“How’d you manage that?” Celia probed.
“We had to have supplies and equipment. We were able to travel to China and even South Korea. Those of us who had family in North Korea, they knew we would return and not risk their deaths.”
“And that’s how you got the South Korean passports for your family?”
He nodded.
“I’m guessing others did the same?”
“A few. Some of our team, their spouses remained in South Korea and provided a conduit.”
“So that’s how you all got out and survived?”
The more he opened up, the more the scientist seemed to wilt, as if the pressure of holding on to all of this information for so long had crushed him, and even getting it off his shoulders proved no relief.
“We all survived the initial attack, yes,” Quong said. “We all reunited in South Korea with our families three days before China’s attack, and we departed immediately from there. Some already had valid passports to return to their own countries, some had obtained passports with different names and countries of origin.”
“Are there others here in Australia?”
“No. Not that I am aware of We dispersed and hoped to stay beyond the reach of anyone until we could finish what we started.”
“So how’d that work out for ya?” she snarked.
Doc caught Tango’s eye and knew his partner, despite the initial friction between him and Celia, was trying not to laugh. He could read Tango better than anyone.
The man was coming to respect her, too.
Quong didn’t answer Celia’s question.
She remained undeterred and kept probing. “How are you keeping in contact with the others?” she asked. “How’d you expect to get anything done if you were scattered all over the farking place?”
“We have a private cloud server we access through anonymous processes. We leave each other notes and progress reports through there. That is how I know Kite has mutated. Others on the team are gathering Kite samples as they can from all over the world and posting the virus signatures to our shared site.”
“So what went wrong? How did all those people end up crossing over China’s border?”
Quong told them the story of how the camp’s commander made the mistake of bragging, during a drunken session with a prostitute from the town, about how he was in charge of overseeing a project that would make him a star in the eyes of Mighty Leader.
The same prostitute, who was hoping to curry brownie points with the town magistrate—who was also in charge of the military in that little slice of hell—tattled.
The magistrate, his nose understandably bent out of shape over not being kept in the loop about what they were doing at the camp, had a freak-out when he realized exactly what they were doing at the camp. And since he outranked the guy running the camp, he made an executive decision that would unwittingly lead to China’s shart of mass destruction.
The virus team lied out their asses, telling the magistrate that the camp’s commander and the scientists working on Kite the drug had gone rogue and were planning on ousting the magistrate. That they were also keeping the virus team held hostage. The virus team managed to talk their way out of there with promises to put in a good word with Mighty Leader when they got back to Pyongyang.
They also bribed the crap out of the magistrate to help get them out of there. Between that, and using his own paranoia against him, they were able to get themselves and their families safely out of North Korea.
“We did not realize the magistrate was going to open the camp gates. We thought he was going to stop with shutting everything down and killing the camp commander, the drug team, and the camp commander’s men. Our team scrubbed the computer hard drives and destroyed samples and equipment and thought we had taken care of the problem by torching both our lab and the drug team’s lab and computers.”
“That left a lot of people alive, though, didn’t it?” Celia asked.
“We thought the inmates still remaining at the camp would either die within a few days from Kite infection or withdrawals from the Kite drug…or they would not. We instructed the magistrate to keep his men away from the inmates and to keep them locked down within the main camp’s fortified walls and isolated inside their specific cellblocks. That anyone left alive inside the prison after three weeks was not infected and would be safe to release.”
She looked disgusted with the man. “You mean, if they hadn’t died of thirst or starvation before then, of course.”
“We thought we had ensured its containment. What we did not count on was that the camp’s commander had set up a Kite drug lab off-site. He must have bribed someone on the drug team to help him. Our team did not discover that until we were going through files to destroy in the man’s office in our hurry to leave.”
Doc shook his head and listened, also disgusted, but recognizing the pattern too well. Corruption by petty officials wasn’t a problem limited to the former Mighty Leader’s regime, unfortunately.
The camp commander had set himself up with a handy little off-site Kite house to supplement his income, no doubt.
Quong’s team didn’t have time to deal with that. They knew that would be their only chance to escape the country, and that if Mighty Leader’s troops caught up with them upon realizing they’d scuttled the entire project, they were dead.
They were as shocked as the rest of the world to discover the camp commander had done the exact opposite of what they’d told him to do and turned a couple thousand inmates loose over the nearby border with China.
They were even more shocked to learn about the Chinese response.
And it only reinforced to them that they’d made the right decision to go into hiding.
“You see,” Dr. Quong continued, “once that happened, we knew we had to stay in hiding. Not only because we feared governments wanting control of the vaccine to leverage against other countries, but because we knew we would then be labeled war criminals for being responsible for this.”
Tango spoke up, voicing what Doc knew was the opinion of all the other men in the room. “That’s because you are war criminals, asshole, willing or not.”
Chapter Fifteen
At least that’s something me and Tango can agree on.
As Quong spun his story, the weight of the information sank into Celia’s brain and she collapsed onto a kitchen chair Tango had helpfully slid behind her. This story was far bigger than she’d ever imagined.
China might not have gone about things in the right way, but they weren’t exactly wrong about what they’d done, either.
They’d likely assumed North Korea was trying to invade them with germ warfare.
“Holy fuck,” she muttered.
The story had blossomed into an unimaginable scope.
“Had the magistrate just left the people inside the camp like we told him,” Quong said, “the virus never would have escaped. We instructed him to burn all the bodies, along with the rest of the facility, once he released any survivors.”
Quong shook his head. “We will never know why he changed his mind and released them all early. We specifically told him they must remain there at least three weeks for the virus to run its course. My theory is that word leaked out through some of his men to relatives of prisoners who lived in the town near the compound, and they begged or bribed a tiny bit of compassion out of him. He likely would not have wanted them in his town. Perhaps he felt remorseful about leaving them there to die. Maybe he transported them to the border and told them to keep heading deeper into China if they wished to live.”
“Makes as much sense as anything else I’ve heard,” Celia agreed.
Which was not a damn lick of sense.
“So who was in charge of your team?” she asked.
“I was,” he said. “I was the first one they brought in, because I already resided in the country and proved quite easy to coerce. They used my name and reputation to lend veracity to the project when they first contacted th
e others.”
“How were you planning on ending this project when you left? Didn’t you think someone would just pick up where you left off with your research?”
He looked grim. “We were already in the process of planning to infect the drug team, the camp commander, and his men with Kite. In the resulting confusion, we were going to fake our deaths using the bodies of prisoners and guards, set fire to the labs, and destroy all the evidence before making our escape disguised as guards. We had each picked prisoners or guards that resembled us in age and physical build as much as we could.”
“No, nothing wrong with that plan at all,” she snarked.
“It was all we had. The lesser of the evils, as they say. We wanted to wait until Julie had successfully mutated the Kite virus into a harmless variation that would sicken the rest of the prisoners, and then escape in the resulting confusion.” He shook his head. “We were so close, too, until this all happened. Perhaps only a few weeks away.”
“How did the magistrate take over the camp? I don’t understand that part.”
“He was older and outranked the camp commander in the military,” Quong said. “He and several of his men came in and demanded to talk to the two scientific teams, alone. The commander felt he had to let him do it. The commander knew the other team was loyal to Mighty Leader and would lie their asses of, as you say. He did not count on us turning the tables.”
“Why would the magistrate believe your team, especially when most of you were foreigners, and not the other team and the camp commander?”
Quong sadly smiled. “Julie was especially upset about what was going on. She had dinner with the camp commander a few times and surreptitiously filmed him, eh, I believe the term is ‘trash talking,’ about the magistrate. The commander was smitten with her and prone to braggadocio around her.”
“Ah. Yep, that’ll do it.” Just proves men suck when they’re horny.
“Combined with what we told the magistrate,” Quong said, “and with bribing him, he was willing to believe us. We told him the reason he had no knowledge of what was really going on was because the government did not even know. That he would be better off containing the situation before letting Pyongyang know about it. That to follow our instructions would make him a hero in Mighty Leader’s eyes, and we would guarantee it.”
“And by then, you all would be safely out of the country anyway, leaving the magistrate hung out to dry and looking like he was the one who’d scuttled Mighty Leaders plans all on his own.”
He nodded. “Exactly.”
Papa interrupted. “We were tracking Dr. Li Kim in Vietnam a few days ago. Any idea where he is now?”
“He left there over a week ago,” Quong said. “He did not tell us his next destination, however. He was there trying to obtain more Kite samples.”
“Fuck,” Tango mumbled. “There was a wasted trip and time.”
“There is another problem,” Dr. Quong added.
Celia barked a laugh. “Another one? As if there aren’t enough already?”
Doc held out a staying hand. “What problem, doctor?”
“Dr. Rajesh Patel notified us six days ago that he suspected our communications might be compromised. He was in the process of setting up an alternate server, and was going to set up a lab in a secure location where we could all gather to try to finish our work.”
“And?” most of them asked.
“We have not heard back from him since then.”
“Any idea where he was going to set it up?” Papa asked.
“He would not tell us directly. He was afraid if our communications were compromised that it could put us all at risk.”
“Of course he didn’t,” Celia said as she threw her arms up. “Because that would be too damn easy. Not like the whole farking population of the Earth’s at risk or anything.”
Quong turned on her. “Do you honestly believe I have no conscience regarding this? We are all horrified it came to this. We believed we had done what we could, short of executing a couple of thousand innocent people ourselves before we left, to prevent the spread of this virus. We knew it could only survive outside of the host in blood and saliva for a short time. It was not airborne.”
She stood and backed him down again. “But you were executing them, weren’t you? By infecting them? You were executing them during your testing phases.”
“Most of them were not actively infected when we left. Less than ten percent. And we were very careful only to select the most sick and infirm patients, the terminally ill with cancer or other diseases, to use as our test patients when we were forced to proceed to that phase of testing.”
“Wow. Because yes, that makes it all better, doesn’t it?”
Quong glared at her. She wanted to slap the look off his face, but suspected if she did that it would likely mean the end of their chat. “Are you a mother?” he asked.
“No, but I’m an aunt hoping to help this damn bunch of monkeys get enough of you farking brainiacs together in one place so you can save the goddamned planet.”
* * * *
Doc didn’t blame Celia for getting upset, but he sensed he needed to coax her into taking things down a notch before it got ugly, and fast. He needed her wanting to work on their side, not wanting run the doctor’s head through a woodchipper.
Although, under different circumstances, the woodchipper idea sounded like a dandy one to him.
Maybe once they get a vaccine perfected.
“Celia,” Doc gently said, “you understand why you can’t go public with the story yet, right?”
He could see the rage and logic warring within her. Before her, the head of the team who’d brought this curse down on their heads.
He didn’t blame her in the least, and suspected none of the other men in the room would blame her for what she felt, either.
He knew for a fact she was on the same wavelength with the rest of them about what this man and his team had done.
And now it would fall to a bunch of Drunk Monkeys to clean up the fucking mess.
Chapter Sixteen
Yes, the human in Celia understood. She conjured Emily’s and Roger’s sweet faces. She wasn’t their mom, but she loved them as if they were her own kids.
The fledgling journalist in her wanted to roast the doctor over an open fire.
Literally.
It felt like the men were stifling her as they all silently stared at her following Doc’s question. Every last one of them was awaiting her reaction.
She pushed her way through them and out the back door so she could gather her thoughts and breathe.
She stared up at the sky while taking in a few deep gulps of the damp, cool air. In Chicago, it was getting hotter, ramping up to be another scorcher of a summer.
Here, autumn was giving way to winter. If the Kite infection reached Australian shores soon in full force, only the cool weather would help staunch the spread while it took off in the northern hemisphere.
In places like Asia, Europe, northern Africa…
The United States.
Argh.
She heard a noise and turned around to find Doc and Tango had silently made their way out the back door and were now standing a few feet away.
She hadn’t even heard them open the door.
It didn’t surprise her. It was what they did, what made them the best of the best in doing their jobs.
It was part of the reason why they were there in the first place. And they weren’t bad guys, she’d just gotten off on the wrong foot with them.
Brain…officially…fried.
Unfortunately…
“You don’t want me to run a story. So what do I get in return?” she asked. “What are you proposing in exchange?”
“Hold the story,” Doc said. “Not forever, just for a while. Work with us. You think this story is big now, wait until we get the rest of his team located and brought together. You found him. With the info he has, use your skills and what you did to find him and help
us find the others. Helps you, helps us, makes your story bigger. You become a hero.”
She dodged the fact that it was Mike, not her, who had done the heavy digging. “They are farking war criminals. Doesn’t matter how he tries to sugar-coat it, it’s still a steaming pile of dogshit.”
“We know that and you know that. We’re on the same page. No one’s disputing what you’re feeling. We feel the same way. But we can’t let our feelings get in the way of the greater good, here.”
She suspected Doc was trying to placate her.
Lucky for him, he was handsome and logical enough that she was willing to be placated by him.
She made a decision. “Okay. So I hold the story. Short of killing me, there’s not a lot you can do to stop me if I’m determined enough to report it, anyway. But I want something in return.”
The men nodded.
“I’ll promise not to reveal anything…yet. I’m supposed to be here for two weeks. You don’t treat me like a damn prisoner, you treat me like a teammate, and you keep me fully in the loop about what’s going on. By the end of the two weeks, then I’ll make my decision on whether to keep holding the story or not. If I do, I stay embedded with you guys and reporting on this. As one of you.”
She knew that wouldn’t happen, so she was willing to put it out there. No way could she stay, she couldn’t afford it, for starters. But the men likely wouldn’t allow it, either.
“If not,” she continued, “I’ll get the fark out of Australia and wait until I get back to Chicago to break the story. I’ll make sure I give you guys time to get the Quongs relocated, and I won’t reveal any personal information about you guys or your unit that would specifically identify who you are.”
The men shared a glance. It was Doc who finally spoke. “That’s the best you can give us?”
“Unless you want to kill me right here and now, yeah.” Her palms sweated and she had to force herself not to rub them against the legs of her jeans.