by Bobby Adair
Austin looked up the alley, and it took a moment for him to understand what he was kneeling on—what was lined up solid along the walls of both buildings—leaving only a narrow, muddy path in between.
Body bags.
Thick, white, plastic body bags, each with the vague form of a human inside, some wet with bleach solution puddled in the folds. There had to be a hundred. Down at the end of the alley, four men in yellow suits entered and tiredly dropped another body at the end of a row. A fifth man with what looked like a pesticide sprayer sprinkled the body bag in bleach solution.
Austin realized that his left hand was pressing down on a face through the plastic beneath him and his right hand on a torso. He jumped off, landing on the muddy trail between the feet of the corpses. His feet slipped out from under him again and he went down in the mud.
I should have stayed in Kapchorwa.
Austin was in real danger. His pursuers could be anywhere. Everywhere.
Inspiration sparked, morbid and disgusting.
He looked up the alley, saw no one, got back to his feet and jogged about half way up the length of the alley, spotted a gap between two of the tightly packed bodies, and dove between them.
The body bags were rectangular in design, much wider than necessary to hold the thin bodies within, leaving large flaps of excess plastic running the length on either side of the corpse. Austin snuggled up to the body on his right until he was partially concealed under the bag’s excess plastic. He reached out and pulled on the body bag to his left until the plastic overlapped above, leaving him fully covered, arches to ears. No one looking down the alley would see him. Any armed hoodlum dedicated enough to walk the muddy path between the corpses in search of him wouldn’t find him. Only his own movement and breathing could give him away.
Time to think through the next steps.
It was just past midday. Darkness wouldn’t fall over Mbale for another six or seven hours. When night came, Austin knew he could make his way out of the city unseen. He resolved to lie between the corpses until the sun went down.
Chapter 48
Twenty minutes passed, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. What at first felt like his skin crawling in tiny tickles turned suddenly into painful pricks of flame, everywhere across his body.
Ants!
Austin jumped to his feet brushing and swatting at his clothes and exposed skin. The ants were all over him. The biting worsened. Ants brushed from his clothes clung to his hands and dug their mandibles into his skin. Cursing and looking for a way to get them off, Austin dropped down on the muddy path between the body bags and rolled. He mashed his hands into the mud to cake them solid. He used the mud as a shield for his hands and as glue to capture the ants still alive and attacking.
He mashed ants against his legs and under his jeans, on his neck, and in his hair. His skin was on fire. He needed to get to the river. That was his only hope of getting rid of them.
Austin ran up the alley, looking left as he passed into the street, then right—a street crossing habit learned in childhood. What he saw when he looked right wasn’t an oncoming car. It was two of the men in military fatigues looking up from their conversation with one of the body-carrying men in yellow Tyvek. They were as surprised to see Austin as he was to see them. They recovered quickly from their astonishment and began shouting. Austin was already halfway across the street.
Austin mustered all the speed in his muscles and ran, not looking back. He didn’t dare. He heard them coming. He crossed into another alley, his legs getting wobblier with each step. His lungs burned. Desperation pushed him through his body’s pleas to stop.
Unfortunately, the mind can only push the body so far.
Austin collapsed and rolled into the rough, musty dirt. He gasped for air and tried to get his feet back under him, but he was pushed roughly back to the ground. One of the paramilitary men pressed a large-barreled pistol against his head and said, “You’re mine now, mzungu boy.”
Chapter 49
With hands bound behind his back, Austin sat in the center back seat of a ratty, white Toyota compact. A semi-camouflaged thug pressed in on each side. The man with the pistol—the guy apparently in charge—sat in front. A kid who looked too young for a license, drove. They followed behind two other cars, both packed with men and headed east across town.
They crossed the Mbale-Soroti Road, with the Islamic University still burning a mile to the north, and the flaming pyre of bodies at the base of the clock tower to the south. The convoy stopped and a boda driver puttered past with a woman, two children, and their baggage all balanced on top. They passed a barricaded neighborhood and a mango farm bordered on two sides by rows of shanties.
The man in the front seat rifled through Austin’s bag, passing his last pieces of mango to the men in the back. He found the stash of cash and pushed it into his pocket, then held up a credit card and examined it. It was one of Dr. Littlefield’s cards. “Dwayne R. Littlefield. That is you?”
Austin didn’t answer, choosing instead to glare at the man in the front seat.
“You are a fierce boy,” the man said with a mocking grin. “What is your pin number?”
Austin ignored the question. “What’s going on here? Why have you taken me?”
“You know why.” The man laughed. “Your people call it kidnapping.”
Austin asked, “Why are you kidnapping me?”
“Money.” The man laughed, and so did everyone else in the car.
“I don’t have any money,” said Austin. “My father is not wealthy.”
The man flashed the credit card and showed it to Austin. “You are rich.”
“Everybody has credit cards. That doesn’t make me rich.”
“Nobody in Mbale has one.” The man smiled. “But now I have one.” He put the credit card in his shirt pocket. “Tell me, Dwayne, are you a student, an evangelist, a lost American trying to find himself?” He laughed as though that was the funniest thing he’d said all day and then dug around in the bag looking for more.
“I’m a teacher,” Austin answered.
“A teacher?” The man was impressed or at least pretended to be. “At the Catholic University?”
“No. In Kapchorwa.”
“Dwayne Littlefield, the teacher from Kapchorwa.”
“My name’s not Dwayne.”
“No?”
“It’s Austin.”
“Austin?”
“Austin Cooper.”
The man in the front seat fished out the credit card. “What of this, then?”
“My things were burned in a fire.” Austin paused as he thought about what to say next. “I found the credit card and the money on the body of a dead doctor.”
The man scrutinized Austin for a moment and then said, “I do not believe you. I shall call you ‘Ransom.’”
The men on each side of Austin laughed.
The man in the front seat put the card back into his pocket. “You will call me ‘General.’”
Austin said nothing.
“You will call me General,” the man repeated as his smile seeped away.
The man to Austin’s left punched him in the arm and nodded at The General.
Austin understood. “Yes, General.”
The General’s grin returned. “You understand, Ransom, that I have taken you in order to make some of your father’s American dollars into my American dollars. We are at war, and we need money to fight.”
Shaking his head, Austin said, “You want money for terrorism.”
The General’s smile instantly disappeared. He said something, and the driver hit the brakes. Tires skidded on the dirt road. The General nodded at the men in the backseat, and they wasted not a second in opening a door and roughly shoving Austin out onto the gravelly dirt.
The other two cars came to a stop. Men got out, some looking at The General, some looking up the road, back down the road, or out across the open fields. The General pointed at the burning Catholic University.
“You see that, Ransom?”
Austin looked at the burning buildings, looking for something distinct in the smoke, flame, and brick. He shook his head.
“You see that building there? The long one, with the terracotta roof?”
Austin nodded.
“Terracotta,” The General grinned. “Big word for a black man, don’t you think?” He pointed. “I lived in that dormitory when I went to university here.”
Austin was surprised.
“You see, Ransom. Americans aren’t the only educated people.” The General shook his finger at the burning building. “Do you know what happened here?”
Austin shrugged. He could guess.
“Your enemies burned it. America’s enemies.”
Shaking his head, Austin said, “I don’t have any enemies. Except maybe for you.”
“You and I have the same enemies,” said The General. “The Muslims burned this school.”
“The Muslims?”
The General pointed at the smoke rising from the fires to the north. “A band of students from the Islamic University came here and did this. You see, they hate us as much as they hate you Americans.”
“Muslims don’t hate Americans,” Austin muttered. “Not all of them.”
The General laughed. “You are naïve, Ransom. That is no matter. Your father’s money will help us do what must be done.” He looked at his men and nodded at the cars. They pushed Austin roughly into the backseat. Once everyone was loaded, they headed back down the road out of town.
With the smoke from the Catholic University receding behind, Austin asked, “If they burned the Catholic University, who burned their school?”
“There is only one God, and he doesn’t love them.” The General burst out laughing. The other men in the car chuckled.
The car drove out of town. They came to a stop a quarter mile down the road from an army roadblock. One of the men got out and walked toward it, no rifle in hand. After a brief conversation, the vehicles were waved forward. The convoy of three cars picked up their man as they passed and proceeded through.
Once past, Austin asked The General, “Did you bribe them to let us pass?”
“No, Ransom, some of our soldiers wear a government uniform. Some of my people are government functionaries. Some even run the towns. The shirt they wear at their job is not important. We all work together to do God’s work.”
Chapter 50
Frustrated and looking at rows of brake lights down the hill in front of her and up the next, Olivia wanted to curse. The one tiny, positive thing she’d hoped would come out of Eric’s absenteeism speech ten days ago was lighter rush hour traffic. With so many people skipping work, what the hell were they all doing out here making the drive time worse? She just wanted to get home after another frustrating day, and wondered for the hundredth time why she lived so far from her office.
Her cell phone rang.
She answered without looking to see who was calling. “Hello?”
“Hello.”
“Mathew?”
“Yes,” he said. “Can you talk?”
“I’m stuck in traffic, but I can talk. I’m mostly parked, waiting my turn to creep forward.”
“I’m going to tell you something that needs to stay between us.”
“Straight to the ominous stuff.” Olivia laughed. “Remember, this is a cellphone we’re talking on.”
“I don’t imagine the news will stay under wraps for long, but—”
“But?” Olivia asked.
Wheeler sighed. “The new strain of Ebola is airborne.”
Olivia gasped weakly. Every surprise was bad these days. She was numb.
Wheeler waited a moment for a reply before he said. “I assume you understand what I just said.”
“Yes. I—” Olivia pulled over onto the shoulder and put the car in park. “I’m hoping this is one of your jokes.”
“Three labs got the same result.”
Olivia took a deep breath. “Okay, this isn’t the end of the world, but—”
“I’m not sure that’s a joking phrase anymore.”
“Don’t say things like that, Mathew.” Olivia collected her thoughts, saw a gap in the traffic, and pulled back out. “If I drive down to Atlanta tonight, how much can you show me?”
“You don’t have to come all the way down to Atlanta. I can email you. Still—”
“Honestly, I don’t want to go home. I could use some company, and with you, at least I can learn something and maybe even laugh a little. It’ll be late when I get there. Can I sleep on your couch? Do you mind?”
“I’d love to have you. There is a better place to sleep than the couch.”
“Really?” Olivia said, a little more harshly than she wanted to. “Ebola is airborne, and oh-by-the-way do you want to sleep with me? That’s the new pickup line?”
“When you put it that way, it loses its romance.” Wheeler laughed. “I was actually offering up the guest room.”
“I’ll bet you were.”
Wheeler admitted, “I left the invitation purposefully vague.”
“Back to this airborne thing,” said Olivia, thinking about everything flowing through the censorship queue she was working. Emails were in there too. “It’ll be better that you don’t email me.”
“Why?”
“More chance it’ll get leaked. I’m getting a little bit paranoid, maybe. So three labs have confirmed that the new strain is airborne.”
“Yes, two in Europe and one here.”
“No doubt, then?” Olivia asked.
“I’d be surprised if different results came back from further testing.”
“Excuse me if I sound stupid now. This is your field. I see data on this outbreak every day.” Olivia didn’t say that her primary sources lately were leaked data reported on the Internet by people whose governments didn’t want them to have it. “Would I be wrong to guess that this strain has a high r nought value?”
“That doesn’t sound stupid at all. r nought is the average number of secondary cases that can be expected to result from one infection, though there’s a lot of discussion about the effective r nought for any given outbreak.”
To make sure she understood, she said, “In other words, how many people will catch Ebola from someone who’s already got it.”
“Exactly. They calculate it based on transmissibility, the length of time an individual is contagious, and how much time that person might be in contact with others while infectious.”
“Sounds vague,” Olivia observed.
“Yes, it can be. Lots of factors not related to the infectious agent can affect the result. Only the amount of time a person is contagious is specific to the virus.”
“I can see where contact time might change with culture,” said Olivia. “I’d imagine New Yorkers who are always bumping into one another on the subway might spend more time in contact than some ranchers in Montana who only see each other at the weekly hoedown.”
Wheeler laughed out loud. “The weekly hoedown?”
“Don’t pick on me. I don’t know why I chose that as an example.”
“I haven’t heard that word in a long time, that’s all,” said Wheeler. “Your example puts a simple face on that part of the equation, but it’s exactly right. I’m sure you understand the range of complexity involved.”
“I don’t know, but I can guess,” said Olivia. “The part I don’t understand is why transmissibility would vary.”
“That has to do with the immunity of the population and some other factors,” said Wheeler. “If you have a population that’s already been exposed or vaccinated, a portion of the individuals will have immunity, so the disease can’t be transmitted to them, and the r nought is lower.”
“And lower is better, right?”
“Better for us, for sure,” Wheeler chuckled.
“Okay.” Olivia tried to recall the list of r nought numbers she’d seen. “Ebola has a low r nought, doesn’t it?”
“It
comes in around two,” said Wheeler, “depending on the specific outbreak. These things are often estimated up front but calculated from epidemiological data after the fact.”
“Do you have numbers on West Africa yet?”
“One point five to two point five or so. For comparison, influenza comes in between two and three.”
“And SARS?” Olivia asked. “The medical community was in an uproar about that a few years back. Where is that one?”
“Rightly so,” said Wheeler. “It can be as high as five and very deadly.”
“If I remember correctly—” Olivia said.
“You probably do,” said Wheeler.
“If I remember correctly, measles topped the list I saw with an r nought between twelve and eighteen.”
“It’s the kind of number that makes me question the thinking of anti-vaxxers.”
“And where does the new strain of Ebola land on the list?” asked Olivia.
“We don’t know.”
“That’s bullshit, Mathew.”
Wheeler sighed.
“Don’t get all chivalrous now. Keeping me in the dark isn’t going to protect me from anything. Tell me what you know.”
“Oh, why am I so attracted to strong-willed, young women?” Wheeler mused.
“I’m not going to say what I think you are attracted to, and a strong will has nothing to do with it. Stop avoiding the question, and answer me.”
Wheeler surrendered. “One estimate came in at six.”
“And?”
“One came in at sixteen. The consensus seems to be that it’ll be around eight, give or take.”
“Six to sixteen?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll need to look at this with a spreadsheet, but if each person infects eight more, and—“ Olivia tried to do some quick math in her head. “How long after infection does someone turn contagious with the new strain?”
“As early as forty-eight hours. We had one result in twenty-four, but no one has duplicated that result yet. Then maybe as long as three weeks. That’s a guess so far based on the strain of Ebola in West Africa.”
“The median?” Olivia asked.