by A. G. Riddle
“Don’t.”
The man exhaled deeply, the way Desmond’s father always did when dealing with a stubborn horse.
When he was gone, Charlotte continued reading as if there had been no interruption.
They were halfway through the story when she closed the book.
“Bedtime, Des.”
She tucked him in and brushed his blond hair out of his face, then turned off the kerosene lantern. It was his first good night of sleep since the fire.
The next morning he had hoped to continue the book, but Charlotte had another surprise. She brought around a wheelchair and asked if he’d like to get outside for some fresh air.
She didn’t have to ask twice.
She pushed him out of the room, down the hall, and outside. The February sun felt good on Desmond’s face. It had been a hot summer, one Australia would remember for a long time to come. He let the wind whip at his face and toss his hair about as he inhaled deeply, thankful to take a breath not tainted by the smell of death.
He propelled the wheelchair himself after that, glad for the freedom. His feet were still healing. The doctors had assured him he’d make a full recovery.
“You’ll be walking around again in no time,” they promised him. He couldn’t wait. He’d had no idea how precious a gift walking was until then.
Charlotte returned in the late afternoon and read to him until lights out. That became their pattern: a field trip in the morning, reading until bedtime.
A week later, Desmond again asked her what would happen to him.
“We’re working on it, Des. Nothing for you to worry about.”
Slowly, as the days went by, he got his feet under him again. He began to rove around the school without the wheelchair. He toured the cafeteria, the other classrooms, even the teachers’ lounge, the idea of which thrilled him. In reality it was rather unimpressive.
He even volunteered, helping prepare the meals. The overweight cook had handed him a metal ladle and dubbed him the “souper scooper.” The man let out a hacking laugh that turned into a cough every time he said it. Despite that, Desmond rather liked the bloke.
He was walking back to his bed when he heard Charlotte’s voice coming from one of the offices they’d set up in another converted classroom. She was upset.
“You have to.”
A pause.
“No, sir. You have to take him. We’ve tried—”
Another pause.
“Yes, that’s correct. You’re the only family he has.”
He heard a phone placed on the receiver and her crying after that. He was about to go into the room when he heard the black-haired man’s voice.
“You’re getting too attached, Charlotte.”
Desmond couldn’t make out her muffled response, but the man did. And he didn’t like it. His tone turned hard.
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“I doubt that,” she shot back.
“You’re thinking about adopting him.”
A pause.
“You are. Have you lost your mind?”
“What would be so bad about that?”
“Oh, I don’t know, where do I start? Are you going to put medical school on hold? How will you support him? Ask your parents for money? Will I have to support him? Were you even going to consult me?”
They argued after that, said terrible things to each other. Desmond could barely stand to listen, but he couldn’t back away. The words burned like the flames that had seared his legs.
Charlotte was different when she returned that afternoon. Sad. More reserved.
She read the books as if someone were forcing her to, not like before, when she had done the voices that made the stories come alive.
That made him sad all over again.
The next morning, she was at his bed when he woke up.
“We’ve sorted out your living situation.”
She swallowed, collected herself, then told Desmond two things he already knew: that his father was originally from England, and that his father’s parents, Desmond’s grandparents, had passed away a long time ago.
Then she told him something he didn’t know.
“Your father has a brother—Orville. They… weren’t on the best of terms. However, he’s agreed to take custody of you.”
Desmond nodded, unsure what to say.
“Will I…” He wanted to ask whether he would see her again.
She shook her head slightly. A tear formed in the corner of her eye.
“I’ll be taking you to Melbourne in two days, to the airport. You’ll fly to Oklahoma City. It’s in America.” She swallowed, forced a smile, and tried but failed to make her tone light. “Have you heard of it?”
Desmond shook his head.
He expected her to leave after that, but she stayed. She read to him again, and her passion had returned. She did the voices he liked, asked him what he thought was going to happen when the story was getting good, and read the chapter titles in a special voice.
She returned the next morning, and didn’t leave until she turned the light out.
He never saw the black-haired man again, which didn’t bother Desmond one bit. Good riddance.
Charlotte drove him to the airport, kissed him on his forehead, and handed him a bag that was filled with clothes. They were new, and he got the impression that Charlotte had picked them out.
“Something to send you on your way, Des.”
He wanted to say something, but she was already starting to cry.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Oh, now. It was no trouble.” She was struggling to maintain her composure. She wiped away three tears racing down her cheek and set a hand on his shoulder. “Better run along, Des. Don’t want to miss your flight.”
A woman from the airline who had been briefed on his situation took his hand and began escorting him through security. When Desmond looked back, Charlotte was still standing there, sobbing, waving to him.
The man who greeted Desmond in Oklahoma City was a sharp contrast to Charlotte. That made Desmond miss her even more.
Chapter 31
Millen Thomas opened his eyes and squinted. Even muted through the tent’s canvas, the morning sun was still blinding. Hannah lay on the cot right beside him, sleeping peacefully. Her breathing was barely audible. Her body was warm to the touch, and for a moment, he wondered how she could sleep in the heat. Then he remembered how exhausted they had been the night before.
He gently drew his arm from around her stomach, pausing twice, scared he had woken her. But she didn’t move or wake. He rose from the cot and pulled the thin sheet over her. His body smelled of the heinous ointment she had applied so liberally the night before. It had rubbed off on him, and so had the stench. Worth it, he thought. Totally worth it.
Fifteen minutes later, he had eaten and prepared for the day. He stood at the old Toyota SUV with Kito, the local guide the Kenyan government had supplied. A map of the region was spread out on the hood.
Kito pointed. “I would start with the caves in this region, Dr. Thomas.”
“Call me Millen. Why there?”
“Less likely to be lions.”
That was a good enough reason for Millen. He still remembered the movie The Ghost and the Darkness, a fictionalized account of the true story of two lions who killed dozens of people in Tsavo, Kenya, at the turn of the century.
“I like the less lions plan,” Millen said.
He walked over to Dr. Shaw’s tent, stuck his head in, and to his surprise, found her sleeping on her cot. Dr. Becker sat on the other cot staring at his open laptop. The German man raised a finger to his lips, silently urging Millen to remain quiet, then rose and led him away from the tent.
“What’s up?”
“I’m heading out.” Millen glanced back at the tent. “Is she all right?”
“She’s just tired. Long night. You know where you’re going?”
“Yeah. We’ve plotted the caves, should be back wel
l before nightfall.”
“Good. Make sure of it. Take your time inside; a fall could be deadly. If you have to go deep, the radios may not work. Once you have the samples, get out. There’ll be time for sightseeing when this is all over.”
“Will do.”
“Good luck, Millen.”
The drive to the first cave took less than two hours, and the four men in the SUV mostly rode in silence. Millen and Kito discussed the map and the caves a little, but the two Kenyan army officers in the front seats merely gazed out the windows, scanning for any signs of trouble.
Millen was excited. To some degree, he had been training for this day his entire life. He was the son of Indian immigrants to America, and they had encouraged him to explore all his affinities as a child. He had gone through a number of phases, everything from music to dance. But he had always come back to his first love: animals. He was awestruck with the diversity and complexity of the creatures that shared the world with humans. He loved how unpredictable they were, how each species seemed to have a special ability. Seeing a new animal, interacting with it, never got old.
He was especially interested in exotic animals and their habitats. He read everything he could about them and watched animal documentaries repeatedly. He considered a career at a zoo, but decided he wanted to work with animals in their natural environments. He also wanted to do something that made a big impact, not just on animals, but on humans as well.
When he graduated from veterinary school, his parents strongly urged him to become a practicing veterinarian—a career with a reliable income, a return on the considerable investment they had made in his education. But their strong-willed son won out. Instead of opening his own practice, he joined EIS, committing to a career in applied epidemiology. It was the perfect path for Millen. He would have the opportunity to travel the country and world, investigating outbreaks, seeking out animal hosts for infections that jumped to humans. He assured his parents that he could always go into veterinary practice if things didn’t work out.
They had relented, and as he donned the PPE and looked into the mouth of the cave, he had never been more glad that they had. He was about to perform what might be one of the most important investigations of his career.
Kito wished Millen luck, and he began his march inside, a sample kit at his side. The dried, yellowing snake skins lying just beyond the mouth of the cave unnerved him, but he pushed on. The suit would provide good protection.
With each step, the dark cave swallowed him up. When the darkness was complete, he switched on his night vision goggles, bathing the scene before him in an eerie green glow. Kito pinged him with a comm check every minute, and Millen responded each time.
At the ten-minute mark, the transmission began breaking up. Millen had been dropping green chemlights each minute, but at the radio blackout point he sealed the bag of green sticks and began dropping orange markers. The tubes glowed in the dark cave, green and orange breadcrumbs tracing his path. They were military-grade, with a twelve-hour duration. He planned on collecting them on his way out, long before they went dark.
As he moved deeper into the cave, the ground became more rocky and damp. Ten seconds after dropping his twentieth orange marker, he spotted what he had come for: bat droppings.
He bent and took several samples, marking them with their depth within the cave, and placed a numbered blue marker and flag by the sample spot.
Excited to have collected his first sample, he stepped deeper into the cave, leaving the sample kit behind. He held a tranquilizer pistol in his right hand and a large net in his left. He felt his boots slipping on the wet rock, but he pushed forward. The bats had to be close by. If they were the carrier for the mysterious disease, it would be a huge breakthrough, possibly the key to finding the index patient, or even a cure. It would blow the entire investigation wide open, saving thousands, maybe millions of lives. He walked even faster.
As he turned a corner, his left foot slipped on a wet rock, sending him tumbling. The gun and net flew from his hands as he slammed into the rocky floor. The fall frightened him, but he was unharmed. He rose and searched for the gun.
Bat screeches—a sound somewhere between the call of a crow and the yelping of a rodent—sounded from not far away, followed by flapping noises.
He turned in time to see a swarm of bats barreling toward him.
The creatures enveloped him. He threw his arms up, covering his faceplate, and stepped to the side, trying to move out of their flight path. He felt claws ripping at the PPE, the bony wings brushing past his arms and legs. He turned and ran, his head down. Rock crumbled beneath his feet. He slipped and fell, but there was no ground beneath him.
Chapter 32
A yellow spot burned through the white tent fabric above Peyton, like a heat lamp boring into her. She squinted, wondering what it could be. Then she realized: the midday sun, high in the sky. She sat up quickly, reached for her phone, and gasped when she saw the time. Eleven thirty.
Jonas’s cot was empty. She raced to the main tent.
Jonas and Hannah sat at a table, a large map pinned up on a board behind them. There was a lot more red on the map than there had been yesterday.
“Report,” she said, trying to catch her breath.
“Want some breakfast?” Jonas asked, ignoring her order.
“I want to know what’s happening.”
Jonas glanced at Hannah, who stood and left. “I think you’d better sit down, Peyton.”
“That bad?”
“Pretty bad.”
Jonas brought Peyton up to speed on the reports from the teams in the field. Fifteen more villages were infected. Including the fatalities from the Dadaab refugee camps, the death toll had climbed to over six thousand.
Peyton shook her head. “It’s impossible.”
“What?”
“Let’s assume Dr. Kibet was infected around the time the two Americans walked into his clinic.”
“Okay.”
“He broke with the disease within seventy-two hours.”
“Right.”
“But he never had the respiratory symptoms. His progression to the hemorrhagic stage of the disease was too fast—much faster than this village.”
“True,” Jonas said.
“Why?”
“Maybe because he contracted the disease from someone who was already in the hemorrhagic phase. Maybe he skipped the respiratory phase.”
“Which means the disease has two separate courses, depending on whom you contract it from—and what stage they’re in.” Peyton thought for a moment. “There’s something else: the Dadaab refugee camps were being infected at roughly the same time as this village.”
Jonas nodded.
“The Americans couldn’t have infected them,” Peyton said. “From their travel log, they were pretty far north of Dadaab.”
“Maybe they interacted with a trucker who was heading south?”
“Could be. But for the pathogen to amplify this much in such a short period of time strikes me as wrong.” She pointed to the map. “It’s like it’s erupting everywhere in the region at the same time. How is that possible?”
Jonas stared at the map. “An index patient who infected a large group of travelers, maybe attendees at a funeral, or a meeting of representatives from dozens of villages? Could be infected food.”
Peyton’s mind flashed to Desmond Hughes. He had sent the package of food to the two Americans. What if the villagers had received similar packages? Desmond’s call a few nights ago ran through her mind. It had ended with the words: I think you’re in danger.
She looked around to be sure she and Jonas were alone in the tent. Her voice barely above a whisper, she said, “I know it sounds crazy, but I still think this is bioterror.”
Jonas exhaled. “Okay, let’s assume it is, and play it out. Al-Shabaab is the resident terror group in the area. If they could get a biological agent, it would certainly accomplish their goal of destabilizing Kenya. They want to tak
e over the government and set up a fundamental Islamic state. The outbreak is a pretty drastic way to go about it, but it could set up an opportunity for them.”
“So the motive is there.”
“Yeah, but let’s face it, this is way over their head.”
“Maybe they had help,” Peyton said.
“Maybe. But from whom, and why?” Jonas studied the map. “Look, I think it’s within the realm of possibility, but I don’t count it as likely. Maybe we’re just looking for a group of five people who were infected at the same time. They could have set off the outbreaks at Dadaab, the airport, Mandera, and the surrounding villages. That seems more likely to me.”
Hannah stepped inside the tent and handed Peyton a warm MRE and a bottle of water, both of which she badly needed. She thanked the young physician, who nodded and stepped back. While Peyton and Jonas studied the map, Hannah took out her satphone, dialed, and waited.
She spoke softly, then raised her voice. “How long?” She paused. “Hold the line.”
Hannah put the phone to her shoulder. “Millen has been in the first cave for an hour and a half. He hasn’t checked in for over an hour.”
“Who’s on the line?” Peyton asked.
“Kito, the local guide.”
“Put him on speaker.”
Hannah hit a button on the phone. “Kito, I’ve got Doctors Shaw and Becker here.”
“Hello, doctors.”
“Kito, did Millen bring an extra hazmat suit?” Peyton asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Are you comfortable putting the suit on and going into the cave to see if you can make radio contact with him or find him?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the man said instantly. “I will do my best.”
“Good. We appreciate that very much. Millen should have left chemlights along his path. If the trail of lights stops, search the area for him. He may have been injured during a cave-in or accident.”
“All right.”
“Keep us posted, Kito. Thank you.”
Hannah hung up, and Peyton looked into the young EIS officer’s eyes. “We’ll find him, Hannah.”