by A J Fontenot
But now he decided to run it. Must be slow in news, she thought.
She gave another glance through her inbox. Everything else could wait. She looked down at her watch and then sent Paul a text, “on my way.”
She slipped on the shoes on the floor nearest her. She got up to shut the blinds at the back door, and, as she did, she thought she saw something outside move. It wasn’t completely dark, with the inside light throwing shadows across her back lawn. But the glare on the window from the inside lights made it hard to see clearly. She stood still, looking for a moment. Seeing nothing, she grabbed her peacoat on the edge of the couch and left to meet Paul.
7
Accra, Ghana
Jonah Lennox sat at a small, round table with his back to the shore.
He watched the woman, local, hovering at the seaside cafe’s bar, occasionally picking up old dishes, sometimes bringing new ones. She was half his age. Probably twenty, maybe twenty-one. And it showed. Not by her appearance, but in the way she held herself. Her mannerisms. And her slight hesitations. It was something he long ago learned to spot, just like it was something he long ago learned to shed.
Lennox turned away.
The next few days would be critical. He was here to think, and plan. He took a drink from the glass in front of him. The ice was gone. The trick, he’d learned back on his first job, was to visualize. Visualize all of the details, all of the variables. And then to play it, from start to finish, in his mind’s eye. With all the variations and possibilities.
Confidence was about control.
And about ignoring distractions.
The Germans at the table next to him were drinking their beers and laughing. Am herumscherzen. They were loud. This is what happened to Germans when they came to a place like this. To the land where might is still right.
With his blonde, close-cropped hair and high cheekbones, Jonah himself could be a German. And, at a time so long ago he’d almost forgotten about, he had been one.
The loud men looked at the woman, standing in the shade at the bar. “Kellnerin,” one called to her, louder than necessary. She walked quickly to them. He spread his hands out to his friends’ empty bottles, without speaking or looking at her. She began collecting their empty bottles.
“Mehr Bier, ” another said, as she was about to leave.
She hesitated for a moment, but quickly picked up the meaning.
As the girl hurried to remove the old bottles, Jonah sat with his right hand on the table, eyes trained on her, not attempting to hide his stare. As she bent over, she caught him looking at her and instinctively glanced away, before looking back. As if she were surprised by his directness.
He raised two fingers.
Hands full, she walked to his table, keeping his gaze.
“Would you…like a refill, sir?”
He looked at her for a moment, not answering. Then, his eyes dropped a foot or so. A move he also didn’t try to hide.
She glanced away.
“En-yom-yam,” he said slowly.
She paused and looked back at him.
“Your name tag,” he said, “pinned to your blouse.”
She giggled. “It’s EEN-yomyam,” she said, pronouncing it for him.
His eyes were on hers.
“It is good for me,” she told him.
“I…,” he leaned onto his elbows, “would hope so.”
“No,” she kept smiling, “it is my name. It means, ‘it is good for me.’”
The loudest of the Germans at the table behind her, noticing they had no new beers, turned in his chair and took in the scene.
“Kellnerin,” he blurted out. “Wir haben Durst.” Waving the back of his hand at her, he began to turn back around. She moved to leave.
“Wait,” Jonah said in a low, cold voice. He was sitting back now, staring at the back of the German’s head as he said it.
The German turned back around.
Jonah continued to look at him like he was an exotic pet.
“What is your…name?” Lennox said.
The German looked at him with small dark-set eyes. He brushed a hand in the air toward him and turned back around, picking up where he’d left off.
“Ludwig?” Lennox guessed.
This time Lennox first caught the gaze of a different German. A smaller man, who’d also enjoyed quite a few beers. It was a moment before the larger man realized Lennox was talking to him.
“No, wait,” Lennox said, raising a lazy finger, “I’ve got it now. It’s Richard, isn’t it? You look like a Richard. Do they call you Rick? Ricky? Dick?”
The large German stood, knocking his chair over as he did. Turning to face Lennox.
The girl took a few steps back, not sure what to do next.
“Richard,” said Jonah, in mock reprimand.
The man blocked out the sun as he stood over Lennox. He pulled one side of his sports coat open, showing the black metal butt of a pistol.
Jonah raised his eyebrows. “So…you fellas not here for the sights, then? Because,” Jonah continued, waving his hand to nothing behind him on the beach, “you’re really missing—”
The German’s lips tightened. He huffed, reaching out to grab Lennox’s shirt.
But in a movement that the alcohol surely wouldn’t let him remember, it had all gone sideways. With more strength than his slender frame looked capable of, Lennox pulled the German’s head down into the metal edge of the table. The other two Germans stood as the big one crumpled mess of dizziness and inebriation.
Lennox, still a hand on the big guy, looking as if he had more damage planned, paused and looked up at the other two.
They blinked, processing the scene, before holding up their hands. “Nein…nein,” they surrendered.
Lennox released the big man, letting his head hit the bottom of the table with an audible thud. He reached down under the man’s arm and grabbed the same black metal pistol, simultaneously causing the magazine to clack to the ground. In a single move, he’d separated the chamber from the body, tossing them both over the rail of the beachside cafe.
The girl, Enyomyam, still stood close by, her arms wrapped tightly around the empty bottles she was carrying. She looked to the men sitting and watching, then to the man crumpled on the ground, and then, finally, to Lennox.
Lennox sat back down, not quickly, not slowly, angling his chair now toward the beach. He took another drink from his glass. And said nothing.
The girl moved back into his field of view, taking a step closer to him. “My shift…,” she said, “ends at one. Maybe…we cou—”
He held up a finger.
Her voice disappeared, as if with that small gesture he’d somehow taken it.
He continued to stare at the ocean as he took another drink. He put down his empty glass and reached into his jacket pocket.
She waited, watching each of his moves.
He dropped a few twenty-Cedi notes on the table. And, without another word or look at any of them, stood up and left.
8
The Green Gail
Erin was hit by a wash of sound as she opened the door.
The Green Gail was an Irish bar. The inside was long with a bar along the left and round tables scattered throughout. The band was on a stage in the back, surrounded by large black speakers. The decor was mostly dark-stain from years of use, with occasional bright green accents.
Paul was sitting at the bar, his weight on his arms, an amber glass in front of him. Across from him, the bartender leaned on the counter, wearing a low-cut shirt, talking to him. Laughing. Flirting? It was strange to see Paul like that. Paul, her uncle. Well…not technically her uncle. But that was close enough. She wondered what he looked like when he was younger. She remembered seeing pictures of him when he was in the service. In that picture, standing sharp in uniform, like he could pick up three men. A long time ago now.
Erin walked up to the stool next to Paul. By now, the woman was at the other end, wiping down the counter.
Paul hadn’t looked her way yet.
“She’s cute,” Erin said, as she slipped onto the stool next to his.
Paul laughed a real laugh. He turned to face her.
“Yeah, she’s cute,” he said. Then holding up a hand and counting off his finger, “And I suppose if I had a daughter, she’d be…” he trailed off, thinking.
“…Just about that age?” Erin finished.
“Yeah,” he smiled, “probably wouldn’t work out.” He picked up the glass in front of him taking a drink.
“About that,” she said, “someone told me you were here, in D.C., this past March.”
“I was…” he said before trailing off, as if he was considering how much to say.
Erin was about to press when the bartender came back.
“Anything for you, hun?”
Hun?
Automatic thought.
“Just, er…” she said looking over head at the forty different options.
How old is she anyway? Twenty-two, -three?
Erin gave another effort at scanning the list.
I probably have ten years on — Nope. She stopped the thought.
“I’ll just…,” she said, “give me what he’s having.”
“Comin’ up, love,” she said, shoving a glass under the tap and slipping it in front of Erin.
“Thanks,” Erin said
The woman winked at her and walked away.
Erin sat, processing that when Paul started talking again.
“It was a short trip,” he said.
“Trip?” she said, looking at him.
“Last March.”
“Oh, right.”
He took another drink.
She sipped her own.
“I understand, you know,” Erin said.
“What’s that?” Paul said.
“Time,” she took another sip. “It doesn’t really fix anything.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“No… it doesn’t,” he said.
They both sat, not looking at each other.
“It was never you, you know,” Paul said. “You were always a bright spot. After your mother died, it was…” he trailed off again. “What I mean is, I wanted to be there. I should have been there. Even before, when it was just you and her.”
Erin never knew her dad.
To a lot of people, that was sad. But to Erin, it was just part of growing up. He was never around. She’d never even seen a picture of him. The one time she’d asked her mother about him, when she was in third grade, she’d told her she didn’t know who he was. But even at eight, Erin was old enough to know that wasn’t true. Gillian always had a way of being honest with Erin. Even if that meant not telling her the truth. Something even in her eight-year-old mind could sense it was for a good reason. And maybe that was it. Maybe that’s what growing up without a dad, and then, suddenly, without a mom, meant. Maybe it meant you learned to see inside people quicker. Maybe, experiencing loss gave you a better sense of reality or something. Or maybe that’s just what little kids who lose their parents tell themselves, a kind of self-soothing. To compensate for getting all that pain.
Erin pushed the thoughts out of her mind.
“Paul,” she asked tentatively. “How close are you working with Jonah Lennox?”
Paul turned as he looked at her this time.
“Why?” he said.
“Well…maybe it’s nothing, but…”
“What?”
“The data we’ve been getting has all been coming directly from his lab. Which, in one way, is not unusual. I mean, over the last six months, since we’ve been active in Ghana, the reports have always included data from his group. But I was reviewing the latest reports, and it doesn’t add up. Specifically,” she continued, “the data has all the warning signs of an outbreak. Yet, the reports we’re getting from Lennox are saying ‘nothing to worry about’ — which is the same thing you said this afternoon to the board.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, facing the bar again, taking another drink.
“And then this afternoon, Carl told me he’d talked to Lennox,” she said. “Today,” she added for emphasis.
Paul looked at her again. His face was serious.
“He never gets involved in these things,” she said. “You know Carl, he’s all high-level.”
Paul nodded slowly, sitting still watching Erin talk, waiting.
“But the real strange part was, when I suggested we get ahead of this — even if it turns out to be nothing — and work up a story on it…Carl had no interest. But,” she said, “it was more than that. He actually didn’t want me to do it.”
“When did he tell you that?” Paul asked.
“Just after you and I talked, earlier today.”
Paul sat back on his stool and looked up to a spot on the board with all the beers. He sat like that for a long moment before turning back to Erin. When he did, his words were deliberate. He looked around before speaking.
“Erin,” he said. “Listen to me on this one. I don’t have any right to tell you what to do. I never did. But,” he paused, “keep a healthy distance on this one. There’s a line on these things. And sometimes it’s hard to see it. It’s what…,” he trailed off, his eyes darting to hers and then away again. “It’s how it happened with Gillian.”
Erin’s thoughts were beginning to move faster now. Was Paul worried? Regardless of whether someone was a fan of Paul or not, ‘worried’ was not how they described him. Her head began to swim. And mom? What did that mean? She looked down at her mostly full drink. She’d hardly touched it. She looked back at him.
“Paul.”
He didn’t look at her.
“What are you not telling me here? What’s going on?”
He turned to her and, barely above a whisper, looked her directly in the eyes. “SERA has been analyzing the data. But a week or so ago, we began to notice something…something not quite right.”
Erin could hardly hear him over the band and bar-chatter. But she listened, focusing on every word.
“The bacterium, under the right circumstances, could be killing people like the report said. Except,” he said, “it’s not. The bacterium was an ‘old’ version Staphylococcus — what we often call ‘staph infection.’ In its modern form, it’s still dangerous. But we have antibiotics for that. There is an advanced form, MRSA, which is antibiotic resistant, but the data — even what we’re getting from Lennox — isn’t that. However, putting all of that aside, staph takes more than 24 hours to kill you. A lot more. Depending on your immune system, the soonest would be a few weeks.”
“I don’t have enough on this yet, but…” he hesitated. “It doesn’t take a very deep look to see that there’s something else going on here.”
“You mean something else killed those workers?” she said.
His eyes darted down and then back at hers. “I’m almost sure of that.”
“What was it?”
“At this point, I really have no idea.”
“Is it a ‘who’?” she asked.
He didn’t answer that question.
“But what I do know,” Paul said, “is that, at least a few people in that conference room today, and maybe Ibsen, know more than they’re letting on about this.”
“Paul,” Erin began, leaning back. “I know you and Carl don’t see eye to eye on, well…anything, but—”
“Erin,” he said.
“Look, Carl’s an opportunist, yes. And if you cross him,” she gestured with her hands, “he can be a bit vindictive. But this, what you’re talking about, this is something else entirely.”
Paul watched her.
“No,” she said, “I know him. He wouldn’t be involved in something like this.”
“How sure are you about that?” he said, letting the words hang in the air.
She looked at him but didn’t respond.
“I hope I’m wrong,” Paul said.
As he said it, she noticed how tired he looked.
“I hope I’m wrong about it all,” he said. “But, if I’m not, then the more you look into this, the more you push it and don’t drop it, then the closer you are to getting into someone’s crosshairs.”
She turned away. Thinking. Remembering. A decade ago, when she’d gone to Trinidad to track down a missing source. The whistleblower. She was almost killed for finally doing the right thing. Almost killed to keep secrets secret. And in her dreams, Erin still remembered those six days when she thought the whole world had lost her.
Paul looked down at his watch and let out a deep breath.
“It’s getting late,” he said, “let’s get out of here.”
“Okay,” she said, not really listening. Still processing.
“I’ve gotta go to the little boys room first.”
Her eyes went up to his again, “okay,” she said, “I’ll meet you outside.”
9
Conall McGillis
Conall McGillis sat at a mid-century metal desk. It had paper and folders stacked on it and on the floor around him, too.
What they never tell you is that ‘senior editor’ really means chief paper-shuffler. He did like his job. And in this environment, when people were going to Facebook and bloggers for their ‘news,’ and newsrooms were doing their best to keep any reporters on staff, he was thankful. But he missed the days of hunting stories.
He started working at the Washington Post, basically, as an errand boy, just four years after Woodward and Bernstein became newspaper legends for blowing the whistle on Nixon and the Watergate scandal. At that time, the paper, while growing rapidly, was still not the New York Times. A kid like him could get in without too much experience. In those days, it was all about endurance and perseverance…and grit.
What that meant for him, today, wasn’t too much. Times had changed. And then they’d changed all over again. Today — tonight, to be more precise — he was working alone, as was often the case. It wasn’t his workload making him do it. McGillis was a born night owl. He just produced better when it was dark. As long as he made it back for the 10:00 a.m. A1 meeting in the morning, his boss (and her boss) didn’t care about the hours he kept.
