Pandemic

by Daniel Kalla

  “Ah, Ibrahim Sundaram, welcome, welcome,” Kabaal said, and he rose to greet the young man with a warm handshake.

  Dr. Aziz nodded once to Kabaal and then rushed by Sundaram without acknowledging him.

  Kabaal put an arm on the Malay’s shoulder. “Come, let’s walk,” he said. He waited for Sabri to saunter over before leading Sundaram out of the room.

  They walked down the stairs and out a back door into the dusty hot daylight. Kabaal directed the others over to a patch of shade offered by the tin overhang. He was disappointed how little relief the shade provided from the equatorial heat, but he wanted to have the conversation outside and this spot was as private as any Kabaal knew of.

  Kabaal and Sabri stood side by side at the edge of the shade, facing Sundaram whose back almost touched the wall of the complex. “You wanted to see me, Abu Lahab?” the Malay asked in perfect English.

  “I wanted to thank you, Ibrahim,” Kabaal said with an accent that was a soothing hybrid of Queen’s English and Egyptian, which had been so irresistible to the female students at the London School of Economics. “Without your help, none of this would be possible.”

  The man who had single-handedly transported the virus from China to Africa shrugged humbly. “I was only a courier. And without my good friend, Farouk Ali, I had no chance of success.”

  “Of course, of course. Brave Farouk,” Kabaal said solemnly. “What happened to him?”

  “He became sick before we reached the Chinese border. It was far too risky to cross with Farouk showing signs of the illness.” Sundaram looked down at the dirt. “I shot him and the Chinese black marketer before I crossed. Farouk died a martyr’s death.”

  “Allah be praised,” Sabri said softly in Arabic, though he clearly understood the English conversation.

  “A glorious death,” Kabaal said. He narrowed his gaze at Sundaram. “And you, Ibrahim? How are you feeling?”

  Sundaram dug at the soft ground with his shoe. “Better, Abu Lahab. Much better.”

  “What was it like?” Kabaal asked.

  Sundaram considered the question for a moment before looking back up. “At home, when I was thirteen and working on my father’s farm, I came down with malaria. For twenty hours a day, I felt fine. But twice a day my fever would spike. The pain was unbearable. I felt so weak, I couldn’t lift my arm to bring water to my lips. With this illness, for three days, I felt like that every moment. I was certain I would die. But then it was gone quicker than it came. And now I feel well again.”

  “I am glad you are well, Ibrahim,” Kabaal said.

  Sundaram’s lips broke into a smile. Then he began to chuckle. It was an infectious laugh. Soon Kabaal joined in, while Sabri watched them impassively.

  When he stopped laughing, Kabaal asked, “How is your Arabic?”

  Sundaram shrugged. “I speak several languages, but I am sad to say my Arabic is not very good. I can read the Koran, but I have trouble conversing.”

  “A pity,” Kabaal sighed. “Most of the men here speak nothing but Arabic.”

  Sundaram nodded.

  “And there is the issue of your presence in East Africa,” Kabaal said. “You don’t exactly blend in. You understand?”

  “Of course,” Sundaram said.

  “If the wrong person were to see you they might make the connection,” Kabaal continued. “And you know how people talk. Even my people.”

  “Unavoidable,” Sundaram said.

  Sabri took a few steps back until he stood in the sunlight.

  “It comes down to loose ends,” Kabaal said, trying to convince himself more than the young man with the relaxed shoulders who stood in front of him. “This operation is so fragile. We cannot afford loose ends.”

  Sundaram held his hands open in front of him. “It is God’s way.”

  “Which is sometimes the hardest way,” Kabaal said. He glanced over his shoulder at Sabri and nodded, then turned back to Sundaram. “Of course, it will be a martyr’s death.”

  “A martyr’s death,” Sundaram repeated with conviction.

  “Paradise awaits you,” Kabaal said as he took a few steps to his side and away from Sabri.

  The major withdrew the semiautomatic handgun from underneath his galabiya. In one deliberate motion, he raised his arm until it was level with Sundaram’s face.

  He fired.

  Sundaram’s head snapped back against the wall of the complex. A momentary pause, then his legs crumpled and he dropped like a detonated building. When his head hit the ground, his kopiah rolled off as if leading the stream of blood that followed close behind it.

  Kabaal glanced at Sabri who stood motionless with his gun by his side. His face was so devoid of expression that it could have been cast in wax. Staring into Sabri’s pale icy eyes, Kabaal fought off a shudder. Partly because he had never seen an execution before, but mainly because he was looking at one of the most fearsome men he had ever encountered.

  CHAPTER 7

  JIAYUGUAN CITY, GANSU PROVINCE CHINA

  Jiayuguan City was named after a section of a wall. Not just any wall. The Great Wall of China. And in the fourteenth century, the Jiayuguan Pass, or fortress, was the westernmost point of the Great Wall. A formidable structure, it was once called the “The First and Greatest Pass Under the Heaven.”

  Haldane had learned all this from the guidebook he had tried to read, between bouts of nausea and Duncan McLeod’s incessant nervous chatter, on the turbulent China Airlines flight. When too green to read, Haldane mulled over what little he knew about ARCS, dejectedly deciding they would need the epidemiological equivalent of the Great Wall to keep it from spreading beyond the Gansu Province.

  Thirteen hours after leaving Geneva, with their internal clocks turned upside down, the WHO team—Milly Yuen, Helmut Streicher, Duncan McLeod, and Noah Haldane— touched down at the Jiayuguan City airport. They were met by a sea of bureaucrats and military personnel laden with gifts varying from flowers to local carvings and silks. Everyone was smiles and gratitude. A sharp contrast to the chilly welcome Haldane received on his previous visits to China during the heyday of the SARS uproar. As Jean Nantal had assured, the Chinese government appeared to be taking a different approach from their disastrous policy of secrecy and denial when SARS swept the Guangdong Province.

  After an impromptu receiving line of introductions, handshakes, and bows, the Chinese officials led the WHO team out of the terminal to a waiting stretch limousine, which sat in the middle of a row of escort cars. UN flags flew prominently from the antennae on either side of its trunk. With lights flashing, police motorcycles led the procession from the airport.

  With their backs to the driver, Haldane and McLeod sat across from Yuen and Streicher in the rear seat. McLeod pointed out the window at the motorcycles flanking either side. “Shite, when exactly was I crowned Queen?” he commented in his Scottish lilt.

  Yuen giggled, but Streicher sighed. “Dr. McLeod, must everything be a joke to you?”

  “Not everything. Helmut.” McLeod stroked his patchy red beard. “But don’t you find it a tad curious that we’re here to investigate the plague and we get welcomed like we were the Spice Girls ... before Ginger left?”

  “Ginger?” Streicher frowned, bewildered by the reference.

  “If you ignore him, Helmut, he eventually stops,” Haldane advised. He pointed out the window. “Duncan’s got a point. The government is making a big show of us.”

  McLeod stretched out in the plush leather seat. “Then again, it’s about damn time we got the recognition we deserve.”

  “Why now?” Milly asked quietly, without making eye contact with anyone.

  “Exactly.” Haldane nodded. “Last time we were pariahs, now we’re heroes. And we haven’t done anything except show up.”

  McLeod shrugged. “The locals know they’re going to be under the spotlight soon. They’re readying themselves for the circus.”

  Haldane nodded distractedly. “Yeah. Makes sense.”

  Strei
cher fixed his intense gray-blue eyes on Haldane. “You’re not convinced.” He stated it as fact.

  “I’m a born skeptic when it comes to government motives.” Haldane shrugged. “Whenever I see them roll out the red carpet, I wonder if it’s out there to cover up some serious dirt.”

  McLeod laughed and slapped the seat beside him. “Haldane, you’re a cynical bastard! But I like the way you think.”

  The procession wound through the streets of Jiayuguan City. With Yuen translating, their driver acted as tour guide, tossing out tidbits of history and geography along with a hefty dose of local political gossip.

  With a population of less than two hundred thousand, Jiayuguan was a small city by Chinese standards. Modem and industrial, it was built in the sixties to support the local steel industry. As a result, it had all the gray uniformity of communist construction from the peak days of the Cultural Revolution. But it lacked the ethnic charm seen in the temples, palaces, and other features of more historic Chinese cities that Haldane had seen.

  After driving for ten minutes through the heart of Jiayuguan, the scenery was so repetitive that Haldane felt as if they were circling the same block. Just as he turned to McLeod to voice this suspicion, the limo pulled up to the front of the Great Wall Hotel. Stepping out of the car, Haldane suddenly felt uneasy. He didn’t know if it was the gray clouds, the oppressively similar buildings, or the specter of the unspecified epidemic that hung in the air, but he experienced a sense of unsettled urgency.

  Walking into the hotel’s bland lobby, what had been niggling at him since the moment they arrived came into focus—the scarcity of people. Granted, it was a cold Sunday evening in a remote western province, but this was China, the most populous country in the world. During his brief layover at the Beijing airport Haldane saw firsthand the smothering congestion of urban China. Now, not even 8:00 P.M. local time, Jiayuguan City was a relative ghost town. Suddenly the excitement surrounding their arrival made sense to him. The welcoming committee wasn’t trying to impress the WHO delegates so much as reassure the local residents that the cavalry had arrived. Judging from the emptiness of the streets, Haldane decided their attempt had been in vain.

  After another outpouring of smiles and handshakes in the hotel lobby, the WHO team parted ways with their welcoming party and fled to their rooms. Though clean and quiet, the rooms were small and dimly lit in the three-star hotel. Haldane had to agree with McLeod when the Scotsman bellowed from down the hallway: “Some guidebook’s being awfully generous handing out stars!”

  Haldane’s seventh-floor room looked out onto a central plaza, which was as deserted as the rest of the street. Though the view was prettier than anything he had seen from the limo, he had little interest in the scenery. He headed straight for the nightstand phone.

  Maryland was thirteen hours behind China (which officially maintains one time for the whole country despite spanning five time zones from east to west), but Haldane couldn’t wait By the time the operator connected him, it was just before 7:00 A.M. at home.

  Anna answered on the second ring. “Hello?” The line crackled.

  “Hi, Anna, it’s me. I’m in China,” Haldane said, hearing his own voice echo in his ear from the delay.

  “Oh, Noah,” she said in a monotone. “Everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine. I didn’t wake you, did I?”

  “No,” she said softly. “Been up for a while.”

  Haldane knew what that meant. Normally, Anna and Chloe were sound sleepers in the morning. “Her ear?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Anna said. “She crawled into our bed around 3:00 A.M., but you know.”

  He did. It was a common occurrence at their home.

  Lying back on the firm unfamiliar mattress, Noah could picture his wife wearing one of his T-shirts that fit her like a nightgown, curled up in their queen bed with Chloe squirming in her arms. Chloe would be in constant motion, writhing, sobbing, and sweating in turn, unable to find comfort despite the Tylenol. And Anna would lie still beside her, clinging to Chloe and whispering reassurances in her daughter’s ear.

  The visual brought a stab of guilt and loneliness. “Can I speak to her?” he asked.

  There was a rustling noise on the line, then heavier breathing and a snort. “Chloe?” he said.

  “Hi, Daddy.” In spite of the static, her voice sounded nasal.

  “Chlo, are you okay?”

  “It hurts, Daddy,” she sniffed.

  Another stab. “Oh, sweetheart, I know. I wish I were there with you. I miss you so much.” When she didn’t reply he added, “I’m coming home soon.”

  “For breakfast?” her voice perked up.

  “No, Chlo,” Haldane sighed. “But soon as I can. I love you so much.”

  “Bye, Daddy,” she said. He heard a thud as the phone dropped.

  After a moment, Anna was back on the line. “You brought the first smile I’ve seen in a while,” Anna said with new warmth.

  “I wish to hell I could see it in person,” Haldane said.

  No answer.

  “How are you?”

  “A little lonely.” She hesitated. “A lot confused.”

  Haldane sat up on the bed and squeezed the receiver tighter. “You haven’t worked things out, huh?”

  “Not exactly,” she said.

  They were both silent. Haldane felt every mile of the twelve thousand that separated them.

  His mind wandered back to the scene in their living room a few months earlier. After weeks of having evaded questions about her withdrawn nervousness, Anna waited until her mother took Chloe for the afternoon before sitting him down for a “discussion”.

  Unsuspecting, Haldane had sat beside her on the living-room couch, enjoying a rare moment of intimacy as she caressed his hand in hers.

  The tears came before the confession. Haldane sat silently clutching her hand, not out of support but utter shock, as she told him how her relationship with Julie, the single dentist who lived two doors away, had progressed from growing friendship into budding romance. Haldane wasn’t floored by the same-sex angle; he knew that Anna spent two of her college undergrad years romantically involved with her female roommate. On first meeting their attractive neighbor with the short brunette hair and piercing brown eyes, Haldane sensed she might be gay, but he never suspected that his wife’s moodiness or remoteness might be attributable to her having fallen for this woman or anyone else.

  While Anna fluctuated between apologies and rationalizations, Haldane said very little that afternoon. But as days passed, he couldn’t stop talking about it with her. He wasn’t looking for the contrition Anna offered, or even the energetic sexual solace she seemed to need from him. He wanted guarantees. And while Anna was adamant she had cut off all contact with Julie, she would not give Noah what he sought: assurance that she was, or would soon be, over Julie. Instead, she maintained that she was in love with both of them.

  The crackle of static brought him back to the moment. He took a deep breath. “Have you seen her since I left?” he asked. Julie was always “she” or “her” to Haldane.

  “No.” Anna wavered. “Not face-to-face.”

  “But you talk to her regularly?” he snapped before his brain could catch up to his mouth.

  “She e-mails me.”

  Haldane resisted the urge to break the receiver in his hand. “And you write her back?”

  “They’re poems, Noah. Beautiful.” She was silent for a long while. “Yes, I write back.”

  He swallowed. “Anna, I don’t want you to write to her.”

  “I know,” she said almost imperceptibly over the static.

  Haldane heard his daughter crying in the background. “You better take care of Chloe.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Noah, promise me you will be careful over there. Please.”

  “Bye, Anna.”

  He lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, ruminating about this last fruitless conversation and all the others that preceded it. Ag
ain he felt lost, unsure of how to hold up the crumbling walls of his domestic life. He thought of his daughter suffering through another ear infection without her dad around to comfort her. He thought of his wife. Her large brown eyes. The fragile smile. The bulky T-shirt that only hinted at the smooth, responsive body hidden underneath. And in spite of the torrent of mixed emotions, he realized how aroused he was. He longed to see her face, smell her hair, and clutch her flawless back as her legs wrapped around his waist.

  Haldane shook away the conflicting thoughts, jumped off the bed, and grabbed his laptop. He moved the phone out of the way and flipped it open. With a tap of the built-in mouse, data regarding Acute Respiratory Collapse Syndrome filled the screen. Jotting notes as he reviewed the documents, graphs, and charts, he succeeded in distracting himself by studying a world even more chaotic than his own.

  The next morning, the WHO team separated. Streicher and Yuen, the nonclinical specialists, went off to review the regional laboratory while McLeod and Haldane headed off to see the front lines in the battle against ARCS.

  Walking out of the hotel to the waiting unmarked government sedan, Haldane noticed the first of several Jiayuguan residents sporting surgical masks over their faces. It was an eerily familiar sight from the SARS days.

  “People very panicky,” their translator and guide explained away the phenomenon from the front seat of the car.

  “People very sensible,” McLeod aped from the backseat.

  They drove past the city limits and continued southward.

  “Haldane, I have to tell you,” McLeod said, “I don’t like this bug.”

  Haldane laughed. “Are you partial to any microorganism?”

  “Not particularly, but I really don’t like this one.”

  The smile left Haldane’s lips. “How come?”

  “The short incubation period. The rapid respiratory failure in otherwise healthy people. The hemorrhagic pneumonia ... Reminds me of only one other I’ve seen before.”