“The embassy’s already in the works, Doug. I’ll try to get the flyboys to add you to their itinerary. Hang tough. Good luck.” The line went dead.
“Gene will try to get some helicopters to pick us up, Amelia. Go round up your people and take them upstairs. I’ll send a couple of my guys up in a minute.”
Doug checked his Glock .45 caliber pistol, as he did several times a day, then hurried outside. Presley was waiting at the main entrance, his rifle in his hands. He was speaking to one of the black guards in a tribal language that sounded to Doug like someone trying to talk through a mouthful of food. As he watched, the soldier spit on the ground at Presley’s feet and walked away. The other two Nigerians stared nervously after him but stayed at their posts.
“News?” Presley asked, not moving his gaze away from two groups of Nigerian civilians back behind the wire. The apparent leader of the smaller group was discoursing loudly to the larger throng, using his hands and arms to wave and point in the direction of the hospital entrance and back toward the center of the city.
“Chopper evac in an hour, hopefully. Can the roof support enough weight to take one? I hope so, because that’s where I’m sending our folks.”
“Why—oh, I see. Might be best, old boy.” He touched the ear plug with the wire leading to where his little radio was belted. “Text to voice from the infonet. Blasted gov’ment wags can’t stop that, no ‘ay.”
“What do you hear?”
“Riots in Lagos. Army desertions. Some whites lynched already. Bloody strange. ‘S not like there’s so many down with ‘t bug, but the net’s gone haywire with conspiracy tales.”
A noise caused Doug to look farther into the distance than the front entrance. The truck he had sent back to the old building where they had been sleeping was already on the way back. Good, he thought. They hadn’t wasted any time.
The truck was only fifty yards from the main entrance and honking its horn to clear the way when he heard the sudden loud rattle of an automatic weapon and saw a row of holes stitch their way across its windshield. The truck veered and plowed off the street and into the barbed wire, running over several in the crowd who couldn’t get out of the way in time. It tore through the barrier and came to rest just beyond the gap.
Doug’s first thought startled him. It wasn’t about how many might have been hurt or killed in the truck. It was concern that June might be one of the victims.
Manfred Morrison sat across from President Marshall, along with Homeland Security Director Edgar Tomlin. He was giving his first briefing on
“Sir, we’ve discovered the mechanism of the virus’ action. It attacks melanin, the pigment that produces our skin color by interfering with the tyrosine metabolism during melanin production, causing quinol intoxication that progresses to lethal levels in those individuals who…”
President Marshall, held up his hand. “Spare me the jargon, Manny. I don’t know anything about science.
Just tell me when you’ll have a vaccine ready and how many deaths we can anticipate before it becomes available.”
“Mr. President, as yet we’ve been unable to determine the vector but…” He saw the warning glint in the president’s eyes and hurried on. “…and as for a vaccine, we haven’t completely identified the antigen/antigenic properties, but we have determined that the initial and most rapid spread of the disease here is occurring in Seattle, New York City, Los Angeles and Atlanta. Also, South Africa seems to be a center of…”
“The major hubs of entry into the country by air travel,” Edgar Tomlin broke in. “And South Africa! I’ll bet anything that some of their damned white supremacists instigated this and…”
The president slammed his fist down on his desk. “Goddamnit, I don’t want to hear about your bets! And I don’t want to hear that there’s no vaccine. I want to know for certain what country turned this thing loose on the world and I want a cure for this thing, and I want it soon! Do you gentlemen understand me?”
Both men could only nod. There was no arguing with the president when he was in this mood.
Manny rubbed his temples, trying to think of some way to explain to the president that vaccines or cures couldn’t be produced overnight nor on demand. Even if enough was known about the virus to start production this minute it would be six months before sufficient quantities to inoculate all the dark skinned persons in America could be ready. He noticed that the secret service agent standing unobtrusively in one corner of the oval office had taken a step forward when the president exploded, and the agent was looking in his direction, not at Edgar Tomlin. Manny decided that he couldn’t blame the man. Black anger was beginning to build throughout the country with the persistent rumors that their own government had developed the virus and clandestinely spread it into the population in order to rid the country of its niggers. He shook his head at the epithet that popped into his mind, like an assault on his reason, trying to make him join the growing miasma of resentment at whites over their immunity.
“Sir, I have every agency trying to track down the perpetuators of this atrocity. We’ll find them soon.”
Edgar Tomlin tried to make himself sound confident and in charge.
“You’d better, or the goddamn country will explode. We’ve already had riots in Los Angeles.” The president pounded his desk again. “And when we find who did it, we’ll raze their fucking nation to the ground. Damned terrorists, it’s probably one of those fucking raghead countries trying to get cute.” He raved, already having forgotten that a moment before his Homeland Security Director had been blaming white supremacists. “You find somebody that knows something, and soon! And I don’t give a damn if you have to rip them to pieces to make them talk.”
“Yes, sir,” Tomlin said. Damn the man, he was worse than his predecessor, demanding answers and not really caring much about their veracity. In this case, though, it didn’t matter to him.
“And you, Manny. One week. You’ve got one week to come up with some answers. Hire some more scientists. Work overtime. One week, hear?”
“Yes, sir,” Manfred said, his voice trembling with a host of fears that kept boiling up in his mind. Why can’t we ever elect a president with at least a rudiment of scientific knowledge, he wondered. God knows the country could use some scientists in government these days.
“All right, that’s all. Now get to work, both of you.” President Marshall turned away, preparing to greet his next appointment. An aide was already in the oval office, urging the others to their feet and escorting them out one door as the next person came in from another.
Another rattle of automatic fire exploded above the crowd noise. Doug was already running toward the truck, his pistol in his hand but his rifle still shouldered. Behind the mangled barbed wire the crowd had retreated, then stopped, indecisive. A way into the hospital was open but the gunfire was intimidating.
Doug still hadn’t been able to determine where it came from.
More shots sounded, but this time he could see what was happening. Martha was down on one knee, her rifle in her hand, firing over the head of the crowd in three-round bursts. Abruptly, she lowered her aim and spent the rest of the clip on automatic. A scream answered her gunfire and the crowd broke just as he drew even with the truck and pulled open the passenger side door. Steam was rising from a burst radiator and blowing back toward him. At a glance, he could see that the man and woman in the cab were dead. He blanched sickly for a moment at the sight of the bodies, then grabbed their rifles and backed out in time to meet the rest of the CDC staff jumping from the canvas-covered bed of the truck, with his few men leading the way.
His four remaining troops were armed, holding their rifles high but not knowing where to shoot. Neither did Doug, for that matter. Then he saw the crowd continuing to disperse.
Martha ran up to him, eyes bright. A smudge of dirt streaked one cheek. “I got the one that fired at the truck, Doug! The soldiers ran off with the crowd. Sorry damn bastards!”
That was information enough for Doug. The truck had finished emptying and he gave a sigh of relief as he saw June was among the passengers. He waved his rifle over his head. “Come on!” he yelled. “Get to the hospital. Hurry!” He tossed the two rifles salvaged from the cab to one of his men and they all ran, with Doug bringing up the rear and running backward half the time.
Someone opened the big double doors of the hospital’s main entrance as everyone came toward them, some carrying handbags, others empty handed. Doug and his guards followed, but remained outside. He used them to reinforce the back and front posts where the ones on the opposite shift still held fast. He was wondering whether to try and recover the bodies of his two people from the cab of the truck when he heard his name called.
