Chapter 5

Sarah was looking at a few skirts when her phone rang. Pulling it out of the back pocket of her jeans, she saw that the caller was Cassie.

"Yeah," Sarah said into her phone.

"Get to the office," Cassie said. "I'm calling a meeting. Depending on where you are, you may beat me in, but I need you there."

"Ok, I'm on my way." Sarah said, turning from the rack of skirts and leaving the store that she was looking in and headed for her car. As she got in the car and started the engine, her phone started going nuts with the Administrative assistants of the Directors of the various offices trying to find out what was going on. Sitting her phone in the cup holder, she backed out of the parking spot and stared the ten minute drive to the CDC.

Sarah pulled her car into the parking spot that was assigned to her and got out, walking toward the ten story building. Walking in the front door, and swiping her key card she ran into Dr. Quentin Jones's assistant, Addison Walton.

"Sarah, what's going on?" Addison asked, They both were waiting on the elevator to come down from the eighth floor.

"I prepared a report using the basics that Dr. Jones had laid out in the meeting on Friday," Sarah said, glancing up at the display above the elevator. It was on the fourth floor now and slowly descending. "Dr. Robertson said after she read it that she was going to circulate it. I was shopping when she called me and told me to come to the office." There was a ding when the elevator stopped on the first floor and the doors slid open to reveal a man that neither Addison or Sarah knew. He got off the elevator and held the door so that it wouldn't close on the two girls.

"Ok, I got a similar call from Dr. Jones," Addison said, pushing the button for the eighth floor. "I just didn't know what was up."

"I'm not sure yet either, but I'm sure that it has to do with that report," Sarah said, reaching across and pushing the button for the tenth floor. "Either way, we're gonna find out soon enough..."

All of the department heads were sitting around the large conference table on the fifth floor, in the same order that they had sat on Friday afternoon. All of the deputy directors and administrative assistants were also in the room, but were standing around the outside edge of the room watching.

"Good afternoon," Dr. Robertson said, a smile crossing her face. She wasn't happy about pulling the top tier of the organizational chart into the office on a Sunday afternoon, but she didn't see much choice after getting a phone call from Dr. William O'Hare. "I'm sure that you all would rather be at home with your families, but Dr. William O'Hare from the Spokane office has an, as of yet, unidentified infectious disease in the small town of Spangle Washington. The Washington State National Guard has set up a quarantine." Cassie picked up a remote that was laying on the table and hit a button, causing the lights to dim and a projector to display a map of Washington State with a star on the location of Spangle. "As of the 2020 census, there were two hundred eighty five people living in the town. We might have to quarantine a few other small towns as Spangle has the high school for a school district that serves several other communities." Cassie hit a button and the map zoomed out and showed the outlying towns. "Doctor O'Brien, Doctor Smithfield, and Doctor Gaffin, I would like you three to get in touch with Doctor O'Hare and assist him in any way you can." All three doctors nodded and made notes on their note pads. "Doctor Gaffin, I would like three rapid response teams formed and ready to go at a moments notice. I'll call over to Airops and have the planes on standby as well." Doctor Gaffin nodded, and Sarah watched as his assistant took notes too. "That's all I have, lets get to it. Other department heads, be ready to support anyone that needs it in any way you can." Cassie left the room and Sarah followed, heading toward the elevators.

By the time that Cassie and Sarah had gotten home, it was too late to cook dinner, so they ate leftover pizza and talked about the days events. They had been in the office for ten hours after the meeting had ended starting to place the pieces and prep the labs for anything that was coming in from the town of Spangle Washington.

"I'm going to go to bed," Sarah said, yawning. She had been running on adrenaline and coffee for the last six hours and was getting ready to crash and crash hard. "Tomorrow is going to be busy, I can tell..."

"Yep." Cassie said, also yawning. "I spoke to Dr. Jones about the report that you wrote up. He said it was exactly like what he had in mind. Since no one else has come up with anything yet, I want you to try to get Senator Gordon on the phone tomorrow and give him updates, I may be busy with this Spangle situation. If anything happens tonight, I'll make sure you know about it." Cassie smiled at Sarah. "Good night."

"Night." Sarah said before heading upstairs and just collapsing in bed without changing.