The Virus

by Janelle Diller

  The cabbie dropped me off at the end of the street. My heart pounding, I doubled back through the alley until I got to the kitchen door, which was cracked open. A couple of chefs, their backs to the door, banged around with pans and bowls. I slipped in through the screen door and up the stairs to where I’d met Anna before. That door, too, stood open. Heavy Russian choral music marched out onto the landing.

  Another reason they drank so much vodka.

  Anna sat at her cluttered desk, reading glasses perched on her nose.

  I tapped lightly on the door. Somehow, she heard the knock over the music and looked up. It took her a moment to recognize the new me. “Maggie?” She mouthed it rather than said it, or maybe I just couldn’t hear her over the Russian choir. The look on her face, though, said it all. She scurried around her desk, tapping her mouth with her pointer finger and waving at the ceiling fan. She threw her arms around me and whispered, “Don’t say anything.” I got the message.

  She took my hand and gently pulled me toward her desk where she shoved papers around until she found a pen and an empty envelope to write on. “Meet in twenty minutes at—” she paused and then scribbled “Flying Squirrel.” I knew this bar. It was on University, just up the road a mile or so. They had vodka there, which was maybe a bad sign. She kissed me lightly on the cheek and pushed me out the door.

  “Be careful,” she whispered.

  A new thought. I appreciated the sentiment.

  I slipped out the kitchen door, unnoticed I hoped, and headed back up the alley. University was either a very short cab ride or a very, very brisk walk. I opted for the walk, glancing every few minutes behind me to see if anyone followed me. This time I was sure no one did, or they wouldn’t have bothered to see where I was going—they would have just nabbed me up and ushered me into the world of the disappeared.

  I found a table in a back room. Two minutes later, Anna joined me.

  “Maggie, they ask about you.”

  I didn’t need her to explain who “they” were.

  “They come to my restaurant and threaten to deport everyone if I don’t help them.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “At first, I say I don’t know you. But they say they can check for fingerprints and DN... DNA? Can they do this?”

  I mentally searched through the evening. I didn’t think I’d touched anything that would have taken a fingerprint. The dishes and glasses would all have been washed. But if a single hair had fallen onto my chair, they’d have their DNA sample.

  “I didn’t know. So I finally say, ‘Yes. Maggie was here.’ I am very sorry. So sorry.” Her tears were real.

  “It’s okay. You did the right thing. They would have made it worse for you and still would have gotten what they wanted.”

  “They want to know what we talk about. I tell them everything, but not about Daniel’s letter.”

  “That was good. Do you think they believed you?” The question of the hour.

  She grimaced slightly. “I don’t know. Yes? Maybe not completely. They have someone at my restaurant all the time. Waiting for you, I think.”

  The hostess arrived with a couple glasses of water and a shot of vodka for Anna even though we hadn’t ordered anything. Anna and the woman whispered a small exchange in Russian and then hugged.

  “Would you also like vodka?” the hostess asked me. Her accent, although slighter than Anna’s, was still filled with the hush of consonants.

  “Just coffee, please.” I wasn’t going down that path again if I could help it. No, ma’am.

  When she left, Anna lifted her glass to me in a toast. “Za Vas!” She knocked back the drink and set down the glass. It occurred to me it wasn’t the first one of the day.

  She began again. “Have you tried Daniel’s fix?”

  “We found someone to try it. He was able to get into the software just as Daniel described.”

  Anna’s face brightened. “This is good, yes?”

  “It is. Yes. But—” I didn’t know quite how to ask this. “Are you certain this is Daniel’s handwriting?”

  She looked like she didn’t understand. The optimist in me said it was because the writing was so obviously Daniel’s that the question had never occurred to her. The pessimist I was becoming suspected she was buying time to answer a question she didn’t know how to answer.

  “The instructions? Are you sure Daniel wrote them?”

  “Yes. I know his writing as my own. Why do you ask this?”

  “We must be very careful that someone isn’t trying to trick us, that this is the way they catch us. Could someone have forced him to write out the instructions?”

  The hostess brought my coffee and another vodka for Anna and then left.

  Anna pointed her chin at the vodka. “Next time you join me?”

  “Sure. Next time.” I smiled. “But not tonight.”

  She shrugged. “Too bad. Vodka make everything better.” She waved her hand at the small glass. “Is much better than this Prozac.”

  No doubt.

  I asked her again. “Did Daniel’s letter sound like someone had forced him to write it?”

  She tapped her finger against her otherwise-untouched water glass and finally said, “No. No, I don’t think this. It is very much Daniel. He is very smart. He can write something to make me suspicious, but he don’t do this.” She lifted the next shot and once again drank it smoothly and swiftly.

  “You loved him very much.”

  She nodded and grew teary. “He was my everything,” she whispered. “Without him, I have nothing.”

  I leaned toward her. “He was a genius.”

  “Yes.” The tears came faster. She unwrapped the silverware from the cloth napkin and blew her nose in the napkin. I was glad she was a friend of the hostess.

  “Let me tell you what Daniel designed.” I explained the plan for the virus. It cheered her enough to down another vodka. She was quite proud of him.

  “We have a small problem, though.”

  She inclined her head slightly. I think it was intentional. I don’t think it was the vodka.

  “We need ten people to go through airport security with the virus-infected health card.”

  She paused long enough to make me think she didn’t understand what I meant. She caught the eye of her friend and signaled for another vodka, which magically arrived a moment later.

  “So you want me to do this, too? To go through security with the health card.”

  I nodded my head.

  Anna swirled the shot glass around in her fingers. We didn’t talk. I let her think. Finally, she said, “I will do this.” She threw back the last vodka. “Gladly, I will do this.”

  CHAPTER

  49

  KAI LOANED ME HER CAR FOR WEDNESDAY MORNING. I did not fully disclose to her my history with cars and other inanimate objects, which I felt bad about. But I thought the deception was small considering the national security risks involved.

  I arrived at the Baja Breeze parking lot by eight thirty. I didn’t think UPS would deliver to a business before then, and I worried—justifiably so—about being the only car in the parking lot at that early hour. The parking lot was typical California. It had multiple levels and sophisticated landscaping and was as pretty as a city park.

  I found a spot on an upper tier that gave me a view of the east-facing front door, and a side door on the north side. A half-dozen other cars lined the first rows. I knew without studying license plates that they were all Zaan consultant rental cars. The parking lot slowly filled. The CEO arrived around nine. I flipped him the bird, but he didn’t see me.

  The UPS man didn’t seem to have the same sense of urgency that I did. He arrived at 9:55, which technically made him within the time limit but did not impress me otherwise with his punctuality. He carried a single envelope into the building. I assumed it was addressed to me. I opened my car door to get out since I wanted to intercept the package at the front desk. But before I made it to the steps of th
e parking tier, I spotted two other men getting out of a car and heading toward the main entrance as well.

  I decided Mario Seneca really should lose a little weight.

  My sinuses cleared. Only three people in the world knew when that package was arriving and where: Eddy, me, and Pete Kawalski.

  I slipped back in the car and dialed Eddy. Unexpectedly, he answered. Eddio,” I said. “We asked the wrong question. It’s not, ‘Who has the most to gain?’ It’s ‘Who has the most to lose?’”

  The answer was Pete. Pete was our betrayer. He had the most to lose. If he didn’t help the government, he’d never get Tina back. I couldn’t believe we’d been so blind. He’d bought Eddy’s Porsche and then sold him the Audi. And now he so conveniently managed to get the health cards and vaccinations.

  “No kidding. I’m glad you called, Karen,” Eddy said.

  Shit. Using his sister’s name instead of mine was our signal. He was in desperate trouble.

  “I gotta know where you are,” I said.

  “Call me back on a land line: 650-555-149—”

  The line died. Double shit.

  I dialed 650-555-1490 and watched Mario and the bald black guy make their way through the parking lot.

  The phone rang four times and voicemail picked up. “Hi. This is Jack and Mark—”

  I pressed the end button and dialed again, this time making it 650-555-1491. The UPS man entered the main doors and headed to the front desk. Mario was halfway through the parking lot. The number rang twice and an energetic voice on the other end said, “California Tile and Carpet. How may—”

  I pressed the end button again and dialed 650-555-1492. My neck tingled. Mario Seneca was going to follow that package to find me, and Eddy was in trouble. The phone rang and rang and rang. Who were these people who couldn’t spend even thirty dollars on an answering machine? I hung up.

  Mario reached the edge of the parking lot. I dialed the next number in line, which was no longer in service.

  Damn.

  And then a little angel appeared out of nowhere. I’d never thought of Keri, the brainless Baja Breeze project manager, as an angel. I’d only known her as the queen of incompetence. But she reached the front door at the same time as Mario Seneca. They smiled and did a little after-you dance. Keri shook her head and the sun caught her color, which came in a bottle, but Mr. Seneca obviously didn’t care. I could have sworn he was staring at Keri’s generous breasts. His hand froze on the door handle and they seemed to be chatting.

  Our tax dollars at work.

  Inside, the receptionist, a distant cousin to Cruella de Vil, handed the package off to a guy, who took the stairs three at a time.

  The UPS man exited. Mario Seneca barely noticed.

  I dialed Michael.

  “Michael speaking.”

  “Hey. It’s me. There’s a package about to be delivered to my desk. Make sure it gets to our Russian friend.”

  I clicked off and dialed 650-555-1494. After two rings, a woman said, “Motel California. How may I direct your call?”

  Thank you, Jesus. “What’s your address, please?”

  She rattled it off—some place on Half Moon Bay Road—and included the zip code, which was useless.

  As I circled out of the parking lot, I saw Michael de Leon, UPS package in hand, slip out the north door and head in the direction of the Tiger Lily.

  I’d thought I understood panic. That’s what the whole week had been about. But it turns out that was just an appetizer, a mere taste, to the real thing. This moment was a full, seven-course meal of terror.

  At first, I hit only red lights. And then I only hit slow traffic on the narrow winding road. If I’d been in my own car, I would have been more creative, but for good or for bad, I was blocked in at each stop. It took me twenty-three minutes to get to the Motel California, a quaint collection of cabins nestled in a yew forest and thick Virginia creeper. Every agonizing minute meant Pete had plenty of time to call in his DHS buddies—the ones who would have no trouble betraying him once they had Eddy and me in handcuffs.

  I circled the lot until I found an old blue Taurus parked in front of a room that let out onto the parking lot.

  Twenty-three minutes is a lifetime if you’re worried about someone your heartbeat depends on. However, twenty-three minutes was not enough time to come up with a good rescue plan. So I did a stupid thing and knocked on the door.

  “Housekeeping,” I said in my best Spanish accent.

  “Not now,” a voice called from inside the room. I recognized it was Pete.

  “Is time,” I said.

  The door flew open and Pete, red-cheeked with anger, stared at me.

  “Hello, Pete,” I said.

  It took him a moment to realize it was I, Maggie Rider, wife of the man he’d just betrayed, and not Meg Ryan.

  His shoulders drooped. “Maggie.” With his left hand, he rubbed the graying stubble on his face. With the gun in his right hand, he waved me in.

  Eddy, whose beautiful black curls were now replaced with blond-tipped spikes, was still alive. He was, however, tied to a chair––the fact that he wasn’t dead and the two of them were alone in the room no doubt a sign of Pete and Eddy’s undying friendship.

  I crossed the room in three steps and kissed Eddy.

  “Stop it,” Pete said angrily. “Don’t touch him.”

  I looked at Pete and removed the tape from Eddy’s mouth.

  “Be careful,” Eddy whispered. “He’s totally lost it.”

  “Get away!” Pete waved the gun at me. “Get away from him!”

  “Pete,” I said carefully. “Why are you doing this?” I knew. I knew more than he would ever believe, but I wanted him to talk.

  “Tina. They said if I gave you to them, they’d give me Tina back.”

  Just like they’d promised Phil Generett.

  “You’d turn us over to the very people that took Tina? Those same evil people?”

  “I’m sorry, but you can’t understand.”

  “We do. We do understand. Losing Eddy like you lost Tina would make me insane. But turning us in to DHS isn’t a solution.”

  Pete waved the gun towards me. I’d never been this close to a handgun before. In the movies, they look sleek and scary. This one looked big and clunky, almost like a clumsy toy. “They promised me. I have to believe them. It’s my only chance to get Tina back.”

  I shook my head. “They don’t work that way. They promise you one thing, but even if you deliver, they don’t honor the promise.”

  “Not true. You’re lying.”

  “Pete. We’re talking about the government here.” I rolled my eyes even though I felt like throwing up. “When was the last time the government did what it said it would do? With anything?”

  He rubbed his face again. He was tired. What had he done? Dropped the package off at UPS, hopped in the car, and driven all night?

  “Don’t make jokes, Maggie. They promised they’d release Tina.”

  “And I’m telling you not to trust them. Look,” I put my arms on Eddy’s shoulders. “I know you feel crazy from all this. I would too.” Eddy’s wrists were bound together in a layer of towels and duct tape. How ironic. He didn’t want to hurt Eddy. He only wanted to turn him in to DHS.

  “Move away.” He motioned with the gun again. Pete wasn’t the gun type. He didn’t even go hunting, so all this waving around made me extra nervous.

  “Pete, you don’t want to do this. You and Eddy have been friends forever.” I kept eye contact but started working at the duct tape.

  “Maggie, you have to get away from Eddy. I don’t want to hurt you, too.” His finger nervously tapped the trigger.

  “Pete, you don’t want to hurt either of us. I know you.” I said it in my calmest voice, one I didn’t even know I had. I wondered if it would be safe to touch his arm, or if that would just make him totally freak out. “We’re all crazy because of what the government has done.”

  “Stop, Maggie. Move away.�
�� Like a cornered wild animal, he paced in a zig-zag path. The gun stayed pointing at Eddy.

  “I have someone I want you to talk to, Pete.”

  He motioned with his gun again. I moved a half step back from Eddy.

  “I’m not talking to anyone. Who would understand this?”

  “Someone who lost his daughter to smallpox?”

  “She should have gotten the vaccination. Then she wouldn’t have gotten smallpox.”

  I shook my head. “You know as well as we do that the vaccinations don’t protect you from anything. They only allow the government to track you.”

  “Not true. It’s just propaganda that Eddy’s been posting.” He had no conviction in his voice, though. None at all.

  “Really? You think? Is that what Tina found out when she cut a vaccination capsule open?”

  His eyes stayed steely on Eddy. “I never wanted this to happen. You’re my friends.”

  “Then why would you let DHS get us, too? Turning us over to DHS isn’t going to set Tina free.”

  I could see the entrance to the parking lot. Every minute we stood there gave us one less minute to disappear. We wouldn’t be saved by a back door this time.

  “Talk to this guy, Pete. He’ll tell you how he promised the government he’d cooperate and they went ahead and exposed his daughter to smallpox. She’s dead now.”

  The hand with the gun wilted a fraction of an inch.

  “It was a horrible death and they did it out of sheer spite. He was willing to obey them. He gave up everything for his daughter, and they still killed her.”

  He didn’t protest.

  “I’m going to the phone, Pete. I’m going to call the place that can reach him. It may take a few minutes—” or a couple of weeks “for them to locate this guy, but you have to talk to him.” I moved slowly toward the phone. The gun followed every step, but Pete didn’t say anything else.

  I had the Starbucks number memorized. A cheerful young man’s voice answered on the first ring.