Pandemic

by Daniel Kalla

  “It’s okay, Gwen,” Clayton said evenly, and then he spoke to Sabri. “Put her down, now, Major Sabri. It’s over.” His gun held perfectly still.

  “Yes, over,” Sabri repeated and she could feel his breath on her ear. “I will die and you will lose your Director of Counter-Bioterrorism.” He jabbed the blade tighter against Gwen’s neck, until she felt a sharp sting, realizing her skin had been cut.

  “Let her go!” Clayton insisted.

  “Put your gun down or she dies now,” Sabri said.

  Clayton faltered.

  “Now!” Sabri hissed.

  Clayton backed up away from them several steps until he was near the entryway. That was the first time Gwen noticed Noah at the doorway with only his head, hand, and gun poking through.

  The sharp pressure tightened at Gwen’s neck. At the same moment, she felt Sabri’s other hand digging around behind her back.

  Clayton slowly lowered his gun to his side. “I’m putting it down,” he said.

  Suddenly Gwen realized that Sabri now held a new weapon behind her back. His gun. She opened her mouth to yell, “Alex—” when she was abruptly shoved heavily forward into the wall.

  Reality shifted. Everything slowed down for Gwen.

  Her shoulder slammed painfully against the wall. She looked up in time to see Clayton spin and stagger backward as a spray of blood arced out of the left side of his chest. He dropped to his knees and then fell backward in the entryway.

  She looked over at Sabri. A pistol had replaced his knife. And he fired three more shots at the doorway.

  When Clayton swiveled and collapsed at his feet, Noah glanced down for a split second. At the same moment, the wood beside his head erupted in a shower of splinters, and he heard three more loud bangs.

  Noah yanked his head back out the doorway. On the other side from him, McLeod was on his knees, risking exposure as he pulled Clayton’s bleeding body out of the cabin by his legs.

  Clayton’s eyes were half-shut and blood leaked between his lips. When his head turned and his glassy eyes found Haldane’s, he implored, “End it now, Noah!” He sputtered and the air filled as if his breath had frozen red.

  Haldane poked his head out around the corner again. Sabri was wrestling Gwen into a headlock. When Sabri looked up to see Haldane, he fired another shot, and Noah felt the bullet whistle by his head.

  Haldane raised his Glock, aiming. His finger froze on the trigger, wavering as to whether he had a clear shot without hitting Gwen. In his moments of hesitation, Sabri dragged Gwen back into the kitchen and down behind the countertop.

  Haldane felt a surge of fury rip through him.

  His gun leading the way, he strode forward into the living room, moving out to his left.

  Just as he penetrated deep enough into the room to see around the edge of the counter, the glass on the painting frame behind him smashed and another bang echoed in the room.

  He dropped to a crouch. Not breathing, he inched forward to get another glimpse of the kitchen. Seeing past the edge of the low kitchen wall, his eyes locked on Sabri’s.

  They both leveled their guns, but suddenly Sabri yelped in pain, as Gwen’s teeth bit into his arm. She wriggled free of his grip.

  Haldane steadied his aim, struggling for a clear shot.

  “Shoot, Noah!” Gwen screamed.

  She lunged forward and onto the ground. Noah fired twice. The first shot clipped Sabri in his left arm and the second shattered a water glass above his head.

  Sabri’s left arm fell limp to his side, but his right hand held steadfastly to his gun. He swung it from Noah to Gwen who was no more than five feet away. His lips formed a grotesque smile, but his gun didn’t fire.

  Haldane fired two more shots. Sabri’s head flopped backward and slammed into the cabinet behind him.

  Sitting upright, his body shuddered once and then was still. Sabri stared straight ahead at Noah. Except for the quarter-shaped hole in his left upper forehead, his eyes and expression appeared much the same as they had before he died.

  CHAPTER 42

  JESSUP, MARYLAND

  By the time Haldane reached her, Gwen had climbed to her feet. He gently put an arm around to support her without even realizing that he still hung on to the gun with the same hand. “You okay?” he asked.

  “Fine.” She staggered slightly, but managed to keep herself upright. She gently pushed his arm away. “Go help Alex! He needs you more than I do.” And she wiped away the trickle of blood running down from the laceration on her neck.

  Haldane turned from Gwen and sprinted across the room to where Clayton still lay sprawled across the edge of the doorway. McLeod had taken his jacket off and wadded it into a ball, which he used to compress the bullet wound in Clayton’s upper chest. Every inch of the jacket’s green fabric had turned brown from the blood it had absorbed.

  Haldane dropped to his knees beside Clayton across from McLeod. “Duncan?”

  McLeod shook his head. “He was talking to me.” He swallowed hard. “Then he drifted into mumbles. He lost consciousness altogether a minute or two ago.”

  “You called 911?”

  “Twice.” McLeod said as he reached the fingers of his free hand behind the angle of Clayton’s jaw and thrust it forward in an attempt to better open his airway.

  When Haldane leaned in close, he heard the slight gurgle of air and saw bubbles form in the blood in Clayton’s mouth. Haldane swept a finger inside his mouth to clear the bloody debris, but it did nothing to improve the breathing. He searched for a pulse at Clayton’s wrist and elbow, but felt none. Only when Haldane swept two fingers over Clayton’s neck could he eventually find a rapid thready pulse.

  “He can’t last much longer.” Haldane looked up and yelled to no one. “Where the fuck are they?”

  Gwen hobbled over to join them. Awkwardly, using McLeod’s shoulder to steady her, she knelt down between them and above Clayton’s head. She reached her hand down and gently stroked his hair. “Please, Alex,” she cooed softly. “Please hang in there.”

  Clayton’s eyelids flickered a few times and then popped open. His glazed eyes looked up at Gwen, and his ashen face broke into a weak smile. Then his eyes closed again.

  Haldane heard the faint wail of sirens.

  Clayton was still alive when the paramedics loaded him onto the stretcher and screamed off for the Baltimore Trauma Center, sixteen miles away. Haldane knew from their downcast expressions and cautious reassurances that they held little hope for Clayton. The fact that Clayton still had a pulse when they left was more than Haldane expected. He felt a glimmer of optimism.

  Haldane walked over to where a paramedic stood beside Gwen, trying to attend to the injuries of her upright patient. Gwen watched as the ambulance carrying Clayton raced off. When its taillights faded, she reached down and yanked the IV cannula out of her elbow. The young paramedic at her side placed a Band-Aid over the site, which matched the dressing she had applied to Gwen’s neck.

  When the paramedic pointed to her rig, Gwen shook her head. “I appreciate your help.” She smiled. “But I’m fine. I’m not coming with you.” And, as if to contradict her point, Gwen stumbled a step before catching her balance.

  “It’s okay,” Haldane said to the young paramedic. “We’re both doctors.” He pointed to McLeod and himself. “We’ll watch her.”

  The paramedic shrugged and walked off toward her truck.

  McLeod joined Gwen and Noah. His face, hands, and shirt were still spattered with Clayton’s blood. “He’s a brave man that one,” McLeod said. “If there’s any kind of cosmic justice, he’ll pull through.” He paused. “Then again, I wouldn’t count on it. Seems to me God has a pretty sick sense of humor these days.”

  “It’s over now,” Haldane said quietly.

  “We’ve thought that before, Haldane,” McLeod said, rubbing the blood from his hands. He sighed heavily. “No bloody Lady Macbeth jokes, either. I am going to go find a washbasin.”

  McLeod strode off in
search of a bathroom. Gwen and Noah lapsed into a comfortable silence, watching the traffic gather around The Quiet Slumber Motel. Three helicopters had landed on the road. Vans and trucks filled the parking lot and lined the streets. People in every imaginable uniform, from those of state troopers to the full yellow HAZMAT suits.

  Gwen shuffled closer to him and put an arm around his waist. She leaned her head against his shoulder. It felt right to Haldane.

  After a few moments, she said, “Noah?”

  “Yes?”

  “He didn’t kill me,” Gwen said.

  “I’m very glad,” Noah said, cupping her face with his other hand.

  “That’s not what I mean,” Gwen said. “He looked right at me and just smiled. He could have killed me so easily.”

  “Maybe he realized there was no point?”

  “Yeah, maybe that’s it,” she said and fell back into silence.

  CHAPTER 43

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Gwen awoke late the next morning in a pool of sweat but pleased to discover she was in the comfort of her own bed and not strapped to a cot as she had just dreamed. She felt so achy. She wondered if it was a consequence of the drugs Sabri had given her or just the accumulation of the wear and tear on her body from Somalia to Maryland.

  She reached for the bedside phone and hit redial.

  “Maryland Trauma Center,” the operator said.

  When Gwen explained who she was, she was patched through to the ICU where the nurse told her that Clayton was still in critical condition but had “squeaked through” surgery and showed early signs of stabilizing.

  Relieved, she hung up the phone but still felt too exhausted to climb out of bed. She couldn’t shake the vision of Abdul Sabri’s malicious smile. She had a strange feeling, what she imagined might be a form of survivor’s guilt, about having had her life spared by him. She couldn’t shake the doubt that Sabri was capable of a final generous gesture.

  With images of Sabri and collapsing buildings weighing on her mind, she fell back on the pillow and drifted off again.

  The ringing phone woke her. Without answering, she turned her head to look at the clock, which read 2:24 P.M. She didn’t feel any better for the sleep. And she was beginning to wonder if she still had residual amounts of thiopental sodium or some other drug in her bloodstream.

  About five minutes later, the phone rang again. When she lifted her arm to grab the phone, it felt as if there were a dumbbell tied to it. She groped around the nightstand until she found the receiver.

  As she dragged the phone to her ear, everything became clearer to her.

  “Hi,” Noah said. “How are you?”

  “Sore,” she said distractedly as she wrapped the blankets tighter around her to ward off her sudden coldness. “You?”

  “Good.” He laughed. “Enjoying my first day off in about two months.”

  “Slacker,” she said, but didn’t feel any of the levity she forced into her tone.

  “You hear about Alex?”

  “I called the hospital earlier,” she said. “Any new developments?”

  “He’s stabilizing,” Haldane said cheerfully. “They think he has a good shot.”

  “Thank God,” Gwen said.

  “Hey, the FBI hit the motherlode in Sabri’s cabin,” he said. “They had vials of serum in a small incubator. They also had chicken eggs, very likely inoculated with the Gansu virus.”

  “No surprise,” she said.

  “There’s more,” Haldane said. “Sabri had all kinds of maps of New York. Two of them had Times Square circled in red. And the FBI found a list of contact e-mails and cell numbers. They’ve already made twelve arrests—four in Seattle and the rest in New York.”

  “Good,” she said. She tried to share his enthusiasm, but she felt more tired than ever before.

  “Gwen,” Haldane said softly. “I think it really is over.”

  “Let’s hope.” She coughed and then cleared her throat.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m just getting too old for falling buildings and hostage takings,” she said.

  “Why don’t I come take you out for a late celebratory lunch?” Haldane asked. “That way we don’t have to stay up for a New Year’s Eve bash.”

  “I’m not much of a New Year’s girl,” she said. “Besides, Noah, I’m too drained to go out.”

  “Tell you what,” Haldane said. “I’ll bring you lunch. No strings attached.”

  She swallowed and her throat felt raw. “People never mean it when they say that,” Gwen said.

  He laughed. “True. There are tons of strings attached. But why don’t you let me bring you lunch anyway.”

  “No, Noah,” she said. “I need to take a rain check. I’ve got weeks of sleep to catch up on.”

  “Fair enough,” he said, with a trace of disappointment. “I’ll speak to you tomorrow.”

  She put the phone back on the nightstand, but deliberately left it off the hook. Despite her wobbly legs and aching lower back, she forced herself out of bed.

  She closed all her windows and blinds. Then she locked both deadbolts on her door. When she managed to catch her wind, she stumbled back to the bedroom.

  Two days after the shootout in Maryland, the first day of the New Year, Haldane sat at his office in the early afternoon sorting through a huge stack of accumulated paperwork. He had difficulty concentrating on the work; he kept wondering why Gwen hadn’t returned his calls. What had changed between them?

  McLeod flew through his door and interrupted the ruminations. “Don’t tell me,” McLeod said, pointing to the pile. “A model of Mt. Fuji, right?”

  “Feels like it,” Haldane sighed. “What can I do for you, Duncan?”

  He looked over his shoulder. “For starters, you could get me a coffee,” he bellowed.

  Haldane’s secretary, Karen Jackson, yelled from outside the room. “I saw two feet on you. Go get your own damn coffee!”

  McLeod laughed. “I like that one.” He thumbed over his shoulder and smiled. “Hey, I visited James Bond this morning in Baltimore.”

  “And?”

  “Clayton is doing better.” Haldane nodded. “He’s awake. Fortunately, he’s still on the ventilator, so I got to do all the talking.”

  Haldane leaned back in his seat and laughed. “I’m sure he appreciated that.”

  “I think so.” McLeod nodded earnestly. “He seemed to particularly enjoy our conversation on what a better place the world would be without the CIA.”

  Haldane shook his head. “Duncan, you’re a cruel man.”

  McLeod stopped smiling. “By the way, I’ve come to tell you I’m leaving.”

  “About time,” Haldane said. “You’re going back to Glasgow for a while?”

  “Not for a while,” McLeod said. “For good. I’m leaving the WHO. I’m going to take up some lazy-ass hospital post in Scotland. Time to get back on a first-name basis with my family.”

  Haldane nodded. “No point in me trying to talk you out of it?”

  “Not unless you still have that gun Clayton gave you,” McLeod said.

  Haldane shook his head.

  “By the way, I wanted to say good-bye to Gwen, too, but I haven’t been able to reach her.”

  “Me, neither,” Haldane said, feeling the niggling worry resurface. “I spoke to her yesterday. She seemed somewhat evasive. She said she was really run-down. Totally understandable, but I thought ... you know ... it might have something to do with Clayton and me.”

  “Ah, love triangles are a mysterious and wonderful thing, aren’t they?” McLeod heaved an exaggerated sigh.

  Haldane nodded distractedly.

  “I even tried the Department of Homeland Security,” McLeod said. “She hasn’t been to work since coming home either. Apparently, she even stood up her boss this morning for some meeting.”

  “That’s kind of odd,” Haldane said, feeling a different kind of concern swell.

  “I guess she was traumatized by what happene
d with Sabri and all.” McLeod shrugged. “Maybe she just wants to lock herself away for a while.”

  The phrase “lock herself away” resonated inside Noah. He rose from his chair. “Duncan, you don’t think...” He left it unfinished.

  McLeod looked up at him with a puzzled frown. “Think what?”

  “When I spoke to her yesterday, she was still in bed and it was after 2:00 P.M.,” Haldane said as much to himself as McLeod. “She said she was feeling really run-down.” He pointed his finger at McLeod. “And Duncan she coughed once, too!”

  Both McLeod’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, Christ, Haldane, she wouldn’t!”

  “She would if she thought she was protecting the world.”

  Haldane stood outside the condominium, watching the paramedic smash through the door with a portable battering ram.

  As soon as the hinges gave way and the door burst open, Haldane, McLeod, and the four paramedics all stormed inside. Haldane ran as fast as his HAZMAT suit would allow toward the master bedroom.

  He rushed into the room, but he didn’t see Gwen in the bed. The covers were pulled back and lay in a tangled heap at the foot of the bed. A box of Kleenex sat perched on the pillow. Empty wadded tissues were scattered over the sheets. Some were bloody.

  Through the plastic face shield of his hood, he scanned the room checking the other side of the bed and even sifting through the blankets.

  “Over here!” one of the paramedics called out. “In the bathroom.”

  Haldane pivoted and ran into the bathroom across the corridor. He had to shove his way between the paramedics, made even bulkier by their biohazard suits, to get to her.

  She lay collapsed by the bathtub.

  Her color was gray. Her hair was matted in clumps. She wore off-white pajamas that had bloodstains on the tops. At first Haldane couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead, but then she coughed with a horrible, harsh rattling sound and her whole body shook.

  When he took a closer look at the hand tucked underneath her, he realized it clutched a familiar pill bottle but it was empty.