Authors: Daniel Kalla
Pandemic (28 page)
"Yeah, but still--"
"The empyema, Jake. Remember?" Haldane said. "You told us it sprayed into your chest. The splash probably got up by your eyes and face. Droplets could have snuck under your mask. Or maybe you rubbed your eyes later with the virus still on them?"
Maguchi nodded. Then he glanced urgently from Haldane to Savard. "Get away from me! I could spread it to you two."
"It's okay, Jake," Haldane said calmly. "We're wearing universal precautions."
"But back in my office you weren't!" Maguchi pointed out anxiously.
"You weren't coughing then," Haldane said with a confident nod.
But when Noah looked up and caught Gwen's concerned eyes, a cold rush ripped through him as he remembered Maguchi's drinking water-induced coughing spasm.
CHAPTER 24
POLICE HEADQUARTERS, CAIRO, EGYPTThe meek face stared harmlessly up at Sergeant Achmed Eleish from his computer monitor, but he knew that in the last few hours of her life the woman had been anything but harmless. He reread the cautiously worded description on the Interpol Web site. It characterized the woman as a "person of interest" in connection with the outbreak of the Gansu Flu virus, which had infected thirty-two people so far in Vancouver. Eleish had seen enough Interpol bulletins to know that "person of interest" always meant the prime suspect. And though the caption implied otherwise, he suspected she was already dead.
He studied the woman's features. No doubt she was an Arab, quite possibly Egyptian. And as always, young; as young as his two daughters who, thankfully for their proud father, had opted for careers in education rather than the Islamist lifestyle that had enjoyed such a dramatic surge in popularity among Egyptian youth of all classes.
Eleish patted around his desk until he found the pack of cigarettes. He lit one and took a deep soothing drag, trying to quell the indignation. Every time a plane crashed, a bridge collapsed, or a building detonated unexpectedly, Islam was suspect. Enough prejudice and ignorance existed to wrongfully incriminate his beloved religion for every wanton act of violence without help from the extremists. Now the lunatics wanted to forever associate Islam's holy name with the taint of bioterrorism. "Damn them," he grumbled to himself.
Hazzir Kabaal. Eleish couldn't shake the suspicion.
Was this why Kabaal had suddenly disappeared--to spread his viral menace across the globe? Eleish knew of only one way to find out.
Later in the morning, when the captain left for a meeting, Eleish broke the old man's dictum and slipped into his office because it boasted the only decent color printer in the building. He printed off two copies of the picture and tucked them into his jacket pocket. Then he headed out to his car.
Eleish abandoned his search for a shaded parking spot on the dusty street and settled for the partial shade of one of the many identical concrete apartment blocks lining the opposite side of the street, because it provided a discreet view of the Al-Futuh Mosque's entrance. It was a scorching hot day even by Cairo standards, and Eleish thought he might melt to the front seat of his rusted brown Mercedes if he had to wait long.
Fortunately for him, the Dhuhr, or noon prayer, ended on time. As soon as he saw people stream out of the mosque, he stepped out of his car and walked into the grocery a block down the street. He pretended to browse the newspaper rack while he kept an eye on the robed men who passed by the window of the store.
Eleish wasn't interested in the men. If the woman whose photo he carried in his pocket was a member of the mosque, theoretically, only two men--her father and her husband--could recognize her. No other men should have seen her without her
hijab,
or veil, which cloaks an orthodox Muslim woman's face from all other men's view.
hijab,
or veil, which cloaks an orthodox Muslim woman's face from all other men's view.
When the last of the men had passed, Eleish sauntered out of the store and turned back toward the car. A group of three female stragglers, dressed identically in black floor-length robes and hijabs, approached walking away from the mosque.
As per custom, they stopped talking and lowered their gaze to the street as Eleish neared. But when they were within arm's length, he stopped. "Dear ladies." He addressed them with a slight bow.
Alarm registered in the three pairs of eyes as they glanced from one to another at Eleish's shocking breach of etiquette.
"Please, do not be alarmed." He showed them his official badge in his wallet, but that had little effect on their distress. "I am an officer with the Cairo Police."
The tallest woman in the middle spoke up without making eye contact. "Our husbands are only a little ahead of us. Please, you should speak with them."
"No, dear ladies, I need the help of a woman."
His comment only seemed to agitate them more. They took a step back in unison and huddled closer together. He pulled the photo out of his jacket pocket and held it in front of the women. "Do any of you know this girl?" he asked.
He had to hold the picture up to eye level, before any of the women would even glimpse it. Eleish thought he saw a glimmer of recognition in the eyes of the shortest one on his right, but she said nothing as she lowered her gaze back to the sidewalk.
"Please. It is most important."
None replied.
"Look. Her parents contacted us," he lied. "She disappeared almost two weeks ago. No one has seen her since. Her parents are desperately worried."
The shorter one mumbled something that Eleish could not make out. The tall woman shot an icy glance at her friend and then turned back to Eleish. "Please, Officer, I beseech you to raise this matter with the men of the mosque."
Eleish ignored her, and focused his eyes on the shorter woman. "If you know anything, tell me now." He tapped a finger on the photo. "She is in trouble. I might be able to help."
"What kind of trouble is Sharifa in?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
The tall woman reached out and laid a hand on her friend's shoulder as if to lead her away from Eleish, but he raised a palm to stop her. "You do know Sharifa then?" he said. "Listen, we are concerned that she might have been abducted."
This caught the attention of even the tall woman. She let go of her friend's shoulder.
"There have been some attacks by a man not too far from the mosque." Eleish shook his head gravely. "The monster is targeting pious women. Women who wear the
hijab.
And Sharifa ..." He snapped his fingers as if searching his memory for the surname.
hijab.
And Sharifa ..." He snapped his fingers as if searching his memory for the surname.
"Sha'rawi," the short woman supplied it for him.
"Yes, of course," he said. "We have one body. Excuse me, ladies, for my frank description, but it is in such a condition that we cannot identify it. We have no reason to believe that Sharifa Sha'rawi is this woman, but we know that she has been missing since before we found the body ..." He let the implication hang in the hot air.
The third woman who hadn't spoken a single word in Eleish's presence uttered a gasp and swayed on her feet. The tall woman shot out a hand to steady her.
Eleish heard the sound of shouts. He looked over the women's heads to see two robed men advancing quickly toward them and yelling to him.
"You have been most helpful." Eleish swiveled and began to walk away. "I will be in touch soon with hopefully good news of Sharifa's safe discovery."
He strode quickly for his car, resisting the urge to run. He hopped into the driver's seat and started the ignition before glancing in the rearview mirror. The two men had stopped to question the women, but he could see their irate faces fixed on him as he pulled out and drove away.
Driving back into Cairo's smoggy congestion, Eleish was sweating; more than just from heat. Now that he had traced the terrorist in Vancouver back to Kabaal's own mosque, he was convinced beyond a doubt that he had linked the man to the bioterrorist conspiracy. He felt deeply satisfied to finally validate years of suspicion, but by doing so, he realized he had just endangered his life along with those of his wife and daughters.
CHAPTER 25
VANCOUVER, CANADAGwen Savard sat at the desk in her spacious "executive suite" on the thirty-second-floor of the Harbourview Hotel, gloomily staring out the window at world-famous Stanley Park, Coal Harbour, and the snow-dusted North Shore Mountains beyond. Gwen was as close as she was going to get--for the next four days, at least--to the glorious December sunshine outside.
Jake Maguchi's coughing fit sentenced Gwen and Noah to a minimum of five days in quarantine. Noah had had to fight to convince the authorities that while symptom-free Gwen and he presented no risk to the general public and required only isolation. When the staff at the American Consulate finally came around, they insisted on quarantining the two doctors in style at the five-star Vancouver hotel.
The staff set up a functional office for Gwen, including fax, two phone lines, high-speed Internet, and computer with video-conferencing capability. Though fully connected to the outside world, she couldn't shake her sense of solitude.
Haldane had made light of the situation, comparing his predicament to a bomb squad technician who had stepped on a land mine he was supposed to diffuse. Gwen suspected that behind his relaxed exterior, he shared her fear of the unknown, but his professionalism never wavered. From the moment Maguchi collapsed, Haldane--in spite of potential exposure to the deadly virus--stuck by the pathologist's side, refusing to relinquish his care until convinced Jake was in safe hands. A scientist, not a physician, Gwen had little to do but stand back and admire Noah's cool competence and gentle bedside manner.
Noah's selfless efforts seemed to have been in vain. Gwen had spoken earlier to one of the doctors at the ICU who told her: "Dr. Maguchi is fighting an uphill battle." When pressed, the weary doctor added, "It will require a miracle of biblical proportions for him to survive another twenty-four hours."
Though Savard had only known Maguchi for minutes, she had warmed to him right away. Not only did his dismal prognosis sadden her, it heightened her own sense of vulnerable captivity.
Gwen's reflex response to a challenge had always been to step beyond her comfort zone and into the eye of adversity, but now adversity had entrapped her. She had no choice but to wait and see if the virus, from which she was supposed to protect her country, infected her. The specter of failure loomed all around. She tried to quell the memories of being the little girl who always managed to disappoint her mother, but she couldn't shake the feeling that the child had grown up to fail her entire nation.
Despondent, she reached for the remote and turned the TV on to CNN. Ominously, the network had gone to twenty-four-hour coverage of the story. A subtitle in red ran along the bottom of the screen, screaming the alternating headlines: "Department of Homeland Security upgrades terrorist threat advisory from code orange to code red" and "22 dead, at least 100 infected in Illinois." Gwen already knew about the spiraling human toll, but the TV clips of hearses pulling away from hospitals and interviews with distraught families brought the bioterrorist attack on her country home in a visceral way that the sterile government statistics hadn't. Gwen was further dismayed by the coverage of the rest of the country's reaction. Though no cases had been reported outside of Illinois, in cities as remote as Houston and Los Angeles people had begun to stockpile gas masks and nonperishable supplies.
A musical tone from her computer indicated someone was requesting a videoconference. She muted the TV with the remote and then clicked on the computer's messenger icon. A video window popped open framing Alex Clayton inside. He was dressed as suavely as ever in a dark-on-dark shirt and jacket ensemble, but his hair was uncharacteristically out of place and deep bags had formed under his eyes. Suddenly he looked all forty of his years to Gwen.
"Gwen!" Clayton held out his hand to the camera. "How are you?"
She smiled halfheartedly. "Stuck indoors on a beautiful day, but otherwise okay."
"We cannot afford for you to get sick, do you hear?" he said, stone-faced.
"Your concern is touching, Alex, but I have no intention of getting sick."
His expression softened. "What are the chances?"
"Hard to know, but Noah figures they're slim. Probably less than ten percent."
Clayton squinted. "Noah?"
"Dr. Noah Haldane, the WHO expert on emerging pathogens. He might be the world authority on the Gansu Flu." She sighed. "And he's quarantined one room over from me."
Clayton's face broke into its first flicker of a smile. "For what it's worth, my mom always forces cod liver oil and vitamin C down my throat at the first sign of cold or flu."
"I'll keep it in mind." She laughed. "Your mom got any homespun remedies for level-four lethal viruses?"
The levity vanished from his expression. He ran a hand through his disheveled hair. "All hell is breaking loose in Washington, Gwen. This could be worse than 9/11. The President wants answers."
Gwen nodded calmly. "What do you know so far?" She knew their secure socket Internet connection meant they could talk freely.
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