Bannerman's Ghosts

by John R. Maxim

  “Just this once, trust me, will you? Get out of this house. John and Billy will be right behind you.”

  Bannerman made one more stop at the safe before going to the laboratory room. Waldo was there. The cot was not. The bolts that had fastened it had been ripped from the flooring.

  Waldo said, “I told Billy, put him next door with Chester. I’m trying to look around here in peace.”

  “So Billy ripped it out?”

  “With Bourne strapped to it, yeah.”

  “John, the point of having a bolted down cot…” Bannerman tossed a hand. “Never mind.” He said, “Tell me again how the vent system works.”

  “These two rooms, the kitchen, the pantry are all separate. They make up the original apartment.”

  “These metal doors are air-tight?”

  “They’d have to be, yeah.”

  Bannerman asked, “Are these rooms shut off now?”

  “No, there’s a control this side of the wine racks. Right now it’s all open, like I told you, for the wine.”

  “Please shut it off. Isolate the apartment.”

  “Okay, then what?”

  “Take those videotapes, whatever else you’ve collected. Molly’s waiting upstairs. We’ll be leaving.”

  Bannerman left the laboratory. He paused in the hallway. He walked over to the de-con chemical shower and the two HazMat suits that hung next to it. He stopped to read the directions for its use. They were printed, large type, in both English and French. The directions boiled down to “Step in, push a button.” The designers had great haste in mind.

  He stepped into the room where Bourne had been taken. Billy stood, his arms folded, watching Chester and Bourne. Chester was conscious, not alert, but conscious. He’d managed to cover his head with a pillow and was shivering; he was going into shock.

  Bourne’s cot had been placed beside Chester’s collapsed bed. Bourne seemed exhausted, disbelieving, his stare vacant. This couldn’t be happening to him.

  He swallowed. He asked, “Are you going to kill me?”

  Bannerman didn’t answer. He turned to Billy. He said, “Billy, if you will, carry Nadia upstairs. I’d like to be alone with these two.”

  “You sure?”

  Bannerman said, “I’ll be fine. Make sure that John goes with you. I don’t expect to be long.”

  Bourne strained against his straps. He said, “He is. He’s going to kill me.” This plea, unaccountably, was directed at Billy.

  “A lot easier than I would,” said Billy.

  FORTY THREE

  Bannerman had pulled a chair up to the cot. He leaned forward. He paused before speaking.

  “You have no idea,” he said to Bourne, very quietly, “how badly I’d like to end this right now. One bullet behind Chester’s ear, and then yours.”

  Bourne blinked. He swallowed. Once again, he felt hope.

  “I won’t do it,” said Bannerman. “I’ll be leaving you here. I’ll be leaving you locked in this room. You and Chester.”

  Bourne’s face drained of color. He said nothing.

  “You won’t be alone long. You’ll have visitors soon. They’ll want to arrest you. I don’t think much will come of it. It would not be in the national interest.”

  “I…will make amends for any harm…”

  “No you won’t,” said Bannerman. “Not even if you mean it. You’ve effectively orphaned an innocent girl. This makes twice in three years that she’s been orphaned, Mr. Bourne. How would you ever make that right?”

  “That was Chester. I told you. I was horrified…”

  “Yes, you’ve told me. Clew as well. Now be quiet and listen. You’ve threatened my wife, my children, my friends and thousands of innocent neighbors. You would have caused them to sicken and die in a painful and horrible way.”

  Bourne lifted his head. “That was only a threat. You have your ghosts; I’m entitled to have mine. And you’ve led me to believe that you’ve already prevented…whatever they might have done.”

  “We’re still working on it,” said Bannerman.

  “Well, then let me make certain. I can stop it with a phone call right now.”

  “Yes, you will,” said Bannerman. “But let’s say that you didn’t. The sickness would begin on the fourth or fifth day. First there would be headaches and an itching of the eyes, a cough and a thickness in the throat. They would think it’s the flu, an inconvenience. Within hours, however, they would look in a mirror and they’d see that the whites of their eyes were turning red. Next, they’d have nosebleeds and they’d notice bruises that were caused by no bumping that they could recall.”

  “Did you hear me,” asked Bourne? “I can stop it.”

  “They would soon become nauseous. They would vomit; they’d see blood. Then they’d have diarrhea. It would be mostly blood. A day later, they’d see blood from every orifice on their bodies. Add a day, and it’s oozing through their skin. They would notice that the blood flows in spidery patterns. It would do so because it can no longer clot. They would bleed through whatever clothes they have on. The blood would collect in their shoes.”

  “I am…fully aware of how terrible it is. It’s exactly why I’ve been working so hard to…”

  “Do you have a cigarette?”

  “A what? No, I don’t.”

  “A cigar?”

  “Will you listen? I’m trying to tell you…”

  Bannerman asked, “Is Chester a smoker?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. Yes. His shirt pocket.”

  “It will keep for the moment,” said Bannerman. “Where was I?”

  “You were telling me things that I already know.”

  “I’m sure, but I want it to be fresh in your mind. And please indulge me, Mr. Bourne, because it’s newer to me. It is also a good deal more personal. When we say ‘epidemic,’ we think about numbers. We don’t think in terms of people who have faces, who have lives. They watch each other suffering. It gets worse by the hour. Their children are too sick to even cry anymore or to ask for water to relieve their awful thirst. They just lie there turning black. Black all over. Many will pray; some will curse the same God, and a few will decide that they mustn’t prolong it. They’ll start by ending the suffering of their children by whatever means might be at hand.”

  “Why are you doing this?” asked Bourne. “What’s the point?”

  “I’ll get to it shortly,” said Bannerman. “Bear with me. The CDC would, by then, have been alerted. Reports of bleeding would have told them that it isn’t the flu, that it’s some kind of hemorrhagic fever. But they wouldn’t know which one and the symptoms would confuse them. This is because we would also have smallpox. Add great swelling pustules to our hemorrhaging bodies.”

  “Mr. Bannerman…”

  “Even then, the CDC won’t be sure of what we have because the virus will be a variant that they haven’t seen before. They will know, however, that it’s too late to help us. The CDC would order all of Westport quarantined as well as parts of the neighboring communities. They would be too late because many would have left before the worst of the symptoms appeared. Anyone who tried to leave after that would be told to turn back or they’d be shot. Not that it would matter. At least not for long. Most of us would be dead by day eight from the Marburg. A small percentage would survive. Some are naturally immune. But then, of course, they’d all die of smallpox.”

  Bannerman paused. He looked over at Lilly and then back at Bourne. “You’ve done this in Angola, have you not?”

  “I have not.”

  “I am informed to the contrary, sir.”

  “If any such thing has been done in Angola, it was Lilly and Winfield and Bobik. I had never even heard Bobik’s name until last week. Until then, I had no reason to suspect it.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Bannerman reached to release the velcro strap that had fastened Bourne’s right arm to the frame. “Don’t undo the others quite yet, Mr. Bourne.” He handed Bourne his cell phone. “Make the call.”
/>
  “I don’t have their cell phone number. It’s upstairs in my study.”

  “Do you know where they’re staying?”

  “At a Marriott hotel. On the Post Road, they said.”

  “Try them there. It might save us some time.”

  Bourne called Information. A voice gave him the number. He dialed it and another more cheerful voice said, “Marriott Hotel. How may I help you?” Bourne said, “Connect me with Room 224.” The operator asked him to hold.

  He waited on hold for almost a full minute. A male voice came on. It spoke a terse, “Yeah?” Bannerman could hear the voice plainly.

  Bourne said, “Richard?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Do I have Room 224?”

  “Richard went down the hall. I’ll go get him. Who’s calling?”

  Bannerman reached to take the phone. He broke the connection. He said to Bourne, “That would have been the police.” He hit a two-digit code for Carla Benedict’s number. She answered on the first ring. She said, “Bingo.”

  He asked, “Both of them?”

  “Yep. Two hours ago.”

  “You found them in their room?”

  “I left them there, too.”

  “They’d have had a glass vial. Three inches. Pink powder.”

  “They did. It would have been tossed on your lawn unless they got word to abort. That’s Marburg and smallpox, did you know that?”

  “I knew it,” said Bannerman. “How did you?”

  “From Kessler. He just got here. We showed it to him. Are you going to be where you are for a while? He’s hot to get his ass down there.”

  “No point. We’re just leaving. Where is that vial now?”

  “With Anton. He says not to worry.”

  “Thank you, Carla. Good work.”

  “Always glad to pitch in.”

  Bannerman broke off the call. Bourne was staring at him. “Once again, I commend you. I am most impressed.”

  “Getting back to Angola…”

  “No, let’s finish with Westport. I’d have stopped them. I would have.”

  “And that’s noted,” said Bannerman. “But getting back to Angola…”

  “What possible interest could you have in Angola?”

  “Well, the subject at hand was the effect of VaalChem’s products and your use of them on innocent people. You did test them in Angola. I know that.”

  “If…there has been live testing, it was for a greater good.”

  “And they’re only Angolans. They don’t count for much. I think I’ll have that cigarette now.”

  He found a crushed pack in Lilly’s shirt pocket. He didn’t find matches. He lit it on the stove. He drew on it lightly and blew the smoke gently. He watched as it eddied toward the doorway. He found a small dish that would serve for an ashtray. He carried it to the far end of the kitchen. He left the burning cigarette there. He watched how the smoke rose. It seemed to want to stay at that end.

  He said to Bourne, “I have one more thing to ask you.”

  He reached into his pocket. He produced several vials. Each vial had a different colored band. He said, “I have six. Are all of them chimeras?”

  “Only the yellow,” said Bourne. “And be careful.”

  “And this blue one?” he asked.

  “The blue is Ebola. The red is West Nile. The orange is either Lassa fever or Dengue. I’m not sure; I get those two confused. The gray and green are similar. They are both encephalitics.”

  “Sleeping sickness, correct? And they cause wide-spread blindness?”

  “Of a sort. The brain swells. The eye muscles are paralyzed.”

  Bourne reached to undo the strap on his left wrist. He sat up to start on his ankles. “Mr. Bannerman, you appear both well-versed and intrigued. Are you about to propose some sort of partnership?”

  “No, in fact, I’ll say goodbye now, Mr. Bourne.”

  He stepped to the door and he tossed the six vials. They sailed over Bourne’s cot and over Lilly’s smashed bed on a line toward the hard tile floor of the kitchen. He heard them shatter, at least some, perhaps all. A counter blocked his view of their impact. To be certain, he did not close the door until he could see a mist rising. If he’d closed it and waited to look through the glass, the mist might have been invisible by then. He saw the mist; he stepped out; he closed the steel door.

  He almost hadn’t realized that Bourne had been screaming until the closed door changed Bourne’s pitch.

  FORTY FOUR

  He made good on his promise to call Greta Kirch. He called her from the lawn, where he stood in the sunlight, waiting for his suit to dry somewhat. He had used the chemical shower.

  He told her of Artemus Bourne’s situation. Bourne and Lilly were locked in a sealed-off apartment whose air supply was discreet to that unit. The air was contaminated by no fewer than six of VaalChem’s weapons-grade viruses. He presumed that the apartment would need to be quarantined until those contaminants could no longer replicate. Until they ran out of flesh to consume.

  He presumed that Bourne might possibly be saved before the symptoms begin to appear. But by whom? And with what? What infection to treat first? And who would dare authorize opening that door, no matter how well-equipped they may be for the task, and risk the escape of that cocktail.

  Greta asked, “You say the rest of the basement is clean?”

  “As far as I know. But take precautions.”

  “I assure you,” she said, “we’ll take heroic precautions. His vault and his supply is intact?”

  “Except for those in with Bourne and one other in Westport. The one in Westport is Marburg with smallpox. If you’d care to come to Westport, say on Wednesday or Thursday, that vial will be surrendered to you. And I mean you, Dr. Kirch. It will be placed in your hands only.”

  “Are you saying come alone? I cannot come alone. We’ll need a bio-hazard vehicle and surely an armed escort.”

  “I understand,” said Bannerman. “They’ll come and they’ll go, but I’d like you to stay. I will have a few things to discuss with you. Until then, you’ll have much to discuss with Mr. Bourne before he realizes that he’s beyond hope.”

  “And you?” she asked. “Were you not exposed?”

  “I tried to be careful. I don’t think it’s likely. And I took a chemical shower at once while dressed in the clothing I was wearing.”

  “Clothing? Only clothing?”

  He said, “I know. There are HazMat suits down there. But I needed to have a discussion with Bourne and I thought that he might have been less forthcoming if I’d walked in wearing a space suit.” He added, “Besides, the gloves are too bulky. You can’t use a phone with those gloves on.”

  She said nothing for a moment, but he could read her thoughts. She was calling him a damned fool.

  She cleared her throat. “You are going back to Westport? Have blood drawn at once. Watch for symptoms. Watch for headaches. Watch for burning in the eyes.”

  “Actually, they’re burning a little right now.”

  “Burning? Burning?” She could no longer help herself. “You walk into a decon chemical shower and you tell me that it made your eyes burn? Do not look to me for sympathy. I have none. ”

  “I look forward to your visit, Dr. Kirch.”

  FORTY FIVE

  It was four days later. It was Thursday.

  VaalChem’s antivirals had reached the freighter. They arrived not a day too soon for Major Scar. He had begun to show the first symptoms. The better news was that no one else on board had. The rotors of Scar’s attack helicopter had blown all the particles sternward. Beyond the stern, they were dispersed to the ocean. Greta Kirch said that any that had not found a host would have died in the heat of the following day.

  They would have found hosts in the captain and crew. They had been held at the stern. Bobik’s man on board had told Scar that they were doomed. Scar had to make a decision. He saw little use in keeping them alive to infect, among others, their kidnappin
g victims. Scar had them all shot and washed over the side by means of the freighter’s bilge hoses. Scar had hoped that he himself, having been upwind, might not have ingested any particles. It was a vain hope. It would only take a few. Two to five out of billions of particles.

  But his blood, taken three times a day, showed improvement. Replication of the virus had been stopped. The ship would remain quarantined for at least two more weeks before being towed to Liberia.

  Bannerman had learned, to his mild surprise, that Major Scar’s true name was an Irish one, Thomas Mitchell. His Red Cross wife was named Sheila. They had both placed a ship-to-shore call to Howard Leyland, thanking him for procuring the medicines. Leland told them that the credit should go to Roger Clew. But for Clew, the twenty children would now be enslaved and the cannibal, Mobote, would still be alive and making good on his terrorist intentions. Leland told him that the credit, in almost equal measure, belonged to the efforts of one Paul Bannerman. Perhaps the Mitchells would care to thank him as well.

  Leland set up the call. Bannerman spoke to them by satellite. Bannerman told Scar that it was Scar and his wife who were most deserving of credit in this matter. He told Scar that they would speak again soon, that he might have proposition of interest to the both of them. He told Scar that, in fact, it might be of interest to all those who served in Scar’s 2nd Commando.

  Bannerman had also called Roger Clew. Bannerman kept it brief. Clew had difficulty speaking. Bannerman had no need to tell Clew very much of what had transpired since he was attacked. Clew had heard it all from Leland. Leland had gone to see him. He’d briefed him and he had apologized abjectly for not listening to him about Bourne.

  Clew would face a good deal of surgical repair. Five or six operations, a few months of healing, but he ought to be as good or even better than new. Mercifully, Clew had no memory whatever of the terrible beating he took. Bannerman told him that he’d fought back very fiercely, managing to wound at least one of his assailants. He further brightened Clew’s day by conveying a promise that he had extracted from Elizabeth Stride. It wasn’t much of an extraction. She was more than willing. She said to tell Clew that, when he felt up to it, she would be pleased to go out with him for a dinner and a movie. Just the two of them. She might even cook for him.