Book of Stolen Tales (11 page)

November 18, 2003

Harlem, New York City

A
fter a brutal stretch in Iraq, Nick Shaheen desperately needed the leave. It was hard to say what had been worse—under-cover ops before the war broke out or the uncountable near misses on active duty once it had. When he'd been invited to join Special Forces three years ago at the age of twenty-seven, Shaheen considered it an honor. Not many ethnic Arabs were trusted by the U.S. military, especially in sensitive roles. There'd been no question about assigning him to data interpretation; his skills were needed in the field.

A recurring backache from a spinal injury acquired during these years from hell now followed him around like a malicious stalker. “Phantom pain,” the doctor declared. Shaheen downed an OxyContin. Powerful stuff to be taking, really, but the only antidote to the ache in his vertebrae. He ate breakfast at his favorite post, the corner table. The waiter brought his El Cubano sandwich. Hot roasted pork, savory mustard, double pickles.

His phone vibrated. He checked caller ID and got a surprise. His commander, Harry Falk, came on the line. “I'm off, you remember?” Shaheen said with his mouth full.

“I know. Something's come up and they want you specifically.”

“They who?”

“Request got forwarded via the DTRA.”

“Why do they need me?”

“Didn't provide a whole lotta details,” Falk said.

“I get all the luck.”

“Apparently you're good at your job. I tried to tell them the truth but they insisted.”

“I'm on leave.”

“You said that already. It's canceled.”

“Anybody else on deck for this?”

“Just you. They referred to it as an ‘inquiry.'”

“Tell them I'm indisposed.”

“Then I'd be lying.”

“Seriously, what's this all about?” Shaheen looked longingly at the half-eaten sandwich growing cold on his plate.

“Can't really tell you, Nick. They're hogging the info. I'm just as curious as to why they want
you
and not the CIA. This is happening completely outside normal command.”

“What're the coordinates?”

“Some suit named Leonard Best will pick you up. A civilian consultant. For the duration, you're working with him—you're at Amor Cubano, right?”

“Am I that predictable?”

“Does it rain every time I want to go on a picnic?”

“You've never been on a picnic in your life.”

A laugh. “Remember to fill me in. I'll be waiting by my phone.”

“Sure. You and Angelina. I've barely started eating.”

“Yeah, that's likely.” His commander hung up.

Shaheen threw a twenty on the table and rose when he saw a man enter the restaurant and head over to him, getting his hand ready for the shake. Leonard Best was on the short side, with glasses that enlarged his weak brown eyes. He wore a Brooks Brothers suit and nondescript tie. Classic bureaucrat. He looked around fifty. Much older than Shaheen, although considerably less weather-beaten.

“Lieutenant Shaheen, Leonard Best.” Best's hand felt soft and tentative.

Shaheen returned the handshake with a solid grip. Best handed him a card. Shaheen glanced at it and put it in his pocket while retrieving the plastic case that held his army ID.

Best waved it away. “That won't be necessary.”

“I like to observe the formalities all the same.” Shaheen offered it again.

Best took it, flipped open the cover, gave it a cursory glance, and handed it back. “I have a car waiting outside. Appreciate you accommodating us on your leave.”

“Not a problem,” Shaheen said. “I love working on my time off. Things get awfully boring otherwise.”

Best looked at him askance, not yet able to discern Shaheen's sarcasm.

“So you're with the DTRA? What's this all about?”

“Actually I'm a consultant, not an employee,” Best replied. “If you don't mind, I'll fill you in when we get there. I've got a car and driver waiting outside. Apologies for the cloak-and-dagger stuff.”

“Where are we headed to?”

“Not that far. Over on the West Side.”

Ignoring honks of rage, their driver strong-armed his way into traffic. Shaheen caught Best looking at him out of the corner of his eye and could tell what he was thinking. Bringing Shaheen in was a serious mistake. His haggard appearance and his dress—worn camouflage pants, Lil Wayne T-shirt, gold necklaces flopping around his neck, and stringy long hair pulled back in a ponytail—weren't fitting, Shaheen knew, even for an officer on his own time. Best probably thought his attitude stank and that he seemed like a smartass. He would no doubt also wonder about the wisdom of using an Iraqi-American man on such a highly sensitive mission.

“Can I ask why you people wanted me in particular?” Shaheen said.

“We were told you're one of the best they have.”

“They just don't want to spare their heavy hitters.”

Best forced out a smile. “No point in making this any more difficult, Lieutenant; it's not exactly a party for me either. You'll see what I mean soon enough.”

At 120th Street West the 1 train shoots out of its dim tunnel into broad daylight. For the next ten blocks it flies past clusters of mid- and high-rise structures and the hind ends of squat brick buildings whose best days are long behind them. Their driver stopped near an enclosed stairway leading up to the 125th Street station. As they emerged from the car, an unfamiliar stench assaulted them. Shaheen had heard the New York Transit Authority planned to renovate these stairwells. Couldn't happen fast enough, he thought to himself. They crossed the street and continued a short distance north until they reached a padlocked chain-link gate between two buildings. Best opened it with a key and they proceeded to the rear of one of the five-story walk-ups fronting on Broadway.

He led Shaheen to a scarred green door with a buzzer pad fixed to the wall. The level-three reinforced door was new and had been purposely defaced to fit in with the area. It had a multi-locking system; the light fixture above it held a camera that recorded all activity within a three-hundred-foot radius. Best pulled out a customized chip key and inserted it beneath the false buzzer. With a click the door swung inward and they entered a hallway constructed of stubbled concrete.

“What is this place?” Shaheen asked. “Smells like a morgue.”

“It's a secure biohazard facility. We don't want to be transporting individuals any farther than we have to if some pathogen threatens the city.”

Shaheen couldn't hide his surprise. “A secure facility here? Weird choice.”

“Precisely why it
is
here,” Best said. “In these matters, secrecy is paramount.”

The hallway dead-ended at a second door. Best pressed the flat of his palm against a device in the center and waited. A green light blinked twice and he pushed the door open. All the surfaces on the second floor were constructed of dull sheets of titanium to limit porosity and reduce glare. A doctor wearing a molded face mask and a white one-piece coverall waited for them inside. She was tall and thin with wispy gray hair and glasses. Her hands were gloved in latex.

The doctor gave Best a brief nod. “I'm Dr. Abbott.” She motioned toward a cubicle off to her right. “Please change your clothing, including your footwear, in there. Everything has to come off. We want to limit contamination from the outside too.”

“What about my gun?” Shaheen asked, noting that Best hadn't introduced him.

“Just leave it on the shelf. You won't need it in here.”

They hustled into their white suits and pulled on disposable slip-on boots. When they emerged from the cubicle, Abbott held out their face masks. “These are a devil to put on but they must fit perfectly.” The doctor fiddled with the adjustments for a few minutes and then declared both masks fitted well.

She adjusted her own mask, picked up a file folder, and indicated they should proceed toward a metal door. She unlocked it and they made their way down the hallway. Shaheen noticed her round-shouldered stoop, common enough in very tall people. “Both patients—Loretti and Hill—are incapacitated. You've seen the photographs?”

“Yes,” Best replied.

Asshole
. Shaheen was irritated at having to come here without any background preparation. It put him at a disadvantage.

“Get ready then,” the doctor said. “It's not a pretty sight.” Their boots squished as they walked down the hall; otherwise, the place was as quiet as a tomb. Shaheen detected the vague disinfectant smell again. He'd always hated the combination of false lemon scent and chemical disinfectant. It reminded him of the makeshift latrines in Iraq.

“Do you know how the disease is transmitted?” Best asked.

In a worried gesture, Abbott raised her hand up to her brow, stopping herself just short of touching her skin. “Well, both patients had unprotected contact with a lot of people—soldiers, their families, colleagues, first responder medics. No one else has been affected—yet. If it's communicable, it's not likely airborne. And their wives confirmed they'd had intimate relations since their return from Iraq. It may be too early to tell, but it looks as though it doesn't spread through blood or bodily fluids either. Still, we were surprised you didn't send them to Walter Reed.”

“Confidentiality's a primary issue,” Best said. “Walter Reed's a big facility: hard to lock down, hard to keep quiet. If it does spread, we'll have no choice. We'll have to involve the major facilities. The subjects returned from Iraq a month ago; we can deduce that whatever they picked up, it came from over there.”

Shaheen was beginning to get a glimmer of understanding. The main purpose of this facility was to keep any news of biological threats under the deepest possible cover. That probably meant they had no idea of what they were dealing with, and if it involved enemy action, no clue as to who exactly might be behind it.

“Loretti and Hill are both microbiologists, correct?” Abbott said.

Best nodded. “You received the records, I assume?”

“Yes.” Abbott checked her file. “Both of them initially complained of flu-like symptoms. Their doctors assumed they'd come down with a respiratory infection. Since then other symptoms have shown up and now the disease has progressed rapidly. The DTRA code named it ‘Black Death' after the plague in the Middle Ages, I assume. Highly unlikely to be related to bubonic plague, if that's what your people are thinking.” The doctor sighed. “I wish it was,” she confessed. “At least we'd know how to deal with it.”

“You still have no idea what's caused it?” Best asked.

“Not yet. But the lab's working 24/7.” Shaheen saw the signs of worry in the deep lines etching the doctor's brow. “It's his skin that's causing Loretti so much distress. It's tightening up all over his body and drying out, like his skin's in a slow cooker with an internal heat source. His temperature is very elevated but Hill's is flat. Cortisol, GH, and norepinephrine levels are also very high, but that's a predictable response to the terrific stress Loretti's under. He has significant swelling and soreness in the glans and foreskin, acute blistering on his neck, and a severe case of oral thrush. That could be from a yeast infection he acquired in Iraq. I understand it's a very starchy diet you feed them over there.”

Best ignored her last comment. “What about a form of venereal disease?”

Shaheen smirked and Abbott glanced disapprovingly at him.

“Tested negative for all known STDs. He's experiencing hallucinations now too. Hardly surprising given his state.”

Shaheen took all this in with growing awareness. Two Americans named Loretti and Hill had acquired some kind of disease, probably in Iraq. Virulent enough that it set off loud alarms. Shaheen had not been involved with the hunt for biological weapons, although he knew Washington placed a high priority on the search and so far had turned up nothing. The international intelligence community privately ruled out any biological threat from Hussein's government well before the onset of the war. Could Loretti and Hill have discovered something after all?

“I wanted you to see Loretti,” Best said to Shaheen, “so you'd know what we're dealing with.”

They walked down the corridor to a bank of tempered-glass windows. Two white-suited guards, heavily armed, stood on either side of a door. It reminded Shaheen of a high-security prison cell.

“We can't go in,” Abbott said. “This is one-way viewing glass. Loretti's been sedated, but even with that he's been tearing at the restraints.”

Shaheen was suddenly aware of a light dimming as though some form had cast a shadow over them where they stood. Abbott and Best appeared not to notice.

“When Loretti initially came to us, he tried to tell us something,” Abbott said.

“What?” Best asked.

“We couldn't figure it out. He pronounced two separate and distinct words. ‘Ersh' and ‘gal.' It probably means nothing. Just the product of a disordered mind. He repeated them over and over. We taped him and had a speech therapist evaluate it, but got nowhere. Maybe your people can have a go at it.