Chapter Two
Red Cross Refugee Camp #4, Chad. Two weeks later.
Captain Andrew Rust, USA, MC, leaned back from his microscope and took a deep yawn. The young doctor hadn’t had much in the way of field training and considered the Army a means to further his medical career. As such, he was a bit unaware of his surrounding, especially when he was immersed in his work as he was now. Perhaps an infantry officer would have noticed the increased automatic weapons fire, an especially adapt infantry officer would have recognized them as Kalashnikovs and known that they must have been hostile as all the local Chad Security Forces used FN-FALs and a hodge-podge of old bolt action rifles. However, that was all lost on the young doctor. When the burly Sudanese militia man entered his small laboratory he didn’t even turn to look, thinking that he was one of his new found friends from Doctors without Borders. He never saw the man pull out the old Makarov pistol and turned around just in time for the 9x18mm round to impact him in the left eye instead of the back of the head. He died instantly. The burly Sudanese Militia Man looked around the room one last time. Nodding to himself, he motioned for the Doctor to come in. The Doctor did so and prayed fervently to Allah in humble thanks. Right there on what had been Captain Rust’s desk was a BSL-4 refrigerated shipping box. Opening it, he found a rack of test tubes, each full of blood, each label as “SUDV” and the box was pre-marked for Atlanta, meaning the CDC.
“ALLAH ACKBAR!” The Doctor exclaimed as he carefully closed the box and sealed it in a larger shipping container. Two more of the Sudanese Militia men picked up the box and walked it to one of the old Russian ZIL trucks that they had driven across the border. The mission was complete and successful.
CDC, Atlanta, Georgia. Three days later
Karen Dillard, wearing tight black slacks and a crisp white blouse, walked into her building full of anticipation. Her fax from Captain Rust said to expect her newest samples in four days, and today was the forth day. Walking to her off, she quickly placed her purse in her desk and donned her lab coat. She walked back outside to wait for the golf cart, which soon came into the view. The same stocky former Ranger hopped out, this time just a Glock pistol holstered on his side.
“Sorry ma’am, nothing today. Not sure what’s up. We were expecting it. I’ll make some calls.”
Karen Dillard rarely swore, a result of her mother’s hairbrush and the strict standards of her sorority, but she swore bitterly as she stormed back to her office. Sitting at her desk, she threw a world class tantrum, another thing learned from her sorority days. She was nowhere close to replicating SUDV in the lab, but she had completed enough preliminary work to realize that this thing was scary dangerous. Her direct supervisor, a kindly old gentleman was smart enough toi realize that Karen was smart, and had good instincts, and gave her a fair amount of autonomy to run her own department. However, Karen worried that she could go no farther until she had more concrete proof. And to get that, she needs a constant supply of samples of SUDV and those had suddenly tried up.