Chimera

by Sonny Whitelaw

  McCabe raised an eyebrow at Wilson. "You mean you're missing out on a trip to the swaying palms and turquoise water's of the South Pacific?"

  "Agent Wilson is meeting the United flight in LA," Brant explained.

  "The USS California just left Brisbane for Guam," added Broadwater. "It's being redirected to Mathew Island. California carries two helos, although she can only operate one at a time. We'll only need one point of egress, Vila or Noumea. Distance to Mathew is about the same. Once we arrive, we'll set up portable quarantine units."

  "AD Reynold is at the White House now." Brant picked up his overcoat and pulled it on. "I'm meeting him at State Department. We'll have clearance for you to depart for Mathew from either Noumea or Vila by the time you arrive in New Zealand."

  -Chapter 19-

  Fiji / United Airlines Flight 706, en route to LA

  Dispersal: Plus 72 hours

  Miriam Singh pushed her thick hair over her shoulder and finished mopping the floor of the last toilet cubicle. Miriam liked her job, not because it paid well, and certainly not because she enjoyed cleaning Nadi International Airport's bathrooms, but because travellers always left things behind. The early morning shift guaranteed a collection of pens and lose change, books, expensive perfume, jewellery, makeup, and clothing. Most of the useless items Miriam handed over to airport security. The rest she sold to a second hand dealer in town. More expensive and traceable items, like cameras, laptops, passports, wallets, and credit cards, she gave to her son, who took them to her brother, Tashi, in Suva. She wasn't sure what Tashi did with them, but it was a lucrative family business, especially the passports and tickets.

  Despite her cultural heritage, Miriam was not a practicing Hindu. The only things she believed in was working hard to keep her large family together and putting her younger sons through school. She hoped that at least one would become a professional, a doctor or lawyer maybe, who could look after the family when she was too old to work.

  After finishing the floors, Miriam took her time emptying the refuse bins. The morning's haul was scant. When flights were delayed, people had more time to think about their possessions. She picked out a few dollars and half a dozen ballpoint pens, a couple of ruined lipsticks and a collection of souvenir key rings and spoons. Then some clothes fell out. She snatched them up before they landed in the big bin at the back of her trolley. The T-shirt was well worn and dirty and smelled of something other than human body odour. She dropped it into the bin. The shorts were no better. She checked the pockets before tossing it after the T-shirt. Then she considered the blouse. Dusty and sweaty but otherwise clean, it was a good quality cloth, certainly good enough for her daughter to wear to school. Miriam tucked it into her bag and continued her work until the bathroom was pristine. She might have been opportunistic, but she was thorough because she wanted to keep her job. By the time she'd finished cleaning, the only surviving chimera particles lay hidden in the pocket of Katie Wood's blouse, inside Miriam's bag.

  *

  The Boeing 747 hadn't changed altitude, so Michael Warner couldn't figure out what had woken him. Then he felt the hand on his shoulder again.

  "Dr Warner?"

  He sat up, and pulled back to focus. An orthodontist's dream filled his vision. "Eh…yeah? What time is it?" he said, hoping the teeth would back away.

  "I'm sorry to wake you, sir," the flight attendant whispered insincerely. "Can I see your passport?"

  Mike glanced at Katie again, then unbuckled his seat belt and withdrew his passport from his jacket. The attendant checked it. "I didn't need a shave when they took the photo," he quipped.

  Apparently satisfied that she had the right man, the attendant said, "The Captain would like to see you. There's an urgent call for you from Washington."

  "Seattle?"

  "No, DC. Can you follow me please, Doctor?"

  Why would anyone be calling him from DC? When they reached the toilets he ducked in, ignoring the attendant's moue of annoyance. Too bad. If Mt Rainer was erupting there was nothing he could do about it up here.

  "Lead on," he said when he stepped out. Near as he could figure, he'd had about six hours sleep. Good, that'd reduce the jetlag.

  Mike had been inside the cockpit of a 747 before, just not while it was in flight. The engineer sent him a troubled look. The pilot wasn't frowning, but he looked none too happy, either. The attendant shot him another plastic smile and left, closing the door behind her.

  "Dr Warner?" said the Captain.

  "Yeah, what can I do for you?"

  "Special Supervisory Agent Brant from the FBI wants to speak to you."

  "The Feds? What 'n hell do they want with me?" He wasn't worried; if he were in any kind of trouble they wouldn't be calling him to the cockpit. So why was the co-pilot glaring at him?

  The engineer gingerly handed him a pair of earphones, then snatched his hand back. With a wary eye on the crew, Mike placed the earphones over his head, and said, "Agent Brant? This is Michael Warner."

  "Dr Warner, are you travelling with a Peace Corps volunteer named Katie Wood?"

  Mike's stomach dropped. Katie couldn't be involved in anything illegal, could she? "Yes, I am. What's this about? Is she in some sort of trouble?"

  "You were both on Mathew Island until yesterday morning?" Brant replied.

  "That's right. Why? What's going on?"

  "When you left, a number of islanders were ill. Is that correct?"

  "Yeah. Some sort of flu, or dengue maybe. I wasn't paying much attention. Why?" Mike began to get some inkling what this was about, but he didn't feel sick, so he couldn't see the problem.

  By the look on his face, the captain was also listening to the conversation.

  "Doctor, as of our last communication with the island about an hour ago-made possible by your computer, for which everyone is very grateful-twenty-two people have died and most of the island's population, including the other Peace Corps volunteer, have become infected with an extremely virulent pathogen."

  " What ?" Mike gasped. "That's impossible! There were only twenty-two down with it when we left and… Oh, crap." He ran a hand across his beard.

  "That's the information we have from Dr Sturgess."

  "Nate! How is he?"

  "Asymptomatic at this time."

  "Twenty-two," Mike repeated in disbelief. His skin crawled, and he could feel his heart thumping. "So you think Katie and I might have… What exactly?"

  There was a pause before the reply, "We suspect a haemorrhagic fever."

  Mike's vision blurred, and his knees almost buckled. He met the pilot's hooded eyes. The world had watched in horrified fascination earlier in the year as Ebola terrorised Kikwit. All kinds of doomsday reports had emerged, about the consequences of the disease arriving in New York via an international flight. "Jesus, tell me you're not serious!"

  "We'll be quarantining your aircraft as soon as it lands at LAX. Meantime, we need to know if you have any symptoms, and what your exact movements were, who you met, who you shook hands with-everything-from the moment you left Mathew Island and set foot on that flight. Do you understand me, Dr Warner?"

  Despite his intense shock, Mike replied, "Yes, yes of course. Katie's still asleep, but I feel fine." Processing the information, he added, "Wait a minute. Ebola, dengue, all of these haemorrhagic viruses take days, weeks for symptoms to appear. And despite all the hype, it doesn't kill one hundred percent of the victims within thirty-six hours!"

  "This is a particularly virulent strain, Dr Warner-"

  "Listen to me, Agent Brant. I've spent a lot of years travelling through some of the most godforsaken pest and disease riddled countries on the face of the planet, often in the company of people like Nate Sturgess. You get to learn a lot about bugs, especially the bad 'uns, like Ebola. You're only guessing, aren't you? Because there's no possible way you could have a blood sample by now. I know that because I personally delivered them to Vila. And why is the FBI instead of the CDC involved? Spill it, Agent, what's
really going on?"

  "I'm not an epidemiologist," Brant replied. "I'm a Special Supervisory Agent, which means I'm running the investigation. Dr Sturgess is treating this outbreak like haemorrhagic smallpox."

  " What ?" Mike was incredulous. "How the hell could-?"

  "Smallpox was used in the eighteen hundreds to subjugate the population of Vanuatu," interrupted Brant. "Apparently it was responsible for eradicating over a million of the original inhabitants. At this time we're working under the assumption that somehow it remained dormant in an insect or animal, mutated into this…strain, and re-emerged in the population. When you land at LA, we'll get a blood sample from you and Mrs Wood. If you're in clear, then… Listen, if you're free of symptoms now-and given how fast it attacks and kills-there's every chance you've avoided infection. But with the apparent virulence, a wide range of precautions, at all levels , is absolutely essential. Do you understand what I'm saying, Doctor?"

  Mike was scratching his beard. He felt ill all right-not from the microbe, but from the implications. "Yeah, I gotcha."

  "Now please, Dr Warner, return to your seat, wake Mrs Wood and draw up a list of all your movements and contacts down to the finest detail. Did you buy a coffee or newspaper and hand someone money? Did you eat in a restaurant or use the bathroom and touch the handle to flush the toilet? Everything that you can recall."

  Ebola was not that contagious. Or that fast. And smallpox had been eradicated because it only resided in the human population. Brant was bullshitting him. "Will an FBI agent be meeting the aircraft on arrival?"

  "Yes. The other passengers will be informed that they cannot disembark due to a medical quarantine. We have no desire to implicate individuals."

  The pilot's nostrils flared. Mike scowled, and replied, "No need to make threats, we'll cooperate, but once we hit the ground I want to talk to your agent. And he better be up to speed because it seems I know a little more about smallpox than you, Special Supervisory Agent, and things just don't add up."

  Brant hesitated then said, "Fair enough, Doctor."

  Pulling off the earphones, Mike said to the captain, "Guess we're on your shit list for dragging you into this little John Nance story, huh?"

  The pilot barked a short, humourless laugh. "I flew a Tomcat in the Gulf War. I also talked to some of the Marines on board my ship. They saw…things up in northern Iraq. Why do you think the FBI is involved in this, Dr Warner?"

  Mike knew it was a rhetorical question, but he answered anyway. "You know what the Feds are like. Gotta stick their noses in everything."

  "Yeah. None of the other crew members knows about this, by the way-and we'll be staying with the Ebola story."

  Preoccupied with his thoughts, Mike was only now aware that the aircraft was descending. "Think I'll go order a bottle of bourbon." He turned to leave the cockpit.

  "I might join you-alone," muttered the engineer.

  Mike Warner grunted. Shit. He hated bugs.

  -Chapter 20-

  Mathew Island

  Dispersal: Plus 3 days

  Nate washed in the hot springs, almost grateful that outside at least, the smell of brimstone overlaid that of human excrement. Everything he touched felt soft and slimy. Repeated dousing in bleach had reduced the sensation in his fingertips. In the distance, the radiotelephone bleated insistently, annoyingly. God, somebody pick that up, would you?

  Under normal circumstances the radiotelephone operated only when the generator was running each morning and evening. Nate had left it on all night because he'd needed power to operate equipment, sterilize instruments, provide lighting, and to maintain his connection to the outside world via Mike Warner's laptop. The New Zealand Hercules was due to arrive soon, bringing with it more efficient generators, sophisticated communications equipment and a huge pharmacopoeia to treat the multiple symptoms of the hybrid microbe.

  Sighing deeply, Nate dunked his head underwater to wash off the soap, stepped from the pool, dried himself, and then donned the last set of clean, dry surgical scrubs in the clinic. The morning was mild, a little overcast but clear enough to see a blood-red sun rising over the deceptively calm ocean. Another storm was brewing.

  He knew that the surgical mask he tied over his face was next to useless, but since he was inexplicably free of symptoms, he wasn't about to abandon all caution. According to the email from the FBI, the supply drop would also include barrier nursing equipment and HEPA masks. Normal gas masks were useless against viruses, something the Israeli civilian population had probably been ignorant of during the Gulf War. Worse, unless the filters were correctly fitted and properly maintained, the HEPA masks could be lethal. Nate hoped he could remember how to correctly fit them.

  The radiophone bleated again. He ignored it and climbed into the Land Rover. During the night, Gene Marshall had delivered a vitriolic diatribe. It was immediately followed by a harsh call from the Health Department declaring him persona non grata in Vanuatu. The patrol boat was being sent to Mathew Island to arrest him. He'd burst out laughing. By the time the patrol boat arrived there'd probably be no one left alive.

  On the short drive to the airport, Nate passed villagers preparing for the first of twenty-five burials-or perhaps it was twenty-six. At the current rate, by midday, fully thirty percent of the islanders would be dead. By now the villagers understood that whatever evil beset them, Western medicines were of no use. They brought the sick to the clinic only because the beds were softer and the roof was waterproof. Piling coloured cloths onto the mattresses to cover the gruesome stains, they lay the next victim down, then sat by the beds and prayed to a God that they had never believed in, or understood, to deliver them from this strange horror.

  With the power steering long since shot, the ancient Land Rover was a bitch to drive. But it gave Nate something to focus on, and for that he was grateful. Back in the clinic, every room, every wall, even the ceilings were spattered with blood and body waste, including digested blood and organs. It was if nature herself were celebrating a hideous orgy of human destruction. Except if the Americans were right, there was nothing natural about it. He laughed bitterly; only mankind could have created such an abomination.

  The Land Rover continued to churn through rather than over the road, until he finally reached the landing strip. Nate had never been on Mathew Island this close to the wet season. Although he knew the runway was unserviceable, the sight of steamy mud everywhere amazed him.

  The windsock hung flaccid and dismal in the rain. Nate pulled up at the dilapidated tin shed that passed for a terminal, stepped into warm, ankle deep gunk, and looked across the field. Warner had not been exaggerating; it looked like a dung-coloured lake. On the far side, something shifted and then exploded in a surprisingly loud plop. Mud pools had bubbled up beside the runway.

  Chilled by the sight, Nate glanced back at the mountain. The low rumbles and amber glow illuminating the rain clouds was, in its own way, reassuring. The volcano continued its daily routine, oblivious to the human horror unfolding beneath.

  A deep throbbing replaced the grumble. It was the sound of four huge Hercules engines. The lumbering grey plane approached from the northwest, seemingly slow, even ponderous in its approach. Then the noise abruptly grew to an unbearable pitch, and the great machine flew past, travelling scant metres above the ground. Nate caught a flash of the New Zealand Air Force insignia, followed by a dozen bright yellow boxes falling in quick succession from the gaping hole at the stern of the aircraft. The boxes hit the airstrip with a desultory splash followed by a muted thud. Despite being stuck in a bizarre nightmare, Nate felt a surge of relief. Hollering loudly and smiling, he waved his arms over his head. He could just make out the shapes of men in the back, and imagined he could see them wave back. The Hercules slowly climbed toward the rising sun, gently dipped its wings in farewell, and disappeared into the gathering clouds.

  The drop had been so accurate that most of the crates had landed less than two hundred metres from him. Even more importantly,
they were marked according to their contents. It took Nate almost two hours and three trips in the Land Rover to collect all of the boxes and transport them to the clinic. He briefly checked on Judi each time he returned, but there was little more he could do to help until he'd unpacked the protective clothing.

  Next he set up an outdoor shower, complete with a mixer that would deliver bleach at a 1:100 ratio. Another trip to the hot springs to wash off the mud, then finally, he dressed in surgical scrubs and a lightweight, disposable plasticized suit. He took a little time adjusting the HEPA mask before going into Judi's room.

  "Hey, Nate! Sexy new gear." Staring at him with bloodshot eyes, she tried to smile, but her cracked and bloodied lips began to bleed behind the oxygen mask.

  Nate swallowed. Judi's face was swollen and blotchy with subcutaneous bruising. Angry red pustules had already erupted on her face and arms, and her nose had been bleeding.

  "I've got some new juice for you," he said jauntily, and set up a new drip. "Once you get better, you're gonna swoon over the stuff the Yanks-care of the Kiwis-dumped on our doorstep. There's about a hundred thousand dollars worth of high tech gear, including-"

  Judi coughed, heaved, and began to choke. She turned her head and feebly tried to remove the mask. He grabbed a bowl and went to help her. The gobs she spat out were speckled with granulated blood. Digested blood. Her organs were sloughing. She was digesting her own stomach.

  Trying to stave off a sense of hopelessness, Nate gently brushed Judi's hair from her face. He'd have liked to check her blood pressure, but it would trigger more bleeding through the pustules on her arms, or her fingernails, which were already bloodied, and he wasn't sure if he could stop it. When she finished coughing, he wiped her mouth, replaced the oxygen mask, and considered what drugs he now had available.

  Victims of haemorrhagic diseases like Ebola, Lassa, dengue and smallpox, often became delusional. Eventually, they suffered a complete personality change as their brains succumbed to progressive liquefaction by the virus. It was a horrific internal war on all levels. Still labouring under the assumption that the organism was a hybrid form of smallpox, Nate took the fact that Judi recognised him and even tried to make a joke, as a sign that the disease had not far progressed. Although her chances of survival were minimal, he was now in a position to give her body every bit of help available. The trick was to sustain her vital systems while her immune system mounted a counter-offensive. A cocktail of anti-virals, Vitamin K, and blood pressure medication seemed the best choice.