Blind Eye; Silent Waters; Janus Effect

by Jan Coffey

  “But the same ventilation may have exposed others in that building, or expelled the microbes into the city,” Penn snapped. “Isn’t that true, Mr. Hanlon?”

  “Yes, sir,” Faas answered, looking up at the roof of the building. He had personnel up there checking the HVAC units now.

  There was no getting around it. He didn’t know to what extent the bacteria may have spread. He didn’t know who was infected and who wasn’t. He didn’t even know, for sure, how long the microbe was dangerous. That was why he had recommended the extreme emergency measures be taken in the city.

  “A suggestion was made a few minutes ago by NIH that a special quarantine area be set up in a two-block radius from Crandel and Smith offices.”

  “Do it,” Penn ordered.

  “Yes, sir. That puts us only three blocks from the White House, Mr. President.”

  “I know that.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  There was a pause on the line.

  “Hanlon, do you have any of the DM8A serum for the people who have come in contact with the victim over the past twenty four hours? I’m thinking specifically about the two who had the closest contact to this victim.”

  “Yes, Mr. President. I have NIH personnel here who are ready to use their test samples on these people if it becomes necessary,” Faas told him. “Also, our liaison at Reynolds Pharmaceuticals told me twenty-five minutes ago that the company is doing everything in its power to push the first production quantities out.”

  “But we still don’t know if the serum will work, do we?”

  “No, Mr. President. We don’t.” So much for being bearer of good news. “The lab tests so far have been inconclusive. The serum may only have a thirty to forty percent success rate.”

  He glanced down at his watch.

  “I wish I had something better for you, sir. I know you’re going on the air again in fifteen—”

  “Mr. Hanlon, I’ve made the decision to be completely forthright about what we know about the disease. I’m going to tell the people how important it is to avoid contact with anyone who may have been infected. But I’m also going to assure the public that very few cases have been discovered. I will stress that this is, by no means, an epidemic, and that our actions—and the cooperation of the American people—will keep it from becoming an epidemic.”

  “Very good, sir—”

  “Mr. Hanlon, ignorance and rumor can breed far more fear than knowing the truth can.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Faas hoped the president was right. There would be repercussions down the road, because the measures taken in Washington had not been taken in Arizona or in Maine. And it was probable that what had happened in Maine would become news any moment. They had a total of sixteen deaths so far, but the president had not yet owned up to the ten bodies in Maine. The official position remained that the two outbreaks were unrelated. The American people would be extremely angry to think President Penn had kept such sensitive information under wraps for nearly two weeks.

  “Not counting Maine, we have only six deaths to date, Mr. President,” Faas said as a reminder. “Also, if I could make a suggestion, I don’t think it would be a good idea to mention DM8A, at this point.”

  “I agree.”

  Faas’s fingers inched toward the packet of cigarette in his pocket.

  “You are to call me as soon as you have anything else, Mr. Hanlon.”

  “Yes, sir…and…well, good luck, Mr. President.”

  The phone clicked off. Faas turned toward the door of the command vehicle. As he reached for it, the door was pushed open from the inside.

  “Bad news, sir.” The same agent who had given him the phone poked his head out.

  “Someone else in that office is infected,” Faas guessed.

  “Worse. We just had a call from Chicago.”

  “Another case?” he asked, dreading the answer.

  “None of our agents on the scene, yet. But the cleaning crew going through a luxury apartment at a building called the Grand Plaza, right downtown, made the 911 call a few minutes ago. They found a decomposing body.”

  Twenty-One

  Erbil, Iraq

  Fahimah could have stayed the night at her friends’ house and returned in the following day. She had given Jalal’s name to the Americans, though, and she didn’t want to risk them going after the old man in the morning.

  It was half past twelve when she had them drop her off at the corner, one block west of the Shahan Hotel. She wasn’t about to risk exposing others. She feared that anyone who was connected with her—family, friend, or whatever—would be considered guilty by association by Agent Newman.

  She saw no pedestrians on the street, but there were still a few cars. Across the road, a small white car slowed down and the driver and a man in the back seat called out the windows at her. Realizing they were about to make a U-turn, she ran the remaining half-block to the front door of the hotel. It was locked. Glancing back as she knocked on the door, she saw the white car coming slowly down the street toward the hotel.

  “Come on,” she murmured in Kurdish, knocking harder.

  A sleepy doorman appeared and opened the door just as the car pulled up in front. Fahimah hadn’t seen him that afternoon, but he let her in and locked the door.

  As she gave the doorman her name, she looked out at the street and pointed to the white car. Four sets of eyes were watching her. The doorman looked out, and the car immediately pulled away from the curb.

  “Mamnun,” she said, thanking him.

  The doorman told her that they were waiting for her. She didn’t have to ask whom he was talking about. Thanking him again, she went up the stairs to the second floor.

  All the rooms they’d taken were adjacent to one another. None of the soldiers were in the hallway. No one to guard, Fahimah decided.

  She didn’t know which room was Austyn’s, so she tapped softly on both of the doors adjacent to hers before putting the key into the lock of her own room.

  Her door opened before she could even turn the key.

  “You’re back,” Austyn said, relief written all over his face.

  His hair, though short, was standing on end, as if he’d been running his fingers through it. He was dressed in an old tee shirt and khaki shorts. As he stepped out and looked up and down the hallway, she thought he looked tense, weary, and somewhat worse for wear.

  “I told you I would meet you back at the hotel,” she said going past him and into her room. “I suppose we need to talk.”

  He followed her, slamming the door shut behind him. “You’re damn right!”

  She glanced over her shoulder, surprised at the show of temper.

  “How could you do that to us?” he asked, the look of relief completely gone. “Do you know everyone who traveled with us from Afghanistan is out searching the city for you right now?”

  He needed to vent. She let him. She peeled the scarf off her head and threw it on a chair, before walking to the bathroom.

  “U.S. military barely has any presence whatsoever here in Erbil, and still they had to call every off-duty soldier they could find to help with the search,” he continued.

  Fahimah turned on the water in the sink, waiting for it to warm up. The temperature had dropped outside. She’d left the windows open in the afternoon. It was cool in her room.

  “Would you mind shutting the window?” she asked.

  Even as he shut the window, he continued to lecture. She tuned him out and looked at her face in the mirror. She wasn’t used to this—actually seeing her reflection any time she wished. She looked at the dark circles under her eyes. Her cheeks were almost sunken. She was too pale. She ran a hand across her head. Her hair had been reddish-brown for all of her adult years. She wondered what color it would be now that it had a chance to grow out. She noted a thin streak of gray on one side. She could live with that.

  Her friend Banoo had told her that at first they hadn’t recognized her. Banoo and her husband and son ha
d been in a car waiting near the place where Jalal spread his rug. As big a city as Erbil was, word traveled fast. They heard that Fahimah had arrived that afternoon, and they had a good idea where she would be heading. It was Banoo’s son that had come to her at the open-air bazaar. The last time Fahimah had seen the boy, he’d been a mere toddler.

  In the old days, Banoo and her husband had lived in Baghdad, and both of them taught at the same university as Fahimah. Now, Banoo taught at Salahaddin University in Erbil, while her husband had given up teaching and was making a career for himself in real estate development. They’d taken Fahimah back to a beautiful, sprawling house on the outskirts of the city where she’d met the newest addition to her friends’ family, a baby girl of two years.

  Life hadn’t stood still while she was away. Looking into the mirror, she realized that she, too, had once had dreams of her own. But that had been a lifetime ago, and dreams sometimes go to waste.

  She bent over the sink and cupped her palms, filling them with warm water. She splashed her face again and again, trying to wash the saltiness of her tears away.

  It was some time before she lifted her face and looked into the mirror again. Her eyes were red-rimmed. Her face was flushed. She saw Austyn’s reflection in the mirror. He was leaning against the doorway, watching her, his arms folded across his chest.

  “Are you finished lecturing me?” she asked.

  “I wasn’t lecturing. I was…reprimanding,” he corrected. “There’s a difference.”

  “Yes, I know. But I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

  He raised one eyebrow.

  Fahimah took a towel off the shelf and dried her face. “You lecture someone out of concern, worry. You reprimand a person if you think they have done something wrong. Now which is it?”

  He didn’t answer. She turned around and saw the struggle so plainly reflected in his face.

  “You didn’t have to come back,” he said, his tone much more gentle.

  “I know. But I told you I would.”

  “I should have trusted you,” he said quietly.

  “You should have trusted me,” she repeated.

  He turned and disappeared inside the room. As she hung the towel on the rack, she heard him talking to someone on the telephone. He was contacting the others to call off the search.

  Fahimah took her time. She wanted to be composed, have her emotions under control. When she stepped out of the bathroom, he was sitting on a chair near the window. Other than the bed, the only place to sit was a bench by the same window. She grabbed a blanket from the foot of the bed and went to the bench.

  “You must be hungry. I ordered room service.”

  “This is Erbil,” she reminded him. “We’re not in London…or New York.”

  “Really?” he said with a straight face. “Well, whoever answered in the kitchen said he’d brew us some tea.”

  “He’s going to add hot water to the tea from this afternoon.”

  “That’s okay with me, so long as he brings up the five lumps of sugar I asked for.”

  “Five?”

  “Sure, I’m learning how to drink tea here. You just put a cube between your teeth and drink your tea through it.”

  “And you need five for that.”

  “Well, you said yourself that the tea was going to be strong.”

  Fahimah smiled and shook her head. “You’re going to rot your teeth before leaving Iraq.”

  She opened one of the windows a little and then sat on the bench, wrapping the blanket around herself.

  “You did just ask me to close that, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  They said nothing for a while, and she was thankful that he let her just sit. A cool, dry breeze wafted in and Fahimah closed her eyes, breathing in the familiar smells. Everything she’d heard tonight played back through her mind. The news of a mass grave they’d found on the road to Halabja. The news of their other friends. The fate of the few family members Fahimah and Rahaf had left behind. The names of all those who had died during the years of senseless violence that was ripping their country to shreds.

  The American soldiers might have been fooled the day they took Fahimah, but Banoo and her husband knew soon enough about them arresting her instead of her sister. They suspected immediately, but Rahaf had told them about it not long afterward. No one knew where to look for her, though.

  Her peace and quiet was short lived.

  “Are you going to tell me where you went?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I won’t tell you where I went because it has nothing to do with what you’re after.”

  “Did you see your sister?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know if she’s in Erbil?”

  “Yes...no.”

  “Which is it?”

  “I know she is not in Erbil.”

  “Are you going to tell me on your own what you found out, or do I have to keep asking questions?”

  “Yes, I will tell you on my own,” she said, realizing that she’d been taunting him.

  There was a knock on the door.

  “It must be your old tea,” she said, starting to get down from the bench.

  “You sit. I’ll get it.”

  Fahimah watched him reach under the back of his tee shirt. That’s when she saw the gun tucked into the waistband of his shorts.

  “You’re armed,” she said as if that should be news to him, too.

  He made a hush sound at her and went to the door. There were no security peep holes. He put his foot and shoulder to the door before opening it a crack.

  “Chai,” someone said from the other side.

  “Uh…mamnun,” Austyn opened the door and took the small tray from the doorman’s hand.

  “You’re learning the language,” she told him, putting her feet down so that there was room on the bench for him to put down the tray.

  “I only know tea and thank you.”

  “That’s very good for half a day. If you learn the word for food, you’ll be ready to apply for residency.”

  He put the tray down next to her and sat down on the bench, as well. She touched one of the glasses. “It’s cold. He must not have had any hot water in the samovar, so he just added cold water to the afternoon tea.”

  “No big deal. Beggars can’t be choosers.”

  “At least he didn’t forget your sugar cubes,” she commented, picking up one of the glasses of tea. She drank half of it down in one gulp. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was.

  “I had a telephone call from the U.S. before you got back tonight.”

  His tone was once again serious.

  “There’s been another outbreak of the bacteria,” he told her.

  Fahimah wished it would go away. She wanted this to be like the Anthrax scare that she’d watched on the news back in 2001. But obviously it wasn’t going to be.

  “More casualties?”

  “One confirmed dead,” he told her. “But this time the attack was in Washington, D.C. In a very populated area. The chance of it spreading is huge. Whoever is behind this is getting bolder by the minute.”

  “Rahaf isn’t behind it,” she reminded him again, to make sure he hadn’t forgotten.

  “Do you know where she is?”

  Fahimah nodded, debating with herself how much to tell him.

  “Will you take us to her?” he asked.

  “Your soldiers in American uniforms can’t go where she is.”

  “Where is she?”

  “In the mountains.”

  “Which mountains?”

  “The Zagros Mountains.”

  “Zagros…” he repeated, thinking. “But isn’t that a huge mountain range?” he asked.

  “More than fifteen hundred kilometers. They run from Kurdistan down through northwestern Iran to the Persian Gulf,” she explained, putting the glass of tea back on the tray. “But we don’t have to search the entire length of
the Zagros to find her.”

  “Do you have a specific location?”

  She nodded halfheartedly. “I know the general area. Rahaf is working in the refugee camps on the Iranian side of the border with Kurdistan. There used to be four camps…Sahana, Pavana, Saryas, and Jwanro. I’m told she goes between them as needed.”

  Fahimah knew that it would be a problem for U.S. soldiers to get there. After five years in prison, she’d needed to read only a handful of headlines to know that relations between the Iranian and American governments were as hostile as ever.

  “What’s she doing there?” he asked.

  “The people I met tonight told me my sister is working there as a doctor.”

  “But she didn’t go to medical school, did she?”

  She stared at him for a long moment. “Over the past three decades, five thousand villages have been destroyed by the Iraqis. When you’re forced to pack a lifetime of belongings onto the back of a truck or a mule and cross the mountains to escape the genocide that is happening to tens of thousands of your people, when your home for more than a decade has been a tent on the side of a mountain and you rely on others’ generosity to eat or clothe your children…you are not so foolish as to ask for the credentials of the doctor who is caring for your sick child. Especially, when that doctor is one of your own people.”

  Fahimah and Rahaf had lived in those camps themselves after the horror at Halabja. Even back then, with thousands of people being in dire need of medical assistance, real doctors had been a rarity.

  He watched her silently for a few heartbeats. “Is that where Rahaf has been for the past five years?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she told him. “And I will take one of you to her.”

  Twenty-Two

  The research vessel Harmony

  In the Atlantic

  Standing at the railing, David could actually see the outline of the squall to the west.

  The rain was moving toward them quickly, and the edges of the storm—a single patch of low dark clouds—were distinct against the clear blue sky beyond. To the right and left of the squall, he could see sunlight glistening on the ocean surface. There was no question in his mind that the rain was going to sweep right over them. He shook the folds out of his waterproof parka and pulled it over his head.