. Army uniform that clung to a waist so narrow that it suggested some kind of girdle. An expedient disguise that would shield him from undue attention and prevent Peter Howell from recognizing the old spook.
“Better now, Brigadier,” Howell said, using the scotch bottle to effect an improbably respectful salute.
Klein took a seat facing them through the plastic. “Based on the reports I’ve read, I thought you boys could use a drink.”
“Thank you, sir,” Smith said, playing along.
He gave a short jerk of a nod and then moved on. “It’s my understanding that if you’re infected, you’ll start showing symptoms between seven and fifteen hours from exposure.”
“Yes, sir,” Smith said, calculating for the hundredth time how long it had been since their fight with Dahab: seven hours, thirty-nine minutes. “It appears to start with general disorientation, followed by the bleeding you’re familiar with and then violent insanity.”
The plane started taxiing and Klein pointed in their general direction. “Buckle up.”
The implication was clear, and after fastening their seat belts they each secured one wrist to their seat with the provided handcuffs.
“I also understand, Colonel, that if you start showing symptoms, there’s nothing I can do to help you.”
