The Final Contagion Read online

  The Final Contagion

  Tim Murari

  © Tim Murari 2020

  Tim Murari has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2020 by Lume Books.

  Table of Contents

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Preface

  One, the infection is not contagious. By this, I mean that it is not transmitted by human beings.

  Like the common cold for instance.

  Two, we believe that the infection is transmitted through the air and not through water supplies or contaminated foods.

  Three, as it is transmitted through the air, the infection attacks the body through the respiratory system.

  In our many autopsies we have discovered clotting in the lungs. There are also indications that paralysis has occurred in various parts of the body. We are not as yet sure what exactly happened in the body once the air entered the lungs.

  Four, we are following the line that the infection was a mutant strain of virus. We have as yet been unable to isolate the virus. Until we can, and until we identify it, it will be impossible to invent an antidote.

  Thank you

  There is reason to believe that population growth increases the probability of a lethal worldwide plague and of a thermo-nuclear war. Either could provide an undesirable ‘death rate solution’ to the population problem; each is potentially capable of destroying civilization and even of driving homosapiens to extinction.

  -Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich

  In Population Resources Environment

  (W.H. Freeman & Co. San Francisco)

  Chapter 1

  Piers Shatner looked at the viewer of his Sony FDR 655 camera. It was light and had powerful lenses with 12,000 pixels per square inch. Sound too was perfect, crystal clear in recording. The Sony was his favorite. It was the size of a slim paperback. He had been using it for the last three years and though there were newer and better cameras on the market, he clung stubbornly to the 655. It was as much part of him as his hands and eyes. He watched the images slipping backwards and stopped them occasionally. He had taped the news before catching the United flight to Sao Amerigo, and this was his first chance at viewing the recordings. There were messages from President Carol Stanhope, President Pierre of France, Mrs. Mary Webb the PM of England, PM Mr. James McShane of Scotland, PM Mr. Shankar. He skipped through them quickly as they all sounded the same. He stopped when John Darrigan, the US Secretary of state, appeared on the screen.

  Piers pressed play, and Darrigan and the other two with him magically came to life. Darrigan was reading a prepared statement.

  “It is with enormous sadness and horror that we have learned of the terrible tragedy that has struck the nation of Menaguay. We on the Council, send our deepest condolences to all the people who have suffered. More practically, we also send our assistance.

  The Industrial Nations has reacted instantly to the tragedy and the Council has personally supervised the despatch of aid and personnel. Over one hundred aircraft from the United States, Canada, England, France, Germany, and the other countries have begun a shuttle service to Menaguay. Over two hundred and fifteen ships, with supplies and food, are now on their way. I can assure all the nations of the Industrializing World that the Industrial Nations will never ever shirk its responsibility to all peoples of the world. Of late there have been many efforts by certain people to undermine the cordiality between the Industrializing Nations and the Industrial Nations. As tragic as are these present circumstances, we are determined to prove that we are deeply affected by the catastrophe. We have airlifted, round the clock, supplies and personnel, and not only medical teams but also technicians who will help Menaguay to recover. The Council has also allocated a one-billion-dollar aid program to help Menaguay to re-establish itself among the nations of the world. I, personally have had the assurances from General Peres that his appointment as chairman is strictly temporary. Once normality has returned to the nation, he will step down in favour or Señor Alvarez.”

  Piers stopped and went back to the start. He ran it over again. It didn’t need much intelligence to realize that Darrigan was not addressing the survivors of Menaguay nor the people of the Industrial Nations. His speech was directed at Odu, Liu and all the others and, if he was really alive, Chairman Alvarez. Piers vaguely wondered why.

  Darrigan was obviously speaking from Geneva, where he was attending a meeting of the Council for the Economic Stabilization of Industrialized Nations. He was flanked by the other two members, Andrei Solotov of Russia and Claude Mercer of the European Community. Piers didn’t particularly like Darrigan. They’d clashed a year back when he’d been making a documentary on the Council. Darrigan was an austere, clever man; academically brilliant, intellectually arrogant, and too confident with power he wielded through his position as Secretary of State, chairman of NSA and half a dozen other security agencies, and permanent representative to his brainchild, the Council.

  Piers was a stocky man in his mid-forties. He looked older, for his face was worn and the creases around his slate gray eyes, which looked overused, were deep and long. His nose had a bend in the middle, and his hair was cut close to his skull, so that it was hard to tell the color. It looked blond at times, at others brown. His left ear was crumpled, and he had a habit of pulling at the lobe. His actions were efficient like a man used to conserving time and working well under enormous pressure.

  Piers ran the recording forward, and stopped it. The last seconds of a ‘conserve food’ commercial slid by and the tape stopped on Mr. Odu, President of the Industrializing Nations. Even shrunk to twelve inches, he looked a big man. His face was broad, fleshy, and strong, his gray hair looked white, and the flare of bad lighting his eyes. He was speaking from his Nairobi office with the right and assurance of a man who had won a long and bitter battle.

  “I cannot tell you all how happy I am that my friend Chairman Alvarez has survived the terrible plague that has struck his country. I send him my deepest condolences, not only for the millions of his people but also for the personal loss of his wife. I am deeply impressed that the Industrial Nations have… uh… moved so very fast to come to the aid of one of the Industrializing Nations. To be frank, I had not expected this. I am happy to admit it is my fault. I can assure the Council that by their quick reaction, they have won our admiration and friendship. I also sincerely hope that the Council will use its good offices to protect the life of Señor Alvarez and ensure that once the emergency is over, he will be allowed to return to his natural place as chairman.”

  Piers re-played and pressed the plug more firmly into his ear. He thought he detected an edge in Odu’s voice. Why hadn’t he expected the Industrial Nations
to help? Piers brooded about this briefly then decided that his imagination had run away with itself.

  He switched off the camera and slid it into his jacket pocket. He settled back to try to sleep. He wasn’t looking forward to Sao Amerigo and the countless dead. He had seen too many of them over the last twenty five years, and he was very tired. It wasn’t so much a physical exhaustion; it was much deeper for it touched his soul. At the beginning, there had been the excitement of witnessing wars, disasters, and the inevitable sight of dying men, women and children; in the middle there had been a dull acceptance of his role as voyeur; he was now at the end. It was, he promised himself, going to be the last assignment.

  Marion Hyslop watched Piers settle back to sleep. She was in the seat next to him, and she felt wide-awake.

  ‘Comfortable?’ she whispered. Piers nodded and settled deeper into the seat. Marion smiled at him and felt slightly envious. Piers could fall asleep in an instant, even when on a story. She always felt nervous and excited. He had tried to teach her the knack of sleeping, but she couldn’t master it. They’d been working together for three years as a news documentary team for the channel, and this was their eighth international story. In many ways, Marion thought, the stories are all the same: wars, famines, and now a plague.

  However, she never got tired of covering another tragedy. She was ten years younger than Piers, and when they’d first teamed up she’d been in awe of him. He was Piers Shatner, war correspondent, and she was a nothing. It hadn’t been easy in the beginning. Piers was a man with a lot of machismo, and apart from patronizing her, he also seemed to resent her. He had asked the head of the network to give him a guy as his cameraman, but Marion had screamed ‘civil rights,’ and the head had backed down. She worked twice as hard after that to prove herself to Piers, but to her puzzlement, his resentment only increased. It was when they were covering the civil war in Ireland, and she was wounded, that she found out why. She threatened his masculinity by competing with him. Marion was a wise woman. She knew that all he wanted was to feel protective toward her, and prove his own strength, so she allowed him to nurse her, tenderly, in the hospital. They became part-time lovers after that, and a good documentary team. Piers was a damned good reporter and never ever let a story go; she gave the story they covered a more practical human touch.

  Marion looked around the aircraft, and nodded to many of the familiar faces. There was Jane Simon of the Washington Post, Donna Jackson of the Sunday Times of London, and with her the ever elegant Bryan Ensor, Richard Alton, CNN and Peter Farrow of the New York Times. She knew nearly all of them. They were an exclusive club which met each time disaster struck. She’d even slept with two of them. Under pressure she’d discovered, one of the releases open to both men and women was violent love making.

  Marion pushed her hair off her forehead. She knew she wasn’t a beautiful woman; she was an attractive one. She was thirty, quite tall, with good breasts and ash blond hair which fell to her shoulders. Her hazel eyes were watchful and intelligent, and when she laughed they crinkled tightly at the corners. Since learning her lesson from Piers, she knew most men enjoyed her company, and that gave her an enormous advantage over other women.

  She leaned back in her seat. She glanced at Piers; he was fast asleep, with his mouth half open. In half an hour they’d be in Sao Amerigo, and she knew he wouldn’t stop running until their story was over. She’d never been to the country before, but Piers had. He’d made a documentary by himself on Alvarez, and she’d thought it very good, except it had been a bit too sympathetic. If she’d been with him at the time, she was sure she would have been able to balance it, as she wasn’t as idealistic as Piers. Alvarez was… well, not as romantic a figure as Piers made him out to be. He’d won an election democratically, but since then he’d caused nothing but problems.

  The engine notes of the plane changed, and Piers immediately came awake and looked around. He raised an eyebrow in her direction.

  ‘Another twenty minutes,’ she told him, and he took out his Sony. ‘Do you want me to shoot as well?’

  ‘No. There’s only one angle we can get from this height.’

  She touched his hand. ‘To be honest, I’m not looking forward to going down. It sounds… awful.’

  ‘I know.’

  The pilot announced they were approaching Sao American airport, and Piers shifted around in his seat and pointed the camera down through the window. He spoke softly into the inset microphone.

  ‘It’s a few minutes before dawn and we’re at one thousand feet. In fifteen minutes we’ll be landing. What you see down below – bright jewels scattered across a velvet cloth – are not campfires. They are funeral pyres for the countless dead. And countless is the right word. How many have died in the plague that has swept the country is anybody’s guess. Estimates put the dead at fifteen million. And as suddenly as it started, the plague has ended. But not quite. A few more thousand will die from the more familiar diseases like cholera and dysentery. So far the medical world has no idea what the nature of this plague is. It has, until now, been confined to the South American country. But scientists are racing against time to discover its origins and then invent the vaccine – for plagues, as man well knows, are no respecter of frontiers. There have been many over the centuries. The most famous, or should I say infamous, were the HIV/Aids which killed 36 million, the Spanish flu 50 million, the Black Death near to 200 million and Coronavirus thousands. Plagues are too quick, and they leave too many dead. There is no time for burials, for fear of the other disease breaking out. So the army has built giant fires and dug lime trenches to consume the victims of this new and terrible disease. This is Piers Shatner, approaching Sao Amerigo.’

  Chapter 2

  Piers switched off and sat back. He shook his head to clear the dazed feeling. Fifteen million. The words had spilled out so easily. He re-played the recording and listened to his report on his ear plug. He checked the footage; the picture was fuzzy but adequate. He handed the video to Marion, and she nodded approval.

  They both sensed someone hovering over them and looked up. Marion busied herself with the camera to avoid attention. It was Richard Harris of the BBC. Harris was a red, round man. He had a round, bald head and a round soft body. He looked as if he would puncture if a finger was poked into him. He and Piers had known each other for many years, having covered the same stories in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, wherever there was trouble, but neither could truthfully say he liked the other man. Harris liked the easy life, and to him an assignment was an excuse to run up expenses and do as little work as possible. He disliked Piers because Piers always rocked the boat – it was his favorite phrase – and would never share any of the hard news he’d found for himself. At the moment, Harris looked far from happy.

  ‘I didn’t want this damned assignment.’ Piers could smell the whiskey on his breath as Harris leaned across him and peered at the ground. It’ll just be my luck to catch every disease that’s going down there.’

  ‘They wouldn’t dare touch you,’ Piers said. ‘Anyway, it’s supposed to be safe now.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as safe in these countries,’ Harris said, and looked mournful. ‘I intend to get the hell out as fast as I can. A couple of reports in front of camera, and that’s it, so for God’s sake don’t you start rocking the boat. Even you won’t find a story apart from the plague.’

  ‘You never know,’ Piers smiled. ‘Maybe one on you eating a poisoned plant.’

  ‘I’m not going to eat or drink down there. And if I were you, I wouldn’t either.’

  His round face became even more unhappy, and for a moment Piers thought he was about to cry. But it was only the preparation for a belch. Marion stuck her tongue out at him as he left.

  The pilot announced he was about to land, and Piers looked out of the window. In the gray dawn, Sao Amerigo looked black from the fires in the city. The smoke rose a few hundred feet and drifted reluctantly and lazily south. There seemed to be little bree
ze, and Piers expected that the city would be stifling.

  It was still cool when they disembarked, and the air smelled clean and heady. But as they made their way to the terminal, a slight breeze brought the smell of the city – smoke and stench. They all gagged and held handkerchiefs to their noses as they ran to the shelter of the building.

  Lieutenant Henrique Geddes watched them running across the tarmac and smiled. There was no humour in the expression, for once his mouth had twitched, it returned to a thin, flat line. Geddes was a young man in his early twenties and a career officer who wasn’t happy with his present job. He looked every inch a toy soldier. His uniform was too immaculate and his face a bit too handsome. He had joined the army because his uncle was General Orantes and his father, retired General Velaz He himself couldn’t think of anything else to do, and the army, even under Alvarez was a respectable profession. Geddes would have preferred, at the moment, to be attached either to his uncle or else given a command in one of the cities. Instead he was expected to play nursemaid to dozens of reporters from the world over. His orders had been simple: watch them carefully and don’t let them stray too far. It was, his uncle assured him, for their own safety. Geddes could console himself that the job would last only a few days.

  He waited until they’d gathered together and then stepped forward. He studied each face carefully, and mentally matched them with the file he had in his office. He didn’t expect too many problems, as there was nothing secret about the disaster that had struck his country. The only good that had come out of the terrible evil was that Alvarez had been removed from power, and the army was back in its rightful place.

  ‘My name,’ he announced, ‘is Lieutenant Geddes. I am here to ensure that you are given every facility to report this terrible tragedy to the people of the world. The city of Sao Amerigo and the country are at the moment under curfew dusk to dawn. This is to prevent looting and unsociable elements taking control of an unstable situation. For your own safety, it is advisable that you do not go out by yourself.’