The Deadliest Strain

Chapter Eight

Faas Hanlon climbed out of the helicopter and moved quickly out from under the whirling blades. Two of his top people were waiting for him near three black SUVs parked at the edge of the cliff overlooking Boynton Canyon. Agents were on phones and laptops in each of the vehicles.

The site below was something out of a Steven Spielberg film set. Large silver-and-white tents covered sections of the canyon. Police tape and ropes had been set up all along the parameter. Dozens of police cars parked in the vicinity of the resort kept away curiosity-seekers. Crime labs set up inside trucks and vans were parked everywhere inside the restricted area. The tents hid most of the foot traffic, but the occasional glimpse of people from this view revealed that they were dressed in some kind of protective gear and masks.

"Give me the status, Bea," Faas demanded of the woman standing beside him.

"We've contained the site, sir," Bea Devera shouted back, pointing out the perimeter. Her Homeland Security jacket flapped in the wind caused by the chopper.

"I can see that. What about casualties?"

The situation was more critical than any disaster they'd encountered as yet in this administration. Every investigative department in the government was working together to figure out exactly what it was that they were facing. The potential damage was unknown, but the speed with which the disease struck was stunning.

"Five confirmed dead so far. The two occupants of the truck, the two police officers who found them, and one jogger who got too close to the scene before our search-and-rescue teams arrived."

"Where are the bodies?"

"They just airlifted the last one out of here. The others are en route to our facility in Phoenix."

Faas looked at the folder Bea held under one arm. "Pictures?"

"They're not pretty," she said grimly. She handed him the folder. "There are two Polaroids here. We took a lot more with the digital cameras. They should already be available to view online. You can look at them when we go down to the site."

Faas looked hard at the photos. The pictures were taken from outside of the truck. A dead police officer, showing early signs of decomposition on his face, was sitting against the door.

"Do we know exactly how fast the bacteria killed?"

"No, we don't. From the time the police officers called in after finding the bodies in the truck to the time when our people started arriving on the scene was two hours and fifteen minutes. By then, all five were dead."

"But I was told the officers called in when they realized they were infected."

"Yes, sir. But we lost contact with them about ninety minutes before arriving on the scene. These canyons do funny things to communication devices. The locals say there's a vortex here—"

"Two hours to respond," Faas snapped unhappily. "That's too slow. These people don't understand the severity of what we're facing yet."

"They do now, sir," Bea said in defense. "Most of our equipment and experts were on the East Coast. We were operating under the mistaken premise that the bacteria had been localized to Maine. We had to fly most of these people in from L.A. The mobile crime labs came in from Phoenix, but they couldn't get on the site until the proper protective gear arrived."

Faas appreciated Devera's loyalty to her team.

"How about the local emergency response?" he asked.

"They were instructed not to approach the victims," the other agent explained. "Local police were tasked with closing the trails and keeping the gawkers away."

Without divulging specifics, Homeland Security had communicated these instructions overnight to every law enforcement agency across the country.

"Beyond the initial five people, we're certain that no one else has been infected?" he asked.

Bea exchanged a look with the other agent.

"We can't say that for certain. We don't know where the two teenagers in the truck were before stealing the vehicle.

We haven't even been able to positively ID the two," she explained. 'There were a couple of backpacks and wallets in there, but we're not sure if they're stolen property, as well."

Faas turned as a command control van pulled up behind the SUVs. This was a new method of investigating. The agents in charge weren't being allowed on-site.

"As far as our people being infected," the other agent told him, glancing toward the van, "they seem to have everything under control down there. The protocol we're following is similar to that for an Ebola outbreak."

Bea broke in. "Now that the van has arrived, we'll be directing operations from up here."

A remote-control investigation. They were expected to work like surgeons who use computers to operate on patients lying in hospitals on the other side of the country. Faas grimaced at the thought, not for an instant wanting to be on an operating table under those conditions.

"Maine and now Arizona," he said aloud. "Any connections between the victims? Any similar places they visited? Things they ate or drank? Anything that ties them together? This folder is empty. I need a lot more." He handed the manila folder back to Bea.

"As I said, we don't even have a positive ID. Everything has been taken away to the lab. We're hoping that in a couple of hours we'll have more to report."

"Hoping isn't enough. You'd better be sure that you have a lot to report," Faas said impatiently. He was frustrated and snapping at his people, not that it made him feel any better.

"Have you been in contact with Agents Newman and Sutton about this?" he asked her, softening his tone.

"Yes, I spoke to Agent Sutton just before you landed."

He'd spoken to Matt a couple of hours ago. They'd located Dr. Banaz but they didn't have any information yet.

Faas noticed a news helicopter had appeared over the canyon. Two military choppers approached the newcomer and the media aircraft swung around and started back the way it came.

"What the hell are they doing here?"

"I'm afraid it's already out," Bea said, frowning. "I assumed you knew. The dead jogger took a picture of the truck and bodies with his cell phone and sent it to KPHO in Phoenix. I just heard that they showed it on the air about five minutes ago. It's just a matter of time before the national media is camped out here."

Faas squinted his eyes against the bright sun and watched the news chopper disappear behind a distant red rock butte. He had to warn the president. He'd been involved with the decision to keep the news of the disease a secret from the beginning. The shots of the site that this news crew was carrying back wouldn't help.

Creating mass hysteria had been a primary concern from the start. The president and his advisers had decided that containment, preparation for other outbreaks, and vigilance were the best course of action. Now, having appeared to have contained the disease within each outbreak location, they needed to track the microbe to its source. As far as Faas was concerned, that was exactly what Austyn Newman would accomplish.

Even in handling the potential source of the microbe, however, this president was so different from the last. President Penn's position was that the U.S.'s sometimes justifiable fears about Middle Easterners had been exploited too much for political advantage. Penn felt that immigrants here had suffered enough this past decade. There was enough hatred and prejudice as it was. They didn't need fingers pointed at them without substantial proof.

Faas understood the president's sentiments. He was an immigrant himself. His father was Danish, his mother from Curasao. An only child from a broken marriage, he was shipped off to the U.S. to live with a great-uncle when he'd been in the sixth grade.

As he'd grown up here, discrimination and prejudice had been immediate and deliberate at school, at the jobs he'd held during high school, and on the playing fields. He was black to some, white to others, a foreigner to all of them. He was smart, spoke English with an accent, worked hard, didn't break the rules, and that made him an outsider. He was everything other kids didn't want him to be. It was only when he'd gotten into the Foreign Service program at Georgetown that things had begun to change for him personally.

His youth had prepared him well for life, though. Faas's position as intelligence chief at Homeland Security dictated that he suspect everyone, and he believed that it would be inexcusable for him to overlook the forest as he searched for the poisoned tree. He had a job to do, and he would do it.

In the president's desire for secrecy at this point, however, he was entirely supportive. Faas Hanlon was the last person who wanted to be going before news cameras once an hour to tell the American public that they still didn't know anything.

They'd done a good job so far of keeping the lid on the outbreak in Maine. Sedona, a more wide-open area, would be a different story. In the canyon, where the police crews were holding back the crowds, a news van had moved in and was raising its broadcast antenna. Yes, Sedona was going to be a problem.

The cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Faas stepped away from the others and looked at the display. Well, he thought with a sigh, he wouldn't have to call the president.

John Penn was calling him.