Dead Water

6

A little after eleven o'clock at night, the CDC team arrived back at the landing zone. The portable lighting utilized was impressive. Two other researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention met them at the edge of the clearing and spent twenty minutes running tests before they were cleared. Finally, the original team was allowed to get out of their suits. All the samples were declared sufficiently contained. The six then approached the helicopter. Ragar and Rockford immediately brought Larkin into Ragar's helicopter, in which he'd set up a small office.

Ragar started, "Was it as bad as it looked? For time's sake, I've decided not to go myself."

"Worse. The pictures don't do it justice. Nothing in that lake survived. I've never seen or heard of anything like it. Makes the worst red tide kill I've seen look like a goldfish floating in a bowl."

"Could you tell anything at all?"

"No. Like I said before, water tested fine — didn't pick up any sign of a biohazard. Right now, I don't have a clue. Only oddity I saw was that the eyes of the fish were black. We won't know for certain until we're back at the lab, but my guess is coagulated blood. I don't know what killed those fish, but whatever it was, it's as strong as anything I've ever heard of. It's the speed that it worked in that's so damned scary. We have to get back. We've got a lot of work ahead of us."

Rockford asked, "You think it was a bioweapon being tested?"

"I can't say yet, but my guess would be yes. The only thing I can even think of that could have been a natural cause would have been gases coming up from the lake bottom due to volcanic activity. There are areas right now, they call them killer lakes, but its life above the water that seems to be affected, not in it. One other thing I found odd. Today there were birds feasting on the remains. Whatever originally killed the fish is no longer active. I seriously doubt our samples are any danger; we're just taking standard precautions. This whole incident is way beyond anything I've ever heard of."

There was a knock on the door. "Yes," answered Ragar.

"Wheels up in three minutes, sir."

Phillips surprised everyone by cooking breakfast at the Ranch the next morning — scrambled eggs with pepper jack cheese, homemade biscuits, thick slices of ham, orange juice, and a special Green Mountain Coffee she'd brought with her.

"To what do we owe this?" asked Starr.

"You can thank Styles," she answered.

"How's that?" Christman queried.

"Easy. He made dinner last night. I don't think I could take two meals in a row from him," Phillips retorted. A moment of silence was quickly followed by genuine laughter. "Speaking of, just where is Mr. Sunshine? I haven't heard a peep from him, and I got up early."

"Your early and my early are about three hours apart," a voice said coming in from the side of the house. Everyone looked over as Styles walked into the room. "And forgive me for pointing this out, but just who had two very large bowls of beef stew last night?"

"Desperate times call for desperate measures," Phillips deadpanned right back.

"Any more desperate and you probably would've swallowed the bowl," Styles gave it right back. "Breakfast does smell good, though."

Everyone grabbed plates and silverware and then served themselves buffet-style. Phillips had cooked a generous amount of everything, so no one was bashful. "Eat up, guys. Don't want it on the pancakes in the morning," Phillips cracked.

"Not gonna have to ask me twice," said Starr.

"Me either," chimed in Christman.

"Guess I'd better eat too. Don't want to hurt little Miss Frail's feelings here," Styles joked as a biscuit came flying in his direction. He easily caught it and took a bite. "Damn, Phillips. These are good. Maybe I'd better refer to you as Duncan Phillips," he said, bringing laughter from everyone.

"Yeah, that's me, all right. Just call me Crocker." She already had the coffee urn set up in the middle of the dining room table, and everyone piled in. The food was so good there was little talking. "There are more biscuits in the oven, guys. Anybody like some?"

"Hell yes. Bring 'em in!" J. C. hollered. Within twenty minutes, breakfast was over. All were enjoying the coffee.

"So how did the meeting go with the president?" asked Styles.

"Good, I guess. Blew him out of his socks when I showed him the video Phillips downloaded. He was not expecting that. He agreed with our assessment. As of now, we are in the mode."

"What can we do that everybody else can't?" asked J. C.

"Probably just about everything, at least quicker, when you get right down to it," replied Phillips. "I'm going to run a search on all aircraft that were in that area before and after. I'll take it out, say, seventy-two hours either side to be safe."

"How can you do that?" Starr asked.

"It'd take too long to explain it to you, Starr. All you need to know is I can. By lunch, I'll have the transponder numbers of every aircraft that's been in that area over that time. If we find anything suspicious, we can narrow down those particular aircraft, including departure and arrival points. That's a start."

"Won't other agencies do that also?" Starr asked again.

"Yeah, but they'll be way behind us by that time. They've got too much cross-referencing to do. I don't have to stay within their boundaries. I've also got another program running back across all the video we've already downloaded. I'm trying to come up with an infrared scan during the evening hours."

"Why? What are you looking for?"

"Anything. I won't know unless I look."

Starr continued, "Just how can you run an infrared scan on an existing video that was not shot using infrared technology?"

"To be honest, I'm not certain I can. I took the image of what we are sure is a person. I used that as a base for creating an artificial thermal image. I then wrote a program using everything else in the video, creating a colder image. It's hard to explain. The water is cold; so are the fish. Birds are warm-blooded, so I imaged them warm. I assigned a code for everything I could find in the video. If anything shows up in the video that was shot during the night, hopefully, the different coding will kick in and give me an image. I don't know if it'll work or not; never tried this before. Basically, I'm making something up from something I made up, if that makes any sense. That's how we came up with computers in the first place. Nobody knew anything until they tried. Figure I don't have anything to lose."

"Sounds like a solid idea, Phillips," Styles finally said. "If I were going in, I'd do a night jump. With a GPS fix, one could nail it spot-on. Even though it's in a remote area, it still lessens the chance of being spotted, especially considering what we think he's doing."

"I'm thinking the same thing," Phillips agreed. "I should have some answers by lunch or shortly after. Somebody else can clean up." She got up and left to return to her computers.

"Come on, guys. We can police this quick." All three men started grabbing the breakfast remains. "Can't have that one little biscuit sitting there all lonely," J. C. said as he stuffed it into his mouth.

"Thoughtful of you, J. C.," cracked Starr.

President Robert Williams had all the heads of his major agencies assembled. It was six in the morning. He'd removed his suit jacket. His necktie had been loosened, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up. It was a sign of the times as much the seriousness of the situation. Eight people were in attendance: the president, his new chief of staff, Laura Green, and the six directors.

"Gentlemen, I'm sure you all know Laura Green, my new chief of staff. I'm going to get straight to the point. There is now no doubt that we are facing a terrorist threat. This time, it involves a biological weapon, one that appears unfamiliar. I call your attention to the big screen. Watch carefully." A video began to play, and suddenly the image froze. "I want you to pay close attention to that yellow spot in the lower left-hand corner. Watch carefully," the president directed. Every eye was glued to the screen. The image grew larger until it could be distinguished as a person in a hazmat suit — small, to be sure, but no mistake. "Now watch," the president continued. The image seen appeared to be throwing something into the lake. The video rewound and played again. No one said anything. The screen went blank.

President Williams sat down. "What we just saw was exactly what it looked like. Someone dressed in a hazmat suit threw something into that lake. Twelve hours later, it was a body of dead water. Nothing survived."

Bernard Backersley, director of the CIA, was visually stunned. "Sir, where in the hell did you get that video?"

"That is not important, Bernard. What is important is that we have it."

Backersley looked around the table. "Has anyone else seen this?" Backersley was not used to being upstaged. All he received was a shaking of heads.

He turned his attention back to the president. "Sir, with all due respect, how do we know this video is factual?"

President Williams was in no mood to spar with Backersley. "Bernard, I realize that you are unaccustomed to information that you are unaware of; however, this is as factual as it gets. We need to focus on what the hell we're going to do about it."

"Well, it would certainly appear that if it was tested in water, then water would be the target."

"Good guess," Matt Sanderson of the FBI retorted sarcastically.

"Enough!" President Williams yelled. "This is not about who's the big dick here. Either get along or get out. I won't say it again." The room was silent. "I want everyone back here at two tomorrow afternoon to give your opinion on possible targets. If any of you want to work together, that's fine. I don't care. Just bring me ideas." He got up and stormed out of the room.

Phillips and Christman had their own cabins that had been constructed at the Ranch. This was to allow them private quarters when present. Each was designed in a rustic country motif, were comfortable, and reasonably spacious. The open floor plan attributed greatly to the feel. A large brick double-sided gas fireplace in the center completed the effect.

Phillips had taken a smaller bedroom in the main house that was not being used and turned it into her personal computer room. She had taken a Sharpie and written on the exterior of the entrance door "Keep the Fuck Out," using this area when working alone rather than the war room.

"Bossy bitch," Starr had chuckled when he'd seen it. "Just another reason I'm not married."

"Starr, you couldn't con a Russian mail-order bride into marrying you," Phillips had shot right back.

"She's got you there," Styles threw in.

Close to lunch, Phillips walked out into the main living quarters. Starr was looking over some papers while Styles and Christman were nowhere to be seen.

"Where are the other two?" Phillips asked.

"Out in the gym. J. C. asked Styles to show him some basic fighting moves."

"Can you bring them in? I've got some serious shit to show you guys."

"Sure." He got up and walked out toward the barn that contained the gym. Walking in, he saw Styles helping Christman up off the mat. "Hey, Phillips has found some stuff she wants to go over."

"Fine by me," said J. C. "Styles is about to put me in a grave."

"You're doing fine, J. C. You gotta crawl before you walk," Styles replied.

"I'll be lucky if I can walk."

The three headed back toward the house with Christman limping slightly.

As they went inside, they heard Phillips yell, "Anybody want anything to drink?"

"Water," they answered in unison.

The three men followed Phillips back to her computer lair. "Have a seat," she said. She had the room set up very simply. There were three viewing chairs aimed at a row of four large flat-screen monitors. Two walls contained a continuous L-shaped desk with keyboards, smaller LED monitors, and other assorted equipment that none of the men would admit to not having a clue about.

"Okay, guys, here we go. The far-left flat screen appears black. It is. It's night. Now this is going to be real time."

Suddenly, a medium-size orange-red object appeared and crossed the screen. "That was an aircraft — helicopter, to be exact. That was at eight thirty the night before the person in the suit was seen." The blip disappeared, leaving a very small spot in its place. "That is our guy, who has jumped out of the helicopter. Styles, you were right." They watched in silence as the orange object seemed to just stay in one spot. Then slowly, it turned to a northeast direction. After a few minutes, the spot settled in one spot again. "He's down, right in the same clearing where the president's team landed."

The spot moved slowly a short distance and then stopped again. Suddenly, another small spot flared up. "My guess it's a campfire," Phillips offered. They watched for a bit until Phillips said, "I'm going to jump ahead a little bit."

The second spot diminished completely, and the original spot dimmed, but not entirely.

"He's settled in for the night," observed Styles.

"I agree," replied Phillips. "I'm going to jump ahead again. This next scene will be the following evening, after we've seen him throw something in the lake. I've highlighted the shoreline in gray for reference."

When the video started, roughly one-sixth of the lake had started to turn orange. It was brightest at the shore, while the color lessened as it got farther from lake's edge. "I'm going to speed this up about eighteen times," Phillips stated. For the next twenty minutes, the group watched as slowly the entire lake turned orange.

Christman asked the obvious. "Phillips, I know the orange represents heat, but what is that heat representing?"

"I'm guessing a couple of things. That toxic weapon has spread, killing everything in that lake, which is generating heat — the agent itself, the fish dying, maybe the starting of decomposition. Probably the act of killing the fish is causing heat. Either way, I figure this entire action took somewhere around seven hours to complete, give or take."

"Seven hours?" exclaimed Starr.

"Yes, maybe less. The really scary part is how small an amount must've been used to cause this," Phillips continued. "I was able to track that copter. It landed just outside of Bethel, Alaska."

"We've got a real fucking problem," Starr swore. "I've gotta call the Man." He got up and left.

Styles straightened up in his seat. "We have us a starting point."