She forced herself to breathe slowly, in through the nose, out through the mouth, and then extended her left leg until she reached the window ledge. She transferred her weight from her hands to her left foot, and rested, suspended awkwardly, three floors above the bin. She slowed her pace, continued, and didn’t slip again.
At the fifth floor, she stopped. Holding onto the pipe she swung her body like a pendulum and let go, landing on the ledge, hands reaching for the exact point between window panes she had found, four floors below. It was enough to hold onto.
She pulled her knife from its leg sheath and wedged it into the gap, shimmying the lock between the two panes. She opened the window and slid inside, crouching next to the hospital bed and the comatose patient who lay on it. The fifth floor was the palliative care ward.
She tied one end of her rappelling rope to the bed and tugged it slowly. The patient would anchor her escape route. She hid the coil of rope under the bed and lowered the window without closing it.
From her backpack she pulled out a doctor’s white coat which fit easily over the lightweight bodysuit she was wearing. She slipped on her shoes and removed her leather gloves, swapping them for an identity card and disposable gloves. She put the stethoscope in her front pocket and hid the backpack behind the curtain. She was ready. The rest of the job wasn’t complicated.
She located the elevator and took it to the sixth floor. At the nurses’ station she casually grabbed a clipboard and kept walking down the corridor, past the maternity ward towards the neo-natal ICU. If anyone asked, she was the new paediatric consultant. She was covering for Dr Fonseka who had called in sick that afternoon. Fonseka had a vicious case of gastroenteritis after Sahara had contaminated her lunch. Her legend was robust and involved details she’d used before. She was almost disappointed when no one stopped her.
She paused at the door to the ICU, her hand resting on her chest and feeling the small box one last time before she entered the room. It was dark and dimly lit in the corners by heat lamps. Short flashes of light came from the machines that monitored the fragile lives of the babies who took refuge there. She could hear the rise and fall of the pumps that breathed for some of them. As her eyes adjusted, she could see the outline of seven humidicribs, the plastic shells in which the children slept, sterile and protected.
She shook her head in irritation. IV lines emerged from only four cribs. Those would be the easiest ones. She could inject the virus straight into an IV line or bag. She should do those ones first.
She pulled out the syringe. It held twenty-five millilitres, but its needle was much shorter. Hackman was a precise man with an excellent eye for detail. Two centimetres of needle was all that was needed.
She stood next to the first baby, needle poised. She held the IV line in one gloved hand and with the other, injected three millilitres into its plastic vein. She pumped the IV bag twice with a well-trained hand. It pushed the virus through more efficiently. She did this three more times to the other babies with IVs.
Hackman wanted five ‘Patients Zero’ to create confusion when they tried to trace contact, and to ensure a sizeable outbreak that could still be contained within the hospital. She looked around the room. One baby whimpered.
She picked up the child’s chart: ‘Baby Karthik, four weeks old, born four weeks premature. Strong vitals and now able to feed by bottle. Immunisation due 12/23/2040.’
His first immunisation was due tomorrow. If she infected him, he would be scanned soon and wouldn’t suffer long. She reached her gloved hand through the hole in the crib and picked up the small chicken-wing of the baby’s thigh. She felt the small, floppy muscle that hung from the bone.
The baby responded to her touch and opened his eyes. His body was covered in feathery hair. She stroked his chest in a circular motion. It was a surprisingly successful gesture. The baby’s arms and legs curled around her hand, locking it against his chest. She could feel the fast drumbeat of his heart, beneath the frame of his rib cage. She could have crushed it with one hand, sparing him what was to come.
Four Patients Zero or five – did it really matter? The child would probably get the virus anyway from fluid transfer between nurses and doctors. But he would stand a chance of living through it, however miraculous.
The baby’s mouth opened, searching for milk. She extracted her hand and picked up the milk bottle on the side of the crib. She checked it was still fresh and then threaded it through the hole. She held it at the baby’s mouth, letting him gulp erratically. She adjusted the angle of the bottle, remembering something her sister had said. Apparently trapped wind caused great discomfort to infants.
She placed the bottle on the side, next to his head and stroked his chest again; it seemed to soothe him.
‘Don’t worry, baby, it’s all going to be fine,’ she murmured.
Hackman wanted five patients. She picked up the needle and quickly inserted it into the little thigh, whispering ‘There, there,’ when he cried out in pain. She injected three millilitres, closed the syringe and put it back in her pocket. She left the room and the hospital, the same way she came in.
Chapter 10
Noah hadn’t been back to Sri Lanka since his first mission, when all he saw were refugee camps, disease and death.
Hackman was right – Sri Lanka was beautiful. The drive from the military airport followed a coastal road. The beach was luminous; white sand lapped by sparkling waters. Palm trees fringed the roads. They stood tall but their heads were bowed gracefully, deferring to the majesty of the ocean in front of them.
The landscape was interrupted by billboards, familiar sentries emblazoned with stern health warnings. Sometimes there was a billboard of the president, his hands raised victoriously over his people.
As the road moved further inland, they passed small farms, fields of okra and snake beans; plantations of papaya and avocado trees. They saw roadside vendors: men, women and children hawking mangoes, purple onions and small rambutans like red, spiky sea urchins.
‘Sri Lanka has everything, sir,’ their driver Vijay chatted happily. ‘The three essentials –’ He pointed his fingers in the air, punctuating his list. ‘History, culture and nature.’ He put both hands back on the wheel, honking the horn viciously with one and swerving the car around a clattering truck with the other.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ Crawford whispered, bracing himself against his seat.
Noah shook his head at the slip-up.
‘Sorry, Chief.’
Every fifty kilometres they passed military posts that checked their WHO papers but didn’t scan their blood. There were cameras at each one, watching them.
On the outskirts of Colombo, Vijay stopped at a roadblock and a larger military checkpoint. The cars in the queue were all older model sedans, faded shells on either side of the polished onyx of their SUV.
The cameras were more sophisticated this time, with facial recognition capability.
‘There are no cars coming out of Colombo,’ Garner whispered, looking around her.
‘The city should be in lockdown. People are allowed back into Colombo, but not out. The threat level was lowered one notch yesterday,’ Noah said.
The driver, Noah and the team got out of the car as a group of heavily armed soldiers approached them.
‘Don’t worry-worry, sir, I’ll take care of everything,’ Vijay reassured them. He had been assigned to them by Bio but Noah didn’t know anything about his background. Vijay peeled his sweat-soaked shirt from his body and pulled a large handkerchief from his pocket, wiping his forehead and hands before tucking it away.
He raised an appeasing hand to the soldiers and walked towards them slowly, speaking in Sinhalese, the local language. One of the soldiers pulled the rifle off his shoulder and shook it at Vijay. Another soldier stepped forward with a Haema Scanner, motioning to Noah and the team.
Vijay raised his hands higher in the air, his back to the team, the wet V between his shoulderblades widening with each movement. He stopped w
alking, but shook his head at the scanner, speaking rapidly.
‘Just relax, guys.’ Noah sensed Garner stiffen and reach for her weapon. ‘Just relax. Weapons down.’
They had been scanned at the military airport’s security department which was staffed by Bio. Once inside the Eastern Alliance, they were given a Scanner Waiver and their blood wasn’t supposed to be tested by a Haema Scanner again. Their blood serum would have revealed that they had complete Ebola immunity, but no markers for the Faith Inhibitor.
Beyond the roadblock Noah could see the station that would have housed a unit of soldiers, an interrogation room and several cells. Between him, Garner and Crawford, they had six side-arms and twenty-four clips. There was another cache of weapons at the WHO office in Colombo and the hotel they were staying at. No good to him right now though. He didn’t know if Vijay was armed.
‘Chief, if they try to scan us –’ Crawford whispered.
‘I know, Crawford. Let Vijay take care of it.’ He didn’t take his eyes from the station. They were inside, watching, waiting to see if he would panic. They didn’t know him.
The soldier barked another order and Vijay handed over their papers. He continued to talk to the soldiers as though he was holding court at a cocktail party. Occasionally he leaned in conspiratorially to one and whispered something that made the soldier laugh in spite of himself.
The soldiers looked at Noah and the team closely and then checked their paperwork again. They were allowed to travel into Colombo by Executive Order and with the protection and authority of the WHO. Finally, without checking their blood or their bags, the soldiers nodded and waved them through the roadblock.
‘I told you, sir.’ Vijay merrily started the car. ‘I can take care of everything. Tell me if you want to see the rest of the country – it is a paradise. You want safari, I can organise it. You want pretty clothes for your wife, sir, I can organise it.’ His voice sang through a familiar song. ‘You want women, I can organise it. You want superb cuisine, I can organise it.’ He stroked his pot belly.
‘Both hands on the wheel, Vijay. Just get us through the next five roadblocks.’ Noah laughed.
‘Eight, sir, there are eight roadblocks today – there is protest in the city. I will take you around but military detours are not very well-planned. One of many reasons we lost the war.’ Vijay smiled, revealing surprisingly straight, clean teeth. His employer obviously provided dental.
Eventually the fields turned to suburbs covered in a thick film of dirt and pollution. Tall apartment blocks rose like anthills out of the cemented earth. They were interspersed with clusters of shacks and tents, small shanties propped up against each other.
‘Who lives there?’ Crawford asked.
‘Mostly refugees from the war – people who haven’t been resettled yet. Government buildings are slow to grow.’
They saw people wandering the streets, their clothes torn and stained. Some dragged children behind them. Others crowded around bins, foraging.
‘Some are soldiers – they came back from WWR but it is better they died.’ Vijay shook his head.
‘And the drug addicts? Is this where they live?’ Garner asked.
‘A few – but it isn’t just the poor who take Rapture. Rich, poor – anyone, everyone. My son’s schoolteacher died last year from overdose. His supplier was the music teacher – everyone wants to feel Rapture.’
‘Any thoughts on why, Vijay?’ Noah asked. The drug had been named after Christ’s second coming and his gathering of the true believers. Someone had a sense of humour.
‘Why, sir? Because people are sad and they want to be happy.’ Vijay manoeuvred the car deftly through the traffic, turning sharply and frequently, driving down badly pitched roads and narrow alleys. He honked more than he signalled or braked.
‘We must wait here,’ he said finally, turning off the engine.
‘Here? We’ve got seven more blocks to go,’ Crawford complained from the back seat.
‘Yes, here. Sorry, sir,’ Vijay replied. ‘Protest on Gotabhaya Avenue, heading towards Senanayake Plaza.’
‘Are all your streets named after your tyrants – I mean leaders?’ Crawford asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ Vijay replied. ‘We wait.’
‘For what?’
‘For protest to pass or soldiers to come. Then we go across avenue, around plaza, to hotel. Simple.’
‘How long do we have to wait?’
Vijay looked at his watch. ‘Twenty minutes,’ he answered confidently.
‘Twenty minutes?’ Crawford repeated. He held his bottle of water against the back of his neck.
‘I want to see what’s going on,’ Noah said. ‘We’re going to walk up along the traffic jam towards the avenue. If you start to move, Vijay, just pick us up – three white people, you can’t miss us.’
‘Soldiers can’t miss you either, sir,’ Vijay replied. ‘My job is to keep you safe, take you to hotel. Soldiers will know you are here, sir.’
Noah was already out of the car looking around: at the faded posters of the president, the washing hanging out on apartment balconies catching the sun and the dust – and the cameras. He leaned through the open window and patted Vijay on the shoulder. ‘We’ll see you at the top of the street.’
He pushed through the cars and crowds with Garner and Crawford, following the low hum coming from the avenue. They threaded their way towards the frontline of the protest and then stopped abruptly.
A river of women flowed slowly down the wide street. They wore plain white saris and no makeup or jewellery. Even the children, the little girls, were dressed in white. The traditional garb of widowhood and mourning jarred against their young faces. They each carried a large photograph, held tenderly against their chests. At the bottom of each photograph was a date.
Noah didn’t need to speak the language to know why these women were here. They weren’t protesting, they were pleading. They wanted to know where their loved ones were. If they were living, they wanted them back. If they were dead, they wanted them back.
There was some comfort in holding your dead. Some. Not much.
‘What is this?’ Crawford whispered.
‘A funeral march,’ Garner answered. ‘Of sorts. Before WWR, Sri Lanka’s claim to fame was the highest number of disappearances per capita in the world. Almost entirely state-perpetrated.’
‘And now?’ Crawford asked, his voice unusually sombre.
‘And now, thanks to the Information Shield, we have no idea about the numbers. My guess is they’re rising,’ Noah replied.
‘Where do you hide so many people on such a small island?’ Garner asked.
‘There are always places, if you try hard enough,’ Noah replied. If you dig deep enough, he remembered.
‘The dates are when their people disappeared.’ He read some of the numbers – 2035, 2031, 2029, 2022 – and tried not to look at their faces.
There must have been thousands of them, the white stretched in both directions further than he could see. The women didn’t speak but hummed softly, creating a vibration, strong and steady.
And then another colour appeared. The familiar green and brown of army fatigues. The shiny black of army batons. The crowds along the side of the street pulled back as they heard the thunder of boots running towards them. The river of white froze still and silent.
‘Christ,’ Noah whispered. ‘Run – run, run, run!’ he shouted at the women. ‘Run!’ he shouted at the little girls who clutched the photographs of their fathers and brothers to their tiny bodies.
‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ he yelled again. ‘Run!’ The crowds pushed against him, a tide pulling him away from Garner and Crawford. He pushed back towards the women who now sat on the ground. Why weren’t they running? The mothers covered their children with their bodies but they still didn’t move. Silent outrage was the only protest left to them.
He watched in horror as the soldiers raised their batons high, in a swirl and flourish he knew well. They beat the
ir batons hard into the river of white, creating an arrhythmic vibration of their own. The colours changed: army green on white, cold black on white and finally blood red on white. The women didn’t scream. The children cried out – a wail but no words. Even they didn’t scream. They cowered, waiting for it to start, and then cowered and cried more deeply into each other, waiting for it to stop.
A child sat curled into a ball. She raised her head from her knees. She had dark hair and dimples. He squinted and stared again. It wasn’t her. Of course it wasn’t her. He looked again and she was gone, lost in the tumble of people.
He remembered another massacre in Sri Lanka. His first one in an ancient temple. And then, even though he knew better, he was moving.
He waded through the panicked bystanders running away from the soldiers. He reached the first soldier and caught the baton as the man raised it again. He twisted the stick out of his gloved hand and smacked him across the head with it, sending a follow-up blow to his stomach and then pushing him out of the way.
He stabbed the baton into the back of another soldier, once with its tip and then beat him twice more across his spine with its edge. A third soldier lunged at him, baton in one hand, the other reaching for the gun in his shoulder holster. Noah stepped into the blow to miss it, the soldier’s baton overreaching and swiping the air behind him. Face to face with the soldier, he grabbed the hand on the gun and twisted it back. He swivelled, pulling the man tight behind him and over his shoulder onto the ground. He stamped hard on the man’s chest, and then ducked as another soldier lunged at him.
More fleeing bystanders surged against the soldiers, sweeping Noah up in their current. He was pushed into a doorway, gasping for breath. He hadn’t drawn his weapon yet. He felt a hand tug on his shirt. Instinctively he reached for it, ready to break it and strike back.
It was Vijay.
‘Come, sir,’ the driver insisted, ignoring Noah’s stranglehold around his wrist. ‘Come. I have the others. We go now – traffic has moved.’ He let Vijay pull him away towards the waiting car.
The Barrier Page 8