The Center for Anti-Vaccination Studies was a five-room suite in an office building occupied by middle-income lawyers and dentists. The first floor always smelled like popcorn and massage oil from a parlor that took up the first suite. They claimed to be licensed massage therapists, but Ben had never seen one degree or certificate on the wall. Plus, the men coming out of there seemed just a bit too happy.
He walked past it now and smiled to the receptionist at the front desk, a stack of files under his arm as he hit the up button on the elevator.
The fifth and top floor was much like the first except that it smelled a bit better. The CAVS’s five rooms were better decorated than most, with glass walls on the interior and exposed brick in the offices. The floor was a slick hardwood donated to CAVS from a contractor whose daughter had developed autism after a routine vaccination at the age of two.
Ben went through the office space, wondering where everybody was until he checked his phone: it was five in the afternoon on a Friday. He went straight to his office and shut the door. He placed the files down on his desk and sat in front of them a long time, just staring. There was a knock.
“Come in.”
Tate Buhler walked in, sipping a Mountain Dew Code Red. He saw the files on the desk and nearly spit up his drink. He shut the door. “You got them?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Tate sat down across from him at the desk and they both stared at the files. There were fifteen total. Fifteen medical records of research physicians that specialized in vaccinations. One of these physicians had recanted everything they had ever written about the safety of vaccination after one of their children developed a severe learning disability days after the MMR vaccine.
“You think it’s real?” Tate said. “I mean, I know the government does some crazy shit, but firing a doctor and then suing to keep him quiet just ‘cause he’s against vaccinations sounds extreme.”
Ben smirked. “Do you remember the serial killer from the eighties who supposedly poisoned bottles of Tylenol and half a dozen people died?”
“Yeah, that was in Chicago or somewhere.”
“Well one of the people that died bought their Tylenol from a pharmacy. The public doesn’t have access to medications in a pharmacy. That means the Tylenol was tainted when it left the factory and so Johnson & Johnson and the dim-witted law enforcement who investigated the case came up with this serial killer story. They dodged lawsuits, criminal liability, any repercussions at all just because money can buy you whatever you want. If they can cover up the murders of innocent people, they can certainly cover up firing one person.”
Tate shook his head. “What’re we even gonna do when we find this doctor? I mean he can’t talk about it, right? What good is he gonna be?”
Ben’s phone began to ring. He picked it up. “He’s a symbol, Tate. He’s a symbol of what we’re trying to do here. He doesn’t need to open his mouth at all. If he sits next to me on a stage with a name tag, that’s enough. People will Google him and find out the rest…Hello, this is Benjamin Cornell…yes…where?…when?…who else knows about this…okay…okay.”
Ben hung up the phone and sat quietly a few moments, staring at the desk.
“You okay?”
“I’m going to be gone for a while,” he said, standing up and heading out the door.
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well where you going?” Tate yelled as Ben headed toward the elevators.
“Hawaii.”
CHAPTER 16
Ele Henano sat in the back of Queen’s Medical Center with Tiffany Leath and smoked pot from a joint. The weed was freshly picked from his grandmother’s backyard and it had a purple tinge that you could see in the fading sunlight.
They smoked half the joint and then leaned back on the old lawn chairs they’d taken out of a patio storage closet. He’d found that if he smoked more than half a joint with another person, people could usually tell something was wrong. He’d been fired from one job previously because his boss, the head nurse, could instantly tell he was high. The smell, the red eyes, the greenish tongue, he could hide all of those. But he couldn’t hide his goofy personality or the giggles that pot gave him.
“What’d you do this weekend?” he said, passing a Gatorade to her.
“I met some guy at a bar and hung out with him.”
“Just hung out.”
“We fucked around, but nothin’ too hot. He got all limp ‘cause we smoked too much weed.”
Ele giggled. “That’s why you need a real man.”
“I don’t mess around with people I work with,” she said, taking a swig of the drink and handing it back. “I got fired from my last job doing that.”
“Where at?”
“It was a psychiatric hospital on the mainland. It was pretty fucked up. This one patient was a soldier in World War Two and he had a head injury. So to change his diaper, you had to play the national anthem ‘cause he would stand up and salute. And then you just had to hurry and change it ‘cause otherwise he’d fight you. Then there was this one dude that thought cats had filled his room. He thought he had like thirty cats in there and you had to be careful where you walked ‘cause if you stepped on one of his cats he’d attack you.”
“Man. That sounds fucked up, yo.”
“It wasn’t fun. But they paid good. ‘Cause you got your hair pulled and got gassed and shit. You know what gassing is?”
He shook his head.
“It’s where they shit or piss or both and then throw it at your face. Some a the patients gassed the staff all the time so with some of ‘em you had to wear gasmasks. If I ever get old, just fucking shoot me.”
Ele took a deep breath. “Ready to go back?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
They went inside and up to the locker rooms. Ele went into the men’s and changed into a fresh pair of scrubs. He brushed his teeth, used eyedrops, and washed his hands and his face. He ran some cold water through his hair—he knew the hair could hold the scent of marijuana as good as anything—and then dried off with some paper towels and headed into the corridor. Tiffany was already waiting for him.
He had hit her up at a party once when they first started hanging out, but she didn’t show any interest. She said it was because she didn’t date people she worked with but Ele didn’t believe that. She only dated white guys, never islanders. He wondered why she would move to Hawaii if she didn’t like Hawaiians but people were like that he guessed. They came out here for all sorts of reasons and few of them made any sense to him. Hawaii was expensive, you made less money, many of the locals didn’t like whites, and it was difficult to get all the conveniences of the mainland. But the grass was always greener. While people were trying to move in, he was desperately trying to move out, but money was always an issue.
“Where you gotta go?” Tiffany asked.
“Up to six.”
“Nuh uh. I thought no one was supposed to go up there?”
“Nah, they got barriers set up. You just can’t touch the people. What you think they’re sick with?”
“I heard it was AIDS.”
“That don’t make sense ‘cause I heard Dr. Hennessey saying that patients were getting infected faster than they thought they would. So AIDS wouldn’t do that.”
“Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t really care. I just wanna get outta here and chill with a bottle a wine at my house.”
They passed the elevators and Ele said goodbye and hopped on. He headed to six, where the patients were quarantined, and when he stepped off the elevator he grabbed some rubber gloves that were hanging in a box on the wall. Several nurses were up here but they wore facemasks and plastic suits over their scrubs. He didn’t get any of that because he was only here to empty the trash.
He went from room to room, trying to catch a glimpse of the patients. No one told the orderlies anything and there were a lot of rumors ab
out what exactly was wrong with them. In one room was a young woman who lay back with her eyes open, staring at the ceiling. He would’ve thought that she was dead but her chest kept moving. It creeped him out and he left and went into the room next door.
This one had an older man with a bald head and a big pot belly. He was laughing with one of the nurses who was preparing a meal for him and he smiled to Ele when he walked in.
The man’s name was Phillip Bourde and he’d been committed to level six yesterday when he had vomited blood and displayed a rash over his chest and arms.
“How you doin’ today, Ele?”
“Good, boss. You?”
“Oh hangin’ in there. Did you see the Chargers play last night?”
“Nah I was with my girl and she hates football,” Ele said as he began emptying the trash.
The nurse said a few things to the man about relaxing and not stressing himself and then left as Ele went into the small bathroom that was off to the side of the room and emptied the trash there. Water had splashed onto the sink and he began to clean it with supplies that he carried with him on a belt.
“What’s your girl like?” Phil yelled.
“She just one a my girls. She cool. Big fake tits.”
Philip laughed. “Thatta boy. You get ‘em while you can. When you hit my age if a woman even smiles at you, you think it’s your lucky day.”
Ele stepped out of the bathroom. “So how’s everythin’ lookin’? Doctor got good news?”
“They haven’t talked to me since last night except to tell me I can’t have any visitors and they gotta put this plastic sheet over my bed. But I guess no news is good news.”
“Well you look good. I’m sure it’s just the flu or somethin’.”
“I hope so. I’ve been feelin’ stronger today so hopefully it was just a bug. Hey, do me a favor, will ya, Ele? My phone’s in my pants pocket over there. Can you hand it to me?”
“Yeah.”
Ele walked to the stack of clothes on a shelf and pulled down the jeans. He took off his gloves and ruffled through the pockets until he found a Blackberry. He walked over to the bed.
A chart and a set of instructions hung on a clipboard next to the bed. Ele noticed that notes were scribbled in on a few lines near the bottom of the page. One note said, MEETING LAST NIGHT ABOUT HANDLING PROCEDURES. He wondered what that was about. He’d found that meetings for nurses, doctors, and staff were frequent but that usually they forgot to notify the orderlies and custodians to attend. Or, it was done on purpose.
He moved the clipboard so he could open the plastic canopy hanging from the ceiling over the bed.
“Thanks,” Philip said, taking it from him.
“I gotta run. You take care, boss.”
“You too. Get some T and A for the both of us.”
As Ele left the room to head down the corridor, he checked his cell phone for messages and emails. He had an itch on the corner of his eye and he rubbed it with his finger, and put the phone away.
CHAPTER 17
Samantha Bower stood on the beach and stared out over the water. Her thoughts were racing and she felt anxiety that she hadn’t felt since taking medical school exams. Thirteen more patients had been admitted in the last three days with black pox symptoms and they were averaging one admittance per four hours.
Dr. Wilson planned another press conference, as the news programs kept playing the video clip of him saying he didn’t believe there would be any more cases. In the end, as the numbers started to climb, he cancelled the press conference. He had been incommunicado for the last ten hours.
Sam looked back to the Ducati bullet bike she had traded in the car for. It was yellow and gleamed in the bright Hawaiian sun. Eventually, she would have to go back to the hospital, but for now, there was a highway in front of her with few cars on it this early in the morning.
Sam hopped on the bike and it roared to life. Riding motorcycles was something quite routine in her family until her uncle had died on a highway when he hit a stone and careened into a semi. After that, her father refused to let her ride but when she turned eighteen, he didn’t stop her.
She turned into traffic and sped through a yellow light as she took the onramp onto interstate H1. She raced up the onramp and slid two lanes over before easing off the throttle. Her helmet was shiny and black with a tinted shield. She knew that many people thought she was a man when they saw her speed by.
The interstate snaked around the island and she would occasionally glance at the bright green vegetation that surrounded her like a closing army. The jungle seemed to envelope everything and the city and its inhabitants were only fighting it off in short bursts. It felt like with one relatively short absence or time of neglect, the jungle could take the city back.
She pulled off on an exit near another beach and came to a stop in front of a roach-coach that was selling Hawaiian sandwiches. She ordered a pulled pork sandwich with French fries and an apple juice before sitting on one of the benches and watching the surfers gliding on the waves. Her cell phone buzzed and she didn’t recognize the number.
“This is Sam.”
“Oh, hey, didn’t expect you to answer on the first ring. This is Duncan. Um, from the hospital.”
“I remember, Duncan. What can I do for you?”
“Um well, I was just, I mean um, I was looking at and wondering if maybe…you know, I don’t know anyone here and I wanted to maybe grab some dinner.”
“Are you asking me out?”
“Yes and it’s going terribly, isn’t it?”
“Not the best I’ve been pitched. But not the worst either. Yeah, I’ll have dinner.”
“Really? Just like that? I was expecting you to say no.”
“Why?”
“You don’t strike me as the type of person that needs other people around.”
She smirked. “A psychopath doesn’t need other people around. I’m going to be at the hospital until about six.”
“Great. I’m at the base. I’ll pick you up then.”
“All right, bye.”
“Bye.”
Her food was ready and she was surprised the French fries had been put on top of the sandwich along with a tube-full of barbeque sauce and at least half an onion and a tomato. She took a couple bites and realized it was the best sandwich she’d ever had.
When she finished, she thanked the cook and got back on her bike, heading toward the hospital. She’d left a bag there permanently now that contained toiletries and several changes of clothing so that she wouldn’t have to bring anything with her when she went.
It still wasn’t yet 9:00 a.m. when she parked and went inside the building. She noticed several more guards in uniform standing at all the entrances and exits and she saw Wilson speaking with General Lancaster.
“Hey,” she said, “where’ve you been hiding out?”
“We have a situation. One of the orderlies here called in sick to work. On a hunch, the nurse asked him his symptoms. I don’t think I need to tell you what they were.”
“I knew those canopies weren’t enough.”
“The canopies were fine. He reached under them to hand one of the patients his phone. I talked to the kid myself. He was with his girlfriend all last night, at least a few days after he’d been exposed to the agent. We think the girlfriend is infected too. Guess what her profession is? Flight attendant.”
“Damn it, Ralph,” Sam said, anger in her voice, “I told them I wanted full barrier. He shouldn’t have been able to reach under there.”
“What’s done is done. We need to deal with this situation as it is. We can’t find the girlfriend, Yolanda Gonzalez, and her cellphone goes to voicemail. We called the airlines and she has a flight scheduled for noon. We need to make sure she’s not on that plane.”
“I’ll head down there.”
Sam didn’t wait to hear what else Wilson had to say. He shouted something about letting the police and the military biohazard units take care of it. Wilson had
more faith in the government than she did. She’d seen military units willingly expose themselves to hot agents because they thought they were helping the patients. She’d also seen confused patients shot by young police officers because they weren’t complying with what they were told, either out of ignorance as to what was going on, or because the disease had taken hold and they couldn’t think clearly.
As Sam raced to Honolulu International Airport, only one thought ran through her mind: if she gets on that plane, millions could die.
CHAPTER 18
Robert Greyjoy stepped off the plane in Dubai and immediately wished he hadn’t worn a suit. He was in a rush and that just happened to be what he was wearing at the time when he bought his ticket. Now he wished he’d bought some shorts and a shirt at the duty-free shop. But the terrible flower-print shirts they had were so atrocious he couldn’t bring himself to wear one. Better to suffer a little heat than feel out of sorts with one’s sense of style, he’d thought.
Dubai was one of his favorite cities. They served no alcohol, so he was unable to get one of his beloved Tonight or Nevers, but there were other things to focus his attention on.
Women were certainly not it. Many were covered from head to toe in traditional Muslim attire with chadars covering their hair, leaving only their faces exposed, which in itself was a major advancement for feminine rights in this region of the world. Drugs were difficult to come by as well. The penalties were so severe—the government wanting this to be a place of business rather than a pleasure destination—that most people who could supply the drugs stayed away or were pulled out of their homes in the middle of the night and never heard from again. There was a different view of law in this part of the world; something still medieval, cruel almost. Robert soaked it in and felt refreshed whenever he came here.
He hailed a taxi and the driver was a young man of about twenty. He wore a colorful tank-top, sweats, and stunk of body odor.
“Enlishezia?” Robert said.
“Yes, I speak English. Very good. I go to school.”
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