Southwestern Colorado

October 18

The governing trio of the Elite Operatives Organization was seated at Montgomery Pierce’s conference table with an array of personnel files before them and a list of the current whereabouts and status of all ninety-five members of their Elite Tactical Force. They were sipping coffee, as daybreak was still hours away.

“We’ll be spread very thin,” Montgomery Pierce mused aloud. “Thirteen countries have forwarded requests for assistance so far, and that number will explode in the coming days.”

“I hate putting all our best resources into such a tenuous situation,” David Arthur replied. “We can’t adequately protect them. MIS says the experimental antiflu serum they sent us isn’t guaranteed to have any effect whatsoever on this thing. It was developed six months ago.”

“I agree,” Joanne Grant added, looking down at the requests. “Some of these have much risk with very little possibility of success. This situation will only get worse, and we need to reserve our people for missions where they have some reasonable chance of making a difference.”

Monty loosened his tie and stretched back in his chair. As he often did when he was mulling over a difficult decision, he tapped one finger on the tabletop. “I don’t want to needlessly sacrifice our ops any more than you do,” he said quietly. “I wish to hell someone would come up with an antivirus. But, barring that, we need to limit our involvement for now to this urgent missive from MIS.” He reached for the decoded transmission that had been sent overnight from the Military Intelligence Service.

“All the bullshit involved in gaining access to confidential medical records is bogging down official efforts to track down the patient zeros. That’s where we come in. We’ll send two ops to each of the five hospitals that reported the first cases—in Beijing, Munich, Cali, Kinshasa, and Dallas—and have Reno standing by here to hack into databases as needed.” He selected ten personnel files from the stack and split them into five piles. “We need to determine the patient zeros, see if there’s any commonality, and try to determine how, when, where, and by whom they were infected.”

“I’ll start working on the logistics while you contact them,” Joanne said. “And make sure all the teams get this experimental serum.”

“They’ll also need high-quality respirator masks and latex gloves,” Monty said. “The best you can get. Even that crappy shit is probably long sold out where most of these people are. And issue orders they’re to always wear them when in contact with others. No exceptions.” He leaned back and went quiet for a moment, only vaguely aware of the muted cadence of his tap-tap-tap against the smooth surface of the polished wood beneath his finger. “I hope to God that after all these people have been through we don’t lose any of them to this damned bug.”

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 614