The Seventh Plague

by James Rollins

He had been cooped up in the infectious ward at Francis Crick for too long, undergoing treatment, testing, and observation. He was ready for any distraction.

  Behind Kat, Safia ducked her head through the door. “Just coming to check on the patient.” She stepped in, dragging a bouquet of balloons. “Thought you could use a little cheering up.”

  Painter groaned. “I think I’ve had enough of balloons for a while.”

  She smiled. “Then how about an old friend.”

  The door shifted wider, and a tall, broad-shouldered figure with shaggy blond hair and darkly tanned skin stepped into the room.

  Painter smiled. “Omaha Dunn . . .”

  The man grinned, his eyes crinkling. He pulled Safia to his hip as he entered with her. “I leave you with my wife, and you go about almost getting her killed . . . again.”

  Painter shrugged. “What can I say? Someone’s got to put a little excitement in her life.”

  Safia shook her head with a sigh and crossed over to the gathering of cards and gifts, adding her balloons. The group spent the next several minutes filling in the blanks in one another’s lives.

  “So someone actually married you?” Omaha chuckled. “Where’s the unlucky woman?”

  Painter grimaced a little. “Lisa’s holding down the fort back in D.C. She wasn’t too pleased to hear I was joining everyone here at Francis Crick. At this point, the place has practically become Sigma U.K. But she understood. The center here is far ahead of the rest of the world in understanding this pathogen, and after what happened in the Arctic, we need all hands on deck.”

  Safia sat on the edge of his hospital bed. “So how are things up at Ellesmere and Aurora?”

  “Still a mess. At this point there are more microbiologists and infectious disease experts on that island than polar bears. It’ll be a while before we know the full environmental impact of the release of that microbe into the wild by Hartnell. But right now we’re cautiously optimistic. As cold as the Arctic gets, that tropical microbe will not likely find a foothold outside of a warm host.”

  “Then let’s hope the Arctic stays cold.”

  He nodded, reminded that Simon Hartnell’s method for saving the planet might have been misguided, but the goal remained a noble one.

  Omaha nudged Kat. “Now show him his real present.”

  Painter crinkled his brow. “What present?”

  Kat smiled. “We were saving this until you were out of quarantine, so you could hold it in person.” She crossed to her briefcase and snapped it open. She slipped out a clear sleeve protecting a yellowed sheet of paper with faint writing on it. “We found this inside David Livingstone’s crypt, left by a gentleman who apparently was very good at keeping secrets, unlike a certain friend of his.”

  Painter took the fragile-looking letter, holding it gently, especially when he saw the signature at the bottom.

  “This is from Mark Twain,” he murmured.

  Painter remembered the account found in Tesla’s journal, describing events back in 1895, including Twain and Stanley’s trip to the Sudan, following the clues left by Livingstone.

  Curious at this last addition to that story, he read the letter, dated August 20, 1895.

  To the gentlemen and most gentle ladies who read this,

  First of all, shame on you for trespassing upon David Livingstone’s grave and into those sandy tombs where you did not belong, but likewise my heartiest congratulations for your good fortune or good judgment (or both!) that led you to disturb poor Livingstone’s sleep. How fitting that the good doctor is once again available to cure the ills of those who come knocking upon his gravestone here in the abbey. I assure you we’ve left you ample remedy of his most gruesome tincture.

  Be forewarned, however, the treatment comes with some rather enlightening and alarming effects. I myself as a precaution partook of said treatment and during the feverish recuperation of it found myself dreaming sights and sounds that were not my own, but memories of another, the very man whose bones lie before you. I saw blue lakes that my own eyes never set upon, dark jungles my feet never traipsed, and other views both gentle and horrific, including the cruelty of man upon those of darker skin in even darker Africa. Likewise, I felt the passion, as if it were my own, of the same bearer of these memories, his deep devotion to those less fortunate, his pious belief in a God that could love all, his boundless curiosity for what lies beyond the next horizon.

  Now I am certainly a man of words more than a man of science, so do not purport to know more than your average street sweeper when it comes to how the world works. Still, I wish all of mankind could walk in another’s shoes like I did, to truly know another’s soul—if only in a fever dream—what a kinder world it would be.

  So drink deep of the draught before you and appreciate the days that await you, because one day we will all end up here. While there is no escaping death, may we all have done as much with our days as our good Dr. Livingstone.

  Painter smiled at the last sentiment.

  How true.

  From this note, it was clear Twain and Stanley had learned that Livingstone’s mummified body held the cure. He remembered reading of Twain’s account of his time in the Sudan, how he and Stanley had discovered the means if not the actual medicinal tincture inside the tomb. The pair had likely never understood the pathogenesis of this disease or its treatment—any more than the Egyptians or elephants had—but they had learned that the process of mummification was the means and that Livingstone’s body was the actual tincture.

  Painter also suspected the pair must have been aided in this realization by additional clues or knowledge given to Stanley by Livingstone, information that had either been lost or never written down, making later efforts all the more difficult.

  Still, Painter was drawn by one other intriguing part of Twain’s note.

  “Did you notice how he references what he calls fever dreams, hallucinations that he seems convinced were David Livingstone’s memories? Gray and I discussed the possibility of that microbe actually recording details from a person’s life and passing them on.” He turned to Safia. “It sounded like you might have had a similar experience, but unlike Twain—who was dosed with Livingstone’s microbes—you were exposed to the desert mummy’s.”

  Safia shook her head, plainly uncomfortable with this line of inquiry. “I can barely remember now. It’s like trying to remember a dream.”

  Painter nodded. “And I didn’t experience anything of the sort from my treatment.”

  Kat offered an explanation. “It may be because you were dosed with the lab-grown cure, not a natural elixir.”

  “Lab-grown?” Omaha grinned. “In that case, Painter, I’m surprised you didn’t dream of cheese and a spinning wheel in a rat’s cage.”

  Painter ignored him and stared down at the letter in his hand. “Still, it makes you wonder if there’s not more . . .”

  “More what?” Kat asked.

  He shook his head. “Certain details still don’t make sense.”

  Kat frowned. “Like what?”

  “Like why did Professor McCabe circle the seventh plague in his journal?” Painter looked out his window toward the north. “I mean, look what happened up in the Arctic. It was like something right out of the Bible.”

  “I think you’re still feverish,” Kat said. “We know from further interviews with Rory that his father circled it after translating hieroglyphics from an Egyptian stela found near the Sudan dam project, one that described the seventh plague. It was early during his investigation, before the professor vanished into the desert.”

  “Still, what if it was a prophecy of what we experienced in the Arctic?”

  “More likely it was simply an account of a bad storm by an ancient Egyptian meteorologist.” Kat pointed at his chest. “I’m having a doctor recheck your vitals.”

  He scowled at her. “I was just wondering, that’s all.”

  Omaha clapped his palms atop his thighs and stood up. “Life is indeed a wonder, but we
should get going.”

  “He’s right.” Safia scooted over, gave Painter a hug, and whispered in his ear. “Thank you.”

  Omaha was having none of it. “Painter, if you all start kissing, I’m calling your wife.”

  Safia smiled and held Painter’s cheeks between her palms so he could see the sincerity shining in her eyes. “Thank you.”

  “Anytime, Safia, anytime.”

  1:07 P.M.

  As the taxicab crept its way through the congestion of a midday London traffic jam, Safia stared out the window. Omaha sat next to her, holding her hand. She squeezed his fingers, needing his physicality as an anchor.

  Out the window, she watched the bustle of a city she loved—from the local pubs crowded with patrons laughing and finishing their lunches to a lumbering red double-decker bus that grumbled at the traffic ruining its schedule.

  Yet, over it all, another image shimmered.

  Rolling sands burning under a desert sun . . . the golden points of pyramids reflecting those rays into a blinding dazzle . . . the slow line of camels moving along the edge of a dune in a dark silhouette against that blaze . . .

  She gripped Omaha’s hand more tightly. These flashes were growing less and less frequent, so she refrained from talking about them. Still, she knew that wasn’t the only reason for her reticence. Back when the skies had been burning with fire up in the Arctic, she had experienced so much more than she had shared with Kat. She had felt the hundreds of women who had led to that moment, a solemn chain of life, one linking to the next. She experienced, as if it were her own, snatches of their lives, mostly the harsher elements as if that’s what the microbe captured best.

  It grew to be a force, like a wind at her back—pushing her forward.

  Though not as clear as the past, other images had begun to shimmer, glimpses of what might come. She had witnessed the fiery storm above the ice, well before it broke, knew it was coming. And even more dangers lay beyond that one, stacking one upon the other into the future. They were vague, just shadows, storm clouds beyond the horizon. If she had known more, she would have shared them, but she had no details, only fears.

  Knowing what was to come, she was glad there were men like Painter—and all those he led in Sigma—who were willing to face those storm clouds. It was what she had tried to convey to the man back at the hospital.

  Thank you.

  Omaha must have sensed something and drew her closer. “Saf, what’s wrong?”

  She nestled against his warm side. Slowly the shimmering image of burning sands faded, replaced with life’s usual commotion and flurry.

  “Nothing,” she murmured. “Nothing you need worry about.”

  4:24 P.M.

  There’s nothing left.

  Back in Ashwell for the day, Jane stood before the ruins of her family home. The fires had consumed all, leaving nothing but a few charred beams.

  “You can always rebuild,” Derek offered.

  She considered it, but the memories would be too painful. It was time to move on. Her fingers reached back and found Derek’s. After being under quarantine at Francis Crick for the past two weeks, it was good to be out, back in fresh air. Though she truly did not expect to find anything here, she needed to take this pilgrimage, to truly say good-bye to her father.

  “He thought he was bringing out the cure,” Derek reminded her, as if reading her thoughts.

  “But he brought us the plague.”

  Over the past many days, with time on their hands, they had been putting together pieces of her father’s past. What had stung her the most—and still did—was learning of Rory’s part in all this. She still could not bring herself to make contact with her brother, who was incarcerated at a Canadian military prison, pending the fallout from his involvement in events above the Arctic Circle.

  She had also learned of Simon Hartnell, of his manipulation and imprisonment of her father, of his obsession and discovery of a lost Nikola Tesla text that had started this whole chain of events. Her father eventually found the organism described in Tesla’s text and searched for the cure, but it was a herculean task considering the strange recipe.

  She pictured the little elephant pots, which they now knew were sculpted of wood and bark from Mobola plum trees, whose tannins were part of the mummification process in the production of the cure.

  But how could my father have known that?

  The tannins worked only on dormant microbes found in dead bodies; they were not curative on their own, so the bark pots were ignored as useless decoration.

  Likewise, she knew from Rory’s accounting of events that her father had tested the mummy on the throne—the actual cure—but only found microbes that looked identical to the pathogenic variety, as it would have taken a molecular assay to differentiate the two.

  Still, after nearly two years, he had his breakthrough, realizing that the tattoos on the enthroned mummy were ancient Hebrew written with Egyptian glyphs. The story found on her body had offered enough clues for her father to connect mummification to the cure. Not wanting Hartnell to learn the truth, he had left clues for Jane to follow and begun the self-mummification process himself, consuming the bark and following the ritual written on the tattooed woman. He did this for two or three months, prepping his body, then dosed himself with the active microbe stored in the goddess’s stone skull, hoping the bark’s tannin would turn what was toxic into a cure.

  “You came so close,” Jane whispered to the blackened ruins.

  “Still, his failure was as much ours,” Derek said. “He was bringing us the cure. He knew the disease had to kill him in order for the microbes to go dormant and become susceptible to the tannin. Only we opened his skull prematurely, before the transformation was complete, releasing the plague instead of the cure.” He drew her closer. “But he also reached out to you. Near the end, I think he must have realized that Hartnell had co-opted Rory, that your brother was complicit in—”

  “Rory betrayed us all,” she said bitterly. “He stole my father from me, left me thinking they were both dead all this time.”

  “I know.” He turned her to face him. “But Jane, your father knew you’d be able to follow those clues. It was his fallback plan. And he was right. You figured it out.”

  “We did.”

  He lifted a brow. “An archaeologist willing to share credit. Are you sure you’re Harold’s daughter?”

  She smacked him in the shoulder and tugged him down the road. “Let’s get a pint.”

  They headed toward the Bushel and Strike.

  He took her hand. “And, Jane, in the end, your father achieved what he set out to do from the very beginning. He found proof that the Biblical plagues did occur, that the events chronicled in the Book of Exodus were historical, not mere legend or story. His discovery has turned archaeology on its ear.”

  She nodded, taking a small amount of comfort in this fact. She squeezed Derek’s hand in thanks, and they continued in silence for a couple of minutes.

  “Oh, I heard from Noah earlier today,” Derek finally said.

  She glanced to him. “Did he ever find the elephants?”

  “He says no, but I’m not sure I believe him. And he’s certainly not talking about them to anyone.”

  “Good.” She pulled closer to Derek. “They’re better off—”

  A pealing of bells interrupted her, drawing her attention past the pub to the old stone church. Apparently they’d repaired the bell tower, which made her happy. It was a small sign of resilience in the face of all the horrors.

  Faintly she also heard a chorus of voices echoing out the church’s open door.

  She drew Derek across the street, drawn by the music, a haunting hymn full of sorrow and grace. Once they were through the doors, the smell of incense warmed through her. To her right, the choir practiced in the nave. She took Derek in that direction but drew him into a little chapel opposite the century-old pipe organ.

  “What’re we—?”

  “Hush.”
<
br />   She stopped at a pillar. She ran her fingers along an inscription scrawled across the stone. She remembered coming here as a child with her father, using charcoal and paper to rub a copy of this bit of ancient graffiti. It was in Latin, written when the plague struck this village, another reminder of its resilience.

  Praetereo fini tempori in cello pace.

  She whispered the translation to herself, “I pass at death into the peace of Heaven . . .”

  She let her palm rest there, feeling so close to her father at this moment, reminded that not all memories here were bad. A tear rolled down her cheek.

  “Jane?”

  She looked up at Derek, his eyes shining with concern. She pulled him close and kissed him deeply as the chorus sang, as it had for ages.

  But noting the young lovers, the choir stopped and started clapping.

  Blushing and smiling, she pulled back and stared around a church that had stood for centuries, resolute and steadfast against every storm—then finally back to Derek.

  “I want to rebuild my home.”

  EPILOGUE

  ∑

  July 30, 10:13 A.M. EDT

  Takoma Park, Maryland

  Promise me.

  Gray sat at his father’s bedside in the nursing home. Those words had haunted him for weeks after his father first uttered them in this room, but now he understood. He studied his father’s face, noting the broken blood vessels on his nose, remembering the drunken rages he could get into, especially after he lost his leg.

  He was a proud man, brought low by disability and a disability check. Gray’s mother had to continue to work, while his father languished looking after two belligerent sons, who grew only more so with age. It’s your Welsh blood, her mother would excoriate the men in her house after some fight.

  She was wrong about the Welsh part but right about the blood.

  Gray had come to recognize the true source of the friction between father and son. They were too alike, too much of the same blood.

  He continued to study that lined face, the sunken eyes, trying to find that fire. He wished the man would rail again—against him, against the disease that had stripped his mind, against chance, which had taken his leg.