Ryan checks his watch- 9:30am and smiles realising he still had a full hour before the car comes to pick him up. Six – make it a full eight as Sarah has said, and that will be plenty of time. The helicopter- a CH-47F Chinook, the fastest in the world with maximum speeds of 310km/h- will be waiting in that hidden clearing in Awhitu.
Even without traffic, this will still be at over an hour’s drive. And the flight to Spirits Bay at top speed would be according to Ned, exactly an hour at full throttle. Coughing yet? Feverish even when you’ve had your favourite glass of 80-year old Scottish whiskey? This is the running joke with Ned, a hulking 6 foot 5 Irish-Samoan with the gentle disposition of his island forbears, but with a love of the drink inherited from his Irish father. Ned has been on the red circuit for a full 72 hours- red is when you’ve logged nearly 64,000kms with only two hour rests (if any) squeezed in there somewhere, stealthily shuffling members of the Faction between continents and within the European union. So far, none of the Faction leaders have been infected with the virus and if the communique was to be believed, the consequences if this happened would be swift and severe.
But for the lowly rank and file like themselves- and even if Ned was probably one of the best pilots in the world as well as a genius with an IQ of 170- who knew what the Faction would do. The virus was rewriting every rule in the book and he wonders how he would fare- a middle-aged Asian guy of modest if not average talents, put in charge of an isolated country in the Pacific with a population of less than 6 million.
He accepted the ruthlessness of this reality and of his fate because he knew that the end game was survival, at all costs, and the Faction was there to ensure that when everything that the public knows is there to protect them fails, they won’t. He could see his daughter’s face, his family’s in the Philippines, his friends…Camille? Failure is not an option.
He must have been musing far too long because his watch reminds him with an urgent alert that there is 15 more minutes before the driver arrives. He goes to the kitchen and in swift, precise movements unwraps the corned beef, puts it in the slow-cooker, drops golden syrup, cloves, onions (thank God there were leftover diced ones in the fridge) and vinegar as per Sarah’s instructions.
By the time he walks down the driveway dressed in cargo shorts and a black hoodie, the driver – in a bullet-proofed black Merc with diplomatic license plates- pulls up. They drive out in silence with only an occasional beep from the GPS tracker indicating that the local authorities have been informed why this imposing vehicle is going at least 20kph higher than the limit. The highway isn’t completely deserted-typical Kiwis, he thinks, though really, the situation isn’t as dire as the US or Italy. But he can’t really think this way, not yet. Hopefully, this rendezvous in Spirits Bay would be just as he is expecting it to be, an assessment and reassurance from the Faction that all was well in this isolated part of the Pacific. That life will go back to normal.
Arriving in Awhitu, he spies Ned waiting outside the chopper clad head to toe in leather that seems to have been poured over his body, his muscles rippling underneath the taut material. On his vape with no visible smoke coming out (who knew if the virus can be carried by vape smoke?), Ned gives him a big grin which he returns in kind; for once Ryan is relieved that their normal hugs is not possible. Ned’s hugs always feel like you were being swallowed alive by a really firm mattress.
‘Still alive big boy?’ Ryan calls out to him, wondering with a note of envy that Ned didn’t look at all like he had been flying all over the world for the past 72 hours. Ahh, youth! Ned is only 24 to his 44. Only four hours ago, Ned was in Australia touching base with Faction contacts in Sydney. Not really a talker, ‘all good mate’ is all Ned drawls out before effortlessly swinging his massive frame onto the pilot’s seat.
The chopper ascends almost noiselessly and quickly above the peninsula and even if he has seen this hundreds of times, the stunning beauty of New Zealand’s landscapes, one of the very few in the world left virtually unspoilt by man, never fails to make him wish that it would always stay this way. Let this country be safe, he prays.
True to Ned’s word, they reach Spirits Bay in exactly an hour. An isolated bay at the end of the Aupouri Peninsula near the northern tip of the North Island, Piwhane as the Maoris call it, is a sacred place and according to local legend, is the location where spirits of the dead gather to depart from this world to travel to their ancestral home or afterlife from a large old pōhutukawa tree above the bay.
There are hardly any blooming pōhutukawa trees there that he could see, but a large red object was easy to spot and for a moment, Ryan thinks he is hallucinating. Normally unperturbed by anything, Ned looks over to him, his eyes wide with fear; ahh youth, he was too young to know about Peregrine except in stories. But Ryan knows. He has seen this once- back in 2003 during the SARS outbreak. He had met Peregrine in the small Thai island of Koh Tarutao and it seemed mind-boggling how an aircraft could have landed on what was essentially a large sand-bar. But Peregrine was neither a person nor a craft; it was the Faction’s dreaded messenger system designed to deliver very urgent, and often catastrophic news. The craft that he saw in Thailand was a stealth and could hover and land vertically. The technology since 2003 has evolved and this one in the shape of something resembling a bat in flight definitely has all the bells and whistles, but one thing has remained the same- the red colour. No one knows for sure why the Faction picked red, but everyone knew it was deliberate. Red was the colour of death.
Ryan wills himself to step off the helicopter and in leaden steps, walks towards the Peregrine where the Messenger is already waiting- a young slender man with long blonde hair dressed in an expensive suit and dark glasses. Approaching him, Ryan sees that the Messenger couldn’t have been more than 17. Dramatic much, he thinks trying to make light of a moment that already feels as though it is a waking nightmare. In Koh Tarutao, the Messenger was an old Asian lady probably in her 70s and dressed in a silver cheongsam.
No words are exchanged as the Messenger hands him a black tablet with long thin fingers and walks back into the Peregrine. In no more than a minute, the Peregrine’s engines hum to life and Ryan has to step back as the thrusters push it up, expelling hot, invisible gas. It glistens for a moment above them, an angry slash of red against the blue sky before it pivots nose up and careens out of sight.
He turns the tablet face up and puts his thumb on the biometric reader. It opens and a sliver of laser light scans his eyes; he starts to read the document.
He doesn’t know how long he stands there on the grassy clearing until a huge hand gently on his shoulder nudges him out of his reverie. In the distance, he could hear the surf break and just around him, the song of birds. He looks at Ned’s face and doesn’t see the face of a physically imposing man who flies every manner of aircraft and could speak 4 languages fluently; he sees the face of one who has yet to see horror the likes of which he could only imagine. They thought they had ended this in 2003, that SARS was safely vanquished in a test tube in a secure facility in Asia. But they were wrong.
Ned didn’t have to ask him about what the message was. He begins to tell him everything and his voice is calm- as if he is already dead.
“It seems that the virus with the current death toll at 47,240 is not the real threat. Classified reports have reached the Faction that a cluster of infection, a family of 7 who recovered a month ago, have suddenly, inexplicably experienced a relapse. Three of those seven were at a medical facility for plasma donation studies when they started having convulsions. Death and paralysis happened almost instantaneously after that. Two minutes later, they were re-animated and according to the surveillance footage obtained remotely, had superhuman physical strength and aggression. They attacked and killed all but one of the 14 staff at the facility. It would seem that the virus which lies dormant and evading current testing hid its true nature- anabiosis; reanimation after death. The 13 staff were reanimated and the entire facility has been in a questionable status until more information is gathered on how to contain this. The complication however is this- four of the other family members who reside in other countries have all gone back home just before borders were closed two weeks ago. One has gone back to London, one to Germany and one to Japan..’Ryan pauses looking at Ned in the eye before continuing.
‘The fourth infected person arrived in New Zealand March 14..’