Yankee nodded. If they had two of the scientists, that meant the chances of them developing a viable vaccine only went up.
And it meant their chances of locating more of the people from The List were pretty damn good.
Chapter Ten
Over the next couple of days, Mac quickly settled into their routines at the clinic. India was happy to see he didn’t appear to be a lecherous player, either.
Not that she’d had much of a problem with that. Most of the doctors she’d worked with had been perfect gentlemen, or at least professional. She wouldn’t deny she’d flirted a little with a couple of them, and some had even flirted back, but nothing had ever happened.
Then again, she felt absolutely zero sexual attraction toward Mac. He was a nice enough guy, she supposed, but there was just…something. Not like she was creeped out by him or anything, and he wasn’t exactly what she’d call standoffish. He just had a different feel about him than she was used to from other doctors she’d worked with at the clinic.
Maybe it’s just me.
Mac also proved a quick study regarding the mechanics of keeping the clinic going. Like the solar panels and wind turbines that provided most of their electricity when the regular service through the power lines failed.
Which was usually at least twice a day.
They had deep-cycle batteries that could last them a full twenty-four hours, kept charged by the backup systems. The self-sufficient clinic also had a well, powered by an electric pump and keeping them independent of the area’s sometimes iffy water system. There was a backup diesel genny, too, that they could use if there wasn’t any wind or if it was at night and the solar panels were useless.
They had a small emergency operating room that had seen more use than India wished. Including a portable anesthesia rig originally developed for use in military battlefield hospital situations.
Unfortunately, India had already undergone several trials by fire. Most of the emergencies she’d had to deal with happened when she was between doctors.
She’d conducted four emergency C-sections with Mama’s help, all four mothers and babies thankfully surviving. She’d performed three emergency appendectomies, two patients who’d survived, and one who didn’t because his appendix had already burst by the time he told his family to take him to the clinic after suffering days of pain.
She’d conducted three emergency amputations—two feet and a leg.
Then there were twenty voluntary vasectomies, which she had been trained how to perform by Paul Karsonnes.
Apparently, some men were more afraid of their own women than they were of letting India do the procedure on them when their women had hit their limit on how many kids they wanted to have.
Those were all in addition to the countless normal stitches she’d had to put in for various reasons great and small.
Maybe I should return to the States and go to medical school. Get the full MD.
CMI had a program for that, too. They’d pay her full tuition in return for a longer contracted stint.
Then I could come back to Colima for good.
If Kite hadn’t destroyed the world by then.
The clinic also had a small portable X-ray machine she could use to diagnose everything from cavities in teeth to broken bones, to a fractured skull.
Luckily, none of her patients had tested blue for Kite.
Yet.
Mama’s station was at the front door. She personally stuck every man, woman, and child walking through the door before allowing them further entry. When the stick tests had become available, India was afraid she might have problems instilling in Mama how vital it was they tested everyone, especially anyone presenting with symptoms, but the woman had surprised India in a good way with her vigilance.
Mama also handled basics like checking BP and pulse, blood sugar, prescription refill requests, things like that. Things that the nurse would normally take care of for the doctor.
It was a relief having a doctor in the house again. India’s greatest fear was losing a patient because she missed something, or didn’t have the basic skills a physician might possess. She might be a licensed nurse practitioner, but she wasn’t a formally trained surgeon.
Now if she could just get him up to speed with his Spanish, everything would be hunky dory.
* * * *
One night after India had cooked them dinner, they were sitting alone at the table in the waiting room and eating. “So what is your story, Mac?” she asked. “How’d you end up off your native Irish soil?”
He studied his plate for a little bit before answering. “I went to Harvard for medical school,” he said. “Worked my bloody arse off for it, too. I had great aspirations about saving the world, you know.”
“How so?”
“Oh, the usual naive nonsense any young person feels when they set out charting the course of their life, I suppose. I wanted to do something spectacular. Like curing a disease or developing some revolutionary medical technique that would save thousands of lives every year.”
“And?”
“I’m in—no offense—a charity clinic in bloody Mexico.”
She tried not to bristle over it. She’d heard other doctors voice similar opinions before.
This wasn’t a cushy assignment. Most of their doctors were not like Paul Karsonnes. Most of them didn’t easily embrace it. Maybe her view of other doctors was colored by the fact that Paul was the first doctor she’d worked with at the clinic, and the one by whom she now judged all other doctors.
Paul was a good man, a good doctor, and he’d loved Colima. She could see it in him every day.
And maybe if it’d been another doctor, one doing only their minimum four-month stint, she might not have come to love Colima the way Paul had.
“Don’t worry, you’re not the first to say that,” she finally said out loud. “It’ll either grow on you, or you can send me postcards from wherever you end up next.”
“I don’t know where I’ll end up next. With Kite, I don’t know where any of us will end up.”
“I try not to think about that too much. I don’t want to think about it.” She tried not to watch videos on the news sites, either, that showed groups of Kiters in end-stage rage attacking and killing others like two-footed animals instead of human beings. “I’m just going to keep hoping it doesn’t end up here.”
“Unfortunately, it’s all I can think about,” he quietly said.
She didn’t know why the way he said it disquieted her so much, so she shoved it out of her mind and continued eating.
Chapter Eleven
Reverend Hannibal Silo stood at his office window, his back to his desk and his gaze on the Sandia Mountains to the east.
What a beautiful view.
He’d hate to give it up for Missouri, where his headquarters would be for the duration of the transition once he made the move.
Perhaps I can have enough security measures installed here to protect the building. Take a helicopter and land it on the roof.
There was a thought. The building had originally been constructed by a large banking consortium. When they went belly up, Silo had the church snatch it from the bankruptcy trustee in charge of the case, given advance notice by one of his contacts, for a song.
Apparently the helo pad had been used quite a lot by the previous tenants. For his part, Silo had not used it simply to avoid the extra attention. He flew privately, yes, but always with staff.
Saving money that way, of course. More economical. And they also used the private planes for charitable purposes, such as helping transport medical patients, disaster aid, flying dying kids to some dream destination. They also loaned them out, free of charge, to other charities for their use.
It was great PR.
More importantly, his parishioners praised having them as a result. He was the good guy.
A helicopter, that was different. Unless it was being used to fly patients to a hospital or something, helos were seen more as the pu
rview of the effing rich.
And that was an image it didn’t pay for him to portray.
At least Mrs. Parnassus and her children had settled in well in Missouri. He’d given the security staff there explicit instructions to protect them at all costs while giving them as much freedom as possible.
When he’d talked to Marianne that morning on the phone, she’d sounded like a giddy teenaged girl.
Next week, he had a face-to-face meeting scheduled with her husband, the senator.
Silo suspected the man would be feeling the polar opposite of his wife by the time they finished their little chat.
Meanwhile, Silo was awaiting news from Jerald about one of their other operations, a plan to hopefully bypass the stalled situation regarding acquiring the scientists from The List. An operation to further his agenda. To speed things up. A two-part plan.
Their final success depended on how soon they could get their hands on some of the scientists from The List, or recruit scientists up to reverse engineering Kite the virus to create a vaccine before anyone else did.
Part two…
He was still awaiting word from Jerald on that as well. They’d been engaging in tests in the New York area. Initial reports sounded promising, but until they heard back for sure from their people on the ground, they wouldn’t be able to implement that aspect of their plan.
Meanwhile—
The knock on his office door made him smile.
Right on time.
“Come in,” he called.
He knew it was Jerald without looking, from the quick, silent way the man entered and immediately closed the door behind him, almost before he was even through it all the way.
Silo waited to speak again until he heard Jerald standing before the desk. “What good news do you bring me of our latest project in Los Angeles, my son?”
“The volunteers are nearly through with their training.”
“How many made it that far?”
“Eighty.”
Silo’s grin broadened, nearly painful, before he schooled his face again to the benign, practiced smile.
Only then did he turn. “And the facility?” They’d converted an old grocery store in a bad part of town to use for their purpose. The logistics considerations were best in that area. It was closest to a major airport where they could get access to Kite patients without worrying about other urban logistical issues, such as in New York.
“Fully up and running, as we’d discussed.”
“Excellent. All the volunteers all devoted?”
“Without a doubt. The, eh, financial incentives helped, I’m sure.”
“Of course.” Silo nodded. “We wouldn’t want there to be any hardships for the families later.”
Not that the families would likely survive the Kite pandemic long enough to enjoy the funds.
“Exactly. And I have more good news.”
“Don’t keep me waiting, son.”
“I just received word from New York. The tests were successful regarding the…compound our chemists replicated. We’ve already synthesized more than enough of it to use in the Los Angeles project. It’s being transported there immediately to be administered as part of the volunteers’ training regimen.”
Silo felt his smile widen. “Excellent.”
“Yet more good news. Some of the professionals we’ve engaged for implementing the distribution part of the endeavor might be able to pick up the slack in other areas. Research and development.”
Silo didn’t need a detailed map to know what the man meant. Scientists who might be able to help create a Kite vaccine.
And that was very good news. “Really?”
“Yes. I told them we were, of course, eager to fund research to develop a vaccine as soon as possible. We can use the same facility in LA for that purpose, until we need to move operations to the lab at the St. Louis compound at the end of the project.”
“You are a treasure, my son. Well done.”
Jerald blushed a little as he smiled. Silo never hesitated to heap praise on the man.
He lapped it up like a dog.
It was earned praise, of course. Silo never falsely stroked the man’s ego. In fact, he did what he could to keep Jerald just off-center enough he never got too cocky. Never forgot his place. Although Silo suspected the man was loyal to him, to a fault.
Which would only serve Silo in the long run.
They were going to infect their volunteers with Kite the virus, after getting them well and truly hooked on Kite the drug. The doctors working on the vaccine end of things wouldn’t know that part of the equation, of course. For that he would be using Dr. Isley, his wife’s psychiatrist, and a man pressed so firmly under Silo’s thumb that there was no way he’d ever wriggle free. Isley had set up agreements with two other doctors who had extreme financial and legal problems.
In exchange for the “research” they’d be invaluably helping with, and for the glorious mission they were about to embark on, the other two doctors would be handsomely paid so that their families wouldn’t endure any hardship until they returned. And Silo would make the expensive malpractice cases against them go away. They and their families were also guaranteed places in the church strongholds scattered across the country, which were either completed or rapidly approaching completion.
Of course they weren’t telling the volunteers they’d never make it home again. Duh.
The volunteers wouldn’t know they were going to be infected with Kite. They were being told they were part of a pharmacology testing program and understood they were being used as God’s guinea pigs, helping to both test needed medications and to spread the Holy Spirit. Doing blessed work.
But they would also be instructed to then go forth and spread the word of God to others, far and wide. That God was using them as a way to separate the faithful from the weak. To lift up the less-fortunate. That they were tools of God Himself to help others find the One True Way.
Or some bullshit like that. Jerald and Isley had worked on the scripts, employing a cunning mix of neurolinguistic programming, religious rhetoric, and good old-fashioned brainwashing bullshit.
None of the volunteers selected had scored exceedingly high on standardized IQ tests. In fact, that had been one of the selection criteria. Poor and dumb. They needed volunteers who wouldn’t be inclined to do a lot of critical or independent thinking, but who were just smart enough to carry out their training. And who would have relatives who wouldn’t be inclined to ask too many questions because a very large payment had appeared in their bank account.
The volunteers would also be equipped with plenty of Kite the drug, impregnated with Kite the virus, and would be instructed to share the wonderful power of the Holy Spirit with others. They would be trained on how to administer injections, to especially seek out anyone who was in desperate need, such as the homeless and drug addicts, and share this special medicine with them. That it would raise their spirits and teach the people they helped about the power of God firsthand. That it would help protect them from Kite.
The effects of Kite the drug would produce euphoria, and hopefully entice others around them to want to try it.
And, of course, infect everyone in the process.
Those North Koreans were really onto something.
Silo wanted simultaneous outbreaks to occur in several large urban areas across the country, carefully timed. They knew approximately how long it took the disease, on average, to incubate once infection was confirmed. With their fleet of private planes, it would be simple for them to transport people to those areas without having to go through the usual stringent airport security measures.
It also meant they’d be able to orchestrate massive outbreaks in urban areas long overdue a thorough spiritual cleansing. That, of course, would distract government authorities long enough that Silo could put several other plans into motion, using his carefully placed operatives.
Clockwork.
With the government and military focused on
maintaining public order and keeping Kite contained as much as possible, no one would be paying a lick of attention to what was going on with his operations. Besides, it also meant the first wave of casualties would include a high percentage culled from the lowest rung of society, people who were serious drags on the economy and who would have no place in Silo’s new world. People like the homeless and drug addicts.
No great loss there.
As things devolved, it meant he’d be free to step in and take over the country. Especially if he could come up with a vaccine in time.
Almost as good as being the hand that rocks the cradle.
“I also have other news,” Jerald said, “but I don’t want you to put too much stock in it yet, sir.”
This was curious. “Well, spit it out.”
“I was contacted by our well-placed…friend. They are not certain, and didn’t give me any details, but they think perhaps they might be able to locate the…” His face wrinkled. “The Drunk Monkeys.”
Silo didn’t dare hope. “Really?”
“I don’t know. It’s unconfirmed, and I have no specifics yet. It’s a rapidly developing situation.”
“How soon? And where?”
“Again, sir, I’m sorry but I don’t know. The operative sent me a quick e-mail and then told me to await further news.”
Silo fought the urge to slam his fist against his desk in frustration. He was not a man used to waiting when he wanted something badly. “As soon as you hear anything, let me know.”
“Of course.”
Once Jerald left, Silo turned back to the mountains. The SOTIF team’s luck couldn’t hold forever. Perhaps the problem before had been hiring outside contractors to attempt to do the work. Foreign agents who had no vested interest in the mission’s success other than sheer monetary gains.
They needed someone with a dog in the fight, something to lose.
Something big to lose.
Someone who actually gave a crap about the future of America.
Chapter Twelve