Mirrors (9 page)

The new cell
phone rang as we stepped inside.

“Good, you got the packet,” Flagstaff said. “You leave tomorrow first thing, which is just as well because the XK59 story will break then. The Task Force thought it was time to inform the public.” He paused. “In the meantime, do you know someone named Charles E. Oxford, PhD?”

“No, why?”

“Because, our security team saw a young woman leave his business card on your door mat. You’ve never heard of his company—
BioVironics Pharmaceuticals and Neutraceuticals
?”

My heart skipped. “Up the road, in Germantown?”

“You know it, then.”

“I learned about it in California.” I told him about the bottled drink Danny’s parents had given me.

“Stay put. I’ll have someone from the lab come get it immediately.”

Forty minutes later, a man in a natty suit with boyish good looks appeared at the door. “
Distamus ab aliis
.”

“
Proprius orbis
,” I replied with scorn.

He extended his hand. “Alistair Brubeck, director of the UNIT lab. I’ve come for the bottled drink.”

I gave it to him.

“What about the results on levels of XK59 in the victims?” I asked. “Have you got them?”

“Not yet.” He started down the steps. “But I’ll call you with them soon.”

He raced away in a chauffeured car.

“Mr. Fields, your
passport,” a voice beckoned as I stared at a departure screen at Dulles International Airport.

“Mr. Fields!” the voice repeated.

I shifted my eyes to the counter.

“I’m sorry.” I handed the airline agent my passport.

He took my suitcase in exchange for a boarding pass, and after clearing security, I rode a shuttle to the gate where I received a call from Alistair Brubeck.

“Can you talk?” he asked.

I glanced about. With an hour remaining before my flight’s departure, the gate was sparsely populated.

“Yes,” I said.

“I’ve got the results you requested—levels of XK59 in the victim who died in Seattle and in leftover shrimp recovered from his refrigerator.”

“Let’s hear them,” I replied.

“It’s odd, but the levels in the shrimp were far lower than those in the victim. We triple-checked them.”

“Give me the values.”

Papers rustled.

“In the shrimp, there was one
microgram
of XK59 per kilogram of tissue, which is equivalent to 1 part per
billion
, whereas in the victim, there was one
milligram
of XK59 per kilogram, or 1 part per
million
. That’s a thousand-fold higher concentration in the victim.”

“One part per million in the victim,” I repeated. “That’s the same level of XK59 I found in the mice that bled to death, only to produce that level, I had to feed the rodents chow that contained 10 parts per million of XK59.”

“Sounds like one part per million of XK59 in tissue causes fatal bleeding,” Brubeck observed.

“Yes, but it’s baffling that the concentration of XK59 in the shrimp was so low. For the victim to have accumulated a level a thousand-fold greater than that present in the shrimp, he would have had to eat an inconceivably large amount of shrimp.”

“The results are what they are,” Brubeck said.

I recalled a colleague who used to help students visualize the difference between one part per
million
of something versus one part per
billion
. One part per million would be one particle of a substance for every 999,999 other particles, whereas one part per billion would be one particle for every 999,999,999 other particles. He suggested students think about wheat being loaded into shipping containers. If a full container carried 100 tons of wheat, then one would have to add a half-cup of sugar to the container to create a mixture of 1 part per million. By contrast, to create a mixture of 1 part per
billion
, one would have to mix a single
teaspoon
of sugar in 45 containers of wheat.

“Perhaps something other than shrimp contributed to the higher levels in the victim,” I proposed.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, but let’s see what results come from the drink I brought from California.”

Just then, Ricardo Muñoz appeared at the gate.

“Gotta go,” I told Brubeck.

“Bring home some shrimp from Ecuador,” he replied.

“Did you see
this?” Muñoz asked, lifting a copy of
The Washington Post
. He pointed to the headlines.

Deadly Protein in Tainted Shrimp Kills 3, Sickens 9 Others

“Yes,” I replied with discomfort. While riding to the airport, I had read the article, and seeing mention of XK59 on a front-page story had made me feel like a villain of sorts even though my name as discoverer of the protein hadn’t been cited.

I shifted attention away from myself to Muñoz, saying, “I saw your quote about the source of the shrimp still being under investigation.”

He nodded. “I didn’t want the shrimp farm in Ecuador to know they had been targeted.”

“Who’s handling the press while we’re in Ecuador?”

“A colleague of mine from CDC named Crystal Petersen. Glenn Bird recruited her.” His eyes brightened. “She’ll replace me after we complete our work in Ecuador so I can see my fiancée in Peru.”

“When’s the big day?”

“Two weeks.” From his wallet he pulled a photo of a woman with long black hair and engaging eyes. “Lolita,” he said. “I want to begin my life with her.”

We arrived in
Quito at dusk. Two men met us at baggage claim, one spindly and gaunt, the other portly and unkempt. The spindly one introduced himself as Alex Winrod of
Eagle Wings
.

On the flight, Muñoz had informed me that
Eagle Wings
was a CIA contractor that flew the jungles of Colombia to conduct surveillance on political insurgents. Winrod was a former U.S. Navy pilot with a long career of flying in hostile zones. He knew Muñoz and I were in Ecuador only for intelligence purposes.

Winrod eyed our bags. “Good, traveling light.” And pointing now: “My colleague, Redondo.”

Muñoz exchanged greetings in Spanish.

As we followed Winrod to the tarmac, Muñoz gleaned from Redondo that he hailed from a town called El Coco located near the shrimp farm and owned a fishing business. For years, the man had also worked as a CIA informant, passing on tips regarding the whereabouts of insurgents.

“Risky,” I said. “Was he the one who arranged the visit to the shrimp farm?”

“No, I did that while you were in California. I used a Miami mobile number to make it appear I was calling from my business in Florida. I told the owner of the shrimp farm that I had opened a new seafood business in Miami and was swinging through South America to look for suppliers. I asked if I could drop by with a client.” He gestured. “You’re the client.”

On the tarmac, we passed idle jets belonging to
Avianca
,
Lan Chile
, and
Varig
before reaching a section where cargo and military aircraft were stationed. Winrod pointed to an ancient airplane. “Recognize it?” he asked me.

“No.”

“Best damn machine ever built.”

It didn’t look like it. It sat at a thirty-degree angle and had soot lines staining its dented fuselage behind twin propellers.

“DC-3,” Winrod continued. “Few still remain, but for decades they served as workhorses for the aviation business.”

“We’re not flying one, are we?”

He grinned. “Nope, that Cessna over there is ours.”

A far cry from the DC-3, it was sleek and new. Winrod opened a rear compartment. “Throw your gear in.”

He assigned Muñoz and me to the rear, closed the doors, and revved the engines.

“No drinks, no lavatory,” he called. “Puke into your shirt if you get sick.” He donned a headset.

Before reaching the runway, we paused to let a Boeing 767 pass. It made me feel like a minnow beside a whale. Before long, we took off, and I gazed at the lights of Quito shining through a crystal clear sky.

We made a long, smooth arc to the southwest to cross the Andes. To the east, a snow-capped Mt. Cotopaxi came into view, its dome draped in moonlight. To my dismay, the stars soon disappeared and we bounced through clouds. Lightning cracked and thunder shook the plane. I clutched an armrest as the Cessna dove. Within seconds, Winrod steadied the plane in an eerie calm.

“That’s nothing,” he called. “Mild turbulence from cold Pacific air colliding with hot inland currents; happens all the time.”

Outside, a range of low-lying hills came into view through thinning clouds while, beyond them, the Pacific appeared as a vast expanse of foreboding dark. As we descended, I cleared my ears with a gaping yawn, refusing to release the armrests.

“Keep your eyes peeled,” Winrod advised. “We’re going to buzz the shrimp farm.”

He made a turn that brought us over the coastline, so low I saw brown pelicans flee their nests. The junction of water and land was blurred by mangroves that formed an endless patchwork of islands with interlacing inlets.

Redondo addressed Muñoz, who interpreted for me. “He says the entire coastline used to look like this before the shrimp farm dredged the mangroves and dug earthen holes for shrimp pools. It’s an environmental nightmare because the mangroves serve as a sanctuary for marine life—especially juvenile fish—and when they’re destroyed, the fish leave. Before the shrimp farm came, he used to catch all the fish he needed along the coast, but now he has to go far out to sea. Not only that, but the farm has soiled the sea with fertilizer, antibiotics, and chemicals.”

Below, a series of rectangular pools appeared along the coast, each a bit larger than a basketball court. A silver sheen reflected from all but one, a solitary round pond apart from the others that emitted a bioluminescence. A warehouse and trailer shot by, and then the shrimp farm disappeared, replaced by a trash heap with a plume of smoke rising from its center. An instant later, we flew over a collection of shacks, a plaza, and a church whose steeple almost pierced us.

“El Coco,” Winrod called.

A small bay came into view, its periphery rimmed with fishing boats, and then, inland, a villa on a hill. As I craned my neck to catch a glimpse of a swimming pool beside the villa, my stomach shot to my chest as the airplane swooned onto a knobby pasture.

“Gentlemen,” Winrod said, “please remain in your seats until the seat belt sign has been turned off and the airplane has come to a complete halt at the terminal.”

Some terminal, I thought: a hole-ridden hut with a windsock.

Winrod killed the engine on Redondo’s side but left the opposite one running for a quick getaway. “Out you go,” he ordered.

I hopped out into a blast of equatorial air.

“This way,” Muñoz yelled, following Redondo’s lead.

As we made our way to a flatbed truck, the Cessna purred into the night. I jumped into the middle seat of the cab, and after a short ride through a banana plantation, we arrived at the
Hotel Buenos Sueños
, which, despite its name, was anything but a dream hotel. It had a drab façade that faced the plaza and a dank lobby with mildew-covered walls. A mousetrap sat on an unattended counter beside an ash tray laden with butts.

Redondo spoke to Muñoz.

“He apologizes for the state of the hotel,” Muñoz said. “It’s a poor town with few visitors. About the only thing of value here is the shrimp farm.”

Redondo gave each of us a set of keys and left.

I followed Muñoz up a rickety staircase to the second floor. He stopped beside his room and tapped his watch. “Seven a.m. sharp. Meet you in the lobby.”

I bid him goodnight and stepped into my room. It was an austere space holding a bed, wooden chair, and sink with a crack in it large enough to vie with the drain. Along the wall, a beige gecko lizard scurried toward the ceiling in gravity-defying fashion.

I set my belongings down, undressed, and climbed into bed. It met me with a mattress unlike any before, one with contours of a wave pool. Lacking box springs, the mattress sagged to become a hammock. After an hour of fitful sleep, I awoke to rain pelting the window. In the humidity, I felt I was in a sauna rather than a hotel. I spent a few hours tossing about until settling on a diagonal stretch. Above me, in the flickering light from a street lamp, the gecko moved along the ceiling.