Quarantined

by Joe McKinney

  He didn't even give us a chance to speak. “This is a restricted area,” he said, his voice bristling, like he'd just caught us watching TV on his couch in the middle of the night. “What are you doing here?”

  I could see the top half of his face through the goggles of his gas mask. He was an older man, late sixties, maybe, with liver spots on his forehead and deep rutted crow's feet at the corners of his eyes, which even through the mask I can tell were intensely focused.

  He stepped right up to Chunk and stood chest to chest with him, not two feet between them. There was almost a foot of difference in their height, and maybe a hundred pounds, both in Chunk's favor, but the smaller man didn't seem to notice the disadvantage. He just stood there, gloved hands on his hips, waiting for a reply.

  “Well?”

  Chunk was taken aback by the old man showing him attitude, but he recovered quickly.

  “I was about to ask you the same question,” he said. “I'm Detective Reginald Dempsey with the SAPD's Homicide Unit. This is my partner, Lily Harris.”

  “Homicide?” The man looked at both of us in turn.

  “Homicide,” Chunk said. “Who are you?”

  “I'm Dr. Walter Cole,” the man said, regaining a little of his superior edge. “I'm with the Metropolitan Health District.”

  That explains the ambulance, I thought. He's using it as a rolling laboratory.

  The man stared at Chunk. “What in the world is SAPD Homicide doing in the GZ, Detective?”

  “How about you telling me what you're doing with a gun, Doc,” Chunk countered.

  Cole glanced at the weapon on his hip. He reached for it, but stopped with his hand on the grip when Chunk raised a fist to knock him out if he drew it. He continued to pull it out, but more slowly, and made an obvious show of handing it to Chunk, butt first.

  Chunk took it from him.

  “I use it on the chickens,” Cole said. “I have to collect a lot of specimens, and this way is quicker than the traps.”

  Chunk looked the weapon over, holding it so that I could see it. “Browning Hi Power,” Chunk said. “.22 caliber bull-nosed target pistol. Walnut grips. Blued barrel. That's an expensive weapon, Doc.”

  Chunk ejected the magazine and cleared the chamber, then handed it back to Cole. Cole took the weapon back and slid it into the clamshell. He put the magazine and the ejected round into his pocket. “It pays to use the best,” he said.

  “Why are you killing chickens, Doc?” The way it sounded, Chunk was teasing him, though I know him well enough to know that that's just Chunk's way. It was an honest question.

  Cole didn't seem to realize that. To him, Chunk was a big dumb cop insulting him.

  “It's complicated,” he said, with obvious sarcasm.

  “Try me.”

  Cole sighed, like we were a big waste of his precious time.

  “I am mapping the antigenic shift of the original strain of H2N2 in order to prove that not one, but three, highly virulent strains of the virus are at work here. First I find and kill chickens from various parts of the GZ. Then I perform a test on them to determine whether or not they are infected with the influenza virus. If I detect the virus, then I compare my new sample with the genetic fingerprint of archived samples and attempt to extrapolate the direction of the antigenic shift.”

  All of that was said in a matter of fact tone, but it was obvious that he was trying to talk over our heads, just to prove the point, I guess.

  Chunk cocked his head to one side doubtfully. “I see,” he said.

  “Yes,” Cole said, sneering. “Of course you do.”

  I stepped in at that point so that Chunk wouldn't squash the poor man.

  “Dr. Cole, we're here investigating the murder of Dr. Emma Bradley. What we're looking for—”

  “Who did you say?”

  “Dr. Emma Bradley. Do you know her? She was with the World Health—”

  “Yes, yes,” he said impatiently. “Yes, I know. The World Health Organization. She works with Dr. Myers and that fat, disgusting French woman at the Arsenal Morgue.”

  “That's right. How well did you know her, Dr. Cole?”

  “Well, I,” he began, but faltered. “Not well, I guess. By reputation, mostly. Whenever I go to Arsenal, it's Myers I prefer to deal with. He's a bit of an eager pup, but at least he's not as full of himself as the rest of those people.”

  “You said you know her by reputation, doctor. What exactly does that mean?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What was her reputation? Do you mean her professional reputation, or was there something else?”

  “She's Laurent's trained pit bull,” he said. “From what I hear, she was supposed to be the bright light of the bunch.”

  “You don't sound impressed,” I pointed out.

  He shrugged. “Dr. Laurent and I have fundamentally different views on the nature of this epidemic. She believes that her people need to focus on developing a live virus vaccine for the primary strain of H2N2. And there's a chance—a chance, mind you—that in six months they'll have a vaccine that will minimize the impact of the disease among the local population. But I believe they're ignoring the real danger.”

  “Really? What's the real danger?”

  I could hear him breathing through his gas mask, sudden, deep inhalations, like he was hunting for the right words. Finally, he said, “Did you know we lose 36, 000 Americans a year to influenza? I mean, not counting what's going on here in San Antonio.”

  I shook my head.

  “We do. It's a staggering number. And the really scary thing is most of those deaths are to mildly virulent strains of the flu. Pedestrian stuff, at least compared to H2N2. What we've experienced here in San Antonio over the last few months is the most virulent strain of the flu ever seen. That's the strain Dr. Laurent and her staff are trying to produce a vaccine for. But I have found evidence here, in the chickens wandering these yards, of two newly reassorted strains of H2N2 that make what we've seen so far look like the common cold.”

  “You reported your findings?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I've reported my findings.”

  “And?”

  “And the problem is simple prejudice.”

  He said it like it explained everything, which of course it didn't.

  “I don't understand, Dr. Cole,” I said.

  He let out a frustrated sigh. This was an old argument for him, something he'd explained and complained about more times than he cared to remember. He pointed over our shoulders. “You see that orange warning notice on that light pole over there?”

  “Yeah,” I said. The MHD warnings were everywhere. You couldn't turn around without seeing one.

  “If you read the last warning, it says ‘Stay away from strange and foul smelling areas.’ That was added at the insistence of our fearless leader, Mr. Martin Klauser. The man's not even a doctor, for Christ's sake. He heads up the public health agency of the seventh largest city in America, and the man has no medical knowledge whatsoever. He's a homeopathic adviser, if you can believe that. He got his job because some city councilman owed him a favor. And now that idiot is overseeing this crisis. He put that warning on that notice because he still believes that diseases are caused by miasmatic vapors and not viruses. He's made the MHD a laughingstock in the medical community. Dr. Laurent and her staff see that kind of corruption and stupidity, and they think it must automatically extend to me as well. They don't even listen to what I have to say.”

  “But if you have proof?”

  “Yes, I have proof. But they won't even look at it. And meanwhile, the chickens in the GZ are shitting out little virus bombs all over the place. When the grackles come back to San Antonio in November, they're going to eat that shit from the ground and absorb one or even both new strains of the H2N2 virus. When that happens, the walls around this city won't do a bit of good. The grackles will take those new strains into rural northern Mexico, where there are no doctors, no hospitals, no resources to implement
a quarantine.

  “There's nobody but about 10 million poor as dirt Mexicans down there. They won't even have the resources to report the pandemic until it spreads so far out of control we'll never be able to deal with it. We're not going to be talking deaths in the thousands either. Not even in the tens of thousands. When those grackles hit northern Mexico, we're going to see deaths in the millions.

  “And that vaccine that Dr. Laurent and her staff have worked so hard on? It won't do a damn bit of good against those new strains. I'm trying to stop a global pandemic, here, and all that disgusting fat woman can do is sit in her trailer and ignore me.”

  One of the first things they teach you about interviewing people is to let them talk. Let the thread spool itself out. The challenge is to keep them on focus. Keep them talking about what you need.

  I was about to redirect our conversation when Dr. Cole did it for me.

  “Detective,” he said, “if you don't mind me asking, what exactly are you doing out here? You never told me that.”

  “We're looking for the van Dr. Bradley and her police escort were driving the morning she was killed.”

  “Yeah? Why are you looking out here?”

  I noticed the tone of his voice changing. First confused, then suspicious.

  “We were told that Dr. Bradley had been doing work here in the GZ for the last few days.”

  I couldn't see Cole's mouth, but from what I could see of his expression I figured it must have been hanging open in the shape of an O.

  “That surprises you?” I asked.

  “Yes. Very much, actually.”

  “Why?”

  “That's what I've been trying to tell you. Dr. Laurent and her staff are lab technicians. That's what they do. That's all they do. I've been trying to get them to come out here for weeks, and now you tell me they've been coming out here secretly.”

  I heard him let out a hot, frustrated sigh. “That figures. It's prejudice. Stinking prejudice.”

  I thought about telling him we were talking about somebody's life, and not his pride, but I didn't. Instead, I said, “You have no idea where Dr. Bradley was working while she was out here?”

  “None.”

  I looked at Chunk, who had more or less disconnected himself from the conversation, for some sign of what he wanted to do.

  He nodded towards the car.

  “Okay, Dr. Cole, thanks for your time. Would you mind if we called on you again? Familiar as you are with the GZ, you might be a big help.”

  He bowed his head, a strange looking gesture with his gas mask.

  “Listen,” I said, “if you do happen to see that van, could you give us a call? SAPD Homicide in the City directory.”

  “Sure,” he said. And then he turned and walked back to his ambulance without another word.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Chapter 11

  There is an ugly truth about wearing personal protective equipment, or PPE, as we call it in the business: What is difficult to put on is also difficult to take off. The biohazard space suits we'd been issued were gray, one-piece outfits with built-in booties and a hood. That went on first. Next you had to slip on the gloves, and those had to be sealed to the suit at the seam with duct tape. The last item you had to put on was the gas mask, which had to be properly seated and sealed so that no skin or hair was exposed.

  The first rule of wearing PPE is: DO NOT LET ANY SKIN SHOW.

  When all three parts—body suit, gloves, and gas mask—were properly worn, the wearer would theoretically be encased in a plastic cocoon that no germ or gas or liquid could penetrate. Inside, you were insulated.

  Of course, this also meant anything that happened inside the suit stayed inside the suit.

  At the end of the day, after going through decontamination, the whole outfit had to come off. When doing that, the rule was last on, first off, and the process was every bit as involved as getting into the stuff. You very quickly learned that once the entire outfit was on, you didn't take it off until you knew you wouldn't need it again that day.

  That was why there was a giant sign above the entrance to the locker rooms at the Scar that read:

  PLEASE PEE BEFORE YOU PPE

  LET'S KEEP THE GEAR CLEAN

  Unfortunately, very few people can make it through a 14 hour day without relieving themselves, and, well, sometimes...

  I sat in the passenger seat next to Chunk and crossed my legs. Uncrossed them. Shifted around a little. Thought to myself, Master it, master it. You don't have to pee. You don't have to pee.

  I had to pee.

  Finally I couldn't take it anymore and tried to look casual, like I wasn't really doing what I was really doing.

  I thought to myself, I'm glad I obeyed the second rule of PPE: NEVER WEAR NICE CLOTHES UNDER PPE.

  Chunk and I were playing a hunch. We figured that anybody going into the GZ was going to focus on the area around Mrs. Villarreal's house for the simple reason that it was such a significant landmark.

  We idled through those streets at five miles per hour or so, looking carefully at everything we passed. The streets were lined with oak trees, large and unmanaged, and beautiful in their own way. But the homes behind them were also old and in disrepair. They looked shabby. We saw a few rickety two-stories, but most of the homes were small gray shacks, fronted by yards littered with old cars, busted furniture, and every kind of accumulated garbage.

  “Looks like a good place to dump a vehicle,” Chunk said.

  “Yeah. I was thinking the same thing.”

  We drove on, still looking, and I was surprised at how many of the houses didn't have doors. Strange, I thought. Why take the front doors? What could you possibly want with somebody's front door?

  “I think your friend back there was kind of an asshole,” Chunk said.

  “He certainly was a man with a mission.”

  “Why do suppose hippo woman didn't tell us about Dr. Strangelove back there when we asked her what Bradley was doing out here.”

  “I wish you would stop calling her that.”

  “What?”

  “You know what. Hippo woman.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I'm gonna end up calling her that by mistake the next time we see her.”

  Chunk laughed. It sounded like a cough behind the mask.

  “Seriously, though. What do you think the deal is there?”

  I thought about that for a second, wondering if it was me, or if there really was someone watching us from the houses out there.

  “Maybe Cole's right about the prejudice part. I mean, I don't hang around with doctors or anything, but I've seen the way they treat people from the MHD. It's like they're second class citizens.”

  “So you think maybe Cole's on to something and Laurent thinks there's a chance he may be right?”

  “Maybe.”

  “So what? She sends her star player out to check it out?”

  “Possible,” he said. “But it sounds like a bunch of unnecessary politics to me.”

  I didn't answer him right away. One of the houses on my side of the street was missing a door, and I was pretty sure I saw a guy standing inside, watching us from the shadows.

  But when I looked again, the doorway was empty.

  “Yeah, well,” I said, “things are the same all over I guess. Tribes within tribes. That kind of nonsense. Remember when the lieutenant had us take the Resendez case away from the Stranger Rapes guys over at Sex Crimes? It's the same thing here. It's a high profile deal and everybody wants to be able to put it on their resume.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  I saw a flash of movement. A man ran between two houses off to my right.

  “Chunk,” I said.

  He heard the tone in my voice and slammed on the brakes. “What?”

  “Look there,” I said.

  The man was gone.

  “What?”

  “Somebody just ran between those houses over there.”
<
br />   Chunk leaned over me, trying to see. “Where?”

  “Chunk!”

  Ahead of us, a young Hispanic guy in his early twenties, dressed in a blue t-shirt and jeans and no protective gear of any kind was running into the street, coming at the front of our car, waving his hands over his head like he was trying to flag us down.

  He was shouting something.

  “Chunk?”

  “Not good,” he said, and glanced into the rearview mirror. We both felt it. Like it was a trap.

  Chunk put the car in reverse.

  The man was still coming at us, still waving, when we heard the pop of gunfire. A moment later, we heard the zing of a shot glancing off metal. Off the hood of our car. More pops came from off to our right. The windows shattered. Chunk stomped on the gas and we lurched backwards down the street.

  Suddenly gunfire erupted all over my side of the street. I could feel the bullets thudding into the side panels, rocking it with the force of all those impacts. As I ducked my head down, I saw the white spurts from the muzzle flashes.

  I screamed.

  The car rocked to Chunk's side of the street, both of the tires on my side shot out. The man who had tried to wave us down was firing at us then, and bullets slapped into the hood of the car.

  Over the rolling bark of the guns, I heard something snap and then slap the inside of the engine compartment, and the car rolled uselessly to a stop.

  Chunk opened his door and spilled out, keeping his head low.

  “Come on,” he yelled at me, his hands ready to grasp mine and pull me out of his side of the car if necessary.

  I didn't need the help. I scrambled across the seats and poured out of the car on my hands and knees. We both crawled to the grass, got to a crouch, and ran for the cover of some oak trees and the corner of a nearby house.

  Bullets whistled all around us, slicing through the limbs of trees and foliage and smacking into the sides of the house. Behind us I heard angry shouting, crazy voices, like madmen on the war path.

  Chunk and I ducked behind a small flight of concrete stairs and listened to the shouting, trying to figure a way out.

  “Who are those guys?” I asked Chunk. My breathing was so fast my lungs felt like they were on fire.