by Bobby Adair
Millie grimaced and returned her face to a wrinkled calm. “So are you the new Larry?”
Paul nodded. “I’m Paul.”
“You look familiar.”
“I get that a lot. I have a plain face. People always think they’ve seen me before.”
“That’s not it.” Millie examined Paul more closely. “You look like a nicer fellow than Larry.”
“I get that a lot, too. Listen, I don’t know how much Larry told you or didn’t. But neither of us is running the show here. It’s Captain Asshole in the camp here. He makes the rules. I just do what he tells me.”
“Ain’t that the truth for everybody?” Millie cackled. “Some things never change.”
“Good.” Paul looked around. “I’ll bring out the contraband boxes and put them in your truck. You get the payment. Anything different about how you and Larry handled things that I should know about?”
Millie shook her head. “I’ll go get your pay.”
Once they’d taken care of their exchange, Millie said, “There’s something your captain fellow doesn’t know about.”
“I’m sure he knows. Larry’s not a bright guy. I don’t think he kept anything hidden from the Captain.”
“You know about the books then?”
Paul laughed. “Maybe I’m wrong. What books?”
“I’ve been bringing some books to Larry. He trades them for things. Two bags of plasma for a box of books.”
“So that’s how the books get into camp.” Paul sighed. “I don’t have an extra bag of plasma. If I’d known up front, I’d have brought you some bags. It’s damn hard to get good reading material in here. Do you know who Larry trades the books to?”
Millie shook her head.
“That’s okay. I think I know.” Paul looked at the two boxes of books sitting near the back of Millie’s nearly empty trailer. “I’d offer to buy the books from you on credit for plasma next time, but I don’t know if I’m as sneaky about this stuff as Larry was. I might get busted and end up in a cage.”
“A cage?”
Nodding, Paul said, “Yeah, they keep most of the volunteers in cages in the old missile silos.”
“I knew things were bad in there.” Millie grimaced again. “Cages?”
Paul nodded. “They’ve got wards built on the north side of the camp for the really bad-off Ebola patients they bring in and the ones who show up at the gate, even though the East Denver Internment Center is supposed to be a secret. I’m under the impression most of those people die. They burn bodies out by the east fence every night. I think most of the guards and contractors stay in those modular apartments up past the wards. People like me, well, I sleep in a bed where I work. I get threatened from time to time. I get ignored a lot.”
“That’s a shame. What’d you do to get stuck in here?”
“They said they mailed me a notice to show up for donations.” Paul laughed. “Then they came to my house and arrested me. Now I’m here.”
“Why didn’t you just show up and donate?”
“I didn’t know I got the letter.” Paul thought back to the day the cops had broken into his townhome. He remembered that he’d just come back from taking Heidi’s body to the mass grave.
“You okay, honey?” Millie put a hand on Paul’s arm.
“I’m sorry.” Paul took a breath to steady his emotions. “I’d just buried my wife. I guess she checked the mail. I don’t even know where the mailbox key is.”
“We all lost people.” Millie let go of Paul’s arm and stepped back to the legal distance. “That’s how it is for everybody now. We just have to get through the day, you know.”
Paul nodded.
“Why don’t you take those two boxes? If you can get me a bag for them, then good. If not, don’t get yourself in trouble over it.”
“Just one? I should have bargained harder to start with.” Paul looked at the boxes wondering what strings might be attached if he couldn’t pay for them. “Thanks. We really appreciate it.”
“How’d Larry get you mixed up in this?”
Paul laughed harshly. “Some story about his sister’s kids and all the sick kids at their school.”
“Larry can spin some whoppers, I tell you.” Millie cackled. “I could tell you some stories about Larry and his partner that would make you sick to your stomach.”
Paul stopped, in surprise. The longer he knew Larry, the more he suspected that he was more than just a liar looking to make a buck off of other people’s suffering. “Like what?”
“Larry’s a braggart, so I guess I can’t say all he told me was true. I guess some of it was, or at least, had a grain of truth. You know the type.”
Paul nodded.
“I guess the thing that turned my stomach the most was hearing Larry tell stories about how he and his buddy Jimmy were the first ones who started selling plasma.”
Paul picked up one of the boxes of books and moved it out of the truck. “How’s that? You mean Larry was here at the detention center?”
“No. Early on in the epidemic. He said they got it from people who got better. One time when he was trying to get me to behave, Larry even implied that he and Jimmy even killed some people, and it wouldn’t bother them to do it again.”
“Killed some people? Early on?” Paul froze. He thought about the girl who’d lost most of her blood in his clinic. He thought about how her pallor matched Heidi’s. He jumped to a conclusion that was mostly speculation, and he felt rage running through his veins.
“You all right honey?”
Chapter 46
Late in the day, the flight out of Djibouti put them over the Gulf of Aden almost immediately. The straits that divided Djibouti from Yemen and Africa from Asia ran north of them to the Red Sea. Three hundred miles up the coast on the Saudi shore of the Red Sea, the remains of Najid Almasi’s bombed-out compound sat empty of gold and silver but scattered with broken bodies decomposing in the sand.
The V-22 Osprey stayed over the water well south of Yemen for a few hours. Conversation in the rear of the aircraft was near pointless though some of the Marines spoke from time to time in raised voices. Mitch napped. Austin kept to himself resting an arm on the cooler of samples strapped into what passed for a seat next to his. His new M-16 bounced on his knees when the turbulence buffeted the aircraft. Austin wasn’t concerned that the weapon might go off. It was empty, as was his pistol. All ammunition for both was in Mitch’s backpack. The Marines didn’t mind that Austin carried loaded weapons when he was on the ground. They weren’t going to tolerate it in the air. Austin felt emasculated but understood. With a seat facing one of the few windows on the aircraft’s port side, Austin was able to see outside. It gave him something to look at to take his mind off of his empty weapons.
Two Royal Air Force of Oman F-16s came into view when the Osprey veered north toward the coast. They kept a respectable distance and circled above when the Osprey landed in Salalah to refuel. Nobody was allowed to get off, not even to walk around on the tarmac while they waited to take off again. The Marines on board grumbled and peeked out the windows, but not one exited the craft. As Mitch explained, that was one of the rules the Omanis insisted upon.
Soldiers in a Humvee-style vehicle were parked halfway down the runway, but they seemed satisfied to keep their distance and observe. Austin guessed more military vehicles were out there where he couldn’t see. A fuel truck came up close to the V-22 and handled the task of pumping the Osprey full for the next leg of the trip.
After takeoff the pilot kept the aircraft over the water again as they traced the southern coast of Oman, slowly veering north.
After a few hours back in the air the Osprey leaned into a turn to the northwest. Mitch told Austin they were over the Gulf of Oman and were getting close to Muscat.
Tired of sitting in noisy boredom, Austin took up a position standing in front of the window and looking out. He hoped to see the destroyer waiting on the Ebola samples steaming below, but the sun was already behin
d the mountains. The ocean was an empty, deep blue, turning darker with the coming night. Pearls of light sparkled along the coast, some in clumps, some alone in the shadow. Muscat’s lights were clusters of stars in patches of gray grid, buildings, apartments, roundabouts, and roads, evidence of a million souls who’d once looked out their windows at the morning sun rising out of the sea. Muscat was a dying city sprinkled with little hopes of light.
With no permission yet to board the destroyer, Austin didn’t know what to think about the situation. As the temptation to get back to the US dangled just out of his reach, he grew to want it more. He grew to think of home in terms of what it had been like when he’d left—safe, tidy, comfortable. But that was all in his heart. In his head, he knew that was an expired truth.
The Osprey started its descent.
An ashen stink crept into the aircraft. Austin recalled the pyre he’d seen in Mbale the day he’d arrived looking to get help for the Ebola victims still in Kapchorwa. He thought about Mitch’s stories of the devastation in Nairobi.
Fires burned in the desert mountains behind Muscat. Oman was still burning its dead.
Chapter 47
The Osprey leveled off at a few hundred feet and closed in on the coast. Austin saw the pair of F-16s pass overhead as he stepped away from the window and seated himself. He figured the Osprey would land within minutes.
Mitch was having a conversation with Marty, the other man from the CIA. As soon as Mitch saw Austin was in his seat, he came over and grabbed a piece of framework to steady himself as the aircraft bucked. He leaned in close and yelled, “Change of plans.”
“How’s that?”
“We’re not offloading in Muscat. We’ll fuel up. The Omanis have given permission for us to offload about fifty miles up the coast in a little town near the border. Maybe an hour’s drive from Dubai.”
Austin understood.
“You’ll get out here with the samples.”
Austin’s first thought was that he needed to get his ammunition from Mitch’s backpack.
“The new airport here is still under construction but it’s right on the coast. A highway and a golf course separate it from the water. We’ll be setting down at the end of a runway near all of the construction buildings, at the end closest to the highway.”
Austin nodded again.
“I’m not going with you,” said Mitch. “I don’t know if Olivia managed to convince the Navy to take you on board. Don’t get your hopes up. The destroyer sent a launch to meet you on the beach. If they take you,” Mitch extended a hand to shake Austin’s, “maybe we’ll get together for a beer back in the States one day. If not, you’ll come back to the Osprey.” Mitch pointed at two Marines sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the other side of the aircraft. “Those two will accompany you and the samples. The Omanis have a car waiting. No driver. Whether you get on the boat or come back, there’ll be plenty of time before we finish refueling.”
Austin looked around at Marty, Mitch, and the Marines. “Good luck to you guys, too. If I were Najid Almasi and knew all you guys were coming to get me, I’d be pissing my pants.”
Mitch grinned and chuckled. “Let’s hope he doesn’t find out.”
“How far to the beach?” Austin asked.
“Quarter mile as the crow flies. Maybe a mile by the time you work you way across the highway and through the golf course.”
“Okay. Will I get my ammunition?”
Mitch smiled. “I’ll get off with you and load you up before you head out. You can return the magazines to me if you come back on board.”
The Omanis were friendly with Western countries. No trouble was expected. Still, Ebola had changed the world. Austin was stepping off an aircraft into a strange country in the dark with no knowledge of what might be nearby. Austin’s stomach fluttered. He was glad he’d have loaded magazines for his M-16 and pistol.
“You’ll be fine,” said Mitch.
Austin put on a tense grin. “You can tell?
“You look a little nervous.”
“Just putting my game face on.”
“With any luck, you’ll be motoring across the Gulf of Oman on the way to a steak dinner before we get back in the air. One more thing—”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t physically contact anybody for any reason. You’re not carrying Ebola right now. If the Navy decides to pick you up, don’t bring any extra risk with you, you know what I mean?”
“They do know that is exactly what we’re doing, right?” Austin patted the cooler containing the samples.
“You know what I mean.” Mitch smiled again. He looked like he was feeling good. He looked like he was in his element.
Austin fell buoyed by Mitch’s attitude.
Chapter 48
On the bright side, Paul went through a full day with no deaths in his clinic. He’d drained the plasma required by the base commander to meet the production quota, and he’d doubled down on every volunteer to pump out what Captain Willard required. Silo K3 residents were going to be donating four bags of plasma every week until further notice.
None of that was on Paul’s mind, though. His anger was simmering as he spun up scenarios of how he would like to make Larry suffer. He imagined all the things he’d do to wrench a confession out of Larry because Paul knew in his heart that Larry and whoever the hell this Jimmy scumbag was, they’d been responsible for Heidi’s death.
In the rational part of Paul’s mind he knew that probably wasn’t true. The odds of it being true were ridiculously high. When his head and his heart compared notes, it didn’t matter. Heidi had been murdered by blood-sucking shits like Larry and Jimmy. Them, people they knew, maybe their competitors. Killing those two might be the closest thing to justice Paul might ever get out of this life, and he was determined to take a big bite of that justice, savor it, and then choke it down.
When all of Paul’s duties for the day were finished, including making the drop at the warehouse, picking up payment from another trucker and taking all of that to Captain Willard’s hooch, Paul was free. It was around midnight. He didn’t take any time to linger in the grass outside the hatch that opened to the subterranean missile complex. He didn’t go down the rusty ladder to settle in for a handful of hours trying to sleep on a worn mattress with a thin blanket.
With a special list of supplies in his backpack, a dozen empty plasma bags, plenty of gauze, tape, tubing, and needles, Paul crossed the complex. He passed the giant slabs of reinforced concrete, the roofs of the silos. He passed stacks of modular apartments, each the size of a dumpster. Most of the soldiers slept there, as did the contractors and doctors. Plasma techs like Paul lived underground in the silos not far from the drainees they were in charge of exploiting.
No soldier Paul passed paid him much attention. He wasn’t wearing an orange jumpsuit. His dirty lab coat marked him as one of the medical personnel in camp. Paul was heading toward the infirmary building where he’d been told Larry was occupying a bed.
When Paul tried to enter the building he knew Larry was in, a guard surprisingly did stop him. He asked questions. He looked in Paul’s bag.
Paul was good at telling big lies by then. He’d practiced plenty after stumbling through the pitfalls after getting himself infected.
The lies worked and Paul found himself standing in a long, dimly lit building with three rows of fifty cots. Most of the beds were full. Patients groaned. Some snored. Plenty wheezed through bubbles of blood. The ward was more than the camp infirmary. Like every ward in every hospital in every city it served Ebola patients. Its primary purpose, like all the others in row upon row across the northern end of the camp, was to treat Ebola patients.
Its stink told stories of death.
The East Denver Internment Camp was the end of the line in nearly every imaginable sense. Patients transported there weren’t expected to live. The secret of its location having gotten out, many drove themselves to the gates or as near to the gates as they could get. Cars were stretc
hed for miles along the roads. They were parked in the pastures on the rolling hills. People came to the gates and begged for a bed. When beds were available, the people were let in for treatment. When no beds were available, people frequently died, bleeding out while leaning against the fence. Their bodies were collected and burned with all the camp’s other daily failures.
Paul wondered how many of the people he saw in the beds would be ash by the end of the week.
Paul walked up one aisle from the front to the back of the barracks. He looped around the end and came back down the other aisle. He found Larry about a third of the way back with a bed against an outside wall. Paul went to work.
Using straps he’d taken from the beds in his clinic, he secured the unconscious Larry to his bed, even going to the trouble to tie down Larry’s broken arm and leg. He stuffed one of Larry’s socks into his mouth. He hooked Larry up to an IV and started to drain his blood.
Paul searched next through the ward, looking for the Ebola victims who appeared to be closest to death who also happened to match Larry’s blood type. Each of those could spare a pint of virion-filled blood to trade for a pint of Larry’s antibody-rich blood. And who knew, maybe an extra serving of antibodies might save one or two of those lives.
Chapter 49
The Osprey set down on the runway. The engines kept the rotors spinning.
Mitch got to his feet as did the two Marines, weapons at the ready.
Austin stood as the back door of the Osprey folded down into a ramp. As anxious as Austin was to move, he still felt nervous.
Mitch went down the ramp first, with the Marines on his heels, all with weapons at their shoulders.
Once they were all on the concrete runway, Austin started after, but a hand reached up and grabbed his arm. He looked down at a Marine, who was nodding his head toward the cooler with the samples still in the seat.