Case: Black by James Savik - Part One

Vozrozhdeniya Island (a.k.a the Island of Death)
Aral Sea
Soviet Biological Warfare Testing Facility
Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

July 20, 1984

"Come on Vanya, unless you want to be another test subject!"

Vanya Akulov quickly tested the restraining strap and checked the instruments monitoring the test subject’s vital signs on the last chimpanzee and left the large vapor chamber. The beast gave him a murderous glare but was completely restrained and tranquilized. There were thirty test subjects inside the chamber and none of them would leave it alive.

Akulov stopped and heaved the heavy steel door closed and sealed the large bell shaped chamber. The walls were four meters thick with reinforced concrete over stainless steel with a thick, tough vinyl liner to stop any possible moisture from penetrating the concrete. When the tests were done, a binary gas used in fuel air explosives would be pumped into the chamber and ignited reducing anything inside to ashes. Nothing could be allowed to escape for the bacteria and viruses tested there were the denizens of hell itself.

It was a big day for the youthful virologist. It was the first full up test of his brainchild which had been given the innocuous title of preparation 437.

Preparation 437 began as an Alphavirus. In its original form, it caused Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis or VEE and was a mosquito borne menace to horses and people in its original Columbian jungle. It had been troublesome enough for a vaccine to be developed but still had interesting characteristics to people contemplating biological weapons.

As an Alphavirus, it had a ridiculously simple, almost elegant structure. VEE was a positively sensed, single stranded RNA virus. It was this very simplicity that allowed Akulov to radically redesign the virus by splicing its genetic material. It was no longer VEE. It was a genetically programmed bioweapon. Like its origin, Preparation 437 could easily be transmitted by mosquito giving it a vector that could spread it far and wide.

Akulov completed the preparations outside the mist chamber and climbed a spiral staircase to the control room on the next level. He stopped at the airlock in between and stripped off the heavy "space suit" and proceeded in scrubs.

When he arrived in the control room there were several uniformed officers of the Soviet Army, GRU (Soviet Military Intelligence) and the KGB. The GRU officer stepped forward and said, "Comrade Scientist Akulov, your breakthrough has been noted at the highest levels. I bring congratulations from the Chairman of the Central Committee."

Akulov said, "Thank you Comrade General. I serve the Soviet Union."

That made the KGB man and the faceless party apparatchiks smile but some of the other scientists winced. Nobody likes a brown-nose regardless of the system but the Soviet bureaucracy bred them like fleas in a barnyard.

Dr. Rodenko was senior administrator of the lab but there was glory enough to go around. "Gentlemen, we are ready to begin the test. Vanya has modified the original virus. In its original form, it attacks the brain and causes Encephalitis: a swelling of the brain that causes coma and sometimes death. However, in its modified form, its attack is much more targeted. It attacks the higher brain function."

Akulov said, "I expect that we will see a somewhat different illness. Some will die outright. Encephalitis can do that. In its modified form, I expect the victim to awaken from a coma with all higher brain functions destroyed."

The general asked, "What will that mean Comrade Scientists?"

Akulov replied, "We will have to see Comrade General. If it works as I expect, we will have the agent that causes incapacity and chaos that the Sub-committee has been wanting for years. Give us 4 days for the test to run its course.

Dr. Rodenko said, “Are we ready Vanya?”

“Yes Comrade Colonel.”

Rodenko turned a master valve and a fine mist descended on the chimps.

 

Twenty-four hours later, all thirty chimps were comatose.

Thirty hours later eight of the chimps expired from cerebral edema.

The first of the twenty-two survivors awoke thirty-seven hours after infection. They raged. They fought at the restraints with all of their might. Over the next four hours twenty of them awakened in a murderous rage fighting their restraints to free themselves. Two of them stayed in what Akulov judged to be a persistent vegetative state.

As the first one finally freed itself 44 hours into the experiment, a pale and shaken Dr. Rodenko armed the self-destruct system and incinerated all of the test subjects in the vapor chamber.

All of the important men that had come to see Akulov's accomplishment were badly shaken. It was obvious for all that had seen, anyone the raging chimps might have gotten their hands on would have been torn to shreds. If they survived at all, the victims would certainly be infected.

Preparation 437 was never advanced to full production. The People's Sub-Committee on Special Weapons deemed it entirely too dangerous. It was saved for special projects by the KGB. GRU also was able to obtain a sample and the recipe. It became just another agent in the Soviet bioweapons massive arsenal.

GRU Headquarters

Moscow, USSR

Dec. 20, 1989

At 2am the phone on GRU Colonel Bonderenko’s desk rang.

Bonderenko glared at it. Only a third of the bottle of vodka on his desk was left. For days it had been happening and now there was no turning back. The Soviet Union was going to fall. What would become of his beloved Rodina(motherland)?

He answered the phone with a terse, “Daa?”

“Misha. They’re going to do it. They are really going to do it.” His oldest friends voice sounded near tears.

“Anatoliy, what madness is this?”

The voice at the other end of the line paused. Misha could hear his old friend take a drag from a cigarette. “It is the Supreme Soviet. They will release a document on the 26^th formally dissolving the Soviet Union. It’s not going to be reforms Misha. They are going to burn down the whole house.”

Bonderenko sighed heavily and said, “If we are honest with ourselves, we have seen this coming for weeks now. Maybe months.”

Anatoliy choked. He might have been weeping. “We thought that there would be a new 5 year plan, perhaps some reforms. But this Misha? Is this why we bled in Afghanistan? All of those boys that we lead there…” Now he was sobbing.

Bonderenko said, “We must act fast Anatoliy. Do you still have your contacts in the Uzbek Republics?”

“Yes Misha. There is a listening post there where we monitor Pakistan and Afghanistan. The base commander was my aide during the war.”

 “Good Anatoliy. You still have that dacha near Kuybyshev (now called Samara)?”

“Yes Misha.”

“Meet me there at dusk it two days. Bring your family.”

Kuybyshev, Russia

Dec. 22, 1989

19:20 hours

Anatoliy Yolkin, his wife and two daughters waited nervously in their old family dacha on the Volga River. Russia was not a country known for peaceful transfers of power. In everyone there was a great fear that there would be purges like those of the October Revolution in 1917.

Yet all was quiet and Yolkin’s General had approved his leave and said, “Perhaps when you get back, sanity will have returned.”

It was quite dark when the big helicopter landed in the meadow near the house. Bonderenko arrived in high spirits. He hugged the girls and herded the Yolkin family with all of their baggage to the hulking MI-25 monster of a helicopter roosting in their field.

The girls were quite excited about the prospects of a trip but Yolkin’s wife was less than thrilled. Anatoliy read her expression and yelled over the roar of the engines and rotors, “I’m sorry Irina but we have to go. It is no longer safe for party members to stay.”

She looked at her husband and his old friend and nodded. She boarded the helicopter without a word.

The MI-25 Hind flew low and slow in the expert hands of Bonderenko on the long trip toward the mountains that the old friends had fought so hard for stopping for fuel first at Arilsk in Khazakhstan and the listening post in Uzbekistan.

Dawn found them crossing over Afghanistan and into Pakistan where they landed at a Base in the Tribal regions.

Bonderenko picked up two large aluminum cases from the Hind, told the Yolkin family to stay put and stepped out into the blistering cold mountain air.

Khalid Naizi of the Pakistani ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) met Bonderenko on the tarmac. There were no other personnel nearby. He offered his hand and spoke the polite greeting, “Peace be with you.”

Bonderenko took his hand and replied, “And with you my friend.”

Naizi said, “May I offer you the hospitality of my base such as it is?”

Bonderenko nodded and said, “I’ve been flying all night. Some of that strong tea of yours would be quite welcome.”

The two spies went inside the base into what served as a conference room where there was hot tea. Bonderenko sat across the table from Naizi and sat the two cases on the floor.

After tea was served and the forms of politeness observed, Naizi asked, “Were you able to get everything we asked for?”

Bonderenko smiled and said, “You will have to translate it but it is all here.” He picked up one of the cases and sat it on the table.  He opened the case which was crammed full of blue prints. “As requested: the 8F021 warhead and re-entry vehicle.”

Naizi’s eyes bulged. The 8F021 was the sub-munition for the Soviet R-36MP ICBM code named Satan by NATO. Each of the three warheads could strike independent targets with 2 to 5 megatons of hydrogen fury.

The Russian then put the second case on the table. “This is a bonus my friend. The Central Committee wanted a biological weapon that would cause chaos and confusion in a target area. This is what they came up with. The recipe and samples of the freeze dried virus are in this case. Naturally it is sealed and should only be opened under controlled conditions.”

The Pakistani spy’s eyes narrowed. He wasn’t really interested in biological weapons but this sounded enticing. He said, “I’m not sure that we have a need for biological weapons but one’s arsenal can never be too full.”

Now it was Naizi’s turn. He put a briefcase on the table and opened it. Inside were passports, documents, cash and plane tickets. He said, “There are two Swiss accounts in the amount of two million dollars US. We have documents for your entire party and will fly you to Singapore where you will receive new documents. After a short stay in Singapore, you will fly on to Indonesia where you and Comrade Yolkin will have jobs as military advisors. “

Bonderenko sighed and said, “Thank you Khalid. I am glad that we could help each other.”

Nazi smiled and said, “So am I. We will have a bus around for your party to drive you to Karachi. You will be in Singapore before sun set.”

Bonderenko gathered the briefcase with passports and traveling money and stood. He smiled and said, “I throw in the Hind free of charge.”

Naizi nodded. He picked up the phone and said something in Pashtun.

Bonderenko was on his way out when he heard the spit of a silenced weapon.

Naizi stood over the dead Russian and shook his head.

He thought: Sorry Misha but we could never trust a traitor.

SHAFE: Supreme Headquarters Allied Forces Europe

Secret Arms Reduction Talks

June 10, 1990

Andrew North waited for his Russian counterpart in a lush conference room. Things were going exceptionally well between NATO and the new Commonwealth of Independent States. In fact the United States and the new Commonwealth were cooperating very closely.

It had come as a rude surprise to discover the true size and scope of the former Soviet Union’s chemical and biological weapons programs. Over the course of the Cold War there had been a few indications that the Soviets were cheating on the CBWC (Chemical and Biological Weapons Convention). In 1979 there was a large anthrax outbreak at Sverdlovsk that the Soviets tried to pass off as being caused by bad meat. It was ridiculous on its face of course.

So were the stories told by the occasional defector: tons of anthrax, ICBM warheads full of smallpox and designer viruses using spliced RNA. There was no proof of any of the claims. Except for the buildings being exactly where the defectors said they would be on satellite photos.

Most US analysts dismissed those tales as defectors trying to get a sweet deal. It didn’t seem possible. Such a program would employ thousands of scientists in hundreds of facilities. Unless they were a lot more careful than the average Ruskie, there would be all sorts of accidents.

Western Intelligence Agencies discovered that they had made a huge intelligence failure when they discovered the true dimensions of the old Soviet Union’s Chem-bio programs. In fact they had so much of the ghastly stuff, they were asking for help to dispose of it all. 

North thought that such technical assistance would be the subject of today’s talks. It wasn’t.

His counterpart, Yuri Barinov entered the room and promptly told his assistants and aids to come back after lunch.

Barinov turned to North and said, “This morning’s business is very confidential, daa? It is to be held at the ministerial level.”

North considered the request and gave his staff the morning off. Once the conference room was cleared, he asked, “OK Yuri, what’s on your mind this morning?”

Barinov slid a thick file across the table and said, “Six years ago a researcher in our labs at the Vector Institute made a breakthrough. I am not a scientist but they say that if this discovery had been made in the open, he would have been a contender for the Nobel Prize. They called the discovery synthetic RNA and used it to re-engineer a known virus.”

North flipped through the file and stopped at the photo of a chimpanzee ripping a restraint harness to shreds.

“Once the scientists made the discovery, we found that it was a horror. It was viewed as entirely too dangerous to ever use.”

North asked incredulously, “More dangerous than Smallpox or drug resistant Plague?”

Barinov said, “Daa. The original virus was Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis. If it were to begin spreading by common vectors like mosquitoes, there would be no stopping it. We have our own contingency plan should it ever escape the lab.”

North asked, “What is that plan Yuri?”

Barinov sighed and said, “Were this virus to ever get out, Strategic Rocket Forces were to drop a 20 megaton bomb on the region.”

North whistled and said, “It’s that bad?”

“Yes Comrade Ambassador. It is that bad. There is a specific reason that we are telling you this. Just before the Declaration, we had two defectors from the GRU that may have taken the virus outside the Commonwealth.”

North hissed, “Are you telling me that this thing is out of the bag?”

Barinov said, “We aren’t sure. The officers in question took a helicopter and were last seen refueling at an outpost in Uzbekistan. None of our agents have spotted them and we’ve been looking for months. I have been told by my President to warn you that it may be out there and to ask for your help to find the renegades.”

CIA Headquarters

Feb. 1. 1993

Senior Agent Scott McGrath sat in the auditorium. There was a brand new President in the White House with a brand new agenda. The buzz word on the Hill was “Peace Dividend” and no one wanted to hear about left over Cold War nightmares.

The United States had been very helpful to the Russians spending billions of dollars to mothball old reactors, destroy chemical and biological weapons and decommission ICBMs. Much of that spending was black and congress balked at it. It wasn’t very popular to be spending so much on Russia when all fifty states representative were there in Washington to collect a slice of the pork for their own districts.

McGrath listened to the new Deputy Director of Intelligence drone on for an hour about his new agenda but ten minutes into the speech, he knew that the Pandora project was as dead as disco.

Some three years ago, McGrath had been assigned to a Code Word project called Pandora. When he saw what was in the file, it shook him to his core. When it first appeared it was a very big deal. Networks of agents in Pakistan and Afghanistan were reactivated, millions were spent on bribes and absolutely nothing was accomplished. The Pakistanis tried to float the idea that a mysterious helicopter went down in the Hindu Kush but it couldn’t be verified. No bodies were found but some old charred wreckage was produced.

Another lead was a satellite photo of several Russian MI-25 Hinds at Pakistani bases but they were written off to defectors. This got McGrath’s attention but he could uncover any connections between the Bonderenko/Yolko defections. Pakistan was the hottest lead but none of their friends there seemed to know anything about it.

A search for mysterious rich Russian immigrants quickly became larger than the task force could handle. Russians were leaving the motherland at such a prodigious rate that McGrath’s deputy had wondered if the last one out would turn out the lights.

So far the Pandora task group had made exactly zero progress and the new administration wasn’t going to carry it.

In fact the document shutting down the code worded program was in his inbox when he returned to his desk. As was his own RIF (Reduction in Force) notification.

After seven years, McGrath would be looking for a new job. That didn’t bother him. He knew that the FBI, despite the inter-agency rivalry, would give him a spot in a second. But knowing the Pandora organism was still out there and unaccounted for would give him many sleepless nights.

White Sands Missile Range

Homeland Security BL-5 Lab

March 22, 2004

After clearing security and going down two different elevators, McGrath guessed that he was at least 500 meters underground. The corridor had heavy steel blast doors with key card locks and biohazard signs every 50 meters. The deeper into the facility that he went, the higher the biohazard protection level of the labs that lined the corridors.

He asked the guard what the USAMARID needed from the Dept. of Homeland Security and was told that answer was well above his pay grade.

He finally entered a lab marked BL-5 and followed the guard inside. He had to strip and leave his clothes in a locker. He passed through a chemical shower and another steel door to a locker room where he put on surgical scrubs. He passed through a final airlock where a computer sat in front of the final door.

The guard sitting post there told him to log into the computer in the corner of the room. The computer asked for his name, rank and agency:

McGrath, Scott Special Agent Department of Homeland Security.

The computer then asked him to state his name aloud, surname first. "McGrath, Scott."

The computer screen turned green and displayed: Voice Print ID verified. Agent McGrath clear for access to Pandora.

The big steel door popped open and he entered the lab.

A group of eleven men were waiting: two scientists and nine other agency representatives. As soon as he entered, the senior scientist said, "Good. Now that Homeland Security has arrived, we can begin."

"Gentlemen. Everything that you see here is above top-secret. The code word is Pandora and it is very appropriate."

"Several years ago CIA and NSA received intelligence that there was a BL4 bio-weapons lab somewhere in the tribal areas of Pakistan just across the border from Afghanistan.”

McGrath sat stunned. Pakistan: he knew it. They had been played.

“They also found that over several years, appropriate equipment for such a lab was purchased in small lots from Germany, France and Russia or had been diverted from legitimate projects and ended up somewhere in Pakistan."

"We've been looking for that lab ever since. We finally found it two weeks ago. As soon as we located the lab, a joint team of SEALs and Delta Force operators were sent in on a covert raid to bag and tag it. What we found was horrifying. Please follow me."

As I looked around I saw a few familiar faces: Colonel Will James was a troubleshooter for the Joint Chiefs. SAC Gwen Heller was FBI's Senior Agent in Charge of their counter-terrorism desk. The imminent epidemiologist Dr. Thomas Ross of the CDC was looking very troubled. Most of the others McGrath had never seen before but their very bearing screamed military or spook.

We entered a room with black boards and display monitors. The scientist continued the briefing: "We found that the lab was working on the weaponization of a number of pathogens. All of the familiar horrors like Anthrax, Marsburg and Smallpox and one that we've never seen before. It is a chimera virus that is code named Pandora. It's why we're here and it may be the scariest damn thing I've ever seen in a bioweapon."

"Pandora was created by the Soviets back in the eighties. It began as a flavivirus called VEE or Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus. Through years of manipulation and gene splicing, it has become this."

The big monitor in the room came to life and showed an electron microscope image of a spherical virus.

The scientist said, "This little horror is a blood borne pathogen that attacks the brain. It causes fever and chills and then the victim falls into a coma. While the victim is in a coma the virus continues to attack the brain and eventually destroys the high brain while leaving the lower brain function essentially intact. At this point about a third of the victims die. The rest wake up from the coma and attack the very first person that they see. They continue attacking everyone in site until they are killed."

"When we raided the lab, three of our guys got bitten and succumbed to the infection. This is what they look like now."

The scientist pressed a button that caused a panel to retract. Behind thick glass were two people that had once been elite Special Forces operators that had been transformed by the virus. As soon as the panel retracted and they saw us, they attacked the glass with such violence that the glass was smeared with their black blood. It was clear that anyone that those things got their hands on would be in very serious trouble.

The scientist caused the glass to retract and continued: "Bites spread the virus. That's how our operators got infected. The infection runs its course from 24 to 36 hours. They are vulnerable to tasers and gun fire. They retreat from fire but attack pretty much everything else: people or animals. The virus leaves the brain in a continuous state of rage that causes their hostility. The only thing that will stops them are kill shots. You can shoot them to pieces but unless you get their head, spinal cord or their heart they just keep coming."

"We brought you here to see it with your own eyes. This is no bullshit. Pandora is real and we know that the terrorist have it. It's only a matter of time before they use it. When they do, we had better be ready because the epidemiology of this thing is terrifying. Once this virus is established and starts spreading by secondary vectors like mosquitoes, there simply aren't enough bullets to stop it."

 

Alamogordo, NM
August 20, 2006

"Look, I know you weren't really ready to talk to me, but I have to tell you what has been going on. Just listen to me ..." the voice on the phone said.

Sal Rossa sighed at his cell phone. The clock by his bed read two oh-three am and he had a crazy woman on the phone.

"Jessie. How nice to hear from you. What gave you the idea that I didn't want to talk to you. Not taking your calls, ducking your voice mails or actually hiding from you?"

Now it was Jessie's turn to sigh. "Oh come on Sal. We've known each other too long."

"It's what you are saying girl. It's crazy. It is just like what the Army said in their press release: a gas was accidentally released that causes confusion and hallucinations."

"You are a smart enough reporter to know a cover story when you see one."

Rossa said, "I have to admit that it is a little convenient. But what you are saying. It just sounds so crazy. Look humor me. Tell me the story again."

Jessie cleared her throat and said, "Yesterday morning at about three am, the paramedics brought us a psyche case. He was fighting and biting and appeared to be seriously injured. We put a bite mask on him and put him on a restraint table. He had some kind of seizure and flat-lined. We called a code blue. We gave him direct cardiac adrenalin and shocked him at least a dozen time. We pronounced him dead at 3:25. The only ID we found on him were dog-tags. We called our contact at the White Sands Missile Range per established protocol."

"We got busy with a car crash. Bunch of kids. Nothing serious but cuts, bruises and a broken arm. We had just cleared it when this corpse started going ape shit."

Sal said, "This is the guy you pronounced right?"

"Yeah. Dead. Stone cold, dead as a post dead. No heartbeat, no respiration. Nothing. Starts growling and thrashing around under the sheet. If he hadn't been restrained, he would have gotten up."

Sal said, "This is where we have a problem with your story. Corpses don't get up."

"No shit Sherlock. This is where it gets weird. We figured that we had made a mistake and pronounced him too early. It happens. We went back to work on him but got no vital signs. No heartbeat, no blood pressure. We gave him enough Valium and Atavan to put an elephant on his ass and he was still fighting us. No. That not right. He was fighting to get at us."

"That's when the Army showed up, shut down the ER and came up with that bogus cover story. They gave everybody vague threats and discouraged us from talking to the press."

Sal paused for a moment and said, "That's one hell of a story but I've got nothing solid. What can I take to my editor?"

Jessie said, "You remember the paramedic from last night?"

Sal said, "Yeah."

"He was bitten. He… he’s here now and he is in the same shape as the guy from last night. On top of that, he bit his wife and kids and they are in isolation with high fever and we've got seven more bite related cases. Dr. Lawrence just pushed the panic button and called the CDC and I don't mind telling you I'm scared shitless."

Sal’s cell phone went dead and a recording started: This conversation has been terminated for reasons of National Security. It repeated itself and his phone went completely dead.



 

Las Cruces, NM

August 25, 2005

"Oh my god, I think that I killed him!", the young woman shouted holding a shovel.

Officer Ron Ward of the Las Cruces Police Department answered, "I'll check. Where is he?"

She said, "In the back yard. He surprised me on the patio. He tried to grab me but I smacked him." Her hands were shaking as she held the shovel at port-arms.

Ron pulled his Beretta and mag-lite.

He keyed his radio and said, "This is one-L-19 responding to complaint of a prowler, I'm Code 2 at 145 Pine Valley Highway. 10-70 reported in the back yard. Roll back up."

Dispatch responded, "One-L-19, Code 2, any available backup please respond."

Ward wasn't holding my breath for back up. As crazy as things were going that night, he wasn't really expecting any for a while.

"Mam- go inside and lock the doors. I'm going to clear your back yard."

She disappeared inside the garage door with her shovel and I heard the latch snap.

If it was illegal aliens in this neighborhood it would be a first. The surrounding terrain was some of the roughest desert in the South West. This little berg was a well-to-do far flung suburb of Las Cruces way out south.

Ward went around the side of the house and found the gate to the back yard standing open. There was the diffused blue light coming from a bug-zapper on the other side of the fence. As he passed the gate there was a distinct smear of dark blood. Ward thought to himself- it looks like she got a piece of him.

As he went into the back yard, he yelled, "Las Cruces Police! Let me see your hands!"

He swept the yard with his mag lite and saw nothing on his first inspection. It was a nice place. It was a fenced in back yard with a pool, pool house and tool shed. The tool shed door was standing wide open and a light was on inside.

As he swept the yard with his mag-lite, he saw a shadow move in the tool shed. He came around the house, put the mag-lite and Beretta on the door of the shed and ordered, "You in the shed. Come out and let me see your hands."

Suddenly a big guy in army fatigues, combat boots and a holstered side arm appeared in the door of the shed. The flash-light beam in his face made him stop. There was blood on the side of his face and he appeared quite pale. What bothered Ward the most was the blood on his hands. Holy shit. What have I stumbled into?

On seeing his side arm he yelled, "Drop the weapon. Drop it now!"

The soldier started coming toward Ward and began accelerating.

Ward yelled one more time, "Drop the weapon and get on your knees. Last warning!"

The soldier kept coming.

Ward shot him twice in center mass and the soldier fell on his back.

Officer Ward keyed my radio mike and said, "Shots fired, shots fired, suspect down! I need a bus and a supervisor now!"

He approached the suspect, leaned over and took the pistol out of his holster. As he was securing the weapon, the suspect opened his eyes and made a grab for his legs.

"Stay down! There's an ambulance on the way!"

The suspect rolled over, got up and came after Ward again.

Ward took two more shots and dropped him again.

This time the soldier got up faster. Ward put two more rounds in his chest and another two in his head. This time the soldier didn't get up.

Ward looked around at the scene and there was blood and gore everywhere.

Somewhere in the night he heard the boom of a shot gun. The shot gun went off three more times and there was a blood curdling scream.

He heard the gate creek and turned to see another messed up person shambling into the back yard. The man was in his thirties and had a bloody neck wound.

Ward ordered him to halt but he kept coming. He shot him twice once in the chest and once in the head. As soon as he had dropped a horribly injured Mexican man came through the gate snarling and running toward him. Ward shot him twice and his Beretta locked open on an empty chamber. He quickly slammed another magazine into his gun and decided that it was time to get the hell out of Dodge.

As Ward ran through the gate there were two more. He shot them both and sprinted for his cruiser when he saw dozens of those things in the street coming toward him. He jumped in the patrol car, fired it up and ran over three of them as he ran like hell.

What had just happened? Why had he just left the scene of a shooting and run over three people? What the hell was going on? What was wrong with his freaking bullets? Nobody got up after taking center mass shots at close range. Nobody.

He listened to his police radio as unit after unit reported gunfire, officer involved shots fired and people acting crazy. The world was falling apart for no apparent reason.

Homeland Security Command Post

Carlsbad, NM

August 30, 2005

It had been a hard week for McGrath. He had seen some of his worst nightmares about Pandora come true.

He had painfully reconstructed the last few weeks around the White Sands Lab but no one was exactly sure what had gone wrong.

Jerry Fowler from the New Mexico National Guard entered the Command Post and said, “Do we have anything new?”

McGrath shook his head and said, “Things went to hell so fast there is just no way to tell. It’s obviously a lab accident but we can’t be sure who patient zero was. Any one of twelve people might have been it but we just can’t be sure.”

There was a TV image of hurricane Katrina with a talking head from CNN showing floodwaters in New Orleans. Fowler said, “I never thought that I’d be happy about a hurricane but we needed it to keep the media out of here. Any idea what our cover is going to be.”

McGrath said, “We got lucky. We’ve only lost a couple of hundred people. The bosses are spinning it as an outbreak of a local variant of the Hantavirus.”

Fowler said, “Hantavirus Alamogordo: will that fly? The conspiracy nuts are already calling this a zombie outbreak.”

McGrath shook his head. “CDC and USAMARID are playing ball. It’ll sell.”

“In a way, it’s worse than the conspiracy nuts think”, McGrath groused.  “If people knew how close we came to losing it here, there would be brown trousers all over the country, maybe the world. We won’t really be out of the woods for months. We aren’t sure that we have accounted for all of the infected and if mosquitos are spreading it around we could have a whole new wave of infections.”

“You’re just full of good news”, Fowler muttered. “I have to see the Governor this afternoon. What do I tell him?”

“Tell him that we are cautiously optimistic that it’s over but we will have to monitor the situation closely for the next sixty days. After that, we should be completely out of the woods.”   

Camp Shelby

Hattiesburg, MS

July 16, 2016 0530CST

Sergeant Rob Taylor watched his kids doing morning P.T. After five weeks in the Mississippi heat, they were shaping up nicely.

They weren't bad for weekend warriors. They were all too damn young and greener than grass. All of them had missed out on the big sand. Afghanistan. Iraq. That had all wound down and most of the vets of those hell-holes didn't want anything more to do with the Army.

It was a shame really. Taylor had spent a lot of years in the saddle and missed a lot of friends.

Some had walked away from the army to build a new life somewhere. Others had drowned in a bottle unable to shake the horrors that they had seen. All of them had screwed up at one point or another. It was that kind of war. There was just no way to tell who could live with it and who it would consume like a particularly vicious acid. Too damn many of his friends had committed suicide.

As he watched his platoon finished off morning PT and his squad leaders got the men in formation.

Corporal Kevin Vance approached Taylor, saluted and said, "Drill Sergeant Taylor, the Corporal wishes to inform you that the platoon has completed morning PT and is awaiting your instructions."

Taylor said, "Very well Corporal. I think it's a fine day for a brisk little run. Let's head up Indian Springs trail and back around the artillery range. After chow we'll spend the balance of the day on the range."

Vance stifled a smile and said, "Outstanding Drill Sergeant!" He turned in fine military precision and yelled, "Fall in by squads and saddle up. Follow me and move out."

Taylor suppressed his own grin. How could anybody be that gung ho at this time of the morning looking at a twenty mile run?

As the last squad took off, Taylor took off behind the squad.

Memphis, TN

July 16, 2016 0730

The morning traffic was rising to its peak as Officers Carson and Ogletree pulled their cruiser out on the big loop around town comprised of I-240 on the South, I-40 on the North and I-69 around the West. Morning traffic watch was a big headache and both of them were relieved that they would soon be rotating shifts. It never failed that someone would screw up and tie up traffic for miles.

Sure enough, the first call of the day took them to the Lamar Avenue exit on I-240. They got off and road the shoulder the last quarter mile and found a three car stack. A Honda had rear ended an old Pontiac and driven it into the back of a Toyota Tacoma.

Another blue and white car of the Memphis PD pulled up and wreckers. They took pictures of the scene and statements of the drivers. Just like they had a few thousand times before when Ogletree heard something. He looked up and saw a tiny aircraft flying right down the length of Lamar Avenue moving directly toward them from the South-east.

He yelled, "Carson, look!"

Carson looked up from his pad just in time to see the tiny aircraft fly directly over them and follow the road to the North-west.

He shrugged and went back to filling out the accident report.

A few minutes later, a fine mist began landing. Carson saw it first on the Honda's windshield. Ogletree had actually seen it streaming out of the back of the tiny aircraft.

Carson walked over to Ogletree and said, "What the f*ck, Tom?"

Ogletree said, "I don't like it. I don't like it at all. Remember those Homeland Security drills?"

Carson said, "Call it in. Call it in RIGHT NOW."

Washington, DC

White House

July 16, 2016 0832EST, 0732CST

Secret Service Director Donald Moss had been in his office when he heard the SAM missiles fire off.

He was out of his desk and in the Situation Room in a matter of seconds. "Where is POTUS?"

The Duty Officer answered, "His detail put him on Marine One as soon as the alert and he's en route to Camp David. The first family is at their residence in Denver. The Vice President has been diverted from his trip to Chicago and is en route to Weather Mountain."

Moss said, "OK. So tell me. Why did we punch the panic button... Agent Chance?"

Chance said, "Four minutes ago airborne radar picked up a bogey on a direct vector to the White House. We got it on high speed camera as it passed over the 495. It was a drone. As soon as it got in our engagement envelope I gave the order to fire upon it."

 Moss said, "OK. It looks like you did the right thing. What are we doing about retrieving it?"

"It went down in Montross Park and the DC police are surrounding it. We have a forensics team on the way."

Moss felt the adrenalin rush subsiding and said, "Put them through to me as soon as they have anything."

Agent Chance said, "Boss, I may have over-reacted but better safe than sorry. That looked a lot like a bio-chem attack to me. I sent out our team with full precautions."

Moss felt a knot of ice form at the pit of his stomach. "I don't like it. I'm calling Homeland. Give me what you've got ASAP. Something tells me that this is just beginning."

Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center

FEMA/Homeland Security Operations Center

Bluemount, VA

July 16, 2016 10:00EST/9:00CST

Director of Homeland Security Francis Kirkwood glared at the technicians as they hastily arranged the teleconference. Half of the Federal bureaucracy was connected now in addition to an alphabet soup of military and law enforcement brass.

On the hour he began the conference. If anyone was late they could read the brief.

"I am Frances Kirkwood, Director of Homeland Security. This morning we believe that a number of our largest metropolitan centers were attacked with an unknown biological agent. Samples of this agent have been taken in DC and we have confirmation that the same type drones hit Boston, Baltimore, Cleveland, Atlanta, Miami, Memphis, Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, well hell guys... pretty much any city big enough to have an NFL or NBA franchise."

"This is General Armstrong of USAMARIID, what do we know about the agent?"

Kirkwood said, "We have only had time to make a preliminary analysis. Special Agent Chase, what have your lab guys told you?"

"Special Agent Chase- Secret Service, White House Detail. The report from our lab guys does not look good. We shot the drone down before it hosed the White House and were able to get a fair sized sample of the liquid it was spraying. The labbies say it is mostly water suspending billions of nano-tech particles."

There was a gasp but Chase continued, "Most viruses are quite fragile. The UV rays in sunlight destroy them. It is one of the reasons that viruses are so hard to weaponize. This nano-tech is quite sophisticated. It's hard to do. I'm not even sure anyone in the United States even has this capability but it's something the bio-warfare guys have been thinking about for some time."

 "Rather than release pure virus, they release nano-bots that contain virus particles. When they are in favorable conditions, the nano-bot releases the viral payload."

 One of the people connected to the teleconference asked, "Like what kind of favorable conditions?"

 Chase answered, "The particle was inhaled or landed on the skin."

 The President said, "This sounds like a very sophisticated attack."

Chase replied, "It is Mr. President. It took some very serious technology to make these nano-bot delivery systems and we aren't even sure what is inside of them. We've got samples heading to BL4 labs across the country."

The President said, "I've heard enough gentlemen. As of this moment, I am declaring Case Black."

Camp Shelby

Hattiesburg, MS

July 16, 2016 0905CST

Taylor's men were on the last leg of their run when his cell phone message alert went off. He pulled it out of his holster and looked:

 All Commands: begin Case Black protocol immediately

He was so stunned that he almost took a spill on a tree root. He instantly dialed the base duty officer. 

It rang twice and a recording took over: "This is Shelby Command. The NCA has declared Case Black. All leaves are canceled. All Guard units are called up. Report to your commanding officer as soon as possible."

He holstered his phone and said, "Holy Shit."

Corporal Vance jogged along beside him and asked, "What's up Sarge?"

Taylor said, "I don't know but I'm pretty damned sure that none of us are going to like it."

Flathead Lake, Montana

July 16, 2016 0815MDT

Scott McGrath was fly fishing when his cell phone rang. 

He looked at the DC area code on his phone and considered tossing it in the river.

Instead he answered it. “McGrath.”

“Please hold for the Secretary of Homeland Security.”

He sighed and brought in his line and waded out of the stream while he waited for the call to come through.

“Agent McGrath, this is Director Foley.”

“There must be some mistake sir. I’ve been retired since the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearings on the White Sands cluster fuck ran me out of town.”

Foley, a former Midwestern Governor, sighed. “That was well before my time Mr. McGrath. Some four hundred people died in that disaster and I didn’t hear a word about it until my confirmation hearings in 2014.”

McGrath paused and said, “I’m sorry, that’s ancient history. What can I do for you Mr. Secretary?”

Foley said, “We got hit about an hour ago. Multiple targets and I just got confirmation. McGrath, there’s no doubt: the agent is Pandora.”

“Jesus.”

Foley said, “Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction too.”

McGrath stood there dumbfounded for a moment and asked, “What can I do sir?”

Foley said, “You are the one man in the United States with the most experience with Pandora and we need you. Will you help us?”

McGrath said, “I’ve been sweating this day since 1990 when I first heard about this nightmare. There is nowhere to run from this thing sir. I’ll do anything I can to help.”

Foley sighed and said, “That’s the first good news I’ve had all day. There’ll be a Blackhawk on the way to pick you up from Malmstrom Air Force Base momentarily. You’ve got time to pack a suitcase.”

Southaven, MS

July 16, 2016 1530CST

Sergeant Taylor’s platoon deployed along State Line Avenue from I-55 to Airline Boulevard.  

He put his command post in the parking lot of a defunct barbecue joint and put his men in squads about 100 meters apart.

What they were doing in Southaven there and exactly why they were there, no one had bothered to tell him. At some point in his past he seemed to remember that Condition Black indicated a worst case biological attack against the United States. Having been issued MOPP-4 (Mission Oriented Protective Posture) gear in upper nineties Mississippi heat seemed to lead credence to that theory.

FEMA was there too running around in HUMVEEs. What they were doing was also a mystery. Taylor’s Company Commander was a Captain named Carlson that had not arrived as yet and a Lieutenant Boussard had set up a block south of them and theoretically controlled a 4 mile frontage from Highway 51 to Swinnea Road.

He had two other companies on his right and left flanks and no orders beyond set up a perimeter. 

Someone set up a civilian radio which was providing more information than the command net:

This is the Emergency Alert System. The United States has sustained a major biological attack. Martial Law is in effect. All schools, businesses and public accommodations are ordered closed. Please go to your home and follow the situation on television and other media.

He looked around his command post and no one spoke or even moved. Everyone was shocked.

Taylor walked outside his CP looked around. There was no traffic except for a few cops and Army HUMMERs. Finally his command net came to life in his ear bud:

“This is Captain Carlson to 30 Company to all units. Memphis has been hit by an unknown biological agent. Our orders are to establish a cordon surrounding the city in conjunction with Arkansas and Tennessee Guard Units. We cannot allow anyone regardless of whether they are showing symptoms of any kind to cross our line south. Our only chance is to contain the infection. We are a quick and dirty task force and expect reinforcements shortly. For now, man the road blocks and hold the line. I know that we’re thin on the ground but we’re all there is. Platoon leaders, conference, in five minutes.”

Taylor adjusted his comms to speak to his platoon: “Squad leaders: you heard the man. Deploy roadblocks and no one gets through!”

Teleconference: Weather Mountain

Homeland Security Command Post

1700 EST/1600 CST

“We’re live sir.”

“This is Homeland Security Director Foley at Weather Mountain:  please confirm.”

“This is Weather Mountain Communications: all commands are on line.”

“This is Director Foley again. Welcome to our 5:00 status conference. We now have some definite answers for you. The following cities have been affected: Washington, Boston, Baltimore, Cleveland, Atlanta, Miami, Memphis, Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Chicago, Detroit and Long Island New York. We got lucky out West. Local cops busted teams in Denver, Seattle and Los Angeles before they could deploy.”

“We have confirmed the agent. It is an agent developed in the former Soviet Union code named Pandora. Dr. Kline, please give us a run down on what we can expect.”

There was a moment as Dr. Kline at Manhattan, Kansas DHS Lab began, “It’s about as bad as it can get. One way or another, we lose everybody who gets this. It attacks the brain. First symptoms are fever and headache. The victim slips into a coma. The action of the virus destroys the brain. About a third of people die at this point. At 36 hours they wake up and they are pissed. They attack the first person they see and continue to attack until you put them down. You can download information packs from our web site.”

Director Foley continued: “The same time that we were experiencing Hurricane Katrina, we had an outbreak of the God awful stuff at White Sands. Agent McGrath, could you tell us about that.”

McGrath spoke from the FEMA Headquarters in Denver: “Intelligence was developed that a bio lab was operating somewhere along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border.  Our forces found Pandora at that lab and a couple of the Special Forces operators were infected. The whole mess was taken to the secure DHS/USAMARID Lab at White Sands. In late August 2005, there was some kind of lab accident and a number of people were infected. It took us ten days to run down all of the infected and we lost four hundred people.”

“There is something that I have to add about the infected. You have to take them down hard. Pain and injury doesn’t matter to them. It takes a head, heart or spine shot to drop one. They will eventually die of wounds but they don’t seem to be effected by pain or fear. “

There was a break and President Harrison broke in: “This is NCA at Camp David. How are we doing with our cordons?”

“Mr. President, this is USNORTHCOM. We have cordons in place around the affected cities but they are thin. They will be thickening up as reservists and guard units form up and move out. We are also moving two regiments of mech infantry from Europe.”

The President asked, “Do we have any idea who did this to us?”

“Mr. President, this is SAC McAlister of the FBI. We aren’t exactly sure. The groups we caught are a mix of mercenaries from Africa, the Middle East and Asia. We are interrogating them and it’s only a matter of time before we get some answers.”

The President asked, “Tell me about the situation with the CDC in Atlanta.”

Director Foley answered, “We’re sorry sir but the whole location is compromised. One of the drones over flew the facility and a number of staff there that are known to be infected.”

Someone exclaimed, “Jesus.”

Foley continued, “All lab support is going to come from USAMIRID at Fort Detrick and Homelands labs at White Sands and Manhattan, Kansas.”