“That’s not what I mean. I think we both know that part of you never came back from your first trip. You’ve already changed. If you go again, I’m afraid that you’ll be changed beyond recognition. And you may never stop going back.”
“It’s a crisis.”
“There’ll always be another crisis. And there are other doctors out there, doctors who aren’t broken like you are.”
“Broken?”
“This isn’t about IMAF, it’s about us. And you’re showing me that they’re more important to you than I am. More important than our life together.”
“It’s true that Africa changed my life. But Maria—”
“Listen to me, Michael, please. You know how badly I’ve wanted to have a child with you. Our child. A child that I carry within me for nine months and give birth to with you beside me in the delivery room. I’ve been through living hell four times trying, but . . . you know. When you came back I wanted to try one more time, but I’m forty now. You’re forty-two. And we don’t even make love anymore.” Her eyes shone with tears.
There was a long silence. “You could come to Africa with me.”
Maria glared at him. “It’s the middle of a school year. I’m teaching two courses. Leaving now would be irresponsible. It’s impossible.” She paused. “If you have to go, then go. But stop pretending that you don’t have a choice.” She pushed back from the table, grabbed her purse and shoes, and slammed the front door behind her.
Michael sat heavy in the chair. He’d failed Laurent, Anna, and countless Africans, and now he’d failed the person he loved most in the world.
Maybe I don’t deserve to live, he thought. He pictured capsizing his kayak in the squalls, of Puget Sound. Hypothermia would develop almost immediately, and his weighted body would sink to the bottom of the sea. Or maybe an “accident” in the mountains. Falling hundreds or even thousands of feet onto rock would almost certainly be fatal. In the absence of a suicide note, either would look like an unfortunate accident.
A few years earlier it had seemed that he was on top of the world. A talented young doctor. Nationally ranked amateur triathlete. A wonderful, brilliant, and beautiful wife. But in the last year all of his dreams had crumbled to dust.
It had been months since he’d had a decent night’s sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, harrowing images would leap up. Catatonic, emaciated children. Women and girls, beaten and raped. People missing limbs. Laurent’s face, the red hole blossoming in his forehead. Anna violated, unconscious, lying on the dusty road.
He’d wake up sweating, heart racing, jaw clenched. He’d tried melatonin, over the counter sleep meds, powerful prescription sedatives, tonics, tinctures. Nothing could keep the ghosts away. It didn’t matter that he’d saved hundreds of lives. He never dreamed of the lucky ones’ faces. Being a doctor in Africa had stretched him to the breaking point. Murder and rape had pushed him over the edge.
Back home he was faced with more painful demons. His disintegrating marriage. Their lack of a child. Far from making a baby, they slept on opposite sides of the bed like there was still an ocean between them.
But he would not give up so easily. He would suck it up and go through with his plan. Do the unthinkable. Take one last shot at making a difference, being the game-changer he’d set out to become. If it worked, he could be the catalyst for saving millions of lives. If not, well, what else did he have to lose at this point?
Several days later, Simone phoned back.
“Dr. MacDougall, I’m just calling to let you know we had a bit of trouble getting you a flight from Seattle to London. Everything from Sea-Tac is booked solid. We’ve booked you a flight from Vancouver. And a train ticket, with Amtrak, to get you there. I hope that the inconvenience, it is not too much?”
Michael took the call but kept looking at his computer screen. “No. That’s fine.”
“Excellent. British Airways Flight 48 leaves Vancouver International Airport at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. You arrive in London the next day at 10:30 a.m. You have a bit of a wait before leaving London at 7:00 p.m. the same day and arriving in Addis Ababa at 6:30 a.m. Your next flight leaves at 10:00 a.m. and arrives at Goma at 10:20 a.m. We will arrange for a driver to pick you up at the airport.”
“Sounds good,” Michael replied, though when Simone mentioned a driver Laurent immediately came to mind.
“I will send your tickets via email immediately. Bon voyage, Michael.” She paused. “Et bonne chance.”
Chapter 13
Charlie Boykins and Bart Johnstone were two portly loggers who had grown up in Forks, on the Olympic Peninsula, surrounded by giant trees that they cut down. The forests fell and eventually the environmentalists came to town, talking guff about spotted owls and salamanders. The lumber jobs petered out and Charlie and Bart found themselves retired.
So much had changed, but by God, Charlie still loved to fish. His knees were gimpy but standing in a stream with the water flowing around his legs made him feel young. Of course, the goddamned government was trying to take away the pleasure of fishing too. Licenses for this and that, seasonal restrictions, stream closures, daily quotas, catch-and-release rules, certain species protected. Jesus H. Christ, he just wanted to put a line in the water. “The next thing ya know,” Charlie liked to say, “the government will be telling you how much butter to put in the frying pan with your rainbow trout.”
Charlie and Bart had a secret spot, one where the yuppie fly fishermen of Seattle never ventured. One where the fish still rose to the fly on a misty morning. The stream was always quiet. Charlie laughed. It was his way of getting back, just a little bit, at the government he felt had let him down. Seattle might have bought up the whole watershed and closed it to public access, but a few old-timers still stayed in touch with their favorite hangouts.
There were bull trout in some of the streams above the reservoir. Charlie could wax poetic about the allure of the bull trout. The government made his small act of rebellion even sweeter by placing the bull trout on the list of endangered species. “Endangered species, my ass,” he’d say, “there’s thousands of those damn fish out there, but federal bore-o-crats cain’t see them from their cushy offices in the city.”
Charlie wore his old falling suspenders, holding up a pair of filthy blue jeans under the hip waders that he used against the chill of the cold, clear water. Charlie and Bart were having a slow day. Bart had a couple of trout that were below the legal size but they’d fry up nice and tasty anyway. Charlie was being shut out.
“I’m freezing my ass off here,” Charlie complained.
“Wimp!” Bart replied.
“Aw hell, nothin’s biting anyways. I’m gonna walk down to the lake for a smoke in the sun.”
“Sure. Piss off. I’ll keep working on catchin’ us a decent meal.”
Charlie set his rod down on the bank, grabbed the coffee thermos from his pack, and set off, splashing down the stream. It was a hell of a lot easier than slogging through the forest. He soon emerged from the woods and stood overlooking the gorgeous vista of the reservoir.
It was almost too easy. Michael pedaled along like an ordinary cyclist. The morning sky was light although the sun had not yet risen above the peaks to the east. In roughly twenty-four hours he would be on a different continent and could well be one of the most wanted men in the world. The potential consequences of his actions were not lost on him, but he believed that he had weighed the moral implications and reached a decision that he could live with. His plan would terrify some people, yes, but cause no physical harm. And weighed against those modest costs were life-changing improvements for millions of people.
Michael retraced the route he’d taken before. Highway I-90 out to North Bend, and then the road along the northern side of the reservoir. His legs felt heavy as he pedaled, as if the gravity of what he was about to do was manifesting itself physically. He could smell his ow
n sweat, not the clean, fresh scent of exercise but the acrid, malodorous sweat of nerves and tension. There were no excuses now, no alibis, no fast-talking stories to be swiftly invented and embellished. He was about to commit a serious federal felony.
He reached the turnoff. There was no traffic, so he darted down the road until he saw the Iron Horse trail marker. He didn’t want to be seen here today by anyone. He wanted to get in, do it, get out, and get home.
The trail was deserted. There didn’t appear to be any fresh tracks, human or otherwise. Michael was on edge. Maybe over the edge. For a moment, he felt that he no longer knew himself, and it occurred to him that maybe Maria and Dom were right, that maybe he was suffering from post-traumatic stress. But he shook his misgivings away; he was committed now.
He found the spot where the old logging road wound down to the reservoir. Time compressed. Once he could see the reservoir, he dismounted and leaned the bike against the same magnificent Douglas fir.
He didn’t even bother to remove his helmet, but he did pull on another pair of thin surgical gloves to avoid fingerprints. He unbuckled the straps on the panniers, lifted a fleece jacket and a rain jacket out and unwrapped the jugs of perc. He tucked a plastic bottle under each arm and ran like a running back through the shrubs down to the water’s edge. He paused, placed one jug on the gravel, and glanced skyward to search for the surveillance plane. Nothing but blue sky dotted with a few clouds, for now. If Michael went ahead, there’d be no turning back, no putting the genie back in the bottle.
He unscrewed the cap, cut the seal with his jackknife and froze. He couldn’t breathe. He felt paralyzed. He thought of the children he was trying to help, and life returned to his limbs. He poured the first gallon of the exquisitely toxic perc into the reservoir that provided drinking water to the city of Seattle.
The perc was clear and merged with the water. It had a sickly sweet smell that made Michael instinctively hold his breath. He bent down and rinsed the jug out several times. His quadriceps were tight from the ride and complained about being in a crouch. He repeated the process with the second jug, then stood, stretched, and felt a strange combination of awe and horror at what he had just done. His stomach felt tight, as if he might throw up.
After returning to his bike, he left the trail and bushwhacked through the understory for two or three minutes until he found a hiding place for the perc jugs and plastic gloves under a salal bush. A fine for littering was the least of his worries. He closed the bike panniers and began his journey back to Seattle.
* * *
Charlie was just enjoying the view and puffing on a Marlboro when a man burst out of the forest and ran down to the edge of the reservoir. Charlie rubbed his eyes. He and Bart had never seen anyone else in here. Shit, he thought, the binoculars are back upstream in my pack. The man was quite a distance away but was clearly wearing a bicycle helmet and shorts. It looked as though he was rinsing out or filling up a couple of large jugs of some sort. Then he jogged back into the forest. Maybe he was a government bureaucrat, carrying out some kind of goddamned test on the water or a science experiment. Either way, Charlie wasn’t about to introduce himself. He turned around, trying to minimize his own splashing sounds, and reentered the forest, walking back upstream to where Bart had doubled his output, catching two more undersized trout.
“Bart,” Charlie hissed, “there’s a guy down there.”
Bart frowned. “What?”
“Shhh. There’s a guy down at the lake.”
“Who is he?”
“I dunno, but he could be with the government. It looks like he’s taking water samples or something. We gotta get outta here.”
“Aww, shit. I’m just getting warmed up. The rainbows are starting to bite.”
“Bart, if we get caught here, we’re up shit creek without a fishing rod.”
“Come on. What’s this guy going to do, arrest us?”
“Maybe. Remember awhile back on the news, they said you could be fined something like ten grand for trespassing in Seattle’s watershed. And we’re not just trespassin,’ we’re fishin’ too. Double whammy.”
“Shee-it. Okay, let’s get outta here.”
Charlie and Bart packed up their gear, returned to their truck, put the trout on some ice in a repurposed beer cooler and headed back to Sara’s Coffee Shop in Kent, where they routinely spent their afternoons shooting the breeze with other retired loggers, fishermen, and farmers. Their brush with the law was about to transform into an unexpected bonanza.
Chapter 14
Michael’s bike ride home was slower, the adrenaline replaced by foreboding. He was going to have to rush to get ready, say a painful goodbye to Maria, and catch his train to Vancouver. He put his bike back in the garage where he always kept it, taking out his water bottles, wallet, and phone but leaving the panniers still attached. The garage was a mess. It hadn’t been cleaned for years.
He packed his duffel bag and said a quick, tearful goodbye to Maria. They were both overcome by emotion but so traumatized that they were unable to articulate their feelings or even look each other in the eye. Maria realized that Michael had changed irreversibly. They no longer wanted the same things. Michael was exhausted, exhilarated, and plagued by guilt. He took an Uber to the Amtrak station, alone. The train ride was uneventful, although Michael had an uncomfortable moment when the Canadian customs agents boarded the train at the border.
Michael disembarked at Heathrow Airport outside London. Announcements on the public-address system came in a dozen languages. London, once the lily-white center of empire, had come a long way. Heathrow was a miniature version of the global village and everybody was in a hurry. Michael collided with a short brown-skinned man pulling an immense wheeled suitcase.
“Sorry,” Michael said instinctively, although the collision was not his fault. He smiled, the man smiled back, and each of them went on their way.
The customs agent was a rotund Sikh with a blue turban and a handlebar mustache. Michael focused on keeping his hands as steady as in surgery as he passed over his passport. The agent looked Michael up and down, and then squinted at the computer screen. “What’s the purpose of your visit?”
Delivering a virtual bomb to the government of the United States. “I’m just going to do a little bit of shopping. My next flight isn’t scheduled to leave for about seven hours.”
“What do you intend to purchase?”
“Nothing specific. I’m going to browse through the used bookstores on Charing Cross Road. See if I can find any gems.”
“Very well. Please be sure that you return at least two hours in advance of your scheduled departure. By the way, sir—” He paused, leaned toward Michael and spoke softly as though imparting a secret. Michael unintentionally held his breath. “It will be very much faster if you take the Heathrow Express. This train is much faster than the tube.”
“Thank you.” Michael exhaled. “I appreciate the tip.”
Michael strode through the wide entrance hall, following signs to the Heathrow Express. He purchased a ticket and joined hundreds of people who were dragging luggage onto the train. The seats filled quickly, but Michael found standing helped ground him.
Michael exited the Heathrow Express, which had whisked him downtown in just seventeen minutes. The Paddington Tube Station was about a ten-minute walk away. It was a moderately cloudy day, but he wore a baseball hat and sunglasses and tried to act normal. He forked over the metro fare, descended the stairs, and waited for a train on the Hammersmith and City Line. He was headed for Barbican Station. The tube trip chewed up another sixteen minutes.
He rode up several long escalators from the depths of the underground to the city’s surface. The streets were jammed with traffic. Although he looked like an ordinary tourist, he wasn’t shopping or looking for used bookstores. He was looking for the City of London’s Barbican Library, where he would find computers with free p
ublic access to the internet.
The Barbican Library was London’s newest and largest. Michael took off his sunglasses and entered the library, where he put on a cheap pair of reading glasses. There were dozens of computer terminals, a feature that seemed to attract as many people as the books themselves. Today there was a short lineup of young people waiting for their turn. The line moved quickly, and soon he was at the front. Then an uninviting wooden chair with faded orange upholstery worn smooth by a diverse array of derrieres was vacated.
Michael sat down and clicked his agreement with the notice warning patrons not to use the terminal for viewing pornography, sending spam, or other illicit activities. He had fifteen minutes, according to a pop-up notice, before the computer would automatically shut down and restart so that another patron could be served.
He opened a browser and went to the Hotmail website. It took less than a minute to sign up for a free email account, with the address [email protected]. Michael typed in fake information—name, address, password, name of favorite pet, etc. He would never use this address again.
He began typing the first of three emails that he had memorized, including the email addresses that he needed. There would be no paper trail. The first email was to the Seattle Water Utility.
To: [email protected]
Re: Urgent Warning: Contamination of Seattle water supply
Please be advised that within the last twenty-four hours, the Chester Morse Reservoir was contaminated by perchloroethylene.
Michael reread the note. The recipient, probably a receptionist or intern in the communications department, would pass it on to his or her supervisor and the firestorm would grow from there. He clicked the send button.
The second email was equally terse.
To: [email protected], [email protected]
Thirst for Justice Page 8