Pandemic (32 page)
Authors: Daniel Kalla
"Sergeant, you and I have things to discuss," Sabri said inexpressively.
The sweat dripped down Eleish's neck and onto the collar of his bathrobe. His mind raced in time with his pounding heart. Without looking over at the counter, he tried to calculate how best to lunge for his gun. "Okay, we will talk," Eleish said. "But can I put some clothes on first?"
Sabri shook his head slowly from side to side. "And, Sergeant, there's really no point in going for your gun. You'll be dead before you reach it."
Eleish had a flashback to the photo of his burnt and beaten informer, Bishr Gamal, whose ear had been hacked off. He doubted he could withstand that kind of torture without talking. He swallowed hard. "Wouldn't you prefer me alive?" he asked.
"Prefer, yes," Sabri said. "Required, no."
Suddenly Eleish's path cleared before him. A tranquil calm enveloped him. An absolute peacefulness he had never before experienced. He smiled widely at Sabri. "Allah is most great," he spoke the words from the call to prayer.
Sabri's eyes narrowed and he raised his weapon to eye level.
Eleish didn't lunge for his gun. Instead, he spun and ran for the open balcony door.
"Stop!" yelled Sabri.
Eleish heard a bang and felt a searing pain in his left shoulder and his arm fell limp at his side. But the bullet wound didn't slow him as he reached the balcony in one stride and hurled himself over the railing.
"Allah is most great!" he repeated as he felt the air rush by his head.
CHAPTER 27
CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIASince Rand Delorme uncovered Dr. Ping Wu's e-mailed confession, his coworkers at Carnivore accused the young agent of having undergone a personality transplant. Once only distinguished for his frosted highlights, black bowling shoes, and rebellious attitude, Delorme was now known for logging the longest hours and clearing the most intercepted e-mails. The day before, his supervisor had written in his monthly evaluation that Rand was "a man on a mission." And he was. To Delorme, each new e-mail Carnivore earmarked for human review was another potential opportunity to foil terrorism.
With the extra bodies covering Carnivore, the agents had caught up entirely on the backlog. Less than half an hour after it was sent, Achmed Eleish's e-mail popped up on Delorme's screen. Carnivore had graded it as "highly suspicious," so Delorme approached it with more circumspection than he otherwise might have.
Delorme reviewed the "To" and "From" rows. Both the sender and the receiver had the same domain,
CairoPol.com
, which he learned with a quick Internet search belonged to the Cairo Police Department. Delorme looked at the path and was surprised to see that the e-mail never reached its recipient. He wondered if the sender had mistyped the second letter, spelling "RWszir" instead of "RWazir." Whatever the reason, the e-mail had bounced back to "AEleish" as "undeliverable."
CairoPol.com
, which he learned with a quick Internet search belonged to the Cairo Police Department. Delorme looked at the path and was surprised to see that the e-mail never reached its recipient. He wondered if the sender had mistyped the second letter, spelling "RWszir" instead of "RWazir." Whatever the reason, the e-mail had bounced back to "AEleish" as "undeliverable."
Savoring the contents like the last chapter of a favorite mystery, Delorme turned to the body of text. His pulse quickened with the very first word, "Vancouver." By the time he had read the brief series of cryptic notes about a virus carrier and a base in Somalia, he trembled with excitement.
Rand Delorme didn't know exactly what the message meant, but he was convinced beyond a doubt that he had just hit the motherlode of e-mail intercepts.
Smiling, he reached for the phone.
HARBOURVIEW HOTEL, VANCOUVER, CANADAFour days of quarantine had passed without incident for Savard and Haldane. Noah had checked his temperature after waking, but he knew he hadn't spiked a fever. While he had always considered his chances slim, by day four he was certain he hadn't caught the Gansu Flu from the now-deceased Dr. Jake Maguchi. The realization that he was free of risk brought an unexpected wave of relief.
However, sitting at his laptop computer and staring at the camera clipped on top, butterflies still fluttered in his stomach. Two videoconferences awaited him. The second was with the President and the senior members of the National Security Council, but it was the first call that provoked the most anxious anticipation.
Noah felt sad and guilty about having to miss Chloe's birthday party, but in four introspective days of quarantine he had come to realize that there would likely be many missed milestones in his daughter's life. He had heard from friends, who alternated custody of the kids with ex-spouses on holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving, that special occasions were the most difficult times to be separated from their children.
Noah had little doubt that many lonely times awaited him, but things had changed in the past days. The anger had drained from his system, replaced by resignation. Realizing how weary he was of fighting for his wife's affection, he felt ready to step away. He had begun to envision a life without Anna. He even considered where to live, realizing that it would have to be in the Glen Echo Heights district, so that school and friends would not be an issue for Chloe as she shuttled back and forth between homes.
A musical tone rang out from his computer. He clicked on the icon and the video window box popped open with his wife's and daughter's images framed inside. The video feed was of the low-resolution, jumpy home Internet-camera variety--a far cry from the high-quality videoconferences he had sat through over the past days--but Haldane didn't care. He was thrilled to see his daughter's face again.
Chloe sat on Anna's lap in a chair in their home office. A sea of multicolored, helium-filled balloons filled the backdrop and Chloe held a bouquet in her hand. Haldane was tickled to see Chloe wearing the Snow White princess dress he had ordered online for her.
"Happy birthday, Chlo!" he said.
"Daddy. Daddy! My balloons!" she said and tugged at the bouquet in her hand.
Haldane beamed. "And your dress. You look so pretty!"
"All my friends are princesses," Chloe said, referring to the theme of her party. Then her forehead furrowed into a concerned frown. "Daddy, what if someone else is Snow White?"
"You'll always be the most special Snow White. The fairest of them all." Haldane winked and then nodded solemnly. "But don't tell the others. It will be our secret, okay?"
"Secret!" Chloe bounced up and down on her mother's lap. "Daddy, are you going to play the hide-and-seek game with me and my friends?"
Haldane felt a little jab in his chest. "Chlo, I am too far away. I can't make the party. You knew that, didn't you?"
Chloe gave a little shrug that squeezed Haldane's heart. The gesture came straight out of her mother's chromosomes. "I guess."
Anna rubbed Chloe's shoulder. "Daddy will be home soon and then you'll have another party, remember?"
Chloe nodded, but the disappointment stuck to her face.
"Why don't you go downstairs and see if Nana needs help with your cake?" Anna suggested to her.
The mention of her cake was enough to wipe the dejection off Chloe's face. She hopped off Anna's lap and started to run out of the frame, but she turned back to Noah with a big wave. "Bye, Daddy!"
"Happy birthday, Chloe. I love you!" Haldane said and then she was gone.
Anna sat alone in the chair facing the camera. In jeans and a white turtleneck, her black hair was tied back in a ponytail. Haldane had almost forgotten how beautiful his wife was. The realization didn't engender the usual yearning in him. Whether spontaneously or by willful suppression--Haldane wasn't sure himself--he had not thought of his wife in a sexual sense for some time.
With Chloe gone from the room, Anna's carefree expression gave way to a grimace. "Noah, you are still okay, right?"
Haldane nodded. He forced a smile. "I'm not going to catch this virus."
Her expression didn't budge. "But you're still in quarantine?"
"A formality. I've got less than twenty-four hours to go." Haldane nodded reassuringly to her. "Anna, I would have known by now."
"That's wonderful." Anna exhaled heavily and for a moment it looked as if she might burst into tears, but she held her composure. "Noah, people are so scared here. Chloe's preschool is two-thirds empty. Half the kids canceled for the party. A lot of people won't leave their house."
"I've seen it before." Haldane nodded. "It's only natural, Anna."
She shook her head. "There's nothing natural about any of this! What if the virus comes here? Washington would be the obvious choice for them."
"If it comes, we'll deal with it. It will be okay," Noah promised. "Anna, believe me, they can't win. All viruses are stoppable. This bug is no exception," he said, sounding more definite than he felt.
"Will you come home tomorrow, once your quarantine is over?" Her brown eyes implored.
"It depends."
She held her hands out in front of her. "Look if it's about me ... us ... I've been doing a lot of soul searching, lately. Julie knows how confused I am. Nothing is written in stone. Maybe--"
"Anna," Haldane cut her off. "It has nothing to do with us. I hate being away from Chloe a second longer than I have to."
He realized from her fleeting wince that the comment might have come across as cold, which he hadn't intended, but nor did he want to rip the scab off the wound again, so he let it stand. "I've already lost four precious days stuck here. I have to go where I am needed now. We're running out of time."
She nodded distantly. "Only two more days until the terrorists' ultimatum expires."
"A lot can happen in two days."
Anna nodded grimly. "I better get downstairs to Chloe and Mom. The kids will be here any second," she said.
Noah noticed with newfound ambivalence how Anna had withdrawn again. He was so tired of their constant emotional tug-of-war. "I wish I could be there. Good luck with the big party." He forced a reassuring smile. "Anna, everything is going to work out."
Haldane clicked the video box closed and stared at the blank screen.
Three hard raps at the door interrupted his thoughts. Haldane didn't even remember ordering room service, but he hadn't eaten today and his stomach had begun to growl. "Leave the tray at the door, thanks!" Haldane called out.
"Yeah, right!" a Scottish accent bellowed from the other side. "I've just flown four thousand goddamn miles so I can bring you your lousy lunch."
Haldane hopped out of his chair pleased to hear his friend's voice. He slipped on his N95 mask and walked to the door. "You wearing precautions, Duncan?" Haldane asked at the door.
"Again, Haldane, I want to reiterate that we don't have that kind of a relationship." McLeod unleashed a roar of laughter. "But I do have my clown mask and hat on if that helps."
Haldane opened the door. Duncan McLeod stood on the other side with a surgical mask covering his scraggly beard. He wasn't gowned. And a baseball cap stood in for the shower cap he was supposed to wear. His asymmetric eyes twinkled with the obvious humor he found in their situation. "Haldane! I'd give you a big hug, but I don't particularly want to die."
Haldane laughed. "Finally, there's an upside to my quarantine."
McLeod bellowed another laugh. "Ah, Haldane, I might actually have missed you if this fucking virus had killed you." He sauntered into the room and flopped into the loveseat behind the desk. Pointing at the mountains outside the windows across from him, he said, "When I was quarantined with TB, I was stuck in a mud hut in Borneo. You've got a slightly better deal here."
Haldane followed after the Scotsman. "Not that I am unhappy to see you, Duncan, but what are you doing here?"
"The great Jean Nantal sent me. He spewed some crap about me being the new authority on the Gansu Flu PCR probe test. Set up a bunch of meetings for me with the Vancouver infectious disease boys." McLeod shrugged. "But let's face it, he sent old expendable McLeod to keep an eye on his golden boy." McLeod clutched his chest.
"'Tis a far far better thing I do than I have ever done'
and all that shite."
"'Tis a far far better thing I do than I have ever done'
and all that shite."
Haldane rolled his eyes as he sat down in a chair across from McLeod. "How is London?" he asked, but judging by his colleague's jovial mood he knew the reports about the stabilizing situation in England must have been true.
"It's a buyer's market, if you're looking for real estate." McLeod shrugged. "Hardly a soul on the street. But I have to hand it to Nancy Levine--delightful chatterbox that she is--her team has done a good job under trying circumstances. The new case rate has steadily declined for the past three days. And no deaths in almost forty-eight hours."
"What are the latest totals?" Haldane asked.
"A thousand give or take infected. Two hundred dead." McLeod pulled off his mask. "Christ! I'm tired of these things. I know you're no risk to me." He paused, before his lips broke into a crooked smile. "But do me a favor and leave yours on, all right?"
Haldane sighed a laugh. "What about the clusters in Europe, Duncan?"
"Far as I know they're all contained." McLeod scratched his beard. "But, Haldane, the entire damn outbreak was all caused by one lousy terrorist. Imagine what an army of the buggers could accomplish."
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