Sofia knew what it was. But she didn’t dare say it.

The casualties would keep coming, they’d continue for days, the death toll would be horrible, but it would be the other side of it that got really ugly.

The politics.

The cover-up.

It had happened before.

And even as the bodies continued to pile up, that was the battle Sofia was steeling herself to fight.

And the bodies were piling faster and faster. They lay in gurneys in the corridors where they’d been left by orderlies. They lay in the waiting room, scattered among the living. She’d seen one body in an elevator doorway, the doors opening and shutting on it over and over.

A nurse entered.

“Doctor Abramova,” she said. “There’s something you need to see.”

Olga and Sofia turned to look out the window. The parking lot was chaos, ambulances and cars everywhere. Some abandoned, their doors open and hazard lights flashing. One had crashed into a concrete pillar of the receiving bay. There was blood on the windshield.

But what the nurse wanted to show them was in the sky.

“It’s the army,” Sofia said.

At least four helicopters swarmed above them.

“They don’t look friendly,” Olga said.

“No they don’t.”

Then they saw the soldiers, marching down the street from a fleet of troop transports.

“They’re locking us down,” Sofia said.

Olga nodded.

Both women had worked in infectious diseases. They knew the protocols. Even for the most virulent outbreak, this was a very fast response on the part of the military.

The soldiers were forming a cordon around the hospital. They were letting traffic in but Sofia doubted they’d let it back out so easily. They were setting up a quarantine.

The sight of the soldiers alone would spread panic. They were in white hazmat suits with gas masks that made them look like something out of a horror movie. Sofia knew they’d be authorized to shoot to kill. Their Kalashnikovs were armed with live ammunition.

“How many have died?” Sofia said.

Olga shook her head.

“Olga,” Sofia said. “I need to call the institute. How many casualties?”

“I don’t know.”

“Two hundred? Four?”

“Four,” Olga said.

“And no signs of transmission.”

“No.”

“No hospital staff are sick?”

“None, so far as I know.”

There was a clunky old phone on the wall next to the notice board and Sofia picked it up and dialed Vasily’s number back at the institute.

“Sofia,” he said when he picked up, his voice frantic. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you for hours. What’s going on?”

“I was going to ask you that,” she said.

“Yevchenko was here. They’ve locked us down,” he said. “No one’s allowed to leave.”

“There’s been an exposure,” Sofia said.

“What have you seen?”

“Hundreds have come in, Vasily. It’s armageddon.”

“How is that possible?”