by A. G. Riddle
“You’re also wanted for murder. This is a disposable I bought just in case there was trouble. Only my fiancée has the number.”
Garin opened the phone, held it to his ear, and listened a moment, his body growing tense. He spoke in German, quickly, whispering, and Desmond had to focus in order to translate the words in his mind. “Don’t worry, it’s okay. Everything will be okay. I love you. I’ll see you soon.”
Something was wrong. Desmond glanced around, taking in every face, every car, every motorcycle, his focus sharpened, like an animal on the open prairie that had sensed a predator entering its territory.
Garin tapped a few keys on the phone.
“Hand me the phone, Garin.”
The German reporter swallowed but kept his head down, typing more quickly.
Desmond reached across the table and grabbed the phone out of Garin’s hands, drawing the attention of several people at tables nearby. The screen was open to the text messages window, where Garin had written a single line:
Cafe Einstein
“I’m sorry,” Garin said. “They have my fiancée. They said they’d kill her if I didn’t tell them where we were and keep you here.”
Over Garin’s shoulder, just down the street, Desmond saw a white cargo van pull away from the curb, its tires screeching, with two motorcycles close behind it. All three vehicles were barreling toward the cafe.
“I’m sorry too, Garin.”
Below the table, Desmond pulled the ring igniters on three tactical smoke grenades. Smoke billowed from under the table, pouring into the street. He took the remaining two canisters from his backpack, stood, pulled the ring igniters, and tossed them in opposite directions into the street. The smoke pulled a curtain across the thoroughfare. People shouted and shoved, scrambling to get off the street.
Desmond tossed Garin’s phone onto the table and ran, covering his mouth with his arm, the handgun held straight down at his side in case they caught up to him. He moved quickly, turning off Unter Den Linden, putting distance between himself and the scene.
Behind him, he heard tires lock and slide against pavement. Cars collided. The roar of the motorcycles ceased.
A block over from Unter den Linden, on Mittelstraße, he slipped into the cab he had paid to wait for this very contingency. The Arabic man behind the wheel began driving, whisking him away to the destination Desmond had given him, glancing in the mirror suspiciously.
Desmond knew he had to get off the streets. If he could make it to the Tränenpalast and onto the boat docked along the River Spree, he might have a chance.
The taxi turned.
Desmond never saw the black parcel van that crashed into the driver side, slamming his head into the window.
His vision went black, and he fought to stay conscious. He pulled the handle on his door and stumbled out. His eyes wouldn’t focus. He reached in his pocket for the gun. He’d have to fight them.
Boots pounded the pavement: three figures in black body armor, carrying assault rifles. They rushed toward him. He raised the gun, but a hand caught his arm. Another reached around him and covered his mouth with a cloth.
Slowly, the blackness became complete.
Chapter 17
The World Health Organization and Health Canada operate an early warning system for pandemics. The system is called the Global Public Health Information Network, or GPHIN for short, and it has saved countless millions of lives.
In 2003, GPHIN identified SARS in Hong Kong long before local health agencies knew what was going on. SARS remained a largely regional epidemic instead of a global pandemic thanks to GPHIN and the prescient actions of several health workers, including a doctor who ordered the slaughter of 1.5 million chickens and birds who were likely infected with the virus.
In 2012, GPHIN again detected warning signs of an outbreak—this time of a respiratory illness in Jordan. The system was again correct, predicting the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus—MERS-CoV—before it went global.
In a sense, GPHIN is to global pandemics what the seismometer and Richter scale are to earthquakes. Every day, GPHIN collects data from local, state, regional, and national health departments. It also crawls social media and blogs, looking for signs of a new outbreak.
Hours after Peyton’s team arrived in Kenya, GPHIN identified what could be called a tremor. The data supporting the alert was broad-based, with signals from official and informal sources around the world. The pattern of symptoms was consistent. Around the world, people were getting sick with a mysterious respiratory illness.
Within minutes, an analyst at Health Canada reviewed the alert and wrote the following memo:
Respiratory alert Nov-22-A93 is a strong, broad-based signal consistent with an infectious disease being transmitted across continents in a short time span. Pathogen is unknown at this time but is most likely a flu strain, perhaps a new variant. Recommend further monitoring and investigation by local health departments.
Staff at the WHO’s Global Outbreak and Alert Response Network (GOARN) filed the alert along with others they received from around the world that day.
Chapter 18
From his office, Elim watched the soldiers patrol the perimeter. Inside, figures dressed in protective suits roamed the halls. They had spent hours interrogating him, his staff, and his young American patient, Lucas Turner. They were relentless.
The British patient had died four hours ago. His death was quite messy. The man had been barely conscious since arriving, his fever and fatigue rendering him listless. In his final hours, however, he’d tried to rise from the bed and escape his room, shouting, confused, inconsolable. Elim had begun to suit up to enter the room, but they had stopped him. Instead, the suited team entered the patient’s room. They placed a camcorder on a table in the corner and left without offering help, sealing the room again until the patient fell quiet. Then they marched to their trucks, returned with a body bag, and placed the man inside unceremoniously.
When the group had first arrived, Elim had thought the hospital was saved. Now he suspected they were all prisoners here, and they would leave the same way the British patient had.
Chapter 19
When the Air Force transport plane was two hours away from landing in Nairobi, Peyton again walked to the whiteboard.
“Listen up. We’ll be landing soon, so let’s go through a couple of procedural guidelines. We still don’t know what this pathogen is. We may not know for another five days, maybe more. We’re going to proceed as if we’re dealing with Ebola.
“For those working in Nairobi, be in your hotel room at least one hour before sunset. I suggest you eat your meals together, do a head count, and retire to your rooms. Lock the door and wedge something under it. If somebody is missing or late getting back, call them immediately. If they don’t answer, or if anything sounds amiss, call the US embassy and the EOC. Kidnapping and ransom is a possibility in Kenya.
“The security situation in the field may be fluid; consult the deployment briefing handout for SOPs and observe any updates from me. A word on food for those in the field: only eat your MREs. The people you’ll encounter are often very hospitable and will likely be extremely grateful for our help. They may offer you food. It may be the only thing they have to offer. And it may well be safe to eat—but you are ordered to decline. Tell them that your supervisor requires you to eat only the government-issued food and that you’re sorry.
“Any questions?”
Silence fell over the group for a few seconds, then one woman asked, “Are we doing anything organized for Thanksgiving?”
The question caught Peyton off guard. She had already forgotten about Thanksgiving.
“Uh, yeah,” she said. “For those of you in Nairobi, there’s probably something at the US embassy and/or CDC Kenya. I’ll check into details and relay that to your team leaders. We’ll need to arrange security. For the teams in the field with me, we’ll figure something out. Other questions?”
A Commission
ed Corps officer and physician named Phil Stevens spoke up. “Does that mean we’re relaxing the bush meat policy to dine with the natives on Thursday?”
“Yes, but only for you, Dr. Stevens. The featured dish will be Fruit Bat Meatloaf. I’ve heard it’s to die for.”
When the laughs subsided, Peyton continued in a more serious tone. “Two pieces of personal advice. If this is one of your first deployments, I would strongly encourage you to call your loved ones when you land. Whoever that is—your spouse, mother, father, siblings—they will be worried about you, no matter what they tell you. Let them know you’re all right and that things aren’t as bad as the movies. Second, a note on entertainment.”
This line always had the same effect: a majority of the men in the group perked up and began paying attention.
“Find a good book to read.”
The rapt attention from the men faded visibly.
“I’m serious. The days ahead will be long and intense. It’s great to have an outlet, a way to step out of this world and just relax and not have to worry about anything. Some days, you’ll just want to go back to your hotel room or tent and have a stiff drink. I encourage you not to do so. Staying hydrated out there is tough enough. For your own safety, keeping a clear head is imperative. If you want to have that stiff drink, do it when you get home. If you didn’t bring an e-reader with you, you can download a reading app for your smartphone. And if you’re too tired to read, I recommend downloading an audiobook on your phone. I can’t tell you how many nights in the field I’ve fallen asleep listening to a good book. But please download books only when you’re connected to WiFi. And do not, I repeat, do not watch Netflix, Amazon Prime, YouTube, or any video of any kind with the satellite sleeve attached. It costs us a fortune. I don’t know exactly how much, but two years ago an EIS officer binge-watched some TV show and consumed tons of data. When the bill came in, someone from finance flipped out. They actually walked over to Elliott’s office and threatened to limit our satphone access or set a data cutoff threshold. It became kind of a big deal. Elliott talked him out of it, but we’re still on probation. Remember: you watch Netflix, we lose satellite access, kids in Africa die. Got it? If you’re connected to wifi, knock yourself out, just not over the satlink.
“One last thing. We’re going to Kenya to stop this outbreak, and part of the reason we’ve been invited to help is because a lot of brave, hard-working Americans went to Kenya before us and built alliances and relationships. Some of them still work for the CDC in Kenya, building those partnerships each day. We should all keep that in mind.
“This is a particularly critical time for CDC relations in the region. I spoke with Joe Ruto, the head of our office in Kenya. In early 2015, we discovered that millions in funds the CDC had donated to the Kenya Medical Research Institute, or KEMRI, had gone missing. An audit uncovered mismanagement and fraud by officials at many levels at KEMRI. With the money gone, thousands of good people were laid off. There were protests outside KEMRI for days. And even though the CDC had no financial oversight, many of the protesters and laid-off employees blamed us. This deployment could be a big step toward rebuilding relationships.
“Every one of us is a representative of the CDC and the United States of America. Our actions could impact our relationships in the region. That could have consequences for us—and for the people just like you who will be on the next Air Force transport for the next outbreak. I’m not telling you to walk on eggshells or to be afraid to take decisive action. But if we can, we ought to do our best to leave our relationships there better than we found them.”
When the pilot announced that they were on approach for Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi, about half the members of the CDC team had surrendered to sleep for one last nap. The lights were dark in the passenger compartment except for a few glowing laptop screens at the back and several reading lights. Duffel bags and wadded-up clothes lay under the heads of those sleeping. Wool blankets covered the floor and were draped across team members.
Peyton had fallen asleep on a row of five seats. When she awoke, she realized her legs were intertwined with the person sharing the row with her. She looked up and found Phil staring back at her. He sat up quickly, held his hand out, and pulled her up. They looked at each other a moment, then set about collecting their things and getting ready for the landing, which was surprisingly painless.
She smoothed out her uniform, threw her duffel bag over her shoulder, and marched down the ramp off the plane.
It was night in Nairobi, and beyond the airport tower, the city lights twinkled. A gust of warm wind blew a few strands of her shiny black hair into her face.
Ahead, twelve Japanese SUVs waited on the tarmac. The front passenger door of the second vehicle opened, and Jonas stepped out. The look on his face stopped Peyton in her tracks.
Something was wrong.
Chapter 20
The black SUVs rolled through Nairobi, bunching up at stoplights and stretching out in between, like a black snake stalking through a field of skyscrapers.
In the second car, Peyton rode in the back seat with Jonas Becker, her counterpart at the WHO. On the tarmac, he had told her only that he had urgent news to share. Whatever it was, he didn’t want to share it in the presence of others.
“How was the flight?” he asked.
“Good. Long.”
“You sleep?”
“A little.”
“Sorry I woke you so early yesterday.”
“Don’t be. I needed the head start.”
At the hotel, Jonas offered to carry Peyton’s duffel, as he had a dozen times before. As always, she declined.
The hotel wasn’t fancy, but it was in a safe part of town, near the American embassy. Kenyan troops stood guard in the parking lot, and Nairobi PD had several cars along the street.
The moment the door to Peyton’s room closed, Jonas said, “It’s reached the villages.”
He spread a map out on one of the queen size beds and pointed to three highlighted areas outside Mandera.
Peyton got out her laptop, connected to WiFi, and pulled up the travel log from CityForge. “The two Americans videoed and posted their travel route,” she said. “We should cross-reference to see if they visited these villages.”
Jonas ran a hand through his short brown hair and looked away, as if dreading something. Peyton was five foot six, and Jonas was only a few inches taller, putting their eyes on a near equal plane. He leaned against the brown wooden dresser, searching for the right words.
“What?” Peyton asked.
“The American who first reported symptoms, Steven Collins, died while you were en route. The British employee of the aviation company is also dead.” Jonas paused. “And the other American, Lucas Turner, has now broken with the disease.”
It was Peyton’s worst fear. It took her a moment to realize he had said the disease instead of Ebola or Marburg or Yellow Fever.
“The Kenyan Ministry of Health sent a team yesterday. They’ve set up an Ebola treatment unit at Mandera,” Jonas added.
“Have they tested anyone?”
“They’ve tested everyone: the Americans, the British man, and most of the villagers. No one has tested positive for Ebola.”
“What did they use?”
“ReEBOV. It’s confirmed: we’re dealing with a new pathogen here.”
The ReEBOV Antigen Rapid Test could show a false positive or false negative in about one in ten patients tested for Ebola, but across a large sample group, it was likely to be correct. The fact that they had all tested negative sealed the case. This was a novel infectious agent.
Which meant Peyton’s entire plan had to be thrown out the window. It was impossible to know whether ZMapp would be effective against the pathogen. Flying Lucas Turner back to Emory also presented a much greater risk if they didn’t even know what they were bringing to the US.
Jonas helped her bounce a few ideas around. They worked out a tactical approach for after they landed in Mander
a, assigning teams to contact trace at the airport and others to venture into the countryside to survey the villages. When they had a general plan together, they called the security advisors into the hotel room to get their input.
Their Kenyan military liaison, Colonel Magoro, informed them that a Kenyan army brigade had departed yesterday morning for Mandera County and was already set up. The Kenyan government was prepared to quarantine the entire county if needed.
The UN security officer reported that the African Union troops in southern Somalia had been alerted to the situation and were establishing checkpoints along the roads into Somalia. The Ethiopians were also in the loop and were taking similar measures.
There were also two men from the American embassy in the room. One was a State Department official who listened to the security preparations, asked a lot of questions, and encouraged Colonel Magoro to bulk up the units that would be guarding Peyton’s teams outside Mandera. The colonel granted the request without complaint.
The other American introduced himself only as embassy security, and despite listening intently to the briefing, he said nothing. Peyton assumed he was CIA. As the men filed out of the room, he handed her a card with a number in Nairobi. “Call us immediately if you run into any trouble. We’ll do everything we can.”
When they were gone, Jonas folded up the map and packed his things. Peyton thought he would leave, but he lingered, his demeanor changing, becoming a little more nervous.
“You’re going to miss Thanksgiving, huh?” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Parents disappointed?”
“Not really. They know I wouldn’t be out here if it wasn’t important.”
“I know what you mean. You… have a sister, right?”
“Yeah. Older sister, Madison.”
