Virus Hunters 3: A Medical Thriller

by Bobby Akart

  Harper spontaneously hugged the DARPA operative. “Thank you for, um, well—everything. I don’t think I can ever say that enough.”

  Kwon patted her on the back and pulled away out of respect. He shyly looked down and then made eye contact. With a shrug, he said, “It’s what I do. Good night.”

  He stood in front of his door and waited until Harper was securely inside her room. Kwon nodded to himself and entered the dark room alone, wishing he had a loved one to call.

  Harper had no idea what time it was in the States. It took her a moment to realize she was a day ahead of Atlanta and Washington. She walked around the hotel room, which was spartanly furnished with bunk beds and a queen-sized fold-out sofa bed. Clearly, this room was designed to cram mountaineers into for a quick night’s stay before they hiked to the next point on their journey to the summit.

  She stripped off her clothes except her jeans and the Netizen tee shirt she’d worn for days. She couldn’t help herself as she raised her right arm to see how bad the stench was.

  “Pretty bad,” she said with a laugh. Her first stop was the bathroom, where she enjoyed peeing in a real toilet for the first time since Dr. Basnet’s house. She then grabbed a washcloth and soaked it in warm water. The brief refresher was all she needed to stay up another hour to speak with Joe and then to call Becker.

  She took a deep breath to steady her nerves. She needed to appear calm as she spoke to Joe. He’d been against her trip to China and only acquiesced after adding Kwon as part of the mission. Harper was glad he’d insisted upon Kwon. Still, she didn’t want to unduly worry her husband. She wasn’t certain she was done yet.

  She dialed Joe’s cell phone number and immediately grew concerned when it was answered by Joe’s chief of staff, Andy Spangler.

  “Andy?”

  “May I help you?” came the response.

  “Andy, this is Harper. Is Joe all right?”

  She heard a gasp on the other end of the line. “Holy shit. Harper, is that really you? Where are—?” He purposefully cut himself off. “No, don’t answer that.”

  “Andy, you’re scaring me. Did something happen to Joe?”

  “No, no. No worries. It’s just, well, I’ll let him explain. Listen, he’s chairing a committee hearing right now, so—”

  “No, don’t interrupt him. I can call back.”

  “Forget it!” he whispered emphatically. “He’d string me up if I didn’t get his attention. Besides, it’s kinda contentious right now. He can stick a needle in the ranking member’s eye by calling an abrupt recess. Plus, it’ll get the damn reporters buzzing again.”

  “Again?” she asked. “About what?”

  “Hold on,” he responded and pressed the phone against his clothing. Harper could hear him speaking to Joe even as his starched shirt rubbed against the iPhone. “One minute, please, General.”

  Harper laughed. She loved political subterfuge, at least when it benefitted her husband. She gathered all the pillows from the other beds and propped them up against the wall in the bottom bunk. She heard the gavel pound the block and the uproar of the gallery as Joe called a recess. Seconds later, she heard his voice, causing her body to quiver and the tears to flow.

  “My god, I’ve missed you. Darling, tell me you’re safe.”

  “I am. Promise. Kwon, too. It’s been a heckuva—”

  “Honey, stop. I’m sorry, but listen to me. We can talk but only generally. Do you understand?”

  Harper wiped the tears away and exited the bunk bed. She paced the floor as she walked, rubbing her temples with her free hand. Her mind began to race, immediately filling with speculation of nothing but bad things.

  “Um, yes. Can you tell me anything?”

  Joe hesitated before responding. She could hear the general chatter of staffers in the background, indicating he’d exited through the rear of the hearing room into the hallway. Seconds later, the chatter stopped and the sound of cars filled her ears. He was outside.

  “Beijing is embroiled in geopolitical shitstorms on several fronts. It’s really exploded in the last forty-eight hours. They are about to go to war with India on their western border. Hong Kong protests have resulted in a massive crackdown on dissidents. They’re buzzing the Taiwan Straits with their fighter jets. And, to top it off, they’ve got it in their heads that the U.S. Embassy in Beijing is harboring two American fugitive spies. They’ve threatened to expel everyone in the embassy unless they find these nonexistent spies first.”

  Harper’s eyes grew wide. She wasn’t sure what to say. “That certainly is a shitstorm. Sorry for their luck.” She thought for a moment and then asked, “Does any of this involve your committees?”

  It was her indirect way of asking if he was taking any heat for her actions. Joe immediately picked up on her intentions.

  “You know the media. They’re always trying to find fire where there isn’t any. Listen, I need to get back in there shortly. The minority member was apoplectic when I interrupted his soliloquy with the unexpected recess. I may have to add a minute to his time.”

  “You’re so generous,” said Harper with a chuckle. “I love you and I miss you. Um, Kwon is working on a ride for us. I suspect tomorrow I’ll have access to a phone with a better connection. How does that sound?”

  “Perfect. I’ll let your friends know you’ll be calling them as well. In case you’re wondering, it’s three o’clock Thursday here. You can do the calculations from there.”

  “Got it. Joe, are you sure everything is okay with you?”

  “Nothing I can’t handle, especially after hearing your voice. I love you so much. Please be careful, and I’ll watch for your call, no matter what time. Okay?”

  “I love you more.”

  Harper disconnected the call and fell back onto the bed. She tried to process everything Joe had relayed to her. Her imagination ran wild as she envisioned an army of hackers sitting in a windowless building in the heart of Beijing, monitoring phone calls and pouring through electronic messages as they searched for the two American spies. She chuckled as she chastised herself for having such an overactive imagination. As the scenario played out in her mind, she drifted off to sleep without the hot bath she craved so badly.

  In her dreams, the hacker army continued its search for her and Kwon. She slept fitfully, waking several times throughout the night. She tried to make light of her dreams, not realizing there was more truth to them than fiction.

  PLA Unit 61398, the military’s own hundred-thousand-man army unit, had, in fact, been tasked with finding Harper and Kwon. They were listening and watching everywhere.

  Including Nepal.

  Chapter Twenty

  Kathmandu, Nepal

  Harper was jolted out of her sleep by the sound of a helicopter hovering nearby. The thumping of the rotors frightened her as she recalled the PLA choppers sailing over her head at the base of Mount Everest. Oddly, she immediately searched for her weapon rather than look outside the window to find the source of the commotion. As she became fully awake, she found herself gripping the Sig Sauer until her knuckles turned white.

  Her mind recovered and she remembered that Kwon had mentioned a helipad. He’d likely arranged for transportation to Kathmandu. However, it was her initial reaction that troubled her. Was this going to be her default response to danger? Reach for the nearest weapon?

  She’d never carried a gun while treating patients in Africa. Despite the fact she frequently investigated infectious diseases in war-torn regions, Harper had never found it necessary to be armed. Even in Syria, when she’d investigated a deadly MERS outbreak in the midst of a civil war, Harper had relied upon the militia comprising the Syrian National Coalition.

  Kwon was knocking on her door. “Harper, are you awake? Our ride’s an hour early.”

  “Yeah. Um, hold on.”

  She rushed into the bathroom and did her business. While she did, she glanced to her right and rolled her eyes at the disheveled woman in the mirror who returned
the favor.

  Aren’t you a vision of loveliness?

  Then she turned her head toward the unused shower-bathtub combination. A lot of good you did me. Harper silently cursed herself for not taking five minutes to shower before she’d crashed last night.

  “Harper?” Kwon persisted.

  “Yeah, coming!”

  She flushed, quickly washed her face with cold water, and after making a lame effort at fixing her bedhead hair, she suited up for the trip into Kathmandu.

  The flight only took forty-five minutes in the French-made Eurocopter. The machine rattled and shook as if it was out of balance in some manner. The interior was worn and several seats were missing. Even Kwon appeared concerned as to whether the single-engine utility chopper had the ability to get them to the city without crashing.

  The United States enjoyed friendly relations with Nepal although the extent of U.S. military support was largely through the United Nations. The Nepalese Army helicopter had been dispatched from the UN Training Barrack located halfway between Dingboche and Kathmandu.

  Out of an abundance of caution, the CIA station chief located within the U.S. Embassy in the city arranged for Kwon and Harper to be delivered to the Nepal Police Headquarters rather than to the heliport located on the embassy grounds. He’d advised Kwon during their brief conversation that intelligence chatter out of Beijing indicated finding the two American spies was of the highest priority.

  At the police station, a black Tata H5 SUV greeted them, driven by an attractive Nepalese woman. Harper couldn’t help but notice Kwon’s change in behavior in speaking with her. While the two chatted continuously during the twenty-minute ride to the embassy, Harper took in the sights.

  The Nepalese capital was home to over a million people, but it was nothing like the large cities found in the United States. The driver, who was constantly checking her mirrors, was friendly but also on alert. She clearly was taking a circuitous route to the embassy in order to avoid any vehicles tailing them. She navigated the small SUV into the old city, a place of narrow cobblestone streets, overhanging brick buildings filled with colorful flower boxes, and a variety of garments strung across balconies with clotheslines.

  There were also endless crowds of people. Many of the women, like their escort, were dressed in colorful saris. The men wore traditional tunics and baggy pants. A few were dapperly dressed in Western attire. What struck Harper the most about the locals were the children. Most appeared poor and unkempt. They scampered through the old brick streets in their bare feet, playing chase or kicking a soccer ball when an open space presented itself. Despite their outward appearance, the children were happy. It caused her mind to wander.

  Were children, despite their circumstances, happy because their view of life hadn’t been tainted by the trials and tribulations of the adult world? She thought back to her days in Africa. To her young miracle, the baby she’d saved from Ebola, Harper had given the child an opportunity to grow up, but toward what kind of life? Would she live to be six years old, or would the raging unrest in Central Africa take her life? Would the young miracle ever get the chance to play soccer or hide-and-seek like the kids of Kathmandu?

  Then Harper grimaced and her mind wandered back to her childhood when she thought life as she knew it was over. The unexpected death of a father. The loss of a mother to mental illness because she couldn’t cope with her husband being taken from her.

  Harper turned her head to avoid her face being seen by Kwon and their driver. She wiped away her tears as she cried for the innocents. The ones who got dealt a bad set of cards in the game of life. Yet, as she tried to gather herself, all she saw was exuberance. And laughing faces. And playful bundles of energy racing among the adults on cobblestone streets that would’ve been ripped up and paved over long ago in America.

  “Here we are,” the driver announced as she navigated through the open iron gates leading to the parking lot. Unlike Beijing, where security was tight, a uniformed guard nonchalantly waved them inside without checking for credentials or deploying bomb-sniffing dogs.

  Harper tried to snap herself out of her melancholy mood. Her mind conjured up visions of being in her husband’s arms, and then, oddly, she was able to inhale the scents of Southern-style home cooking served up by the two women who’d rescued her from despair as a child—Ma and Mimi. In that moment, she vowed, when this was over, she’d find time for a little R & R at Randolph House.

  For now, her level of excitement began to build as they cleared security and entered the main building at the U.S. Embassy. She thought of her conversation with Joe from the night before. Her eyes searched for a clock. She found an even better tool. A wall of LED digital displays provided the current time of every major city or every time zone in the world. It was only 5:30 in the afternoon, eastern time.

  She loved her husband, but the first order of business was to catch Becker at the office, although she had little doubt the energetic epidemiologist would still be there for hours.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  United States Embassy

  Kathmandu, Nepal

  Harper and Kwon were escorted into a large conference room, where they were immediately served coffee with a variety of pastries. The two weren’t shy as they gobbled up apple strudel and cinnamon raisin buns. Apples were plentiful in Nepal and a staple of their diet. Their coffee choices included Bourbon and Typica, both organically grown in the region because of the suitable climate of the Himalayas. Harper didn’t care for the somewhat bitter taste, but her body appreciated the caffeine coursing through it.

  Three casually dressed men entered the conference room and closed the door behind them. The oldest of the three introduced himself.

  “Welcome to Kathmandu. I’m Karl Hughey, chief of station here. These are my associates, who’ll be available to get you squared away.”

  Harper smiled at the two men of Nepalese descent. They never formally introduced themselves, so Harper, staying true to the modus operandi of the CIA agents she’d met in Atlanta, mentally assigned each man a fictitious name. Mister Kath and Mister Du.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Hughey. Listen, I really need access to a telephone to get in contact with the CDC.”

  “Yes, Dr. Randolph, I know you do. Two things. First, Dr. Reitherman and your assistant, um, Barker, is it?”

  Harper laughed. “Becker.” Oh, how I wish I had this on tape.

  “Okay. Anyway, they’re expecting your call. I have to bring you up to speed on a few things. As you know, we’ve been actively tracking you across China. Our recon birds were able to view the activity at the Lhasa airport, although not in real time. In any event, sometime shortly thereafter, your true identities were ascertained by Beijing. Well, pardon me. Dr. Randolph was ID’d. Dr. Li was not, of course.”

  “I was …?” she began to ask before pausing, immediately showing her concern. “Was Dr. Zeng captured? Or Dr. Basnet?”

  “I’m sorry that I don’t have a definitive answer for you. We do know that shortly after your tracking devices were shown leaving the area, MSS agents swarmed the compound where you were located for a brief time. Satellite imagery showed the ambulance being loaded onto a flatbed and returned to the PLA installation at the airport.”

  “Probably prints,” offered Kwon.

  “Agreed. Regardless, Beijing blew a gasket. They identified Dr. Randolph. Learned she’d traveled to Urumqi using a fake passport. And then eventually discovered your connection to Congressman Mills.”

  Harper wandered away from the group, which had remained standing throughout the initial conversation. She rubbed her temples and addressed the men.

  “I spoke to Joe last night. He alluded to a problem and warned me to be careful as to what I said until I got to a secure line.”

  Hughey took a deep breath and nodded. “We know, Dr. Randolph. I’m sorry about the intrusion, but our team here at the embassy monitored the call, per my instructions. I wanted to give you the opportunity to make contact with your husban
d, but if the conversation went in a direction that might compromise your safety, I’d instructed our agents to terminate the call.”

  Harper grimaced and nodded her head. “I understand. Is this a problem for my husband?”

  “I know of your husband and have the utmost respect for him. Without a doubt, he’ll be able to handle it. Besides, the agency has a way of diverting attention. Besides the usual vehement denials, we outed a few things related to the CDC’s investigation, which placed the Chinese on the defensive. Make no mistake, they are still searching for you, but their chest-pounding in the media has ceased.”

  Harper smiled and mouthed the words thank you. She finished off her coffee and promptly poured another one.

  Hughey winked at her. He was a grandfatherly sort who appeared empathetic. “The other thing I need to advise you about is the situation between China and India. Hostilities exploded over the last several days. There were multiple skirmishes along their shared western border, resulting in deaths on both sides.”

  “A hot war?” asked Kwon.

  “No, not yet. Hand-to-hand combat. Very brutal. You would’ve thought Sun Tzu was back with his army.”

  “Will that impact our ability to return home?” asked Harper.

  “No. That said, the MSS has operatives throughout Nepal and especially here in Kathmandu. Now that you’re here, we’re contemplating flight options, including private transportation. That might take a day or two to arrange.”

  One of the agents added, “There is a concert in several days for World Refugee Day. They have a chartered Boeing 737 to carry the band members, their instruments, and a smattering of media types. We might be able to fly you out under press credentials.”

  “A concert? Who’s playing?”

  “Sam Tsui. Phoebe Ryan. Talisco. A few others.”

  “Oh-kay,” Harper stretched out the response, showing her complete lack of recognition of the artists’ names.