He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to clear them of the grisly images of young people cut down in the prime of life by some microscopic killer, a killer that was going to be his job to face and, he hoped, conquer.
He’d come to the CDC early in his career hoping to encounter just such challenges — knowing he could save far more lives by defeating and stopping plagues in their tracks than he ever could by doing research at some med school or by treating infectious diseases in private practice. And as trite as it sounded, saving lives was what he was all about.
In fact, while some in his med school class had laughed at the archaic Hippocratic Oath they’d all taken upon graduation, he’d taken the words to heart, believing they represented all that he’d sacrificed and worked so hard to obtain.
“I counted eleven so far!” Shirley Cole shouted above the pounding of the Huey’s turbine, peering out of the chopper’s door with a fierce grip on a lifeline.
“There’s no way to tell from here!” Sam Jakes cried, holding his own length of rope affixed to the Huey’s parachute rod while he gazed down at the jungle floor. He turned to Lauren Sullivan and nodded once, his eyes fierce as if he were going into combat with whatever had caused the massacre below.
“It would appear your information was correct, Dr. Sullivan! I see absolutely no signs of life. The entire expedition must have perished, along with a goodly number of Mexican laborers.” He took a deep breath and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Now we have to find out what killed them!”
A knot was forming in Mason’s stomach. If this archaeological team had truly died the way Lauren described their deaths, he and his Wildfire Team were about to step into a time warp from the 1920s, when Dr. Howard Carter’s expedition to Egypt unearthed King Tut’s tomb and his workmen and fellow archaeologists began to die mysteriously.
But that was ninety years ago and the cause of death had been found later to be an encapsulated fungus preserved for thousands of years, which no one in the sciences or medicine knew anything about back then.
There was a far more potentially deadly threat awaiting them here if the symptoms described were genuine. These people had reportedly died from some form of hemorrhagic shock or at least a massive infection mimicking such, not a fungal infection; and their copious bleeding spelled any number of dangerous possibilities.
What didn’t make sense to him was the apparent human-to-human transmission pointing toward a virus of unknown origin, an Ebola-like epidemic in the wrong place on the planet, ten thousand miles from any known outbreaks, as their virology specialist, Sam Jakes, had pointed out with his typical arrogance when Mason first called the team together for input.
He sighed, knowing in his gut that this was going to be a bad one, one that would require all of his focus if it was going to be defeated before it wreaked havoc on the rest of the world. He was just going to have to shut out the images of the dead and do what he and his team did best — identify the killer and find out how to kill it before it spread from its jungle location.
He pushed his microphone close to his lips and spoke to the pilot. “Put on your breathing mask and set us down as far away from the bodies as you can after we’re suited up. I’ll tap you on the shoulder when we’re ready.”
Mason took off his seat belt and got out of the copilot’s seat. “It looks like we have a hot zone, ladies and gentlemen!” he shouted into the belly of the craft, struggling to make himself heard over the roar of the engine.
“One of you help Dr. Sullivan put on her Racal suit and make sure it’s fully pressurized! We are going down!”
He glanced at Joel Schumacher and made a telephone sign with his hand next to his ear. “Radio our backup group at Mexico City airport to be on standby with the Cytotec BL Four mobile lab! From the looks of things up here, we’re sure as hell gonna need it and sooner rather than later!”
Mason forced the cargo door shut to keep out the wind, and he and the rest of the team began to unpack the large crate in the hold that held their Racal suits and breathing apparatus.
As he pulled the suit up over his feet and turned so Jakes could pull up the rear zipper and make sure it was airtight, he realized how dependent they all were on each other. Even a simple act of suiting up in the Racal was a two-man job, impossible by oneself.
Once he was zipped up and Jakes had secured duct tape over all the seams and the zipper, Mason turned to do the same for him.
As the helicopter bumped to a jarring landing on the grassy turf of the far edge of the clearing, the hiss of the metallic-tasting air from the tank on Mason’s back cleared the fog on his faceplate and made his nose pucker at the smell.
He moved his arms and took a couple of tentative steps, making sure everything worked correctly; after all, his life depended on the integrity of the suit. Finally satisfied, he climbed down out of the copter and waited for the rest of his team to disembark.
Mason was accustomed to the odd feeling of detachment inside a Racal space suit after so many years, and so were the other members of the team, but when Lauren showed signs of panic after climbing down from the chopper he understood and spoke to her through his headset in a gentle voice.
“Relax, Dr. Sullivan. It’s a strange feeling being enclosed in a Racal the first time, but it will pass. Breathe normally, and it isn’t necessary to hold your arms out like that or walk with stiff knees. These suits are very flexible, even if they are a bit clumsy.”
She tried for a smile, her face distorted behind the Plexiglas faceplate of her hood. “This is weird, like being in some kind of bubble. I feel dizzy and sick to my stomach.”
“You’re hyperventilating. Breathe slowly. Whatever you do, don’t take off your headgear if you do vomit. It won’t be very pleasant, but we can’t take any chances. If this is a hot-bug like we think it is, removing any part of your suit could kill you.”
He moved over to stand directly in front of her and put his face up close to her faceplate and his hands on her shoulders to reassure her that he was there for her if she needed him.
Seeing her face, he was reminded again how pretty she was. Tall, about five and a half feet, with long auburn hair, brilliant green eyes, and finely chiseled features; she wasn’t classically beautiful, but she was definitely not hard on the eyes. He smiled to himself, thinking the dusting of faint freckles across her nose and cheeks was like icing on a delicious cake.
He guessed her age at thirty and he’d liked her athletic build the moment he saw her at CDC headquarters early this morning, although her eyes were puffy and it was easy to see she had been crying. After hearing the story firsthand of her mentor’s late-night telephone call, her grief was easy to understand.
“I don’t know if I can do this, Dr. Williams,” she said as the Huey rose noisily above their heads, buffeting them with its downdraft. “It’s very hard to look at them, especially in the decomposed condition they’re in. In almost every case, they are my friends.”
“Someone has to identify them,” Mason replied shortly, watching Sam Jakes and Shirley Cole lift metal suitcases full of gear and move them over to the shade of some trees and out of the blazing tropical sun. The equipment in the cases was delicate and wouldn’t take well to overheating.
Suzanne Elliot and Lionel Johnson carried boxes away from the prop wash of the helicopter while Joel Schumacher hoisted his computer equipment, carrying it as if the cases were full of eggs.