landscape of scattered debris.
Suddenly the ground convoy was moving. As engines roared to life, Jack and Bloomfeld jumped in back of the medical vehicle and began the bouncing ride across the desert floor to the crash site.
Even over the roar of the convoy engines, Jack heard another sound, throbbing and ominous.
The choppers were moving in too.
Their vehicle suddenly braked to a halt. Jack and Bloomfeld, both clutching emergency medical kits, jumped to the ground in a cloud of dust. Discovery was still a hundred yards ahead. The choppers had already landed, forming a ring around the shuttle.
Jack began to run toward Discovery, ready to duck his head beneath the whirring rotor blades. He was stopped before he reached the ring of choppers.
'What the hell is going on?' yelled Bloomfeld as uniformed soldiers suddenly poured out of the choppers and formed an armed wall against the NASA ground crew.
'Back off! Back off!' one of the soldiers yelled.
The convoy leader pushed to the front. 'My crew needs to get to the orbiter!'
'You people will stay back!'
'You have no authority here! This is a NASA operation!'
'Every one get the fuck back now!' Rifles suddenly came up, barrels pointed at the unarmed ground crew. NASA personnel began to back away, all eyes focused on the guns, on the implied threat of mass slaughter.
Looking past the soldiers, Jack saw that a white plastic tent was rapidly being erected over Discovery's hatch, closing it off from outside air. A dozen hooded figures, completely clad in bright orange suits, emerged from two of the choppers and approached the orbiter.
'Those are Racal biological space suits,' said Bloomfeld.
The orbiter hatch was now completely hidden by the plastic tent. They could not see the hatch being opened. They could not see those space-suited men enter the middeck.
That's our flight crew in there, thought Jack. Our people who might be dying in that orbiter. And we can't reach them. We've doctors and nurses standing here, with a truck full of medical equipment, and they won't let us do our jobs.
He pushed toward the line of soldiers, stepping directly in front of the Army officer who appeared to be in charge. 'My medical crew is coming in,' he said.
The officer gave a smirk. 'I don't think so, sir.'
'We're employees of NASA. We're doctors, charged with the health and well-being of that flight crew. You can shoot us if you'd like. But then you'd have to kill everyone else here too, because they'd be witnesses. And I don't think you're going to do that.' The rifle came up, the barrel pointed directly at Jack's chest. throat was dry, and his heart was slamming against his ribs, but stepped around the soldier, ducked under the chopper blades, and kept walking.
He didn't even glance back as the soldier ordered, 'Halt, or I'll shoot!' He walked on, his gaze fixed on the billowing tent ahead of him.
He saw the men in their Racal space suits turn and stare at him in surprise. He saw the wind kick up a puff of dust and send swirling across his path. He was almost at the tent when he heard Bloomfeld yell, 'Jack, look out!' The blow caught him right at the base of the skull. He went down on his knees, pain exploding in bright bursts in his head.
Another blow slammed into his flank, and he sprawled forward, tasting sand, hot as ash in his face. He rolled over, onto his back, and saw the soldier looming over him, rifle butt raised to deliver yet another blow.
'That's enough,' said an oddly muffled voice. 'Leave him alone.' The soldier backed away. Now another face loomed into view, staring down at Jack through a clear Racal hood.
'Who are you?' the man said.
'Dr. Jack McCallum.' The words came out in barely a whisper.
He sat up, and his vision suddenly blurred, danced on the edge of darkness. He clutched his head, willing himself to stay conscious, fighting the blackness threatening to drag him down. 'Those are my patients in that orbiter,' Jack said. 'I demand to see them.'
'That's not possible.'
'They need medical attention -- '
'They're dead, Dr. McCallum. All of them.' Jack froze. Slowly he raised his head and met the man's gaze through the clear face shield. He could read no expression there, could see nothing that reflected the tragedy of four lost lives.
'I'm sorry about your astronauts,' the man said, and turned to walk away.
Jack struggled to stand up. Though swaying and dizzy, he managed to stay on his feet. 'And who the fuck are you?' he demanded.
The man paused and turned back. 'I'm Dr. Isaac Roman, USAMRIID,' he said. 'That orbiter is now a hot zone. The Army is assuming control.'
USAMRIID. Dr. Roman had pronounced it as one word, but Jack knew what the letters stood for. The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Why was the Army here? Since when had this turned into a military operation?
Jack squinted in the flying dust, his skull still ringing from the blow, and struggled to absorb this bewildering information. An eternity seemed to pass, a surreal progression of images in slow motion. Men in Racal suits striding toward the orbiter. The staring at him with expressionless eyes. The isolation tent in the wind like a living, breathing organism. He looked at the of soldiers, still holding the ground crew at bay. He looked at orbiter and saw the men in space suits carry the first stretcher of the tent. The body was sealed in a bag. The plastic had been stamped repeatedly with the bright red biohazard symbol, like blossoms strewn across a corpse.
The sight of that stretcher made Jack's mind snap back into focus. He said, 'Where are you taking the bodies?' Dr. Roman did not even turn to look at him, but directed the stretcher to a waiting chopper. Jack started to walk toward the orbiter, and once again found a soldier standing in front of him, rifle butt raised to deliver another blow.
'Hey!' came a shout from the ground crew. 'You dare to hit him again and we've got thirty witnesses!' The soldier turned and stared at the angry NASA and United Space Alliance employees, who were now surging forward, voices raised in outrage.
'You think this is Nazi Germany?'
' -- think you can beat up civilians now?'
'Who the hell are you guys?' The nervous soldiers tightened ranks as the ground crew continued to push forward, shouting, feet churning up dust.
A rifle shot exploded into the air. The crowd went dead still.
There is something terribly wrong here, thought Jack. Something we don't understand. These soldiers were fully prepared to shoot. To kill.
The convoy leader understood this as well, because he blurted out in panic, 'I'm in comm link with Houston! At this moment, a hundred men and women in Mission Control are listening!' Slowly the soldiers lowered their rifles and glanced toward their officer. A long silence passed, broken only by the wind and the scatter shot of sand pinging the choppers.
Dr. Roman appeared at Jack's side. 'You people don't understand the situation,' he said.
'Explain it to us.'
'We are dealing with a serious biohazard. The White House Security Council has activated the Army's Biological Rapid Response Team -- a team created by an act of Congress, Dr. McCallum. We're here on orders from the White House.'
'What biohazard?' Roman hesitated. He glanced toward the NASA ground crew, who stood in a tense huddle beyond the line of soldiers.
'What is the organism?' Jack said.
At last Roman met his gaze through the plastic face shield.
'That information is classified.'
'We're the medical team, charged with the health of that flight crew. Why weren't we told about this?'
