Time of Attack (28 page)

E
ach week, with few exceptions, the tattooed woman had at least one new wound. The newest one, a thin scar that ran in a diagonal line from the base of her perfect chin through her lower lip, was just one of many.

Goro had seen them all.

The wound that caused it had bisected her pouting lower lip, leaving it almost, but not quite, aligned. Much like the woman’s soul, Goro thought. It had likely been caused by a sword. He had seen many such wounds tattooing young yakuza soldiers. They grew too familiar with the blade of their forefathers and hit something that sent the weapon bouncing back to bite them. To some, the scars were disfiguring. The woman’s only added a dangerous layer to her beauty.

Some of her wounds were tiny nicks on her otherwise perfect skin. Others were deeper and should have been stitched—but they rarely were. Some were in places that must have been excruciatingly painful, the sort of injury that went well beyond physical wounds.

The stooped old man known as Horiguchi Goro III peered at the young woman’s hip through thick glasses. He sat cross-legged on a flat cushion, leaning over her body in rapt, Zen-like concentration.

Goro was small and bent, with the tiniest wisp of a mustache that was white as an egret feather. Horiguchi had not been his name at birth, but it had been his master’s name, and the master of his master before that. After years of apprenticeship, he was able to take the name himself.

Goro’s thumb and forefinger of his left hand stretched the almost translucent flesh just below the fall of the waist where the body rose again over the wing of the pelvis. The skin was close to the bone here, thin, with little muscle and full of nerves. It was an extremely painful area of the body in which to receive a traditional tattoo, but the woman remained motionless. Their sessions lasted for two hours with Goro piercing her tender skin over and over again with the bundled needles. Never, in the five years since he’d started her tattoo, had the woman flinched or even made a sound.

Goro had placed a small white towel over the young woman’s nakedness. She didn’t care to bother with it, content to lay back on the tatami mats staring up at the ceiling, completely nude while he worked.

He supposed that since he was an old man, she believed him to be immune to such things, but a man too old to be affected by this would be a dead man indeed. She was exceptional in her beauty, and the intricacies of her tattoo required a depth of concentration such a full and inviting vision would not allow. So he covered her when he could, and when he could not because of the tattoo’s location, he thought of each little inch of skin as if it were not connected to any other part of this lovely creature. Had he done otherwise, he was certain she would have killed him.

The traditional Japanese art of hand tattooing was known as
tebori
—from
te
, meaning hand, and
hori
, meaning to carve. In his left hand, Goro held the bamboo
tebori
stick, twenty centimeters long and roughly the diameter of a wooden pencil. At the end of this stick he had tied a bundle of seven stainless-steel needles in which to hold the ink. They were fanned slightly so the middle three points stuck out a tiny bit farther than the two on either side.

Resting the bamboo
tebori
over his left thumb, the tattoo master held it with his right hand like a small pool cue, controlling the application by angling the needles this way and that as he inserted them over and over with expert precision. After every centimeter of work, he dipped them again in black ink, a mixture of soot and cooking oil. Lost in the artistic moment, he worked the rich tint under the skin. It did not portray, as much as it became, the gnarled black branches of a blossom-laden cherry tree, snaking down the young woman’s ribs and over the flare of her hip.

His method was the same, whether he was shading a broad area or drawing a thin line—dipping the bundle of needles in thick black ink, working a centimeter of the design, then dipping again. He used a cotton cloth to wipe the flesh free of ink and blood every few seconds so he could check his work.

The needles whispered softly as they always did when he found his rhythm, piercing and pulling out of the skin with a soft
sha, sha, sha, sha
.

Goro knew that to be a great tattoo artist one not only had to possess an artistic heart, but a deep knowledge of the canvas where that art appeared—the human body. He had been tattooing for nearly forty years and had the nasty black practice scars on his thighs and ankles to prove it. He was very good at what he did, known for allowing the subject’s skin to dictate the form and flow of the design.

If someone wanted a mountain goblin, that was their business. He would do as they wished. But the customer was told from the beginning that the way that particular goblin would look was up to Goro and the intricacies of the wearer’s body, not the subject’s personal whim.

The young woman had been specific in her wishes for the subject and general style of her tattoo but had left the artistic license of application and background to him. As long as the primary image on her lithe back was that of a foo dog that resembled one in a photograph she had brought with her, the supporting art and shading was left to him.

Goro stopped the bamboo
tebori
in midstroke at the chime of the young woman’s cell phone. It was the mournful sound of Buddhist temple bells. He peered down at her over the top of his thick glasses, waiting to see if she wanted to answer. She came up on one elbow, head thrown back so tresses of long hair fell across her neck and shoulders in an exquisite black cascade that complemented the vibrant pink and green hues of cherry blossom. The cotton cloth fell away as she rolled across the tatami mats toward the impatient phone.

In the five years since she’d been coming to see him, the young woman had remained completely silent during the horribly painful tattooing process. But the sound of temple bells on her ringtone caused her to groan, deeply and with a sorrow that Goro could feel in his bones.

 

T
odd Elton lay on his cot and stared up at his iPad watching tiny airplanes zip around a world map. The red planes carried infected passengers. Blue planes transported medical teams researching a cure. The game was called Plague Inc. One of the CDC docs had told him about it. The macabre goal was to kill off everyone in the world with an illness you invented before a cure could be developed. It was brilliant really, with options for using garnered points to mutate the plague and make it more resistant to cold or easier to spread.

He’d learned to beat the game by making his virus, which he called “
Teeples Brodiosis
,” extremely contagious but with few symptoms at first. After he had much of the world infected, he used his garnered points to evolve the symptoms and make them more fatal. In the beginning stages, the stuff had to be contagious or it didn’t spread fast enough. But, if there were too many symptoms people freaked, working on a cure too quickly and even shutting down their borders before he could infect every country.

As it turned out, it took a certain amount of finesse to kill off the entire human race.

Brandy poked her head in the half-open door.

“You should be getting some rest while you can,” she said. “Mrs. Christenson is going to pop by midnight.”

Elton rubbed his face. “Glad I paid attention during my OB GYN rotation in med school . . .” He looked at the iPad again, then back up at Brandy. “You wonder why we’re not getting sick?”

“A lot of prayer and hand sanitizer?”

“Think about it,” Elton said. “If Bedford and R.J. got back into town on Sunday and made everyone else sick by Tuesday, that means someone else inside the hospital or clinic should be showing symptoms by now. You and I were up close and personal with every one of these patients before we knew it was bad enough we should use more than regular precautions. No other spouses besides my sister-in-law . . .”

Brandy frowned. “You sound like you want someone else to get sick.”

“It just doesn’t make sense, that’s all.” Elton rubbed his face. He really should have been sleeping instead of playing that stupid game.

“Well,” Brandy said, turning to leave. “If you’re not going to get some rest before Mrs. Christenson has her baby, you should probably go up and see your brother-in-law’s friend. The ventilator isn’t doing much for him. I understand he’s failing fast.”

Elton got up and staggered down the hall to the hospital wing. He pulled on the bulky orange biohazard suit and hood before the FEMA guard—who was similarly dressed but for his submachine gun—allowed him through the door.

One of the CDC docs, a big-boned guy with a kind eye and quiet demeanor, turned and shook his head inside his clear hood when Elton walked into R. J. Howard’s room.

“Hey, Doc,” R.J. whispered, already struggling for breath behind a clear oxygen mask. His face was so swollen with boils that if his name hadn’t been taped at the foot of his bed, Elton never would have recognized him. The ventilator hissed and droned beside the bed, forcing oxygen into his lungs. It wasn’t enough. “Glad . . . you . . . stopped by,” he said into the mask.

“Shhh,” Elton said, panic rising in his chest. The man was dying before his eyes, and there was little he could do about it. “We already have Rick Bedford on ECMO treatment. We’ll get you on a machine right away.”

Howard’s head moved back and forth on the pillow. He pulled the mask away with trembling fingers so he could be heard. “No,” he groaned, croaking out each word. “Ms. Teeples . . . is over . . . there . . . right?”

“She is,” Elton said, looking at the poor young woman across the room. She wasn’t much better than Howard.

“You should . . . put her on . . . the machine,” he said. “She deserves it . . . for being . . . married . . . to that guy . . .”

Considering the man’s vitals, he was unlikely to survive even with a heart-lung bypass.

“I don’t see a number listed for your wife in Cedar City.” Elton said.

“Don’t . . . know it,” he whispered.

“Maybe we can send someone else from your unit by to talk to her.”

“Nobody else . . . in my unit . . . from there,” Howard groaned. “Anyway . . . she . . . left me . . . before I came . . . home,” he whispered.

Elton stood closer so he could be certain he heard correctly. “Did you say you were the only member of the 405th from Cedar City?”

Exhausted, Howard could do nothing but nod. “And you stopped off here before you ever made it back there when you came home from Afghanistan?”

“Right,” Howard said, eyes fluttering closed.

“Get some rest,” Elton said, all but jumping to his feet.

 

 

Ten minutes later Elton had peeled off the clammy suit and, after passing through two negative pressure barriers, was allowed into the trailer that served as the CDC inner sanctum.

The lead CDC physician was a short Indian man with thick glasses and wavy black hair. His name was Krishnamurti but rather than making everyone pronounce it each time they addressed him, he went by Doctor K.

“Tell me what you are trying to say,” Krishnamurti said from behind his Ikea wooden desk.

Elton ran a hand over a map of the United States projected on the office wall.

“Look at this,” he said. “The 405th returned home from Afghanistan last Sunday.” Elton consulted a list Doctor K had just given him. “Specialist Dean Fortuna is from Afton, Wyoming, where his wife is among the ill. First Sergeant Richard Bedford is from here in Kanab. His wife is also infected. Sergeant R. J. Howard is from Cedar City.”

“That is correct,” Krishnamurti said. “So what is your point?”

“Sergeant Howard never made it to Cedar City.” Elton stabbed his finger at the map for effect. “He’s been here in Kanab since he out-processed. If he’s the vector from Afghanistan, how come people in Cedar City are getting sick?”

“Another soldier perhaps,” Doctor K said, flicking his hand as if to ward off a mosquito.

“No one else from the 405th lists Cedar City as their home. But here’s the kicker.” Elton leaned in closer, both hands on Doctor K’s desk. “Howard just told me his wife left him before he even got home from Afghanistan.”

Krishnamurti shrugged. “What difference does that make?”

“She’s on the infected list in Cedar City.” Elton slapped the flat of his hand against the clipboard. “Something else is making these people sick. I say you get on the horn to your people in . . . wherever your people are . . . and have them get to the bottom of this.”

T
he tattooed woman flicked her fingers dismissively at Goro, ignoring the cotton towel that had fallen away when she’d rolled toward her cell phone. The little man sat leering at her over his ugly glasses. He jumped as if he’d been shot when he realized she’d caught him looking and scuttled out of the room, tripping over his own feet. She was certain he covered her with small towels while he worked in order to get a better look. It did not matter. If he wanted to ogle, she didn’t care. He was small and ugly and probably never got within ten meters of a woman unless he had a tattoo needle in his hand. To be such a gifted artist, she would have thought he’d be more at ease with the sight of a female body.

Sitting naked on the cool tatami mat, she clutched her knees to her chest and let the phone chime in her hand. The doleful temple bells stopped for a moment. She held her breath, waiting, hoping, but it started again almost immediately.

Oda knew she had failed. Not once, but twice. There would be consequences for that.

She reached down to touch the warmth of blood that oozed from the tender skin over her hipbone. It was barely visible against the shining black ink. She wiped it away with the palm of her free hand, oblivious to the fact that her flesh was raw from thousands of jabs with Goro’s inked needles. Pain, she’d learned, was a most natural thing. It was something she could feed on, whether it was someone else’s or her own.

The temple chimes began again. She transferred the phone to her blood-smeared hand and pressed it to her ear.

“Hello, Father,” she said. “You have a job for me?”