by A. G. Riddle
Desmond changed tacks. He focused on the security guard and spoke rapidly. “You know this is going in my online review.”
The guard’s eyes grew wide.
“Yeah, it is,” Desmond pressed on. “I think an apt title would be: Stay here for Gestapo-style police interrogation and crappy WiFi.”
The guard looked at the officer. “Are you finished?”
Desmond heard the bathroom door creak open. A second later the lights flipped on. The police officer looked back at his partner and the security guard. Standing his ground, his hand still on his sidearm, he shook his head quickly.
“Yes. We are done here,” the other officer said. “Very sorry to have disturbed you, Mr. Hughes. Please enjoy your stay in Berlin.”
The three men gathered at the door. The security guard had just gripped the handle when a sound erupted in the room: skin sliding across glass. The squealing noise ceased, and all three men paused, then turned back to face Desmond. Behind him, gravity had taken over, pulling Gunter Thorne’s dead body down toward the floor. Desmond had propped the dead man against the window in the corner and covered him with the drapes—but he was free now. His face rubbed across the glass a second more before his body hit the heating unit and tumbled to the floor with a thud.
Desmond didn’t hesitate. He lunged forward, covering the distance to the three men in less than a second. He swung his right hand with all the force he could muster. It collided with the rightmost police officer’s face, on the cheekbone below his left eye. The man’s head flew back and hit the metal door casing. He was knocked out instantly.
Desmond rolled and pressed his body into the security guard, who was standing between the two officers, keeping the man from extending his arms. The remaining police officer drew his gun and was raising it, but Desmond quickly completed a 180-degree spin and rammed his elbow into the officer’s forehead. The man slammed back against the wooden door, then tumbled forward, unconscious, his gun flying. Desmond leapt to it, picked it up, and pointed it at the security guard.
“Hands where I can see them. Step away from the door.”
The guard’s hands trembled as he raised them.
“I don’t want to hurt you, but if you yell out, I will. Do you understand?”
The man nodded.
“Why were they here?”
“It is as they said—a call.”
“Who called them?”
He shook his head. “I do not know—”
“Who?”
“They said it was an anonymous tip.”
“Are there more downstairs?”
“I don’t—”
“Don’t lie to me!” Desmond said, raising the weapon.
The man closed his eyes. “Two cars arrived. I don’t know if they stayed or not.”
“Turn around.”
The man didn’t move.
“Do it.”
Slowly, the security guard turned, his hands shaking violently now. Desmond drew the butt of the gun back and clocked the man on the head, sending him to the floor.
He dragged the guard’s body back from the door, then ejected the gun’s magazine and verified that there was no bullet in the chamber and the safety was on. He pulled his shirttail out and tucked the gun into his waistband, then collected the spare magazines from both police officers. He took the younger officer’s police ID and the radio from the security guard. He tucked the clear earpiece in and listened to the chatter for a moment. It was sparse and in German, but he understood it for the most part.
He had to decide: stairs or elevator. Front door or back.
Each route had pros and cons. Racing down the stairway would only raise the suspicion of anyone monitoring the security cameras, as would going out the back. So: elevator, front door.
He collected all the cash the three men carried—312 euros in total. He needed the money to get away, and as he was already on the hook for resisting arrest, assaulting a police officer, and possibly murder, he figured robbery wouldn’t complicate his situation that much.
In the hall, he marched casually to the elevator and punched the button. It opened after a few seconds, revealing a white-haired woman who didn’t acknowledge him.
There was no chatter on the security channel as he rode down. When the door opened to the lobby, Desmond stood aside, allowing the woman to exit first.
On the radio, a voice in German asked, “Gerhardt, are you still in 1207?”
Desmond fell in behind the woman.
“Gerhardt, come in.”
By the revolving glass door, two uniformed police officers stood chatting and smiling. They were twenty feet away. When they saw Desmond, they fell silent and stared at him.
Chapter 5
Peyton arrived at CDC headquarters shortly before four a.m. The campus, though typically associated with Atlanta, was actually located just outside the city limits, to the northeast, in the affluent Druid Hills community in unincorporated DeKalb County. The CDC’s precursor organization had been founded in Atlanta for one simple reason: to combat malaria. At the time, in July of 1946, the disease was America’s greatest public health concern, especially in the hot, humid southeast. Being centrally positioned in America’s malaria hotbed had been a significant advantage.
When Peyton first began working at the CDC, getting into the building had been as easy as swiping her card. Now the process was much more stringent and included an x-ray and pat-down. She knew security was important, but she was still anxious to get in and get started. Every second mattered.
Once security checked her in, she made her way directly to the CDC’s Emergency Operations Center—the organization’s command center for outbreak responses. The EOC’s main room looked like mission control for a NASA launch, with rows of connected desks filling the floor, all with flat-screen monitors. A wall-to-wall screen showed a map of the world and tallied statistics related to current operations. The EOC could seat 230 people for eight-hour shifts, and soon the center would be buzzing with activity. Even at this early hour, more than a dozen EOC staff members sat at their desks, fielding phone calls and typing away.
Peyton said hello to the staffers she knew and asked if there were any updates. The EOC’s large conference room was dark, but a sign on the door announced an all-hands meeting for the Mandera Outbreak at eight a.m.
A color-coded marker on the wall indicated the CDC’s current Emergency Response Activation Level. There were three possible levels: red meant level one—the highest, most critical level. Yellow was level two, and green was for level three. The marker on the wall was yellow, which meant that the EOC and CDC’s Division of Emergency Operations would be calling in staff and offering significant support to the outbreak response. Peyton was glad to see that.
At her office, she began prepping for the deployment. Her duffel bag contained the essentials for any outbreak investigation: clothes, toiletries, a satellite GPS, sunblock, gowns, gloves, goggles, a portable projector, and MREs—meals ready-to-eat. The MREs were particularly essential for outbreaks in the third world; often the local food and water harbored the very pathogen they were fighting.
Peyton put in rush orders for the other things the team would need in Mandera, including location-specific medications, mosquito netting, insect repellent, and satsleeves—sleeves that slid onto smartphones to give them satellite phone capability with data access. The satphone sleeves would enable team members to keep their regular phone numbers and contacts as well as access their email and other data. Being able to take a picture in the field and instantly upload it could well change the course of an outbreak response—and save lives.
Next, she began preparing packets for the team. She printed maps of Mandera and surrounding areas, and made lists of contacts at the CDC’s Kenya office, the US embassy, the EOC, WHO Kenya, and the Kenyan Ministry of Health and Public Sanitation. She pulled up a questionnaire she had used in the field during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and made a few modifications, adapting it to the region. Sh
e printed hundreds of copies. Some epidemiologists were pushing to go paperless in the field, but Peyton still preferred good ol’ printed forms: they never crashed, their batteries never died, and roadside bandits were infinitely less interested in file folders than tablets. Paper worked.
That left one major decision: personnel.
Someone knocked softly on the open door to her office, and she turned to find her supervisor, Elliott Shapiro, leaning against the door frame.
“Hi,” she said.
“How do you always get here so fast?”
“I sleep with one eye open.”
He smiled. “Right. What’re you working on?”
“Personnel.”
“Good. You see the pictures?”
“Yeah.”
“Looks bad.”
“Very. We really need to be there right now,” Peyton said. “If it gets to Nairobi, we’ll be in trouble.”
“I agree. I’ll make some calls, see if I can get you there any sooner.”
“Thanks.”
“Call me if you need me,” he said, stepping out of her office.
“Will do.”
Peyton looked up a number on the CDC’s intranet directory for a colleague she’d never met: Joseph Ruto. Ruto led the CDC’s country operations in Kenya. They had 172 people in Kenya, a mix of US assignees and Kenyans working for the agency. Most were concentrated at the CDC office in Nairobi, where they worked closely with the Kenyan Ministry of Health.
Peyton took some time to read Ruto’s internal status reports. She was about to call him when she had an idea—one that might well save one or both of the Americans’ lives. A few quick searches told her it was possible. It might also prevent the pathogen from spreading to Nairobi.
Elliott once again appeared in her doorway. “Caught a break. Air Force is going to give you a ride to Nairobi.”
“That’s great,” Peyton said.
“Won’t be first class accommodations. It’s a troop and cargo transport, but it’ll get you there. They’ll pick you up at Dobbins Air Reserve Base at one thirty. It’s in Marietta. Just take I-75/85, stay on 75 at the split, and get off at exit 261. You can’t miss it.”
Elliott always gave her directions, even in the age of smartphone navigation, and even to places he likely knew Peyton had visited before, such as Dobbins. She never stopped him; she just nodded and scribbled a note. She figured it was a generational thing, a product of not growing up with a cell phone glued to his hand or Google Maps a click away. It was one of Elliott’s many idiosyncrasies that Peyton had come to tolerate and then to like.
“Speaking of planes,” she said, “I want to get your take on something. One of the Americans, Lucas Turner, was asymptomatic when he arrived at Mandera. Assuming he’s been in close contact with the other man, and assuming this is a viral hemorrhagic fever, I think we should expect him to break with the disease.”
“That’s fair.”
“I want to develop a plan of care for him now. If he breaks with the infection, we can’t treat him in Mandera. Dani Beach Hospital and Kenyatta National in Nairobi are both candidates, but I don’t favor either—we risk spreading the infection to the staff there and the region.”
“You want to bring him back here.”
“I do.”
Elliott bunched his eyebrows up. “What’re you thinking?”
“I want the air ambulance to accompany us to Nairobi, then fly to Mandera and be on standby. If Turner even has a high fever, I want to bring him back to Emory.”
Emory University Hospital was next to the CDC on Clifton Road—close enough for CDC staff to walk there. Emory had a special isolation unit capable of dealing with patients infected with Ebola and other biosafety level four pathogens; it was one of only four such facilities in the US. It had been used, with great success, to treat Americans who had been infected with Ebola during the 2014 outbreak.
“I don’t know, Peyton. Bringing a patient with an unidentified, deadly, infectious disease back to the US? If word gets out, the press will scare the daylights out of everybody.”
“It could also save his life. And we could bring back blood, saliva, and tissue samples from anyone else who’s infected. We could test them here, in our BSL-4. It keeps the samples and testing out of Nairobi, and it enables the Kenyans to keep the outbreak quiet—which I know they’ll want to do. We get to potentially save a life and get a huge head start on figuring out what we’re dealing with.”
Elliott nodded and exhaled deeply. “All right, but I’ll have to get the director’s approval—he’ll have to deal with the fallout and the press if it goes wrong. But I’ll give it my full support.”
“Thanks.”
“What about the other American?” Elliott asked.
“That’s a tougher case. He was already in critical condition when he arrived in Mandera, and I don’t favor flying him back to the US—we’re talking roughly eighteen hours in the air, maybe more. He could die in transit. Beating the infection may be his only chance. I want to take some ZMapp with us.”
ZMapp was the only available treatment for Ebola; it had been successful in treating several physicians who contracted the disease in 2014, but had yet to undergo human clinical trials. Its effects were largely unknown.
Elliott nodded. “You want me to get the legal guardians’ consent to treat?”
“Please. The patients may be in no shape to give informed consent.”
“I’ll work on contacting the guardians.” Elliott glanced at the papers strewn about her desk. “You selected your team yet?”
“Just about,” Peyton said. “You ready for the conference?”
“No amount of coffee could make me ready for that.”
Chapter 6
As he walked across the marble-floored lobby, Desmond realized why the police officers were looking at him: because he was looking at them. The natural human reaction was to look back at someone staring at you, and the instinct seemed more honed in those drawn to law enforcement. Such individuals had almost a sixth sense about predators and threats.
Despite her stoic demeanor in the elevator, the white-haired woman was quite frail. She shuffled slowly across the lobby, breathing heavily.
Desmond averted his eyes from the police, stepped aside, and power-walked past her. She was moving away from the revolving glass door, toward a swinging door with a silver bar straight across it. The bellhop was scanning the board of keys, oblivious to his oncoming guest.
Desmond swung the door open and stood in the cool November air, holding it for the lady, facing away, not eyeing her as she slowly approached.
“Vielen dank,” she whispered as she passed.
He opened the door to a cab for her, then slid into the next one in line.
The police were still inside, but the radio chatter on the security channel was feverish now; they would send someone to look for Gerhardt soon. When they did, they would find the four bodies, only three of which were alive.
In German, the driver asked for a destination, which told Desmond that the hotel was not the haunt of foreign tourists or business travelers, but rather of native Germans. It was yet another clue, another piece that might reveal who he was and why he was in Berlin.
Desmond almost answered, Bahnhof—train station—but stopped himself. When the fallen police officers and dead man were found, a citywide search would ensue. Security would be intensified at the train stations and airports, and possibly along the highways and rivers as well.
He needed to think. He needed to know more about what was happening. The answers might still be in Berlin.
In German, he told the man to just drive.
The car didn’t move. In the rearview mirror, the middle-aged man scrutinized his passenger. In English, he said, “I need a destination.”
“Please, just drive. I’ve had a fight with my girlfriend, and I need to get out for a while. I want to see the city.”
Desmond exhaled when the driver punched the meter and pulled a
way from the hotel.
Now the question became where to go. His first priority was clear: to get off the streets of Berlin. The police clearly didn’t have his description when they were sent to the hotel—the officers in the lobby didn’t recognize him. Apparently it was just as the security guard had said: an anonymous tip about a disturbance in his hotel room. But who had called it in? Had they wanted to check on Gunter Thorne—the dead man? Or had his death been loud enough to alarm a nearby guest who called the police instead of hotel security?
As he rode through the streets of Berlin, a memory came to Desmond, of walking in a warehouse, his footsteps echoing on the concrete floor. Metal rafters hung high above, and the aisle was lined with cubicles enclosed in milky-white sheet plastic. He could hear the faint, rhythmic beeping of EKGs and could just make out hospital beds inside the isolated cubes. Plastic bags filled with clear liquid hung beside the patients, who appeared to be of all races, genders, and ages. Why were they here, in this makeshift hospital?
Workers in containment suits shuffled in and out of the patient cubicles. Up ahead a cart was stacked with black body bags. Two workers carried another bag out of a cubicle and tossed it on the heap.
Desmond was wearing one of the suits too. It was warm inside. He hated the sensation of being enclosed; he couldn’t wait to rip it off.
The memory shifted, and he was standing in an office with plate glass windows that looked down on the rows of plastic-wrapped cubicles. The room was crowded with people, their backs turned to him, all facing a large screen with a world map. Red dots marked major cities. Arced lines spread across the screen, connecting the dots, representing flights between the cities. A man with scars on his face and long blond hair stood before them, speaking slowly.
“Soon, the world will change. Stay the course. The coming days will be the most difficult of your life. But when this is finished, the world will know the truth: we saved the entire human race from extinction.”
As quickly as it had come, the memory ended, and Desmond was back in the taxi in Berlin, the city flying by in a blur.
