“Orders, Major.” Ribbesh sounded like a miserable child who was being punished. She wondered what he had done to get on the one-star’s bad side. “So … would you recommend full Biosafety Level Four protection?”
She laughed before she could stop herself, but cut it off quickly. No need to insult the man. “Not if you remain outside the hospital confines, sir. If you want to come in, then definitely.”
Too late. He sounded very insulted. “All right, then. Thank you, Major. I will see you soon.” He emphasized her rank just enough to let her know that he was pissed.
“I’ll be here, sir.”
“I’m sure you will.” The line went dead.
She replaced the receiver and scrubbed her hands over her face, trying to push away the fatigue, the heaviness in her eyes and muscles and brain. In the drawer of her desk she found half a Butterfinger bar in its crumpled yellow wrapper. It might have been left over from the day before, or from some other, more distant time. She wasn’t sure. She gobbled it anyway and washed it down with a cup of the mud that passed for coffee here.
“Time to go, Major.” She pushed herself up and headed for Ward A.
• • •
They were no longer sending battle wounded into her hospital, of course, nor was Terok releasing any except under the strictest BSL-4 protocols. They had sent out infected soldiers before they understood what was going on, but there was no point in dwelling on that. Done deal. The four cases in A were the last to come in before ACE was identified. Two spec 4s, Ligety and Mayweather; Corporal Dancerre; and Sergeant Bighawk. All admitted initially with wounds—gunshots, fortunately, rather than blast damage—and all subsequently infected with ACE. She always began with the most serious first, and that was Sergeant Dane Bighawk, a twenty-four-year-old full-blooded Sioux from Nebraska. He had taken two AK rounds, one in the big right quadriceps muscle, the other in the right lower abdomen midway between his navel and his hip joint. Both were clean through-and-throughs. The thigh wound was nothing serious, but the abdominal wound was—or could have been. Passing through Bighawk’s body, the bullet had nicked his colon, cutting a dime-sized opening. That hole should have leaked fecal matter, which would have virtually ensured the onset of peritonitis.
But Bighawk had been lucky—if you could call taking two AK rounds lucky. The squadmate who had tended his wounds had stuffed in two tampons, just as DeAengelo Washington had done for Father Wyman. No one knew which soldier first had the idea of using a tampon that way, but one thing was sure—they worked beautifully, being the perfect size and shape for bullet-wound battle dressings, and now every combat soldier carried some. The tampon in Bighawk’s abdomen had stopped serious bleeding from that wound site and had also occluded the breach in his colon. Stilwell had explained that, and Bighawk had thought about it for a second. “So it kept the stuffing in the sausage.”
She’d laughed. “An unscientific but perfectly accurate description, Sergeant.”
That was the good news. The bad was that twenty-four hours after being wheeled in, Bighawk began to show the first signs of ACE infection: spiking temperature, dropping blood pressure, searing sore throat, generalized pain. Lesions appeared about six hours after that, and now, a day later, the raw, red patches were spreading. Colistin was slowing ACE’s burn through the young soldier, but not stopping it.
Stilwell walked quietly to his bedside. Bighawk was sleeping, thank goodness, the IV ketamine still working. She watched, listened to, and timed his respiration, took his pulse—still strong and regular—and felt his forehead. The fever was up. She’d use a digital thermometer, of course, but she remembered exactly how warm his forehead had felt four hours earlier, and it was definitely hotter now.
Bighawk’s eyes opened, drooped, opened again. “Mom?” He blinked, looked at her from far away in a ketamine haze, yawned, then grimaced because that motion stretched one of the lesions on his left cheek. Relaxing again, he smiled up at Stilwell, reached for her hand. “Mom? What’re you doin’?” He dozed off.
I need you awake, Stilwell thought. She put her hand on his muscular shoulder, squeezed softly, and his eyes opened again. This time he recognized her. “Hey, Doc. How’re you doin’? I was just havin’ a dream.”
“About your mom, right?”
His eyebrows went up. “How’d you know that?”
“We doctors have secret powers, Sergeant. We can read minds.”
He chuckled. “You’re kiddin’, I know, Doc. Must’ve been talkin’ in my sleep. But we Sioux know medicine people do have special powers. Some of the stuff I saw as a kid on the rez … Unbelievable.”
He closed his eyes, coughed, and Stilwell heard the pneumonic rattle in his chest. What I wouldn’t give, she thought, for some real special power.
“So how’m I doin’, Doc?”
Bighawk kept a brave face, but she could see the fear in his eyes.
“You’re doing, Sergeant. That antibiotic I told you about is retarding the bacteria’s spread.”
“But you got no cure for it, right?”
“Not now we don’t. But every lab and scientist at the government’s disposal is working around the clock. They’ll find one. Trust me.”
“I do trust you, ma’am. Not much else, but you for sure.”
Bighawk’s words were like a lance through Stilwell’s chest. She was the only thing standing between this good young man and a slow, agonizing death, and despite her reassurance, Stilwell was not at all certain that the government could find a cure for ACE. She wasn’t at all certain of anything just now.
Two hours later, groggy with fatigue but needing to do one more thing, she went to her cubbyhole office, closed the door, and booted up her laptop. She wanted to write an email before catching an hour’s sleep. She had written one to her husband and son during her last break. She wrote in time-saving email pidgin:
Hey ther hows it going Vry cool here and little rain. sorry not been in bttr tuch bt crazy bsy jst now Wld love 2 hear frm u talked to momdad? Shoot me an eml catch me up
SIS
It wasn’t much but she had learned, through long experience, what would slip through the censors’ nets. No mention of combat, no specific locations, nothing about casualties or material shortages or morale problems. Just Chatty Cathy stuff. But at least it was something, and maybe her sister would answer this time. It had been a long time since Mary had answered one of her emails, but Stilwell was not the kind to quit trying. She hit the Save button and put this email into her Outbox folder with the others she’d been writing, but could not send, since the ACE horror had begun.
ON THE MORNING OF THE DAY HALLIE AND HER TEAM BOARDED their flight from Andrews to Reynosa, Don Barnard poured coffee in Lew Casey’s office. Barnard took his coffee black and strong, and still he grimaced when he took a sip.
“Toxic sludge,” he said.
Casey, wearing wrinkled chinos, battered loafers, and a plaid shirt with no tie, raised his own cup in a toast. “Navy coffee. Keeps the brain sharp.” Barnard knew about Casey’s affinity for “Navy coffee.” He had gone to Annapolis, done his five years on active, and realized he loved microbiology more than nuclear engineering. Resigned from the Navy, got his PhD, tried private enterprise long enough to dislike it intensely, and came to CDC, where he had been now for more than twenty years. He and Barnard had worked together for most of that time. Toward each other they behaved more like brothers than like supervisor and subordinate. “The hours you’ve got us working, we need it.”
“I know, and I’m sorry.” Barnard took out his cold pipe, fiddled, put it back in his vest pocket. “We’re stretched thin. And it’s going to get worse before it gets better. But we are probably the best hope for stopping this thing.”
Casey waved the apology away. “It’s not often I get the chance to beat up on you a little.”
“How are you holding up, Evvie?” Barnard turned his attention to Evelyn Flemmer, the other person in Casey’s cramped office.
“I’m one of tho
se people who hate to sleep, sir. I can’t stand wasting all those hours unconscious. So thank you for asking, but I’m doing fine.”
Flemmer had called him “sir” during their first meeting, and he had waved the honorific aside with a laugh. She had blushed, giving him the impression, which time had done nothing to diminish, that she was unusually shy. “I’m sorry. It’s a hard habit to break. My parents were big on proper manners, sir,” she had said, flinching as she helplessly pronounced that last “sir.” Barnard, raised in Virginia himself, knew that some southern parents still brought their children up the old way, which included respect for elders and for courtesy, as well—all in all, not such a bad thing. An upbringing like that could make the use of “sir” and “ma’am” virtually reflexive.
“I understand,” he had told her and then, curious, had asked, “Were you raised in the South, by any chance?”
“Well, sort of, sir. Southern Oklahoma.”
“Close enough.” Barnard had smiled, and that was how they had left it.
Evvie Flemmer was one of Casey’s best research scientists. Perhaps even the best who had worked for him, he had told Barnard. She was short and a bit stout and her wardrobe, as far as Barnard had been able to tell, was exclusively J. C. Penney. Today she wore a brown dress whose hem hung below her knees. Her legs dropped without a single curve into the practical black flats she wore every day. She used no makeup and kept her brown hair in a short blunt cut, easy to wash, easy to dry. She rarely smiled and Barnard had never heard her laugh, but neither was she openly angry or cynical. Just very, very serious, was how he eventually came to think of her.
Barnard knew that Flemmer was thirty-eight years old, single, and lived alone. She was brown-eyed and pale-skinned, not from Irish heredity, like Casey, but from spending virtually every waking hour in BARDA’s laboratories. In all his time in government, Barnard had encountered only one or two scientists more dedicated to their work, and those people had not been paradigms of mental health.
In fact, a few months after she arrived, Barnard grew concerned over her endless hours in the labs and said something to Casey about her life outside BARDA. Casey shrugged. “What life?” Then he added, “I worried a bit at first, too, Don. But I think Evvie is happiest when she’s doing science. I keep an eye on her, but she’s fine.”
“I envy you,” Barnard said now, raising his cup in her direction. “These days, I feel like a slug if I don’t get six or seven hours a night. Eight is better.”
“Hell, Don, we were the same way when we were young and full of beans like Evvie,” Casey said, patting Flemmer’s shoulder.
Flemmer blushed. Barnard knew that Casey and his wife, Adell, had never had children and, as devout Catholics, they’d found the barrenness especially painful. So Lew had a tendency to “adopt” some of the younger people who worked under him. His paternal feelings for Evvie Flemmer were right there on his shirtsleeve.
Barnard liked her, too. Not the way he liked Hallie, of course. Hallie was special. She operated on a higher level than other people, and it was pleasantly contagious. Being with her was like being near one of those generators that resembled giant lightbulbs and made your skin tingle. In her presence, Barnard found his brain working more quickly, his speech sharper, his feelings brighter. An old scientist mentor, now long since retired, had once said to Barnard early in his career, “Don, there are two kinds of people in this world: chargers and drainers. The rare ones lift you up; the others suck you down.” Hallie was a charger. He missed her every day.
“Were we?” Barnard shook his head. “I’m not sure I ever had your kind of stamina, Evvie.”
“You must have, sir.” Flemmer shrugged, held both palms up. “Or else you couldn’t have accomplished so much.”
“You flatter an old man.”
“No flattery in truth, sir.”
Casey chuckled and patted her shoulder again, and she blushed again. “Evvie has a fine way with words, don’t you think? For a scientist, I mean.”
Flemmer waved the compliment away, saying, “Oh, stop now, Dr. Casey …” She was looking down at her shoes, so Barnard could not see her expression, but in her voice he heard something he could not quite name. The slightest hint of dissonance, it did not sound like the undertones produced by a smile. He had witnessed this kind of interaction before, and always came back to how shy she was. He understood that praise must have felt wonderful at some level but must have been almost painful at another, drawing attention as it did. So he decided to rescue her with a subject change.
“I just came down to …” His voice trailed off. He had wanted to get out of his office, be closer to the action, try to help in some meaningful way. But he felt silly saying it out loud.
Casey came to his rescue.
“To get a report on your progress.”
Barnard sipped the muddy coffee, swallowed, grunted. “Yes. And with some news. We’ve just received viable ACE cultures from overseas.”
“Devil in a bottle.” Casey was listening more intently now.
“Yes. As you know, the other two lab groups are trying to synthesize moonmilk and conjure a new antibiotic.”
“Not having much luck, from what I hear.”
“That’s right. I’d like you and your people to have a go at disrupting ACE’s genetic codes.”
Casey sat forward. “When can we start?”
“Today.”
“We’ll go on double shifts. Eight to four, four to twelve, rotating teams through.”
Casey looked tired but willing. Flemmer looked suddenly energized, like a dog presented with fresh meat. Good sign, Barnard thought. She’s still hanging tough. If you worry about anyone, worry about Lew. The emphysema, last year. Like Barnard, Casey had been a smoker—unfiltered Camels, a holdover from his Navy days. Unlike Barnard, Casey had smoked until the previous year, when he was diagnosed with emphysema. It was not yet crippling, but it was debilitating.
“We’ll get it done, Don.” Casey stood up, drained the dregs of his coffee. “Won’t we, Evvie?” He patted her affectionately on the forearm. She blushed again, but nodded vigorously.
“We absolutely will, sir.” She stood, squared her shoulders, tried to smooth her hair. “When exactly does that ACE get to us, sir?” she asked Barnard.
“Should be down to Four within the hour.” Biosafety Level 4, sanctum sanctorum, where only the most lethal pathogens were caged. Barnard hesitated. “Look, I know I don’t have to tell either of you this. But please be careful. This is a bacterium like nothing we have ever seen. It might as well have come from Mars. Christ, maybe it did come from Mars. You know what it can do.”
Casey and Flemmer nodded, said nothing.
“I want every BSL-4 protocol observed absolutely. Time is of the essence, but we cannot afford shortcuts.”
“We understand. Delta 17 will be tight.”
“All right then.” Barnard set his cup down, half the coffee still in it. He stood, turned toward the door. Flemmer’s voice interrupted him.
“Sir, I just want to say, to you both, thank you. Working on Acinetobacter in this crisis is the opportunity of a lifetime. There is no way I can ever thank you enough. For your faith in me.”
It was so uncharacteristic of the woman that Barnard stared briefly. Flemmer’s eyes were glistening and her voice sounded sincere rather than erratic. Barnard himself might not have put it that way—the opportunity of a lifetime—but he understood what she meant. What mattered was her commitment. And that, Barnard knew, was total.
BOWMAN HALTED HALLIE AND THE OTHERS JUST INSIDE THE forest tree line, beyond which lay a smooth, green meadow bordered on both sides by towering mountain pines. It was shortly after dawn. They all gathered around Bowman, and Hallie whispered to the team.
“There it is.”
The cave mouth was two hundred yards away, at the left end of the meadow as they stood facing it.
“The mouth of that thing is unbelievable,” whispered Haight. “You could fly a 747
through it. I have never seen a cave mouth that big.”
“As I said earlier, there’s nothing normal about this cave,” Hallie whispered back.
Between them and the cave, also on the left side of the meadow at the tree line’s edge, was a cenote, a circular sinkhole filled with water. From long experience, Hallie knew that such holes were common in cave country, and that sometimes they connected through subterranean chambers to the main cave itself. She had never had the chance to dive this cenote, so she had no way of knowing if this one made such a connection.
Bowman led them along, sheltering inside the tree line, past the cenote’s edge. This was a big one, 250 feet in diameter. It resembled a great cistern, with horizontal layers of gray limestone—karst, geologists called it—forming the walls.
“How deep, do you think?” Bowman, voice low.
Hallie answered, “Could be hundreds of feet. Or thousands.”
Arguello said, “The ancient Cuicatecs used these as their primary water supplies. Unfortunately, they also dumped human sacrifices into them. They poisoned their own wells. It was one of the things that led to their demise.”
Minutes later, they stood far enough inside the cave mouth to be invisible from without. Chilling wind blew from the ancient depths.
“He is breathing.” Arguello’s voice was reverent, as though he were speaking in a great cathedral. “One reason why Cuicatecs and others believe that caves are alive.”
“You could also say that diurnal pressure and temperature changes move air in and out,” Haight said. “I’m not sayin’ y’all’s Cuicatecs are wrong, now. But there is some science to it, too.”
“Yes, but there is much more,” Arguello said. “For example—”
Bowman had been caching his FAFO weapon and pistol, covering them completely with rocks. He straightened up and detached the NVDs from his helmet. “We won’t need these for a while, and every ounce we can take off our backs will help. Let’s cache them here.”
Five minutes later they were finished. Bowman said, “From now on, we will be observing strict light discipline. That means one helmet light on for travel or tasks. Otherwise, everything off to conserve battery power.” He looked at Hallie. “We need to move. We’re in a race with that bacterium, and right now ACE has a big head start. Hallie will take the point. She has a map based on notes from the other expedition and she’s been in here before. I’ll follow her. Next, Al, Rafael, and Ron, in that order. Maintain visual contact at all times with those in front of and behind you. Questions?”
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