My Entry-Time Running Out

Time Running Out

Kathleen Livermore sat at her very spartan desk at the Center for Disease Control (CDC).  She kept moving her pencil from one hand to the other.  Children were dying.  They were being poisoned and people were rightly asking what the CDC and other government agencies were doing about it.  The occurrences were happening randomly across the nation.  She wouldn’t believe this could be the work of just one man or woman.  A group had to be coordinating this or they were poisoning the food at the source.

There lay the rub.  There was no central source.  Some of the children were getting poisoned from cheese others meat and others mayonnaise.  She had tried to see if there was a commonality between the schools and there was not.  Some were public others private, some religious, others not.  She moved her pencil to the top of her desk and left it there.  She was supposed to brief the President of the United States in ten minutes via video conference.  It would be her, the FDA Commissioner, the Homeland Security Cabinet representative, and the President.  No doubt each group would have various underlings sitting there with stacks of papers on their laps.

The terrible truth was that this issue seems to have been going on for over a week. It was just now that the authorities realized that there were children dying from eating at school cafeterias.  They first connected the deaths on Monday and now it was Friday.  Since then eighteen more children had died. Her department was taking care of all the analysis of the poisons and they were all the same – Anthrax.  Kathleen shuddered at the thought. The amount of weapons grade anthrax in the tainted food and in the autopsies of the victims show that enormous amounts of the poison were in the food.  Who could get this quantity of high grade anthrax? It had to be an insider. 

With this type of anthrax an adult might possibly survive but a child would die.  Many had already died.  The confirmed report is that twenty-five had died but no one knows how high that count could go.  Whoever was doing this was hitting our society where it hurts the most, its innocent children.  Kathleen was sick of it all.  How could a man do this?  How could he get that much anthrax.  Kathleen thought she might vomit. 

She rubbed her eyes, looked at her watch and picked up her pencil.  She had jotted down some basic statistics but she couldn’t give the President an answer and that is what he wanted.  That is what they ALL wanted.  There were only minutes to go and she had nothing, absolutely nothing.

Her phone rang.  “Livermore speaking.”

“I think we have it.”

“Well what!”

“It is not coming from the food but the packaging material.  All the food is brought to the same factory for packaging in bulk to be sent out across the nation.”

“Are you absolutely sure of this?”

“I can’t be sure until our investigators get there and do their job.  But it all lines up to one packaging plant.”

“What packaging plant?”

“Harkins in Arkansas.”

Kathleen became very still then she let out a breath.  She nodded her head affirmatively and got up from her desk.  She looked like a wax cut out representation of who she had been.

“When will our men be there?”

“We called the local authorities immediately to lock down the facility and not let anyone in or out.  Our men should be arriving right now.”

“I have to go into the conference but call Janine on her cell and update her.  She can pass a note to me.”  She looked over at Janine who was looking sharply at her. “Call the minute you know something concrete.  Don’t call unless you’re sure.  Goodbye and good job.”

They all filed out to the video conference room and arranged themselves.  The video conference began with everyone introducing themselves. The President turned to the FDA Commissioner and started asking him questions.  Kathleen was visibly shaking her foot, which she made stop.  Suddenly Janine grabbed her phone and listened intently writing all the time.  She ended the call and wrote a few more notes.  She looked at Kathleen sadly then handed the paper to her.  Kathleen surreptitiously took the note and scanned it quickly, then again more slowly.

“Excuse me Mr. Taylor I hate to interrupt but I have some news.” Kathleen said in her best polite but professional manner.

Everyone stopped and all eyes were on Kathleen.  She quickly brought them up to date on the finding about the packaging plant.

“We just raided the plant and found the culprit.  He admits it and there is poison in his personal locker.  He also worked at a position in the plant where he could infect the packaging.”

“My God, how did he get this much anthrax?” the President asked.

“Well sir…his name was Harold Livermore and he was my brother.  He stole the anthrax from me.  I had a stockpile at home for research purposes.  Somehow he got into it.”

“Why would you have that much anthrax?”

Kathleen looked at the people.  “I was trying to find a vaccine for this high grade anthrax.  It was a personal project.”

Armed me walked into the room and looked at Kathleen.

“Why did your brother do this?” The FDA Commissioner asked.

“He was a brilliant scientist but had problems.  I honestly can’t say why he did it sir.  Also, shortly after he confessed he collapsed and died.  It seems he consumed his own poison.”

Kathleen got up and walked out with the armed men.  She knew exactly why Harold had poisoned all those children – because he hated her.  It might as well as been her that poisoned the children.

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