Outbreak

by Davis Bunn

  Susan went quiet. The sat phone hissed softly as if sharing their tension. Della felt a warm breeze filter through her hair, drying the sweat almost as swiftly as it formed. They were surrounded now by numerous other vessels. Most of the freighters held the wretched look of rust and age and countless hard voyages. The river mouth was several miles wide here, the stretch of water dotted with islands. Many held oil-exploration rigs, their triangular shapes rising like misbegotten metal trees. Della watched as a wooden canoe pushed in front of their ship. The four paddlers strained against the current, while between them rose a pile of cassava roots high as a man.

  Finally, Susan asked, “You haven’t spoken with Jerry?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Let me have a word with the fourth floor.” The fourth was home to the senior administrative staff. As in, Jerry’s boss.

  “Thank you so much.”

  “I can’t promise you anything, dear. Jerry is not so much the problem as a symbol of what’s facing us all.”

  “I understand.”

  “Call me in an hour. No, better yet, call me when you have something new to report. Don’t speak with Jerry until you and I have talked. And Della?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do try and come back alive, will you, dear?”

  As Theo listened to Della’s conversation with her former boss, he wished there were some way he could hit a giant pause button and let them step off the course they were on. Not for long, just a few days, a week at most. Enough for them to get to know each other, to see if what he felt was real. If they might have a chance. Together.

  Della ended the conversation and offered him the phone. “She told me not to call Jerry.”

  Theo struggled to focus on the now. “What is Jerry’s exact title?”

  “Acting editor of the business section. I’m told he is very good with numbers.”

  Theo took the phone but stayed as he was, studying her. “I think you should switch over and become an employee of my company. We could name you head of our new marketing and PR section. If anyone asks, it’s part of the agreement we made for Kenny to bail us out. Your new job description will include researching this whole deal and then reporting on it. We’ll put it in your contract.”

  The look she gave him was intense, like she was trying to figure out exactly who he was. “Can I think on that?”

  “Take as long as you like. In the meantime, can you connect me to Kenny’s office?”

  “You don’t have his number?”

  “I told you, Della. Before all this started, I hadn’t spoken with Kenny in over four years.”

  Della punched in the number, listened, then handed the phone back in time for Theo to hear a woman say, “Mr. Bishop’s office.”

  “This is Theo Bishop. I need—”

  “Yes, Dr. Bishop. Hold just a moment, please.”

  Theo stood watching the swarm of smaller vessels plying the greenish-brown waters. The Bissau River delta was far broader than the Casamance, the traffic very heavy. He liked the smells that drifted in the humid air, pushing gently beneath the canvas awning that shielded them from the sun. Diesel fumes from the boats, fish, cooking fires, even the sweet funk emanating from the refuse dotting the shoreline—the combination of it all was utterly alien, intense, and very exciting to him.

  The phone emitted a louder click, and then a man’s voice said, “Dr. Bishop?”

  “Yes.”

  “Preston Borders here. Where are you?”

  “Coming into the Port of Bissau. Why are we speaking?”

  “Your brother is dealing with an unexpected crisis. He wanted me to ask if you might be willing to meet with an associate of his in Bissau.”

  “It’s why we came here, isn’t it? Instead of heading somewhere safer. Kenny wanted me to have this meeting.”

  “Quite so. That is, if you are indeed interested in proceeding further.”

  Theo listened to the sat phone’s faint electric hiss and felt the tension pass through the device, along his arm, and begin to fill his body. “I am. Absolutely. Interested.”

  “Splendid. Your brother will be delighted with this news. Do you have a pen and paper?”

  Avery complained, “I don’t see what possible good this can do. I’ve lost all my samples. Every possible means of determining—”

  “Forget your samples,” Theo told him.

  “I . . . What?”

  They were motoring away from the research vessel, which was anchored about fifty meters off the harbor wall. The river here was broad as an inland sea. The opposite bank was a distant smudge. Up ahead, soldiers lounged beneath tarps that protected piles of fresh produce. The eyes that watched their approach were not friendly. Theo thought Avery had every possible reason to be nervous.

  Theo said, “If your samples had the information you required, we’d already have the answer. Right?”

  Avery stared at him. Confused. As if he couldn’t place who was speaking.

  “The samples don’t have our answer. By the time you showed up, the danger was gone.”

  “You can’t possibly know that with any certainty.” Avery’s objection sounded feeble.

  It was Della who said, “The soldiers.”

  “Right. None of them wore protective gear,” Theo said.

  “They had just arrived,” Avery protested.

  Theo was being handed every possible reason to dislike the scientist. The guy was a walking bundle of geeky nerves. Taking him from the lab was like watching a goldfish flop outside its aquarium. But none of it mattered. Theo had been around people like Avery all his academic life. They were trained to examine one tiny aspect of the real world, and through one specific lens. Avery was a microbiologist, which meant he was probably the best there was at anything smaller than an individual germ. Put him in the field, with its grime and danger, and he freaked. He had no coping mechanism for the uncontrollable elements of life. Of course he was afraid.

  Theo said, “The fishing boats tell us what we need to know about timing. You described how they were filled with locals who had set off for just another day on the waters. They were felled with something that struck so fast they couldn’t get back to shore. Whatever it is that’s making people sick, by the time we arrived it was long gone. That means your samples didn’t hold the answer.”

  They traveled with Henri and the lone member of the security team who knew Bissau. According to Bruno, Simone had been born in the capital and left when she was nine. She was a small woman with limbs of dark iron. She crouched in the dinghy’s bow, watching the approaching harbor wall with unblinking intensity. The two security guards were armed with pepper spray and side arms. A third man was seated by Henri, there to wait and guard the boat. An automatic rifle was propped by his right knee.

  Avery said quietly, “I knew that.”

  “Of course you did.”

  Della asked Simone, “Do you speak the local lingo?”

  “Portuguese, yes.” Simone’s gaze did not shift away from the approaching dock. “And my father’s tongue, Balanta.”

  The odors were fierce. The soldiers lining the dock watched them with stony faces. Henri motored up to a set of slimy stairs cut into the harbor wall. The security held the boat in place while they disembarked. Simone climbed the stairs with Henri next. Theo waited with Della and Avery on the broad stone platform as the third security motored the dinghy back into the channel.

  One of the local troops said something, half question and half demand. As Simone responded, Henri showed a pale palm holding a stack of US dollars. The soldiers and Simone went back and forth several times before one of them turned and walked away. Another shook Henri’s hand and made the dollars disappear.

  Henri said to Theo, “You can come up now.”

  They stood like that, Simone conversing with the soldiers in a soft liquid tongue, while the sun beat down. Theo could feel the stench working its way into his pores. Finally, Avery asked, “Is there any reason we’re not standing over there i
n the shade?”

  Henri did not look over as he replied, “Yes.”

  A few minutes later, a military truck pulled up. At a gesture from Henri, they piled into the back with Simone. Henri squeezed himself into the front seat. With a word from the soldier who had accepted the money, they set off.

  Once they were under way, Simone said, “This is the safest way for us to travel. We pay one bribe before, one when we return. The troops we bribe accompany us through the city. Safely.”

  Bissau was a combination of derelict colonial buildings and newer structures in drastic need of repair. The streets they took were broad and straight and mostly dirt. The asphalt and cobblestones of some earlier epoch formed ragged lumps that their truck mostly avoided. They shared the roads with donkey carts and ancient blue taxis and thousands of mopeds. The noise was as fierce as the smells.

  They entered a chaotic central market, turned down a side street, and halted before a whitewashed wall. The entry was topped by a curved lintel where words had once been inscribed. A young man slouched in the entryway while a boy sat just outside, using an upturned plastic pail as a chair. As soon as the military truck halted, a pair of beggars loitering just beyond the boy scurried away. Simone stepped down, spoke a few words to the young man, and pointed at Theo. At a word from the man, the boy rose and disappeared through the portal. Simone gestured for them to climb down.

  The courtyard beyond the entryway was mostly swept dirt with little graveled pathways lined by whitewashed stones. More painted stones encircled trees and neat flower beds. A trio of young girls in brightly colored shifts were pouring water from buckets over the blossoms. Theo could see five buildings and assumed there were more, all of them tidy-looking, single-storied with tiled roofs, and white. The compound was perhaps three acres in size. Beyond the farthest buildings, Theo spotted workers tending a vegetable garden. He heard the crow of a rooster. The young man pointed them to a bench beneath a jacaranda tree and went back to guarding the front gate.

  The compound was an island of calm within the city’s din. Through open windows, Theo saw figures in white uniforms walk around beds arranged in orderly rows. He had never been comfortable around sick people. The idea of sacrificing the years required to become a doctor so that he could spend his life in a hospital was baffling to him.

  Theo sat in the wall’s shade and recalled how, when his mother had become ill that last time, he had forced himself to be there for her. His father was already gone, felled by a stroke. Theo’s brother had visited the hospital once and then come a second time to the hospice center, but Kenny had spent most of both visits on his phone. After the funeral, Theo had watched as Kenny rushed to the limo idling by the curb, already back on his phone. It was the last time he had seen his brother until the chopper had landed at Fairview.

  And now this.

  Avery broke into his thoughts by muttering, “I still don’t get why we’re here.”

  Theo could not tell whether he meant the clinic or the city. Or maybe just Africa in general. “Just be ready.”

  “For what?”

  As if in reply, a middle-aged African woman with a stethoscope draped around her neck stepped through the central building’s doorway. A man in hospital whites followed, pressing her to look at the clipboard he carried. She glanced down, scribbled her name, barked at him, then turned to where the boy stood pointing in their direction. Theo rose to his feet as she started toward them. Everything about her shouted impatience and drive and intelligence. She demanded, “Yes, what do you want?”

  “Dr. Lanica Amadou?”

  “I’m very busy today. If you’re donors, I’m grateful for your interest. One of my assistants will show you around. You can also find everything you need to know on our website—”

  “My name is Theo Bishop. Kenny is my brother.”

  She squinted at him, almost angry in her intensity. “Yes, I see the resemblance. But I still fail to understand—”

  “We’ve just come from the Casamance.”

  There was a genuine shift this time. The stressed and focused woman stopped dead in her tracks. “And?”

  “Both of the port towns are gone. Everyone is dead. Humans, animals, the lot.”

  “Do you have any idea of the cause?”

  Avery answered this time. “Colds. Measles. Septicemia. Nothing that can explain the level of fatalities.”

  “In that case, we need to talk.” She glanced at her watch. “I have two crucial surgeries that can’t wait. Go have a meal. I’ll join you when I can.”

  fourteen

  Della followed Theo and Avery into the communal hall. The young man who had greeted them at the front portal now stood in the broad window leading into the kitchen. When he spotted them, he turned and spoke to someone Della could not see. An older woman whose graying curls were tied with myriad blue strings smiled and waved at them. She and the young man disappeared. A few minutes later, they reappeared through a swinging door, both bearing trays.

  The woman demanded, “Which of you is brother to Mr. Kenneth?”

  “That would be me.”

  She set down her tray and enfolded Theo in her two massive arms. “Your brother, sir, he is a saint.”

  Della could see the news rocked Theo in a way that the flying bullets had not. When he remained silent, Della asked, “Mr. Kenneth helps with this clinic?”

  “Everything you see here, it is his work. You have visited Mr. Kenneth’s operating theater?”

  The young man spoke English for the first time. “Dr. Lanica has surgeries.”

  “Of course she does. Dr. Lanica, she is another saint.”

  Della thought she saw a mischievous glint in the woman’s eye. “But a very pushy one, no?”

  The woman released a musical laugh. “You know her well already.”

  “So you’re saying Dr. Lanica is one woman you do not want to see angry?”

  The young man joined in the laughter. He said, “We have a special burn unit just for those poor people.”

  Theo seemed confused by the conversation, like he was trying to piece together words from an unknown tongue. Della asked, “Dr. Lanica is American?”

  “Oh my, no. She is born right here in the Bissau market town.”

  The young man said, “Dr. Lanica, she studied surgery in America.”

  “Our good doctor has many gifts,” the woman added. “Healing, language, many gifts.”

  “But not patience.”

  They both laughed. Then the young man said, “We all must wait until heaven offers us the missing pieces, no?”

  The woman said, “Dr. Lanica, she speaks seven languages.”

  “Six,” the young man corrected. “Creole is not a language, Dr. Lanica says. It is a stew.”

  “I give you stew.” The woman passed out crude clay bowls. “This is egusi. You taste.”

  Della took a tentative spoonful. It was spicy, and oddly flavored, but incredible. “This is wonderful.”

  The woman beamed. “Groundnuts, tree seeds, black-eyed peas. Mr. Kenneth, he loves my egusi. He can sit there and eat four bowls.”

  The young man set out a plate of what appeared to be uncooked bread dough. “This is fufu. You will like.”

  “Cassava and green plantain flour,” the woman said. “Make a small ball, dip into the stew.”

  Della did as they instructed and declared, “Delicious.”

  The young man straightened and lost his smile. “Dr. Lanica is here.”

  The old woman hugged Theo a second time. “You tell Mr. Kenneth that Hetta the cook prays for him and Sister Amelia. Every night she prays.”

  Della liked how this visit had helped clarify her new direction. She had spent almost a year researching Kenneth Bishop and his involvement in the opioid crisis. The evidence that had drawn Della into this investigation still remained true. She had not been fooled. She knew Bishop’s corporate past in and out.

  His past.

  But here she sat, surrounded by a present that did n
ot fit with the pattern or the man she thought she knew. Which meant she had to accept that the impossible had happened. They were surrounded by evidence that Kenneth Bishop had undergone a drastic shift. She could not sit here, in this clinic, and think otherwise.

  Hetta brought another bowl of stew and saucer of fufu. She set down both in front of the doctor and patted Theo’s shoulder as she departed. After Lanica bowed her head over the food, she started eating with the same sharp gestures as apparently she did everything. Finally, she said, “There are three more surgeries slated for this afternoon. A public clinic this evening. I only have a few minutes.”

  Avery asked, “What do you call this disease?”

  “It’s too early to use that word. Disease suggests a specific cause-and-effect set of circumstances. They might exist. They might not.”

  Della liked the doctor’s method of speaking. Lanica’s responses might have sounded impatient as bullets, but they were also very clear. She would, Della suspected, have made an excellent teacher. “We need a name.”

  Lanica fashioned a small ball of fufu and scooped out some of the stew before responding. “Some of my colleagues are calling it Lupa. That’s the Portuguese word for bloom.” Another bite, then, “In our not-so-distant past, it was also the local slang for leprosy, another disease no one understood for far too long.”

  Della reached into her pocket for the pad and pen she’d taken from the ship. “Do you mind if I take notes?”

  fifteen

  Theo felt assaulted by all the evidence of a brother he did not know. Glancing around the lovely commons hall, with the red tiled floor, the big windows framed in stained glass, and the exposed beams and the crosses over every doorway . . . all of this represented something else entirely.

  What Theo mostly saw were years of lost opportunities.

  He thought back to the times Kenny had phoned him over the past few years. Theo had simply assumed Kenny wanted to brag about his newest acquisition. He had marked Kenny’s incoming emails as spam for the same reason. But now he sat surrounded by evidence that, during those missing years, Kenny had become someone else.