Chapter 26
The Past Collides
Bill hardly touched his breakfast and had moped back to his cell with his head down, ignoring everyone who tried to talk to him. It had been a hell of a week and he just wanted some time to himself today, get himself lost in a book and forget about everything until it torched off again in the morning. It was going to be hard for Bill to keep up the activity level around The Cause with Don back in the office, he kept his eye on him even after all these years. Yesterday had been tough in the recycling center, with a fight breaking out and the guards busting a couple of heads before it was all done. Bill ended up stuck until well past dinner trying to explain what he’d seen and done and the way he saw the events unfold. While he hadn’t been in direct danger it was a scary thing and it cost him most of last night’s sleep.
The block was quiet and Bill was dozing off as he tried to read, head bobbing down as he sat propped up on the bed, back against the cold cinder block wall of the cell. He hoped for a couple hours but heard the buzzer of the public address system like it was a bullet passing through his head. “Bill Miller come to the guard station pronto.” The announcement was repeated but Bill was coming to his feet, still dazed from his state of near sleep. Then it hit him like a ton of bricks, Homeland Security is pouncing, what else could it be? Bill’s heart was in his throat and his life is running through his mind as he started down the block toward the center of the prison. His body was rubbery and felt like he was floating down to the guard station, which was just ahead.
“I’m Miller.” He told the guard behind the desk who didn’t bother looking up.
“Visitor, you know the drill son.”
Bill was really shitting bricks now, picturing Darren Ward and a bunch of other Homeland Security officials waiting on the other side of the door. He tried to calm down his heart, which was beating like he was running up Mount Everest. Bill slowly counted to ten and his heart stopped racing so hard. If this was it he needed to face up to whatever awaited him behind the door. He knocked and peeked through the door, all of the blood leaving his body in a flood as he saw Dana sitting at the closest visitor’s table.
She stood when she saw him and hugged him without a word. It had been almost ten years since he’d seen her but everything came flooding back when his arms were around her. “Hi Billy” was all she said, also caught up in the reunion. After a minute or so they broke the hug and sat down across the table from one another. Dana looked incredible to Bill and for a minute he thought about the first time they’d kissed, sitting at a table similar to this one almost twenty five years ago.
“Dana, you look beautiful, it is so great to see you.”
“Thanks Billy, you look good too. You looked like you’d seen a ghost when you peeked through that glass but the color suits you better.” She squeezed his hand across the table and was also thinking about that party so many summers ago.
“What brings you here? I’m not complaining, but I haven’t seen you or heard from you in so long I wondered if I’d ever see you again.”
“Something about passing twenty years got me thinking about you. Back when I used to visit you were so sad and it seemed like I’d make you worse when I came by. I didn’t really want to stop but I couldn’t stand to hurt you.”
“Damn, all these years I thought you didn’t care anymore Dana. I am so glad you came back. So how are things for you?”
“Let’s not talk about that today Billy, let’s talk about you, reminisce and hold hands until the guards send me home. Ok?”
“Whatever you say. Remember how I was working in the prison office? I’m still there, doing most of the computer work. It’s the closest I can be to the outside.”
“Wasn’t there a woman in the office who took care of you?”
“Kathy. Still brings me food every day, she’s the biggest reason I haven’t wasted away to nothing in here. The people in the office are still the same and over the years we’ve all grown closer. I’ve learned a lot of things and been able to work on some pretty cool stuff.”
“That’s great to hear. How’s your mom and sister?”
“They were here recently and you’ll never guess who came with them. Mike’s mom came by. Mister Watts died earlier this year and she wanted to tell me that she forgives me for what happened and made me promise to try and forgive myself.”
“That must have made you feel good.”
“Good but tough, lots of memories came back to the surface. I think about the accident all the time but I hadn’t seen her since the trial and remember how she and Mister Watts looked at me, wanting me dead.”
“Have you forgiven yourself? What about parole?”
“I’m thinking about forgiving myself but haven’t tried for parole. Almost everyone has been pushing me for a lot of years to do it but I’m not deserving of it. Mike and Don didn’t get a parole option.”
“Oh Billy, when are you going to learn? You did the crime and you’ve owned it but don’t let it be your identity. So many victims get their identity from their ailments or circumstances. You need a new identity, what happened was an accident, quit letting it be your life.” She squeezed his hand as he sat there thinking, a tear in his eye.
“I can’t believe you’re here Dana, feel like I’m in a dream. You look so incredibly beautiful.” All of his problems had melted away and suddenly he felt like the high school boy at that party, the night they first kissed.
“You’re silly, I’m old and tired looking.” But she appreciated the comment and missed him sorely. “Been a while since anyone told me that.”
“Are you still married to the good doctor? Tell me about you, it’s pretty obvious what I’ve been up to the past decade.”
“Still married, we have two girls, age seven and four. I am going back to work next year when Kenzie goes to kindergarten. It’s been great to be there for them but I miss interacting with adults.”
“Two daughters? You’re going to be in trouble, especially if they take after you in the looks department.”
“Don’t make them grow up too fast, I’m not ready to deal with them as teenagers. Let’s see, we live on the east side of Cleveland, in Moreland Hills, you ever hear of it?”
“No, what’s it like?”
“Semi-rural, close to parks, the river. It’s really a beautiful place. We moved there after Laurel was born, she’s the older one. It’s a nice, safe place to raise a family and there is plenty of land for the girls to explore, ride horses and have friends over. Dad is retired now so my parents visit quite a bit, we’ve got a guest house on the property. He’s been lecturing part time at Case, something he always wanted to do.”
“Sounds good. What about the Mr.?”
“He’s a doctor at Hillcrest hospital in Mayfield Heights, runs the internal medicine department. Basic doctor workaholic, never realized how hard it must have been for my dad to spend so much time with us, it’s too easy to get buried in work when you’re a doctor.”
“Are you still in touch with anyone from school?”
“Nah, have a new circle of friends, mostly people with kids our kids age. Haven’t seen anyone from school except at the periodic reunion or fundraiser. Also don’t go to New York anymore since my parents come down here all the time, feels like a foreign country when I go there, things have changed a lot. Downtown Westfield is a ghost town since the plant shut down, there are rumors that the hospital might be next, which would devastate the town.”
“Oh man, I hope that doesn’t happen. Ellie is a nurse there and her husband works there too. They’d probably have to move to find work and my mom would be up there all alone.”
“More reason to get paroled?” She squeezed his hand again. He hadn’t noticed but his hands were sweating, he was so lost in seeing her. Bill didn’t answer her right away, thought how much torture it would be for him to be out of prison but unable to be with Dana.
“Earth to Bill? Where did you go?” Dana was still holding his hand but her fo
ot was going up and down, making the table vibrate. Bill could tell she was getting ready to leave but he wanted her to stay as long as possible.
“Just thinking about parole and wishing that you could stay longer.”
She smiled and her green eyes lit up the room, a moment that Bill would never forget, even if she never came to visit again. Dana slowly leaned across the table and kissed him gently on the lips, the smell of her perfume going to his brain and the feeling of her lips a long lost memory. “I have to go but promise that it won’t be ten years before you see me again.”
“Do you go online? Can I email you?”.
“Sure, I forgot that you work in the office and probably have access to the web.” She took out a piece of paper and wrote down her address. His hand felt cold and numb without hers touching it. Bill stood, took the paper and hugged her for a long time, not saying a word.
“I will see you soon” she said, squeezing her old lover one last time before quickly turning and walking away. It had been an emotional visit for her and she sat in her car crying from the flood of emotions. The amount of courage required to break the ice after all that time had taken a toll but now that the chasm had been crossed she wouldn’t wait so long again. As she got on the freeway and started the cross town trek, Dana wondered if she and Bill would have married had things not happened the way they did. She daydreamed of the feel of his hand and the softness of those lips, and even let her thoughts stray further.
“Who was that, Miller? Haven’t seen her before.”
“An old friend, haven’t seen her in ten years.”
“Hopefully she’ll come around more, generally the view around here is filled with trailer trash and crack whores.”
Bill chuckled and floated back to his cell for the night. When he woke in the morning his heart was still light from Dana’s visit. The coffee tasted better, the office seemed brighter and Bill was whistling in his chair, thinking about what he was going to say in his email to Dana. He heard some commotion from the other side of the office and saw Kathy coming over, a somber look on her face.
“What’s up Mom? Rough weekend? You’ll never guess who came to see me yesterday.”
“Hopefully it wasn’t someone who’s been to Korea recently.”
“Korea? Did I miss a joke?”
“It’s not a joke, there’s been a smallpox outbreak in Korea, hundreds of people are dead. According to CNN, this is a new strain that isn’t protected by the vaccines we got as kids. My kids weren’t even vaccinated, smallpox was thought to be eliminated from the world.”
Bill couldn’t focus on what she was saying, his world slipping away. “That’s unbelievable, is there any sign of it outside Korea?”
“Not yet but hundreds of flights went all over the world. Seems like it was spread by putting the virus into a batch of Coke that was bottled in Seoul, the South Korean government thinks that it was only distributed to local grocery stores, not the airport or any hotels. A North Korean group is claiming responsibility but the government says they have no knowledge or evidence of it. There is a lot of talk that this is reminiscent to the Taliban in Afghanistan.” She was shaking her head as she walked to the kitchen, leaving Bill sitting there staring in to space, so far away from his daydream world of Dana.
Bill logged on to CNN, where there were pictures of some of the infected people, bodies being carried out of houses and even eerie scenes showing the quarantine zones, the people as dead looking as holocaust death camp prisoners. Despite all of the death, there was some encouraging news and additional information that made it seem like they’d contained it to the country. The death toll in Korea was expected to stay under one thousand and the government estimated that containment is approaching ninety five percent. Bill’s mouth was dry but his forehead was wet with sweat, it was freaking him out to have the reality of the situation smack him in the face. People have died and he may have been able to prevent that by coming forward sooner. Between the confusion over Dana’s visit and the disaster in Korea, Bill felt himself slipping away. He heard Don’s voice from across the office and thought “oh shit”, it wasn’t going to be easy for him to hide or focus on The Cause. He wondered if he should just open up to Don and tell him everything, which immediately seemed like a dumb idea. It wasn’t even nine in the morning and his world was unraveling, needed to hold it together. He opened his purchasing project to make him appear busy if anyone walked by and decided that he better not wait to find out what was going on with The Cause.
The chemist hadn’t been doing much online other than some basic Foundation Chemical company work and a few visits to the Vietnam veteran forums. It wasn’t until Sunday afternoon when the interesting traffic hit the computer, between emails from Robert and an update to the website. The email talked about the victory in Korea and how the operative had escaped without infection. It then directed the members of the group to log on to the website and to quit using email to communicate, implying that the government would be watching a lot more carefully now that there was an outbreak and imminent threat to America’s safety. Bill was trying to keep it together and hoped that he wasn’t too late.
The website didn’t look much different at first, sending Bill into a panic. He noticed the new button, innocuous in appearance, which simply stated ‘action’. Clicking it, he was transported to a new page that showed some of the pictures he’d seen on CNN along with pages of text, all written by Robert. The rollercoaster continued for Bill as he read the chilling words on the screen, the hair on the back of his neck up and his arms turned to gooseflesh at the hate spewing from the site. The crux of the text was how the United States government was going to pay for its past sins and provided a detailed articulation of a plan that Steve had come up with to surgically remove the government from the American population. By infecting the government after the American population had been vaccinated, we would be rid of the scum and be able to start anew. The military would be left intact except for those highest in the government in order to insure safety during the transition. Robert called it America 2.0 and wondered if he’d be able to apply for a trademark. Bill read on, disgusted and intrigued by the intricate plan, which would imbed the virus into a type of time bomb that would sit in the bodies of all government officials at the federal and state level and even to the local level where possible.
The government was already scrambling to find a vaccine for the new strain and had uncovered the ‘project’ that the CDC had on record, along with the novel work that Steve and Robert had been doing around vaccination using the bioresorbable polymers. This was still top secret but it was known across most of the three letter agencies in Washington and all were clamoring for access to the vaccine, not caring if it had been tested or not. The plan was coming together perfectly, they were to meet Monday and pack for a field trip to D.C., where they would work with the CDC to get the vaccine administered, starting with the Oval office and moving to the House of Representatives and Senate. There was enough contaminated material to administer to thousands of recipients and they had plenty of the actual vaccine, enough to protect hundreds of thousands of Americans. The plan was to continue production of the real vaccine and travel with the smallpox to make sure those who deserved it were given it. They would have a three week window and then government employees would start dropping like flies. By then the majority of Americans would be protected and those that weren’t would be deserving of the fate that went before them. Robert closed the note by telling the team that their bravery made them heroes and that they needed to stay focused for the next few weeks and that he was tempted to stay behind to watch everything fall apart. Bill was cold by the time he reached the end of the note but knew he needed to go on, had to get this information to Darren.
He copied all of the contents of the website to his computer and then went through his detailed network diagram and removed access and logs from all systems within Foundation, leaving little trace that he’d ever been there, knowing that with some nor
mal use of the systems all traces would be gone very shortly. Only some of the router and firewall logs would have any evidence, it was impossible to remove everything. Once he removed everything he signed off, hoping that he had eliminated all trails, knowing that Homeland Security was going to be all over the company by this afternoon, probably shutting them down and freezing everything to review the logs.
The chemist’s computer was online, so Darren removed the spyware program and all traces and deleted them as best he could. It was likely that they might be found so he put an NSA level disk formatting program on the computer and ran it, making it unlikely that anyone would be able to trace anything after that level of scrubbing was done. He was disconnected from the computer as the process started and he wondered if Steve would go running to Robert and cause an alarm to go off.
There were only three things left to do, the first was to update the website for Darren. Bill pasted in all of the information he had, which included the location of the production site because Robert had provided it to those who needed to travel and help with production of the vaccine. He logged on to the Nigeria site and left a message for Darren in the chat box on the website, telling him that this was all he had and wishing him luck in capturing those responsible before true terror hit our soil. Bill nuked the Nigeria site and ran a timed batch program that would cause the Czechoslovakian site to remove itself and the virtual machine it was installed on in twenty four hours, which would give Darren enough time to get the information but not enough to get court orders to track down who had been using it. Bill sent Darren an anonymous email through the remailing program to let him know the website was updated and then closed all non-work related programs, including his web browser. His heart was beating so fast it felt like it was going to jump out of his chest and he was lucky that Don hadn’t come over to catch up.