THE ALEX FLETCHER BOXSET: Books 1-5 Read online

  The Alex Fletcher Series

  The Jakarta Pandemic (Book 1)

  The Perseid Collapse (Book 2)

  Event Horizon (Book 3)

  Point of Crisis (Book 4)

  Dispatches (Book 5)

  by Steven Konkoly

  Copyright Information

  © 2010 - 2015 Steven Konkoly. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of Steven Konkoly.

  A list of military/government acronyms and definitions used throughout The Alex Fletcher Books is available via the Table of Contents.

  Contents

  The Jakarta Pandemic

  The Perseid Collapse

  Event Horizon

  Point of Crisis

  Dispatches

  Work by Steven Konkoly

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Acronyms and Terminology Used in The Alex Fletcher Books

  The

  Jakarta

  Pandemic

  Alex Fletcher Book One

  Dedication

  To my wife—for her constant encouragement and support.

  I would still be about “halfway” done without her.

  To my children—for ensuring a balance between writing and family.

  Mostly in their favor.

  Prologue

  Alex checked his watch for the tenth time in less than twenty minutes. 5:50 p.m.

  Where are they?

  Lying on the ground for more than an hour, while a vicious Nor’easter pounded him with snow and wind, was more than enough to test anyone’s patience—and physical limits.

  He lowered the night vision scope for a moment and rubbed his eyes, hoping Charlie was keeping a better watch on the ambush site.

  He’d better be, or they could stumble through undetected.

  Alex had doubts about spotting them with the scope. The near absence of ambient light, combined with a blinding snowstorm, continued to degrade the already grainy image formed by the inexpensive, first-generation night device.

  He twisted open the green ceramic thermos and poured the last of the hot tea prepared by Kate. Taking a sip from the thermos cap, he placed the cap down next to the rifle in front of him, and took another look through the scope. He could still see the Hayes’ house, but the image had degraded even further. Batteries were not the issue; he’d just changed them. As the snow intensified, he’d have to rely on Charlie to spot them in time to spring a coordinated attack. Alex didn’t want to think about what could happen if they slipped by. Nothing would stand between these psychopaths and his family.

  Alex swigged the rest of the warm tea and replaced the lid, tucking the thermos into his backpack and checking his rifle again. Through the Aimpoint sight, the red dot still glowed faintly in the center of the image. He pulled back on the AR-15’s charging handle and ejected the bullet loaded in the chamber, leaving the brass cartridge in the snow where two other bullets lay. He’d ejected one bullet every half-hour to ensure that the freezing temperatures had not affected the weapon’s mechanical action. A malfunction tonight would spell disaster.

  A sudden, insuppressible shiver rendered him useless for a few seconds. His time out here was limited. He looked through the night vision scope again; the green image confirmed that he was still alone. How did things spiral this far out of control?

  So far gone, that he found himself lying under a neighbor’s play set in a blizzard, eagerly waiting to kill. He had to do it: for the good of the neighborhood and society in general, but most importantly—for the immediate safety of his family.

  In the end, that was all that really mattered to Alex.

  Arrival

  Chapter 1

  A loud pulsing vibration jarred Alex out of a deep sleep. He squinted in the darkness, laboring to turn his head toward the source of the persistent buzzing sound.

  My phone.

  The phone’s display illuminated a half empty glass of water on the nightstand. He watched, still helpless, as the phone moved closer to the edge with each vibration. Breaking through the murk of a broken sleep cycle, Alex reached for the phone to check the caller ID. Maine Medical Center. A jolt of adrenaline shot through his body, as Alex headed out of the bedroom to the hallway.

  “Alex Fletcher,” he answered in a whisper.

  “Oh…Alex. It’s Dr. Wright. I thought I’d get your voicemail.”

  “No problem, Dr. Wright. I usually don’t keep my phone on the nightstand. Just happened to end up there tonight,” he said, closing the door to the master bedroom.

  “I’m glad you’re awake, Alex. I’m fairly confident we’ve seen our first cases of the new pandemic flu tonight. Cases started rolling into the ERs early this evening.”

  “You said ‘ERs’. More than one?”

  “Yes. Three cases at Maine Med. Two came from Westbrook and one from Falmouth. And one case at Mercy, patient walked over from somewhere in the west end. I also have a confirmed case at Maine General in Augusta and possible cases at Eastern Maine Med up in Bangor.”

  “Confirmed as what?”

  “Confirmed as nothing I’ve ever seen before. That’s why I think we’re dealing with the new virus out of Hong Kong,” Dr. Wright said.

  “That’s more than six cases. How did this pop up here first and not Boston? It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

  “Boston has been hit with several dozen cases, possibly more.”

  “What do you mean? I didn’t see anything on the news, or on any of the websites. We’ve been keeping an eye on this,” Alex said.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, but I know for a fact that Boston has been slammed. A friend of mine at Mass General called to tell me to get ready. He said that area hospitals in Boston saw dozens of cases trickle in overnight Wednesday, with more showing up as the day progressed. Several dozen more by the time I talked to him.”

  “Why didn’t the media catch this yet?” he asked.

  “Well, between you and me, and I don’t have to remind you that this entire conversation never happened—”

  “Of course. Absolutely, Dr. Wright,” Alex said instantly.

  “We’ve been instructed by the state health department to report all cases directly to them so they can coordinate resources and notify federal health agencies. I assume that direction filtered down from HHS. They also asked us not to notify the media, in order to avoid a panic. I can understand part of that logic, but if you ask me, I think they’re trying to keep this under wraps because they’re not prepared. Unfortunately, this is the only direction we’ve received so far from the state or feds. Or maybe that’s a good thing for now. Aside from rushing us more useless avian flu detection kits, nothing else has been done. Alex, I have to let you go. I have a long night ahead of me.”

  “Sorry to hold you up. Thanks for the call, Dr. Wright. I really appreciate the heads up. Preliminary case fatality rates in Asia look high.”

  “Yeah, we’re not taking any chances. This one is different than the avian flu, which was bad enough. Makes the swine flu look like a common cold. Thanks for making a trip over here yesterday, especially considering the fact that the state’s anti-viral stockpiles will fall under federal control if the flu spirals out of control. Your samples will really come in handy.”

  “Could you use more? We’ve been instructed to keep our distribution of TerraFlu to a minimum, but I have no problem making another donation to the cause.”

  “I’ll take whatever you can give me at this
point, but I don’t want you to get in trouble with Biosphere.”

  “I’m not worried about them. What time works for you tomorrow? My schedule is pretty clear, so I can make a trip over any time.”

  “How about 12:45? I plan to be back from the hospital at that point. My first patient is at one. We could take care of it then,” Dr. Wright said.

  “Works for me. See you at 12:45. Good luck tonight,” Alex said and waited for a reply, but the line was already dead.

  Alex sat down in the office, and checked the Boston Globe and Boston Herald websites. Nothing.

  Next, he navigated to the International Scientific Pandemic Awareness Collaborative (ISPAC) site and checked their world activity map. Color-coded symbols littered the map, each representing a reported flu outbreak. Placing the mouse icon over one of the symbols activated a text box, which could be further expanded for more detailed information. Light blue: cases of interest, yellow: initial outbreak, orange: small-scale outbreak, red: medium-sized outbreak, violet: large-scale outbreak.

  He zoomed in on North America.

  Cases in Canada, Mexico, Central America…wait, wait, look at this, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco. He looked at the East Coast and saw no colored icons. Alex adjusted the map to focus on southern California and placed the cursor over the yellow Los Angeles icon.

  “Los Angeles. Population 4,089,245. Isolated outbreaks. 190+ cases reported. Uncontained. Isolated outbreaks among ethnic Asian populations.”

  In a separate desktop window, he navigated to the Los Angeles Times homepage. He looked for the California/Local section. Here we go. He found an article and began to read:

  Hong Kong Flu Hits Asian Community.

  “Cedars-Sinai confirms at least a dozen cases of Hong Kong flu. Mainly confined to Asian community. UCLA Medical Center confirms several cases. Mainly Asian community. East LA Doctor’s Hospital sees its first cases late in the evening on October 31. Community leaders decry nearly one-day delay in reporting cases to the public. Employee at Cedars-Sinai contacts Los Angeles Times with information about suspected flu cases. Cases were being kept isolated from other patients and under a tight information seal. Times reporters launched an immediate investigation into all area hospitals, uncovering several dozen more cases.”

  Alex put the cursor over the yellow San Francisco icon.

  “San Francisco. Population 853,758. Isolated outbreaks. 100+ cases reported. Uncontained. Isolated outbreaks among ethnic Asian populations.”

  He moved the map to China and saw that dozens of southern coastal cities were shaded either orange or red; Hong Kong and the surrounding areas were shaded violet. He passed the mouse over one of these areas.

  “Greater Guangzhou city. Population 12,100,000. Massive outbreak. 8,000+ reported cases. Uncontained. Containment efforts focused on Guangdong Province.”

  8,000 plus cases in one city? I thought there were only 26,000 altogether in China yesterday?

  Alex passed the mouse over a few more cities in the area around Hong Kong and saw similar text fields. He quickly added up the other numbers and calculated roughly 77,000 reported cases in southern China.

  He zoomed out of China and settled on a worldview. Colored dots appeared to sweep outward in a concentric wave from Southeast Asia. A solid perimeter of blue dots extended from Japan, through South Korea and Vladivostok, then reached across northern China and connected with Pakistan and India. India was covered in blue dots and yellow dots; orange icons appeared centered over several major cities within India. Oddly, Java Island contained no dots. He placed the cursor over Java.

  “Java Island. Population 150,000,000. No reports.”

  Something’s up over there.

  Beyond Asia’s ring, blue-colored dots littered every continent, concentrated on nearly every major city. He almost wished he hadn’t seen the map. His stomach churned as a wave of anxiety blanketed him. The deadly flu raged uncontrolled all around the globe and now on their doorstep in the sleepy little town of Portland, Maine. The seriousness of the situation hit Alex hard as he walked back to the bedroom. Laying down next to Kate, he felt a little more secure as he tried unsuccessfully to sleep.

  Chapter 2

  Alex pulled into the parking garage at Maine Coast Internal Medicine’s (MCIM) flagship office building. The state-of-the–art, eight-story building housed nearly a hundred medical providers from several of MCIM’s previously scattered office sites. He parked as close to the main entrance as possible and grabbed his Biosphere computer tablet.

  He arrived on the 5th floor, which housed over a dozen physicians. All of them were internists, and more than half of them specialized in infectious disease. MCIM provided infectious disease specialists to most of the hospitals in southern Maine, and he could only imagine how busy they might be today.

  “Hey, Jodi. Did Dr. Wright make it in?” he asked the receptionist.

  “He better have. He has patients scheduled every ten minutes until 4:00, and I’d like to get out of here on time for a change.” she said.

  “Let me ring his office. I know he’s here. It’s been crazy.”

  “I bet,” he said.

  She dialed the phone and spoke into her headset.

  “Dr. Wright, Alex Fletcher is here to see you.”

  She listened. “All right, I’ll send him back,” she said and broke the connection. She looked up at Alex. “Go ahead, but don’t hold him up. It’s Friday.”

  “I won’t, trust me. Have a great weekend, Jodi.”

  “Yep. You too.”

  Alex enjoyed walking back to Dr. Wright’s office, especially since most of Dr. Wright’s colleagues refused to meet with pharmaceutical representatives.

  He knocked on Dr. Wright’s door, which was propped open.

  “Come in, Alex, and shut the door behind you.”

  Dr. Wright stood up and walked around the desk to shake Alex’s hand. He was tall and thin with dense black hair and thick eyebrows; his dark complexion suggesting a Mediterranean ancestry.

  “Sorry to be curt, Alex, but I’m jammed with patients this afternoon, and I have to hit Maine Med when I’m finished. I only have a minute or two.”

  “No problem, Dr. Wright. I’m just glad I can help before things spiral out of control at Biosphere,” he said.

  “Okay—” Dr. Wright said, eyeing Alex suspiciously. “What’s up with Biosphere?”

  “They’re holding all drug stock in reserve for some partnership with HHS (Department of Health and Human Services). We were told to stop giving samples of TerraFlu to all hospitals and physicians effective immediately.”

  “You’ve got to be joking, Alex. Really? HHS? They couldn’t pick a worse partner. Those samples will never see effective use. Are you telling me I can’t get any more samples? Each one of those samples could save a life, if TerraFlu proves effective against this new strain. What a waste,” he said, clearly angry.

  “They’re hell-bent on mismanaging this crisis at every level. I think they’re going to stop shipping to the pharmacies, and there’s even serious talk about concentrating Biosphere representatives in areas hit hard by the flu—to promote TerraFlu. I could get relocated to Hartford.”

  “This is really tragic. I’m sorry things at your company have taken such a sad detour. You’re not going to be part of that redeployment nonsense, are you?”

  “No. I’m staying put, no matter what they say, which brings me to my first and only agenda item.”

  “I didn’t realize that you were a man of agendas,” Dr. Wright said, raising his eyebrows.

  “There’s always an agenda,” Alex said, holding out his computer tablet.

  Dr. Wright took it from him.

  “Since I don’t anticipate working for Biosphere much longer, I don’t see any reason to assist them in making matters worse out there. If you’ll sign my tablet, I’ll give you all of my samples.”

  Dr. Wright sat in his chair. “You’re not breaking the law by doing this, are you?”

&n
bsp; “No, not at all. I’m just going to make some people very, very unhappy.”

  “Thank you very much, Alex. This means a lot. The drug samples are an invaluable resource, especially at a time like this,” he said.

  Dr. Wright signed the tablet and handed it back. “Seriously, this is a tremendous help.”

  “My pleasure. If you can keep this on the down low for a while, I’d really appreciate it. I don’t want Biosphere to figure this out until I’m ready to deal with them. And don’t say anything about the Biosphere strategy to anyone. That could probably get me in more trouble than the samples. Confidentiality agreement stuff.”

  “Not a problem. Actually, I don’t think I’m going to keep the samples here. Too tempting for staff and others. Drug samples have a tendency to disappear around here. I’ll pull my car around to your car and pile them in there for now. You fit all of it in your car?” he asked, surprised.

  “I put all of the seats down, and it’s jammed full. It may not be as much as you think, but I just got a shipment a week or so ago, so it’s more than I usually have in my storage unit.”

  “Whatever you have, I will gladly take off your hands. Where are you parked?”

  “Second level, pretty close to the elevators.”

  “Beautiful, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  Alex picked up the computer tablet and checked Dr. Wright’s signature. He decided not to close out the transaction until he disabled the wireless card. If Alex pressed “complete,” the transaction would transmit automatically, setting off some kind of alarm at their data collection center. He felt confident that any current or future transactions involving TerraFlu samples would be flagged for immediate review.

  “See you in a few,” said Alex, moving to open the door.

  “Hey, before you open the door—”