Jericho 3 (2 page)

Duty guards from the 101st Airborne Division waived them through as Major Banks and Captain Henry walked past the plain-clothed Gurkha guards from Nepal with Miriam trailing a few steps behind. The Gurkhas were slight of build and not much to look at, but they were ruthless. They made fine mercenaries and their allegiance could be bought for $25 per day, seven days a week, on a six-month contract. They were effective. No one had successfully penetrated Lightning’s checkpoint since the suicide bomber detonated at the gate a few years before.

When Major Banks and Captain Henry walked out of the Lightning checkpoint, they walked onto Forward Operating Base Thunder, the sprawling Afghan National Army base and home to the 203rd Corps. The Paktya Regional Hospital was only the length of a football field away from the checkpoint, a short walk along a nicely paved, American taxpayer-funded road on Thunder. A click behind the hospital a Russian Mi-17 lifted up and set its path toward Gardez. The Afghan Army preferred the Russian helicopters for high elevation terrain. Most of the Afghan officers and pilots spoke and read Russian. It was easier for them.

“Never have quite figured that one out,” Banks said as he watched the Mi-17 thunder overhead. “The Russians come here, invade, and occupy for 10 years. They were the enemy.”

“But they bought loyalty,” Captain Henry surmised. “Rubles. A man can smile at you, speak your language, and offer you tea for 10 years or more…as long as you’re handing out money.”

An Afghan ambulance with lights on, but no siren, passed the three of them and pulled into the hospital parking lot close to the Emergency Room entrance.

“There ya go; a Ford Ranger ambulance brought to you by Detroit and paid for by American taxpayers,” Captain Henry started. “American, Russian, Chinese, Pakistani, Iranian…the Afghans don’t give a damn who you are or what you think you’re going to do with their country. They’ll just wait you out and suck all your money until you go home.”

Miriam kept her eyes down as Captain Henry finished his rant.

“They teach you all that at West Point?” asked Major Banks.

Captain Henry stopped, turned around, and pointed to the ancient battle outposts perched high atop the valley. “No…your Alexander the Great did. Isn’t that right, Miriam? Y’all are just going to wait us out.”

Miriam was accustomed to speeches by Captain Henry and every other American officer she had worked under for the previous four years. That’s why she hated them, all of them; all of them except Major Banks. At least that’s how Banks saw it.

The three walked through the front doors of Paktya Regional Hospital as 10 workers gathered around the front desk stood to greet them. Miriam walked around the entrance wall to her little desk space and sat down. No one had a computer or traditional office equipment. One long row of fluorescent lights lit the corridor between the front desk and the ER. The recovery bay was halfway down the other corridor. It was an open room with 20 beds which was usually filled to capacity.

“Doctor Mahmoud just went down to ER,” said Abdul, the front desk manager.

“ANA?” asked Captain Henry.

“No, not Afghan National Army this time. An elder,” Abdul answered.

Piping hot green tea was served in the same unwashed cups used every day prior, as Major Banks sipped to be gracious while sorting through patient records.

“How’s our isolation ward this morning?” Banks asked to no one in particular.

Abdul tried to answer but quickly gave up and looked over to Miriam and rattled off several phrases in Pashtu.

“All three tularemia patients are resting comfortably. He thinks the room is a bio-containment ward so no one has gone in to see them yet today.”

“Have they been fed?” asked Banks, now slightly agitated.

Abdul shook his head. Major Banks and Captain Henry stood quickly as did Miriam. Banks reached for a new set of examination gloves and a sterile face mask. Henry did the same. Miriam pulled her necklace off, unhooked the clasp, and let the solitary glass bead slide off into her hand as she put the bead into the decorative glass vase on her desk. The vase was filled with hundreds of glass beads that supported the stems of her artificial flowers. She removed a tiny metal flask, dabbed a splash of oriental spice perfume on the inside of her wrist and poured the rest of the flask into a plastic iced tea bottle she had taken one day from the DFAC dining facility after a working lunch.

Miriam’s flowers were the only colors in a very dreary hospital.

“Abdul, send Doctor Mahmoud down to the isolation ward as soon as he’s out of the ER.”

“Yes, Dr. Banks.”

Two armed guards with the ANA stood outside the door of the isolation ward as Banks, Henry and Miriam entered. The guards followed but stopped just inside the door. Three ragged members of the Taliban were lying in their beds, two heads positioned against one wall, one head against the other. The beds were simple metal twin beds moved over from the Afghan barracks.

“A few days ago we collected some respiratory secretions and blood from each of you,” Major Banks said as he paused for Miriam’s translation.

“I don’t know this word…secretions?” Miriam asked before she translated.

“Fluids.”

As Miriam spoke the Taliban patients wouldn’t look her in the eyes even though she was wearing the hijab head scarf.

“I got the results back from our hospital lab in Bagram. Each of you has tularemia, or rabbit fever. The lesions you see on your skin are also inside your intestines and in your lungs. That’s why you’re having trouble breathing. It feels like pneumonia. You run a fever while you experience chills. You feel cold. Your body aches”

Each of the three looked at their own skin ulcers as Miriam spoke.

“One case of tularemia is rare. Three cases could be an epidemic. I need to ask you some questions. I need to find out where you were and what you were doing when you became sick.”

As Miriam translated, the oldest Taliban patient rolled over on his side and faced the back wall away from Major Banks.

Major Banks and Captain Henry noticed the attitude. This was not going to go well.

“I have brought medicines with me. If I give you these medicines, you will live. Now that we know what this is, we no longer need to isolate you. The hospital can use normal biosafety level precautions now. But if you refuse the medicine, then your organs will shut down. You will lose weight. The lesions on your hands will form inside your eyes…then your eyes may burn in their sockets with ulcers that will boil like acid…until you die.”

The youngest Taliban patient sat up quickly in bed and spoke directly to Miriam.

“He says that he has a wife and a young son and that he is willing to die but prefers not to die today. He is willing to take the medicines,” Miriam said.

Abdul opened the door to the isolation ward and delivered Dr. Mahmoud as instructed. Mahmoud was slight of build and his youth was punctuated with an obnoxious laugh and endless nervous tension. Nothing was calming about Dr. Mahmoud as he walked into the ward, fresh from pronouncing a Zazai tribe elder dead in the ER after a less than urgent ambulance ride.

“Tell them Dr. Mahmoud will give them ciprofloxacin twice daily through an IV for 10 days. After that, they can go home, but they’ll need to take more pills,” Major Banks said to Miriam as he looked up to see Mahmoud.

Miriam translated as much as she understood as Dr. Mahmoud started visiting with his patients. The oldest Taliban patient rolled over and covered his heart with his hand as the Afghan doctor walked by. Mahmoud touched his shoulder.

“
Zar ba yi ter lasa kri,
my brother, get well soon.”

Then Banks, Henry and Mahmoud left the isolation ward and walked toward the emergency room followed by Miriam.

“What was all that bull about their eyes boiling like acid?” Captain Henry said trying to hold back a laugh.

“Sometimes pictures are worth a thousand of Miriam’s words.”

“Doctor Banks?”

“Yes, Dr. Mahmoud.”

“This tularemia…is it contagious?”

“
Francisella tularensis is very infectious.
It’ll knock your socks off. Less than 10 microbes of the bacteria and you’re infected. We haven’t seen any proof that it’s
contagious
, as in from me to you. But it’s still a Category A bioterrorism agent like the plague and anthrax.”

“So then it can be transferred from one person to another, Dr. Banks?”

“Not that we know of. There’s a difference between infectious and contagious. It’s only on the Cat A list because it could be lethal and widespread if it got into the food or water supply. So far, the bad guys haven’t figured out how to make an infectious aerosol for it.”

Captain Henry stopped in the hallway. He was not entirely satisfied with the major’s reasoning.

“So three Taliban thugs show up in our hospital with rabbit fever, and we’re going to chalk it up to random happenstance?”

“To the contrary, I suspect the three of them feasted on some infected and undercooked meat in one of their four-star Hilton caves, captain. But you’re probably correct.”

“Sir?”

“I’m guessing it was rabbit.”

Banks, Henry, Mahmoud and Miriam walked into the ER where Banks removed a box of ciprofloxacin and IV kits that had been flown in from Bagram Air Base.

The radio in the ER crackled to life. Mahmoud answered the call using the handheld microphone as Banks and Henry prepared the medication.

“That was the checkpoint at Thunder,” Mahmoud said. “The ambulance is bringing in Colonel Sadik’s wife.”

“Who’s Sadik?” Banks asked as he staged the IVs on a surgical tray.

“He’s the head of the ANA Commando unit here on Thunder,” Mahmoud said.

“What’s her problem?”

“They don’t know. The checkpoint guard said she’s screaming in pain and holding her stomach. Probably a female issue.”

“Probably so,” Banks said showing a substantial lack of interest. American doctors were in Afghanistan to take care of American soldiers as well as mentor and train Afghan physicians. They were not deployed to treat Afghan civilians.

“Dr. Banks, you are expert in woman medicine. I am best at colostomy.”

Henry laughed. “Damn right! A 13-year-old kid comes in here last month with a sore throat…maybe tonsils. Doc Mahmoud got him all fixed up and sent him out the door with a colostomy!”

“You gave the kid a bag shitter? For a sore throat?” Banks quipped.

“When I studied at Kabul School of Medicine my teachers showed me how to do colostomies. Now I’m expert.”

“Well, don’t give Colonel Commando’s wife a bag, or he’s liable to shoot you,” Banks said as the IV tray was fully prepped.

“Please, I beg you Dr. Banks; please consult with me on this woman. I need training.”

Banks stopped and rolled his eyes at Mahmoud.

“Okay, your English is pretty good. Captain, I’ll join Dr. Mahmoud for a ‘woman medicine’ consult. Can you and Miriam take this stuff down to our ‘tularemia trio’ and get them hooked up to the juice tree?”

“Roger that, sir.”

Captain Henry wheeled the cart down the fluorescent light corridor followed by Miriam 10 steps behind.

The back doors of the ER flew open as the deep anguished screams of a woman, and lots of Pashtu chatter that made no sense to Banks, echoed throughout the cinder-block ER.

“You get her vitals,” Banks directed the Afghan physician, “and ask if she’s willing to see an American doctor. Make sure you tell her I’m an American Army gynecologist. I don’t want the Afghan colonel’s wife going all Jihad Jane on me if I show up unannounced to take a peek at her girl parts, okay?”

Mahmoud nodded and disappeared behind the curtains. He sat down on his rolling stool so that only his well-worn Puma sneakers, dirty pants and the bottom of his lab coat could be seen. Banks could hear Mahmoud talking over the woman’s groans. Both ambulance drivers tried to keep her quiet.

The woman stopped groaning after Mahmoud finished speaking. There was a pause.

“
Sha!
” the woman moaned.

Still seated, Mahmoud pushed his rolling stool across the tiled floor and beyond the curtain’s edge.

“Dr. Banks, the woman said okay.”

With stethoscope around his neck, Banks walked up and inside the crowded exam room. The ambulance drivers looked at him, covered their hearts, and smiled. The woman was still writhing in pain, though much quieter. Banks practiced the entire Pashtu lexicon he had committed to memory.

“
As salam aleikum. Ze la Amerika
. Doctor Banks.”

The drivers put their hands to their hearts again then quickly back to the arms of the patient who needed some restraint.

“
Aya ta pe…po-he-gy Englesi?
” Banks asked.

The woman shook her head no.

Mahmoud stayed seated on his stool while Banks put the stethoscope’s acoustic buds into his ears and reached out slowly toward the woman’s neck. The stainless steel chest piece had a pink breast cancer bow on the top side as well as pink single-lumen tubing up to the splitter connection.

Banks was watching the woman as she stopped groaning. Her face softened and her eyes fixated on the pink bow, just as violent pain raced through his skull and the major’s lights went out.

The Ford Ranger’s tire iron crashed against the back of Banks’ head as Dr. Mahmoud watched his mentor fall face-first onto the now silent and very healthy woman.

One of the ambulance drivers pulled Banks up so the woman could get off the gurney. Mahmoud pulled out a vial and syringe. He pressed the needle into the vial and pulled the plunger back. A fine mist filled the air before he inserted the hypodermic needle into the bare arm of Major Banks. Mahmoud injected Banks with a full dose of ketamine that he had taken out of the meds cabinet earlier in the morning. Ketamine was the sedation drug of choice in Afghanistan and Mahmoud reasoned the hallucinations from the drug might not be as frightening as the reality Banks would soon face.

The other ambulance attendant wheeled in a second gurney from the Ford Ranger as the now fully-recovered woman and the other driver wheeled Banks out into the waiting ambulance. Mahmoud got into the new bed.