And now they were off hunting. Several dead villages in the Amazon highlands didn’t necessarily mean they had another Ebola3 on their hands, Norward knew. But if they did, at least they wouldn’t be starting from scratch preparing this expedition.
In the past several decades Ebola3, Ebola, and Marburg had broken out occasionally in Africa and killed with ruthless efficiency — or propagated with amazing strength, depending on one’s outlook, Norward thought. Then it had disappeared. There was still no vaccine for those known scourges — never mind something new. It was a sore point at both USAMRIID and the CDC in Atlanta that they hadn’t broken any of the filovirus codes. The only thing they had accomplished in the past several years was to come up with a field test to determine if someone had Ebola or Marburg.
But South America was something new. And the bouncer — Norward wondered how that was involved. Was it simply being used because of the time rush? And Colonel Carmen indicating that this trip was occurring outside of official channels added to the mystery.
“Here’s our ride,” Kenyon said.
The bouncer came in low over the grounds in front of the main building for USAMRIID. The gear that they would need was piled next to them. Norward marveled as the alien craft came to hover, then silently touched down on the lawn.
An Air Force officer came out of the top hatch.
“Major Norward?”
Norward nodded. “Yes.”
“We’ve got your ride.” He looked at the lab gear. “Might take us a couple of minutes to get your stuff loaded. This whole thing is kind of unorthodox, but we’ll get you out of here as fast as we can.”
“How long will it take us to get to the target area?” Kenyon asked.
“We have to stop at the Stennis first to pick up a couple of passengers.” Kenyon shook his head. “We don’t have time for any side trips.”
“What’s the big rush?”
“In an hour,” Kenyon said, “certain viruses can replicate themselves almost a million times. That is the rush.”
CHAPTER 12
Inside the Springfield the crew waited. The three foo fighters were still on station. Captain Forster was prepared to wait until he was just about out of oxygen — two months — before doing anything. He’d heard the Pasadena destroyed by the foo fighters and he had no desire to share that fate.
The bottom line, though, was that the ball was in the court of the politicians, and Captain Forster knew that he might well have to get close to running out of oxygen before any decision would be made. If it was up to Admiral Poldan, commanding the carrier task force just twenty miles away, Forster knew there would be nukes hitting Easter Island until there was no longer an island. But the ball was not in the military’s court.
On Easter Island, Kelly Reynolds’s body had all but ceased functioning, held in the field by the guardian. Her mind, though, was still alert. And she still saw images, slices of the past.
The largest statue of all, over seventy feet in length and two hundred tons, lay among four hundred other unfinished statues on the side of Rano Raraku. But there were no people to raise it in warning.
The last Birdman had violated the law. People had come from over the sea. From the rising sun, ignoring the warning of the Moai statues along the shore. They had talked to the Birdman, then left. He had gone inside of Rano Kau. He was gone for five days, and when he came back the people had split — those who remembered why they were here on one side against the blasphemers who followed the Birdman.
The latter began tearing down the statues, destroying the warning signs. The former fought them. The bloody civil war raged, but then the Black Death came and killed both sides indiscriminately until all traces of the old ways, the stones, the writing of high runes on the rongo-rongo tablets, all was gone.
The Guide Parker accessed his e-mail. There was only one message waiting and he knew where it was from, given that his address was available to only one place.
As he reached forward to move the mouse to open the message, he noticed his hand was shaking. He tried to steady it, but his nerves were unable to do that. With difficulty, he opened the message and read it.
The timetable had been moved up. There was no explanation, nor was one required. The orders were succinct and to the point. Parker sent his acknowledgment.
Duncan, Turcotte, and Yakov were walking up a steel staircase toward the flight deck when a crewman stopped them.
“Dr. Duncan?”
“Yes?”
The crewman held out a computer disk. “This just came in for you over the secure Interlink with Area 51.”
“Is the bouncer due in soon?” Turcotte asked.
“Yes, sir. Five minutes out.”
“Escort the passengers to the conference room,” Duncan said.
Duncan took the disk and she, Turcotte, and Yakov retraced their steps. “What now?” Turcotte asked.
“I don’t know.” Duncan turned on her laptop and slid the disk in. She accessed her A drive. “It’s an AVI.”
“A what?” Turcotte asked.
“A video that can be run on a computer,” Duncan said.
“On a computer disk?” Turcotte shook his head. “Guess I’m just technologically impaired. Who’s it from?”
“Major Quinn.” Duncan was working on the computer. She looked up. “He received it from Harrison.”
“Your mystery man,” Yakov said.
They heard footsteps in the passageway. The door opened and the two USAMRIID men walked in. The introductions were quickly made.
“What do you have?” Kenyon immediately asked.
“Nothing more than I sent Colonel Carmen,” Duncan said. She gestured at Yakov. “He believes we have another version of the Black Death.”
Norward frowned. “The plague hasn’t been eradicated — there was an outbreak in India just last year — but it’s not the threat it once was. We can handle that. And the plague doesn’t kill as quickly and thoroughly as the imagery we’ve seen.”
“Something with an effect like that of the Black Death,” Yakov amended, “not necessarily the same thing.”
“I think we’ll have a better idea in a second.” Duncan was still at her computer. “I’ve got a video here from South America. Gather round.”
Once everyone could see the screen, she hit the button to play the video. A man was standing on the wooden deck of a ship. His skin was covered with black lines.
The man staggered, then went down to his knees vomiting blood and going into convulsions. A second figure appeared, holding something in his hands. The first man gave a strange, choking sound. He vomited a vast quantity of dark red blood.
The second figure leaned over and put his hand into the man’s mouth, sweeping around with his fingers, trying to clear it out. He wiped off a mass of black goo onto the first man’s shirt, then put the tip of a tube inside the man’s mouth. The man violently threw up again. This time it was a mass that went around the tube and splattered into the first man’s face and over his chest.
“Breathing tube,” Kenyon said. “The vomit and blood must be blocking the throat.”
“He’s not gloved or masked,” Norward whispered in horror.
“Look at his arms,” Kenyon said. “Same black tracks. Not as advanced. He’s got it too.”
The man got the breathing tube stuck in the other’s neck. He looked over his shoulder at the camera. “My name is Harrison.”
The voice sounded tinny coming out of the small speakers of the laptop, but Duncan recognized it as the same one from the phone.