Read Online Scourge - A Medical Thriller (The Plague Trilogy Book 3) by Victor Methos - Free Book Online Page B

what I said, and I spoke quietly. ‘No, that’s not what they did. They did turn it into a mist, but not for the breeze. They wanted it to be carried in the clouds. Once in liquid form, Variola can be carried by clouds. They shot gallons of it high in the air, and it was caught in the clouds and transported around the world.’
    “ He shook his head, staring at the sidewalk, which was cracked and dotted with litter. ‘Amazing,’ he said. ‘Just amazing, the planning this all took.’
    “Down the road a way s, we heard an engine. We ducked into a yard until it was obvious that the vehicle was a military patrol. I ran out into the road and held my arms up. The vehicle, a Humvee, slowed and then stopped. I ran over to the man in the driver’s seat. ‘I’m Dr. Samantha Bower with the Centers for Disease Control. Our facilities have been overrun with the infected. We need transportation to the airport for—’
    “ The soldier stopped me. ‘Ma’am, that’s a negative. We got a situation just outside the airport, and all units have been called in.’ I looked at Jessica and Luther, who were out on the sidewalk now.
    “ ‘Can you take us as far as you can?’
    “ He considered it for a moment, and I could tell he wanted to say no, but he caught a glimpse of Jessica and swore under his breath. ‘Get in.’
    “We piled into the Humvee and drove down the residential street before linking to the interstate. Once there, we took a bridge that gave us a view of the city. Fires raged across the cityscape, entire buildings engulfed. Black streams of smoke billowed into the sky, darker than the night. ‘What happened?’ I said to Luther. He stared at a skyscraper that was burning from the ground up and shook his head.
    “ ‘I have no idea.’
    “The airport, or just about a mile outside of the airport, was cordoned off. Up about two hundred yards, I could see the front line. We were witnessing a battle —one of the first major battles in a new type of war. The street had been narrowed with vehicles and sandbags, leaving a kill zone in the center. Soldiers were set up behind the sandbags, with others with large rifles posted in the empty buildings on either side of the street. Tanks flanked the soldiers, and green helicopters hovered in the skies like crows in the night. It was all for one purpose: to kill as many infected as they could. And there didn’t seem to be any end to the supply.
    “They rushed in through the kill zone by the hundreds. After being mowed down by the soldiers’ weapons, most just got back up and kept running. It took complete devastation of the body to get them to stop. I could hear the soldiers shouting. They were asking the same kinds of questions we were asking: ‘Why don’t they attack each other? How are they so strong?’
    “ Luther sat in the Humvee like a blind man who’d just been given sight. His mouth was open and he didn’t blink. ‘Do you think they’ve retained memory?’ he asked. The damaged prefrontal cortex has nothing to do with memory.
    “ I shook my head. ‘I don’t know.’
    “We were quickly ushered out of the Humvee and ran over to the first terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson. The sound of rolling tanks echoed, and people were barking commands. The soldiers wore body armor and helmets. I didn’t understand why. Their enemies didn’t have guns. They stood right in the way of the rampaging hordes. The military just wasn’t prepared. They thought this would be Iraq or Afghanistan. But the enemy they were fighting didn’t care how many of them died, they couldn’t be frightened, and they wouldn’t stop, no matter what. I even saw a few of the infected that’d had their legs blown off or had been cut in half at the waist by rifle fire still crawling toward the soldiers before they bled to death.
    “The planes leaving the airport filled the night air with the roar of their engines. I quickly recognized these weren’t normal flights. These were escape rafts