After the call ended, Guo Kang received an encrypted file containing a complete target package. It was obvious the General had been keeping his eye on the doctor for some time, and he scrolled through the photos with increasing excitement and memorized the information. He knew where the doctor lived and worked. He knew where her daughter went to school and at what times the school bus picked her up and dropped her off.
After committing the target package to memory, Guo Kang dressed in a pair of black jeans and dark gray sweater and slipped on a pair of all-white Nike Air Force 1 shoes. Satisfied with his appearance, he exited his condo and took the elevator to the parking garage, where he approached the Nardo Gray Audi RS6 Avant parked in one of his two spaces. He slipped into the Valcona leather seat while reaching down to press the button that started the twin-turbocharged V8, smiling at the low harmonic of almost six hundred horses at his disposal.
Guo Kang took his time to adjust the climate control settings and turned on his heated seat, then put the high-performance wagon into gear and pulled out of the garage. The San Diego scenery blurred as he drove north from downtown to La Jolla.
7
Tan Lily pulled into her reserved parking space in the lot off Gilman Drive, just a short, shaded walk down a flight of stairs from her office in the Medical Teaching Facility at the University of California San Diego. She wore a long gray pencil skirt and matching wool sweater over a loose white blouse, enjoying the mild temperatures before autumn gave its last gasp and surrendered to winter. She locked the Volvo V60 and walked up the concrete steps to the entrance on the northwest corner of the building.
Smiling at the students and researchers she passed, she realized her mind was already focused on the lecture she was to give that morning. That always seemed to be the case, and she acknowledged that her work consumed her. It wasn’t something she was overly proud of, especially because it interfered with her ability to pay attention to her daughter.
With a sigh, she pushed her increasing guilt aside. Maybe after her lecture she could quiet her mind, if only for the weekend. She grinned at the thought of taking her daughter to the San Diego Zoo and strode across campus, ignoring the simplistic beauty in the medical school’s industrial-looking buildings on either side of her.
Tan Lily walked inside and took the stairs to her office in the Global Health Institute, nodding at her colleagues on the Global Infectious Diseases working group as she made her way to where she had hung her white lab coat from a hook behind the door. She paused to slip the coat on over her sweater, then took a seat behind her desk, where the notes for her lecture sat unfinished in front of her computer.
She was only in her second year with the Institute and had already made a positive impact in their work, helping to identify three strains of carbapenem-resistant enterobacterales — a class of bacteria that caused common diseases, such as E. coli. The Centers for Disease Control had identified CRE as one of the nation’s top five most urgent antibiotic resistance threats, and discovering the strains was the first step in learning how to defeat them. She was proud that their work would have a meaningful global impact.
But she was passionate about the topic of that morning’s lecture.
“Are you ready?” The voice startled her, and she looked up to see the smiling face of Wang Li, a postdoctoral research associate.
“Almost,” she replied, scooping up her notes to review the handwritten comments she had added to the margins.
“Well, I’m eager to hear your lecture, Tan Laoshi.”
With a smile, the girl walked out of her office. Tan Lily appreciated her use of the traditional Chinese form of address — referring to her as Teacher Tan—but it reminded her of what was at stake. She looked at the framed picture of her husband and daughter and felt a tightness in her chest at seeing her once happy family.
With a deep breath, she forced aside her feelings and went back to preparing for her lecture.
An hour later, Tan Lily stood behind the podium and adjusted the microphone as her colleagues and students filled the auditorium. She squinted through the bright spotlights shining down on her, looking for a friendly face she could focus on to help her get through the lecture. Her heart raced with anxiety, but she tamped back her fear. This was an important topic, and she needed to get people to listen.
The crowd quieted into a soft murmur of hushed voices as the last of her audience settled into place. She turned away briefly to clear her throat, then spoke confidently into the microphone.
“Show of hands,” she said. “How many of you tested positive for COVID-19?”
She saw more than two-thirds of the audience proudly raise their hands, almost as if they were displaying a survivor’s badge of honor.
“You’re not alone. There were over seven hundred and fifty million confirmed cases over the course of the pandemic. Six million deaths. But our global response to the coronavirus was slow, lethargic, and ineffective. Worse, it gave a road map to terrorists and hostile states intent on harnessing the power of fear.”
She saw their hands drop, and she pressed a button on the remote to bring up a slideshow of photographs on the screen behind her, showing people dining in plastic bubbles on the sidewalk, wearing face masks in public parks, and being arrested on the beach. “Lockdown measures were put in place to temporarily protect the vulnerable from an unknown danger, giving the scientific community an opportunity to find a solution. But over the course of the next two years, the draconian measures put in place to protect… began to harm. Their long-term effects on the mental health of the population — especially vulnerable groups, such as those in poor socioeconomic conditions, the homeless, or immigrants — resulted in a one thousand percent increase of calls to the national suicide hotline.”
She clicked the button again, and the picture changed to show a group of Islamic terrorists wielding AK-47 automatic rifles. Click. The picture showed a gathering of armed white men wearing camouflage fatigues and displaying a furled Gadsden flag with its motto “Don’t Tread On Me.” Click. The picture showed a mob of masked black-clad individuals carrying cudgels and hurling Molotov cocktails.
“Regardless of political bent or affiliation, our response to the coronavirus only demonstrated that one need not wait for a pandemic to cripple a nation.” Click. The picture changed and showed a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at sea. “In January 2020, the first two cases of COVID-19 were reported aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. A week later, ship’s leadership began taking precautions against transmission. One month after that, the ship placed thirty-nine individuals in quarantine due to the potential of having come into contact with two British citizens at a hotel in Da Nang, Vietnam. Two days after that, the World Health Organization declared a worldwide pandemic.”
Click. The screen went dark.
“Now imagine what life was like in those early days. It’s March 2020, and the news is continuing to report the worst potential outcomes. Cholera, bubonic plague, smallpox, Spanish flu… zombie apocalypse.”
The audience laughed.
“We are told that this will change our lives forever.” Click. The screen showed an aircraft carrier in port. “Aboard the Roosevelt, four sailors are identified with COVID and taken off the carrier. The next day, the number jumps to thirty-three. Two days later, forty-six. The next day, fifty-three. The numbers are spiraling out of control, and the media uses the Navy ship as an example of how deadly the virus is.”