Pandemic

by Daniel Kalla

  Gwen knew Clayton had inherited his brooding good looks from his Greek father. When she had once asked him about his baseball-and-apple-pie surname, he explained that his immigrant father had anglicized their last name from the original Klatopolis in a failed attempt to better fit into the small Pennsylvanian town where he had grown up.

  Gwen sat back down on her chair, thankful for the opportunity to take the weight off her ankle. “What’s up, Alex?”

  Clayton slid into the seat across from her desk. He unbuttoned his jacket and crossed a knee over his other leg. Once he made himself comfortable, he asked, “Got a minute?”

  “No,” she said with a laugh. “But what’s up?”

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said at the meeting last week.”

  “Oh?”

  “About terrorists getting their hands on SARS.”

  “And?”

  The smile left Clayton’s lips. “It disturbs me.”

  “Good.” Savard nodded. “It damn well should.”

  Clayton made a clicking sound with his tongue, before speaking. “Gwen, we’ve been picking up a lot of cell-phone chatter lately.”

  “Terrorists?”

  “We think so.”

  “Who?”

  Clayton shrugged. “Not sure.”

  “That’s not very helpful, Alex.”

  “Christ, Gwen, it’s not like they get on the phone and say, ‘Hello, terrorist X speaking,’ ” he snapped.

  Savard leaned back in her chair, unperturbed. “Your job wouldn’t be much of a challenge if they did.”

  Clayton chuckled. “Golf and dating are challenges enough. Who said I needed my job to be one?” His expression darkened. “You know, everyone expects us to be watching what goes on in every nook and cranny of the planet, but we can’t. We’re spies, Gwen, not fortune-tellers.”

  “You can’t be everywhere at once, huh?”

  “It’s not so much that.” He shook his head in disgust. “Today’s enemies have become like the bugs you study under your microscope ”

  She cocked her head and frowned. “How so?”

  “When I joined the CIA in the mid-eighties, there was a definable enemy. The Soviet bloc and a few other rogue states.” He sighed, sounding to Gwen like one of those CIA relics who truly missed the Cold War and its constant threat of nuclear annihilation. “Sure, they had operatives around the world up to what we considered no good. But at least they were linked, albeit obliquely, into a command structure. You could take down an entire operation by cracking one piece of the puzzle.”

  “Not now?” Gwen asked.

  “Take Al Qaeda,” he said. “Those fanatics multiply like bacteria into their own ‘cells.’ But colonies might be a better word, sticking with the micro analogy. Each colony functions entirely independently from the others. None of the traditional hierarchy of the KGB or any state-sponsored insurgency,” he said with another melancholic sigh. “These colonies are totally self-sufficient with their own finances, operations, and leadership. You take one down, you still have nothing on the others. It’s so damn frustrating. Like cutting off a head of the Hydra only to have two more spring up in its place.”

  Gwen wasn’t used to such intensity from Clayton. Normally, he favored the cavalier, unflappable “superspy” routine salted with a trace of charming seff-parody. She felt a rush of genuine empathy for Clayton, realizing that in spite of his pretense none of this was a game to him.

  “Gwen, no one remembers our success in dismantling cells from New Jersey to Pakistan,” Clayton sighed. “Everyone remembers the misses.”

  Gwen knew he was referring to 9/11, but she didn’t comment. “What does the chatter have to do with the concerns I raised?” she asked.

  “Nothing, maybe.” Clayton shrugged. “But we overheard pieces of conversations concerning lab equipment and transport. At least, that’s what we think they were talking about. It’s hard to be sure.”

  Savard nodded. “Anything else?”

  Clayton nodded. “Last week, we tracked a shipment of high-tech laboratory equipment—incubators, centrifuges, hoods, and other supplies—from Germany to Algeria. But our sources in Algeria can find no record of any hospital or lab ordering any of it. What’s more, the stuff seems to have disappeared after arrival.”

  “Disappeared?” Gwen bit her lip. “Sounds like a lot of equipment How would it just disappear?”

  “Gwen, are you kidding me?” Clayton leaned back in his seat and laughed bitterly. “This is Africa we’re talking about. With enough money and connections you could make Kenya disappear without a trace.”

  Savard stared at the video screen’s picture of herself locked in a hug with her estranged husband. Without looking up she said, “What now?”

  “We’re focusing resources on Africa. We’re even sending agents in to see what they can dig up.” He adjusted the collar on his shirt. “We’re surprisingly well connected in Algeria and northern Africa.”

  “But?”

  “East Africa...” He held his hands up, as if to say that half of the continent was a write-off.

  “We should tell the Secretary,” Gwen said.

  “Mine already knows,” Clayton said, referring to the CIA Director. “What you want to tell the Homeland Security Secretary is up to you.”

  Gwen nodded distractedly.

  “Do we take this to the weekly council meeting?” Clayton asked.

  She shook her head. “Why? Not much to tell them now, is there?”

  “Fine by me. The less I have to say to Moira and the rest of the happy-go-lucky gang at the FBI, the happier I am.” He grinned as his placid self-confident demeanor resurfaced. “You know, I’m sure we could work this whole thing out over a plate of sushi and a couple of sakis.”

  Gwen smiled in spite of herself. “There’s a high potential for all kinds of nasty bugs in uncooked fish.”

  Clayton rolled his eyes. “Right now, I get the feeling uncooked fish is the least of my worries.”

  “I suppose,” she said. “But I’ve barely gotten used to the emptiness of my condo. Alex, I don’t know if I’m ready for sushi and saki just yet.”

  Hopping to his feet, he slapped his forehead in mock embarrassment. “What am I thinking? I completely forgot about the minimum-six-months-before-having-Japanese-after-a-breakup law.” He headed for the door. “The offer stands, though,” he called over his shoulder without turning back.

  After he was gone, Gwen sat and stared at her embracing image on the screen. What was the harm in going out for dinner with the handsome spy? she thought. She reached for her mouse and scrolled through the options until she chose a new screensaver: an image of a robin’s nest in which baby birds were breaking free of their shells. Maybe a little heavy on the schmaltz, but what the hell, she thought. She needed it now. Barring a catastrophe befalling them during the rest of the week, she resolved that she would call Clayton and accept his offer.

  She clicked back open the CDC web site. She read the rest of the CDC’s failing report card on global infection control, but she couldn’t concentrate. The similarities between the coverage of this new Chinese virus and the early days of SARS were uncanny. But last time, there were no laboratory supplies missing in Africa to compound her concerns.

  CHAPTER 10

  CAIRO, EGYPT

  Sergeant Achmed Eleish of the Cairo Police sat in a housecoat on his living-room sofa reading the Sunday paper. His wife Samira and he had just returned from Fajr, the morning prayers, at the mosque. Their two adult daughters, both teachers, had gone “for a quick shop,” which meant Eleish would not see them again before the evening. Sunny but not too hot outside, Eleish decided it was shaping up to be a perfect lazy Sunday.

  Aside from the homeless and the ultrarich, the rest of Cairo’s eighteen million residents lived in apartments. The Eleishes were no exception. Leaving a smaller one-bedroom apartment, they had moved into their modem nineteenth-floor, two-bedroom apartment in the heart of Cairo two years earlier when,
with the help of his daughters’ savings, Eleish scraped together a down payment. Their home was Achmed Eleish’s pride and joy. His castle. He often told his wife and daughters that if Allah smiled upon him, He would let Eleish live in the apartment until the day he died.

  Still dressed in her black dress from the prayer service, Samira Eleish stood across from her husband, ironing his shirts for the week ahead. “What’s new in Cairo, Achmed?” she asked.

  The detective looked up from the newspaper. Again, he was struck by her warm large eyes and aristocratic face, which had aged so well in the thirty-two years since they wed. Even her gray hair seemed to complement her mature beauty. And unlike her husband, Samira had maintained the same slim figure her entire adult life.

  Eleish shrugged and flapped the paper in his hands. “Corruption. Cost overruns. Minor scandal. In short, absolutely nothing is new in Cairo,”

  “No news is the best news of all,” Samira said as she hung a shirt and then reached for the next one in the pile.

  “Hmmm.” Eleish mumbled his agreement as he turned the page. The headline caught his eye immediately—“Publishing Mogul Re-defines Arab Newspapers.” Below it, a picture of Hazzir Kabaal occupied a third of the page. Staring at Kabaal’s smug smile and expensive Italian suit, Eleish felt his stomach knot. He wanted to flip the page and forget about Kabaal on his day off, but he couldn’t peel his eyes from the article. It described how with his latest newspaper acquisition Kabaal had claimed a monopoly over the conservative print media in much of the Arab world. Suddenly Eleish’s perfect day clouded over.

  “Achmed?” Samira asked, recognizing the frown on her husband’s face.

  “Hazzir Kabaal” he said softly.

  Samira shook her head slowly and sighed. “Let’s not talk about him today.”

  Eleish held up the paper for his wife. “He’s right here on page two,” he said.

  “What is he up to?” Samira asked calmly without taking her eyes off her ironing.

  “He bought another newspaper.” He flapped the paper in his hand. “Can you imagine, Miri? Soon, his will be the only opinion the man on the street reads. Then what?”

  “People are not fools, Achmed.” Samira stopped ironing. She fingered the pendant hanging from her necklace. “His kind may make the loudest noise, but he doesn’t speak for the people.”

  “He will soon enough,” Eleish grumbled.

  Ever since he had been shot, Eleish harbored an interest in Kabaal that bordered on obsession. Eight years earlier, Eleish and other police officers had raided the home of a fundamentalist who was part of a plot to assassinate members of a visiting European Union delegation. Bursting through the apartment door, Eleish was blown back against the wall by a shotgun blast discharged from five feet in front of him. Only the Kevlar vest and his proximity to his would-be-killer—which prevented shrapnel from spraying into his head—saved his life. Two of his colleagues and all four of the terrorists were killed in the gunfight.

  Several weeks later, when he could finally take a breath or a step without feeling like a chainsaw slashed at his chest, Eleish investigated. He discovered three of the four terrorists worked for newspapers owned by Kabaal. Eleish refused to accept it as coincidence. While he never connected Kabaal directly to the assassination plot, he discovered that Kabaal and his papers had links to several extreme Islamist elements, including Sheikh Hassan’s Al-Futuh Mosque.

  “Miri, he won’t stop until he has shamed our religion in front of the whole world,” Eleish sighed. “Or worse.”

  “I know, Achmed,” Samira said patiently.

  “There I go again, right?” Eleish chuckled with a flash of self-insight, but he couldn’t help himself when it came to Kabaal. “He embodies the worst of these extremists and their so-called Muslim Brotherhood,” he said.

  Samira closed her eyes and nodded. Eleish knew she had heard the speech a hundred times before, but he had to get it off his chest.

  “They are so few in number, but thanks to them people around the world associate the name of Islam with bombings and terror,” He shook his clasped hands in front of him. “The Kabaals of the world are the worst of the lot! From the comfort and safety of their homes and palaces, they fan the flames of bitterness and violence among the poor and downtrodden. Then they send the brainwashed fools out to kill themselves along with all those innocent people.” His voice grew quiet, and he looked down at the sofa. “They defame our Faith, Miri. Making Islam look to the rest of the world cruel and vindictive when it is anything but.”

  “It’s just another right-wing newspaper,” Samira said tenderly.

  “One paper at a time. Soon he’ll have all of them,” Eleish murmured as he turned back to the article. Reading the last paragraph, a sentence caught his eye. “Listen to this, Miri,” he said to his wife and waved his paper again. “‘Hazzir Kabaal was not available for comment as he has been out of Egypt on vacation for the past week.”’

  Samira put her iron down. “So?”

  “In eight years, I’ve never known Kabaal to take a vacation,” Eleish said. “The man is a workaholic.”

  Samira eyed her husband for several seconds. “There’s something else, isn’t there, Achmed?”

  “I make it my business to know whenever Kabaal leaves the country,” he confessed sheepishly. “And I hadn’t heard about him going anywhere.”

  Samira’s lips broke into a smile that Eleish recognized as part admiration and part exasperation. “What do you intend to do, Achmed?”

  Eleish shrugged. “Find out where he is.”

  She stared at him without comment.

  Eleish folded the paper and put it down on the couch beside him. “Miri, I have been a detective my whole life. It’s all I know. And it’s the only thing I’ve ever been good at.”

  “Come, now.” Samira’s brown eyes twinkled. “You’re a pretty good father, and not so bad a husband.”

  Eleish smiled, but when he spoke his tone was serious. “I have a feeling that Hazzir Kabaal is up to something. Something bad. I cannot tell you why, but you know my hunches are rarely wrong.”

  The smile left Samira’s lips. She nodded. “Go find out where he is and what he’s up to. But, Achmed...” Her voice trailed off.

  “Yes?” Eleish said.

  “Never forget what happened the first time you crossed his path. Our girls need their father. And I do not want to be a widow.” Her face creased and her eyes bore into his. “Achmed Eleish, you be careful with this man.”

  HARGEYSA, SOMALIA

  Though she had to rise in a few more hours, Khalila Jahal was no closer to sleep than she had been the rest of the night Even more than her apprehension about her looming predawn viral inoculation, the continuous soft sobs of her neighbor kept sleep at bay for Jahal.

  Unlike the men’s section of the complex, which was an open dorm, curtains partitioned the women’s side into rooms so small that the women had to sit on their beds to finish dressing. More than twenty women stayed at the complex. Khalila had been given the spot next to Sharifa Sha‘rawi. In Cairo Jahal and Sha’rawi hardly spoke, but their friendship blossomed in the Somali wasteland. Khalila had naturally assumed the role of a protective big sister to her emotionally fragile neighbor with the round face and wild, black curly locks.

  When Sharifa’s weeping showed no sign of abating, Khalila slipped out of her bed and peeled back the curtain separating their rooms. She knelt down by her friend’s bed. “Sharifa?” she asked gently.

  “Oh, Khalila, I am sorry.” Sha’rawi sniffed, but then broke into an even louder cry.

  Khalila reached out and squeezed Sharifa’s arm. “May I lie with you?” she asked.

  Sharifa nodded her assent, and Khalila climbed onto the bed. Though neither woman was particularly large, the wooden cot was so narrow that they had to lie on their sides to both fit. Even snuggled against Sharifa’s back, Jahal could feel the rough edge of wood digging into her buttock and shoulder. And she felt the dampness on her cheek f
rom where Sharifa’s tears had wet the sheets. “What is it?” Jahal asked.

  “You are going, tomorrow,” Sha’rawi sobbed.

  “It is time.”

  “How come you are not more frightened?” Sha’rawi asked.

  “I am.” Jahal rubbed the other woman’s shoulder, thankful for the human contact. “But what can I do? It is what God has chosen for me.”

  “But it is men who have chosen this for you,” Sha’rawi said. Then she grabbed Jahal’s hand on her shoulder. “I didn’t mean that!” she said fearfully. “You know, it’s just that sometimes—”

  “I know, Sharifa.” Jahal reassured Sha’rawi with a squeeze of her shoulder. “Sometimes men are fools.” She paused, then added in a quieter voice, “And sometimes they are hateful and very dangerous.”

  Sha’rawi giggled nervously.

  “But not Abu Lahab,” Jahal continued. “Sheikh Hassan explained it to me. Abu Lahab is fighting the only way he can to preserve our faith.”

  “But you, Khalila.” Sha’rawi sniffed again. “It is such a waste ...”

  “It is our duty—our honor—to serve God.” She paused. “Zamil would agree. I know it.”

  Sha’rawi looked over her shoulder. Though Jahal couldn’t see the other woman’s face in the near darkness, she could feel and smell her warm, garlicky breath. “I should go in your place, Khalila,” she said earnestly.

  Khalila stroked Sharifa’s cheek, feeling the slight pocks of old acne scars. “I want to do this,” Khalila said.

  “But, Khalila, you are so beautiful and intelligent,” Sha’rawi said and her voice cracked. “I am the slow orphan girl that no man would marry. I have no husband or children to live for.”

  “Hush, Sharifa. I don’t like to hear you talk this way,” Jahal removed her hand from the girl’s cheek. “Women do not need to live for men or children. You are very special. You serve God here.” Then she spoke in a near whisper. “Besides, my husband is dead.”