The Jakarta Pandemic Read online

  Last thing I need right now is Ted going apeshit.

  He opened the “Intel Pro Wireless Manager” and disabled the wireless card. He then clicked on the “Complete Transaction” icon. The transaction would be instantly transmitted when he enabled the wireless card.

  Sometime next week, probably.

  “See you in a few,” Alex said and moved to open the door. He looked back and saw Dr. Wright taking off his white coat, pulling his car keys out of his desk drawer.

  “Hey, before you open the door…”

  Alex took a few steps back toward Dr. Wright’s desk and leaned in.

  “If I were you, I’d make a few trips to the store and stock up on necessities. I heard from a very well-placed source that they are close to making an announcement about the classification of the mystery flu. If this turns out to be a truly novel flu strain, we are headed for a disaster of epic proportions. Remember the talk I gave at your regional sales meeting down in Stamford? Think about the worst case scenario I described and make it worse. Much worse,” Dr. Wright said in a hushed tone.

  “Jesus,” Alex said.

  Dr. Wright just nodded his head and grimaced. Alex left his office and walked back down toward the automatic door. Giddiness overtook him after Dr. Wright’s foreboding message, and he began to grin again. I can’t believe I just did that.

  He waited impatiently in front of the elevator, thinking about the lecture Dr. Wright had given to over two hundred sales representatives and managers in a jam-packed ballroom at the Stamford Hilton. Dr. Wright had spoken for close to an hour and a half about flu strain mutations, characteristics of history’s deadliest flus, flu transmission variables, and nearly every other scientific aspect of the influenza virus. His talk had been received with a standing ovation.

  Alex remembered the talk vividly because it had preceded his own harrowing lecture about the potential impact of pandemic flu on society. Thirty minutes of PowerPoint doomsday predictions, each slide edited and approved by Biosphere’s northeast regional manager, who had wanted to drive home the importance and urgency of the sales force’s vigor in promoting TerraFlu’s laboratory efficacy against pandemic grade viruses. Biosphere launched TerraFlu with several FDA-sanctioned clinical trials demonstrating its superiority against seasonal flu strains, but it was still viewed as unproven against pandemic-grade viruses.

  Alex had recently completed his six-month probationary period with Biosphere when Ted Stanton eagerly volunteered the district to provide the lecture. When nobody from Alex’s district team volunteered to stand in front of the entire northeast regional sales team, he reluctantly agreed to spare Ted the agony of assigning the lecture to one of the team’s less enthusiastic and less capable members. The decision to give the lecture had changed his life.

  First, it had solidified his opinion of Ted as a micromanaging, egocentric, compassionless ass-kisser. He had his suspicions from the very beginning, but Ted had never done anything overt to threaten his autonomy or sour their relationship. At least not before Alex volunteered to give what appeared to be the most important lecture of Ted’s career. Sure, he’d witnessed some despicable leadership behavior, but in his mind, he couldn’t hold this against Ted, as Ted’s leadership came mainly from books. He had been hired by Biosphere right out of college to sell vaccines and had quickly risen to the rank of district manager, where he appeared to have been stuck for the past three years.

  Despite the relative calm they enjoyed, there was an underlying current of tension, barely perceptible, but strong enough for Alex to sense. Ted was uneasy in his presence, in part likely due to the fact that Ted hadn’t been given a choice when it came to Alex’s assignment to the district. Biosphere was expanding its sales force for the upcoming launch of TerraFlu, and rumor had it that Ted received a call one week before the job had been officially publicized. The call, supposedly placed from the vice president level at headquarters, informed him that his district would be joined by a decorated war veteran and seasoned pharmaceutical sales rep. Ted Stanton was more than displeased with the forced assignment, and his attempt to torpedo the decision was apparently a big part of why his fast-tracked career had skidded to a halt.

  This explained Ted’s initial discomfort, but Alex was pretty sure that most of the distress stemmed from the massive gulf between their ages and experiences. In 2003, while he was commanding marines under the constant threat of enemy machine gun and artillery fire in Iraq, Ted was busy dodging keg stands and tequila shooters in his fraternity house at UCONN.

  Alex had included copies of his military decorations with his original resume submission to the vice president of sales. Biosphere was a small operation in the grand scheme of pharmaceutical companies, and he suspected that copies of his decorations, or rumors of them, had found their way to Ted. Whatever the cause, Ted had kept his distance from him, which was exactly how Alex liked it, until the big lecture in Stamford had brought them a little too close for comfort.

  No fewer than thirteen videotaped practice lectures later, two of which were full dress rehearsals in a rented conference hall, and he was ready to kill Ted with his bare hands. The mere mention of his name or the buzz of his smartphone caused Alex to clench his fists. He had seriously miscalculated the situation when he volunteered to give the lecture. He hadn’t factored in the possibility that this lecture was a key part of Ted’s career redemption plan, and the oversight cost him dearly. Hourly emails and texting; several daily phone calls. He was convinced that Ted had quit doing everything except for micromanaging his thirty-minute lecture.

  He even got Michelle Harke, their regional manager, in on the act. Apparently, several senior executives from headquarters would be there to listen to Dr. Wright’s lecture, and the possibility existed that they might stick around for Alex’s presentation. All of his slides started to filter through Michelle’s desk, and before he knew it, he had two sets of revisions to process, each set often contradicting the other. He seriously considered sending a letter bomb to each of them. Despite the nonsense, his talk was hailed as a success by both Michelle and Ted, though it paled in comparison to Dr. Wright’s talk, which any speaker would have found a hard act to follow. He had smiled and shook their hands after the talk, cringing inside as they patted him on the shoulder. He silently promised himself that he would never volunteer for anything at Biosphere again. Fortunately, the experience hadn’t been a total loss.

  The most important result of the regional lecture stemmed from his research. Alex had combed the internet for a variety of sources and had found a broad continuum of opinions, speculations and predictions about the future of pandemics. Most articles and international disease control agencies agreed that the 2008–2009 avian flu served as the best model of a worst-case scenario. Despite over twenty million deaths worldwide, casualties in the United States, Europe and most other modernized nations were minimal. Close to twenty thousand deaths in the United States were attributed to the avian flu, which was still far below the forty to fifty thousand deaths annually attributed to the regular seasonal flu. The overall impact on society was minimal.

  However, the deeper he dug into the topic, the more he began to believe that most of these articles and reports were a little too optimistic. When he stumbled upon the International Scientific Pandemic Awareness Collaborative (ISPAC) website, he found all of the decidedly less optimistic opinions and research condensed into one convenient location. ISPAC had been privately founded, on the heels of the avian flu pandemic, to counter the prevailing optimism and spur the international community to strengthen pandemic response planning and resource allocation.

  Alex spent countless hours studying document after document, until he was convinced that avian flu was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of pandemic potential. He had a hard time condensing all of the available information and research into a thirty-minute talk, but when he was finished and the final revision had been approved by his regional manager, his slide presentation could have fueled the next blo
ckbuster Hollywood disaster movie. He shook himself free of the reverie as the elevator door opened.

  We might end up needing our basement stockpile after all.

  Chapter Six

  Friday, November 1, 2013

  Alex walked out of Hannigan’s with his second shopping cart full of groceries. He had made two separate trips into the store, the first one to buy nonperishable items, which nearly overflowed from the cart, and the second to buy refrigerator items. He felt pretty strange going in for the second time, but managed to stand in a checkout line far enough away from the first one to avoid any uncomfortable glances, not sure why he even cared.

  The store was about as crowded as he would expect for a Friday afternoon which, despite the looming threat, didn’t really surprise him. He knew the public would wait too long, and one electrifying news report would send everyone into the stores at once, effectively crippling the food supply system. Most of the grocery stores, just like the big retail stores, had become so efficient that they carried little additional stock on hand to meet even the slightest increase in demand.

  He scanned the parking lot, noting mostly empty spaces.

  This store is one bad news report away from mayhem.

  Alex decided to call his family and friends to urge them to hit the stores now. He jammed the groceries into his packed car and started the drive home.

  **

  He turned his company car left from Harrison Road onto the Durham Road loop. Ryan sat in the rear passenger side seat, just barely visible to him in the rear-view mirror, staring out of his window. After the turn, they passed four houses, two on each side of the street, and then the road split. He turned the car right at the split and headed toward their home. If he continued past his house and kept driving, he would end up back at the split. Durham Road was a loop and had only one access point, the turn he had just taken from Harrison Road.

  The subdivision contained thirty-four houses located on both sides of the street and evenly spaced on half-acre lots around the loop. Since both Durham Road and the streets surrounding it were built on recently converted farmland, most of the trees throughout the neighborhood were still smaller than the houses. Compared to most of the older, established neighborhoods nearby, the trees on Durham Road still looked like saplings.

  As he passed more houses on the way home, he started to see some of his neighbors, the first one being Todd Perry, in front of a red colonial with gray doors. Todd was adjusting a sprinkler head in the front yard when he noticed Alex’s car, and he waved. Alex waved back through the side passenger window.

  He glanced to the left as he passed a gray colonial with dark blue doors and a three car garage. Thick evergreen bushes crowded the sides of the walkway leading to the front door, standing guard over wide, raised beds filled with yellow and orange fall flowers. He waved at Julia Rhodes, who was examining her mail on the mudroom porch. She looked up as he passed, returning his wave.

  Alex pushed the garage door opener as he passed the Walkers’ house on the right. He looked at their house, a yellow contemporary colonial with green doors, and did not see any signs of activity. The Walkers usually started to spill home at around 5:30. First, Ed would arrive with at least two of their children. Then at about six, Samantha would pull in with whichever kid had a late practice.

  As he pulled into the driveway, the right side garage bay door finished opening, and he pulled his car into the garage.

  “Make sure you have all of your junk,” he said to Ryan.

  “Got it,” Ryan replied and opened his door.

  Alex carefully slid behind his wife’s Toyota 4Runner, trying not to dirty his suit.

  She never pulls in far enough, he mentally complained.

  As he opened the screen door and walked into the mudroom, he could smell dinner.

  Garlic, onions, ginger…probably a stir-fry.

  He hung up his suit jacket in the mudroom closet and took off his shoes, kicking them into the open floor space of the closet.

  “Hey, honey, smells great!”

  “Yeah, I thought a stir-fry was in order for tonight,” she said.

  He crossed the kitchen and gave her a kiss, holding her for a few seconds. He looked around.

  “Are you making rice for the stir fry?” he asked.

  “Yep, already in the pressure cooker. Don’t you have anything better to do other than hawk me?”

  “Probably not.”

  He heard Ryan enter the mudroom and kick off his shoes. One of the shoes banged against the closet door.

  “Take it easy on the house in there,” he yelled.

  “Sorry, Dad,” Ryan said and flashed by them on his way upstairs.

  “Hey, no hug for your mom?” Kate said.

  “Sorry, Mom,” Ryan said and returned to the kitchen to begrudgingly hug Kate.

  “Dinner will be ready in a few minutes. Tell Emily to wash her hands and start making her way downstairs. You too. Love you,” she said.

  “Love you too, Mom. I’ll be right down,” he replied and scooted up the stairs.

  “Anything good happen?” he asked, nodding at the TV.

  “The UN declared an emergency session. They’re considering a travel and commerce ban against China. Chinese officials plan to release more information about whatever is going on over there.”

  “When?”

  “Some time tomorrow.”

  “Hey, look at that. They’ve officially named it the China Crisis. How original. They should call it the Great Chinese Bend Over of 2013. Or Encore 2008,” Alex said sarcastically.

  “Do you ever quit?” She smirked, shaking her head.

  “I was being nice with ‘bend over.’ I can think of a few graphic terms that might better describe the situation,” he added, taunting her with a raised eyebrow.

  “I’m sure you can. Why don’t you change and grab the kids on your way back down. I’m pretty much done here.”

  “You got it,” he said and started to disappear up the stairs.

  Alex closed the bedroom door behind him as he pulled off his tie. He turned on the flat-screen TV, which took a few seconds to display a picture.

  “CDC officials have confirmed the flu strain as an H16 variant. Little is known about the new strain at this point, and many serious questions remain unanswered. So far, neither the CDC nor WHO has responded to demands for information. CNF news correspondent David Gervasey reports from ISPAC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. David?”

  “Denise, roughly fifteen minutes ago, we were fortunate to get a brief interview with one of their senior spokespersons, Dr. Allison Devreaux.”

  The screen changed to the previously recorded interview with Dr. Devreaux.

  “Dr. Devreaux, what can you tell us about the virus that we don’t already know?”

  “The virus has been classified as a new subtype H16,” she answered in a French accent. “The strain is classified as H16N1.

  “This subtype has never been seen before in humans or animals, so it is truly a novel strain. Right now, our own scientists are trying to match its genetic characteristics with previously seen subtype strains. In this way, we can make some rough predictions regarding its behavior.

  “We know that the virus is highly contagious, and its acquisition by a host leads to typical flu-like symptoms, including high fever, marked weakness and pulmonary distress. In essence, it behaves like a highly pathogenic disease. We know this from our investigation of an ever-increasing number of cluster outbreaks throughout the far Pacific Rim, and we are extremely confident that the strain found by ISPAC investigative teams outside of China is the same as the strain causing the outbreak inside of China.”

  “When do you anticipate further information to be available from your field teams?”

  “We receive constant reports and engage in discussions with these teams around the clock. When new information is verified, we will post this information on our website. You can also subscribe to our Pandemic News Alert service and receive automatic
email updates as new information is posted. We are striving to pass all relevant information on to the public so that they can make the most informed decisions to prepare for a potential pandemic virus.”

  “Does this look like a pandemic on scale with the 2008 avian flu?”

  “Frankly, not enough information exists for us to draw any conclusions. The virus is highly contagious, certainly. At this time, we just don’t know anything regarding clinical attack rates, case fatality rates, infection and symptom timelines…all of the key parameters that allow us to project its spread and impact on the world’s population.

  “However, based on its efficient capacity for human to human transmission, I feel confident projecting that this virus will rapidly reach all corners of the globe. Let us hope that this virus in not as deadly as the avian flu. Thank you, David.”

  The screen cut back to a live broadcast from ISPAC headquarters in Atlanta. David Gervasey stood in front of the modern, ten-story glass and steel structure.

  “You heard it here first, Denise. We’re going to remain in place to get the latest information as it becomes available.”

  “Thank you, David. As you can see, live ISPAC website information is located at the bottom of our screen, and we will be broadcasting any new ISPAC website updates as they are posted. Stay with us, we’ll be back in a moment.”

  Alex stared at the screen for a few more seconds and then returned to his closet to change into jeans and a gray long-sleeve fleece pullover. He headed back toward the stairs and stared down the hall at his office door.

  I need to get the kids down to dinner, or I’ll have more to worry about than viruses. I need to check one more thing first.

  He entered the office and typed “Hong Kong International Airport” into Google. The search engine’s first link was the airport’s official website. He scanned the page and clicked on “flight information,” then “departures.” The screen filled with the day’s scheduled departing flights.