“Haven’t seen this before,” Jerry Amoy said. “He’s the first with the blisters. He’s also blind. The blisters have formed on his retinas and caused scarring. This isn’t the same disease we were seeing; this is classic smallpox.”
Sam wanted to step closer but her body didn’t allow it. A primordial aversion to sickness and death bubbled within her and prevented her from taking those few steps over to the side of the bed. But will is stronger than instinct. She forced herself over to look at the blisters.
There was no hemorrhaging underneath the dermis causing the characteristic charred appearance of the other patients.
“Is it a mutation in the virus?” Amoy said.
“I doubt it,” Sam replied. “We’d be seeing a lot more of it. It might be a new strain, appearing in the population at the same time.”
“That’s super unlikely,” Duncan said. “I’ve read that some patients are resistant to black pox. His body might have fought it off and just been left with…this.”
Samantha leaned down close to the man’s face. She felt her heart pounding and her breaths were inadvertently quick and shallow. “Can you hear me?” she said.
The man didn’t respond. His mouth was agape and his eyes closed, the lids covered with thick, bubbly blisters.
He suddenly shot up and gasped for breath as he began to writhe. She jumped back, into Duncan, as Amoy called some staff. They held the man down and injected a sedative.
“You okay?” Duncan asked.
Sam pulled away from him and straightened her hair, taking a deep breath. “Just to be on the safe side,” she said, “we need smallpox vaccinations.”
Duncan said, “We ordered thousands the second we heard. They’re not here yet but I’m sure they will be. It may be enough to inoculate against the black pox as well.”
Sam walked toward the door and stepped out into the corridor. “That death board has doubled from this morning. If this agent hits its tipping point, there’ll be no one left to inoculate. We need to get those vaccinations here as fast as possible.”
CHAPTER 20
Robert Greyjoy landed in Honolulu and stepped onto the tarmac a new man. He felt alive and refreshed, as if he’d slept for a week and just woken up to a sunny world that welcomed him with open arms. It was, in his mind, weakness. He was too sensitive to allow weather to affect him like this. He toned down his joyful response and headed into the airport.
The airport was just a simple airfield about twenty miles from Honolulu International. Whenever possible, Robert flew small, independent charters. It wasn’t a bad practice; usually it was just him and the pilot. But occasionally he would be seated on a plane with six other people that wanted to talk and he would have to feign interest and tell boring stories. He did everything he could to fit in, to seem so average he would not be remembered should anyone else ask later on.
There was a single cab outside on the curb and he walked to it and put his luggage in the trunk before getting into the backseat. He put on his seatbelt and instructed the driver to take him to Queen’s Medical Center.
“Eh,” the driver said, “haven’t you seen the news? Nobody’s allowed in right now.”
“I’ll be fine. Please go now.”
The cabbie pulled away from the curb and quickly made his way to the interstate by running a red light and speeding. When they had climbed the onramp and were cruising at a steady speed, the cabbie turned on a CD and began humming to the music. Robert took out his phone and began reading facts about the island: geography, history, anthropology, political climate, the economy, the most popular television shows and books, and a little about the language.
He was surprised to learn that there was a powerful anti-American movement in the state. Many were not happy with their island achieving unification with the mainland and would have preferred to stay independent. Robert had no doubt if that were so, China would begin making plans to add Hawaii as a colony. It was a little green gem in the sea, too tempting to pass up for larger nations.
The cab stopped at Queen’s Medical and he tipped the driver well; after their initial exchange, he had not spoken again. Something Robert preferred. He went around to the back of the hospital and saw two military police officers guarding the only entrance that was not barricaded with tape and plywood signs.
“Hello,” he said, pulling out an ID. He had three in his pocket and he took it out based on feel and glanced down quickly to make sure it was the right one. He flashed it and saw the MPs exchange looks.
“You’re the first agent from the FBI that’s come here, Mr. Donner.”
“Please,” Robert said, “call me Billy.”
“You can go inside and to the left, Billy. They’re making everyone suit up. You’ll find changing stations on either side of the hallway.”
“Thank you.”
He entered the hospital and looked down both ends of the corridor. They were empty. He closed his eyes and listened. He could hear someone speaking down the hall to the left. He followed the sound, taking his steps softly so as not to drown it out, and the speaking grew louder as he approached a conference room.
Several men in suits and uniforms sat at a conference table, both military and local police. They all glanced up when they saw him.
He smiled shyly and sat down at the end of the long table. No one said anything at first and the man that had been speaking continued when an older man in a suit stopped him and said, “Excuse me, who are you exactly?”
“Billy Donner. I’m the assistant special agent in charge of this operation for the FBI. I spoke to a Ralph Wilson on the phone.”
“Oh, right,” the old man said, “yeah, that was me. I’m Dr. Wilson. Thank you for getting out here so quickly, Agent Donner.” He looked to the man next to him. “Agent Donner is our liaison with the Feds. Sorry about the interruption, please continue.”
As the man resumed speaking, Robert leaned back in his chair. There certainly was an Agent William Donner somewhere, but he wouldn’t be making it to Hawaii.
“So in conclusion,” the man finally said, “I think the governor’s gonna have to declare a state of emergency. We’re approaching such a large population of infected that we’re risking exposure on the mainland.”
Wilson said, “Have there been any reported cases on the other islands?”
The man, who Robert had identified as Dr. Duncan Adams from a nametag on his chest, shook his head. “No, thank heaven. It’s completely localized to Oahu for now, with a central point in Honolulu. The initial patients tended to be in their mid to late thirties, healthy and active with above median incomes. That’s changing rapidly and we’re seeing older and younger people, which means the virus is spreading through the population at an exponentially accelerated rate. It’s like compound interest: each infected patient increases the number of patients each patient infects, if that makes sense,” Duncan said, looking at the men in uniform.
One of the military men asked, “What’s the tipping point? I heard another doctor here discussing that.”
“That’s the Twilight Zone. That’s what we call it as USAMRIID. It’s the point when an outbreak becomes a pandemic. It’s nothing major; a minor shift is enough to change a simple scare into a disease that kills millions. To give you an example, the flu virus has a one to one ratio, meaning that for each person infected, that person, on average, infects one other person. Should that number go from 1 to 1.3, it would be enough to cause the flu to reach a tipping point and grow exponentially and we’d have a pandemic like the 1918 that killed over a million people.”
“Is this disease approaching a tipping point or receding?” someone else asked.
“Hard to tell,” Wilson said before Duncan could answer. “Our data is somewhat scattershot right now but we’ve been compiling it since we got here and we should have some relatively accurate numbers within the next few days or so. Then we’ll know which way this disease is going.”