Face of the Earth

by Doug Raber

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  Day 30: Apache Elementary

  As Sarah and the three men walked through the darkness to the ATVs, she started to say something but was cut off by Raymond. “Not until we get back across the river. We can’t risk being stopped now. We need to go someplace where we can talk and figure out just what to do next.”

  They retraced their path back to the old bridge. Crossing the shallow river was easier this time, perhaps because they knew it was possible. The only problem was a wet shoe for Anthony, who momentarily lost his balance when a tire went into a small underwater pothole. Once they were safely on the river bank, Raymond led them down another dirt track for a half mile and stopped in an industrial area with only a few scattered houses. He signaled for the others to remain in place, while he walked around a corner to one of the houses and knocked on the door. A man answered, and after a brief conversation, he and Raymond walked to the street, where they went in opposite directions.

  Raymond returned to the others. “Another old Marine buddy. He was just going out and said we could use his living room for a few minutes.”

  Inside, Sarah felt ready to explode with the information she had. “I have a good friend out here, Raymond. I’ve known her for years. She’s the teacher at the Apache Elementary School that Evie mentioned, Jillian Sommerset. She called me last week. It’s how I found out all this was happening out here.”

  “I know about that, Sarah. I just didn’t know we’d find a connection to the outbreak. Remember the man who contacted you by shortwave radio? ‘Elmer?’ His real name is Walter Lewis, and he’s the Principal at Apache Elementary School. He’s Jillian’s boss, and he’s my friend, too. That’s why he told you to contact me.”

  “Then we need to find him. Jillian, too. One of them will know where the biology room is, where Evie put the microscope slides.”

  “They’ll be here soon.” He paused. “And don’t look so surprised. I’ve been in contact with Jillian and Walter for more than a week, so when Evie mentioned Apache Elementary I knew what we had to do. This is Walter’s house. He’s gone to get Jillian.”

  Sarah’s head was spinning. She looked over at Jake, who was equally stunned. “What will we need to look for, Jake? If we can get into the school.”

  “We just have to look through the slides. And we’ll need to do that carefully, since they may be the source of the virus. It sounds like one of the slides might actually be a variola specimen. If so, we need to find it. Is everyone here vaccinated against smallpox? I’m not worried about Walter and Jillian. As coworkers of Evie, they would have been among the first. How about you, Raymond? … Anthony?”

  “Both vaccinated,” answered Raymond. “Back in the first Gulf War. Even then, the U.S. was worried that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons.”

  “That should be okay.” Jake paused, as a puzzled look on his face developed into a frown. “Wait a minute. You told me that you and Jack Redhouse served together in the Marines, Raymond. Then he would have been vaccinated too. How come he got sick and died from smallpox? The protection provided by the vaccine decreases over time, but it shouldn’t disappear. Jack shouldn’t have been hit so hard. Not hard enough for it to kill him. Sarah showed me the pictures she took with her cell-phone camera, and his was a particularly bad case.”

  Raymond shook his head slowly. “That’s the sad part. Jack always hated needles shots, and he’d do anything to avoid getting a shot. The day our unit was scheduled to be vaccinated, he managed to get assigned to a work detail on the other side of the base. He didn’t come back until the medical team had left. There was supposed to be a second round, but we got shipped out before it happened. And somehow, he managed the same kind of trick when he was deployed in the Iraq war. He told me about it after he got back.”

  A soft knock on the front door preceded the entry of two individuals. As soon as Sarah recognized Jillian, she crossed the room and they embraced. Words seemed inadequate, and Jillian was in tears. “Oh, Sarah, I’m so glad you came. It’s been so terrible out here.” Introductions were then made all around, but with first names only. Raymond had said that it might give them a little extra time in case one of them should be picked up by the authorities.

  Raymond brought Walter and Jillian up to speed and explained Jake’s conclusion that the military authorities were no longer searching for the origin of the outbreak. “They just want to blame it on Jack Redhouse. They want to call him a terrorist. They’re trying to say he was working for a foreign country. And they’re talking about a military response. Our only hope—to clear Jack’s name, to clear the honor of the Diné, and maybe to prevent a war is to find the true source of this smallpox outbreak. Jake and Sarah think the answer is in a box of microscope slides that Evie Redhouse took to your school.”

  “I remember them.” Jillian looked at Walter. “I think I know where they are. Can we get into the classroom tonight without getting caught?”

  “Probably. At least, if we do it in between police patrols. Even if we’re spotted, I probably know all the patrol officers. Most of ‘em are just kids who were in my classes when I taught high school. I could just tell them that I needed to get some paperwork.”

  “Then you’d have to stay near your office. Good thing it’s in the middle of the main building. I could go over to the science room with Sarah and Jake. The room has dark shades for when we show videos. And I’ve got some flashlights that we could use.”

  “Then let’s try it,” said Raymond. “Can you drive, Walter? The ATVs are too noisy. Four of us can go to this science room while Walter goes to his office. I’ll stand watch, so if someone comes to Walter’s office, I’ll let the rest of you know to lie low. Anthony, you wait outside. If something goes really wrong, you could create a diversion.”

  They crowded into Walter’s car and drove onto Apache Street, which traversed the length of the airport. They could make out parts of the military encampment on the airport grounds. As they neared the school, Walter stopped for a moment to let Anthony out. Then he pulled into the school’s parking lot and stopped in front of the main doors to the school. He got out first, unlooked the doors, and held them open while the others quickly entered the building. Only after they had followed Jillian down the hallway, did he turn on a light and enter his office.

  The hallway was dark, but Jillian had walked the same path countless times. She extended her left hand, touching the wall as she walked, counting the number of classroom doors they passed. Then she stopped and lifted her key ring. “Aha!” she said softly, as the lock turned. “Stay here for a minute, while I get the shades.” The others listened as Jillian lowered the shades, and then they were shocked by a sudden, bright light. They relaxed, when they realized it was just the flashlight, and Jillian was being careful to keep it pointed down.

  She guided them to a table on the far side of the room. “The chairs are a little small, but we won’t be here long. I have a pretty good idea where Evie would have put the box. There’s a place in the cupboard that she uses over here. Hold on a second … Damn! Not here … not on this shelf …wait a second … maybe … This looks like something. An old wooden box, and … yes! It’s filled with microscope slides. Organized in little slots.”

  She put the box in front of Sarah and Jake, and then started to walk around behind them so that she could shine the light on the box of slides and not in their eyes. “Let me get something else from the closet. Don’t touch them yet!” A moment later she handed disposable plastic gloves to Jake and Sarah. “I always try to teach the children the importance of safety.”

  Jake started removing slides, one at a time, so he and Sarah could examine them. The first dozen were disappointing, having labels such as “pond water,” silk fiber,” and “mildew.” There was nothing that was the least bit medical in these slides. But then Jake removed one out that was labeled in a different handwriting. It said “H. Hamilton, var. pos.”

  His heart raced. “Look at the next one, Sarah. A medical specimen?
Hamilton could be someone’s name. Someone who tested positive for variola.”

  Sarah removed the slide. It was “J. Hamilton, neg” and the one after that was a name followed by “neg” as well. Then came three more, all of which ended with “pos.”

  “It has to be, Jake. What else could it be? The ‘pos.’ and ‘neg.’ have to mean positive and negative test results.”

  “Oh, shit! Look at this one.”

  Jake handed Sarah a slide that did not abbreviate the description. It said “R. Webster, variola positive.”

  “This is it, Jake. It must be. We …”

  They were interrupted by the sound of the classroom door opening. It was Raymond. “It’s not our lucky night. A patrol car just stopped out front, and the officer got out. We’ll see how smooth an operator Walter is. But we need to get out of sight. Get behind a cabinet, get into a closet, whatever it takes. But get where nobody can see you, and stay quiet. Don’t talk. Don’t whisper. Don’t move. If you can avoid it, don’t even breathe. Starting now!”

  It was the longest five minutes Sarah had ever experienced. She had never even thought before about how difficult it could be to stay still. When she ran or biked, the difficult part was always to keep moving. This was much harder. Every muscle in her body began to hurt, and she desperately wanted to move her legs into a new position to keep them from cramping. But she followed Raymond’s instructions.

  She nearly screamed when someone jiggled the doorknob. “Look here, Mr. Lewis. This door’s unlocked!” The door swung open with a creak, and a flashlight beam swung back and forth across the room.

  Sarah was frozen in place in the darkness, lying on her side behind some cardboard boxes. The beam of light created strange shadows, and her heart pounded. She could see Jake’s feet under a small table. But they were illuminated only by a reflection of the flashlight beam off the classroom wall, and she was sure that he was not in the policeman’s line of sight. Then the beam stopped moving. Sarah could see one of her boots. It was in the beam. That meant that the police officer could see her boot as well. It’s the motion. Raymond said it’s the motion that gives you away. Using all her will power and every ounce of her physical energy, Sarah kept her body motionless, especially her leg. Maybe he won’t notice. Suddenly, her foot was again engulfed in darkness.

  “I guess it’s okay, Mr. Lewis. But you really ought to tell your teachers to be more careful about locking up their classrooms. If someone did break into the school, you wouldn’t want them to get into the classrooms so easy.” The door creaked shut again, and the four intruders heard a key turn in the lock. None of them could understand the muffled conversation from the hallway.

  They could breathe again, but they waited another minute before moving. Then a soft knock on the door. It was followed by the sound of a key in the lock. Please, don’t let it be the police again.

  When the door opened, they heard Walter’s voice. “He’s gone. But you need to hurry. I told him that I’d be done in five or 10 minutes.” He closed the door and went back down the dark hallway toward his office.

  They resumed their places at the table, and Jake removed a few more slides. “It looks like whoever made these slides—probably a physician—was tracking patients during an outbreak. A smallpox outbreak.”

  “But there hasn’t been an outbreak for 30 years, Jake. Probably twice that in the U.S. How could these slides explain what’s happened here in Farmington?”

  “It’s possible. Maybe even reasonable. The virus can survive for very long times if it’s kept dry at moderate temperatures. The wooden box must have been enough.”

  “How many should we take, Jake? The whole box?”

  “No. We should leave the box here as part of the chain of evidence. We have to make people in Washington and Atlanta believe us. Then they can take over and do things all the right way. Let’s just pick three slides that are marked as positives and take them with us.”

  “Jake look at these two. They’re both dated ‘Apr. 1947.’ These slides are almost 70 years old.”*

  Sarah handed Jake three slides, including one of the two that were dated. One at a time, he removed his disposable gloves, using them to separately wrap two of the slides. He motioned for Sarah to give him one of her gloves for the third slide. Then he folded all three inside a paper towel and put the entire package inside Sarah’s other glove. “Not quite standard procedure, but it’ll do. Jillian, would you put the box back in the closet? Then we can all get the hell out of here.”

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  Chapter 23

  National Security Council

  Our intelligence agencies get burned by human sources sometimes—it is a fact of life in the murky world of espionage.

  —Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction. 2005‡

  Day 30: Hatred’s Origin

  The Vice President sat behind his ornate desk, glowering at the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Under Secretary Edwards. “Gentlemen, this meeting may be our best chance. It may be our last chance. Every time we present evidence that Iran is behind the smallpox attack, the Secretary of State and her friends dream up new reasons why we should disregard the facts. They’re stalling. They’re preventing our country from doing what needs to be done. They’re just a bunch of pussies, and we’ve got to take charge. If the President hadn’t been such a candy-ass and asked for more documentation, those assholes over in Tehran wouldn’t be thumbing their noses at us this morning.”

  “Exactly right,” added Walker.

  Neither Walker nor Richards noticed the growing discomfort of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. General Radisson’s title made him the highest ranking officer in the U.S. military, yet he had no command authority. He was the principal military advisor to the President, yet his appointment had been made on the recommendation of the Secretary of Defense. These inconsistencies made it extremely difficult for him to publicly, or even privately, disagree with Quentin Walker.

  Radisson advised the Secretary in private, but once Walker had made up his mind on an issue, Radisson was expected to support the decision without reservation. It was his job. Those were the rules. If he broke those rules, it would be tantamount to resigning. Now Secretary Walker was supporting Vice President Richards in a vulgar slur against the Commander in Chief. This is going too far.

  Richards continued with his diatribe. “That bitch Calebresi should be taught a lesson. Maybe after we take care of the fucking ragheads, we can send her over to do some of her diplomacy with their ashes. Come to think of it, I’d like to send her over there now to talk to the Revolutionary Guards. We could see how much she feels like negotiating after one of them shoves a broomstick up her ass. Christ, she’d probably like it. Right now, we need to be sure that she and her pansy friends don’t outflank us in today’s meeting. Edwards, do you have something that will finally convince those assholes?”

  The Under Secretary quickly summarized the report connecting Jack Redhouse to Iran. “It’s the link you wanted between the smallpox outbreak and the Iranian biological weapons program. And I have additional intelligence pointing to Iranian efforts to weaponize smallpox.”

  The Vice President waited until Edwards had finished before he issued instructions. “Let’s not have everything come from one person. Edwards, your new material ties the Navajo Marine—the one who’s on the lam—to Iran’s weapons program. That’s going to nail this whole thing down, so it should come last. Quentin, you introduce the new reports on Iran’s weapons development as soon as the meeting starts. This will be better, coming right from the Secretary of Defense. And it will make it look like you know what you’re doing, too. Edwards, make sure the Secretary knows what to say.”

  Richards gave his final instructions. Alexander put me in charge of the meeting, so I have to appear neutral. So it’s your collective responsibility to make the necessary arguments. Iran has been trying to undermine our country for three decad
es now. I lost a squad of good soldiers in Afghanistan because of those Iranian bastards. A simple mission with 25 men and 21 of them died, some of them probably tortured first. All because the Iranians set up an ambush near the border.”

  Richards looked at the others intently. “They’ve been threatening America for years. They’ve been trying to get nuclear weapons.* They’ve been threatening to wipe Israel off the map.* We should have done something about it a long time ago. We should have gone into Iran—not Iraq—back in 2003. We didn’t do it then, but we sure as hell can do it now. We can do it, and we must do it. Don’t let me down, Gentlemen. Don’t let your country down. Do not … I repeat, do not … fuck this up. Do you understand? All of you. Do you understand? No fuck-ups.”

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  Chapter 24

  Sarah and Jake

  As soon as you set up a camp, you set up camouflage netting over any vehicles; that disguises the shapes from the air, so if there’s any kind of air attack, they won’t know that they can hit a fuel truck or a Humvee over there.

  —Bill Katovsky and Timothy Carlson, Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq, 2004‡

  Day 30: Getting Out

  Walter drove directly to Anthony’s house, where Raymond insisted that Jake and Sarah remain. After Sarah and Jillian said a difficult goodbye, Walter drove Jillian home and took Anthony and Raymond to the ATVs. When Raymond and Anthony came back to the house, they brought food from a local takeout restaurant, and everyone ate in silence. Only when the food was gone and Anthony had brought out a fresh pot of coffee did they begin the next stage of planning.

  Raymond spoke first. “You and Jake need to get out of here, Sarah. You’ve got to get someplace where you can talk to reasonable people. They’ll be looking for Jake pretty soon, so if you don’t go first thing in the morning, you’ll never get out.”