Chapter 60. Trapped
When FBI Agent Ben Boaz finally got on the road after his morning fishing, he turned on the radio and learned about the President’s shutdown of the borders. He immediately began to panic, as he realized his assignment was related to the quarantine. He was annoyed that his superiors had not given him more specific instructions. How was he supposed to know there was a deadly virus on the loose? When he finally arrived at the Bergman’s household at 10:00 a.m., he learned from Mrs. Bergman that her husband had gone with three friends fishing. He asked for Mr. Bergman’s cell phone, and learned that it was the practice of the men to turn off their cell phones during their fishing trip so as not to be disturbed. The wife had no idea where they had gone, but knew it was somewhere in Minnesota. He asked if he could look through her house, and she obliged. Boaz was able to find photos in a photo album of the husband fishing, but there was no indication of the location. He called for backup to have Mrs. Bergman quarantined, and then made off to visit the homes of the other three fishermen. Unfortunately, none of the other wives knew where their husbands were going either. He arranged with local police to have an APB put out on Mr. Bergman and his three friends, and gave the police a description of their car. He only had a few days to find the men before Mr. Bergman became symptomatic and contagious. If that happened, who knows how many others he could infect. He contacted the local game and fisheries warden and asked what the best places were for fishing this time of year. He got a list, but it was overwhelmingly large. Minnesota was officially known as “The Land of Ten Thousand Lakes.”
Atlanta, Georgia. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Day after the Border Lockdown. 7:00 a.m.
Bjorn Jendel was livid. They were in full crisis mode at the CDC and Murielle Winston had gone AWOL. He had called her home, and the grandmother stated that Murielle had not come home last night, which was not like her. He had tried her cell and all contact numbers for her, as well as e-mail. He had also tried Charlie Winston’s phone, which was not answering. She better be dead in a ditch, he thought. Every one of the 112 Americans who had entered the country from Natal before the lockdown had to be quickly administered the AVI drugs before they became symptomatic and contagious. That was a daunting job, as there were not many nurses volunteering to give shots to a person infected with a new strain of the Ebola Virus. Because there were so many infected people, the decision was made to airlift them all to one of three military bases. A select handful of CDC and USAMRIID employees were selected to administer the AVI vaccines. Jacob Roessler had been selected to go the military base in Dallas. Murielle was to go to Boston. And Roger Tsung was to go to Los Angeles. Now that Murielle was absent, Jendel had to find another replacement on short notice. He was busy going through personnel files at the CDC to find the most skilled of his employees.
Trinidad. The day after the lockdown of the borders. Noon.
Julio Cezanne was furious about the early lockdown of the borders. The whole plan could fall apart, and he had invested a lot of money in this project. Cezanne had one of his men pay a visit to an Operations Manager at American Airlines in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The manager had a cocaine problem and a gambling problem, and was cheating on her husband with a co-worker. Cezanne’s man threatened to expose her unless she helped. Within a short time, the Operations Manager had produced a list of the passengers on the flights who had gotten through. Roessler had said that the FBI was busy tracking down these passengers. The object, thought Cezanne, was to get to some of those 112 before the FBI did. But which ones?
Cezanne had a decent sized distribution network in Trenton, New Jersey, a city where two of the 112 had flown after arriving from Natal. He would start there. He looked at the airline list. There were two women on the list with the same address in Trenton. They were probably lesbians, Cezanne thought. Then he had an idea. He could use his own distribution network to spread the virus. He called one of his major distributors in Trenton, Benny Boglio, and told him that the two Trenton soccer fans, Connie Lewis and Deb Brueger, were drug mules who had kept some of his cocaine stash. Cezanne said they were currently in witness protection with the FBI, but probably only had one or two men guarding the house. Boglio was to capture the two drug mules, alive, and bring them to their safe house in Trenton, and await further instructions. Anyone who got in the way, FBI included, could be terminated with prejudice. Boglio agreed. Cezanne mentioned nothing about the virus, and he did not tell any of his men to wear masks.
At 1:00 p.m., a black Chevy Suburban pulled up in front of the small ranch home of Connie Lewis and Deb Brueger. Three men in blue FBI windbreakers and blue ball caps got out of the car. As they walked up to the front of the house, there was an FBI agent in plain clothes standing by the front door, wearing a hospital face mask and plastic gloves. His weapon was holstered.
“Are you guys the ride to Boston?”
One of the men in windbreakers looked at his friend.
“Yeah, right.”
“Hey, where’s your facemask? Didn’t they tell you about these people?”
“No, we didn’t hear nothin’ about that,” said the windbreaker man, confused.
The FBI agent with the face mask opened the front door and let the men in the windbreakers inside. As soon as they were inside the door, the FBI agent with the face mask was shot with a silencer in the back of the head. A second agent, oblivious to what had happened, came out of the kitchen into the hallway, carrying a cup of coffee. There was a ping noise, and the bottom of his coffee cup exploded. The FBI agent, confused and howling from the burning coffee, suddenly registered that he was in danger. Before he could draw his weapon, he was shot, once in the forehead.
The three men in the windbreakers with the silencers then dragged the dead FBI agents into the kitchen, and then went up the stairs. As they neared the top, a short, gray-haired woman in her late fifties, wearing a hospital surgical mask and rubber gloves, came out of a bedroom.
“Oh, hello. Who are you?”
“We’re your ride,” he said.
“Oh, OK, let me get Deb. Deb, our ride is here!”
Another woman, also in her fifties, with short brown hair, also wearing a mask and gloves, came out of a bedroom carrying two travel bags.
“Okay, ready to go. What kind of plane will it be?”
The lead man in the FBI windbreaker said, “I cannot give out that information, ma’am. Now, if you’d please come with me.”
The FBI impostors led the two women down the stairs. As the brown-haired woman turned to lock her door from her front porch, she looked down the hall and saw a long streak of red blood near the end of the hall.
“Hey, wait a minute,” she said.
At that point, her roommate was already in the back of the Suburban. The man in the windbreaker grabbed the second woman’s elbow violently.
“Come with me, ma’am.”
“Hey!” she yelled. The man in the windbreaker then pulled out his gun and stuck it into her ribcage, smiling.
“Ma’am, I’m going to ask you nicely to get the fuck in the car, or I am going to clip you right here in front of your girlfriend.”
The brown-haired woman, terrified, said nothing further and was escorted roughly into the back of the Suburban. The three men in windbreakers took off down the suburban street.
In the back of the Suburban, Connie Lewis, now handcuffed, addressed her kidnappers.
“Hey, can you just tell us what this is all about?”
One of the men in the front seat spun around and pointed a gun at her.
“You know damn well what this is about, you fuckin’ mule. Maybe next time you won’t put your hand in the honey pot and keep a little for yourself. My boss don’t like that too much.”
The two handcuffed women looked at each other, puzzled. “Mules? Honey pot? I don’t have any idea what you are talking about.”
The man in the front seat, irritated by the woman, put his silencer into the surgical mask, forcing the tip of the silencer into the woman’s mouth.
“I don’t like your smart mouth. No wonder you have a mask on, to cover up that smart mouth of yours.” Connie Lewis’ eyes bulged as the tip of the gun went into her mouth.
The other woman, worried for her girlfriend, tried to be calm.
“I think you all have the wrong people. We are not drug mules. Look at us. We are in our fifties. Do we look like drug mules to you?”
“I’ve seen ‘em come in all types, lady. Now shut your mouths or we are going to shut them for you.”
Connie Lewis and Deb Bruege looked at each other. If they didn’t get that vaccine soon, they would die. But if they tried to protest further, these goons would shoot them. The man in the windbreaker turned up the radio, and the Suburban headed down the turnpike toward the safe house in Trenton. When they stopped for gas, he called his boss from a secure cell phone. Then his boss called Cezanne.
“The two mules are in the barn,” was the message. Cezanne was pleased. He now had his insurance policy.
Atlanta, Georgia. Home of Jacob Roessler.
Murielle Winston had managed to knock over several of the wine bottles. Using the sharp glass, she had cut the cords around her wrists and ankles. Unfortunately the door was another matter. It was a heavy refrigerator door and it was locked. For now, Murielle Winston was trapped.