Independence Day Plague Read online

  Mitchell moved the left hand from his pants pocket. He opened the fingers towards Dorado. Two small glass vials gleamed in the harsh overhead light. “It’s real. We existed. But I couldn’t use it. Find the other vials before it's too late.” Mitchell closed his eyes and let out a sigh. Dorado pulled a plastic bag out of his pocket. Enclosing the bag around his fingers, he picked the vials out of the limp hand. “Very dangerous,” the man whispered as his breathing slowed to nothing.

  The rubber-capped vials held only a thimbleful of light brown liquid each. “God help us all” Dorado whispered again. He sealed the bag up tight and then gently wrapped the small package in his handkerchief before putting it into another sealed bag and in his coat pocket.

  Wet people pushed away from the growing pool of blood coming from the body. Dorado looked into their wide eyes. Many of the children were crying. One man yelled, “What’s going on?” Other voices of anger and confusion rose.

  Dorado stood and faced them. He shouted to be heard over the crowd, “DC Police. Calm down, everyone. We’re going to be here for a long while. Move away from this area and find a place to sit with your family. Cardell, find someone to shut the escalators off. ”

  The crowd murmured restlessly. “We have a right to leave!” one man yelled back.

  Dorado faced the crowd. “No sir, you do not.”

  “What’s happened?” a female voice, near hysterics, “Is that the bomber? All day the news has been talking about bomb threats. Is that him? Are we going to die?”

  The crowd began to shift restlessly and move towards him. Blood from the body continued to spill on the ground. Dorado looked at it, a blackness oozing over wet red brick. Blood. Spill out. Infection. The words tumbled through his mind. He clenched his teeth, pulled his pistol and swung it at the crowd. A few screamed but they backed off.

  “Everyone, back away from me," he shouted. More shrieks sounded out. He continued more gently, "No one is going to die if you follow my orders.”

  One uniformed officer moved closer to the blood pool and faced the crowd, weapon drawn and pointed upwards. Dorado nodded at him. “Okay now, listen up.” He shouted, loud and harsh. “No one leaves the station. If you try to leave, you will be shot, if not by me then by the police waiting at each exit. I need you to move away from this body. The man had a disease.” More gasps and the crowd pressed farther back against the cement railings that enclosed the upper platform. “If anyone has blankets or coats, I need to confiscate them so we can create a dam to stop this blood from spreading.”

  Their eyes moved to the body. A brunette clutched her baby, “But you shot him. He's dead.”

  “His blood is still infectious. However, I think everyone will be okay as long as you don’t touch the blood. Help is on the way and we will need your cooperation tonight. Just move as far away as possible and find a place to sit for a while. You can go anywhere in the station as long as you don't try to go up the exit steps or out through the elevators.” After a few minutes, the edge of the crowd thinned as people filtered back into the relatively empty ticket area and lower stairs.

  Dorado faced the uniformed officer. "Stay nearby but out of the blood. I'm already here so I need you to help control things."

  The man nodded as Dorado pulled out several pairs of plastic gloves from his pocket, handing a set to the young officer.

  His earpiece gave off a quick chirp and Dorado thumbed the on switch. Brian’s voice sounded loud, “Mike, you okay? Mike?” Dorado holstered his gun. A few strangers moved forward, dropping blankets and towels nearby. Dorado and the officer began placing them in a wide circle around the blood puddle.

  He replied, “I’m here. Mitchell’s dead. We got liquid spray all over the damn place and an infected blood spill. Mitchell said the spray was just water but let’s not take any chances. The bastard had a deadman switch. Get HAZMAT with some decontamination units down here. Tell the HAZMAT leader that we know we have the possibility of Marburg virus in one dead patient. At least two men are potentially contaminated with his blood. We got about four hundred-plus that have been exposed to the clear fluid. No trains are to come through the tracks until we know what was in the spray. No one but HAZMAT comes down into the station. Assume everyone down here is infected.”

  "Roger that. We’re secured up here and have alerted the hospitals and HAZMAT. HAZMAT will want to know who got the blood contamination so they can look up his records."

  "It's me and possibly Cardell if he was in range for splash back."

  "What about the suspect? Was he for real?”

  “Yeah, he gave me the tubes of the virus. I’ve got it in my pocket.”

  “Oh shit!”

  “Yeah partner, so let’s hurry things along, okay. This is going to take the rest of the night. And Brian, one more thing…”

  “Yeah.”

  “Call Sherrie and tell her I’m going to be okay.”

  Chapter 17

  July 7, 2026

  Tuesday began with grey early morning rain. Dorado watched it streak across the window for a while before shifting slightly to read the clock. He had been awake all night of the fourth and most of the fifth as one of the last people decontaminated. He remembered giving his statement and evidence through glass walls in the infectious disease ward of Johns Hopkins. Once they got to him, HAZMAT immediately took the vials and nothing had been said about them since. Although he caught sleep between the seemingly endless tests during the two and half days in the hospital, Dorado felt surprisingly rested. The events of the last two days weighed heavily on him and he drove himself to stay awake to see it through to the end. It was over now but still sleep didn’t come easily.

  Sherrie snuggled closer, her naked body fitting tightly along the curve of his bare back. Trying to move as little as possible, he retrieved the TV remote from the headboard and thumbed on the news, volume set to low.

  The captioning flowed across the screen. The Chinese Delegation leaves by noon today with no settlement reached. One American delegate said that an accord might be possible with continued future talks. Meanwhile, communications businesses are gearing up for a redistribution of satellite orbits and China continues to threaten to destroy any non-Chinese object passing over their airspace.

  In other news, President Davison remains bedridden today after his collapse during the funeral of three-star general, Jefferson Talbot. The doctors for the President state that he seems to be in reasonable health, having only a small fever and headaches brought on by stress and the flu.

  Sherrie took the remote from him and thumbed it off. He rolled over and she laid her head on his chest. The rain beat out a tinny cadence against the window.

  He stroked her hair. “You okay? You’re shivering.”

  She sighed, “I've been doing a lot of thinking about what if.”

  “What if what?”

  “What if the world tottered on the edge of oblivion? What if the Chinese and Talbot had the same idea? What if the talks didn’t go anywhere because they weren’t supposed to? The Chinese only needed an excuse to visit. I mean, here we are in this perfect moment together, listening to the world spin out of control. It's like stories from the 1950s with the nuclear bomb scare.”

  “Kind of a large leap, don’t you think?”

  She rolled over, placing her hand and chin on his chest. Dorado, for the hundredth time, noted the deep blueness of her eyes. “Did you know that about half the delegates on both sides have come down sick?”

  Dorado frowned, “No.”

  “CNN mentioned it in one of the newsfeeds yesterday. It’s why the talks ended. The feed described them as being treated for mild flu symptoms. The Chinese delegates toured a lot while here. Turns out, they visited four other cities on the way to DC. Most folks ignored that fact because the news focused primarily on the peace talks. It seems somewhat unusual for delegates to come for talks and spend a lot of time hitting the nightlife and doing museums. That’s rarely ever done, because the Chinese handlers usuall
y don’t allow it.”

  “Show them a good time and it greases the way for agreement.”

  “Yes, that’s one theory. It also allows them to contact people all over the city.”

  “You’re saying that the Chinese came here to purposely infect people?”

  “I’m not sure what I’m saying.” She kissed his chest. “I know that in the first three cities they visited, hospitals report signs of a flu epidemic. It wasn’t a predicted flu so CDC is starting to investigate.”

  "You're jumping to conclusions based on circumstantial evidence."

  "Do you think I'm wrong?"

  Dorado sighed, "Not necessarily."

  "We may not know for sure until it's too late. What do you want to do about it?'

  Dorado didn’t answer. The silence flowed quietly between them for a while until Sherrie shifted her body flat against the mattress. “I have four weeks of vacation built up. You have about six.” She said.

  “You changed the subject.”

  “Not really. You haven’t taken any time off in about three years.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I hacked your personnel files. Our system has only minimal security. It wasn’t hard.”

  “It’s not a great time to take a vacation.” He turned on his side and stroked her hair with one finger.

  “You’re a hero right now. The department will grant you anything you want. How do you feel about sail boats?”

  “Boats?”

  “Yeah, let’s rent a large boat out of Annapolis. We can stock it up with lots of supplies and then head out tomorrow.”

  “Okay, Sounds romantic but where do we go?”

  “An island, probably in the Caribbean. I'll have to do some research but we'll want some place small, not easily reachable by airplane. The place should have resources for food and fresh water.”

  Dorado turned towards her. “What are you talking about?”

  "A safe haven. I'd want a place where the Chinese haven't visited and we can camp out for a while."

  "You're worried that the epidemic Mitchell predicted is coming."

  She stared into his eyes, unblinking. “In four weeks, we’ll know one way or another. We'll need to sail for about a week to reach the Caribbean. We stay on an island and listen for reports for a while. The news will cover any reports put out by the CDC. If it sounds safe, then we head back after two weeks. That is three weeks going out and one week coming back, four weeks total. Otherwise we should consider other options.”

  She laid her head back against his chest and more moments of silence passed between them. Dorado spoke again. “I want to tell my team. Quietly. Give them the same chance to survive.”

  She shifted against them. “We can make the phone calls right away. We'll have them come here for lunch and bring their wives as well. I think we should stay out of public spaces as much as possible.”

  He stroked her hair. “When do we leave?”

  “We’ll take today to arrange things. How's middle of tomorrow for you?”

  THE END

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