In the morning, Ree’s face was morning smooth, and without thought Harry touched his fingers to her cheek. She smiled and held his hand there for a moment. They went downstairs to the restaurant to eat a breakfast of real scrambled eggs and bacon. The toast was whole wheat and thick. Hungry, Harry focused on consuming what was the best meal he’d had in days. He’d just finished that last little bit of egg and was just about to ask her what she wanted to do next, when he watched her gaze suddenly jerk to the door. He followed her glance and saw a large policeman walk into the room. Ree’s face paled, and she turned away. She ate faster.
“You ready to go?” she asked.
Harry considered. He looked at the policeman several tables away. “You really don’t like policemen, do you?”
She gave him a hard look. “I’d like to go out to that pavilion.”
They walked together. She even reached for his hand and took it in her own. The sun was coming up behind them over the top of the building. It was still a little dark over the water. On the other side from them was a large land mass, the features blurred.
The pavilion itself was made of huge beams of wood, and it creaked slightly in the breeze. They sat side by side and twisted around to see the water.
“I love the ocean,” she murmured. Harry tightened his grip on her hand. The water lapped gently against the pylons.
After a while, they stood, left the pavilion, and started to aimlessly stroll. Ree walked close to him. He put his arm around her and enjoyed the warm feel of her against him. It was a gorgeous day. For the first time in a while, he felt safe. Even the slight breeze felt soft against his face. Over the water, one seagull chased another, diving and swooping while calling out raucously.
The waterfront city street seemed to die in one direction. Harry looked for traffic and saw only a gray Mercedes with deeply tinted windows stopped near the hotel. He couldn’t see in to see if there were passengers, but it wasn’t coming their way. For a moment he wondered about such a luxury car parked in front of the hotel. There were luxury hotels just a few islands up. Why would a Mercedes be here? He felt the softness of Ree against him, watched a boat-tailed grackle land on the street. He shook his head. Time to relax and enjoy. They hadn’t been followed. The two crossed the street and started in the opposite direction.
There was little traffic. A jogger passed, all suited in gray sweats, a sweatband around his forehead. He looked hot despite the cool weather. Ree pressed a little tighter to him. The street was deserted now.
The gray Mercedes pulled up just inches from them. The door sprang open, almost slamming into him. Harry stepped back and pulled Ree close, felt her clutch his arm. A large man jumped out of the car, blocking their way. Heart racing, Harry turned and tried to pull Ree in the other direction.
The man stepped up in front of them. “Inside,” he commanded and motioned with a small pistol that was mostly concealed by his coat.
“You can’t just—” Harry moved to put himself in front of Ree.
The pistol came up further. “In the car and I won’t have to use this.”
Harry glanced around. There was nobody close enough to see them. The cop was nowhere in sight. Blood roaring in his ears, Harry got in the backseat. Ree followed him, her fingers digging into the flesh of his arm. The man got in next, the door slammed shut, and the driver pulled a U-turn and sped away.
William Andrews pressed the phone tighter to his ear. The call had wakened him.
“We’ll call you with the name of the new man. You’ll report directly to him. No independent action,” the voice on the other end of the phone said.
Andrews blinked. He cradled the phone with his shoulder and rubbed his eyes. What the hell was going on?
“Did you hear?” said the voice.
“Yes, I heard. Why this change?”
“Orders from on high. You know how it goes. Now just play it cool. Forget about this. You said yourself nothing was happening.”
Grasping the phone with his hand again, Andrews shook his head. “No, I don’t know what, but something is happening.”
“Then it’s not your problem anymore. Got it?”
Andrews slumped back against the backboard. “Yeah, sure. I get a call with a name. I report in. I sit in my hotel room until you call me back to DC.”
“That’s right. And no more calls to the doctors. The bio research has nothing to do with this.”
“No more calls,” Andrews repeated wearily.
The man on the other end hung up, and Andrews put the phone down. First nobody cared, and now he was being dragged back. What had happened? He stood and paced across the deeply carpeted floor. He looked out the window at a tall high-rise hotel that was blocking the first rays of the morning sun.
Eleven
The boardroom table stretched twelve feet long at least with a solid, pink-swirled marble top. A small bronze plaque on the end said the marble had come from Italy. The view from the wall-length window showed a wide expanse of downtown Atlanta, most of it far below the lofty height of the room. Rendon started out impressed, though he was still reeling from the news conference the day before. The offices of the Georgia Games had their own set of elevators in the elegant and spacious lobby. Now Rendon was meeting with George Achen, the millionaire entrepreneur who some said had single-handedly brought the games to Atlanta. Rendon could believe it as he attempted to meet the cold blue-eyed stare of the president of the Georgia Games Committee. The man’s eyes were hard, piercing, and seemed to have no mercy. The amiable down-home smile that always played so well on the news had disappeared.
“Doctor, are you saying that the CDC has no idea how this virus spreads? In fact, you aren’t even sure it’s a virus?” At the end, the soft voice raised with a slight hint of contempt.
“Mr. Achen, we have every reason to believe that it is a virus. As to the mechanism of spread…We’re not so clear. Typically, you would think airborne or perhaps contact with bodily fluids, like AIDS.”
“But you don’t know?”
“No, sir—”
Cougher interrupted. “We have an entire team of investigators working on the problem. With our notice to the doctors and ERs, we should be able to pick up some cases before the individuals die, isolate the antibodies, and identify the virus—that is, if this isn’t a one-time event that doesn’t repeat itself.”
“That is all hypothetical,” Achen said. “From the point of view of the games—not good enough. How do you propose to protect the athletes from this virus?”
“Well,” Rendon said, “we believe if we keep them isolated from the general public and keep the facilities antiseptic after contact with locals, then there should be little chance of exposure to the athletes.”
“You are suggesting that we build a wall between the athletes and the entire population? That the athletes are to remain, in essence, behind bars and nowhere near anyone? And how do you prevent accidental contact? And what happens if the virus gets into the population? Mass death?”
Rendon folded his arms across his chest. “Most of the time, the athletes are kept separate anyway for general security reasons, I would guess. We’re just suggesting that this separation be increased and additional monitoring be added.”
“And what about security and maintenance, maids—all the people necessary to run this operation. We’re supposed to keep them away, too, or hire from out of state? Jesus, Doctor, that’s impossible. We can’t prevent the chance of some minimal contact. And from what you don’t know, it sounds like one contact might be enough. Do you know what would happen if any of these athletes died? Atlanta—the United States—would be blamed. From a triumph, this would turn to blistering, dangerous ruin. An international scandal: we’d be accused of killing them—not protecting them at the least.”
“We really don’t think it’s necessarily true that the transmission would be that easy,” Cougher i
nterjected.
“Doctor, if you can’t be more definite, then we must consider canceling the games. That would mean the loss of tens of millions of dollars. I suggest you go back and find out what’s causing this and do it quickly. I’ll meet with the rest of the committee.” Achen stood. “I’ve made my wishes known to the president. You should have no problem getting additional resources if you need them. Find it and wipe it out. Good day, gentlemen.” He stood.
Cougher and Rendon rode down the elevator in silence. Finally, in the car on the way back to the health department, Cougher whistled. “Damn, that’s a hard-nosed man.”
Rendon laughed briefly. He felt stunned. Cancel the games? Millions would just be a part of it. “So what are we going to do?”
Cougher shrugged. His face was pale. “Beef up the teams. Throw more money at it. Hope. What can we do?”
With that, they became silent, Rendon lost in his own disastrous visions. He left Cougher at the meeting room that had become their headquarters and media briefing area and went to his own office. He wasn’t sure whether he felt depressed or angry or what. His gray mood was broken by the telephone.
“Dr. Rendon?”
“Yes.” Rendon leaned back in his chair. The voice wasn’t familiar. He didn’t have time for this.
“I have some facts you could use, and I’d like to trade it for some information. Will you work with me?”
“Who is this?”
“I’m sorry. That, I can’t tell you. You could tell people that I’m a friend of Elaine Gaines. But you and I are working toward the same ends. I want to see the mystery of this virus solved as much as you.”
Rendon doubted that. “I can’t give you anything confidential.”
“No need.”
“OK,” Rendon said. At the moment he had nothing to lose.
“You know that Gaines apparently died of the virus, as well as Woolbanks. What you don’t know is that the two are tied. Woolbanks went to cocaine parties that Gaines threw.”
“What? How did you learn this?”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s true. Is that valuable enough?”
Rendon leaned forward in his chair, putting one elbow on the desk, and began writing in his notebook. “Yes, that’s very valuable.”
“Then what I want to know is, could the virus have been spread through the cocaine?”
“Uh, I can’t imagine that. Cocaine is dry. It contains no living material. Theoretically, it would be impossible for any retrovirus currently known to stay alive for more than an hour or so in such a hostile environment.”
There was a moment of silence. “Suppose the cocaine was brought into the country inside an individual or animal that was infected with the virus. What then?”
“If the carrier was infected, and the cocaine came in contact with tissue or fluids, some of the living host cells could have contaminated the drug. That much could be possible, but wouldn’t that have been obvious? Besides, I think they normally don’t transport it directly in contact with the flesh. From what I’ve read in the papers, they usually use some type of plastic container.”
There was a pause. “What if the virus wasn’t one that was known or even near anything known? What if it was a product of genetic engineering?”
“Nobody’s even close to being able to do that,” Rendon said. “We would know if they were.”
“But it’s a possibility?”
“Anything’s possible, I guess.”
“Good then, Doctor. You’ve been helpful. I’ll keep you informed if I learn anything else.”
“Wait—”
The phone clicked dead. Slowly, Rendon placed it back on the hook and began doodling on a blank page of his notebook. A cocaine party—a common source of exposure, people together sharing food and implements used with the cocaine and who knew what else. The possible vectors were astounding—a virus transmission heaven. He dashed out of his chair and to the meeting room, where Cougher was moodily glaring at a map with red pins stuck in it.
Ferenzi looked down at the face of the man. It was wide. The nose had been broken several times. “Ask that question again,” Ferenzi said to the rented specialist.
The room was small, typical of a cheap motel of the Atlanta suburban ring. Next to the bureau a nondescript-looking man sat in a chair watching. Felder’s muscle man lay taped to the mattress. Sitting beside him was a man in a business suit. The man carried a black bag that sat next to him on the bed.
“OK, Billy,” he said in a soft persuasive voice. “What is it that you were supposed to learn from this Lee Abu when you tried to grab her at the college?”
The man looked up, his eyes confused. “Don’t know. Just find her, take her to Denny. That’s all. Take her. They thought she had something, but I don’t know what.”
Ferenzi shook his head with disgust. “Get rid of him. He doesn’t know shit.”
With that the other man, who had been sitting silently in the background, got up from his chair. The specialist took a syringe from his bag and injected the victim. Then the two of them began hauling the slackening body from the bed.
They opened the door, and checking both directions, they disappeared, closing the door behind them. Ferenzi sat down on the bed, picked up the phone, and dialed a number on the old rotary-style set.
“Foster?” he said into the phone.
Then he sat bolt upright. “Get to her place and search it thoroughly. Find whatever she had. Now. If you wait, that bastard will get there first. And have somebody slow him down if he tries to get over there. Damn, this is the break.
“For that matter, I’ll meet you over there. No roommates, right?
“Great. Take care of Andrews. Tell those fools in Jesup to find that girl, and then you meet me over there in half an hour.”
Ferenzi jumped from the bed, checked his holster, and was out the door.
In thirty minutes, he was in front of the door of a condominium on Roswell Road. The complex was well landscaped with plants, so well that there was some shadow in front of the door. The light was not on outside. The inside was dark behind thick curtains. Ferenzi’s guess was that the security system would be off since the woman had died. He also guessed that her possessions would still be pretty much intact. It had only been short days since the death. Relatives would have to be notified. Trips arranged.
The security was off. They found a half-empty baggie of white powder among the lingerie in the upstairs bedroom dresser. Before Ferenzi could think about it, Foster had touched a bit to his tongue. His face wrinkled up.
“Cocaine.” He shook his head. “And it packs something.”
They left hurriedly. Ferenzi let Foster carry the bag of drugs, whatever it was, and Ferenzi wondered about Foster. Had he just signed his death warrant?
The upholstery of the Mercedes was leather. There were no door handles or window controls. The inside of the door was a smooth, brown velvet. Harry sat next to a deeply tinted window. He watched miles of swamp pass. Next to him, Ree huddled close. The gunman sat rigidly upright on the other side. In front, another man, dressed in a casual sport coat, drove the car.
They had been driving down a small, unmarked road for ten or fifteen minutes. There were often large bodies of water on one side of the road or the other.
Harry had no idea where they were being taken. The man had answered questions by pointing the gun at Harry and telling him to be quiet.
After another ten minutes, they could see buildings ahead, dim structures against the horizon. Another turn onto an unmarked road, and they were driving into the garage of a large split-level house, seemingly built directly out of the marsh on a slight protuberance in the ground. It was surrounded by black water stuck through with reeds. Clouds had begun to blow up, obscuring the sun.
The door next to the gunman sprang open when the garage closed. Parked next to the car was a lar
ge gray van. The gunman got out and motioned for Harry and Ree to do the same. They were escorted by both men into the house and down a hall to a small den type of room. The taller guard told them to sit on the couch. He pointed with his gun.
Their guards left, and Harry got up to investigate. The first thing he noticed was a small video camera high on the wall in the corner. They were being observed. Above the doorframe a motion detector blinked red. The room itself was square with the walls filled with bookcases. Mostly books that Harry considered to be classic bores, ones he’d read in college and had no plans to reread. He pulled a couple out. They were dusty. On the far side of the room was a desk. He searched the drawers. They were empty. There was no phone. The room was for show only. Finally, he sat down beside Ree. She took his hand. He noticed she was trembling.
“You know, when I was a little girl, after what happened to my parents, I kept thinking it in my head, remembering, and it felt like it was happening. And I’d always dream I was going to die, never get old. Then for a while it went away. Last night I dreamed it again. And after I escaped from those men at State, it came back to me again, just like I was there. Being tied…”
She twisted around to stare directly into Harry’s eyes. Her face was expressionless. “But, I haven’t done anything.”
He put his arm around her. “You haven’t done anything,” he said. Her body was tight.
“Then why?” she said.
He shook his head suddenly, wanting all this to end, for this woman to no longer fear. “Don’t know,” was all he could say.
“Why does this keep happening to me?” Her eyes blazed anger and shone with tears that did not fall. “It’s going to stop,” she said.
He held her tighter. Her body was rigid against him.
The two guards returned and led them to a large living room. In the center was a freestanding fireplace with a silver chimney that went up to a vaulted ceiling. The floor was of solid oak and shone. They were motioned to sit down in front of the fireplace on a large beige couch. There were no other chairs or anything to sit on in the room. Both men took up places behind the couch.
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