The Blacker Death: An Ebola Thriller

by Larry Enright

  “The drinking water?”

  “Not enough salt in drinking water. Ebola likes a saline environment. If someone put infected blood in the water, osmosis would draw the salt from the cells, replacing it with pure water until the levels were equalized. The cells would explode and the virus would die in minutes.”

  “Could they have spread it through the air conditioning, like Legionnaire’s disease?”

  “Ebola can’t be spread through an air conditioning system. It can’t survive long enough outside a host. Look, I know what you’re getting at.”

  “You do, do you?”

  “That’s right, I do. I had to put up with you at school for four years, remember? You think because I said it was an unlikely accident that this is some kind of terrorist plot. Well, it isn’t. If a terrorist were looking for a biological weapon, he wouldn’t pick Ebola. It’s too difficult to spread. There’s just no effective delivery system.”

  “I’d say infecting the U.N. was a pretty damned good delivery system.”

  “There has to be another explanation.”

  “Okay. Where do we go from here?” I said.

  “I’m going to turn this list over to our Response Group leader. We have a teleconference scheduled for later today. I’m going to recommend that he work with the U.N. to isolate everyone involved. That’s the other thing about Ebola, Bam. It might be hard to treat, but it’s too easy to stop its spread. Any self-respecting terrorist would know that.”

  I looked over at Izzy. She’d just hung up.

  “I guess I should tell you that we already called the U.N., Tom. They know everything. They’re going to put together the list of who was there and send it your way.”

  “Christ, Bam. Why the hell did you do that?”

  “We need their help. You said that yourself, Tom.”

  “That’s not the point. You, of all people, should know that we have to go through proper channels. If someone there leaks this, it could create a worldwide panic. People will die. Do you want their deaths on your hands?”

  “I’ve already got Billy’s death on my hands,” I said, and hung up.

  “That didn’t go well, did it?” Izzy said.

  “It could have gone better.”

  “Now what?”

  “Let’s eat. I’m starving.”

  After breakfast we went out onto the back porch to drink our coffees. I lit up a Pall Mall and tossed the empty pack into the wastebasket.

  “I’m thinking it’s time to quit,” I said.

  “Smoking?”

  “That too.”

  “You shouldn’t blame yourself for Billy’s death.”

  “It should have been me helping your buddy, Birot, not him, but I’ve gotten slow, sloppy. I can’t do this anymore, Izzy. It’s time I got out.”

  “What will you do?”

  “I was thinking about buying a sailboat and heading south, someplace warm.”

  “That’s your retirement plan?”

  “That’s it.”

  “My father always said that you can’t run from trouble. It will find you wherever you go.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, what does he recommend?”

  “Make sure your gun is loaded.”

  “I’ll take that under advisement,” I said, answering my ringing cell. It was Jimmy. He’d heard about our little run-in with Carmine’s boys and asked if we were okay.

  “We’re fine, but your car needs a little work.”

  “Camden police ran those plates,” he said. “The Caddy was stolen in New York.”

  “Figures. Where’s Carmine?”

  “Don’t know. I spoke to your boss about it since it was an FBI case. He thinks your little run-in was just a good-bye kiss before they left town.”

  “Right. So, I guess that’s that.”

  “I can’t spare anybody to help track him down right now, Bam. I’m sorry.”

  “No problem. I know you’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

  “You’re not shitting me. It’s crazier here than I’ve ever seen it. Every lockup in every district of this city is jammed right now. We’ve got disorderlies, weapons offenses, arson. You name it. We’ve got it. And they’re not all bad people. Most of them are just afraid. They want help, and we can’t give it to them. Hell, I just finished processing a kid who got married yesterday and was arrested for punching an officer outside the hospital because the cop wouldn’t let her in to get checked out.”

  “What did you do with her?”

  “What am I supposed to do? She didn’t have a temperature, so I let Mrs. Mavis Wilson Butterfield go home to her husband with a pamphlet and a warning. She’s sick as a dog, worried she’s got Ebola, and the ink isn’t even dry on her name change. What the hell kind of luck is that?”

  Sometimes the answer to one question is the answer to another. Sounds funny, but it’s true, and when it happens, it hits you like a ton of bricks.

  “You good with us keeping the car?” I said.

  “Sure. Just try not to get shot at again, okay?”

  “You got it.” I hung up and started dialing again.

  “Who are you calling now?” Izzy said.

  “Travis. I’ve got a hunch.”

  “So, you’re not buying a sailboat and heading south?”

  “Not yet. I’ve got a little unfinished business.”

  Izzy took my coffee cup and went back into the kitchen. Travis picked up on the second ring.

  “I’ve got a little job for you, bud, if you’ve got the time,” I said.

  “Yes, sir. Anything you need.”

  “Remember that Taney case?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Can you get me their marriage license?”

  “I can, sir, but it could take a while, unless you know when and where they were married. State records, county records, they’re a mess, sir. They all have to be searched individually and not all of them are online.”

  “Start with Brooklyn and work your way through the five boroughs. Their kid is three, and they’re Catholic, so check back three to five years. When you locate it call me, day or night. Got it?”

  “Will do, sir.”

  When I hung up and went into the kitchen, Izzy was talking on her cell in Dutch. I listened. I liked the sound of it and thought maybe I’d ask her to teach me a few words someday.

  I washed out the mugs, refilled them, and planted myself in front of the computer. That wasn’t my only mistake that day, but it was the biggest. Billy’s death was plastered all over the news. Somehow, they’d dug up an academy graduation photo of him in dress uniform, and I was staring into the eyes of my dead partner one last time. Someone at the hospital, one of those guys they call an informed source speaking off the record because he’s not authorized to say anything, in other words a damn snitch, had leaked it to the media that it was Ebola.

  Reporters may be royal pains in the ass, but they aren’t stupid, and they like to play connect-the-dots. They wanted to know which of the other first responders had come in contact with Birot, if any of them were hospitalized, if any of them had died. They were pressing every doorbell they could find to come up with more names, but so far no one was answering. It didn’t matter. They knew Birot’s death wasn’t a fluke and couldn’t be explained away as a one-off anymore. They connected Junior’s death to Birot and Birot’s to the Frenchmen. They now knew, and the world knew, that the Blacker Death was here and spreading.

  Izzy got off the phone and sat down. I knew something was wrong.

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “My father. An old friend in our government told him that they are considering shutting down the airports, restricting air traffic, and setting up checkpoints at all roads in and out of Luxembourg and France. No flights or trains will be allowed from those countries. They are considering closing the Belgian borders entirely if it gets worse.”

  “That’s crazy. Don’t they know that’s the absolute wrong thing
to do? That’s what’s going on in Africa, and people are suffering, people are starving and dying because they can’t move supplies into those countries fast enough now.”

  “He also said that my country will be voting tomorrow to restrict travel from the U.S.”

  “I can get you to the airport in thirty minutes.”

  “My place is here.”

  “Your place is with your family.”

  “Is that what your wife said before she left you?”

  Harsh, but deserved. She apologized. I told her to forget it.

  Her phone chimed. She read the text message and frowned. “I’ve been recalled. My orders are to return to Brussels immediately.”

  “Daddy did that?”

  She shrugged.

  “He wasn’t just a cop, was he?”

  She paused, like she was trying to decide whether or not to let me in on a secret. “He was Bureau Chief before retiring.”

  I was just getting used to the idea of having Izzy around, but there’s no accounting for bad luck and no fighting City Hall.

  “Get packed,” I said. “I’ll book the flight.”

  She took out her phone, said she had to call her people in New York, and went upstairs. I went to work. By the time she’d come back down with her bag, I had her booked on a flight from Philadelphia to New York to Brussels with a stopover at London Heathrow. We had two hours to make the thirty-minute drive to the airport. Rush hour was over. It should have been a piece of cake. It wasn’t.

  We took the Commodore Barry Bridge into Pennsylvania, south of Chester. Northbound I-95 heading toward the Philadelphia International Airport was a parking lot. The traffic report said there were a couple of accidents up ahead. Only one lane was getting by. They also said the airport was jammed. I checked their website. All flights in and out of the International Terminal were on time, but there were one and two-hour delays on most of the domestic ones. Every domestic flight out of the city was booked solid. The exodus had begun.

  I turned on the siren and lights and told Izzy to take the shoulder. That got us to Chester and the first accident, an overturned tractor-trailer, but there was no getting by it until the ambulance moved. We lost forty-five minutes there. We never made it to the second accident. About a mile north of that, the wheel jockey cowboys were blazing new trails and had blocked the shoulder. We inched along until we could get off at the next Chester exit. Izzy pulled over and I called Jimmy.

  “That place is a bomb waiting to go off, Bam. The airport can handle over 80,000 passengers a day. Sounds like a lot, but I think every one of them is there right now trying to catch a flight out of town. The cars are lined up like lemmings out onto 95. People are abandoning their vehicles and hoofing it. We’ve had fights. We had a shooting. A TSA checkpoint was overrun. I’m surprised we haven’t had a hijacking yet. It’s a damn mess. SWAT is sending additional men down by chopper. You can hitch a ride with them if you can be here in thirty minutes, but I can’t guarantee the place won’t be totally shut down by the time you get there.”

  “We’ll never make it,” I said, “but thanks anyway.” I hung up.

  “Time for Plan B,” I said to Izzy. “Our best bet is to head west to Pittsburgh. I can have you there in six hours. You can fly to Canada and catch a flight to Brussels from there.”

  She ignored me and began thumbing a text on her cell. When she hit send, she looked up at me and smiled. If you know anything at all about women, you know that means you’re in trouble.

  “Pittsburgh?” I said again.

  “Philadelphia.”

  “What about your orders?”

  “Don’t worry about that.”

  “Okay. Where in Philly?”

  “City Hall.”

  Elvis taught me a long time ago never to argue with a hardheaded woman, even if I wasn’t a softhearted man. “Okay. You’re the one driving this train. Let’s go.”

  We plodded along with all the other people who had bailed off the highway into Chester until we came to a road that crossed over I-95 and took us into Delaware County. I didn’t know the area and had only a general idea of which direction to take to get to Philly from there. The car’s GPS did, too, and didn’t like the way I was doing it, so it kept recalculating a route back to I-95 until I finally shut the annoying little yapper off and contacted Philadelphia central dispatch to see if they could help. They couldn’t. They were too busy with real emergencies. They transferred us to Delaware County dispatch, where we got the same treatment.

  “Do you know anyone else we could call for directions?” Izzy said.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  I took out my phone, put it on speaker, and dialed the number in Fort Meade, Maryland.

  “This is Tim,” came the voice from the other end.

  “I need a favor, Tim.”

  “I told you not to call me here. Ever. If you have a request, send it through proper channels.” He hung up.

  “Maybe you should try someone who is actually a friend,” Izzy said.

  “Don’t sweat it. Tim and I go way back.”

  “It certainly sounds like it.”

  My phone rang. I didn’t recognize the incoming number. I picked up.

  “Matthews.”

  “It’s Tim.”

  “Where the hell is 613?”

  “Ottawa. I’m routing the call through one of the Prime Minister’s secure lines.”

  “You guys scare me sometimes.”

  “Just sometimes? What do you need, Bam?”

  “We’re in a borrowed Philly detective’s car, and we’re in a jam. We’re lost in Drexel Hill and trying to get to City Hall.”

  “Who’s we?” he said.

  I looked over at Izzy. “She’s okay. She’s a friend.”

  “Nice to meet you, Tim,” she said.

  “Likewise,” said Tim. “Love the accent, by the way. Where are you from?”

  Izzy smiled. “Belgium.”

  I remembered my manners and introduced them. “Tim, this is Izzy. Izzy, Tim.”

  “A pleasure,” she said.

  “You wouldn’t be saying that if you saw me in person,” Tim said. “I’m scary ugly. I’m also scary good.”

  “Can you help us or not?” I said.

  “What happened to Philly’s finest?”

  “They’re a little busy, or haven’t you heard?”

  “Yeah, I heard. Do you see that little metal strip on the side of your computer?”

  I tilted the box sideways. “Got it.”

  “Read me the thirteen digit number.”

  I read it off. The computer screen changed to a map of Drexel Hill with a little red dot indicating our position.

  “It looks like your best bet is to cut over to the Expressway and come down through the Art Museum area.”

  “How can you tell?” I asked.

  “I’ve got thirty-six screens on my wall, Bam, and I’m looking at every traffic cam, security cam, and idiot taking a selfie along the route.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “About the selfies, not about the rest. I’m marking the route with a blue line. See it?”

  “Got it.”

  “If the traffic situation changes, the software will reroute you automatically.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “You should be. It’s the same program the Secret Service uses for presidential motorcades.”

  “Do they know about this?”

  He laughed. “Yeah, right. I’ve got about three minutes left before I have to get off this line. Anything else?”

  “Thanks. That about does it, unless you can pull a stolen Caddy out of thin air for me.”

  “That depends. What year?”

  “I don’t know, but I can look it up.”

  “Don’t bother,” Tim said. “I’ve got it. You are talking about the one that came after you last night, I assume?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Let’s see. Here’s the VIN. Perfect. It’s got OnStar, and
they let it expire after the free period.”

  “We know. We already checked that.”

  “You locals are so quaint. This will just take me a sec to hack into GM. And… there you go.”

  The traffic map panned out and another dot appeared in South Philly.

  “How the hell did you do that?”

  “What most people don’t get,” said Tim, “ is that OnStar doesn’t shut down when you stop paying. They keep it running to make it seamless if you decide to re-up. They know exactly where your car is from the minute you leave the dealer till the day you trade it in, unless you’re smart enough to cut the wires.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “It’s buried in the contract you sign when you first get the free trial for the service. It also lets them sell the data as long as it’s aggregated and anonymous. And they say we’re the bad guys for collecting everyone’s phone records. God bless the United States of Paranoia.”

  “How long will we get the Caddy’s feed?”

  “Indefinitely, unless someone on one of the servers in between figures out you’re spoofing their IP. Time’s up. Gotta go. Good hunting, pal.”

  The line went dead.

  “Are we going after them?” Izzy said.

  “Not yet. You wanted to go to City Hall. We’re going to City Hall.”

  The computer took us through a maze of back streets that led to a bridge over the river. Traffic on our Secret-Service-sponsored route was light. We were heading down the Parkway when both of our phones rang. Izzy answered hers. I recognized the number on mine right away, took it off speaker, and picked up.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  I listened to what Evers had to say, said, “Yes, sir,” again, and hung up.

  Izzy put her phone away.

  “Ladies first,” I said.

  “That was my superior. I’ve been ordered to remain here as my country’s representative to the CDC Response Group.”

  “That’s funny. I just got a call from my boss. Seems they need someone to babysit the Belgian representative to the CDC Response Group. I guess Daddy was worried when you told him you couldn’t come home.”

  “That sounds like Father.”

  “All right, lady. Let’s get down there and see what’s what.”

  Chapter 8

  Evers had told me over the phone to bring Izzy back to the Six, so I nixed the route to City Hall, and we headed across town. The bureau was coordinating the local CDC response from there and I was agent in charge of the op. Izzy’s role was as one of the Response Group members, so she technically reported to the CDC, but Evers made sure I knew that it was my job to keep her out of trouble. Daddy had long arms.