by Ed Baldwin
“I’m Capt. Boyd Chailland, U.S. Air Force.”
“What are you doing in that funny old airplane? You flyboys gonna try to take this island with a crop duster?”
“This island doesn’t need taking,” Boyd said, regaining his stature, still in front of the lights. “The show is over, and for God’s sake, keep your men out of that house on the hill.”
The captain looked up the hill momentarily, then back at Boyd.
“We found some dead people up there, buddy. You involved in that?”
“Yes.” Boyd cautiously approached the vehicle. Peabody seemed more amused than threatening.
“How about El Capitan up there?” Peabody asked. “The guy in the funny green jungle fatigues. Do you know him?”
“That would be Col. Ferreira of the Portuguese Air Force, and senior officer on this island. I hope you have shown him proper respect, or your next promotion won’t be in this decade,” Boyd said, beginning to have enough energy to be annoyed.
All lights were out as they passed through the deserted town and ground up the hill toward Constantine’s house. Boyd determined that Peabody and a lieutenant were the only officers and that the C-130 had landed with a Humvee and 30 heavily armed airborne troops. They had radio communication with the Command Post at Lajes and through to the STRATCOM Command Post. Boyd was soon in charge.
“Ferreira, old friend,” Boyd said, dismounting, seeing Ferreira unhurt and talking with troops in the yard as they watched the last of the sunset. “Did they have you slated for the firing squad?”
“Chailland!” He opened his arms and embraced Boyd. “Did you catch that son of the devil?”
“He bit the big one on Pico and burned up with his tiny friends,” Boyd responded, feeling better. “Suppose they got any beer on this island? I’ll tell you all about it.”
***********
“Orion is with us,” Boyd said, stretched out on his back by the swimming pool, all lights off, watching stars.
“And Scorpios,” Ferreira answered from nearby, speech slurred slightly.
“Where?” Boyd sat up to see Ferreira point.
Constantine’s wine cellar contained 10 cases of Super Bock, and Boyd and Ferreira had made a pact to finish it before either of them died of Ebola. Three days had passed, and they were more than halfway through the beer.
“Look in the Milky Way. See that orange star, the bright one? That’s Antares. Now, do you see the scorpion?”
“Yes. What else?” Boyd asked, sitting back down.
From the hilltop, with no lights on and scarcely a light in the town, this was one of the darkest places on Earth to watch stars. The depth of the night sky was thrilling and put one in the mood to contemplate eternity.
There was no morgue on Corvo. Boyd had made the decision to bury the two sailors and the black woman, with Mikki, on the mountain.
“Pleiades, over there …”
“That’s just a cluster, yeah, I see it.”
They’d selected a burial site behind the house on the edge of the crater and put all four in a line. There was a better place, two dozen yards toward the Atlantic edge, overlooking the village and the black cliffs that dropped to the waves below. It could be used for any additional burials that might become necessary.
“You ever see the Southern Cross?” Boyd asked, pitching an empty bottle toward an empty case they’d set out to collect spent rounds. He rolled clumsily off the lawn chair and lifted the lid to the cooler filled with ice. Constantine had equipped his hideaway with an institutional ice machine.
“Many times, in Mozambique,” Ferreira said, belching loudly.
Mikki had died horribly. Steeled against what he might find, Boyd went back up the stairs after explaining to the army that the fewer of them involved with the dead and dying, the more of them could leave the island in a day or two. He and Ferreira would clean up the mess. Mikki’s bullet wound was superficial, but her Ebola was much worse.
“What are you?” she’d screamed in French, wide-eyed and terrified, as she sat on the bed with the lights on, looking out the window into the total black of the crater. She was oblivious to Boyd. In the hours since he’d last seen her, the blotches had become larger and more numerous, and there were red spots now. Boyd brought up food and water, but she ignored them. She brushed away his attempt to bandage her wound. Boyd slept in the extra bedroom upstairs.
“Don’t come in here!” she screamed during the night, all attention on the window, burning with fever but refusing all that was offered.
At dawn, Boyd was awakened again by the rattling of her chains. Warily, he got up from the bed and walked to her room. Mikki rolled and choked on the floor, her chains thrashing against the tile. Her nude body, once stately and elegant, had wasted during the night, and she looked middle age. She punched the air and swatted at some unseen threat, rolling away, and tried to get under the bed.
“Don’t touch me!” she screamed and, as Boyd entered the room, her eyes fixed, she stiffened with her arms at her sides, flexed violently with her legs and convulsed rhythmically for more than a minute before relaxing and going to sleep, panting from the exertion. Mikki’s body was twisted repeatedly by convulsions through the morning. At noon the day after Constantine died on Pico, she vomited bright red blood, and by 2 she was dead. Blood covered the bed and was splattered on the walls. She looked old.
“Cassiopeia. It looks like a W,” Boyd said, rising unsteadily again and making his way to the edge of the crater behind the pool to stand and send a long arc of beer piss down into the blackness, hearing it splatter on the lava below.
Ferreira’s cigarette glowed in the dark. He said nothing.
The Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response team from Fort Detrick had arrived just after the burials the afternoon Mikki died. They’d flown by C-17 to Lajes and been ferried to Corvo by the Portuguese Casa 212. They disembarked in their biohazard suits and scurried officiously over the island, irate that Boyd had buried the four victims already. That night, there was talk of digging them up for autopsies and to collect specimens of the virus. Boyd distanced himself from that discussion. The prospect of himself being the next to be taken apart, peered into and preserved in little bottles made him nauseous, and he and Ferreira started in on the beer right after breakfast.
CHAPTER SIXTY TWO
Cairo
“Good evening, this is the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, coming to you live from Rockefeller Center in New York.
“There is breaking news from Africa. We have Richard Engel, our chief foreign affairs correspondent, standing by live in Cairo. Richard, what can you tell us?”
“Thank you, Brian. The outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus has spread to Cairo. Egyptian authorities tell me they have quarantined several dozen men who fled here from Sudan, caring for them in a makeshift acute hospital on the outskirts of Cairo. They insist no refugees from that outbreak in Khartoum have made their way into the city proper. Still, people continue to flee Cairo by any means at their disposal, and the city streets are deserted. In a related development, the quarantine line established at Aswan seems to be holding, with all traffic headed south stopped and turned back. That traffic has slowed to a trickle after Sheikh Ali Gomaa, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, issued a fatwa declaring any jihad directed against the nation of South Sudan as being contrary to the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad.
“In a related development, Brian, the battle lines around the South Sudan city of Kalafal seem to have held, and the jihadists attacking from Khartoum have turned back or died in battle. We have been in communication with Gen. Oyay Ajak, commander of the Army of South Sudan, who says the situation is stable. They have taken action to ensure that no infected mosquitoes make it to any populated areas along the Nile in South Sudan. Brian, back to you.”
CHAPTER SIXTY THREE
Red Eyes on Corvo
“Congratulations, Boyd! Your second Air Force Cross has been approved. A grateful country awaits your return,”
Ferguson said, his voice crystal clear through the satellite links now set up on the hill by the villa.
Boyd was sitting in Constantine’s office, feet on the desk, looking out over the Atlantic.
“Now?” Boyd responded, speech slurred from the half dozen beers he’d downed to ward off melancholy brought on by seeing Ferreira arise that morning with red eyes and go into a hospital room that the response team had rigged up in the villa.
“Well, no. When your quarantine period is over.”
“Joe Smith showed up with new viral antibiotic?” Boyd asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
“He’s still in China, supervising the manufacturing process. We should have something any day now.”
Ferguson sounded evasive.
“Who was in that Dassault Falcon at Pico?”
“They headed toward Europe, then turned off their transponder and disappeared,” Ferguson said. “We’re looking at the registration of all the Falcons. It was a private charter. It’s a new plane, there are only a few dozen in service. We should be able to find out where each one was on that day. Once we identify the plane, we’ll know who it was.”
“Sir, this game isn’t over until we know.”
“Why is that, Boyd? They don’t have the virus. You saw to that,” Ferguson said blandly.
“I don’t think it’s just about the virus.”
“What do you mean?”
“The virus was locked up safely in those aluminum suitcases, yet something came across the Atlantic with Chardonnay that hasn’t been stopped yet.”
“You’ve lost me now, Boyd. As soon as we get by three weeks with no cases of Ebola there in the Azores, and the same time in Cairo and Sudan, we’ve got this genie back in the bottle.”
Boyd could hear Ferguson shuffling papers on his desk, already working on something else.
*********
The thick, rich broth covered chunks of meat and bone, and the beefy garlic scent filled the room as Boyd climbed the stairs with the latest food brought up the hill by the grateful villagers.
“Ah, alcatra,” Ferreira said, looking better since the nurse had given him 3 liters of intravenous fluids. They were beginning to hope that the symptoms had been a hangover from the strong Portuguese beer and not Ebola at all.
Boyd entered the isolation room in a hospital gown and mask, as the biohazard suits were reserved for the team from Fort Detrick. The terra cotta pot had been in a wood-fired oven all day, and its outside was blackened by the smoke and from the evaporation of the wine and cooking liquid. He dished out two large bowls and broke some heavy crusted bread.
“Well, old friend, it looks like the beer has held off the virus,” Boyd said, raising a wine glass filled with the heavy red wine the locals had provided in quantity since they had learned that Ferreira preferred it to the mainland wines Constantine’s cellar held.
“Maybe not,” Ferreira replied, and pulled up his shirt to reveal a small blotch on his chest.
*******
The soft red light of the setting sun illuminated the six graves as the cold winter wind blew steadily from the north. Grass had grown to cover the break in the earth, and the soil had settled back from many months of rain to leave depressions. Weeds grew around the simple marble headstones. The town below sprinkled with a few lights. The villa was vacant, windows broken, roof partially collapsed, returning the hilltop to the mercy of the North Atlantic wind.
Now there were fish to be caught, cattle to be tended and children to be taught in the ways of the Azores. The world had new conflicts and concerns, and these graves were from a chapter passed and forgotten.
Boyd rolled to his side and opened his eyes, coming back from the cold hillside. The loneliness remained. Fighter pilots are supposed to die in a ball of fire and live on in legend and memories from a grateful nation. Though the grateful nation had provided a team to tend to his every need, they stayed in those damn suits that made them look like alien space invaders, and he couldn’t tell one from another because their voices all sounded alike. He’d talked daily with Angela since he’d gotten sick, and her attempts to cheer him only made their futility more obvious.
Ferreira, sharing the isolation room with Boyd now, had had a bad night. Delirious with fever the night before, he’d pulled out his intravenous lines when he leaped from the bed and tried to run down the hall. The nurses had to strap him down and give him morphine. He’d slept all day, and now it was night again and he was getting restless. Boyd had not talked to him in two days.
The red eyes were in the room across the hall from Boyd’s bed. They were distant at first, and he thought they might be navigation lights on a ship coming over from Flores, which could be seen through the windows on that side of the villa. But now they were large and closer. They were eyes. There was pain, too, in his joints, especially the large ones, and in his head a pounding worse than any hangover. The Corvo islanders brought him food for every meal, and the alcatra pots and pottery bowls covered the bedside table, untouched. He couldn’t eat.
The drip of the IV was a heartbeat, and the green glow from the cardiac monitor was the only illumination on a dark night. The North Atlantic howled just on the other side of the window behind him, trying to claw off the roof and get inside. Something moved across the hall, and the floor creaked. The other bed was vacant, and Boyd was alone.
*********
“You have a visitor, Capt. Chailland.”
One of the faceless aliens stood in the door. It was daylight. There was an oxygen mask on his face. He couldn’t raise his head.
“Boyd, it took a presidential order to get them to let me come here,” Angela said as she entered. She was wearing her white nurse’s dress as she stepped into a surgical gown.
“Come in,” he rasped. He’d intended to cover his ecstasy at seeing her with a polite greeting. His heart pounded. She was beautiful, and the sight of her face before she covered it with a surgical mask made him feel stronger. Claws scraped against the tile out in the hall as something large that had been sitting in the door retreated to the other bedroom.
“I’m so happy to see you.” She rushed over and, hands clad in surgical gloves, grabbed his.
He was overcome. He couldn’t speak. He grasped her with both hands. She sat, and the aliens left the room.
“Do you need anything?” she asked, bending over to look into his eyes.
“It’s bad,” he said, no longer able to hide the fear, which was not of the pain or the death. He’d take on that thing in the other room but, then what?
“Death is here,” she said “I can feel it.”
“You got that right. It’s been looking through that door all morning.”
“It’s not for you.”
“I’m afraid.”
“Boyd, don’t you see?” She leaned in closer, peering into his face. He could see the little flecks of brown in her hazel eyes, and the tears running down her face.
“There’s something else in here,” she said. “Something good. Something strong. Can’t you feel it? Boyd, don’t you know?”
“Know?”
“You were never alone.”
CHAPTER SIXTY FOUR
Pentagon City
“Silent night, holy night, shepherds quake at the sight …”
The children’s choir sent their angelic innocence reverberating off the glass and steel that held a cold December rain from the food court at the Pentagon City Mall.
Boyd decided to take the train. He didn’t have the 500-yard sprint across the Pentagon south parking lot left in him. He took the escalator to the Metro Station.
He hadn’t died of Ebola, and he wasn’t the last to have it. Donn Wilde had driven him up from Culpepper, Va., the night before. At the funeral, he sat next to Angela’s mother, and listened as the chief nurse of the Air Force gave the eulogy in the small Baptist Church.
Angela had brushed his lips as she turned to leave him that morning when the red eyes were at the door. The Emerging Infections R
esponse Force had dutifully collected specimens from all who’d been ill, and the reports were in. It had been the wild Kikwit strain, the same one Boyd had had, the one with the 80 percent mortality, not the South Carolina strain with the 100 percent mortality and the ability to spread by a mosquito vector.
He put a five in the automated ticket machine rather than look up the exact fare and rushed through the turnstile to get on the train while the reporter following him fumbled for change. He’d be through security at the Pentagon before the next train came by.
Boyd could see Ferguson’s eyes scanning the crowd as he came up the escalator. They looked right through Boyd.
“Do I look that bad?” Boyd asked when he got beside the general.
“Oh, damn. Boyd, you’ve gotten quite a tan, and maybe a little thinner.” Ferguson said, recovering.
They turned and passed security and headed through the mall on the first floor. It isn’t often one gets escorted through security by a major general. They walked quickly down the corridor.
“We’ve got the tank in 20 minutes. A lot’s happened in the last week. This thing was way bigger than we ever thought. You’ll hear all the details. The Joint Chiefs want to meet you, but you needn’t speak.”
“Whatever you say, sir.”
They made their way through a maze of corridors, once coming to the A-ring windows that look out into the garden in the center of the Pentagon with the mature magnolias planted there when the building was built in 1943. They stopped at an unmarked door. Ferguson pecked in a code, and they entered. A guard lounged on the other side behind a glass. He scrutinized Ferguson’s pass and Boyd’s military ID. They went down a narrow hall to the waiting lounge for those about to brief the chairman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“Boyd! God, you look like shit,” Joe Smith rushed over and brushed away Boyd’s outstretched hand to throw his arms around Boyd in a bear hug.
“Thanks for letting me know,” Boyd said, a little embarrassed by the attention. “I kept notes on what it feels like to have your favorite infection. It’s a bitch.”
