feet was stained with the steady flow of blood that dripped from her nose and came up with every raw, spasmodic cough. He’d tried to comfort her with a pat on the shoulder, but she jerked away, shrieking in pain at his touch. Any pressure against her skin threw her into agony.
Once-smooth skin hung loose and lifeless off her cheekbones. Dull eyes bounced oddly in all directions as if hung on the end of cartoon springs. It was the stuff bad dreams were made of.
The few unaffected passengers had barricaded themselves in the upper deck, outside the cockpit, and threatened to roll a beverage cart down the stairs at anyone who tried to come up the stairs from below. A look at the video monitor that viewed the back galley showed a surreal scene of dangling yellow oxygen masks, slumped bodies, and exhausted passengers shuffling zombielike to and from overflowing restrooms.
Holiday switched off the monitor, surprised by a sudden squawk on the radio.
“Northwest Flight 2, this is United States Marine Corps F-18, Nickel Five-Five hailing on one three one point one”
Holiday bounced a fist off his knee and nearly howled in delight. “Hot damn, Nickel Five-Five, it is good to hear a friendly voice.”
“Northwest 2 switch to Tango Niner-Niner.”
Holiday complied. It was an encrypted frequency, used during hijackings.
“You there, Nickel Five-Five?”
“Roger that, Northwest 2.”
“Outstanding,” Holiday said. “I’ve got an airplane full of dying people, and to top that off, we’re having radio trouble. Think you could relay for me?”
“Happy to, sir,” the F-18 pilot answered back. “I’m a half mile off your starboard wing.”
Holiday passed on details about the crew’s medical condition, the rapid spread of the illness, and the latest update on the number of dead.
“I’m switching to a military frequency,” the fighter said after he’d repeated the information coolly. “Be right back, sir.”
“You know where to find us,” Holiday chuckled.
He shook his head at the luck of it all-running into an F-18 pilot at thirty-four thousand feet over the Atlantic. But as the quiet thrum and muted green glow of the cockpit closed in around him, he thought of his friend and first officer sitting only inches away with her eyes wobbling around in their sockets like loose marbles. Holiday realized luck was pretty damned scarce.
The Marine fighter pilot from the Roosevelt gave the group a curt radio briefing on what he’d learned from Captain Holiday. Megan had worked with the military many times and was used to their deadpan delivery. She supposed it was trained into them, but they always sounded bored when talking to civilians.
The news was grim. Everyone on the video link sat in stunned silence as the F-18 pilot recounted the way the virus had burned through half the passengers in the last hour.
With nothing more to tell, the fighter pilot signed off to resume contact with Northwest 2.
Lt. General Norton leaned forward, clutching what was left of his thinning gray forelock. He looked like a young boy stumped by an unanswerable test question. “We thought 9/11 was bad…”
“General,” Megan said. “Don’t misunderstand what I’ m-”
Randall cut her off. “We talked about a worst-case scenario like this well before 9/11. There is only one alternative here.” The general slapped the flat of his hand on the table for effect. “And we all know what it is.”
Mahoney took a deliberate breath, mentally kicking herself. In her haste to point out how bad a hemorrhagic virus could be, she’d made this sound like the end of the world. “Gentleman, plea-”
“I have to agree with General Randall.” It was Norton’s turn to cut her off. His voice was hollow and he spoke without looking up.
Admiral Scott nodded slowly, as if passing judgment. Everyone on the video con went quiet. At length, he turned to his aide.
“Get our F-18 pilot on the horn again, please.” That order given, he turned to face the monitor again. “Dr. Mahoney, you were saying?” Even on the plasma screen, the man’s blue eyes locked on to her, missing nothing.
“It’s vital that we all understand something, Admiral.” She cleared her throat. “Though this incident is bad, it is not the worst possible scenario.”
Scott’s aide turned to call the F-18 pilot, but the admiral flicked his hand, motioning for him to hold.
“And exactly what would the worst be?” the admiral asked.
All eyes on her again, Megan smoothed a hand down the front of her dress, nodding. As a scientist she’d always been more comfortable surrounded by deadly germs than politicians and bureaucrats; she found them more predictable. Her Georgia accent came on thicker when she was nervous and it was honey sweet at the moment. “For one thing, hemorrhagic fevers-like Ebola-tend to burn themselves out, in many cases killing their victims before they have a chance to spread to anyone else. Faster is not necessarily better for a virus’s longevity. If the illness aboard Northwest 2 was implemented by a terrorist cell, then they succeeded in something remarkable only by making it airborne.”
“Still pretty damned terrifying,” Randall said.
“There’s no doubt,” Megan continued. “This scares the hell out of me… and it would cause a tremendous amount of panic. But we could more than likely isolate something like this almost as quickly as it began-especially now that we know what to look for.”
“So?” Randall threw up his hands. “That’s supposed to make us feel better-that we are ‘likely’ to be able to contain it?”
Megan clenched both fists beneath the table, out of the camera’s view. Randall was getting under her skin, so she focused on Admiral Scott. “First, viral pandemics aren’t something to screw around with. In the early nineteen hundreds Spanish flu killed more Americans than Vietnam, Korea, and both World Wars combined.” Megan spoke slowly so imbeciles like Randall could understand. “AIDS is able to infect so many because it is insidious. It kills slowly. In fact, a carrier can infect hundreds of others without showing any signs they are contagious. If an airborne virus such as the one on Northwest 2 were to shift, or be caused to shift into something that killed a little more slowly… it wouldn’t even show up on our radar until it’s gone too far to stop. In the deadly disease business we even have the name for such a bug-Pandora.” She paused to let her words sink in. “Once she’s out of the box… there would be no stopping her. That is the worst case.”
Admiral Scott sat motionless for a long moment. “Thank you for your assistance, Dr. Mahoney. Dr. Willis, I know you’re busy with your duties in Colorado. I’d like Dr. Mahoney to get herself to Washington on the next available flight. We should discuss this face-to-face. Now, if you all will excuse me, I need to have some words with our F-18 pilot.”
The plasma screen in front of Megan switched off and the limousine went dark.
CHAPTER 9
“You out there, Nickel Five-Five?” The 747 pilot’s voice crackled over the Super Hornet’s radio.
“Go ahead, sir.” The young Marine turned his head to the left and watched the heavy airliner glide against the lumpy backdrop of white clouds. They traveled at the same speed and the big bird appeared to hang motionless in the air.
He’d allowed his fighter to inch closer and was now less than two hundred yards off the 747’s wing, flying behind and slightly above. It was a position he called owning — though in a weapons platform as sophisticated as the F-18 Super Hornet, he owned all he could see and then some.
“Call sign Nickel… one twenty-second Crusaders, right?”
“Aye, sir,” the fighter pilot said, snorting. He was genuinely impressed. “If you don’t mind me asking, are you a Marine?”
“Negative, son,” the 747 pilot came back. “United States Navy.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the fighter jock chuckled. “Didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject.” He wished the brass
