The Blacker Death: An Ebola Thriller

by Larry Enright

  Izzy found a parking spot outside the bar and we went in. Jimmy had gotten a table for us in the back.

  “Sorry about Billy,” he said, and Jimmy did something he’d never done before. He gave me a hug.

  We sat down.

  “Thanks,” I said. I wanted to say more, but that kind of language gets you thrown out of places.

  “I ordered us drinks and an appetizer,” he said. “I told the waiter to bring his best scotch. Did you catch the press conference?”

  “Yeah, nice job of deflection. What are you going to say when the press finds your dirty laundry stuffed in the hampers at Cooper Hospital? Oops?”

  “We’re following FEMA’s playbook now, Bam. They plan on a second announcement the day after tomorrow. They’ll know better what the status is then. They see no need to incite a general panic right now, especially when nothing may come of it.”

  “I’ll be sure to let Billy know.”

  “They didn’t know about him in time. We have a meeting first thing tomorrow about it. They’ll figure out what to say then.”

  The drinks and nachos came. The twelve-year-old scotch was a big step up from my usual swill.

  Izzy’s cell rang. She answered it, listened, and by the time she’d said thank you and hung up, her face was as white as a sheet.

  “That was one of my people in New York. The French ambassador is dead, the two aides who were with him in the car. Dead. All dead.”

  “Jesus H. Christ,” Jimmy said.

  His phone rang.

  “Barnes,” he answered. He listened, said he’d be right there, and hung up. “That was Eland. The French government just went public with the news. FEMA is going to set up another command center in New York. All hell’s breaking loose up there. Her team here in Philly and the team there will be coordinating through Washington now. I’ve got to go, Bam. Sorry. I’ll catch up with you two tomorrow.”

  Izzy and I finished off the nachos and had another drink. We talked about things we liked to do to unwind. She liked to play golf. I’m not into clubbing things. I like to take out my frustration at the range.

  The conversation was winding down to bad place when I said, “I think I’ve had enough of this day.”

  “I’ll take you home.”

  “Thanks. Shep likes to chew up furniture when he’s not happy about me being gone so long. I’m not sure about Baby.”

  “Baby?”

  “The cat. The guy at the sandwich shop told me her name. She was Gyro’s lucky charm.”

  When we left and got back into the car, there was a Caddy parked across the street that I didn’t like the looks of. It must have been the tinted windows. I got its plate number before we drove off. It’s just something I do. Most times, nothing comes of it. My phone rang.

  “Matthews,” I said.

  “Bam, it’s Tom. I heard the news about your partner. I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks, Tom. I appreciate it. What’s new at the CDC?”

  “The phone’s been ringing off the hook with test requests.”

  “From where?”

  “Everywhere. It doesn’t make sense. Ebola isn’t a jumper, not like this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “One of the few things working in our favor in an Ebola epidemic is that it’s primarily transmitted by fluid contact, and it kills so fast that it’s hard for it to spread beyond the initial outbreak area.”

  “How fast?”

  “Death usually occurs in seven to ten days from when symptoms exhibit.”

  “Billy died in two.”

  “I know. It affects everyone differently. He must have been particularly susceptible to the virus.”

  “Is that your story on the Frenchman and his buddies in the car?”

  He didn’t know about that. I filled him in.

  “This is not good,” he said.

  “No shit, Sherlock. What about the guy from Luxembourg?”

  “We got word that he died an hour ago.”

  “How long did he have it?”

  “I don’t have the file in front of me, but I’ll check after we get off the phone.”

  “Out of curiosity, what was his name?” I asked. Tom gave it to me. I thanked him and said good-bye.

  The SUV was equipped with a console-mounted computer. Within the city limits, it connected to the Internet through the Philly police’s secure Wi-Fi network. When out of range, it dropped back to the slower 3G. I brought up a browser and called up Google. I had a bad feeling about all this, a really bad feeling, like the time I had gotten stuck in a collapsed mine. I was on loan to the ATF and I’d been chasing a suspect through the woods in West Virginia. He ran into the abandoned mine, and I ran in after him. We struggled. He fell against a rotting timber. The whole place came down on us, killing him and blocking the only way out. I thought I was going to die. It was two days before they found me and dug me out.

  That was exactly how I felt as we crossed the bridge into New Jersey and got onto the highway, trapped with no way out.

  Traffic was light. Cooper Hospital was off to our right, glowing like a plugged-in Christmas tree sitting on a landfill. I was finishing up my Google search string when a car rear-ended us. It was the Caddy, tinted windows and all. Izzy put on the turn signal and we started to pull over when it rammed us again. That’s when I saw the gun sticking out the passenger-side window.

  “Get us out of here,” I said. “Now.”

  Izzy floored it. A bullet shattered the side mirror.

  “What’s going on?” she said, weaving in and out the traffic like Mario Andretti at the Indy 500.

  The next shot missed us and hit the car we’d just passed, sending them into the guardrail. I got on the horn, called for an ambulance, called for backup, hit the siren, and lit up the cherry. People began pulling over to get out of our way. I drew my .38 and rolled down the window.

  Izzy put a little distance between them and us. We were driving a big team of horses, and they don’t make Cadillacs like they used to.

  “Why are they chasing us?” she said.

  “Get in the middle lane. If he pulls in behind us, let him catch up. Then cut left and hit the brakes. We’ll let Mr. Smith ask the questions.”

  Izzy took the center lane and eased up on the gas. The Caddy caught up and rammed us again. She swerved left and slammed on the brakes. When the Caddy pulled even with us, I got a good look at the guy driving the car before he jerked right across traffic and headed off down an exit ramp. It was one of Carmine’s boys.

  There was no way we were going to get over there to follow them, so I called it in, hoping the Camden cops weren’t too busy with their own problems that night. We headed for home.

  “Where’d you learn to drive like that?” I said.

  “My parents live not far from Germany. My friends and I would go there on weekends to race on the autobahn.”

  “Any other secrets you haven’t told me, like how you’re a ninja warrior or something?”

  “Every woman has her secrets,” she laughed. I liked a woman who could laugh after dancing with the devil.

  When we got to my place, my new sofa was sitting outside by the back door with a delivery slip stapled to one arm. I’d forgotten all about it. I went over to grab the slip, and a skunk came out from underneath. As I backed away slowly, it took off, leaving behind the gift that keeps on giving.

  Shep barked from the screened-in porch. Baby was sitting beside him.

  “You big sissies,” I said. “Letting a little skunk like that wreck your new sofa.”

  Izzy was trying not to laugh. “What now?” she said.

  “First, I’m going to feed the kiddies. Then I’m going to get out of this clown suit, find some gloves, and drag that piece of shit sofa down into the woods. The skunk can have it. After that, I’m getting a shower, and I think I’ll have a drink. Maybe two. Want to stick around and join me?”

  “I’d like that. Do you mind if I change out of these clothes?”

&
nbsp; “Knock yourself out. You know where everything is.”

  She grabbed her carryon bag from the car and we went inside. Later on, we were sitting at the kitchen table having that drink and talking about Billy, when Shep came over with the checkerboard between his teeth. Izzy thought it was funny when I told her that he was pretty good at the game.

  “How does he play?” she asked.

  “I point to the piece and he barks if it’s the one he wants me to move for him.”

  “Really? Does he ever win?”

  “All the time, but I let him. He’s a poor loser, and he bites hard. Look, thanks for hanging with me and letting me ramble on about Billy. I’m not sure I’ll ever get over this one, but it helped to talk it through.”

  Something about the way she looked at me just then made me feel like I didn’t understand women at all.

  “It’s getting late,” I said. “You should probably head back.”

  “I don’t think you should be alone tonight, Bam.”

  After all those years of dealing with liars, killers, thieves, and the occasional honest Joe, I thought I could read a person’s expression like a book. I thought I knew what she meant, but I had to give her one last chance to back out.

  “What?” I said. “You’re afraid Carmine will come back? I’m a card-carrying NRA member, sister. I’ve got an arsenal here big enough to wage World War III and a dog that will hear them coming a mile off. I’ll be just fine.”

  She put her drink down and took my hand. “I wasn’t talking about that.”

  Chapter 7

  They say life’s a bitch, then you die, but in the end life’s all we’ve got. Izzy was right. I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want to have to think of Billy and all the things he’d never get to do, all the dreams he’d never see fulfilled. He was just a kid with everything to look forward to and no regrets to look back on, just a kid.

  When we got up the next morning, it was raining big time. Shep was asleep on the floor. He’d been out in it and smelled like a wet blanket. Baby was nowhere to be found. We got dressed and went downstairs to make breakfast. Izzy went to turn on the TV, but I stopped her.

  Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee. That’s what Cassius Clay had said he was going to do to Sonny Liston before he knocked him out. I’m no Cassius Clay.

  “About last night,” I began.

  I was telegraphing the blow. She’d felt sorry for me and given me comfort when I needed it. I didn’t want her to think there was any more to it than that, even though there was.

  “I understand,” she said. “Not another word about it, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said, and let it drop.

  I switched on the TV. The Blacker Death. That’s what they were calling it. That was the news, the only news. The mayor had used an old FDR line in his speech the day before that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself, but he had no clue just how big a punch fear was packing that day.

  I channel-hopped through the stations: a man coughing like a steam engine complaining to a reporter that he’d been turned away at the hospital even though he had symptoms, a woman crying as she told another reporter about her next-door neighbor who had died the night before and they were sure it was Ebola, a close-up shot of a vagrant lying in the alley with blood on his face. Clip after clip, they fed the frenzy. There were reports of Ebola everywhere in Philadelphia. They said it was spreading to the suburbs and across the river as if it were a pack of rats running around biting people. The facts didn’t matter anymore. Overnight, the Blacker Death had become the disease that was everywhere and nowhere.

  Airline baggage handlers and airplane cabin cleaners walked off the job at the airport that morning. They wanted guarantees of protection from the virus. Firemen refused to go into a burning house because someone on the scene had said that the person inside had Ebola. Cab drivers were on strike. The transit workers union staged a sickout, shutting down all but the two major subway lines. The city was imploding because the truth was nowhere to be found. There was only fear, and everyone including us was glued to his TV set watching it pummel the city into submission.

  I changed the channel again. I recognized Paris in the background. A BBC reporter was talking about Ebola above an angry mob outside the Luxembourg Palace. A lot of them were carrying placards. A lot of them were shaking their fists and chanting. The French government had come clean at the outset, admitting that their three U.N. diplomats had returned to France and died of Ebola. They said they had the situation under control and were trying to track down everyone who had come in contact with them. They already had fifty people in isolation in Paris hospitals that they were monitoring for symptoms.

  “What’s that sign say?” I asked Izzy.

  “It’s says, ‘No Africans,’” she said. “That other one says, ‘Blacks go Home,’ but it uses an offensive word for black.”

  The reporter started talking about the Paris hospitals that had been overwhelmed in just one night. People with symptoms were being turned away, mostly immigrants, mostly black. People with no connection to the disease were being turned away too. The hospitals couldn’t handle the load. Fear, panic, and rage had taken over another unprepared city.

  “It doesn’t take long for everything to fall apart, does it?” I said.

  “Society is built on the honor system, Bam. When there is no honor, it cannot stand.”

  “Did you just make that up?”

  “No. It’s something my father says.”

  “Smart man.”

  “And honorable, like you.”

  “I’ll bet you say that to all the guys.”

  “Not all of them.”

  She ran her fingers along my cheek like maybe there was something more to last night for her too.

  “Do you always get what you want?” I asked.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think I’m hungry.”

  Izzy started breakfast and I brought out my laptop and headed back to Google. You can find anything you want on the Internet. Some of it is even true. I retyped the search string I’d been working on the night before when Carmine paid us a visit: List of U.N. delegates. I located and downloaded the PDF from the United Nations website, scanned the list, and there it was, like a kid’s nightmare after watching scary movies all afternoon, staring back at me from under the bed.

  “Jenson Wales,” I said.

  “I know him,” said Izzy. “He’s Luxembourg’s ambassador to the U.N., a very nice man.”

  “Was he friends with Birot?”

  “Oh, no. They didn’t get along at all. Why?”

  “Because he’s dead.”

  She whispered the word Ebola like people whisper the word cancer, as if saying it too loud would make it come true.

  I nodded. “His was the Luxembourg sample.”

  Izzy put two and two together pretty fast. “The U.N. general assembly adjourned, and all the delegates went home to their own countries.”

  “And they were all exposed to Birot. It says here, there are a hundred ninety-three of them. I’m emailing this to Tom Stalter right now for him to cross check against his test list. Do you have a connection with anyone at the U.N. who can pull a few strings for us?”

  “What about the Assistant to the Secretary General? She called me after Birot died to get his father’s personal phone number so the secretary could express his condolences directly.”

  “That’ll work. Get her on the horn. Ask her to put together a list of everyone who was at that assembly. Use the roll calls, security footage, whatever it takes. We need the delegates, their assistants, the pageboys, caterers, staff, everyone. Have her email it to Tom Stalter at the CDC ASAP. Tell her everything we know. This is no time to be pussyfooting around with politics.”

  She dialed the number and started talking to her contact at the U.N. I got up and went looking for the cat. I found her sitting in the windowsill watching the birds in the front yard.

  “Planning your strategy?” I s
aid.

  She purred when I picked her up to pet her.

  “Us, too. How about some bacon?”

  Izzy called out to me, so I took Baby with me back to the kitchen, gave her a piece of bacon, and set her down.

  “She wants to know about the visitors, Bam. There are hundreds every day. What about them? How do they identify them?”

  Just like the cat trying to figure out how to catch all the birds in the tree out front, the ones who could fly away at a moment’s notice, the answer was, we couldn’t.

  My cell rang.

  “Matthews.”

  “Bam, it’s Tom. I’m going down that list you sent.”

  “How many?”

  “Eight, so far, including Birot. How many others did he come in contact with?”

  “No clue.”

  “Christ. No wonder it’s everywhere.”

  “Whatever happened to Ebola being a bloodborne disease?” I said.

  “It’s not just blood, Bam. It’s any bodily fluid, but it’s far more common in blood and feces because they’re closer to the environment the virus prefers. It can be transmitted through sweat, a handshake, a kiss, a cough, but the odds are far less because there are far fewer infectious particles present.”

  “But someone like Birot working the crowd and glad-handing the other ambassadors could spread it?”

  “Yes, it’s theoretically possible. It just seems an unlikely accident.”

  “What if it wasn’t an accident?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if someone spiked the punch?”

  “No way. The alcohol would kill it.”