Contagious

JANUARY 20

It had to be a joke.

Being hazed on the first day of work was nothing new, but John Gutierrez had never thought someone would have the balls to prank him on this first day.

On Inauguration Day.

One simply did not haze the president of the United States.

“Murray, I’m not finding the humor in this,” John said. “The country has some very serious issues to deal with, and this goes beyond the realm of good taste.”

Murray Longworth looked surprised. “A… joke? This is no joke, Mister President.”

Of course it was. John Gutierrez hadn’t been born yesterday.

He looked around the Oval Office, gauging the reaction from his key advisers. Tom Maskill, his twitchy deputy chief of staff, was trying and failing to look nonplussed. Secretary of Defense Donald Martin sat back on an antique couch, his legs crossed. Donald was old-school Washington: tall, white, graying hair, tailored suit… looked like he was made of plantation money. Chief of Staff Vanessa Colburn sat on a striped chair. In appearance she was Donald’s polar opposite—female, black and young. Her no-nonsense poker face carried a cold stare that could freeze you where you stood. At the moment, that stare was fixed directly on one Murray Long-worth, deputy director of the CIA.

Murray also had an old-school Washington look, but different from Donald’s. Murray’s suit looked expensive, too, but like its owner it seemed a bit rumpled and tired. Murray was past retirement age, slightly overweight, with a scowl permanently etched into his face. His was a familiar image among the dinosaurs of Washington, a look Vanessa had dubbed Cold War White Man. He was a CIA deputy director, but not the deputy director. Murray worked mostly behind the scenes.

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Murray,” John said. “I spoke to all five former presidents before I took office. Of the many nice things they had to say, there is only one person they each pointed out by name—you. They said that you are a… how shall I put this? A special kind of go-to guy.”

“Yes, Mister President,” Murray said.

“Now it seems they all pointed you out for a reason, to set me up for this ridiculous story about triangular growths infecting Americans and turning them into psychopathic killers.”

“Sir,” Murray said, “I assure you this is no joke.”

“Then why haven’t we heard anything about it before?” Vanessa asked, her voice almost as expressionless as her face.

“President Hutchins wanted this in the black,” Murray said. “And keeping things in the black is what I do.”

Murray had brought in a large flat-panel screen for his presentation. It looked out of place in the Oval Office, a brash piece of technology in a room designed to reek of history and tradition. John stared at the image frozen on that screen: an old woman, clearly dead, a lumpy blue triangular growth on her shoulder. Each side of the triangle was about an inch long. It wasn’t on her skin, or under it, but part of it. Beneath the photo, her name—Charlotte Wilson.

According to Murray, that growth had made Wilson murder her son with a butcher knife, then attack two police officers before they shot her to death in self-defense.

This wasn’t just a joke, it was inexcusable.

Based on the endorsement of the former presidents, John had saved Murray Longworth’s “Project Tangram” presentation as the last of the day. It was the closing act in a mind-boggling cache of the previous administration’s secrets: two stealth submarines resting on the bottom of the Sea of Japan ready to rain nukes on North Korea; two more subs sitting off Qatar, ready to first-strike Iran should the new government fall and fundamentalists get their finger on the nuclear button; secret deals with the Chinese government; a Mach-10 skunkworks strike-fighter that could fly forty miles above the Earth; fast-track deals for drilling in Alaska and off the coast of Florida; plus a dozen other tawdry dealings that—under Hutchins’s administration—had been business as usual.

“If I could finish the presentation, sir,” Murray said, “things might be a little clearer.”

John looked at Vanessa, then Donald. They both shrugged. John sighed and nodded for Murray to continue.

“Thank you, sir,” Murray said. “The disease was discovered about four months ago by CDC epidemiologist Doctor Margaret Montoya and her colleague Doctor Amos Braun. Both are still on the project. Symptoms begin with itching and small rashes that grow into large welts, then finally triangular blue growths. The disease also seems to create extreme paranoia in its victims, to the point where almost all subjects showed a definitive pattern of avoiding hospitals, health-care workers or members of law enforcement. Paranoia toward police and military, in particular, was particularly severe. Most victims either died of unknown causes, committed suicide or were killed by law enforcement as a result of psychotic behavior.”

“Wait a minute,” Vanessa said. “The parasite made them avoid hospitals? Aggressive behavior from some chemical imbalance is one thing, but you expect us to believe that these parasites actually modified a host’s decision-making ability?”

“It happens in nature all the time,” Murray said.

“But these are people,” Vanessa said.

“Behavior is merely a chemical reaction, ma’am,” Murray said. “Trust me, there is zero question.”

Vanessa’s face showed just how much she trusted Murray’s opinion. “Is this supposed parasite contagious?”

Murray shook his head. “As far as we can tell, it does not transmit from an infected host to other people. Something spreads the disease, however, and we haven’t figured out what that vector is.”

“So Americans can catch a parasite that turns them into killers,” she said, “and yet you guys kept the people in the dark?”

“President Hutchins opted to keep this information secret, yes,” Murray said. “He feared that reports could cause panic as well as a flood of false cases into hospitals that could impede our ability to find real victims. There is also the threat of a lynch-mob mentality that could result in grave harm to Americans guilty of nothing more than having poison ivy or psoriasis.”

Vanessa leaned back in her chair and threw her hands up in disgust. “You see, Mister President? This is why the last eight years have crippled America. The old guard never trusted the people. This is exactly why we’re here, to put an end to government run as a web of lies.”

“I understand you’re enthusiastic about implementing new policies,” Murray said. “But if you don’t mind a little advice, Miss Colburn, you might want to get the whole story before you dismiss the calculated decisions of a former president.”

Vanessa sat forward again and glared at him. John couldn’t suppress a small smile. Murray Longworth was taking a tone with Vanessa Colburn right off the bat? John wondered how long Murray would last.

“By all means,” Vanessa said, smiling her best saccharine smile. “Please continue.”

Murray nodded. “Charlotte Wilson was just the first case we discovered.” He pointed a remote control at the screen.

click

Gary Leeland: An old man, very much alive, with hateful eyes that would have commanded full attention were it not for the one-inch-wide bluish triangle on his neck.

“This man checked in to the hospital, then hours later set his hospital bed on fire. He burned alive.”

click

Martin Brewbaker: A corpse on a morgue table, covered with blackened third-degree burns, legs cut off below the knees.

“This man killed three people: his wife, his six-year-old daughter and, when we tried to apprehend him, a CIA agent named Malcolm Johnson.”

click

Blaine Tanarive: A charred, rotted corpse, little more than a skeleton coated with gossamer green fibers.

“This one also killed his family,” Murray said. “We found him after he’d died.”

John wasn’t smiling anymore. He stared at the last picture. “What happened to him?”

Murray looked at the picture for a moment, then turned back to face John and his staff.

“Once the hosts die, their bodies decompose at an extremely advanced rate. Corpses break down to nothing but a blackened skeleton in less than two days.”

John watched Donald, Vanessa and Tom. That had always been his strength, the ability to watch people, to understand them from facial expressions, posture, movement.

Tom looked like he wanted to vomit. Donald clearly believed. Vanessa was starting to. And in believing, Vanessa grew more and more angry. Most people wouldn’t have seen it, but John knew her better than most. A secret like this, kept from the American people… she would want someone’s head. Unfortunately for Murray Longworth, that head would likely be his.

click

Perry Dawsey: A giant of a man lying on a hospital bed, eyes closed, chest exposed, arms and legs locked down with heavy canvas straps. A black, oozing sore on his right collarbone, white bandages covering his right forearm, tubes going into his nose and arms.

“Perry Dawsey,” Donald said. “I know that name. Isn’t he that football player who went crazy and murdered his friend? ‘Scary’ Perry Dawsey?”

Murray nodded. “Dawsey is the only known survivor. He had seven parasites, which he cut out of himself, removing the final one five weeks ago.”

“Jesus Christ,” Vanessa said. “Look at this body count, and you kept it secret? What are you, some kind of monster?”

Now it was Murray’s turn to smile a little. John immediately disliked that expression—it was the smile of a hunter. Murray Longworth clearly loved the game, and he was used to winning, no matter what the cost.

“Funny you should mention monsters,” Murray said. “We put together a team to investigate the situation, led by CIA operative Dew Phillips. Through Phillips’s work we discovered that the parasites leave the human host and became free-moving organisms.”

If the Oval Office hadn’t had such nice rug, you could have heard a pin drop.

“Murray,” John said, talking slowly, choosing his words carefully. “Are you telling us that these triangular growths… hatch out of people?”

“That’s correct, Mister President,” Murray said. “We even refer to them as hatchlings.”

“And then what?” Donald said. “Do they walk on their own or something?”

“That’s correct, Mister Secretary,” Murray said. “Not only do they walk, they operate as a unit. Hatchlings tried to build and activate a construct that we believe is either some kind of gateway or a weapon. This is footage shot by army soldiers in Wahjamega, Michigan.”

Murray cued the video. The quality was fairly good. John saw soldiers, trees and then something deeper in the winter woods… something glowing. It looked like a big archway, maybe twenty feet high at the apex, an illuminated wedding band half-buried in the muddy forest floor. Inside of that he could see three more arches, each smaller, each farther back. It was like looking into a glowing cone.

And creatures, scurrying over the arches like termites on a rotten log. A strange skin growth was one thing, but this… this wasn’t even remotely possible. John felt a cold tingle wash over his skin. If this was real, than it had to be… what? Aliens? Demons? This just couldn’t be happening.

“No way,” Vanessa said. “There’s no way that’s real. Why are you wasting the president’s time with special effects?”

“It’s real, ma’am,” Murray said.

John leaned forward for a closer look, his ass barely on the edge of his chair. “Just what the hell are those supposed to be?”

“Hatchlings,” Murray said. “You get a better look, right about… now.”

The video grew shaky as the hatchlings suddenly rushed forward to attack. The shot angled sharply before the first creature reached the troops, probably as the soldier shooting the footage dropped the camera. Murray paused it there. John stared at a tilted close-up of a pyramid-shaped creature with angry, vertical black eyes and tentacles for legs.

Again, total silence.

John Gutierrez had made a career out of sizing people up. That innate skill had taken him from mayor to state senator. It had been key in adding Vanessa to his staff. When he met her, he knew. Her skill and ruthlessness had guided him from state senate into Congress, and now the White House. An amazing feat, considering that John was forty-six years old and the nation’s first Hispanic president. John Gutierrez trusted his eyes, his instincts—and those tools now told him that Murray Longworth wasn’t bullshitting anyone.

This was real.

“What the hell are we dealing with, Murray?” John asked. “You’re not going to tell me these are aliens, are you?”

“That’s our best guess, sir,” Murray said. “The technology is way beyond anything we know. We suspect that the hatchlings are a form of biological machine, designed to build the glowing structure.”

John wanted to kill Hutchins. The former president might as well have left a giant, steaming pile of shit on the Oval Office rug. Now the problem rested squarely in John’s lap, and no matter what happened, the public would associate this with his presidency, not Hutchins’s.

“Wahjamega,” Donald said. “Wait a minute, that’s where the Osprey helicopter crashed back in December. Eight soldiers died.”

“A cover story,” Murray said. “There was no crash. The eight soldiers died when we attacked and destroyed the gate.”

Donald looked around the room in disbelief, as if he were waiting for Vanessa or John or Tom to say gotcha.

But no one said gotcha.

“Simply amazing,” Vanessa said. She sounded sarcastic, but also quite shaken, and John couldn’t blame her. “The families of these brave men may never know the truth. They died in battle, and we list it as a helicopter crash. How patriotic of us. So what’s happened since then?”

“Dawsey needed serious medical care,” Murray said. “We had him in a VA hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Seems he recovered faster than expected, got access to a computer, hacked into the facility’s database and altered his security status. It’s a bit embarrassing to say, but on January eighth he just walked out.

“The parasites built something in his brain, some kind of mesh structure that lets him track down infected hosts. He found one that had just murdered three people. Dawsey killed the man in self-defense. Before the man died, however, Dawsey discovered the location of another gate, in—”

“Mather, Wisconsin,” Donald interrupted. “The Osprey crash in Mather. Twelve men dead.”

Murray nodded.

“Who knows about this?” John asked. “The whole story, who knows?”

“The Joint Chiefs,” Murray said. “They had to implement President Hutchins’s decision to sequester the soldiers involved and reassign them to a new unit. The soldiers themselves know they fought something unusual, but very few people know the whole story: Phillips, Montoya, Braun, Agent Clarence Otto—who’s Montoya’s CIA liaison—the CIA director, Hutchins and a few members of his staff.”

“What about the FBI?” Vanessa asked. “The CIA has no domestic police authority. You shouldn’t be doing any of this.”

“The FBI does not have detailed knowledge,” Murray said. “Once again, we were acting on the direct orders of President Hutchins.”

Vanessa stared at Murray and shook her head. John knew she had her sights firmly set on the man: she was going dinosaur hunting. It would be up to Murray to fend off her attacks and to prove his worth.

But how much more did the man need to prove? A behavior-altering human parasite, at least two military operations on U. S. soil that resulted in casualties, what might very well be alien machines… and no one knew. The media didn’t even have an inkling. John now understood why his predecessor raved about Murray Longworth.

“We still don’t really know what we’re up against,” Murray said. “We haven’t been able to capture one of those hatchlings alive. The ones we kill disintegrate very quickly, within a few hours. Even the gate material breaks down almost immediately, so that hasn’t given us any information.”

“How do we know that these things are truly hostile?” Donald said. Vanessa and Tom “They attacked our troops, I understand, but could that be a defensive action, to protect this construct long enough for them to… I can’t believe I’m even saying this out loud… long enough for them to make contact?”

“A race that technologically advanced could initiate at least a rudimentary communication,” Murray said. “The only logical reason they haven’t is that they don’t want to. They build only in remote areas. Why not build whatever it is out in the open? Because if they did that, our military could surround them and prepare for whatever came through. That’s not a problem unless you’re bringing in your own military units. This seclusion indicates they want to insert assets, assets that could be vulnerable during the insertion process.”

“A beachhead,” Donald said. “They want to control a landing zone.”

Murray nodded. “That’s our assessment, Mister Secretary. And finally, look at the behavior of the infected victims. These parasites represent a level of bioengineering we can’t even fathom. Could something capable of utilizing a human host like that accidentally create behavior that makes the host avoid contact with health-care professionals? Or kill people very close to them, people who might see the welts and call for help?”

Murray stopped talking. He stood motionless, his hands by his sides. Donald, Vanessa and Tom all turned to look at John. He took a long sip of water. What the fuck was he going to do with Hutchins’s little going-away present?

He set the water down.

“Donald,” John said. “In your position as secretary of defense, do you think these things are hostile?”

Donald nodded. “Based on what we’ve been told, yes.”

He looked at Vanessa. “And you?”

She looked as if it pained her to say the words. “I also would agree, but based on what we’ve been told, Mister President, we have to go public with this.”

“Are you fucking nuts?” Murray said. He looked at everyone in the room, then stood a little straighter. “My apologies for my outburst, but this is a bad time to go public. Doctor Montoya is developing a test that will detect the disease. We have Phillips’s team in place, and we’re actively seeking additional hosts.”

“Trust the people,” Vanessa said. “We need to tackle this as a nation.”

John leaned back in his chair. Nothing like a major, possibly historical decision to kick off his presidency in style.

“Murray,” John said. “How long until the test is ready?”

“We can’t say for sure,” Murray said. “At least a week, but we won’t know if it works until we find more hosts.”

Opening up this can of worms to the public… now might not be the time. Murray Longworth had kept things secret for five administrations; John imagined he could do the same for a sixth.

“Two weeks,” John said. “I want two weeks to evaluate the situation. Let’s get that test working and move from there. And, Murray, keep this thing quiet.”

Murray nodded. He looked pleased, as if somehow he’d known all along that this was how the meeting would turn out. John couldn’t miss his small smile.

John could also see that Vanessa didn’t miss it, either.