In a process that had become routine, the slightly dented but still-full container was removed from the truck and placed in the delivery area, waiting to be unloaded. When its turn finally came an hour and a half later, the door was unsealed, and a crew started moving the barrels out.
Because the contents of the barrels had been carefully designed to omit no odor, the men didn’t discover the barrel with the broken seal until they neared it toward the back of the container. When they saw that some of its contents had been sloshed onto the walls and floor, they rushed out of the box, worried that they had been poisoned.
Ayush rushed over. “Why have you stopped? There are still barrels inside.”
“One of them is open,” someone said.
“The poison is everywhere,” another added.
“What if we breathed it in? Are we going to die?”
The others began shouting variations on the same question.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Ayush told them, patting his hands against the air to calm them down. “Show me.”
“It’s there,” one of the men said, pointing at the open container. “Go see for yourself.”
Annoyed, Ayush approached the container and looked in. It took him only a second to spot the mess.
The managers had briefed him and the other leaders about the spray. While it was apparently deadly to mosquitoes, it was harmless to human beings in all but extremely large doses. Did this qualify as that? He didn’t think so, but it was probably better to check.
“Start on the next container,” he ordered.
“But what about us? Should we see the doctor?”
“No. You are fine. The spray cannot hurt you. It is meant for mosquitoes, not humans.”
“It still might be dangerous for us.”
“It’s not. But to be sure, you keep working and I will go check with the managers. They will tell us if everything is okay or not.”
“You promise?”
“Of course, I promise.”
The manager in the office at the time Ayush entered was a man named Dettling.
“Yes?” he asked as Ayush stood in the doorway waiting to be noticed.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, sir, but one of the barrels had opened.”
Dettling looked surprised. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. The seal has broken on one, and much of what was inside has spilled into the container. The men who were doing the unloading are concerned and want to know if they should see a doctor. I told them everything would be fine, but I had them move on to a new container so I could ask you what we should do with the open barrel first.”
“Did they breathe it in?”
The tone in Dettling’s voice worried Ayush. “I think probably, yes. They were in the container for some time before they found the bad barrel. Is that a problem? I’ve been told the spray is harmless against us.”
“No, no. It is harmless. It’s just…supply is so tight…uh…losing even one barrel could be a…problem.” He paused. “Go back out and tell them everything is fine. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
As soon as Ayush left the office, Dettling rushed over to the door and shut it. He didn’t use the phone on his desk, but instead retrieved the sat-phone from his briefcase to make the call.
He was greeted with a recorded message, then a prompt. He said, “This is Dettling. Mumbai. I-7.”
Dead air for a few seconds, then a click. “Go ahead,” a live voice said.
Unconsciously, Dettling touched the spot on his upper arm where he’d received his KV-27a vaccination. “We have an accidental breach.”
“Explain.”
Sanjay was bone-tired when he dragged himself back to the dormitory at a quarter after ten that night. The only thing that kept him from heading straight up to bed was the growl in his stomach.
In the cafeteria, he piled the food onto his plate and carried it over to one of the common tables. Often, he had dinner with his cousin, but Ayush wasn’t around.
Though the room was packed, few were talking. It seemed as if the only energy anyone could muster was used to move food from plate to mouth.
Once Sanjay was done, he made his way up to the dorm. He was assigned to a room that held ten people total. He shared it with others who had been given supervisory roles, including Ayush. Only Ayush wasn’t there, either.
That was unusual, but not enough for Sanjay to think anything was wrong. Within five minutes, he was deeply asleep, unaware that Ayush and all the others who had been in contact with the contaminated container had been moved to the basement of a building three miles away, out of sight of anyone who might raise an alarm.
23
I.D. MINUS 72 HOURS
GILSTRAP HALL
HAWKINS UNIVERSITY
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
Corey felt fine when they arrived back in St. Louis just before dawn, but by the time he and Jeannie went out for breakfast at the Perch Cafe, he’d developed a case of the sniffles.
A cold, he thought, probably brought on by his lack of sleep and exposure to the freezing night air in Chicago. A couple cold tablets plus a few hours in bed and he should be fine.
At eleven a.m. he woke with a jolt, overcome by a coughing fit. He tried to get out of bed to get some water, but the room began spinning the moment he rose to his feet, causing him to drop back to the mattress. He closed his eyes, willing the dizziness to go away. It didn’t work.
Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe this wasn’t a common cold after all. After three tries, he was able to grab his phone off the nightstand. He stared at it for a moment, not remembering who he’d wanted to call.
Jeannie. Right.
He spent longer than usual looking for her name at the top of his favorites list before calling.
“Hey,” she said. “Thought you were sleeping.”
“I…I…”
“Corey?”
“Not…I think…doctor…”
“Corey, are you all right?”
Her words faded away as the phone slipped from his ear, and he fell back on the bed.
Jeannie pounded on the door. “Corey?”
She gave it five seconds, then tried again. When there was still no response from inside, she went in search of Corey’s resident advisor, Barry Kellerman. Barry wasn’t in his room, so she ran downstairs to the lounge.
The RA was on the couch with two other guys, watching SportsCenter on TV.
“Corey’s sick,” she said, running up to him. “He’s not answering his door.”
Barry pushed himself up. He was a good RA, and knew when to take things seriously and when not to. “Come on.”
They ran up the stairs side by side, with Barry’s buddies tagging along behind them. When they reached Corey’s door, Barry knocked.
“I already did that,” Jeannie said. “Just open it.”
He hesitated a second before shoving the master key into the lock.
Corey was lying across the bed on top of the covers, his phone next to him.
Jeannie rushed over. “Corey? Hey, Corey. Can you hear me?”
She put her hand on his shoulder to wake him, but immediately pulled it back in surprise. He was burning up. She grabbed him again and shook him.
“Corey. Wake up. Corey!”
It was no use. He was completely out.
She looked back at Barry. “Call an ambulance!”
It took twelve minutes for the EMTs to arrive. In that time, over half a dozen other residents of Gilstrap Hall poked their heads into Corey’s room to see what was wrong.
At the hospital, he was put on fluids and anti-viral medication within two minutes of arrival. One of the upshots of the Sage Flu outbreak earlier that year was improved isolation protocol across the nation. Because of this, Corey was placed in a quarantined room. In addition, one of the nurses gathered all the names of people who might have come in contact with him.