Stinger

by Nancy Kress

  However, he perked up on the drive south, even though the Beltway was the usual mess. Marcy would be there. The Marcy of last night, scrubbing pizza off her low-cut leotard, straddling him in bed … the Marcy of the early years of their marriage, laughing at dinner, cuddling on the sofa to watch the news, telling him about her day in the corporate wars. Marcy.

  He stopped at a florist near her building and bought her a dozen yellow roses. She had always liked yellow roses.

  “Why, Robert, how lovely of you!” She’d been passing through the foyer when he turned his key in her lock. Abigail bounded up, tail wagging frantically. Home.

  Marcy hadn’t changed her clothes after work. She wore a dark blue suit and white silk blouse, her blonde hair twisted high in a French roll. She looked so delectable that Robert immediately laid the flowers on the hall table and put his arms around her.

  She stiffened.

  Over her shoulder, he suddenly saw that the living room was full of packing boxes.

  “Robert, please don’t,” Marcy said, disentangling from his embrace. “I mean, last night was lovely, and I’m glad I could thank you like that, but … please don’t.”

  On top of the packing boxes sat his computer monitor and squash racket.

  He got out, “Thank me? For what?”

  “For watching Abigail for me, of course.” She looked at him blankly.

  “For watching Abigail.”

  “Yes. Oh, God, Robert, not even you could have thought that I … that you …”

  “No, of course not,” Robert said. His chest felt as if it had just been smacked with a sledgehammer.

  “Well, thank God for that, anyway.”

  “Yes. Thank. God.”

  “I’ve packed your things, since I knew you’d probably have put in a long day on your case,” she said, all crisp efficiency. “The boxes will all fit into your car on one trip, won’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I guess that’s that.” She smiled brilliantly. “I’d stay and have a drink with you, but I have a date. But of course you can help yourself to drink or dinner or whatever. Just lock the door behind you and slip the key under the door.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then, I guess that’s it. Unless you want to walk Abigail one last time.”

  “Walk. Abigail.”

  “Oh, don’t look so put-upon, Robert. You don’t have to walk her. Richard and I will do it when we get back. And thanks again for taking care of her for me.”

  She gave him a brief peck on the cheek, waggled her fingers at him, and was gone.

  Cavanaugh walked into the living room. He sat down on one of the packing boxes. He had a strong urge to laugh, or cry, or something. Maybe just call himself names.

  Idiot, sucker, moron, sentimentalist …

  And where was he supposed to go with his neatly packed boxes? Judy’s? Unthinkable. He’d jerked her around enough for one day. A motel? Probably. Until he could find another apartment.

  Stupid fool, icky romantic, easy mark, dummkopf …

  Abigail trotted over and licked his hand. Groaning happily, she curled herself at his feet. As far as Cavanaugh could see, she was the only female he’d succeeded in pleasing all day.

  Laughter won. At the tone of Cavanaugh’s laughing, Abigail stirred uneasily and peered up at him.

  Sex. It would get you every damn time.

  But he took Abigail with him. Out of chagrin, or anger, or maybe just pity that she should stay behind with someone who didn’t care if a dog spent its night bewildered and alone.

  DONOHUE MAY HAVE TAKEN PRIVATE

  POLYGRAPH TEST

  BY LIBBY TURNER

  College Park, Maryland—Last night at 8:14 EST reporters staking out Michael Sean Donohue’s town house in College Park observed two men being admitted inside. The Sun has discovered that the car is registered to Stanley J. Osborne of Washington, D.C. Osborne, formerly employed at the office of Virginia attorney general Lionel Davis, recently set up a private polygraph firm. Also present was Donohue’s lawyer, Stuart Erickson.

  Speculation runs high that Donohue is preparing for a possible arrest by arming himself with his own polygraph results. Although neither Erickson, Donohue, nor Davis has as yet issued a statement on …

  DONOHUE SUSCRIBED TO INTERNET MAILING

  LISTS ON MALARIA, GENETIC ENGINEERING

  BY JONATHAN KRAMER

  New York—The Times learned last night that Dr. Michael Sean Donohue, the prime suspect in the creation of the allegedly genetically engineered malaria reading, subscribes to Internet mailing lists on both malaria and genetics. The mailing lists are closed, with scientific updates sent only to subscribers. Clearly qualified to receive the lists, Donohue, who has a Ph.D. from Yale in microbiology, was unable to be reached for comment.

  “These lists are one way scientists keep up with the latest developments in their fields,” said Dr. Anna Weinstein, professor of microbiology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. “They are a major Internet service.”

  Although the FBI Media Office cautioned that merely belonging to a specialized-topic list in no way constitutes evidence of having abused that knowledge, nonetheless …

  Eleven

  Extremist groups worldwide are increasingly learning how to manufacture chemical and biological agents, and the potential for additional chemical and biological attacks by such groups continues to grow.

  —Gordon Oehler, Director of CIA Nonproliferation Center, Report of the Executive Committee on Special Material Smuggling, 1996

  * * *

  “I just want to see him,” Melanie said. “Just once.”

  “Why?” Krovetz said, biting into his Big Mac. Special sauce ran down his chin. Nobody in McDonald’s was eyeing them, the interracial couple. Melanie always knew.

  Krovetz swallowed. “What would you gain, Mel? Donohue’s not going to lay eyes on you and suddenly blurt out, ‘Yes, I did it. I engineered malaria reading. In your presence, I must confess.’”

  “I know that. Give me some credit; I’m not moronic.”

  “No. But the wish to see him is.” He took another bite.

  Just watching him made Melanie queasy. She couldn’t eat much anymore. She played with the straw to her orange juice. “I don’t expect him to confess. But I can’t help it. I just want to see him.”

  “You don’t even think Donohue did it.”

  “No, I don’t.” She pushed the orange juice away and leaned forward. “Joe, did you ever read any of the books or articles about the WHO theory of HIV?”

  Krovetz looked at her in disbelief. “Oh, God, Mel, not that garbage. Not from you.”

  “I’m not saying I believe it exactly.”

  “Then what exactly? A nut theory that the World Health Organization had AIDS created in an American laboratory—”

  “Not just any lab. Bethesda or Fort Detrick.”

  “—as a biological weapon and then deliberately spread it around black Africans and gay Americans through contaminated vaccines in the 1970s—”

  “Not necessarily ‘deliberately,’” Melanie said. “It might have been accidentally. Through culture contamination, or experimentally.”

  “Well, at least you’re not a total conspiracy loonie. You’ve only let your imagination break into a gallop.”

  “Joe, the Department of Defense did approve a twenty-three-million-dollar appropriation for bioweapons in 1969! You know that!”

  “Sure. Cold War stuff. But then they discontinued the program and—”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “Do you believe WHO was into genocide as a means of population control?”

  “Well, no,” she said, and heard that she sounded reluctant. “I think the AIDS virus did come out of the rain forest. But malaria reading is different, Joe. This plague is deliberate.”

  “I agree. And more and more, so does everybody else. You’re just too impatient, you know that? People are coming to agree that P. reading wa
s engineered. But that doesn’t mean WHO created it, for God’s sake. They’re the good guys, remember?”

  Melanie didn’t answer. Joe munched on french fries; the smell of the food made her stomach lurch. After a moment he said, with an all too obvious attempt to change the subject, “Speaking of WHO, have you heard the rumors about Farlow? No, of course you haven’t. You haven’t been near your own team, except for me, in three days.”

  “I’ve been in the field,” Melanie protested. “In fact, after we finish this disgusting lunch, I have to change and go on another call. What about Farlow?”

  “Promotion. To second-in-command at WHO.”

  “In Switzerland? Do you think he’ll take it?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “It’s a coup, of course. But given everything, all the unresolved issues about AIDS and even Ebola …”

  “Oh, god, not Ebola, too. Mel, Ebola is not a manufactured disease. Outbreaks have been recorded since the plague of Athens and—”

  “You can’t tell from ancient records what those diseases actually were, and you know it. They didn’t know anything! A hundred years ago most doctors still believed that malaria was caused by ‘bad air,’ for God’s sake!”

  Her voice had risen. People at the next table turned to stare. More than stare—purse their fat redneck lips and look from her to Joe and harden their pasty jawlines. Ignorant honkies. She glared back.

  “Melanie,” Joe said quietly, “you’re losing self-control.”

  “Thank you very much, Dr. Krovetz.”

  “I mean it, Mel. You’ve got to chill out or something will happen.”

  “Yeah? Like what? A brush with actual truth? Excuse me, I’ve got work to do.” Suddenly she couldn’t stand McDonald’s a second longer. “Bad air.” She had to get out of there to breathe. Standing up so abruptly that her chair fell over, she marched across the street and put on her mourning dress and hat for her next objectively scientific epidemiological interview.

  She walked back to her car after the interview in Faulkner, Charles County. It had clouded over; the humidity must be close to 100 percent. Inside the car, she turned on the AC, hiked up her dress, and peeled off her panty hose. She threw her high heels in the backseat and slipped on sandals. Her head felt as if a vise squeezed her brain.

  It was always worse when it was a child. An impish, grinning little boy. The mother had insisted on showing her an entire photo album of pictures, as if that could somehow bring her son back. Dead at four years old.

  And yet she’d seen dead four-year-olds before, hundreds of them, in her trips to Africa on epidemic teams. Four-year-olds dead of malaria, of typhus, of dengue fever, of all the horrible things that went on tormenting Africa no matter what anybody did. She’d grieved for those four-year-olds, but not like this. Why not? Was it no more than the crudest kind of nationalism?

  No. It was because despite what she’d said to Joe at lunch, she believed the African epidemics were natural. Heart-breaking, enraging, worsened by callous political stupidity—but still natural. Not engineered by human evil, as this was. So that even with the death rate dropping—this was her first case this week, and it was already Wednesday—the death of a four-year-old by malarial cerebral stroke was murder, with all the gut-twisting horror of child killing.

  Suddenly, she had to get a look at Michael Sean Donohue. Even though he didn’t do it. She just had to look at him. There was a team meeting in an hour, but she’d blow it off. Probably just the announcement of Farlow’s move to Switzerland, now that the epidemic was waning and the FBI had the cause safely in custody, where he could do no more harm to middle America. Yeah, right.

  Melanie headed the car north. The decision finally made to see Donohue, she was suddenly ravenous. When had she last eaten? Not today, barely yesterday. Her stomach howled for food. She drove into a plaza somewhere in Prince George’s county and spied a Burger King. Well, okay—this hungry, even fast food would do.

  It was evidently a black area: sisters and brothers thronged both in front and behind the counter, the lines sliced and resliced by children running amok in their Burger King crowns. Melanie got in line behind two teenage boys with partially shaved heads and baggy clothes, and watched two tiny girls in pink sunsuits chase each other between the tables. They were having a wonderful time. The vise in her head eased a bit.

  “A Whopper,” the boy ahead of her said to the counter clerk, “and … and … oh, fuck …” He clutched his head and collapsed on the floor.

  A woman screamed. The boy’s friend dropped beside him, shouting “Cal! Cal!” The two little girls stopped running by, petrified. One of them started to cry. People crowded around the fallen boy.

  No, no, no. Not again. Not another kid, not here—She couldn’t move.

  “Call nine-one-one!” somebody yelled, and there was a stampede to the phone. The kid on the floor lay still. His friend started to sob.

  “Let me through,” Melanie said, although she didn’t know if any sound actually emerged from her vocal chords. “Let me through; I’m a doctor—”

  The crowd parted. The sobbing boy abruptly stopped sobbing and stared up at Melanie. His expression changed. Before she could register what that meant, the fallen kid leapt up from the floor and both of them started laughing and dancing around. “Got you! Got you all, suckers!”

  Melanie stopped cold. The entire scene froze for her, as if she—or it—were encased in ice.

  “Got you!”

  Abruptly, the ice cracked.

  She tore forward and grabbed the boy by the front of his T-shirt. “How dare you! How dare you, you lousy little motherfucker! How dare you!” She punched him in the face: once, twice, three times. Even though he was three inches taller than she, he didn’t hit her back. He stared, stupefied.

  “How dare you! How dare you …” She was sobbing now, her voice jagged, her final punch missing his face and landing on his right ear. But her other punches had connected. The boy’s nose bled, gushing blood over his chin, his shirt, her hand.

  “Hey!” the boy’s friend finally yelled, and he grabbed her from behind. He pinned her arms to her side. Melanie kicked him.

  “That ain’t no doctor,” somebody said.

  “Kid deserved it. Doing us like that!”

  “Here come a cop …”

  “How dare you!” Melanie screamed one last time. “With your own people dying for real—you stupid-ass motherfucker! You imbecile!”

  A commotion behind her, and a babble of voices. Melanie couldn’t distinguish anything; the ice field was back, only this time it was freezing everything, killing off all decency, all good, all compassion. …

  The second boy’s hands released her, and handcuffs clamped her wrists behind her back.

  “That’s enough,” the cop said. He was stern, and disgusted, and white. “What happened here?”

  Immediately six people tried to tell him. He listened to the babble, studying Melanie’s face. Suddenly he said, “I know you. You’re that woman on TV, on the malaria reading task force from Atlanta. Dr. … Anderson.”

  The crowd fell quiet, looking at her.

  “Did you attack this boy?”

  Melanie said nothing. The cop looked at the kid. His nose still bled, and he was going to have a purple-and-blue shiner. Her ring had torn open the skin on his cheek, a raw, jagged laceration.

  “She done it,” the boy’s friend said sullenly. “Bitch just went for him like a cat!”

  The cop looked at the crowd. Some turned away. A few nodded. The cop’s partner came into the Burger King from the patrol car and took out a notepad. The first cop turned back to Melanie.

  “Ma’am, you’re under arrest for assault. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you …”

  She called the Weather Vane Motel from the police station. The cops booked her, fingerprinted her, took her statement. Across the room the two teenage boys looked at her wit
h hatred, a particular punishment in itself. The cops put her in a cell by herself, where she sat huddled and numb for two hours until Farlow, accompanied by a lawyer, came to pay her bail and get her out.

  The lawyer left in his own car. Farlow said nothing to her until they sat in his. Then he turned to her. “Where were you going that you ended up in that Burger King?”

  “To College Park.” She was surprised at the sound of her own voice, low and thin. She sounded exhausted.

  She was exhausted.

  Farlow said, “To get a look at Michael Donohue.”

  “Yes.”

  “Jesus, Melanie.” He gripped the wheel, silent, thinking. Melanie saw the minute he made his decision.

  “I’m taking you off the team and sending you back to Atlanta. For a vacation first, then for reassignment.”

  “No, Jim … no.”

  “Yes. You’re lucky there was no press at that Burger King, although they’ll have a field day when they get to that kid. Besides, Melanie, you can’t do anything else here anyway. The epidemic is under control. USAMRIID disrupted the lines of transmission, and all that’s left is the mop-up stuff.”

  “Not quite,” Melanie said. An epidemic wasn’t officially over until a period of twice the disease’s maximum incubation period elapsed from the date of the last known case, without any new cases reported in the interim. They weren’t there yet. People were still dying.

  “It’s mostly over,” Farlow insisted. “But with the political situation so hot … God, what came over you? Never mind. I know.”

  “No. You don’t.”

  “Your arraignment is Monday. You can stay at the Weather Vane until then, at CDC expense, or you can go home and fly back up. I’d recommend going home.” He let go of the steering wheel and turned to face her. “This has been coming on with you for a long time. We’ve all seen it. I should have sent you back before this. It’s my fault.”

  Something was wrong with his tone, but she was too exhausted and whipped to figure out what it was. He looked at her, started to say something more, stopped. Instead he stared out the front windshield, and his mouth trembled.