The Hades Factor (26 page)

“Dr. Kamil.” Jon introduced himself by the fake name on his U.N. papers--- Mark Bonnet.

The doctor inclined his head politely, but his voice was low and uneasy. “You have your bona fides?” He spoke English with a British upper-class accent.

Jon handed over the forged U.N. identification. Dr. Kamil had been told Jon was part of a worldwide team investigating a new virus. The doctor led him into an examination room where he studied the credentials as carefully as he would evidence of cancer.

As he waited, Jon looked around--- white walls, chromed equipment, two wood stools, and a table painted white where the short stubs of pencils lay in a pottery bowl. The medical equipment showed the effects of years of use without replacement. Everything was clean and shiny, but there were empty stands where test tubes should be waiting. The white cloth that covered the examination table was thin and eaten with tiny holes. Some of the equipment was very out of date. That would not be the only problem this doctor--- all the doctors of Iraq--- faced. Domalewski had said many were graduates of the world's finest medical schools and continued to provide good diagnoses, but their patients had to find their own drugs. Medicine was available mostly on the black market and not for dinars. Only for U.S. dollars. Even the elite had trouble, although they were willing to pay astronomical sums.

Finally the doctor returned the paperwork. He did not invite Jon to sit, and he did not sit himself. They stood in the middle of the spartan, run-down room and conversed, two suspicious strangers.

The doctor said, “What exactly is it you wish to know?”

“You agreed to talk to me, Doctor. I assume you know what you wanted to say.”

The doctor waved that off. “I cannot be too careful. I am close to our great leader. Many members of the Revolutionary Council are my patients.”

Jon eyed him. He looked like a man with a secret. The question was whether Smith could find some way to convince him to reveal it. “Still, something's bothering you, Dr. Kamil. A medical matter, I'd say. I'm sure it has nothing to do with Saddam or the war, so it should be no danger to either of us to discuss it a moment. Perhaps,” he said carefully, “it's the deaths from an unknown virus.”

Dr. Kamil chewed on his lower lip. His ebony eyes were troubled. He glanced almost pleadingly around as if he feared the walls themselves would betray him. But he was also an educated man. So he sighed and admitted, “A year ago I treated a patient who died of sudden acute respiratory distress syndrome with hemorrhaging from the lungs. He had contracted what appeared to be a heavy cold two weeks before the ARDS.”

Jon repressed excitement. They were the same symptoms as the victims in the United States. “Was he a veteran of Desert Storm?”

The doctor's eyes radiated fear. “Do not say that!” he whispered. “He had the honor of fighting with the Republican Guard during the Glorious War of Unification!”

“Any chance his death resulted from biological warfare agents? We know Saddam had them.”

“That is a lie! Our great leader would never permit such weapons. If there were any, they were brought in by the enemy.”

“Then could his death have been caused by the enemy's biological agents?”

“No. Not at all.”

“But your patient was infected sometime during the war?”

The doctor nodded. His swarthy face was anxious. “He was an old family friend, you see. I gave him a complete physical every year of his life. You can never be too careful about health in a backward nation such as ours.” The fearful eyes swept the room; he had insulted his country. “Not long after he returned to his normal life he began to show many svinptoms of minor infections that failed to respond to normal treatment but disappeared anyway. Over the years, he had increasing fevers and brief flulike episodes. Then he developed the heavy cold and died abruptly.”

“Were there other deaths in Iraq from the virus then?”

“Yes. Two more here in Baghdad.”

“Also veterans from the war?”

“So I have been told.”

“Was anyone cured?”

Dr. Kamil crossed his arms and nodded miserably. “I have heard rumors.” He did not look at Jon. “But in my opinion, those patients simply survived their ARDS. Other than untreated rabies virus, no virus kills one hundred percent. Not even Ebola.”

“How many survived?”

“Three.”

Three and three again. The evidence was piling up, and Jon fought back both his excitement and his horror. He was uncovering information that pointed more and more to an experiment using human guinea pigs. “Where are the survivors?”

At that, the frightened doctor stepped back. “No more! I do not want you going elsewhere and having survivor data traced back to me.” He yanked open the door of the examination room and pointed at another door across the hallway. “Go. Leave!”

Jon did not move. “Something made you want to tell me, Doctor. And it's not three dead men.”

For a moment the doctor looked as if he could jump out of his skin. “Not another word! Nothing! Leave here! I do not believe you are from Belize or from the U.N.!” His voice rose. “One phone call to the authorities and---”

Jon's tension escalated. The terrified doctor looked as if he might explode, and Jon could not take the chance that he would be trapped in the consequences. He slipped out the side door and along an alley. With relief, he saw the embassy limousine still waited.

__________

In his office, Dr. Hussein Kamil shook with fear and anger. He was furious to have put himself in this position, and he was afraid he would be caught. At the same time, this wretched situation offered an opportunity, if he dared take it.

He bowed his head, crossed his arms, and tried to quiet his tremors. He had a large family to support, and his country was disintegrating as he watched. He had the future to think of. He was tired of being poor in a land where plenty was to be had.

At last he picked up the phone. But it was not the authorities he dialed.

He inhaled. “Yes, Dr. Kamil here. You contacted me about a certain man.” He steadied his voice. “He has just left my office. He carries the credentials of a U.N. employee from Belize. The name is Mark Bonnet. However, I feel certain he is the one you asked me to watch for. Yes, the virus from the Glorious War of Unification.... That was what he asked about. No, he did not say where he was going. But he was very interested in the survivors. Of course. I am most grateful. I will expect the money and the antibiotics tomorrow.”

He dropped the receiver into its cradle and fell into his chair. He sighed and felt better. So much better that he allowed himself a faint smile. The risk was high, but the payoff was, with luck, more than worth it. By making this one call, he was about to become a rarity in Baghdad: He would have his own private supply of antibiotics.

He rubbed his hands. Optimism coursed through his veins.

The rich would crawl to him when they or their children fell ill. They would throw money at him. Not dinars, which were useless in this benighted land in which he had been imprisoned since the stupid Americans began their war and embargo. No, the wealthy sick would shower him with U.S. dollars. Soon he would have more than enough to pay for his family's escape and a fresh life somewhere else. Anywhere else.

__________

7:01 P.M.

Baghdad

Night fell slowly across exotic Baghdad. A woman shrouded from head to toe in the ubiquitous abaya scuttled like a black spider beneath candlelit second stories and balconies on the narrow, cobbled street. In Baghdad's sizzling summers, these overhangs provided shade to the oldest sections of the city. But now it was a cool October night, and a swath of stars showed in the narrow opening above.

The woman glanced up only once, so concentrated was she on her two missions that lay ahead. She appeared old. She was terribly bent over, probably not only from age but malnutrition--- and she carried a frayed canvas gym bag. Besides the body-cloaking black abaya, she wore a traditional white pushi that covered most of her face and revealed only her dark eyes, which were neither properly downcast nor idle.

She hurried past bay windows--- mashrabiyah--- with carved-wood screens that allowed viewing out onto the street but not in. At last she turned onto a winding thoroughfare lighted by wavering antique street lamps and filled with the babble of voices--- struggling shopkeepers desperate to sell their few wares, would-be consumers with subsistence dinars, and barefoot children running and shouting. No one gave her more than a cursory glance. The place bustled in a final surge of energy as the traditional closing hour of 8:00 P.M. approached.

Then a trio of Saddam Hussein's feared Republican Guards in their distinctive dark-green fatigues and webbed weapon belts appeared.

She tensed as they approached. To her left, among the row of open-air stands steaming in the cool night air, was a farmer hawking fresh fruit from the countryside. A crowd had gathered, fighting over who could buy and at what price. Instantly she pulled dinars from her voluminous abaya, slid into the throng, and added her voice to those calling for the farmer's merchandise.

Her heart pounded as she studied the muscular guards from the corners of her eyes.

The three men stopped to watch. One made a comment, and another responded, secure in their weapons and well-fed existence. Soon they were laughing and sneering.

The woman sweated as she continued to beg the farmer for fruit. Around her, other Iraqis glanced nervously over their shoulders. While most resumed their clamor, some slunk furtively away.

That was when the guards chose their victim: A baker with an armload of bread loaves piled high, his face tucked behind to hide, had backed off and was skirting the crowd. The woman did not recognize him.

With hard gazes, the trio surrounded the baker, their pistols drawn. One knocked away the loaves. Another crashed his gun across the baker's panicked face.

Hidden in the woman's canvas bag was a gun. Every fiber of her wanted to pull it out and kill the brutal guards. Hidden by her pushi, her face flushed with rage. She bit her lip. She wanted desperately to act.

But she had work to do. She must not be noticed.

There was an abrupt hush on the busy street. As the baker fell, people averted their gazes and moved away. Bad things happened to anyone who attracted the attention of the mercurial guards. Blood poured from the fallen man's face, and he screamed. Sickened, the woman watched two of the guards grab his arms and drag him off. He had been publicly arrested, or perhaps he was simply being harassed. There was no way to know. His family would use whatever clout they had to try to free him.

A full minute passed. Like the lull before a sudden desert storm, the night air seemed heavy and ominous. There was little relief knowing the volatile guards had chosen someone else. Next time, it could be you.

But life went on. Sound returned to the winding street. People reappeared. The farmer took the money from the woman's palm and left an orange. With a shiver, she dropped it next to the gun in her canvas gym bag and sped off, uneasily scanning all around while in her mind she still saw the terrified face of the poor baker.

At last she turned onto Sadoun Street, a commercial thoroughfare with high-rises taller than all the minarets on the far bank of the Tigris. But this wide boulevard now contained few upscale goods and even fewer buyers who could afford them. Of course, no tourists came to Baghdad anymore. Which was why when she finally entered the modern King Sargon Hotel, she found a vast emptiness. The once-magnificent lobby with its obsidian and chrome had been designed by Western architects to combine the culture of the ancient kingdoms with the most up-to-date conveniences of the West. Now, in the shadows of poor lighting, it was not only scruffy but deserted.

The tall bellman with large dark eyes and a Saddam Hussein mustache was whispering angrily to the bored desk clerk. “What has the great leader done for us, Rashid? Tell me how the genius from Tikrit has destroyed the foreign devils and made us all rich. In fact, so rich my Ph.D. adorns this worn-out bellman's suit”--- he pounded his chest in outrage--- “in a hotel where nobody comes, and my children will be lucky to live long enough to have no future!”

The clerk responded gloomily, “We will survive, Balshazar. We always have, and Saddam will not live forever.”

Then they noticed the bent-over old crone standing quietly before them. She had arrived softly, like a puff of smoke, and for a moment the desk clerk felt disoriented. How could he have missed her? He stared, catching a brief glimpse of sharp black eyes over the pushi. Quickly she lowered her gaze in the presence of men not her husband.

He frowned.

She made her voice humble and frightened, and she spoke in perfect Arabic: “A thousand pardons. I have been sent to be given the sewing for Sundus.”

With the sound of her fear, the desk clerk recovered his disdain and jerked his head toward a service door behind him. “You should not be in the lobby, old woman. Next time, go around to housekeeping. The back is where you belong!”