They began setting up the struts to support the plastic tent. He watched them struggle awkwardly with gloved fingers, then closed his eyes, trying to make it all go away.
How had this happened? In his mind he was transported back to the room at the Mark Hotel, the night of the gala in New York. He had been lying there just like this, a little lethargic from jet lag, anticipating a lovely evening. Cordelia had been moving about the room, and he was vaguely conscious of her fiddling with things as he dozed on the bed.
She had looked gorgeous that day, glowing with excitement about being in Manhattan. Sinclair remembered that he had entertained the thought of a seduction before the party, just to get the evening off to a jolly start. Cordelia was not in the mood at first—she was all fluttery about getting ready and concerned about the creases in her dress. As he dozed on the bed that evening, she had tried to quietly unzip the suitcase, but it had made a tearing sound and he had woken up.
The same sound occurred now. Sinclair opened his eyes and they were zipping him into the tent and closing the Velcro flaps over the teeth of the closure. A hiss of air was pumped in near his head and puffed up the tent. Cold air blew over his face.
He was fully sealed in, and he fought his claustrophobia for a moment, taking deeper breaths. Through the clear plastic, the figures were moving around the room.
“All set?” they asked him, and without waiting for an answer started to push him to the door.
Here we go, Sinclair thought. This is not the way he had pictured his end. But there really wasn’t any choice. It was time to go.
Paul Oakley looked across the tarmac at Sharm el-Sheikh Airport and saw the waiting military helicopter. The rotors were already churning, and evacuation medics were standing, waiting for Sinclair. The airport was often used by the Egyptian military, and this operation had all the appearance of any other government flight, except the medics were pushing along what looked like a plastic coffin.
Sinclair was zippered into a negative-air-pressure biocontainment module, complete with oxygen and a microphone for speaking to the outside world. He was completely sealed in, rolling on a collapsible ambulance gurney, being pushed along by medics dressed in bulky suits and bubble helmets. As they got closer, Paul could see Sinclair’s face through the plastic.
“Paul, how much time do I have?” Sinclair asked. His voice sounded tinny on the microphone. Oakley looked at Sinclair’s eyes. They were calm, resigned.
“Don’t think like that, John. We are going to do all we can.”
Sinclair blinked slowly and sighed.
“I know you will. But promise me one thing. Don’t let Delia anywhere near me. If I’m going to die like this, I want to die alone.”
Moustaffa was sitting in a private plane, heading back to the United States. He looked at his watch and laughed.
“It’s done. Everyone is dead,” Moustaffa declared.
“Think again, asshole,” the military guard said to him. “They didn’t fall for it.”
Moustaffa’s head jerked up, surprised.
“Your buddy John Sinclair tipped them off. They evacuated the building. Everyone got out safely. The press never knew.”
“I demand a lawyer. I’m a British citizen,” Moustaffa said. “You can’t charge me with anything. I had nothing to do with any of this.”
“Save it for the guys at Guantánamo. It’s an act of terrorism,” the guard replied. “Haven’t you heard? We have a special place for people like you.”
NAMRU-3, Cairo
THE MEDICAL UNIT officer at the front desk had been stonewalling Cordelia for several hours, saying that there was no record of any patient. When she mentioned the word “plague,” his eyes had widened, but he denied any knowledge of a case being admitted.
She became more and more infuriated, demanding to be let into the isolation unit to verify it herself. With each exchange he was icily polite, calling her “ma’am.”
The desk officer was young, but he had the firm demeanor that comes with military training. Besides she wasn’t the first person to be denied admittance. This hospital—NAMRU-3—had been studying infectious diseases in the Middle East since the end of World War Two. They dealt with contagion every day.
“What do you mean, I can’t go in!” Cordelia demanded, flailing her arms.
“Take it easy, Delia,” Gardiner calmed her, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“I can’t let anyone onto the sixth floor. Doctor’s orders,” the medical officer explained to Gardiner, as if to reason with someone sane.
“Doctor? What doctor?” Cordelia snapped. “Who is this so-called doctor!”
“Dr. Paul Oakley,” he announced. “He’s the head physician on this case.”
Delia whirled around to face Gardiner.
“Jim! Do something!”
Paul Oakley came out looking weary. His white coat gave him gravitas. Now he looked older, more beaten down.
Gardiner rose from the couch in the waiting room.
“Paul?”
Oakley didn’t speak until he sat down next to Cordelia. All the steam had gone out of her. Now she was just scared.
“Paul, what’s going on?” she asked. Tears were trembling in her eyes.
“Sweetie, I wish I had better news,” Paul Oakley said. “He’s . . .” He stopped and took a breath. “Well, we just have to hope for the best.”
“Do you mean he could . . . ?” Gardiner asked.
“It is a possibility.”
“Ohhhhh God!” Cordelia howled, bending over, holding her stomach, and rocking back and forth. “Oh God, no! Please please please . . .”
Gardiner stood in the hall with Paul Oakley.
“What’s happening, Paul?” Gardiner asked.
“I don’t think he’s going to pull through, Jim,” Oakley said. “I’m sorry.”
“Isn’t there anything you can give him?”
“Yes, not to be too technical, but antibiotics can work if the disease hasn’t overwhelmed the body’s defenses. I gave him oral antibiotics on the way here and set up an IV drip as soon as we got him into the isolation unit. So far nothing has had any effect. I’m afraid it’s the strain. It’s bubonic, luckily. If it were pneumonic, he’d be dead by now.”
“You just sequenced the genome for the Black Death. Doesn’t that kind of research help?”
“Not exactly. There were three major plagues, historically. The Black Death in medieval Europe, the Justinian plague in the sixth century, and then another in China in 1894. I have cross-referenced everything we know about those outbreaks.”
“And?”
“This is different. We haven’t seen anything like this. It’s an enhanced pathogen. We ran it through a polymerase-chain-reaction analysis . . .”
“No, wait! Don’t start with the jargon,” Gardiner said, holding up his hand. “You’re going to have to slow down on this or I won’t understand.”
“Come have a look,” Oakley said, walking over to a machine. It looked like a normal laptop with a huge computer attached. On the screen was a graph of multicolored lines fanning out into a wide spectrum.
“This is a PCR machine, one of the fanciest diagnostic tools in the world. It helps us analyze the DNA of the toxin Sinclair was exposed to,” Oakley explained. “Within three hours of Sinclair’s arrival here, we were able to sequence the DNA and confirm he had plague. The good news is it’s bubonic and not pneumonic.”
Oakley then reached over to the lab sink and picked up a sealed plastic container.
“This is a Mueller-Hinton agar—in other words, a type of petri dish for growing bacteria. This sample is only common flu. We are keeping the disk with Sinclair’s plague in the negative-pressure lab. It’s too contagious to handle like this. But I can show you how we run antibiotic susceptibility testing on this one. That would determine which drugs would help Sinclair.”
Oakley held the plastic disk up to the light. It was cloudy with yellow film. White dots were scattered across its surfac
e.
“Imagine that this petri dish has been coated with a sample of the disease that Sinclair is fighting. Each of these dots is an antibiotic,” Oakley said, pointing to the dozen pinprick dots scattered across the surface.
“And what are you looking for?” Gardiner asked, squinting at it with interest.
“If a certain drug would be effective in treating the disease, there would be a clear ring around the dot, like a doughnut.”
“I see a few circles that look like doughnuts,” Gardiner observed.
“Which tells us that those antibiotics work on this strain of flu. Sinclair’s plague needs twenty-four hours before we have results.”
“And if there is no change the dish stays the same?” Gardiner asked.
“That would mean that the antibiotics are not effective for treating the strain of plague that Sinclair has,” Oakley said dispiritedly.
“So it could be a lot stronger?”
“It may be a so-called designer disease, created to be antibiotic-resistant or evade immune responses. Even with the normal strains of plague, there is a high mortality rate. About fourteen percent of people who contract the disease die of it.”
“I had no idea!” Gardiner gasped.
“There are about twenty cases a year in the United States. That jumps to about three thousand people globally.”
“And vaccines . . . ?” Gardiner asked.
“Those have to be administered in advance. There aren’t any commercially available vaccines.”
“Why not?” Gardiner asked.
“Vaccines are hard to produce. They have to be made from heat-killed and chemically treated strains of bacteria cells. And there really is no demand for them, so it’s not profitable to make a vaccine.”
“So a city would be totally vulnerable if this contagion were released?”
“Pretty much. The U.S. government put in biodefense stockpiles of antitoxins and chemical antidotes after 9/11. But when it comes to vaccines they inoculate only researchers who are working with the plague.”
“Which is why the terrorists chose this,” Gardiner said.
“I’m afraid so. We’ve been working on plague at Porton Down for a few years now. Planning defensive measures in case of an attack. Sinclair is the first victim.”
Oakley looked worn out. His white coat was sagging off his shoulders, and his face was drawn. It was clear he had not had any rest. Gardiner put a hand on his arm and spoke to him urgently.
“Paul, I’m going to ask you a favor,” Gardiner said.
Oakley looked at him, resigned.
“What, Jim?”
“I need to see Sinclair. To ask him to please let Cordelia in. It’s killing her, being shut out like this. If he dies without talking to her . . .”
Paul Oakley sighed.
“I promised I wouldn’t let anyone in. Especially Cordelia. He was clear about it.”
“He won’t mind if it’s me,” Gardiner said. “After my accident, I came back from the dead. And he watched me do it.”
Oakley looked off down the corridor, trying to decide.
“All right,” he agreed. “Just for a few minutes.”
“Thank you.”
“You’ll have to suit up, of course,” Oakley added. “Come with me.”
He turned and walked into the negative-pressure unit. Gardiner followed him in, limping heavily.
The room was silent, with the occasional beep of a machine taking an automatic reading—not the usual cramped hospital room, more like an operating theater. Plenty of space on either side of the bed to allow people to move around and work. No windows. The strong overhead light hurt the eyes.
The bed had all the appearance of a bier, and Sinclair was in a plastic tent, sealed like a glass coffin. Gardiner got a quick mental flash of an Egyptian king in his cartouche. The tent had the same dignity and finality. The body inside was pale, eyes closed. A shadow of the handsome man Gardiner knew.
Paul approached and checked the readings.
“Well, at least he’s stable,” the doctor remarked.
“Can he hear me?” Gardiner asked.
Just then, Sinclair’s eyes opened. Then widened.
“Jim,” he said weakly.
“How are you doing?” Gardiner asked.
The corner of Sinclair’s mouth inched up as if he were trying to smile.
“Hurts like hell,” he said. “I don’t recommend it.”
“Delia needs to see you,” Gardiner said.
“Can’t,” Sinclair said, shutting his eyes wearily.
“Can’t, or won’t?” Gardiner pressed.
Oakley made a quick chop with his hand. A motion for Gardiner to lay off.
There was no answer. Sinclair’s eyes were still closed. For a moment it seemed he had drifted off. Then his mouth slowly moved. He opened his eyes again.
“Can’t see her. Not like this, Jim. Not like this,” he said.
Sinclair’s eyes dropped lower and then shut. He lapsed into a deep sleep.
Paul Oakley motioned for Gardiner to follow him out into the decontamination area.
“I told you. Stubborn as hell,” Oakley said.
“God, I hate to see him like this,” Gardiner said, pulling off his N95 mask, overcome with emotion.
“Don’t give up yet,” Oakley said. “That kind of mental toughness might be exactly what he needs to pull him through.”
Cordelia sat up, feeling her head spin. She could be anywhere in the world—New York, London, Chicago. Hospital waiting rooms were all the same—the identical furniture, the same sorrow, and the lurking presence of death. Doctors had come and gone in a never-ending stream from the U.S. Navy, and some had flown in from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States.
It had been two days. Gardiner had brought her food, a change of clothes. He had begged her to take a rest. To go to the hotel, grab a quick shower, take a nap. She would have none of it.
“I’m staying here, Jim,” she had insisted.
Finally, Gardiner had left, limping painfully, shaking his head, promising he’d be back in a while. He needed to lie down.
Ted VerPlanck had come and gone several times, always solicitous, always deeply aware of the strain she was under. He’d comforted her as best he could. She could see that it took considerable effort for him to express his feelings. He was not a man who acknowledged his emotions easily.
VerPlanck was better at tangible things: bringing her a paper cup of tea and the cashmere throw he had first offered to her on the deck of The MoonSonnet. She was glad to have it. A security blanket. Cream-colored, soft. She had draped its folds around her as she waited.
They had cleared the unit when Sinclair came in. Only the specialists stayed. He was untouchable in a plastic tent. All she wanted to do was put her arms around him.
Down the hall the elevator dinged, and there was the clack, clack, clack of footsteps coming. Unfamiliar pace, rapid, determined. Cordelia looked up and her eyes widened in surprise as Holly Graham whipped around the corner. What was she doing here?
Holly was dressed in a coral-colored V-neck sweater, a blue jacket, and buff-colored slacks. Her figure was elegantly curvaceous. She walked with purpose. And she looked very worried.
“Hello, Cordelia,” she said quite naturally, as if they spoke often. “I thought you might need something to eat.”
She proffered a plastic bag.
“Oh, thank you.”
“It’s Egyptian beef and rice. Quite good.”
Cordelia accepted it politely.
“What time is it?”
“Three o’clock,” Holly told her.
“Three o’clock?”
Cordelia tried without success to understand that information. She had no idea if it was day or night.
“Three in the afternoon,” Holly supplied, aware of her confusion. “Why don’t you try to eat?”
Cordelia opened the bag and the rich scents wafted up.
“This s
mells really delicious!” she said.
“It’s one of my favorites. The rice has almonds, golden raisins, cardamom, cinnamon. And beef with spices.”
Cordelia took the lid off the container and found a plastic fork at the bottom of the bag.
“Is there anything to drink?” Cordelia inquired.
“There’s a container of orange juice in there also.”
“Thank you,” Cordelia said, fishing for it. “I realize I never thanked you for that night, at the opera. It was very brave, what you did.”
Cordelia found her words came with ease, and she meant them. Holly waved her hand, brushing away the gratitude, and quickly changed the subject.
“Hey, I meant to tell you,” she said brightly. “The British have Artemidorus now. They say the damage can be repaired.”
“That’s great! What about the cup?”
“They just found it in a secret compartment of The Khamsin.”
“Ted VerPlanck must be pleased to recover it,” Cordelia replied.
“Ted really believes the cup has special powers. He’s determined to share it, for the benefit of others.”
“Oh, that’s nice of him,” Cordelia replied.
“He is planning to donate the cup to the National Gallery in Washington so that the public can see it.”
“That’s wonderful,” Cordelia said. “After all the trouble he went to recovering it.”
“He’s quite a generous man,” Holly said, and Cordelia could see a glimmer of feeling behind the words.
Cordelia thought that Holly and VerPlanck would end up together. Not right now, but someday. They were so perfectly matched—elegant, understated.
“Have they let you in to see Sinclair yet?” Holly asked.
“No,” Cordelia admitted.
“Well, he’s a tough guy,” Holly said. “Likes to fight his battles on his own.”
“Really?” Cordelia asked. “Was he like that when you knew him?”
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