Vector

by James Abel

  “Then vivax is not what we’re facing now,” I said.

  “Correct.”

  “What are we dealing with?” Captain Santo asked.

  I liked Gaines. He couldn’t be ruffled. When he gave a briefing, he included all elements, even ones that might at first seem unconnected. He knew that something peripheral at the beginning of an investigation could be crucial later. He knew that the wrong kind of speed, impatience, could kill thousands. Eddie’s knee was pumping with frustration. I listened hard. Gaines would get to things his own way.

  Gaines said, “Plasmodium falciparum is what we face. It is the most deadly form of malaria, and the youngest. Evolutionary biologists believe falciparum has only affected humans for about one hundred thousand years. A drop in the bucket, evolution wise. The theory is, falciparum originated in apes and jumped to humans. Our DNA is similar enough for that to happen. But the parasite has not decreased its virulence over time. On the contrary, Plasmodium New York is killing faster than the usual falciparum, and at a greater rate. It is even younger, definitely deadlier.”

  “So there are two kinds of malaria,” Izabel prompted.

  “Actually there are many kinds. But the others affect animals. Apes. Birds. Even snakes and rodents. Dr. Umar sought the most virulent human forms.”

  I asked Gaines, “You’re saying that this new falciparum has evolved, become even more deadly?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Mutation, then?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  On-screen now, two mosquitoes, side by side. One labeled NORMAL and the other ACCELERATED.

  They looked the same.

  I was getting impatient. “Then you’re saying that the malaria DNA was altered in that laboratory?”

  Gaines shrugged, meaning maybe, and Eddie snapped, “Then what’s left to explain it?”

  Gaines gazed out his window, at the CDC complex, containing his own labs where I knew the blood of tristate victims had been under analysis for days. Then he sighed.

  “All the sick have algid malaria, the worst kind of falciparum. Algid multiplies like wildfire. It infects up to ninety-nine percent of victims’ red blood cells. Adult sufferers in New York are dying of kidney failure and respiratory distress. Children . . .” He trailed off. He was trying not to show emotion. It didn’t work. Gaines had three young children.

  “Children are dying from the cerebral form. Their brains are more susceptible.”

  “What is different about the new strain?” I asked.

  “The speed. Normally algid takes a minimum of seven to eight days between infection and onset. We’re seeing something faster, since we’ve traced many victims to infection point. A concert. A cookout. We know when these people were bitten, and where.”

  “You’re not making sense,” I said. “First you tell us that the parasite is the same as always. Then you tell us that it’s acting differently. But you shoot down every suggestion of how the parasite changed.”

  But suddenly I saw the answer to my own question, and it chilled me.

  “No,” I said, reasoning out loud, “you’re telling us that a malaria attack requires two distinct elements: the parasite and the mosquito.”

  Gaines nodded as if a student had given a proper answer. “Yes. Malaria is species specific. Parasite without carrier doesn’t work.”

  “The mosquito is different!” I saw. “Umar changed the delivery system! He didn’t need to change the parasite. He just collected the flukes, the worst ones. He spread the net in the biggest malaria field on earth, for victims who would have died so fast they never had the opportunity to spread infection. He harvested the top killers. Then he altered the carrier!”

  Eddie nodded. “And when I beat it, Umar wanted to know how.” He brightened. “Does that mean my blood has an antidote?”

  Gaines sighed heavily. “It’s more likely that you’re just stronger than most people. We’ll test your blood for antibodies, but don’t count on it. If there was some magical cure in you, Umar would have drained you dry.”

  Now I saw what looked like ancient hieroglyphics on-screen, rows of symbols that represented mosquito DNA. But there were gaps between some of the symbols. “Normal anopheles,” Gaines said. “And new ones, collected in Central Park.”

  I looked down from the window at Florida’s Everglades, the U.S. version of an enormous mosquito breeding ground. Farther north would be Okefenokee Swamp, 300,000 acres in Georgia, and the inland waterway, the Cape Fear River in Norh Carolina, a cornucopia of Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware rivers, harbors, and ponds, mosquito-friendly waters all the way up the East Coast.

  But it was worse. Eddie and I had just spent weeks advising impoverished Amazon slum dwellers on tactics to defeat malaria, and what needed to be done here was no different. New York contained a million bodies of standing water in which insects could breed. Water in flowerpots. Water in stagnant swimming pools and old sewage drains and clogged roof gutters.

  Gaines waited like a teacher eyeing a favorite student.

  “But how did Umar change the mosquito?” I asked.

  “He sped up the metabolism, Joe.”

  Izabel asked, “How does that make the illness worse?”

  “Malaria 101, Captain. The only way to get the parasite into a mosquito is through a blood meal. The parasite enters while a mosquito feeds on an infected person, through the proboscis, the needlelike probe it uses to suck up blood. But the only way to transmit the parasite out of the mosquito is through its salivary glands. And to reach those glands, the parasite migrates through the mosquito, into its stomach, then back up to the glands. Only after that, when the mosquito bites a new person, and injects saliva, does the parasite ride in.”

  “And this takes time?” asked Izabel.

  “Normally two weeks. Hot weather, it’s quicker. Cold, it’s so slow that the mosquito dies of old age before the parasite ever reaches the salivary glands. That’s why people don’t catch malaria in cold countries, or in winter. The process is too slow. Usually.”

  “But now?”

  A head shake. “The transition seems to be taking as little as two days. Not eight.”

  Horrified, I saw the implications. “So if our terrorists in the U.S. have a supply of altered mosquitoes . . .”

  “And if they feed them blood meals infected with parasites,” Eddie continued.

  “And if the supply of altered insects is big enough, or they get new shipments . . .” added Izabel Santo.

  Gaines looked miserable. “Then you’re looking at the biggest mass murderer in history, because he can release a new batch every few days,” he said.

  I was thinking, There’s something I may have missed here. Something that Eddie told me. Something on the island. What am I missing?

  “It gets worse,” Gaines said, which pulled my attention back to him.

  “Christ, what’s left?” Eddie asked.

  “All the attacked cities sprayed pesticides after the initial outbreak, but still, we found some infected mosquitoes afterward, alive. They’re resisting chemicals. Just like in Africa and South America. It’s harder to kill them. Pesticide resistance has been growing for years.”

  “Super parasite meets super bug,” said Eddie.

  “Dio!” said Izabel. “You must spray and spray more!”

  “We are,” Chris said, “but sprays lose strength with sunlight and time. Just twenty-four hours after you spray, the chemicals begin breaking down. Plus, we’ve only got a limited supply of pesticide, you understand.”

  “So even if you spray widely . . .”

  “The only way we stop this for sure is to catch whoever is spreading it.”

  “Meanwhile, every day the death toll will rise.”

  • • •

  In the heavy silence, Gaines’s eyes shifted left, and I saw that on-screen all
eyes were also swiveling. Ray’s tech staff must have put through the appropriate relays. Our on-screen boxes shrank to make room for a new one, live TV. The President was back, in the White House briefing room.

  BREAKING NEWS. TERRORIST CAMP DESTROYED.

  Eddie gasped a moment later. “Hey! That’s us, Uno!”

  It was us, all right, in a shot taken over a year ago, at the awards ceremony at the White House. A happier occasion, as the Chief Exec handed me a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Eddie and Aya received them on that day, too, for our role in the Harlan Maas case.

  The President was saying, “A joint raid by U.S. agents and our Brazilian allies destroyed the terrorist camp and laboratory in the jungle. It is now clear that the outbreak here of this new, fatal malaria came from that lab.”

  “Guess they couldn’t cover it up anymore,” Eddie said.

  “Your ‘ally’ wants to hear. Be quiet,” growled Izabel.

  The President said, as a shot of Eddie and me in our old Marine fatigues appeared, “Two former Marine officers—working closely with the FBI—coordinated the assault.”

  Izabel guffawed. Ray seemed frozen.

  The President said, “We will build on this success. We will hunt down and destroy any person or group behind this heinous attack. And although we are confident that we have eliminated ninety-nine percent of the enemy supply, it remains possible that a few deranged jihadists are still in the U.S. The national terrorism alert remains at red. I’m asking all federal, state, and local agencies to cooperate in the hunt for those responsible. This cowardly assault on American freedoms will not stand!”

  “Working with the FBI?” said Eddie. “So that’s what we were doing down there!”

  The President said, “Colonel Rush and his team are at this moment returning to the country to remain an active part of the investigation, headed by the FBI. This group has all my confidence. They will help bring a swift, successful conclusion to this emergency.”

  Ray’s expression was priceless. He was the one ambushed for a change. By elevating Eddie and me onto national radar, the President had just robbed Ray of his cherished control. Ray would stay in charge of the work. But not of us.

  Eddie looked torn between anger that, as usual, we’d not been consulted before an announcement, and glee that Ray was pissed off. A power shift had just happened.

  “You are that important?” Izabel said, staring at me.

  I knew that like Presidents Clinton and Reagan, our current leader was famed for his off-the-cuff decisions. Late-night TV comedians sometimes showed diagrams labeled PRESIDENT’S BRAIN, presenting new ideas as just-formed balloons in his cerebellum, and shooting out of his mouth at the same time. Gaines looked surprised but pleased.

  “Colonel Rush is at this moment on his way to Washington, for consultation,” the President said as Eddie scribbled a note to me.

  Izabel said shrewdly, “Ah! Now I see! He makes you a scapegoat if things go wrong! Just like back home.”

  Eddie smirked. “Hey, Ray, Joe likes his coffee black with sugar. You better stay on his good side.”

  Izabel remarked, “What is the expression? Out of the frying pan, into the microwave oven?”

  “Something like that.”

  I watched Ray’s face. It was completely neutral again. I told Ray that instead of going to Washington, my “team” preferred to head straight into the heart of the outbreak, New York City. Now.

  “Joe, I understand that you feel that way, but a lot of important people want to meet with you.”

  And you want to keep them happy, and me away from the investigation, telling the same story again and again.

  “New York, Ray.”

  He smiled. He had to be seething inside. He listed the VIPs who I was supposed to be sidelined with, talking to. “White House. Senate Committee on Bioterror. Your story needs to be told so—”

  So you get credit, which is fine if you end this thing. But you made mistakes in Brazil, and you could make more.

  I told him, firmly, “We’ll set up shop at Columbia University. We’ve got Wilderness Med there already, a whole unit trained in work in austere environments. Let us do what we’re good at: tracking disease to a source.”

  “Not Aya,” Chris broke in. “I brought her back to Washington. I won’t have her in the middle of an outbreak. She’s sixteen. I don’t care if some medicines work. She’s out.”

  “Of course. I didn’t mean Aya,” I said, backpedaling and knowing to never get between a protective mom and her teenage daughter. “Aya can help out over the phone, on her computer. From a safe distance.”

  “That is what I told her,” Chris said, steel in her voice. “That is what you will tell her, too.”

  Stalemate. Ray saw I would not budge, and that further resistance would demean him. “I suppose,” he offered, trying to limit damage, “we can fold you into one of our local groups. That might work.”

  “We stay on our own,” Eddie growled.

  Ray had to be agonizingly aware that Chris was watching. And not supporting him. She’s staring down at her desk, as if embarrassed for him, or disagreeing with him.

  And then it hit me. Someone must have gone to the President in order for pressure to be applied to get Eddie and me out of Brazil. Ray didn’t have the clout. Or inclination. But I remembered now that Aya had told me when Eddie first disappeared that she was going to ask Chris for help. Ray’s future adoptive daughter and his fiancée may have teamed up to torpedo him, and he probably knew it. Chris had direct access to the White House.

  Eddie’s eyes met mine. He saw it, too. Aya? Go girl!

  Chris was tough and smart and had never let the frustrating history between us interfere with her professional judgment. Had Ray and Chris argued over us? Chris was hot-tempered. If she discovered that Ray had sent us down there and not backed us up, she would have been furious enough, if she thought we were in peril, to go over her fiancé’s head.

  If that’s the case, there will be fireworks in your house tonight, Ray. Blood on the walls.

  Ray made one last try to keep me out. “Joe, you know as well as I do that good communication is the cornerstone of any investigation. You can be an invaluable liaison with . . .”

  “It’s personal,” I snapped.

  “Yes, personal,” Izabel Santo underlined, half out of her chair, staring into the screen as if into Ray’s eyes.

  The word personal hung there. To anyone else present, it seemed as if we meant that we had a personal grudge against whoever had hurt Eddie and Sublieutenant Salazar. But Ray knew that personal included the threat to break my unspoken agreement to protect him. Stick me in meetings at your own peril! Who knows what I might say?

  “I guess we could accommodate you two,” he capitulated.

  “Us three,” Izabel said.

  “Of course. Our Brazilian guest is welcome.”

  Izabel Santo was regarding me for the first time with something like approval.

  Then the President was gone and Ray steered the talk back to logistics as if the argument had never happened.

  Eddie passed me a note. RAY WILL SCREW US WHEN HE GETS THE CHANCE!

  • • •

  Two hours later, when New York came into view, Ray was back, telling us smoothly, too smoothly, as things would turn out, that he’d arranged exactly what I’d asked for, my own unit. But we were only half listening, because even from the air, the view made it clear that something was wrong.

  “Panic,” Eddie breathed, eyeing rivers of brake lights crawling one way, at midday. Lanes heading into the city seemed empty. “Looks like half the city is trying to get out.”

  I was thinking that I was looking at the newest place on earth to serve as a field for Wilderness Medicine. New York has been called a jungle, and medically speaking, it was now that. In the real jungle lived creatures who spent their
entire lives in the upper canopy, like the rich in New York, who would be the best protected. The less fortunate people here ate and slept on the streets, and, as in the Amazon, bottom dwellers would be more at risk. There were those in the middle, who ventured up and down, crossed boundaries each day: subways, offices, shops. And among them, maybe in New York, maybe in Newark or Philadelphia, or nearby, a speck, anonymous, a person or group hurting them.

  Down there somewhere is the vector, I thought.

  I did not mean mosquitoes.

  I meant whoever was spreading them.

  We will find you, I thought.

  FIFTEEN

  FIVE DAYS LATER

  DEATH TOLL RISES IN TERRORIST OUTBREAK

  The New York Times

  The death toll from black malaria, as health officials have dubbed it, has topped 1,800 with another 3,211 in serious condition in area hospitals. Most are expected to die. Panic has spread in the metropolitan area and surrounding states. Parks are empty. Thousands have fled. Children are being kept at home. “There’s no way to know from looking which mosquito is harmless and which might kill you,” admitted Dr. Wilbur Gaines of the CDC. Officials urge calm, and although so far only 12 cases have been reported outside of New York, Philadelphia, or Newark: “There’s no way of knowing whether our aggressive spraying and public health program will kill all the infected insects, or whether more will be released,” Gaines told the White House yesterday at a private meeting. Customs officials are paying extra attention to shipments coming into the U.S. from Brazil. “But unless the parties responsible are located, we must regard every day as one in which a new attack may come,” Gaines said. “At least, thanks to Joe Rush, we closed down the lab where these new, hideous weapons were created.”