Plague (15 page)

“I can’t miss any more work.”

“Yeah,” Melissa said, washing her hands at the sink, “they used to pay us for s
ick time but not no more. Used to pay
a lot more too. This whole industry’s gone to hell. Let me feel you.” She placed her hand on Yolanda’s forehead. “You’re burnin’ up, sweetie. You need to go home.”

“I’ll just do a half day if it gets worse.”

“Well, let
me give you these. They’re
Lortab
so you gotta be careful. Just take one at a time
,
four hours apart.
It’ll get you through the day.”

“Thanks
,
Melissa.”

“No problem. If you need someone to cover a flight call me
.
I’m off at three.”

“Thanks.”

As Melissa left, Yolanda turned back to the mirror.
She took a deep breath, and walked outside into the corridor. She noticed some cops and a few guys dressed in what looked like rain slicks
standing around,
but they
were only there
a minute and then walked on. She wondered if there’d been a bomb threat. Since 9-11, they got at least one a week and the cops or FBI or military police would come and look around and then leave. It had become routine and she wondered what it was like before 9-11, when you weren’t thinking about terrorists all day.

As she was taking her
Lortab
,
she heard
some yelling near the metal detectors and looked over. A woman was shouting and trying to fight her way past TSA. Probably someone pissed that they patted down her kid or something. She watched as three TSA officers
pinned the woman down on a table and put handcuffs on her.

Yolanda
turned, and headed for her plane.

CHAPTER 20

S
amantha Bower sat in a small gra
y room the TSA used as a holding cell.
There were no windows and no decorations. Just a gray table and two gray chairs. No agents from the FBI or the TS
A came in however. S
he guessed she was in there for over an hour before there was a knock on the door and Ralph Wilson appeared with two police officers. He had a knowing grin on his face and said, “Let’s go
,
jail bird.
You can get your bike later
.
”

T
hey stayed silent until they were outside and the two officers had returned to their cruiser. A cab waited for them on the curb and they climbed in
.
Wilson told the driver to take them to Queen’s Medical.

“They said you assaulted a TSA agent.”

“I didn’t assault her. I just tried to push my way past her.”

“Pushing is assault.” He smiled at her. “I was arrested once in Texas for confining a woman with pneumonic plague to a hospital room and locking the door. Somet
imes
fighting for
the greater good means you’re
going to get into some hot water.”

He leaned back in the seat and pulled out a pipe. He never smoked it
,
as he had quit years ago, but the feel of it in his mouth, Sam knew from late night conversation, made him feel as if he were in his youth again.

“They won’t be pursuing charges,” he said.

“Did she make it on the plane?
”

“Yes. They’re in the air right now. The FBI’s agreed to help us and they’re grounding the plane. But it’s too late for the passengers. Everyone will have to be quarantined.”
He stared out the window. “We
’ve
had forty-one admittees since this morning.”

Sam nodded, as if expecting news like that. “The hospital doesn’t have any more space. I scouted out
a rec center
nearby. We can rent the gymnasium and just buy cots. Ralph, we need to ground all the flights coming and going. We need to let the public know
this isn’t the swine flu or a head
cold
.”

“I know,” he said, keeping his eyes glued to the passing buildings. “I never thought I would experience something like this.”

The
y
arrived at Queen’s Medical and Sam could see there was a heavier military presence
than even a few hours ago
. Jeeps were parked in most
of the handicap and expectant
mother
spaces
and several MPs stood at every entrance and exit.

They
walked in
to a ghost town. The staff was not there anymore
.
Wilson informed her that several of the receptionists and orderlies had come down with symptoms. Sam immediately went up to the sixth floor.
A
few nurses
were
walking around, going from room to room and helping where they could. Now they were in full gear
,
with facemask
s
, thick rubber gloves
,
and booties. The barriers she had asked for were now up and no one was touching any of the patients.

She saw Duncan Adams w
alk out of a room. He was staring
at the floor
, lost in thought as he bit his lower lip.

“Hi,” he said as he looked up.

“Hi. How’s it looking?”

“Incubation period is about seven days, not twelve like it should be. This virus is replicating faster than normal
smallpox
. I’ve sent some tissues back to USAMRIID. I need to see what we’re dealing with. I’m afraid I’ll have to cancel dinner tonight. I’m going to be on a plane back to Maryland.”

“To tell you the truth I don’t feel much like eating right now.”

Sam noticed a nurse near the reception area walk to a large white board. She erased two names and added six others. It was a death board, though it wasn’t officially called that. They kept track of the patients and
erased
the names of those that
died. Sam ran down the list: not a single one that had been here when she first came to Hawaii was still alive.
A
small box in the corner said, SURVIVORS. It was empty.

“I’ll be back in a couple days,” Duncan said. “I’d like to take you to dinner then.”

“I’m sorry, Duncan. I just can’t think about that right now.”

“You
haven’t handled too many of these, have you?”

“Too many of what?”

“Outbreaks of hot agents. Most people don’t realize that outbreaks like this are quite common in Africa and India, South Asia, places with large numbers of poor that are packed tightly together. In the Congo
,
Ebola makes an
appearance
every day
. It just appears, out of nowhere. It’ll kill a few hundred people, perhaps cause a hospital to be shut down
, and then it disappears as the
infected population dies off. I’m always sent to those so I may not have the right perspective on this situation. Sorry if I seem insensitive, but I’ve seen so much of this
,
I’ve been a little desensitized.”

“You weren’t insensitive. I just have a lot taking up my bra
in’s processing power right now.
So how many outbreaks have you handled?”

“At least fifty. One of the worst was in Kinshasa. A maternity ward had been infected with bubonic plague. They had no antibiotics so I had to fly them in but it took two weeks to get there. It was the worst two weeks of my life.”

“I bet,” she said,
now
purposely averting her gaze from the death board she’d been staring at.

“So what are you going to do now?”

“I’m setting up a new patient center in the rec center a few blocks away. The hospital doesn’t have the capacity to hold all these people. Then I’m going to recruit staff from all the hospitals to work it.”

“Can I make a recommendation without sound
ing
like an ass? Don’t recruit people. If they feel it’s part of their job to risk their
lives
,
they won’t do it. Ask for volunteers. Once a few of them
volunteer, some of the
others will be shamed into it.”

“
Dr.
Bower.”

Sam turned to see Jerry Amoy run up to her.

“
Dr.
Bower, I need you to look at something right away. Follow me.
Dr.
Adams, you should come to. Please suit up first.”

They ran to the locker rooms and dressed, grabbing fresh facemasks and booties from stations set up in the corridor. They followed Amoy down the hall to the last room
and entered
.
The man in the hospital bed
didn’t appear human.

He was covered in maculopapular rashes from head to toe
,
and blisters had formed on his skin in every inch of available space. The blisters were raised, filled with fluid, and his skin appeared like it had thousands of pebbles jammed underneath it.

“Haven’t seen this before,” Jerry
Amoy
said. “He’s the first with the blisters. He’s also blind. The blisters have formed on his retinas and caused scarring. This isn’t the same disease we were seeing; this is classic
smallpox
.”

Sam wanted to step closer but her body didn’t allow it. A primordial aversion to sickness and death bubbled within her and prevented her from taking those few steps over to the side of the bed. But will is stronger than instinct. She forced herself over to look at the blisters.

There was no
hemorrhaging
underneath the dermis causing the characteristic charred appearance
of
the other patients.

“Is it a mut
ation in the virus?” Amoy said.

“I doubt it,” Sam replied. “We’d be seeing a lot more of
it
. It might be a new strain
,
appearing in the population at the same time.”

“That’s super unlikely,” Duncan said. “I
’
ve read that some patients are resistant to black pox. His body might have fought
it off and just been left with
…
this.”

Samantha leaned down close to the man’s face. She felt her heart pounding and her breaths were inadvertently quick and shallow. “Can you hear me?” she said.

The man didn’t respond. His mouth was agape and his eyes closed, the lids covered with thick, bubbly blisters.

He suddenly shot up and gasped
for
breath as he began to writhe. She jumped back, into Duncan, as Amoy called some staff
.
T
hey held the man down and injected a sedative.

“You okay?” Duncan asked.

Sam pulled away from him and straightened her hair, taking a deep breath.
“Just to be on the safe side,” she said, “we need
smallpox
vaccinations.”

Duncan said, “We ordered thousands the second we heard. They’re not here yet but I’m sure they will be. It may be enough
to
inoculate against the black pox as well.”

Sam walked toward the door and stepped out into the corridor. “That
death
board has doubled from this morning. If this agent hits its tipping point, there’ll be no one left to inoculate. We need to get those vaccinations here as fast as possible.”

CHAPTER 20

Robert Greyjoy landed in Honolulu and stepped onto the tarmac a new man. He felt alive and refreshed, as if he’d slept for a week and just woken up to a sunny world that welcomed him with open arms. It was, in his mind, weakness. He was too sensitive to
allow
weather
to affect him like this
. He toned down his joyful response and headed into the airport.

The airport was just a
simple airfield about twenty miles from Honolulu International. Whenever possible, Robert flew small, independent charters. It wasn’t a bad
practice; usually it was just him and
the pilot. But occasionally he would be seated on a
plane
with six other people that wanted to talk and he would have to feign interest and tell boring stories. He did everything he could to fit in
,
to seem so average
he would
not be remembered should anyone else ask later on.

There was a single cab outside on the curb and he walked to it and put his luggage in the trunk before getting into the backseat. He put on his seatbelt and instructed the driver to take him to Queen’s Medical Center.

“Eh
,” the driver said, “haven’t you seen the news? Nobody’s allowed in right now.”