"Contagion" under way: first chapter

Book 3 in the Robert Cook series

Friends: I wanted to share with you the first chapter in “Contagion,” which I’m writing at the moment. This first chapter has our indefatigable hero, Dr. Robert Cook, and his paramour, Dr. Elke Neumann, in the middle of an epidemic in Aleppo, Syria. This chapter is also shown at the end of my second book, “Outbreak”

A Faint Whisper

The air in Aleppo was thick with dust, smoke, and the faint, metallic tang of blood. The remnants of a bombed-out building loomed like a skeleton against the dusky orange sky, its jagged edges casting long shadows over the rubble-strewn streets. Somewhere in the distance, a child cried—a thin, haunting sound quickly swallowed by the rumble of passing military trucks.

Cook crouched behind an overturned concrete barrier, his breathing shallow. He adjusted the N95 mask over his face, grateful for its protection, though it did little to filter out the stench of burning rubber and decay. In his hand, he clutched a small vial, the delicate glass case holding a sample of what could be humanity’s next nightmare.

Beside him, Dr. Elke Neumann wiped a streak of sweat and dirt from her brow, her blue eyes scanning their surroundings with laser focus. She had swapped her usual precision in the lab for a Kevlar vest and boots that had already seen too much mud and grime. Her voice cut through the chaotic noise around them, low and urgent. “We’ve got five minutes before we lose cover. Where’s the extraction point?”

Cook checked his watch, then glanced down the narrow alleyway where a battered van was supposed to meet them. “It should be here. Just hold tight.”

Elke frowned, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m not exactly comforted by ‘should.’”

Cook gave her a fleeting smirk. “Didn’t know you were so picky about timing. Aren’t Germans supposed to be the masters of precision?”

“Not when someone else is driving,” Elke muttered, her hand instinctively resting on the compact medical bag slung over her shoulder. Inside, it held a portable PCR machine and the preliminary sequencing data they’d managed to scrape together from the ground zero samples.

The mission was simple—or at least it had been on paper. Collect the pathogen samples from Aleppo, identify the carrier, and neutralize the spread before it could cross borders. But in practice, nothing about the operation was simple. The pathogen was unlike anything they’d encountered—a virus that mimicked the worst traits of hemorrhagic fevers and airborne contagions, with a lethality rate approaching one hundred percent. And it was spreading fast.

Elke tapped Cook on the shoulder, pulling him out of his thoughts. “Look.” She pointed toward the van’s headlights flickering in the distance. Relief washed over him for a brief moment before a low, guttural sound caught his attention.

It came from the shadows—barely audible at first, then rising in intensity. A ragged cough, followed by a wet, choking noise. Cook turned, his stomach sinking as he saw the figure stumbling toward them. A man, his tattered clothes hanging off his emaciated frame, his face half-obscured by a scarf soaked in blood.

Elke tensed, reaching for the small vial of antiviral solution she carried as a stopgap measure. “Don’t,” Cook said sharply, putting a hand on her arm. “We can’t risk exposure.”

The man staggered closer, his movements jerky and uncoordinated, like a puppet on broken strings. His bloodshot eyes locked onto them, pleading, desperate. “Please… help…” he rasped, before collapsing to the ground in a heap.

Cook swallowed hard, his training at odds with his instincts. Every fiber of his being screamed to assist, to stabilize the man, but the rational part of his brain held him back. They couldn’t touch him, couldn’t risk contamination. Instead, he pulled a portable UV light from his pack and scanned the man’s body for signs of the pathogen’s distinct markers.

The glow revealed lesions across the man’s chest and neck, dark purple and oozing. Cook’s heart sank. “It’s the same strain,” he said grimly. “We need to move.”

Elke hesitated, her jaw tightening as she forced herself to look away from the man’s crumpled body. “The van’s here. Let’s go.”

They darted toward the vehicle, its engine sputtering as the driver—an older Syrian man with steely eyes—waved them in. Cook climbed into the back first, pulling Elke up after him. The van sped off, its tires kicking up a plume of dust that blurred the horrors they were leaving behind.

Inside, Cook and Elke secured the samples in a reinforced case, the precious cargo representing both hope and terror. Cook leaned back against the metal wall, closing his eyes for a moment as the adrenaline began to fade. “This is worse than we thought,” he muttered.

Elke nodded, her face pale but resolute. “And it’s just the beginning.”

Cook’s phone buzzed in his pocket, breaking the tense silence. He pulled it out, the screen illuminating Wilson’s name. He answered with a curt, “Go ahead.”

Wilson’s voice was sharp and direct. “The outbreak’s no longer contained. Reports are coming in from Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. It’s spreading.”

Cook exchanged a grim look with Elke. “How long before it goes global?”

“Days,” Wilson replied. “If we can’t identify Patient Zero and figure out how this thing works, we’re looking at a pandemic worse than anything we’ve seen before.”

Cook’s grip tightened around the phone. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Make it fast,” Wilson said before the line went dead.

Elke exhaled slowly, leaning her head against the van’s cold metal interior. “Do you think we’ll make it in time?”

Cook stared at the case in front of them, the tiny vials inside holding the fate of millions. “We have to.”

As the van rumbled on through the war-torn streets, the sun finally dipped below the horizon, plunging Aleppo into darkness. But for Cook and Neumann, the true darkness was just beginning

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