The Ebola Wall Read Online Free PDF Page B

dilemma. Colonel Taylor’s frustrated staff had all but written off any attempt at “rum running.” It was a retired oilfield engineer who casually proposed the solution.
    “What about the submarines?” the gentleman had asked.
    Submarines, used for inspection of offshore oil platforms, were in plentiful supply in Houston. It came as a great surprise when Taylor learned that over a dozen local corporations maintained such machinery.
    Many of the devices were one or two-man submersibles, often possessing limited range and capability. All were battery-powered, designed to be piggybacked out to a specific rig and then lowered into the water for a quick, deep dive. Not exactly the performance profile needed to run a naval picket.
    A program of modifications was initiated. The survivors included a handful of marine engineers, one of whom had firsthand experience with the mini-subs. They were happy to take on the task.
    Onboard oxygen storage was the first thing deemed unnecessary. Traveling just below the surface in the shallow waters of the bay wouldn’t require any large tanks of breathable air. The machines could be easily altered to “snorkel,” allowing them to catch their breath, much like military diesel-electric subs.
    Additional batteries replaced the heavy tanks of air, extending the machine’s range.
    After stripping off every unnecessary piece of equipment, six of the underwater units were readied, the engineers believing their range sufficiently enhanced to pass well under the blockade.
    Nine brave souls were selected from the pool of volunteers. When the Q had been ordered, Houston had been full of non-citizens visiting the U.S. for business or pleasure. Those people had been trapped inside the wall, suffering through hell-on-earth just like everyone else.
    Taylor’s planners were looking specifically for people with foreign passports. If the “Great Escape” were discovered, Americans might become non-gratis at international airports. It wasn’t long before a pool of candidates was formed.
    In a way, the colonel’s staff got lucky. There was the Russian businessman, furious at being trapped for months in a foreign city, outraged when the vodka at his hotel had run dry. When one of the man’s associates had been consumed by cannibals, he nearly went insane with disgust and abhorrence. Over the months, his barely contained, now-sober demeanor shifted to a deep loathing of Mother Russia – and eventually the world at large. What was even more interesting to the planners – the man had served in his home country’s submarine forces.
    They found a Frenchman who had survived the outbreak, his past including extensive scuba diving experience. During the early days of the Q, he’d emailed his parents a short video clip of a woman with an infant, digging desperately through a dumpster on the street below his hotel. He had opened his window while filming, yelling down to ask what she was doing. “I haven’t eaten for days. My baby is starving… I can’t make milk.”
    He threw down a few scraps of bread he’d been hoarding, something in the woman’s desperation touching his heart. The warm exchange of charity given and received was soon shattered - two men in police uniforms appearing out of nowhere. Casually strolling into the camera’s field of view, one of the officers pulled his pistol and shot the mother without a word. His partner casually bent, prying the small hunk of bread from the woman’s dying hands, and then they had calmly ambled along. The witness zoomed in on the crying infant, still clutched in his mother’s dead arms. It was seven hours later before the child went silent below his open window.
    When his family back in France had posted their son’s footage on social media, the French authorities has swooped in and arrested the entire household. The charge was sedition.
    Then there was the Japanese exchange student who was enrolled at the University of Houston. With a major in