Case:Black - 17. Chapter 17

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. 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 San Francisco, Denver, Seattle and Los Angeles before they could deploy.”

“We have confirmed the agent. It is a bio-weapon 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/USAMARIID 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 three 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 stepped 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 or Jihadis 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 USAMIRIID at Fort Detrick and Homelands labs at White Sands and Manhattan, Kansas.”

Director Foley concluded, “OK gentlemen. The clock is running. We’ve got about thirty hours before a lot of sick people wake up and go berserk. We need to get those cordons beefed up and locked down ASAP. Thank You.”