Scott Sigler - Contagious

Thirty-three soldiers dead at the Gaylord airport. Thirty-three so far, because some of the wounded weren’t going to make it. Ogden gone AWOL. The Exterminators unaccounted for. And now Detroit.

They had all gathered in the Situation Room; the Joint Chiefs, the secretary of defense, Tom Maskill, Vanessa. Gutierrez himself would be there soon.

The main flat-panel screen changed to a news helicopter’s shot of a highway. The bottom left corner of the screen showed a logo for Detroit’s WXYZ-TV. The bottom center of the screen read EIGHT MILE OVERPASS AT I-75. Hundreds of cars sat motionless on the three lanes heading north as well as the three lanes heading south. On I-75, cars had driven up the inclined shoulder, some stopping there, others rolling back down to land on their sides or roofs.

The traffic on the overpass itself looked much the same—motionless cars, smoke, flames and bodies sprawled everywhere. The only movement was near one green vehicle.

A Humvee.

Even from the high angle, Murray could see two men in fatigues. Wherever they moved, little puffs of smoke from automatic weapons soon followed.

The speakers suddenly played the sound that accompianied the image.

“…we don’t know who these men are or how many people are hurt. We can see bodies from here. The vehicle is army green, but there is no unit insignia.”

An air response was already on the way. A-10 tank killers from Selfridge would be the first to engage, then Apache attack helicopters. Murray had even scrambled Ogden’s squadron of four dedicated Strike Eagles—he just prayed he wouldn’t have to use any bombs on Detroit.

“Murray,” Tom said.

Murray tore his eyes away from the screen. Tom had a phone in his hand again.

“Dew Phillips on line two, said it’s mission-critical.”

Murray nodded, grabbed the nearest phone and hit line two as he looked back to the surreal carnage on the screen.

“Dew,” Murray said. “You okay?”

“Yeah, so is Perry, but a squad of Ogden’s men tried to kill us. They took out Baum and Milner. Perry identified the gate location—it’s in Detroit, and apparently it opens up at one-fifteen sharp.”

“We’ve got a lot of gunfire in Detroit,” Murray said. “Rockets, too. Looks like more of Ogden’s men. He’s AWOL, so he’s either dead or hiding somewhere and calling the shots.”

“We know,” Dew said. “It’s all over the news.”

“Where are you?”

“With Whiskey Company,” Dew said. “Two platoons in three Ospreys, headed for Detroit. We’ll be there in thirty minutes. We’ll set down, then Perry will find the gate.”

Murray popped four more Tums into his mouth and chewed. This couldn’t be happening. They’d had it won.

“Another one,” Tom called out.

“Dew, hold on,” Murray said. He looked at the screen. The bottom left corner of this one showed Fox-2 News. The center bottom of the screen read 8-MILE OVERPASS AT M-10 JOHN C. LODGE FREEWAY. The scene looked like a mirror image of the other, hundreds of cars piled up on the road, a Humvee on the overpass with soldiers firing away.

Nothing could get through that tangled mess of cars. Ogden was shutting down the highways into and out of Detroit.

Murray turned his attention back to the call. “Dew, if this is Ogden’s doing, what the hell is he up to?”

“Causing chaos,” Dew said. “Looks like he’s trying to block all traffic in and out. He wants a big perimeter with lots of civilians inside it so you won’t drop bombs if we find the gate.”

“Motherfucker,” Murray said.

“Are the other two DOMREC companies still at Fort Bragg?”

“They’re already on their way to Detroit,” Murray said. “They should land at DTW in about thirty minutes. I’ll also activate the Eighty-second Airborne. It will take them eight hours, but…”

His voice trailed off. He didn’t need to finish. If the gate opened and something came through, the Eighty-second would be the first organized unit to tackle it.

“I hear you,” Dew said. “One more thing. Sergeant Major Nealson said he saw at least two platoons of X-Ray Company at the airport this morning. They aren’t there now, and there’s only two squads accounted for—that means a platoon and a half has to be on the way to Detroit. Roughly forty-five men. Get some birds in the air to take them out.”

“Take them out?” Murray said. “We don’t know those men are infected. We can set up a roadblock, test them. If they’re negative, we use them to go after whatever Ogden has in Detroit.”

“A roadblock?” Dew said. “Are you insane ? Do you really want heavily armed, combat-tested soldiers going up against some state troopers in a roadblock?”

Dew was right. “I’ll take care of it,” Murray said.

“Get on the offensive, Murray. Pin them down, whatever it takes. We have to get Perry on the ground in Detroit so we can find the gate.”

“Wait for Yankee and Zulu companies to arrive from Fort Bragg,” Murray said. “Ogden’s units have ten Stinger missiles, and you can bet he took them all to Detroit. We need to account for those before you go in. We can’t afford to lose Dawsey.”

“L. T., if Perry’s right about the time, that thing opens up in seventy-five minutes. Whatever you do, don’t drag your feet.”

“Just hold outside the city,” Murray said. “We’ll get to work softening up his positions, tasking satellite coverage to see if we can spot the gate and find you someplace to land.”

Margaret stood in the isolation chamber, looking down at Officer Carmen Sanchez. Clarence stood outside the chamber—patient, quiet, clearly ready to act if Sanchez sprang to life.

But that just wasn’t going to happen. Sanchez was having difficulty breathing, and it was only getting worse. She might have to intubate him soon. That, or take him off the latrunculin altogether, because he wouldn’t live through another hour of the treatment.

His tongue still looked normal.

His tissue samples no longer showed crawlers. Either the latrunculin had worked or the last ones had moved into his brain. But if they had reached his brain, was the chemical stopping them from forming that mesh? Could the mesh form despite the chemical?

No. She refused to believe that. It had worked. This was so much bigger than just Sanchez. Latrunculin worked . It killed them. Not all of them, but a lot, and that meant she had a weapon. The weapon needed development, true, but at least she had a starting point.

And if it didn’t work, then she had nothing. No cure. Sanchez had been exposed to a small amount of the vector. If she couldn’t defeat that much, what could she do against higher amounts of exposure? Some of the John Doe’s pustules had grown to the size of baseballs—a hundred times the size of what had popped on Sanchez. Someone hit with that much contagion and she’d have no chance at all.

Fuck Murray’s secrecy. Margaret was going public, and she’d call Dew out on his offer to back her up. Would Clarence also back her, or would he continue to obey orders ?

Gitsh’s voice in her earpiece. “Otto, Dew’s calling in.”

“Patch him through,” Clarence said.

“You’re connected, Dew,” Gitsh said. “Otto and Margo are listening in.”

Dew’s voice, urgent and excited. “Otto, have you or your people had any contact with Ogden’s men?”

“No sir,” Clarence said. “We’ve been working all night on the John Doe and the police officer. We didn’t even know Ogden’s men were in Detroit.”

“They are,” Dew said. “And you are to avoid him at all costs. Your trailer, is it visible from a main road?”