by Ed Baldwin
“Who said you could drink beer?”
Boyd turned to see Angela, the nurse from the hospital, who had volunteered to come out each day to change Boyd’s dressing.
“Who said I couldn’t?” Boyd retorted, rolling from the lawn chair to his knees and standing with some difficulty. He’d been out of the hospital for only one day, and three days ago still had the chest tube. It hurt like hell to move quickly, but he tried to make it look effortless.
“Dr. Abbot was very clear about keeping that dressing on your back in place,” Angela said. “If that comes off, your lung might collapse again. Come inside and I’ll change it.”
She wore jeans and a white sweatshirt with “Lajes, Crossroads of the Atlantic” printed on the front.
“Agent Prescott, could you help me?”
Boyd was amused at this situation, where Angela was so careful about any appearance of impropriety when she came to change his dressing. Being alone with him in his bedroom seemed so innocent, especially in light of the routine on Chardonnay. Gamely, Pamela broke off her game with Donn and followed.
“There, you see that hole? That’s bone at the bottom of it.”
Angela was absorbed in changing the dressing and kept pointing out anatomical points of interest in Boyd’s back. Boyd was prone on his bed in the downstairs bedroom.
“I’m going back outside if you show me any more internal parts,” Pam said, holding a basin of warm soapy water while Angela washed off the accumulated blood and drainage.
“Who shot him?” Angela asked innocently.
Curiosity could be dangerous in this game, Boyd thought, and he stiffened for a moment, and then relaxed. Angela was read into their mission and had the security clearance, so keeping her in the dark wasn’t necessary.
“Constantine Coelho,” Pam said simply, reading Boyd’s body language.
“Dr. Abbot said most men would have died. You were … uh … stronger, I guess.”
Boyd knew she was blushing; he didn’t need to turn over to see it.
“He kept bleeding all night, but it was mostly from the muscle around that hole,” Pam said. “Just before dawn, we thought we’d lost him.”
Pam had seated herself beside Angela on the bed and was pointing at the exit wound in Boyd’s back.
“Shock?” Angela was fascinated now, no longer playing the role of expert.
“He’d been shivering and moving. He got blue and cold and just … laid there. He had a pulse, but it was slow.”
“What did you do?” asked Angela, who had been slowly washing the same spot during the conversation.
“We had this silvery plastic bag. It’s supposed to conserve heat. We stripped off his wet clothes and put him in there. When he didn’t warm up, I stripped off and got in there with him. We zipped it up and gradually he warmed back up and started moving again.”
“Oh. All your clothes?” Angela asked her voice very small. The washing continued in the same spot.
“Angela, you’re even more naïve than he is,” Pam said. “This man jumped in front of that gun and saved my life. Getting naked isn’t even interest on what I owe him.”
Pam laughed to break the tension of her suddenly passionate answer. “Besides, we didn’t have any secrets, did we big boy?”
“That explains my dream,” Boyd said quickly. “I dreamed I was in a hot tub with Betsy Rhoades, my best friend’s wife. She kept wrapping her legs around me and covering my face with her boobs.”
“Worked, didn’t it?” Pam laughed.
“Angela, some people were killed out there, and this mission is still hot. Get too close to us, you may have to join us for the next phase. Remember security,” Boyd said, sounding like Ferguson again.
“Oh, of course. I mean, if you need anything, please, anything. I could go if you need me.”
“Is that hole back there clean yet? I think I can feel wind blowing through it all the way to the front.”
“Oh, yes. Here, I’ll put some gauze back on it.”
Angela busied herself with Vaseline, gauze and paper tape.
Boyd rolled over, raised his right arm as far as he could and the left one over his head and stretched.
“What about this one?” he asked, pointing to the entrance wound over his right nipple, now pretty much healed.
Angela looked at the wound and then, unavoidably, into his eyes. The closeness was too intense, her blushing deepened and she stood.
“Well, that one looks good. I mean, better. I won’t need … uh … well, to put anything there,” she stammered, backing up.
“We’d better clean up this mess,” Pam broke in. “We got blood on his sheets there. If you’ll help me, Angela, we can change this bed.”
“Sure, I can do that.”
“As long as you’re here, why not stay for dinner?” Pam said, winking at Boyd as she bent to pull the corner of the sheet out. “We don’t get many guests. You know, isolation and all. We have some spaghetti on.”
*******
“The shit has really hit the fan back here, Boyd,” Joe Smith said a week later during a daily phone update. “We’ve got cases of Ebola springing up in Charleston and south toward Savannah.”
“Joe! Good to hear from you. Ferguson’s getting a little hard to take,” Boyd replied good naturedly, pulling the phone cord of his secure phone line into the bedroom and closing the door.
Angela had just returned from a shopping expedition and was spreading lace and linen over the kitchen table. She and Pamela were comparing pieces and trying to explain to Boyd and Donn the importance of such handmade items.
“Don’t tell me about hard to take,” Joe said. “Ferguson’s holding us – that is, me and you – responsible for this thing getting out. He said we’ve dropped the ball and let Ebola get away.”
“Oh,” Boyd responded. A vision of Ferguson scowling made his mind focus on the issue more clearly.
“The Centers for Disease Control is in charge now. They’ve got Charleston and Savannah closed down tighter than Aunt Tillie’s knickers. The airports, interstates, harbor, nothing’s getting out of there. The Global Surveillance Response Team, at least the military part of it, is no longer in charge. That takes the heat off me for a while.”
“Sounds serious,” Boyd said, looking out the window at the ocean and counting off the days until his quarantine would be over.
“It is. The CDC has been working round the clock. We’ve gone back to basic epidemiology on this, sticking pins in a map to figure out how it spreads. It’s all centered on the swamp south of Charleston, and it looks like it’s being spread by a mosquito vector.”
“Uh oh.”
“It’s always been spread by contact before, and it was bad enough then to be the most feared disease in the world. Either it always had the capability, or it developed the capability to live in the acid environment of a mosquito’s stomach. That’s horrific unless we can find some way to vaccinate or stop it.”
“Well, Jacques thought he created a vaccine.”
“Yes, and we wish we had some of it. CDC is trying to duplicate what Jacques did. I’ve got some ideas, too. I’m leaving for China tonight.”
“China?”
“Yeah. Hubai Pharmaceuticals has been working on an antibiotic for viruses. It’s similar to ribaviron, one that’s already been used a lot, and it might work on Ebola.”
“So, how’d it get into mosquitoes along the South Carolina coast?”
“Latest theory is that there were two customers for the virus, Meilland and someone else. They’re working off of a terrorist scenario, expecting to get a ransom demand.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Boyd retorted.
“You got any better ideas, from your vantage point there at vacation central?” Joe asked, frustration and anxiety revealed by a hostile tone.
“Hey, lighten up. Three days, and I’m out of here, back in the saddle.”
CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN
Ferreira
A cigarette
dangling from his lips, his gray eyes scanned the inside quickly when Boyd opened the door. A leather jacket was draped over Ferreira’s shoulders.
“Boa tarde. I am Ferreira. My English is not so good.” He offered his hand. He made no effort to enter. “We go.”
Ferreira turned and nodded toward his car, an old Toyota, still running at the gate. His face was long and more heavily lined from sun and cigarettes than one might have thought for a military officer in his mid-40s. He was taller than most Azoreans, but only average by American standards. Turning to the street, he showed a bulging belly in an otherwise trim physique.
Glad to dispense with formalities and get out of quarantine after three weeks, Boyd grabbed his jacket and followed.
“You’re gonna like this guy,” Gen. Ferguson had said less than an hour before. He’d called to officially call off their quarantine and put Boyd back on the case. “Col. Ferreira is the chief of security at the base there. Everyone says he’s the guy to help you with the local picture.”
“You sure we want some worn out old fart? How about someone younger, with a bit of fire?”
“Ferreira’s not some worn out old fart. He’s the toughest guy on that island. He’s been fighting the wars for 20 years.”
“What wars?”
“You need to study some history, Boyd. The Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique, in southern Africa, broke away from Portugal in the '60s, but the Portuguese Army has been stuck there fighting guerrillas ever since – Cubans, South Africans, mercenaries and communists of various stripes. They’ve had no help from the UN or anyone else. It’s been a nasty, lethal, crippling war. Ferreira knows how to keep his eyes open and his head down.”
Boyd rushed to catch up as Ferreira strode through the gate to his car and got in, waiting only until Boyd’s door closed to gun the battered machine to life and make a U-turn in the middle of the street. They careened down the hill toward the main base. Boyd scanned the flight line, counting a couple of transient aircraft, two Puma helicopters and a Casa 212. He figured the usual flight-line tour would take about half an hour.
Ferreira flew past the flight line road heading for the main gate. A sign ahead said each passenger should produce ID for inspection by the uniformed Portuguese Army guards. Boyd was reaching for his wallet as Ferreira slowed with the traffic and then downshifted into second gear and pulled out around them to pass on the right. When the blue Toyota cleared the gate, all three guards were rigid at attention, saluting.
“My men,” Ferreira said, returning their salute.
The Toyota sailed through the traffic circle and turned onto the road that crossed the end of the runway, headed toward the mountains.
Boyd was delighted to be off the base so quickly. He’d been limited to what he could see from his quarters.
The four-lane blacktop whisked them up from the coast into the mist blowing over the island from the Atlantic as Ferreira pushed the old blue Toyota flat out. There was little traffic and apparently no enforced speed limit. Soon they were passed by a BMW and a Chevrolet. Cow manure on the highway suggested that it might not be as limited in access as people in the States are accustomed to enjoying. A small three-wheel cart, more a garden tiller than highway vehicle, toiled up the hill on the shoulder. They passed two donkey carts, likewise toiling in the now bright sun. They stopped to allow a farmer to move his herd of two dozen cows from a field on one side of the road to a field on the other side. The farmer yelled and whistled to speed the process, looking anxiously up the hill in anticipation of a Mercedes topping the rise at full speed. Ferreira remained silent while the cows passed, then gunned the Toyota up the hill. Just before the crest, he turned onto a cobblestone road and entered a small town. The whitewashed stone houses sported red tile roofs.
Galanta’s was the least appealing of the half dozen buildings in the village, with a back section of the roof near collapse. The sign had just the name and a picture of a black and white cow, nothing to identify it as an establishment of a social nature. Ferreira parked across the road, and they entered a dark, tiny, low-ceilinged bar with hats, pictures and souvenirs of all description hanging from the ceiling and walls. The mix of U.S. license plates and pictures of Azorean festivals and bullfights indicated this was a place of cultural interface, like Peter’s in Horta, but with much less class.
“Ferreira!” the proprietor called out, midway into pouring a shot of some clear spirit out of an unmarked bottle. He stopped and stepped around the bar.
They embraced and spoke rapidly in Portuguese. There were only two small tables and eight chairs in the bar, which didn’t occupy all of a fairly small building. There was room enough for only one to stand behind the bar, and a curtain covered the back door to a tiny kitchen. Three swarthy customers were watching a soccer match flickering on an old black and white television, oblivious to the newcomers.
“This is Chailland, my friend from the base.”
“I’m Leo. Welcome. Are you new to Terceira?” Leo spoke better English than Ferreira. In fact, it was very good English. With his round features and bald head, Leo looked more like an American than an Azorean.
“Just a few days,” Boyd said.
Leo was already reaching for the Whitehorse scotch when Ferreira said something, irritable. He poured several ounces into a plastic tumbler and added an ounce of water from a pitcher and quickly handed it to Ferreira.
“Cerveja,” Boyd responded when Leo looked at him.
Leo opened a bottle of Sagres and handed it to Boyd. He reached beneath the bar and brought up a plate of fried chorizo and another of large flat beans. Ferreira turned abruptly and walked back out the door. Confused, Boyd followed. Leo was right behind with the two plates.
A small stone patio on the side of the building had a stunning view back down the hill. The base was visible, like a miniature village perched in a green pasture on the edge of the vast blue Atlantic. Ferreira had finished his scotch by the time Boyd found a seat. Leo was right behind him with a refill.
“These are fava beans,” Leo said to Boyd, picking one of the large beans from the plate. “Squeeze it from the skin, like this.”
He squirted the bean from the skin into his mouth and dropped the skin onto a small plate on the table, then returned to the bar.
“The Brigadiero, our commander, has assigned me to work on your problem. I am not Azorean. My home is Lisboa, but I know the people here. It will be very hard. Constantine Coehlo is Azorean. His family lives on all the islands. He is well known.”
Boyd turned his chair so he could see the side of the bar. Leo came around the side with the Whitehorse bottle again.
“Does he know who we’re talking about?” Boyd asked after Leo had disappeared into the bar again.
Ferreira frowned and shook his head, as if the question maligned his integrity and then started in on his third scotch.
“The man’s a smuggler?”
“Smuggler to you, businessman to them,” Ferreira said, nodding toward the bar.
“What did they tell you about Constantine?”
“He kidnapped a French banker and blew up her boat. Two sailors died. It was an international incident,” Ferreira replied, with pointed nonchalance.
“That’s not really what happened,” Boyd said. “What did they tell you about me?”
“A policeman, incognito.”
Ferreira was not Boyd’s buddy. This was a job he had to do. He was annoyed, and it showed. He’d been treated as an insignificant functionary by the American Consulate’s political officer by being given limited and faulty information.
“The story is much better than that,” Boyd said, and began to relate the tale. After five minutes it was clear Ferreira’s English wasn’t up to the task.
“Stop,” Ferreira said, clearly not following the story. He stood, looking down the mountain along the highway. “Angeja is coming. His English is better.”
Boyd picked up a piece of chorizo on a toothpick and put the whole piece in
to his mouth. It had a spicy, meaty taste, but chewing didn’t seem to diminish it at all. It seemed to grow larger, and then tasted more like gristle soaked in hot sauce. Boyd couldn’t swallow it, and it would be rude to spit out their local delicacy. He could see Ferreira watching him. Then he thought of toenails.
“Excuse me, I need to get my hat,” he said and rushed around the side of the building. Safely in front he spit the chorizo out and watched it bounce along the sidewalk and down the hill. He retrieved his baseball cap advertising a chain of building supply stores owned by an old friend. He’d worn it to bars, pig roasts, bluegrass concerts and an ass-kicking or two. It belonged at Galanta’s.
Capt. Angeja pulled up in a base pickup, dressed in a flight suit. A decade older than Boyd, he wore aviator’s wings. Leo appeared silently with a Coke as Angeja joined Boyd and Ferreira on the patio. Like Ferreira, he did not look happy to be there.
“You fly the Puma?” Boyd asked casually as Leo retreated.
“Yes. We have search and rescue responsibility for the middle Atlantic. I’m on alert until 1800 hrs.”
“You the one who picked me up?”
“When?” Angeja didn’t recognize him and hadn’t made the connection.
“Three weeks ago. There were three of us. I was the one with the bullet hole,” Boyd said, opening his shirt.
Everything changed in an instant. Angeja spoke rapidly, in hushed tones, to Ferreira. This went on for several minutes, during which he repeatedly pointed to the southwest, and they both looked back at the healing bullet hole.
“We were told you went out on the air evac rotator the next day,” Angeja said, returning to English and still incredulous.
“We’ve been here, quarantined the whole time,” Boyd said.
As Boyd related his mission over the next hour, Ferreira and Angeja remained spellbound by the story. By the time Boyd took a gunshot in the chest and Chardonnay went up in a fiery blast, they were speaking in whispers, faces just inches apart.