Bain, Darrell The Melanine Apocalyps

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proper to think of the airport, a very stupid mistake on someone's part. With the airport in his hands, he
felt like they had a good chance of succeeding. They would have the CDC complex in hand well before
army reinforcements with heavy weapons could arrive. Anything coming in by chopper, he thought they
could handle with the half dozen shoulder-fired missiles in their possession. Adding to that advantage,
most of the metropolitan police force had disintegrated with the loss of so many blacks and the deaths of
so many others trying to keep the city under control. What few were left kept to the white precincts and
simply tried to limit the damage there. The black neighborhoods were left to their own devices and the
whites were sticking as close to home and work as they could, fearful of being assaulted by angry and
frightened blacks, or even white miscreants taking advantage of the lawlessness.
Shortly before dawn, thousands of dark skinned men and women began marching toward the CDC
complex, intent on either beating the cure out of their white scientists or putting them to death, the very
same fate they believed every dark skinned human on earth faced in the near future.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
General Newman couldn't help but be satisfied that the armed forces were finally going to be built up to a
level he and the other members of the Joint Chiefs considered adequate, even if it was coming about as a
result of a world wide calamity. He worried a bit about the enormous task of integrating all the recalled
former servicemen and women back into the service and getting the new draftees trained and into the
field, but that was what subordinates were for. His main concern was stability in the nations possessing
nuclear weapons or biowarfare agents such as the Harcourt virus, or that new one, the Goldwater
virus, named after the first patient known to have died from it. He thought it was ironic that the first
person to succumb had been an Israeli citizen of mixed Arab and European ancestry who had the bad
luck to inherit the wrong gene from his Jewish father and Arab mother. The man had been even more
unlucky to be a passenger on the aircraft harboring Nabil Hassan and his little spray bottles loaded with
the deadly brew. He knew that Nabil Hassan had been caught with the goods on him and executed.
General Newman chuckled to himself, thinking that Goldwater would much rather have lived than have
his name immortalized after his death as the Goldwater virus, though it was seldom called that except
among professionals and those who avoided derogatory language. It was more commonly referred to,
especially in casual conversation, as The Arab Virus", after the group it infected. In truth, he knew it was
lethal even to some non-Arabs such as Iranians because of their common ancestry. And he had to give
the Jews credit they had loosed the bug even knowing it would infect some of their own citizens.
General Newman realized he couldn't predict which nation might produce the next pandemic, though the
intelligence agencies pointed to several with the possible capability. He couldn't order them nuked,
though, no matter how much he might think it would eliminate a risk. There was too much of a chance for
escalation. Maybe later, if things worked out.
His primary concern now was holding the country together in the face of the increasing disruption of
supplies and continuing violence in the big cities. Part of Los Angeles had burned to the ground before
the bitter, vengeance-bound rioting of its black citizens had been subdued, and part of Chicago was
heading in the same direction. He shuffled requests for troops and reinforcements from around the
country with an eye on vital areas of industry or transportation hubs. Those received priority. Then there
were the nuclear power plants.
Already, he had been forced to send reinforcements to the few plants in Africa his soldiers and airmen
were guarding; White faces were anathema in that continent, and there were still plenty of
revenge-minded blacks left alive. The whites of South Africa at last report had been wiped out almost to
the man, though not without some fierce battles. And now that the Goldwater virus was getting up steam,
he was going to be forced to send more troops, these into the Middle East, and have others ready. Israel
might help later, but right now they had their hands full fighting off the Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian
armies, the same old antagonists who had been slugging it out for well over half a century. Whatever else
happened, he had to try to keep any of those nuclear plants from melting down and contaminating the
whole world.
Then there was China and India. So far both nations seemed content to make noises rather than trying to
invade other countries and that was good. India especially was probably glad in some perverse way that
Pakistan was under the viral gun or their leaders might have been glad had not so many of their billion
citizens been ill. Many would die, but many more would recover. If the country stayed together, it might
cause trouble later on. China was even more of a problem. He seriously doubted from the intelligence he
was receiving that China's central government could prevent the country from fragmenting into a
balkanized travesty of a nation, where different provinces would be ruled by warlords and with God
himself not knowing who controlled their nuclear weapons.
The general sighed. Problems, problems, but perhaps before it was all over, the world would be aligned
differently and much more to his liking. He pushed those concerns aside for the moment and turned his
attention back to the most pressing problem requiring action, Atlanta and its icon, the CDC. The
president had decided that whatever else happened, he couldn't allow the damn black monkeys to
destroy that haven of scientific talent. General Newman had to agree with him in a way. The CDC
complex had gathered the best virologists in the world to work on the new diseases. There was no telling
when they might be needed in the future. He had been forced to cancel the intended airlift of an army
brigade to Atlanta. The rioters must have some sensible leaders because this time, they took the airport
before the locals could react and blocked the runways by driving vehicles out on them, then burning or
rigging them with explosives. Another armed mob was headed straight toward the CDC, killing and
looting as they came. They had to be stopped, somehow. Reluctantly, he picked up the phone to alert the
last two battalions of airborne troops he had available for deployment and ordered them to jump into the
suburbs tomorrow morning. He knew it would be chaotic and very, very messy but here was nothing else
to do; he didn't even have enough helicopter transport available for them. Atlanta would just have to
suffer. Urban warfare was never pretty. He got a battalion of Marines moving by road from the east
toward the airport, then turned his watch over to the vice chairman. He knew he was dopey from lack of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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