The Doomsday Infection (31 page)

He pressed his communication button, paused and gathered his thoughts, thinking how crazy he would sound. At best, they would think him incompetent and his flying career would be over. At worst . . . nope, he shook his head. No, he didn’t want to think what the worst-case scenario would be.

He released the transmit button, and said; “This is flight two-zero-seven, come in?”

Instantly he received a response, and a cool detached voice replied. “Flight two-zero –seven, please stand by, you ar
e being patched through to the Pentagon.”

The P
entagon? His brain froze, what the hell? “Roger,” he replied aware that his voice had croaked.

“Flight two-zero-seven?” boomed a deep voice through his speaker, “this is Colonel Simpson, can you relay your findings please, over?”

The words stuck in his throat but finally he said. “I, erm, I can’t find the USS Thomas Jefferson, sir. It is not here. Over.” He trembled and wondered how incompetent they would think him.

“Stand by, two-zero-seven.”

The colonel looked around the vast mahogany conference table in stunned disbelief as the implication sunk in. Gathered in the war room were the best of the best. Each an expert in their field. Yet during the course of the evening none of them had noticed the lack of communication from their prized aircraft carrier, the jewel in the crown of the US navy fleet, and now in all likelihood it was floating aimlessly with a dead crew, or worse still, had been over-run by terrorists, or the unthinkable, it had somehow sunk.

Some of
the military men were ashen faced and silent. He resigned himself to the undeniable truth. He spoke to the pilot once more, “Flight two-zero-seven. Do a fly-past using infrared. Over.”

“Roger,”
lieutenant Carrington confirmed, switched the monitor on, and swooped low, he flew slowly over the co-ordinates. His jaw dropped. He stared at the screen stupefied and tried to register the enormity of what he saw. He glanced through the cockpit side window for a visual confirmation, and his heart sank.

He could see something glowing below the waves
, the size of which could only be the gigantic aircraft carrier. It corresponded with the enormous object showing upon his screen. He took a deep breath, unable to believe what he was about to say. He flicked on the transmit button, “this is flight two-zero-seven, over.”

Almost immediately, he received a reply. “This is Colonel Simpson, two-zero-seven, what have you discovered, over?”

“It’s – it’s down there, Colonel. Over.”

“Be more precise, son.”

Lieutenant Carrington’s heart palpitated and he said; “The USS Thomas Jefferson, it’s sunk, sir, it’s lying on the bottom of the ocean.”

23:25 PM

On an unlit Miami back street, a patrol had got lucky and had stopped a Toys R Us truck, which had been crawling along without lights. It had been a fluke that a soldier was playing around with infrared goggles and had seen t
he heat register of the engine.

“This way, sir,” said a young soldier, and led the hazmat suited General Malloy towards the truck. “You’re going to love this. A truck-f of wet-backs.” He handed him a flashlight, as Malloy struggled up th
e tailboard into the truck.

The general sucked in his breath in surprise. He shone the flashlight beam around the truck, and saw the thirty or so dark-skinned illegal immigrants cowering in the dark, held captured and under the gunpoint of several soldiers.

The frightened Cubans’ stared at the orange-suited soldiers as if they were aliens from another planet. “Anyone speak English?” general Malloy asked in a metallic voice that spooked the quaking illegal immigrants further.

A young girl held up her hand apprehensively. “I speak it some,” she said.

“When did you get here?”

“One hour ago.”

“You do know that the Black Death is killing everyone here?”

“Si.”

“Then why -” He stopped the line of inquiry. He knew the answer. Now, of course, the perfect time to enter the country illegally, while the navy and coast guard were stretched to capacity. Even though they faced almost certain death from the Black Death, the illegal immigrants still kept on coming in like an unstoppable tidal wave.

“How did you get here?” he asked the girl.

“By boat.”

“Where did you disembark?

“
No comprendo?
”

“Where did you land?” he asked but her expression still looked blank. “Where did the boat stop?”

“Near Miami, I think,” she said. “We, erm, did this . . .” she made swimming gestures with her hands.

“Swam?

“Si, we swammed from the boat.”

“That’s impossible,” the general snapped.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s impossible, that you could sail in close to Miami, without being challenged.”

“I no understand?

“There would have been patrols. They would have spotted you on radar at the very least. There are scanners aboard a ship fitted with motion detectors, infra-red detectors, long-range radar, short-wave radar, this could not happen,” he said more
to himself, knowing that she was not following any of it.

He clambered out of the truck, and spoke to his second in command, Major Harris. “I knew it was a mistake to let the goddamned navy run the show. We have
one on the most expensive ships ever built moored off the coast of Miami, armed with the most sophisticated equipment ever assembled to detect any foreign enemy, flying, sailing the ocean, or even under it, down to the size of a square yard, and these clowns sailed in right under our noses. Tell me, how in the name of God did that happen?”

“That’s
Swabbies for you, sir. I would not trust them an inch.”

“When did we last report in?”

“Don’t know, sir.”

The general turned and beckoned over the signalman, easy to spot due to the backpack he wore, complete with a telltale antenna protruding from the top of the radio communications pack. “You! When did you last have contact with the Thomas Jefferson?”

“I’ve not been able to get through, General.”

“And when were you going to tell me this piece of information?”

“It did not seem important, sir, it’s routine after all, and well, you know the radio is temperamental to say the least,” he stated, the poorly-made equipment in the field, a constant everyday complaint of a modern infantryman. It was a well known fact that tenders put out to the lowest bidder, even after all the back-hands that oiled commerce, had been taken into account meant that the equipment would be inferior and sub-standard, an issue that General Malloy had raised with congress on more than one occasion himself.

“
Goddamnit,” he said flatly. “Try again, we gotta tell those navy sonsofbitches, that their multi-billion dollar warship failed to stop a boatload of wet-backs.” He shook his head in shame. “My God, can you imagine what would have happened if they had been the enemy? Not some spics chancing their luck. How many more have gotten in? What if enemy operatives have slipped through the net? Jesus H. Christ. The shit will hit the fan when the Pentagon hears of this. The Thomas Jefferson’s one role is to protect our borders. I’ll see to it that Captain Phillips is demoted and ends his days swabbing the decks,” General Malloy sighed. “You know this means we’re going to have to double the patrols.”

“We’re at capacity already, General.”

“We need to find the men from somewhere, Major. We thought we had swept through the district and eliminated the plague-carriers, and now there’s a new influx of soon-to-be carriers, it’s a never-ending tide of human filth trying to enter our country. Why in God’s name would they be so desperate to enter the country that they’re prepared to succumb to the Bubonic Plague? It’s not as if we haven’t warned the world of the disease. They know it’s fatal. Why are they so dumb?”

The signalman returned shaking his head. “I’ve tried everything to communicate with the ship. It’s as if it’s completely disappeared, sir.”

“Dismissed,” he said. The signalman snapped a salute and left. The Major turned to General Malloy. “There was an explosion, earlier today, you don’t think . . .?

They said there’d been an accident. That a helicopter had crashed. But that wouldn’t have much effect on a six hundred ton vessel.”

Major Harris’s brow creased deep in thought. “Permission to speak candidly, sir?” he asked.

“Granted.”

“It strikes me, General, that we’re fighting a losing battle. If our ships cannot protect our shoreline from one simple boatload of illegal immigrants, and word gets out, we are going to be swamped with them; we won’t be able to cope. And it’ll only take one infected person to break through the cordon for the contagion to spread through the rest of the country and then . . .” He waved his arms around. “We’ll have this chaos times a hundred, a thousand.” He paused as the general glowered at him. He gulped, then continued. “You know I’m right. You must have thought it yourself, we can’t be sure that we’ll kill every last citizen, without a tidal wave of wetbacks pouring ashore. If one of them gets word back home -”

“Then make sure word doesn’t get out,” he snapped.

The major nodded his understanding, turned and rapidly gave an order to the troops.

General Malloy knew the major had spoken the truth, it was no longer possible to rid southern Florida of it
s population, if every time they dispatched one wetback another ten illegal immigrants would be happy to take their place. What was wrong with them, he wondered? The worst pestilence that the world had ever known ravaged the state of Florida and still the wetbacks wanted to enter the country. It wasn’t workable, and if they couldn’t rely on the navy to do their part and patrol the sea, how was he and his meager supply of men meant to safeguard the vast landmass of Florida? It was out of control and he was not afraid to admit it.

He snapped his fingers at the signalman. “Get me the Pentagon.”

“General?” said the major to get his attention. “We’re ready?” He nodded as the hazmat suited men alighted from the truck and pointed their rifles inwards.

“Carry on,” the G
eneral said flatly. He took the radio from the signalman and while he spoke to the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the pentagon, gunfire lit up the night sky, the blasts of the gunfire and the screams of the dying filling the air. The General told them of their latest discovery and stood grim faced while he heard the news of the USS Thomas Jefferson.

A soldier armed with a flame-thrower lit up the truck from a safe distance, until it exploded. General Malloy ducked slightly and put a finger in his ear, trying to hear what Colonel Simpson suggested, then his face cracked into a smile as
he was reinstated as the Commander of the tri-services in the exclusion zone.

23:31 PM

L
uke found the going tough, as if hobbling on his makeshift crutch was not bad enough as Sophie led the way from the canal, the inky black darkness hampered Luke further. He only had one flimsy flashlight beam to guide them both. They had been travelling some time as Sophie led them further into the forest, through the indigenous mangrove and cypress trees, which gave Luke the impression of a jungle. They had agreed that this was their best plan of action, as the troop-patrols were going to be mainly on the streets and the odd flyby. Sophie had suggested that they get to the Everglades and use the vastness of the swamps to lose themselves from the enemy, and with the aid of connecting rivers travel north to Lake Ockeekee and freedom.

Luke stumbled, and fell to the dirt. Sophie helped him to stand. “Come on, you’re doing fine, it’s only a little further. The boat-house should be near,” she smiled brightly at him, trying to cheer him. Being back to nature filled her with bliss. The Everglades always did. She loved the wide-open spaces, the sheer
hugeness of the water made her feel peaceful. She liked to get to the Everglades whenever she had the time. She would travel on one of the ubiquitous airboats to penetrate deep into the sub-tropical swamp. She found it cleansing to be back to nature, away from the hot, sweaty city of Miami and its hoards of people all crammed in together.

She hoped that Luke would feel the same, although she doubted it, he seemed to be a city boy through and through. She tripped on a log, and pointed out the hazard to Luke. She found herself daydreaming about the two of them returning together to the Everglades when this epidemic was over and taking an airboat out, even maybe go camping. “I can hear water and if my navigation is correct we should see the boathouse and the Everglades.”

“Everglades,” he groaned. “Home of the alligator.”

“They stay in the water, away from humans, usually.”

“Usually?” he said with a sarcastic edge to his voice.

“Did you know that the Everglade also has crocodiles?” she asked pushing branches of cypress tree from her face.

“No I didn’t.”