by M. D. Massey
Good God. I flipped off the TV and called Alice, just to touch base, let her know what I’d be investigating that day. She congratulated me on the article I had submitted the night before. She commented, “My God, those photographs. I knew to expect shocking, but those images were absolutely gruesome. We had to hold back a lot of them or crop the worst parts out.” Then she added, “I think our readers will appreciate learning about chupacabras, along with all the more reasonable suspects,” and laughed with her gallows sense of humor.
I had actually been there. I just said, “Yeah. Thanks.”
By the time I finally headed out to the Mexican desert, my brain had cleared a bit from the tequila that had been pickling the images distilled in my brain from the day before.
As I approached the area where I had parked the previous day, I noticed immediately that things were different. The military presence was much more subdued: just a few armored vehicles and only a dozen or so militarized police officers on foot. No helicopters. I parked my car in the same spot as before. A police officer ambled over, in no particular hurry. Studying me with sharp eyes, a tight expression on his face, he let me know that he meant business; but only in the way that controlling cops tend to handle people, whether pulling someone over for a traffic violation or hanging out with neighbors: frozen face, staring eyes. It was mildly threatening, a pecking order sort of thing. I immediately went submissive and ingratiating, showed him my ID and journalist credentials, smiled a lot, let him be top dog.
He told me I was free to investigate, but there wasn’t much to see.
I asked him about the dead bodies. He said, “Yeah, that was a real tragedy. The corpses have all been taken to the morgue, nothing more to see here about that now.”
I thanked him, told him I’d drive on down the road a bit just to check out the desert. “Beautiful scenery down here.”
He gave me an odd look. “Yeah. Scenery’s from God. But things go on out here in this isolated stretch of desert that are instigated by Satan himself. You be careful now.”
I figured he meant the smuggling of human beings across the border, the horrible things that happened to them and those who never made it, and the drug gangs.
I drove down the road just to see how things were. Hopped out of my car a few miles into the desert, walked around on foot. Not sure what I was looking for, but I discovered the earlier military presence was nowhere to be seen. A lizard scampered out from under a rock that I carelessly kicked over. Covered in spikes, freckled, sporting horns, it scurried away in fear of the human.
After about half an hour hiking around, I drove back into Reynosa. Flipped on my TV. A doctor who had contracted Ebola in West Africa was being transported to the CDC for treatment and study. The TV show host wondered why the U.S. was knowingly bringing Ebola into the country. Someone being interviewed wished that Governor Strickland—“that straight-talking guy, the only politician brave enough to tell it like it is”—would run for President.
Muting the sound on the news cycle, I called Claire. She sounded stressed. Turned out Sophie had a fever and was napping. I realized once again how often three year olds get sick on their way to building stronger immune systems. I told Claire I’d send Sophie a stuffed animal.
After ordering a couple of stuffed animals for Sophie online—a lion, currently her favorite type of animal, and a lizard as my souvenir gift from the desert—I contacted Alice. We agreed it was time for me to return to Houston to investigate the ties between Texas Congressman Mason Fuller and Chen-Zamora Pharmaceuticals.
Chapter 9
Emma Johnson: The Liberia Treatment and Research Camp, West Africa
I watched Chibueze through the bars of my cell. She wasn’t acting right. Hyper-alert, she moved around her cell like a wild animal in a cage. She paced back and forth, watched a movie for a few seconds, hopped into bed, covered herself up with blankets, jumped out of bed and started playing a video game.
I knew the game. BioShock Infinite. The main character, Booker, leapt up onto the Skyline. I had watched Chibueze play this game before. Her speed and accuracy had increased something like 1,000%, I swear. Booker leapt up with perfect accuracy, whereas it usually took Chibueze a few tries to get him to do that. Booker zipped around the sky, landed where he needed to, knocked off enemies and picked up loot, all in the blink of an eye.
Wow.
I went over to my own game system and loaded the same game. Although my reflexes weren’t as lightning-fast as Chibueze’s, they had definitely improved. I couldn’t remember a single time when my eye-hand coordination had ever been that accurate. I had never moved around a game with that much speed or dexterity my entire life.
I felt excited. Butterflies zipped around my stomach. Chibueze and I must be getting better, effectively fighting the Ebola virus.
The rest of the day, we tested our newfound skills. Played more games. Memorized long lists of things. Climbed up our prison bars and managed to do backflips off them onto the floor.
A guard came in and sedated Chibueze after she tried flipping off the bars and making herself fly backward onto her bed. It made an awful racket. The force of the landing made everything shake. Her coffeemaker slid off a table and shattered, sending glass and hot coffee everywhere.
Chibueze’s landing was perfect, but the guards weren’t happy.
I tried slowing myself down, but couldn’t. I concentrated on seeing how fast I could get through all of BioShock Infinite.
That evening, Dr. Tovar and his team entered Chibueze’s cell. She was sound asleep. They took her blood pressure, opened her eyes, peered into them with a light, did a few other things and gave her another shot.
Then they entered my cell. Dr. Tovar gave me a Cheshire Cat grin, complimented me on my game play. “I heard you and Chibueze have become masters at playing BioShock Infinite. We should set up a tournament. I think you’d beat us all.” Smiling at his team who politely laughed, he turned back to me. “So how are you feeling? We’ve been giving you vitamin supplements along with the serum injections. Your immune system and general health must have really kicked up a notch.”
For the first time in a very long time, I felt relieved and genuinely hopeful.
When Dr. Tovar informed me that it was time for a booster shot, I calmly accepted.
Chapter 10
Journalist Hunter Morgan: Trouble Along the U.S.-Mexico Border
Crossing the border from Mexico into the United States was a piece of cake. Things were calm. Business as usual. A couple of trucks were being taken apart by border patrol, obviously searching for drugs; but traffic was moving and the war zone atmosphere had completely disappeared.
I drove the six hours to Houston. Played music on the radio. Called Claire. Sophie was still sick with fever, but Claire decided to wake her up to talk to me. “It will be good for her to hear your voice,” she said.
I told Sophie I had sent her a surprise. She sounded happy to hear it, but told me, “I think I better go back to sleep now.” That jarred me. Sophie was usually brimming with energy, even when she had suffered from strep throat or any other number of childhood illnesses.
When Claire got back on the phone, I asked how she was feeling with her pregnancy and apologized for being away. She joked, “Still throwing up and sooooo tired. I think that means the pregnancy is going great.” She laughed. “I’m going to take a nap, actually, as soon as I get off the phone.”
I let Claire go, turned up the volume on my cell phone and let my playlist keep me awake.
By the time I arrived in Houston, it was dark. I checked in at the front desk. Trudy was once again on duty. Her hair was now solid green, however. Her nails had been painted green with neon-pink polka dots. She had a piercing through her nose. Had that been there before? Maybe it had just been a stud. Now it was a loop.
Attempting small talk as she checked me in, I commented, “Your hair’s different.”
She blew a bubble in some gum she had been chewing; then snapped it
flat with a sudden pop. Without looking up, she replied, “Uh-huh. It usually is.” She handed me a key card and my receipt. A brisk smile followed, as though she was being forced to smile at gunpoint. Then she stuck headphones in her ears and left me to gather my things and get going.
Once in my hotel room, I checked the news. Mostly same old, same old. I turned the TV off as soon my own story came on. I couldn’t stand to relive the grisly images. I checked email messages and then dragged myself off to sleep.
The next day, I headed out to a bar and grill where the booths offered privacy from other customers to meet someone Alice had scheduled me to interview: a disgruntled former intern of Texas Congressman Mason Fuller.
I arrived early. Half hour later, in walked Maria Guadalupe Morales. She had furtive eyes that darted nervously around the restaurant. She was gorgeous. Thick dark hair that fell to her waist, a sultry look on her face, full lips painted red, matching fingernails, a flowery dress that showed off ample breasts and a great figure. A perky blond waitress led her over to my table.
As we ate our meals, Maria shared the story of her past relationship with Congressman Fuller. She came from a poor family, one of the immigrant families living in a shack over in McAllen. Her parents had safeguarded her long hours of study, so that she could do well in school and go on to follow the American dream. She had taken Advanced Placement classes in high school, won a full scholarship to college. Majoring in Political Science with dreams of running for political office one day, Maria had gotten an internship with Congressman Fuller.
Maria looked at me with sorrowful dark eyes. “I couldn’t believe it. I got an internship in Washington, D.C. I had never been out of Texas. I had never even been anywhere far from McAllen. My family was too poor for that. And there I was with a paid internship in the capital of the United States of America…” Maria looked out the window next to us, lost in thought. Then she continued, “It was wonderful at first. I shared an apartment with three other interns, girls from different parts of the country. We got along surprisingly well, considering we all came from very different backgrounds and cultures. I learned a lot on the internship and I got to dress up. But, gradually, things fell apart. The Congressman started asking me to stay late to work on extra paperwork. When we were alone, he started hitting on me. He insinuated that I could lose my internship if I didn’t cooperate. So, I cooperated. It ruined me inside.” She looked at me with pleading eyes. “But how could I not? My parents had sacrificed everything for me.”
Our waitress came over, refilled my coffee.
Maria continued, “I wanted to get back at him. I figured if he was that corrupt with all the family values he was forever espousing, there was a good chance he was dirty in other areas as well. The boyfriend of one of my roommates was studying law. He had the instinct of a bloodhound. We asked him to do some investigating for us and he did. He really got into it. He found out some weird business connections that the Congressman had. First off, he’s married to May Chen, the daughter of one of the owners of Chen-Zamora Pharmaceuticals.”
I shook my head yes. I knew that.
I took a slow sip of coffee. She continued, “He gets a lot of campaign money from that company. And it turns out the company also gets contracts from the U.S. government, including some pretty weird military contracts.”
I put down my coffee cup and listened attentively.
Maria explained, “There’s one particular military contract that alarmed my roommate’s boyfriend. He said that Chen-Zamora had been asked to develop vaccines for soldiers. That sounds OK, right? That’s probably done all the time. Soldiers have to go into areas with serious illnesses, so they’re given experimental vaccines if there happen to be any close to the testing stage. The difference in this Chen-Zamora program, however, was that the vaccines for soldiers were to be tested on civilian people in Africa first. He said that the vaccines would be tested inside one of the Ebola treatment facilities.” She grabbed her purse from the back of the chair. Fishing around inside of it, she pulled out a piece of paper. “Here, this is where the vaccines are being tested...”
I looked at the paper. The Liberia Treatment and Research Camp, Liberia, West Africa. That was it. Just the name and location, neatly typed. I remembered that name. It was one of the facilities that received funding for the top-secret DARPA-run program, The Ebola Mutations Research Project. Funding had been approved through the Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee on which Congressman Fuller served.
I asked Maria if she could tell me anything more. She patted her lips with a napkin, her red lipstick leaving kiss-shaped imprints. She said, “No. That’s absolutely all I know. But it sounds like something pretty bad’s going on, doesn’t it? I mean, how could it possibly be ethical to use people coming into an Ebola clinic as guinea pigs for vaccines being developed for soldiers? How dangerous are those vaccines that they can’t be tested on soldiers? It makes me crazy-mad to see Third World people used as test subjects.”
I was intrigued. I had to clear it with Alice and run it by Claire, but I needed to go to Liberia.
That night, I received a phone call. A man with a gruff voice and Mexican accent. He said, “I work for Chen-Zamora. Maria Guadalupe Morales said you’d want to talk to me.” He told me to meet him at a residence in McAllen. Gave me the address and time to meet, 10:00 PM. No name. Then he hung up.
I trusted Maria. Figured she had pressured a close friend into talking.
That night, I drove to the address, a waning moon still whole enough to throw illumination on the ground below. As I entered the correct vicinity according to my GPS, I realized I had entered a collection of shacks not far from where I had first witnessed an eviscerated human corpse, the friend of seventeen-year-old Alejandro whose brains and internal organs had been torn out.
My stomach churned.
My GPS announced: You have reached your destination. I studied the area around me. A small shack, curtains drawn, lights on inside. I surveyed the street. Most of the dilapidated buildings were the same, a few completely dark.
As I stepped out of my car, the wind picked up. Nights in the desert, I had come to learn, were often cold with spirited gusts of wind.
The front door opened. A squat man, Mexican, with a thick moustache and deeply wrinkled face stood there. He didn’t wave, or say Hi, or greet me in any way whatsoever. He just stood there quietly and waited. When I reached the front door, he moved aside, so I could enter.
When I had joined him inside, he closed the door. Only then did he extend his hand and offer an introduction. “I’m glad you came. I’m Dr. Rojas…Dr. Martín Gerardo Rojas.” His grasp was strong, his eyes bloodshot and tired. He asked me to sit down at the kitchen table, black-and-white speckled Formica.
The room was dark, illuminated only by a single lightbulb hanging from a chain above the table. Shadows crept around the room, following us as we moved. The wind outside whistled like a beast breathing hard against the house.
Dr. Rojas sat down across from me. He offered me a drink from a bottle of cheap tequila. I said, “No, thanks.” He said, “You may change your mind.” He took a swig, set the bottle back down, leaving the top off.
Suddenly, there was a thrashing sound from another room. I jumped. Dr. Rojas sighed and pushed the bottle toward me. “Have a drink. It will help calm your nerves.”
I waved my hand, refused the drink. I wanted to remain sober, at least until I knew what was up.
Rojas ran his hand through a mop of messy black hair, took one more swig. “Where to begin…where to begin…”
Again, thrashing. Loud, desperate, frantic. Chains rattling, steel on steel against…what?...a cement floor? I figured it was a dog, a very large dog.
I stood up. “Why am I here? Is that a dog that’s chained up?”
Rojas said, “Sit.”
He seemed so resigned and harmless, I obeyed.
The doctor looked searchingly into m
y eyes. “You are investigating Congressman Fuller. Good! I’m glad of it. Don’t let go of this story. Don’t get scared off by anyone. Once you start uncovering things no one is supposed to know, don’t run away from getting to the bottom of everything. Grab the monster by its tail and hold on. The public needs to know what’s happening, what’s headed their way. Fuller and his crony Governor Strickland are two of the most evil human beings to have ever walked this Earth.”
I figured: Wow, this guy has some rather strong political feelings.
Rojas took another swig of the tequila. “I work for Chen-Zamora. I’m one of the MDs who test their drugs. I’m in a top-secret program…supposed to be testing the safety and quality of a new vaccine they’ve developed for soldiers. But we’ve been asked to do some weird stuff and the vaccine doesn’t actually behave like a vaccine. We’ve been asked to test it on citizens. Not citizens from the neck of the woods where Chen, Zamora or the politicians live, mind you. Our test subjects come from my neck of the woods. The drug company pays good money to let them give you shots, and my people line up for the cash. They’re poor; they’re desperate for money.”
For a brief moment, there was silence. Then the thrashing and a low, guttural moan.