“I read about losing the bunker in Ohio. Do we have any idea how?” Sutton asked, turning to Paterson.
“None, but it didn’t come in through the vents or water,” Paterson told him.
“They either let someone or a bird inside,” Sutton said.
“I have a team going over all the security footage,” Paterson said.
“Dr. Sutton,” Kenner, Secretary of Defense called out. “I had a company go through a small town of ten thousand and they didn’t find anyone alive. I thought this virus only killed nine out of ten, not all of the ten.”
“Kenner,” Sutton said, picking up his coffee. “It’s the roll of the genetic dice. The virus chooses the one in ten at random, not us. You could pick ten and all ten survive or none. I’ve got reports of spouses surviving, but none of their offspring. Some offspring survive and everyone else dies. It’s a crap shoot depending on your DNA. Now, after we get this vaccine, I will devote some time to it and get some better answers.”
“Did you read the findings of sick people moving to water?” Patterson asked.
Nodding, “Yeah, they are delirious with fever and water is a driving human need,” Sutton explained. “That will be a problem later because those bodies are going to contaminate the water supply.”
“Anyone else?” the President asked, looking around. He turned to Sutton and Sarah. “Sarah, keep me up to date and no one will bother you.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” Sarah said, standing up. As Sutton stood up, she reached over and grabbed his stuff.
“You are over me now, so I should carry that,” Sutton told her and tried to take it.
“I have it. Now get in the buggy, so we can get back to work,” Sarah snapped and Sutton headed for the door.
“See what I mean?” Sutton laughed as he walked out.
When they were gone, the President looked around the table. “That’s why I wasn’t sad about letting her go. Sarah can be a bitch,” he grinned. “A real bitch.”
On the other side of the base, Greg Lunston walked up a narrow flight of metal stairs in a very poor mood. He was part of the crew that manned this facility. For the last three years, he had spent half of every month in this mammoth complex.
For the first few months it was cool, seeing where the president would go if something happened, but that faded very fast. Of course, he couldn’t tell anyone what he did working for the Park Service and the two-week tours made it very hard to have a relationship.
Even the Secret Service had a full-time detachment of four agents assigned here all the time. If his job was bad, then theirs sucked. The agents had to pull one month shifts. But even for a facility built to house five thousand people, it only took twenty-five to maintain it. There were only two teams of twenty-five, red and blue.
Greg was three days into his blue shift when the call went out to lock down the mountain. Thinking it was an exercise, Greg tried his hardest to impress anyone, so he could get out of this tomb. Then the choppers started landing with the scientists. A few days later, convoys of limos and heavily tinted SUVs started dumping off members of Congress.
Two days before the president arrived, two thousand troops had shown up and manned the top floor. It was then Greg knew, this was real. He’d wanted to call his family and tell them to run, but couldn’t because all phone lines were turned off and routed through a switchboard now that you had to have approval to call out on.
All cellphones were of no use because the towers around them had been shut down.
It took three days after the president’s arrival for him to even find out what was going on. By then, he knew his mom and dad who lived in New York City were screwed.
Reaching the top of the stairs, Greg looked at the ship-style hatchway door. Flipping the lock open, he started turning the steering wheel handle. When the door moved away from the frame, Greg swung it open. He stepped out into the sunshine and took a deep breath, then pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket.
“I’m not a mole,” he mumbled, shaking a cigarette out. He and several others had been warned not to smoke anymore in a storage area. “I know every inch of this place and you think you can stop me?” he snorted, pulling out his lighter.
Taking a long drag when his cigarette was lit, Greg gave a sigh filled with smoke. Putting his lighter back in his pocket, Greg looked down and saw a dead pigeon. He turned back to the small ledge over the hatchway where the pigeons roosted.
“Frankie better start getting rid of the birds he kills,” Greg mumbled, turning around and kicking the pigeon’s corpse out of the recessed doorway. Unless he stepped out on the grass where a camera could spot him, nobody would ever know about the new smoking area that was now used.
This maintenance tunnel had no alarm on the hatchway. The door that led to the maintenance tunnel did, but it was part of his job to patrol that area and check the hatchway.
When his cigarette was finished, Greg ducked back in the door and closed it. Spinning the handle like a wheel of fortune until it stopped, Greg flipped the lockdown. “Maintenance entrance seven secured,” he grinned, then started down the long metal staircase.
Chapter Seventeen
Learning is hard for everyone
May 10
As Nicole finished her bottle, Arthur took the bottle away while grinning at her heavy eyelids. Moving her up to his shoulder, Arthur patted her back as he rocked in his recliner. A very loud burp sounded from
