by Bobby Adair
“Let’s do this. Why don’t you spend the morning trying to find out what you can find out? Later today, I need you to get back to tracking the guys with American passports.”
Olivia asked, “Didn’t you just tell me that project was with the CIA now?”
“I’ll get you plugged into their team,” said Eric. “Barry is supporting them now. You’ll be back in a data gathering and analysis role.”
“That works.”
Chapter 10
Olivia sat in her cubicle, catching up on email, drinking her morning coffee, and reading through reports on the Ugandan outbreak. Most of what she turned up told the story of a government overreacting by trying to shut down the eastern half of the country, blocking all access in or out. The ramshackle infrastructure in the rural areas, in need of constant maintenance, foundered when busy hands weren’t immediately on station to put failing components back together again. Information became a luxury, and rumors filled in where facts and exaggerations once held sway. The name Kapchorwa came up again and again, with almost no specifics about what had happened there except for the nearly universal reference to it as the epicenter of an epidemic.
Corroborating stories came out of Western Kenya about outbreaks in small towns like Kitale, Kisumu, and Kakamega. Olivia opened up Google Maps and zoomed in on the border region between Kenya and Uganda. The road from Kapchorwa led east around the base of Mt. Elgon and then southeast into Kitale. Further along that road lay Kakamega and Kisumu. Reports on the number of people affected were mostly dismissed. Nobody believed Ebola could spread so fast. However, one report speculated that a new, much more contagious strain of Ebola could be an explanation for what was happening both in Eastern Uganda and Western Kenya. Then, in a gush of inspired originality, the author named this speculative strain Ebola K.
Olivia nearly spit out her coffee as she laughed, thinking it was a good thing the author of that report hadn’t been around when the first Ebola epidemic killed hundreds in Zaire. He might have labeled the newly discovered disease Ebola Z, a moniker that would drive the fans of the current zombie craze absolutely nuts.
Getting back to business, Nairobi, with three million inhabitants, was in a state of panic. Depending on the source, Olivia found the low estimate for the number of confirmed cases at one hundred and eighteen. The scary number was the count of suspected cases. That number topped five hundred, when just three days prior, there hadn’t been a single one.
She came across a heavily redacted report that had all of the earmarks as having originated with the CIA. The report was mostly concerned with a suspected terrorist affiliate—with a redacted name—who was said to be in the area of Kapchorwa. The terrorist was not confirmed exactly, but a witness with questionable credibility had identified him. Olivia knew the report had to be talking about Najid Almasi, but the thing that piqued her interest was why anybody in Kapchorwa would be able to identify a wealthy Saudi oil heir, who as far as anyone knew, had never been to Kapchorwa before.
The report mentioned an undetermined number of jihadist suspects being tracked out of the country. An addendum to the report ended in Kitale at a local airport. A misplaced passport had been discovered in a hangar according to the report. The name on the scan of the passport was surprisingly not redacted. Olivia cross-checked the name with those on the list she’d been tracking from Pakistan before her unexpected break from work.
They matched.
The ramifications frightened her to the core.
Chapter 11
Barry Middleton wasn’t in his cubicle five minutes by the time he’d made enough muted sounds to alert Olivia to his presence. She came to stand in his doorway.
Barry pointed at an empty spot on the top of his L-shaped desk.
Olivia seated herself there, coffee mug still in hand. “Barry, I need to talk about the project.”
Nodding in understanding, he said, “It’s in the CIA’s hands now.”
“Yeah, I know.” She pointed in the direction of Eric’s office. “I spoke with Eric this morning. He’s going to get me added to the team.”
“Until it’s official—”
Olivia tilted her head forward and looked down her nose. “It will be.”
Barry’s reluctance evaporated immediately.
“Don’t tell me anything you don’t feel comfortable with, okay? At least not until the official word comes down later this morning.”
Barry nodded sheepishly.
“First things first.” Olivia leaned close and said softly, “I came across a report this morning…”
Barry looked at his watch. Normal work hours didn’t start for another hour. He looked back up at her. “What time did you get in?”
“I couldn’t sleep.” Olivia shrugged to let him know it was no big deal. “This report looked like it came from somebody on the ground in Kapchorwa. I think a CIA asset.”
Nodding, Barry said nothing.
“Most of the details were redacted.”
“That’s the way we get ‘em most of the time,” he replied.
“Yeah.” Olivia’s face turned serious. “I’m wondering if there’s any way to contact the asset directly.”
Barry’s expression turned suspicious, and he leaned away.
She reached over and put a hand on Barry’s shoulder. “I don’t want to get anybody in any trouble.”
“The identity of a CIA operative is classified for a reason, Olivia. You know that.” Barry looked around as though a secret agent might be lurking outside his cubicle, ready to do him in.
“I don’t—” Olivia scooted back on the desk and took a moment to think of the right way to tell Barry what she wanted. “Eric has given me some leeway with my work time.”
“For?” Barry asked.
“To find my brother.”
Barry looked down at his lap. “Sorry about your brother.”
“Barry, it’s okay. I—” Olivia choked a little on her words, then quickly regained her composure. “I don’t know if he’s okay or not. But I’d feel better if I could find out. My parents would feel better if they knew. Honestly, my stepmom says my dad is going a little nuts.”
Barry looked up. “I understand, but there’s only so much we can do from here.”
“Without breaking any laws.” Olivia forced a smile to let him know that she was half joking. “The CIA operative was in Kapchorwa. The report made that clear enough. He moved on to Kitale in Kenya and has been making reports along the way. I don’t need to know his name. I just—”
“Want to talk to him?” Barry guessed.
“Yeah,” Olivia admitted. “I guess that is what I want. I just want to message him somehow and ask him about Austin.”
“And with Eastern Uganda turning into a black hole, you think this CIA guy, or girl, is your best chance of finding out about your brother.”
“Yes.”
Shaking his head slowly, Barry said, “You know it’s more than likely this guy still doesn’t know anything about him, right?”
Olivia nodded, though she was pinning her hopes to the possibility of contacting the CIA asset and having him tell her he’d run into Austin, and that Austin was fine. It sounded childishly wishful, even when she thought it through. No way she could ever voice that hope.
Barry looked up at the ceiling and rubbed his chin. He picked up his coffee cup and sipped. He shuffled through the papers on his desk, as if he were looking for something. “Here’s what I think.”
“I’m listening.”
“We can’t do anything to drill down in the data and try to find out who this guy is.” Barry waved his hands to make it clear that option was completely off the table. “We could both get into too much trouble over that, and by trouble, I mean jail time.”
Olivia agreed with a nod.
“If, as you said, the reports tell us the locations from where this operative is contacting Langley,” Barry shrugged, looked around again, and pulled an ambiguous expression across his face, “who’s to say
we don’t come across his phone records accidentally while we’re searching for calls from Najid Almasi? We know Almasi was in the area. That’s how we linked him to Kapchorwa in the first place.”
Shaking her head, Olivia said, “We can’t eavesdrop on CIA calls though.”
“Not saying that,” said Barry. “They’d be encrypted anyway. If we could pin a certain telephone to certain locations in the timeframes that the reports refer to—”
Olivia grinned and asked, “How many satellite phones could be in use in that part of the world in those exact locations?”
Barry asked, “Who’s to say you can’t call the asset up, and just ask him what he knows about Kapchorwa?”
She thought through the pitfalls. “In the spirit of whatever law protects the classified identity of CIA operatives, calling one of them up may be illegal, but technically, I might be in the clear. It may be an exploitable loophole.”
“I’ll dig into the data and let you know what I come up with,” said Barry.
“Okay,” Olivia jumped off the desk, stepped into the doorway, then turned back around. “I won’t beat you up anymore this morning. After Eric gives me the go-ahead, I’ll come back for an update.”
Chapter 12
Still well before regular work hours, Olivia left the building with a smile to the guard who’d seen her come in earlier. Her smile wasn’t real—more of an apology for troubling him to watch her come and go. Olivia was worrying over her morning’s research, specifically about the speculative Ebola K virus. She knew only one person who could tell her for sure whether the author was simply fear mongering or whether it could be something real.
Olivia crossed the near-empty parking lot, unlocked her car with the remote, and settled into the driver’s seat. She took her cell phone out of the console where she kept it during work hours and dialed the number.
After a couple of rings, the voice on the other end said, “Wheeler.”
“Dr. Wheeler,” Olivia started.
“Dr. Wheeler?” he asked. “I thought we’d switched to Mathew already. Or Matt. You know, something social.”
Olivia sighed. “I know you’ve got a pathological need to flirt, Mathew, but I need to ask you some questions if you’ve got time.”
Dr. Wheeler heaved a sigh. “That’s okay. I’m only flirting out of habit. I’m not in the mood for it this morning. Um...not because of you, mind you. I’ll always be happy to flirt with you...it’s just something with work.”
“I know,” said Olivia. “Why are you at work early?”
Dr. Wheeler laughed feebly. “You recall my employer is the CDC, right?”
“Sorry. Too many other things on my mind lately.”
“Like your brother?” Wheeler asked.
“Yes.”
“Last time we talked, you were worried about him. Please tell me he made it out of Uganda before the quarantine.”
“No,” Olivia said, letting too much of her anxiety color her answer.
“Are you in contact with him?”
“He’s missing but—” Olivia cut herself off, not sure what she should say to finish the thought.
After a moment, Dr. Wheeler said, “I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do?”
She let out a sad, short laugh. “You wouldn’t happen to have a medical team in Kapchorwa, would you?”
“No,” said Dr. Wheeler. “I do know the people who know the people who are trying to get into that area. I can get back to you on it.”
“Thank you.” Not at all expecting that, Olivia found herself choked up again with gratitude and a smidgen of hope. “I...uh...thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. I’d say you can thank me by having a drink with me, but even I’m not that much of a heel.” Wheeler laughed a little to let her know he was trying to cheer her up.
“I know.” Olivia took a deep breath to get back to an emotionally level spot. “I’ll take you up on that drink, but I’ll buy. I’ve got other questions to ask.”
“Shoot.”
“I’ve been reading reports all morning—”
“All morning?” Dr. Wheeler laughed. “Most people haven’t had their morning coffee yet.”
Olivia smiled. “I read something that mentioned a new strain of Ebola more contagious than previous strains. The report seemed pretty speculative to me. Do you know anything about that?”
“You’re talking about the strain affecting Eastern Uganda and Western Kenya?”
“And Nairobi,” Olivia added.
“Yes,” confirmed Dr. Wheeler. “We’ve been waiting all night on samples to come in. We’ve got them flying in from both Uganda and Kenya. Samples arrived in the European labs last night. Our plane hit some weather and got delayed. It should be landing in Atlanta any moment.”
“Do you think it is a new strain?” Olivia asked. “What are the chances, I mean, that two different strains of Ebola could hit Africa at the same time?”
Dr. Wheeler drew a long, patient breath. “Actually, pretty good. Viruses mutate all the time.”
“All the time?”
“Viruses are simple, elegant life forms, Olivia. They combine with RNA or DNA in a cell and hijack it for their own purposes. That’s how viruses work. Just the nature of how they replicate opens them up to mutation. Take influenza, for instance. You wouldn’t know it as a layperson, but most of the virions produced when influenza takes over a cell are mutations. Only a small fraction of them are accurate reproductions. Most are useless in terms of how effective they’ll be at attacking and reproducing, but sometimes the mutants are more effective. Sometimes they affect the host in a new way, with new symptoms. Sometimes they transfer from host to host more easily, sometimes they kill the host more efficiently, and sometimes they kill too efficiently.”
“Okay,” Olivia said as an acknowledgement while she waited for Dr. Wheeler to get through the introductory matter.
“The point is, the more people who catch a virus, the more chances the virus has to mutate into a more effective strain. Africa is suffering from the largest Ebola outbreak ever. In a manner of speaking, it’s never been a better time to be an Ebola virus.”
“So the samples you’re waiting for could be from a new strain,” Olivia concluded. “What’s your gut tell you on this one?”
“Just between you and me?” he asked.
“Just between us.”
“If all the reports coming out of East Africa are true, hell, if half the reports coming out of East Africa are true, I’m afraid of what we’ll find in our tests.”
Chapter 13
From the air, Dallas expanded in a gridwork stain across a tan-colored sea of dead, late-summer grass. The pilot, in his pre-landing announcement, told the passengers that the temperature in Dallas was one hundred and four. Salim understood the reason why all the vegetation had withered to desert hues.
The airplane banked into the turn and started the final descent. From his window seat, Salim saw a labyrinth of runways astride six semicircular terminals. He recalled being fascinated the first time he’d seen an airport from above. He’d even been interested in many he’d seen after. Chicago O’Hare—he’d arrived there near midnight—had been particularly beautiful, with its millions of lights twinkling against a black earth.
Mostly, he’d seen too many airports, had too many flights, and awakened too many times to a wrong-colored sky, black when it should have been blue, blue when it should have been dawn. Salim was unstuck in time and place. His circadian clock sent his body messages that contradicted those sent by his eyes. Everything jumbled in his brain. His stomach was roiling. His ability to concentrate was shot. It was hard to focus his eyes when he tried to read his tickets.
Of one thing he was certain: he had an urgency brewing in his bowels.
He looked across the laps of two other passengers and gave a brief thought to climbing over them and running for the restroom at the back of the plane. He couldn’t. The seatbelt light was on. The plane was landing. He had to stay seat
ed or risk arrest by an overzealous sky marshal. He’d never make it to a restroom then.
The plane would be on the ground in two or three minutes; it might still be another fifteen or twenty before it was parked at the terminal. From there, Salim needed to get out of his seat and hustle up the gangway.
Please, let there be a restroom close by.
The diarrhea had been a problem over the past three flights. When it initially hit, Salim had been only an hour into a five-hour flight, and he’d spent a good deal of that flight locked in the restroom. The ordeal had been embarrassing. The other passengers stared at him. Some snickered as he made trip after trip up and down the aisle. He’d disturbed his neighboring passengers with his comings and goings, and he felt sure he’d disturbed the passengers close to the restroom with the unpleasant smells that escaped when the door was open.
Salim’s belly gurgled some more, and cramps followed. He clenched his teeth and closed his eyes as he leaned back in his seat.
“We’ll be down in a second,” the elderly woman said from the seat beside his.
He smiled politely and nodded.
“Do you live in Dallas?” she asked.
Salim had been chatted up by how many passengers now? He didn’t understand why it was getting hard to keep his thoughts straight. “Just visiting,” he said.
“You live in Chicago?”
That’s where the flight originated. But he didn’t know anything about Chicago. To tell the lie that he lived there might put him at risk of being exposed for what he was.
The airplane bounced through some turbulent air, and the seatbelt tugged across Salim’s lap. He winced. “I’m from Denver. I’m visiting my cousin in Dallas.” That was the briefest version of his story. Why was this woman talking to him now? She’d been silent the entire flight.
“Denver to Dallas via Chicago?” The woman smiled. “I hope you saved a lot of money on that flight.”
Without consciously choosing to, Salim rubbed a hand over his aching forehead as he tried to dredge up the best part of his lie, the one he’d picked up from a frequent flier on an early leg of his journey. “I’m on a mileage run.”
