by Jeff Rovin
If I land, they will have me.
The doctor had to get instructions from Krummeck. He texted his pilot.
Do not land. Go to Point Dunkel.
The pilot responded with a thumbs-up and swung the Atlas Oryx back out to sea and headed southwest. As he looked out the window, Raeburn could see a medical officer stop walking toward the AH-2, look up, shield his eyes, and watch the helicopter depart.
Terns were everywhere, dangling fish, and the scavenging black-billed sheathbills flew below them to pick up pieces that fell away. The helicopter rose to avoid them all. As they neared the blackened earth where the plane had come down, Raeburn was horrified to see that the sheathbills and other small birds were flocked across the wreckage. The doctor turned away. The pilot dipped inland to avoid not just the birds but their ugly feast. Within a few minutes the helicopter set down on the pad usually occupied by the AH-2.
There were lights on inside the outpost.
“I think we’re okay to take these off,” Raeburn said after removing his mask.
The pilot and copilot did the same.
“Wait here,” the doctor said. “I want to tell my superior we’ve arrived and get instructions about the Chinese.”
The two members of the flight crew acknowledged. Zipping his coat and pulling on the hood, the doctor stepped outside. His boots crunched on the frozen ground which was hidden in the shadow of the high, domed President Swart Peak. His face stung from the cold and he paid attention to his nasal passages and throat as he hurried to the building. The door opened as he neared.
A Chinese seaman stepped out, his QSW06 Wéishēng Shǒuqiāng pistol pointed at the doctor. He was wearing an olive green Sherpa-style trench coat and matching hat with the ear flaps tied over the top. The seaman waved the gun, indicating that the lieutenant colonel should come inside. His stern, set expression indicated that the young man would not hesitate to fire it.
As Raeburn entered, seven other naval officers filed out. All were armed and the doctor could hear their heavy boots scraping the hard earth. The lieutenant colonel just now noticed the young South African ensign. He was seated on a swivel chair, pushed well back from the communications center in the far corner of the room.
Except for the hum of a generator out back and the wind that was sweeping loudly through the open door, everything was silent. A minute or so later, Raeburn once again heard the sound of the boots stepping hard and fast. The sailors ushered the two-man helicopter crew back into the small living room and shut the door.
No one had raised their hands, nor had they been asked to. When everyone was gathered, the South Africans were in a circle comprised of Chinese—just like the AH-2.
Beijing and its institutional simplicity, Raeburn thought.
Back at Simon, the navy held regular briefings about the evolving tactics and technology of other militaries sailing the Indian Ocean. Russia had its crude, often reckless muscle. India was governed by a strict, inherently cautious hierarchy. China had its policy of “engulfment.” They identified strategic targets and then isolated them from their allies. In effect, the Chinese surrounded and consumed the weakest or key links.
It was then that Raeburn noticed only five of the Chinese had returned. The other two came back moments later. Each was carrying a crate containing six thermite grenades each.
The man who had initially been standing guard went to the radio set and raised the corvette. The room was hot and while Raeburn removed his gloves and unzipped his parka—under the twitchy scrutiny of his Chinese captors—the man spoke briefly with someone, then indicated for Raeburn to come over. The ensign gave him his chair. The doctor wheeled it close to the radio.
“I am Command Master Chief Petty Officer Kar-Yung Cheung of the corvette Shangaro,” said a crisp voice on the other end. “With whom am I speaking?”
“Lieutenant Colonel Gray Raeburn, medical officer in the South African Navy.”
“What is your reason for coming to the Prince Edward Islands?” Officer Cheung inquired.
“To treat one of our seamen, and may I point out that you are delaying—”
“Was it your intention to cure your pilot with thermite explosives, Lieutenant Colonel Raeburn?”
“We departed in a hurry. Those happened to be onboard.”
“What did you intend to do with the hand grenades?”
“Nothing. As I told you—”
“Then you will leave them where you are,” Officer Cheung informed him. “As for your comrades on Prince Edward, we will collect them.”
“You mustn’t do that,” Raeburn blurted. And immediately regretted it.
“Why not?”
“I cannot say,” Raeburn told him.
“Lieutenant Colonel Raeburn, you know more about this than you are telling. Explain quickly, please. We believe this is an infection and that it will become dormant, or nearly so, in a cold environment. That is why the helicopter heaters were not active.”
These people were not unobservant. Raeburn quickly weighed his too-few options. The Chinese had apparently suspected that the doctor was not randomly selected for this mission. He had just stupidly confirmed it. Whether at the outpost or on the corvette, they intended to hold him for now.
“Your silence seems to confirm our suspicions,” Officer Cheung stated. “You will be brought aboard.”
“And create an international incident?”
“While investigating a possible case of bioterror?” Officer Cheung said. “I do not believe that will happen.”
Encircled by the Chinese, with those circles closing tighter, Raeburn thought. He could not afford to be taken by these people. The truth must not come out. At the same time, the pit needed to be sealed. That was the priority.
“I have an alternate suggestion,” Lieutenant Colonel Raeburn said. “Let these men take me to the place I need to go, to the source of the contagion. Let me destroy what’s causing this.”
“They will take you but only to recover, not to destroy,” Officer Cheung replied.
“I will not do that.”
“Then you will do neither, Lieutenant Colonel, and we shall find it eventually.”
The doctor was about to warn them about reckless misadventure when there was muted conversation from the other end of the transmission.
The mood in the outpost was tense as the men waited to hear what had happened. Raeburn’s fear was that the crew of the corvette was not as safe as had been presumed.
“Doctor, how were my comrades?” Sisula asked suddenly.
“I did not get to see them,” Raeburn told him. “You heard the transmissions?”
“Yes.”
“The fact that your pilot is still alive is a sign that his exposure was extremely limited.”
“I thank God,” Sisula said.
After nearly a minute, the Chinese officer returned. His voice was still composed as he said, “It appears, Doctor, that you may have a larger concern than Shangaro.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
East London, South Africa
November 11, 10:50 P.M.
For his entire life—as much of it as he could remember—Claude Foster had not made decisions.
“It is an essential step,” as one of his teachers had once told his mother, “that the young man defiantly skips.”
The seven-year-old was punished with a switch for that ignorant, conformity-soaked review. Even then, the boy did not hate his mother. Miriam Foster had had to pretend she was raped by his white father since interracial marriage was not legal. He did not even blame his teacher. The woman ran a small school from a shed in Mdantsane, southwest of East London. There were nine students, two of whom were her children, one of whom was a girl Foster fancied. He liked touching her. She did not like being touched. He did not care.
But that was not what drove the teacher, Miss Ntombela, to visit Miriam Foster. It was over a football the boy had stolen. His father was rarely around and never played with him, there were no boys black or w
hite who would play with him, so he stole the ball from a group of blacks in a dirt lot. After all, they had another and they were using it. This was a spare.
With the name of one of the boys, Danny, written on it.
Foster got a beating from them and then another from his mother. The only thing that changed was Foster was proud of himself for having taken action in a matter that urgently required it. He did not, thereafter, mope around weighing crime against punishment. He took action, took precautions not to be caught, and discovered that bold strokes in fact befuddled the law. He leapt while they crawled. Either they lost his trail or were distracted by warmer, easier trails left by others in the meantime. They might suspect he was lawless but they could never prove it. When men and women sometimes died—until the Teri Wheel there had been seven, killed by dogs or guards or cave-ins—there was a sense of “they got what they deserved,” and the law had better things to do than investigate MEASE.
Up in the mansion on the hill, Foster’s brother urged him to go legitimate, warned him that his good luck would end. Aaron did not understand. He did not understand when his brother tracked the football kids to their shanties, waited till night, and stabbed Danny when he came outside to urinate. Not to kill him; in the leg, the thigh, cutting a muscle to make him scream. While the family was at the doctor, Foster went inside the hut and stabbed the ball dead. Neither the boy nor the ball was able to take the field again.
Foster had not thought about any of it. He just did it.
After Katinka left to go home, to sleep, Foster did not think about the yacht or insurance or an investigation. The authorities had a bigger concern: the downed jetliner.
There was, now, in Foster’s chest, a rising envy and rage. His deep-set eyes locked on the backpack that sat on a wooden chair in his office. It sat there, unassuming and still—
Like a sleeping lion, he thought. Then he corrected himself. It was more like a church icon, Christ on His Cross, latent with greater power than a pack of hungry cats.
The crash was a blank tablet. No one had claimed responsibility, because Katinka had apparently released this thing. It was new and he not only had a chance to own it, he had a chance to stab another football. Not a few diamonds but an entire society that had made him an outcast. He did not consider the aftermath, because the result would be chaos. He was accustomed to improvisation; South Africa was not. He did not contemplate failure, because everyone’s eyes were on the skies, not the ground. He did not worry about capture, because he had at least two doses of mass extermination—possibly more. He did not know how many deadly bugs were in each canister.
Though he sat in his office serenely—part of which was exhaustion from the long night—he was giddy inside with possibilities and power. Real power, for the first time in his life. Not in the dark or under the radar.
He did not bother thinking. He had all the equipment he needed in the storage lockers in an adjoining room. Decided, he went to the bathroom—thinking, as he always did, of stabbing Danny before he went so he would wet himself—then went about executing what had emerged fully formed and fully decided in his brain.
Foster slept at his desk for two hours, then made his preparations, then went to one of twenty burner phones he kept in a locker. He called the South Africa Police Services on 3 Fleet Street and located two and a half miles to the south. Arriving for the 8:00 A.M. shift, the men and women in uniform would be having their morning coffee or tea and rusks in sight of the Buffalo River.
This would wake them.
He used his burner phone to call the twenty-four-hour Crime Stop Tip-Off Line. He chose this, instead of the emergency 10111 line, because he wanted to generate excitement at the station, not with a dispatcher whose job was to take down addresses and send patrol cars here and there.
A man answered promptly.
“This is Warrant Officer Berkley. To whom am I speaking?”
“You are speaking to a man who is about to offer the authorities their second puzzle of the day.”
“Your name, sir?”
“Call me God of War,” Foster said. “I am about to mass murder again.”
His chest light, big, joyous, powerful, he killed the call then left to kill a system he despised.
* * *
Traffic on the NE Expressway over the Nahoon River was heavy, especially at Batting Bridge. It was always a bottleneck, regardless of the time of day. Tourists to East London were swept up in the nighttime lights on the water and the nocturnal sounds of the Nahoon Estuary Nature Reserve. They slowed to take pictures or to deposit passengers on the walkway that ran alongside the two-lane roadway. Punching the horn did not hurry visitors along. At times, the wind was so strong that they could barely hear. After a long, heavy rain, locals—many of whom did not have smartphones or weather apps—came up to see whether the boats or barges on which they worked were in jeopardy.
No one thought much about the old Toyota Hilux pickup truck heading toward the bridge from the west, from Old Transkei Road to Batting Road. The back was covered with a flapping white canvas, loosely tied. The windshield and windows were dark—a custom job. The license was forged.
The driver had a hazmat mask on the seat in the back of the truck.
A quarter mile from the crossing, Foster pulled over and went about tightening the tarp on the back of his truck. While he was there, cars buzzed by and he confirmed that no security cameras were in any of the streetlamps or traffic lights—a fact he knew from previous canvassing of routes to and from his office. Satisfied, and with a final look around to determine there were no police cars in view—some had new video surveillance systems—Foster put on the mask, opened the canister containing the core sample, and placed it back beneath the tightened tarp with the open end facing behind. Then he hurried to the cab and drove on, trailing the microscopic contents in his wake.
The mask covered his ears and he continually checked his rearview mirror to see if anything was happening. As he reached Batting Bridge, he looked back and smiled.
* * *
The only thing Jane Chun liked about South Africa was the chance to study animals.
The South Korean veterinarian had come here with her husband, a diplomat who was stationed at the embassy in Pretoria. She did not like the racial tension here, the decaying infrastructure, or the poverty. But she liked the opportunity to study animals in the wild and work with rescue efforts such as the Hillside Animal Outreach.
In the back of her station wagon, Jane had six poodle puppies running free behind a chicken-wire divider. The barking, growling, and sounds of play were music.
She was distracted as the old Chevy Commodore neared Batting Bridge. An elderly woman who was just stepping onto the walkway suddenly dropped her camera and selfie-stick, turned toward the water, and threw herself against the waist-high railing. Her hands gripping the metal, she coughed out blood.
Jane pushed on her flashing lights and pulled up beside her. As she braked, the Korean woman coughed into her hand. Her eyes were on the woman as she opened the door, still coughing, and walked toward her—
The older woman heaved again, hard, blood pouring from her mouth onto the concrete and railing. Jane stopped, considered going back to get rubber gloves from the wagon.
She never made it. A Camry plowed into the Chevy from behind, pushing it onto the walkway and into the veterinarian. The impact broke her right leg and she fell. The Camry did not decelerate. The left rear of the wagon continued forward, the dogs yelping wildly. The Chevy crushed Jane into the pavement, rolling over her before slamming into the other woman. The rear-door impact splintered her spine as it smashed into the steel tube railing.
The Camry continued moving, the driver having died with his foot on the gas, his shoe and the pedal coated with gore. The two cars scraped along the railing, causing pedestrians who were farther up to run—and then stagger as they began to cough and spit blood and fall.
Cars farther west were beginning to swerve or stop, some bumping i
nto others or into the railing, their headlights scouring the bridge or the river like spotlights. Other vehicles were just stopping as drivers tried to figure out what was going on ahead. None of those cars moved again, the drivers dying in their seats or leaning out the windows. A mother took her young child from their minivan, which was stuck near the entrance to the overpass. They took a few steps before dropping, both of them spitting up blood and tissue.
As all movement on the bridge stopped west of the halfway point—the direction in which the wind was blowing—a Bell 206B helicopter following the Nahoon River on electricity pylon checks began a graceful spiral toward the water, its lights winking like the eyes of a wounded sparrow. The cockpit was over the bridge, then over the water, then over the bridge—and it was finally the tail structure that struck the span. The slender red skin of the helicopter ripped away, the internal supports snapped, and the fuel tanks at the joint opened up. The cabin hit the river with a dull splash, the oil pouring over the water and catching fire as the electric circuits shorted.
A riot of flames shot up, several licking Batting Bridge. They found a car whose tank had ruptured, causing it to explode and triggering a chain reaction of blasts that went all the way back to the main road. Each detonation sent vehicles and their dead occupants roaring into the sky in burning pieces. They tumbled down to the river, to the homes on either shore, and to the bridge. The heat of the fire caused the roadway of the bridge to melt, split, and drop whatever remained into the river.
The charred skeleton that remained was a fitting memorial to the East Londoners who had perished there. No motorists and no one from law enforcement approached by water, land, or air. The only sounds were the rush of the river, the creak of the metal supports on the bridge, and the poodles in the back of Jane Chun’s wagon—which had avoided the conflagration because it was off to the side.
And then, in a final act of surrender, the center of the bridge twisted toward the north, carrying the rest of the structure with it and diving into the water. The waves overwhelmed boats and backyards and the bodies of the few residents who had come out to see what was happening.
