Ebola K: A Terrorism Thriller: Book 3 (5 page)

Feeling strange to be sitting in a moving vehicle maneuvering around water-filled holes in the muddy road, Austin asked, “How do you know Olivia?”

Mitch laughed.  “The jealous brother thing?” Mitch showed Austin a smile.

“Just curious.  She asked about you on the phone.  She wanted to know how you were doing.”

Glancing down at himself, Mitch asked, “What’d you tell her?”

“I told her you looked like Indiana Jones.  Like you’re in your element here.” Austin’s grin slipped away.  “Seriously, is she worried about something? Are you infected?”

“No.” The truck caught a slick patch of mud and slid sideways as the engine revved on loose wheels.  Mitch spun the steering wheel first in one direction and then the other, and then got control.  “I’ve been lucky so far.”

Austin looked through the gaps in the jungle and saw cultivated fields overrun with tall weeds between the rows of crops.  “Me too, I guess.”

“You guess?” Mitch asked.  “My bet was that you’d be dead.  Based on what you looked like last time I saw you.”

“Yeah.  I suppose.”

“Now look at you.  Strong.  Lean.”

“Starved is a better description.” Austin looked into the back of the truck.  “You got any food in here?”

“Yeah.” Mitch pointed at a cooler pushed against the doors in the back.  “Bottled water back there, too.  You want to climb over the seat or you want me to stop?”

Austin looked at the trees and fields outside and didn’t see any people at any distance.  Still, to stop was to open them to risk.  “I’ll climb over.  Watch the bumps, if you don’t mind.”

Glancing in the mirror, Mitch said, “Grab me something, too.”

Austin opened the cooler and felt like he’d opened a pirate’s chest full of gold.  “You loaded up.”

“I didn’t know how long I’d be gone,” Mitch shrugged and looked at Austin in the mirror.  “I stock up where I can.  With things the way they are, you never know how long it’ll be before you can find your next can of SPAM.”

Austin laughed.  And that felt unusual, too.  He was speaking English to an American.  He had an armful of food and clean water to drink.  “How bad are things?”

“You mean with Ebola?”

“What else?” Austin tumbled his booty onto the console between the front seats and climbed his way back to the front.

“Bad.” Mitch’s face turned frustrated, even a bit angry.  “We missed our chance when Almasi got away.”

“Najid?” Austin confirmed as he shook his head.  “He got away then?”

“I spent a good deal of time in Nairobi.  It’s like something out of a medieval story about the Black Death.  Pyres in the markets.  Bodies in the streets.”

“Everywhere else?”

“I mostly know what Olivia tells me.” Mitch glanced at the satellite phone.  “Every other number I know, there’s nobody home.  Know what I mean?”

“No.” Austin looked at the phone.  “What do you mean? I’ve been living in a grass hut in the jungle.  For months, I think.”

Mitch picked up the phone and looked at it as he drove.  “No reason I can think of that they’d stop answering unless they took ill or died.”

“Could there be something wrong with the connection? Maybe something with the satellite?”

“Maybe.” Mitch laid the phone between the seats.  “Not the most likely explanation, though.”

Mitch’s tone wasn’t flip but it wasn’t distressed either.  It was matter of fact.  “Does it bother you?” Austin asked.  “It seems like it doesn’t.”

“That everyone might be dead?”

“Yeah.” Austin watched Mitch’s face for a trace of something.

“I compartmentalize.” Mitch picked up a banana from the console.  “I’ve always been good at it.  I guess maybe I’d feel bad about everything if I wasn’t focused so much on what I have to do.”

“Is that true?” Austin went to work on a mango.

“What?”

“Is it true that you would feel bad about all that other stuff if you weren’t busy searching for me, for instance?”

Mitch gave Austin a long, hard look.  “That’s an intrusive question.”

“Sorry.” Austin leaned back in his seat and looked out the window.

“No worries.” Mitch smiled.  “I’m not used to letting anyone see my secrets.”

“Bad childhood?” Austin asked, only glancing at Mitch before turning to watch the fields pass by again.  “You need to repress and hide?”

Mitch laughed out loud.  “Nothing like that.  It’s the job.  To tell you the truth, it’s probably not the job.  It’s a talent that makes it easier to
do
the job.”

“Are you a spy or something like that?” Austin asked, returning Mitch’s smile.

“I supposed it doesn’t matter much anymore who knows.  So yeah, something like that.”

Austin was taken aback.  “You’re a spy? Like for the CIA?”

Mitch didn’t answer, except to raise his eyebrows and then look back up the road.

After they drove a bit in silence, Austin asked.  “You think it’s a talent, then?”

“What’s that? Are we still talking about why I don’t feel bad?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Mitch appraised Austin again with a lingering stare.

Austin looked back at Mitch.  “Do you have any guesses about what I’ve been up to since you last saw me?”

Nodding, Mitch said, “You got better, hung out in Kapchorwa, walked to Mbale to get help, got kidnapped by a rebel bunch run by some charismatic dude called The General and that’s all I know.”

Austin was stunned.  “You got the first stuff from Dr. Littlefield, but how did you know The General kidnapped me? Were you out searching for me all this time?”

“No.” Mitch took a bite of the banana.  After swallowing, he continued, “I’ve only been on your trail for a week or so.  I talked to some locals in Mbale.  I got lucky and found one who saw you getting chased by some rebels.  One thing led to another, and I ended up looking for a rebel camp on Mt.  Elgon.”

“We were on the southern slope.”

“Well-hidden, too.” Mitch peeled his banana down to the bottom.  “I couldn’t find it.  I picked up your trail from a coffee farmer who saw a ghost cross his field one morning.”

“A ghost?” Austin laughed.

“Or a mzungu.  He wasn’t positive.  Well, he
was
positive.  He thought you were a ghost.” Mitch stuffed another bite into his mouth.  “You were with the rebels the entire time?”

Austin nodded.  “Until I escaped.”

“How’d you manage that? You just run off into the woods one day when you went out for a leak?”

Shaking his head and looking for the right words—words that would describe the situation without seeming to brag, without searching for pity—he said, “I killed them.”

“Killed them?” Mitch pursed his lips and nodded.  He drove for a moment without responding.  He didn’t know what to think.  Austin could see it on his face.  “How many?”

“Nearly all of them, I think.”

Mitch smiled as though Austin might be joking.  “You went Rambo on them?”

Austin shook his head.  He knew disbelief when he saw it.  “Don’t worry about it.”

“No, man,” said Mitch.  “Sorry.  I didn’t mean—”

Austin decided that he was too grown up to pout.  “It’s nothing.  It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not.  It doesn’t matter if I tell you, really.  That’s not why I brought it up.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I…” Austin thought about trying to explain his feelings, but realized as his mouth hung open that his feelings meant nothing without the context of what he’d done.  “I infected them all with Ebola.”

“How’d you do that?”

“The details are pretty disgusting,” said Austin.  “I was helping with the cooking.  Dr. Littlefield told me the virus would be active in my bodily fluids for months after I got better.”

Nodding, Mitch said, “I got the picture.”

“At first, I didn’t know if it worked,” said Austin.  “It’s not instantaneous, you know.  But pretty soon, they all got sick.  They all died.  Or most of them, anyway.  Then after The General died, I took his pistol and his rifle and I just walked out one morning.”

“Nobody stopped you?”

Shaking his head.  “I don’t know if anybody was healthy enough by then to do anything about it.  I think most of them were dead.”

“Sorry I doubted.”

“Don’t be.” Austin looked at his mango.  It wasn’t quite ripe.  “I’m sure it sounded like a ridiculous claim from a mzungu kid from Denver.”

“Why’d you do it?” asked Mitch.  “I mean, kill them all? Was that the only way out?”

“The General was cruel.” Austin looked up through the windshield to see the gray clouds covering the sky.  “It’s going to rain again.”

“Yeah,” Mitch agreed.

“I think he was crazy.  He’d killed some of the hostages.  All but me, I guess.”

“There were others?”

“Hostages?” Austin leaned back in his seat.  “Four of us altogether.  He wanted to ransom us back to our families.  He killed the other three.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah, it was pretty fucked up.”

Mitch looked Austin up and down again.  “You came through it okay, it looks like.”

Austin nodded.  “You ever kill anybody?”

Mitch didn’t say anything.

“Would your talent for compartmentalizing work for that?”

Mitch nodded.  “Perfectly.”

Austin took a long drink of water, appreciating that it was clear and tasted of nothing unusual.  He looked hard through the bottle as it jostled with the bumps in the road and no sediment swirled up to taint its clarity.  What a luxury.  “I may have killed forty—maybe fifty—men and boys.  I don’t feel bad about it.”

Mitch started to speak, then stopped.  He started again and stopped again.

“Don’t say something patronizing, okay?”

“I wasn’t going to.” Mitch put on a sympathetic face.  “The truth is, I don’t know what to say.  Maybe you’re numb.  Maybe the guys deserved it so you feel justified.  I don’t know.”

The truck plowed through the muck on the road and started up a long, undulating hill.  The two passed the time in silence, broken when Mitch finally admitted, “I’ve killed people.  Some in a firefight and a couple more.  The ones in the firefight don’t even cross my mind.” He looked over at Austin.

Austin was interested.  “You don’t feel any guilt?”

Mitch shook his head and then looked down at the dashboard as though he felt bad.  “It never even occurred to me to feel guilty.  It never occurred to me to think about them.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking about.”

“What’s that exactly?”

“I realized,” said Austin, “when I was hiking through the jungle, I didn’t feel any guilt.  I felt bad at first, when I was in the village, watching them die, but I felt bad because they were suffering.  But their deaths…those didn’t bring me any guilt.  When The General died—”

“You were there when he died?”

“Right by his bed.  The rebels made me his nurse, sort of.  I took care of him.  I held his hand when he drew his last breath.  I slept the rest of the night in the hut right there with the body.  I left the next morning and didn’t think anything about it.  Guilt never crossed my mind.”

“None?”

“If I feel any guilt at all,” with sad eyes, Austin made a smile, “it’s guilt for not feeling guilty.”

Mitch laughed darkly.

“Why is that funny?”

“I think I feel the same way.  I mean about the guys in that firefight.”

“Is that normal?”

“Maybe for some people.” He looked Austin up and down again but his eyes were no longer looking for lies.  They were respectful.  “Maybe for people like us.”

People like us?

“Did I tell you that hearing your voice brings the sunshine out from behind the clouds?”

Olivia dropped the phone as she laughed.  She quickly picked it back up.  “Sorry, I dropped the phone.  Mathew, these things you say, have they ever helped you get a girl into bed?”

Wheeler said, “A gentleman doesn’t talk about such things.”

“Oh, I doubt you’re a gentlemen.”

“If it wasn’t a violation of a half-dozen laws, I’d love to give you the chance to find out.”

“What?” Olivia asked.  “I think you’re out of luck on that one.  I probably couldn’t even drive all the way to Atlanta if I wanted to.”

“All I’m going to say is that modern technology has given us alternatives that our predecessors could only have dreamed about.”

Olivia laughed again.  “Are you seriously asking me to sext you?”

“A picture’s worth a thousand words.”

“I sometimes wonder why you’re divorced,” said Olivia, “and then I talk to you again.”

“Still you call me,” Wheeler chuckled.  “It’s nice to hear you happy again.  Did something good happen?”

“Austin’s alive.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“No.  I spoke to him on the phone late last night.  Mitch found him in Kapchorwa.”

“Not to disparage Mitch,” said Wheeler, “he’s been a great help in getting us information out of East Africa.  But how’s that possible? Was Austin in Kapchorwa the whole time?”

“No.  Do you have time for a long story?”

“You know I work for the CDC, right? You know this is kind of our busy season, right?”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Olivia felt bad.  “I know you’re busy.”

“Please.” Wheeler chuckled again.  “I’ve been working eighteen-hour days and sleeping under my desk.  I’ve got some time.  No one is standing over my shoulder at the moment with demands.  Tell me about your brother.”

Olivia passed along all she’d heard from Austin, trying her best not to get emotional again about the details.

“He’s lucky,” Wheeler concluded.

“Yes, he is.”

“But there’s more?”

“I need to find a way to get Austin home,” Olivia replied.

“That’s probably a year away at least.  I can’t see any kind of leisure travel for a long time.  Obviously the world has changed, but I think this event leads to changes beyond anything you and I can imagine.  It’s like a near-death experience for humanity.”

“I don’t want to interrupt you if you’re going to lecture me on unexpected outcomes, but Barry had an idea.  That’s why I called.”

“And here I was thinking you liked the sound of my voice.”

Olivia blushed because Wheeler was speaking an embarrassing truth.  “You told me last time we talked that the virus was spawning new strains, right? And that all the labs want samples whenever anyone thinks they’ve got a new strain.  You guys are still flying samples, right? Trading with other labs.  Getting samples from different parts of the world? You have government jets you do that with, right?”

“Yes.” Wheeler was tentative with the response.

“What does that mean?”

“It means getting a CDC plane from point A to point B is getting harder and harder to do.  If you’re thinking that maybe I can arrange to get Austin onto a jet that happened to land somewhere within a thousand miles of Kapchorwa, well, then…” Wheeler, for a change, didn’t sound optimistic.

“Yes.  That’s what I was thinking.” Olivia’s mood deflated.

“Maybe a month ago.  Probably a few months ago.  Today—a bad bet.”

“But possible?”

“Possible,” Wheeler sighed.  “I’m always a sucker for blue eyes even if I have to imagine them from the other end of the phone.  But I shouldn’t admit that.  It’ll change the power dynamic in our relationship.”

“Mathew.” Olivia exaggerated a sigh.  “Can we ever just talk about one thing at a time?”

“Sorry.  I have a hard time focusing on just one thing.”

“That’s why you’re divorced.”

“Ouch.”

“And we don’t have a relationship.” Olivia wished she hadn’t said that.

Wheeler, though, wasn’t put off.  She heard his smile through the phone when he said, “Just because we haven’t kissed doesn’t mean we don’t have a relationship.  We’re doing it the new old-fashioned way.  Getting to know one another first.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.” Wheeler went silent for a moment, which meant he was thinking through something complex.  “I can try to pull some strings.”

Olivia felt a pinch of relief from a new worry that had been growing since she’d hung up the phone with Austin after the first call.  “I’m worried about leaving Austin in Uganda.  The place is dangerous.”

“Maybe not any more dangerous than here.”

Olivia was put off by Wheeler’s comment.  “Things aren’t that bad here.”

“Yet.” Wheeler pushed his point.  “You’ve been watching this thing in city after city, country after country.  You know how it goes.  You and I have talked about it a hundred times.”

“I don’t want to believe it.” And she truly didn’t.  She wanted to believe Austin would be safer in the States than in Africa.  “We’re taking measures here.  We’re having an effect.”

“Yes, we are.” Wheeler’s voice turned sad as he went further into his work.  “The donation program, as much as I hate how it’s being implemented, is helping.  We have at least three vaccines in production.” Wheeler laughed bitterly.  “If a few hundred doses a week can be called
production
.”

“They save some lives,” Olivia encouraged.

“Yes.  Probably.  On one of the vaccines we’re not even certain it works.  Hell, we’re not certain
any
of them work.  We’re a lot less certain with that one.”

“And other countries?” asked Olivia.  “Some are developing vaccines as well, right?”

“Of course.  We’re all sharing what we learn as fast as we learn it.  Nobody is sharing actual vaccines, just formulae and process instructions.  You’d have a hell of a time getting something like that across a border.  Well, I suppose you could smuggle a few doses, but getting vaccines shipped is impossible.  Nobody has enough of anything for their citizens.  Hell, most of the poorer countries were bowled over by this.  Their healthcare systems collapsed.  They’ve got nothing, and there’s nothing anybody can do about it.”

“Like in Africa?” Olivia asked, knowing the answer before she asked.

“Most of it.  Yeah.”

“Maybe things won’t get that bad here.”

Olivia heard Wheeler’s smile again when he answered.  “Before this pandemic started, that’s one of the things I liked about you—your optimism.”

“It’s hard to hold onto with all the death.”

“Understandable.  Hell, expected.  If you were as optimistic now as when we first met, I might wonder about your sanity.” Wheeler forced a laugh and Olivia did, too.  After that, they fell into a silence for a while, comforted to hear one another breathe.

“When this passes,” said Olivia in a dreamy voice, “let’s go out and get some Gulf shrimp and a bottle of wine.  Maybe find one of those clubs that’s been there for a hundred years with the smell of beer and cigarettes soaked into the brick, with old license plates nailed over the holes in the wooden floor, with a band of old men playing blues like they’ve been up there since the club opened.  And dance.  Just dance.  I need someone to hold me.” Olivia felt a lump in her throat but she told herself that she wasn’t going to cry.  She was never a crier and felt embarrassed every time the tears came.  And they came so frequently these days.

Wheeler said, “I know just the place.  About an hour southeast of here.  Out in the pines.  You’d never find it unless you knew where you were going.  We’ll dance until we’re too tired to stand up.  Then we can sit on the back porch and smell tomorrow’s barbecue in the smoker, get drunk, and let the mosquitos have their way with us.”

Olivia laughed.  “It’s a date.”

“Not that the two are connected, the date and what I’m about to say, but that Dr. Littlefield you mentioned, I’ve talked to him on the phone.  Mitch put me in touch.  There’s a strain of the virus there now with a damn good survival rate.  At least I think it’s a new strain based on the severity and survival rates.”

“What do the numbers look like?” Olivia asked.

“Nearly eighty percent live.”

“And it’s not a new therapy?”

“I wish it was,” said Wheeler.  “They’re in Mbale.  They’re lucky to have a bandage or aspirin.  I think it’s a new strain.”

“What are you thinking?”

“Samples might help us save lives.  I want to try to get a plane sent that way but like I said, it’s getting hard.”

“Anything I can do?”

“Mostly it’s not a case of permissions.  Some governments don’t want anybody in their airspace or crossing their borders.  Nobody.  Not for any reason.  In other places, there’s no government to speak of.  But you know that.  At lots of airports, there isn’t anyone there to refuel a plane.  Nobody there to do anything.  We don’t even know if the runways are clear.”

“I can help with the logistics,” said Olivia.  “I can be pretty good at figuring things out.”

“Let’s do this.  Austin is going to Mbale.  I’ll have Dr. Littlefield draw and prepare some samples for travel.  We’ll see if we can find a way to designate Austin as the courier for the samples.  He can carry them back here.”

“What about Mitch?”

“You think he’ll want to come home?”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“Maybe we can get them both back.” Olivia felt hope.  “You think it’ll work?”

“Don’t know.  Let’s try.”