Vector

by James Abel

  • • •

  On the fifth day the flap opened and Major Acosta barked that we had ten minutes to pack, because we were leaving. We were handcuffed and taken through a hard jungle rain, to the dock. We passed forensics teams still working the wreckage. Izabel was back and waited on the police launch, under an awning. She was in uniform, and wore her sidearm, so she’d survived whatever trouble she’d been in before. She was taking over control of us. Major Acosta seemed angry and snapped at her in Portuguese, and she shrugged as if his opinion mattered little anymore, as if Acosta had been overruled by a higher power. Our guards shoved Eddie and me onto the boat and untied the hawsers, and the launch took off downriver, churning white wake behind.

  “You two made us quite a problem,” Captain Izabel Santo said. But her anger was not directed at us. She seemed angry that Eddie and I had been imprisoned.

  “Where are we going?”

  “That’s being decided. I am not allowed to tell more.”

  “Can I have my phone back?”

  “No.”

  Eddie was white, weak, and chilled, even in the rampant heat, even with a wool blanket around him. The boat moved ten times faster than the ferry that had taken us to New Extrema. The trip back to Porto Velho took only four hours. There, more cops prodded us into a Land Rover marked with a police logo, and we headed downtown. I figured we were going to headquarters, but the Rover passed headquarters and kept going, without slowing, leaving downtown, passing through the shantytown, and back onto the jungle highway.

  Eddie said, worriedly, “No witnesses.”

  “No,” Izabel said, pointing to the sky. “The airport. You are being expelled.”

  The Justice Department Gulfstream G650 idled on the runway, U.S. logo on the fuselage, and two FBI agents waited inside, banned from stepping onto Brazilian soil. The man/woman team looked as expressive as statues. Which means we’re in trouble up north. I’ve been on escort duty as a Marine. If you’re taking home a victim, you smile, you welcome them. If you’re with prisoners, you keep distant, like these two.

  “Fucking Ray Havlicek,” Eddie said.

  Izabel Santo surprised us, because I’d figured she was about to drop us off. But she took a small red rolling suitcase out of the Land Rover. “I am coming with you. It is part of the deal.”

  I raised my eyebrows as a question.

  “There is some problem in the United States,” she said. “It is related, we think, to what happened to you.”

  “What problem?”

  We were strapping ourselves into leather swivel seats in the forward luxury cabin, designed to provide space for four. This plane was a comfortable prison. I saw a sideboard with drinks and refreshments. The air-conditioning worked. The floor was covered with plush pile, and there was a large conference screen on the wall, turned off. The FBI escorts disappeared into a smaller cabin in back, for aides or flight attendants.

  Izabel said, “There has been an outbreak of a new, fatal malaria in three of your cities: New York, Philadelphia, and Newark. Many people are dead.”

  Eddie and I stared at each other. I felt bile collecting in my belly, rising hotly into my throat.

  “Newark,” I repeated. “You said Trenton.”

  “Maybe they said Newark, not Trenton. I was hallucinating then,” Eddie replied.

  FOURTEEN

  The jet had a kitchenette and microwavable meals, and the leather seats folded back into beds. The pilots announced that we were headed to Washington, flight time eleven hours. A flight attendant served coffee and bagels and left. Ray Havlicek appeared on the screen when we reached ten thousand feet, as Izabel Santo and I drank strong Brazilian coffee. Eddie sipped a Jack Daniel’s on ice, despite my warning that he avoid mixing booze with medication.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” Ray said.

  On-screen, Ray sat behind his desk in the FBI building, the top of the Washington Monument outside his window, and the faces in a photo visible on his desk: Ray and fiancée, Chris, the public health expert, with my intern Aya, picnicking at Wolf Trap. It was a staged appeal. He’s suggesting that we’re all friends. And telling us that if his career suffers, then these other people, who I care about—Ray’s future family—might, too.

  “Everyone here is proud of you,” Ray said.

  “Don’t go there,” I said.

  “I know you’re angry, Joe.” Ray looked fit in his gray suit and striped tie, his expression neutral. He’d always been an enigma to me: friendly on the surface, but holding things back. He was competent and ambitious, politically shrewd and professionally effective. He was capable of confusing national goals with personal ones, but so is everyone, I guess. If he resented the fact that his fiancée had preferred me over him once, he’d never mentioned it. He knew that his professional fate was in our hands. But at the moment this was still his plane, his staffers, his hands on the levers.

  “Us? Mad at you?” Eddie said. “Why would we be mad?”

  “You need to understand the big picture,” said Ray. “In twenty minutes we’re going to join the bioterror task force in conference. I can’t tell you what to say, but you can be a huge help. What you saw, what you overheard, what you found on that island may be crucial. There’s no way I can stop you from saying . . .”

  “From saying how you screwed us over?” I suggested.

  He sighed. “I won’t try to tell you that you were adequately protected down there.”

  Eddie turned even redder as the plane hit an air pocket. “Even you wouldn’t do that, scumbag.”

  “But before you make the choice, let me give you an overview. We all want the best for our country, Eddie. So I’m suggesting that we keep individual situations out of this for the present. How to overcome the big problem. How to safeguard the public. And keep rival agencies from infighting instead of cooperating during an emergency. We have a structure in place, and given the chance, other people can wreck it. You never know what other people will do. Turn something smooth into a mess.”

  “Don’t listen to this gobbledygook,” snapped Eddie. “I do agree with one thing, Ray. You turned things into a mess.”

  “Keep talking, Ray,” I said. I despised his self-serving platitudes. But knew that they were also true.

  “I made a mistake, guys. I admit it. I left you in the lurch. But ask yourselves . . . did I err in asking you to go there? You found the camp. Did I screw up by pointing out where the camp might be? No. I admit we thought we were looking for an embassy attack. And it turned out to be something else. But you found it!”

  “This isn’t about what we found. It’s about trust. If it weren’t for Izabel and Nelson, we’d be dead,” Eddie said.

  “Nelson is dead,” broke in Izabel, clutching a steaming FBI logo mug of espresso in her hands. There was enough caffeine in there to fuel a SWAT team. Her thin fingers were white on the ceramic, and shook with emotion. They were devoid of rings.

  “Yes,” Ray said sadly. “Let me welcome Captain Santo to the U.S. I hope you will accept the FBI’s condolences, for the loss of your personnel, Captain.”

  “It was Sublieutenant Salazar’s wife and sons’ loss.”

  Ray looked humiliated and ashamed, honest and contrite. But he faced his accusers. He had decided rightly that making threats would be a mistake. He knew he lay on the surgery table, and we stood overhead, looking down at him, judging what to do.

  Ray started up again. “You weren’t sent to Brazil to look for lost miners, Joe. And you know it.”

  “Then I guess you think we were lucky, finding that madhouse down there,” Eddie snapped.

  “That’s not what I meant. We’ve got diplomatic problems with Brazil at the moment, and you know it. We’re not supposed to have people there, and you know it. I fought for you in Washington, and fought when the Brazilians wanted to lock you away. That I didn’t succeed at first doesn’t
mean I didn’t try.”

  “Call me anytime,” Eddie said in a pretty good imitation of Ray. “I’ll have your back.”

  “I’m sorry. And there’s plenty of time later if you want to get into this. But what happens now if you make a stink? What do you achieve? Maybe I’m out, sure, but maybe I’m not. Maybe you’re perceived as getting overly personal. After all, I figured out a way to get eyes in there.”

  Eddie looked astounded. “You think you did a good job?”

  The audacity of this guy!

  “I think the only reason we had anyone there is me. But let’s say Havlicek is out! Who is in? At precisely the moment when we need cooperation between agencies, in the middle of an attack, we’re sidetracked by hearings and finger-pointing and gridlock. You’ve seen it before.”

  Ray shrugged, earnest, the truth-telling farm boy. He was George Washington admitting to cutting down the cherry tree. He said, “It’s your call, Joe and Eddie. You’re a key part of the work. And you’ll stay that way if I’m here and you want in. But if someone else takes over, or if you’re perceived as going personal, who knows?”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “A fact.”

  “You’ll take us off if we say anything?”

  “That would be stupid. You’re the best I have. You’re civilians and you can leave anytime you want. But the country needs you. I’m saying if you open a door, you never know what crawls out. I’m asking for a chance to lay out the big picture before we get into the meeting. I know you can’t be bought or threatened. Give me five minutes to show you what we are trying to stop.”

  “Fuck you,” said Eddie.

  “Okay, explain it,” I said, holding back my rage.

  • • •

  He’d had his tech guys make a presentation, maybe to use in meetings. Or maybe he’d had it made just to persuade us. The screen divided in two. A CNN news feed filled the right side, and in it, I saw the President at a podium. On the left, shots of ambulances. Hospital emergency rooms. A New York City mosque.

  Izabel whispered, “Dio!” Eddie leaned forward, caught his breath.

  A banner across the bottom screen said, Outbreak worsens in three states. The sound was muted since Ray would do the talking, but the President’s words streamed out below.

  Stay away from standing water. Cooperate with local pesticide crews when they spray. Call tip lines if you notice a concentration of mosquitoes nearby, especially the species shown a moment ago.

  Ray said, “The numbers are worse than we’re saying.”

  On the left side, a fast-moving montage. Police guarding a cordoned-off Newark hospital. Masked ambulance attendants rushing a patient on a stretcher from a Philadelphia building. The caption: Death toll up in Manhattan. Hundreds more ill.

  “It’s three times that by now,” Ray said.

  The President said something about a school holiday, and advised precautions for residents in infected areas. Remove excess water collecting in cans and old tires. Wear DEET repellents of between 15 percent and 30 percent strength outside. Wear long-sleeved shirts and long trousers. Avoid being out between dusk and dawn, when mosquitoes are most active. Make sure you have screens on your doors and windows.

  “It’s spread by a common anopheles mosquito that lives in the millions along the East Coast,” Ray said. “We believe we’re dealing with intentionally infected insects. Once they pass along the illness, if another mosquito feeds on that victim, it ingests the parasite and becomes a new vector. Which gives us millions more potential carriers.”

  “Christ.” Eddie shuddered. “My family is in Boston.”

  “It’s not there yet.”

  Eddie looked relieved. “I want to phone them.”

  “Of course. Captain Santo! The photos and fingerprints that your people sent show that two of the guards you killed were Caliphate. Dr. Sabbir Umar—dental ID confirmed—worked for a French biocompany altering mosquito DNA as a means of controlling insect population. Joe, the blood samples you saved contained parasites matching ones recovered from victims here. And I can tell you that the timing of the outbreak coincides with certain threats received in D.C.”

  “What threats?”

  “You’ll hear more in a few moments.”

  “Threats by whom?” I asked, realizing that we were now talking as if we were part of the investigation, that Ray’s appeal was working. The danger was bigger than complaints by Eddie and me about Ray.

  Ray said, “That’s what we need help figuring out. Your memories could be crucial. I’ve set up several meetings for you in Washington, over the next few days.”

  The President was back now. “Authorities will spray all vehicles, trains, and planes leaving infected cities. If you live in those places, expect long lines at tollbooths, subways, rail stations, and airports. This is for your own good. The origin of the outbreak remains a mystery so far, but we’re hopeful of learning more soon.”

  Eddie looked puzzled. “A mystery? But you just said there were threats. There’s a terrorist link.”

  “Evidently the President decided to avoid panic.”

  “You think those scenes on-screen are calm?”

  “It’s not my call.”

  “You’re sitting on the Brazil connection!”

  “Why let the bad guys know what we know? Of course there’s been speculation about an attack in the press. You and I don’t make policy, just recommendations. We’re coming up on the conference call. What you say is up to you.”

  He was good. He was better than good. He had conveyed a threat without saying it. And the threat was, Ray was our friend but anyone else a potential enemy. He did not approve of secrets, but policy was out of his hands. He had our backs, especially since we could damage him otherwise. If we made a stink, there was no telling what would happen to us since the White House was clamping down on the news.

  “You’re a master fuck,” Eddie said. “You know that?”

  “This situation has been difficult for us all.”

  Eddie turned to me, the message clear in his eyes. He’ll screw us the first chance he gets, Joe. He can’t have us walking around, a threat to him. He never liked you. He resents that Chris had a thing for you. He just wants to keep control. Don’t listen to him.

  But Ray sat slightly more at ease; just a fraction, as if he thought that Eddie’s anger, if vented in private, would not come up in the meeting.

  Maybe, I saw reluctantly, Ray had a point.

  “What’s happening here?” asked Izabel, whose language skills weren’t good enough to follow every nuance, but whose antenna for human behavior was just fine.

  I told Ray, my stomach throbbing, “Okay, we start from scratch.”

  “You won’t regret it,” Ray replied.

  • • •

  “Dr. Nakamura, are you sure you heard no references to New York, Newark, or Philadelphia?”

  “No.”

  “At any time, were you given substances to combat your malaria? Is it possible that your captors sought an antidote? Or was their sole interest in cultivating your blood, worsening the disease?”

  “Worsening the disease.”

  “Dr. Nakamura, you look exhausted. Need a break?”

  “No. But thanks.”

  The screen now had so many faces on it that it looked like a high school yearbook page. Beside Ray, Dr. Wilbur Gaines, current speaker, headed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta. I’d worked with him in bioterror war games and found him calm and thoughtful. He tended to address problems step-by-step, favoring process over intuition. But his instincts were good. Next, Chris Vekey, Ray’s fiancée and expert on on-the-ground response to biological threats. She was also our intern Aya’s mom, and neither she nor I had ever acknowledged our mutual attraction. Other boxes showed observers from the CIA. White House. Army Med Command
at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

  “Dr. Nakamura, you said that Dr. Umar bragged that several existing medicines prevent or treat the disease.”

  “Yes, sir. I believe that I got sick initially because Joe and I took different antimalarials. I’m allergic to Lariam, which apparently works against this strain. The guards were taking Coartem, a fixed-dose combination of artemether and lumefantrine. That combo seems to work. I took Malarone, which doesn’t.”

  “Pharmacies are experiencing a run on medicines,” said Gaines, with a grimace. “There’s nowhere near enough supply to meet demand, and even if pharma ramps up production, the gap is too big. Every doctor I know is getting calls from patients wanting prescriptions, even in unaffected cities. We had a hijacking on the Ohio Turnpike, shipments bound for New York. The drivers were shot, trucks found empty.”

  Chris added, “We’re not even positive that these drugs work yet. We need time to see. And if they do work,” she added in a depressed tone, “they need to be taken every week to be effective. Existing supplies will soon run out.”

  Exhausted at the meeting’s end, we tried to sleep.

  Over the Caribbean we breakfasted on microwaved eggs and turkey sausage, crisp wheat toast and cranberry muffins. Eddie ate double portions, trying to regain lost weight. Izabel had two helpings of banana pancakes. The Brazilian coffee was hot and strong. Then Dr. Gaines was back on-screen with Chris and Ray and a slide of an enormous magnified mosquito. With its compound eyes, and long proboscis, it looked alien, something dreamed up by Hollywood.

  “She’s beautiful, in a deadly way,” Gaines sighed.

  “You have a funny notion of beauty,” Eddie said.

  “I have respect. In her case, function is beauty,” said Gaines. “Anopheles gambaie . . . the most delicate of mosquitoes. Legs thin, body lean. Size, no bigger than a contact lens, not like those enormous Asian tigers. Why, you barely see our girl when she’s in the air.”

  Eddie hummed the Miss America tune. “Very romantic.”

  “Two predominant types of malaria infect humans, as you know,” continued Gaines. “Anopheles carries both. Plasmodium vivax is older, transmitted in both hot and temperate parts of the world. Centuries ago, a huge problem in Europe and North America. But look at these places today, especially southern Europe, and you see interesting genetic changes in humans. They gave people the ability to live with the parasite in their blood. They get sick, but not fatally. So it’s logical to assume that if humans had time to adapt, vivax malaria is a more ancient version of the sickness.”