by Jan Coffey
Abruptly, she turned away from the wall. She didn’t want to feel sorry for them. Fahimah told herself she had no sympathy left in her, not after all the years that they left her to rot in one prison cell after another, left her locked up without ever being charged for any crime. The twisted irony was that Rahaf had never committed any crime, either.
Fahimah had never seen the hallways they’d passed through to get to this room. She looked up at the high ceiling, the whitewashed walls. The door had a small window with some kind of silver glazing that blocked any view of the hallway. She guessed they were probably watching her through it. She looked up. A light bulb dangled from the middle of the ceiling. The cot in the corner had clean sheets, blankets, and a pillow. The room was unlike any cell they had ever locked her in. On the table next to it, a tray of food sat untouched. This was nothing like the food she’d been fed for all these years. It looked like gormeh sabsi, a Persian dish of greens served over rice. The smell made her remember Oxford, of the little restaurant on Cowley Road.
Fahimah hadn’t thought of those days for a long while. It seemed like another lifetime.
The photos came into her mind’s eye again. She’d been told they were only children. She and her sister had suffered when they were that young. After all that had been done to them and to their family, after all that they had witnessed, she’d had many occasions in her life to wish that they had died. The old anger rose up in her, and she hated her inability to stop it. All her life, Fahimah had forced herself not to feel the past, not to care about it. For longer than she’d been held prisoner by these people, she’d taught herself how to be indifferent, not to remember. But the floodgate was bursting open, the pain was rushing in, the memories were all around her. The helplessness was overwhelming, but she couldn’t fight it. The burning in her brain was too much. She couldn’t escape it.
The closest thing within her reach was the tray of food. She pushed it from the table with one sweep of her hand, sending everything flying into the middle of the room. Fahimah listened to the clatter of the metal dishes, eyed the scattered food. There was strength in the release of anger.
She’d put up with imprisonment for five years…and for nothing. They would go back to the university in Baghdad. They would find other professors who would remember her. They would detain and interrogate students who must have graduated by now, but who would be able to help them. They would dig into her personnel files. Fahimah had studied at Oxford. Yes, she had a British accent, for she’d spent nine years of her life in England. She’d always been careful to hide it. Today it had ruined everything. All the American agents had to do now was just ask. They would find her sister. And now, with what was going on in America, the disease caused by the bacteria, they would pin the entire thing on Rahaf.
The bedding was next. She tore the blanket off. The sheets ripped in her thin fingers. Her own strength surprised her. She didn’t know where it came from, but it was there. She upended the mattress, ripped the pillow open using a sharp metallic edge of the cot. Clumps of synthetic foam spewed out. She wanted to find relief in this destruction. But there was no relief. Her anger only escalated.
Enough was enough. She had paid for the non-existent crime that these Americans thought her sister was guilty of. She and Allah were witnesses to the fact that Rahaf had paid a stiff penalty, too. Fahimah couldn’t take it anymore.
The cot was light, and she lifted it and threw it against the door. The loud bang echoed through the room. She looked around wildly, at the chaos she’d created. This should have made her feel better. But it didn’t.
Suddenly, she felt very tired. She crouched against the wall for a moment and caught her breath.
The agents from the US were here to make a deal, to convince her to help them. At least, this was what the one named Newman said. He was clearly in charge. She had to take advantage of that before they were certain of the truth. They had played her. She could do the same.
Fahimah stood and walked to the door. She raised both fists to the small window and hammered on it.
“Why did you have to show those pictures to me? I had nothing to do with it. I hate you. I’m tired of this. Do you hear me?”
She looked over her shoulder at the cot sitting on its side, at the sharp edge sticking out at the corner. She stepped away from the door, jerked at her sleeve and looked at her wrist. With a grim smile, Fahimah looked back at the cot and started toward it.
They must have been waiting just on the other side of the door, for she didn’t have to take more than a couple of steps. There was a click behind her and the door opened. Agent Newman stepped in ahead of two guards.
“Stop right there, Dr. Banaz. We don’t want to do anything stupid, now, do we?”
Eight
Sedona, Arizona
Faas Hanlon climbed out of the helicopter and moved quickly out from under the whirling blades. Two of his top people were waiting for him near three black SUVs parked at the edge of the cliff overlooking Boynton Canyon. Agents were on phones and laptops in each of the vehicles.
The site below was something out of a Steven Spielberg film set. Large silver and white tents covered sections of the canyon. Police tape and ropes had been set up all along the perimeter. Dozens of police cars parked in the vicinity of the resort kept away curiosity seekers. Crime lab trucks and vans were parked everywhere inside the restricted area. The tents hid most of the foot traffic, but the occasional glimpse of people from this view revealed that they were dressed in some kind of protective gear and mask.
“Give me the status, Bea,” Faas demanded of the woman standing beside him.
“We’ve contained the site, sir,” Bea Devera shouted back, pointing out the perimeter. Her Homeland Security jacket flapped in the wind caused by the chopper.
“I can see that. What about casualties?”
The situation was more critical than any disaster they’d encountered as yet in this administration. Every investigative department in the government was working together to figure out exactly what it was that they were facing. The potential damage was unknown, but the speed with which the disease struck was stunning.
“Five confirmed dead so far. The two occupants of the truck, the two police officers who found them, and one jogger who got too close to the scene before our search and rescue teams arrived.”
“Where are the bodies?”
“They just airlifted the last one out of here. The others are en route to our facility in Phoenix.”
Faas looked at the folder Bea held under one arm. “Pictures?”
“They’re not pretty,” she said grimly. She handed him the folder.
Faas looked hard at the photos. The pictures were taken from outside of the truck. A dead police officer, showing early signs of decomposition on his face, was sitting against the door.
“Do we know exactly how fast the bacteria killed?”
“No, we don’t. From the time the police officers called in after finding the bodies in the truck to the time when our people started arriving on the scene was two hours and fifteen minutes. By then, all five were dead.”
“But I was told the officers called in when they realized they were infected.”
“Yes, sir. But we lost contact with them about ninety minutes before arriving on the scene. These canyons do funny things to communication devices. The locals say there’s a vortex here—”
“Two hours to respond,” Faas snapped unhappily. “That’s too slow. These people don’t understand the severity of what we’re facing, yet.”
“They do now, sir,” Bea said in defense. “Most of our equipment and experts were on the East Coast. We were operating under the mistaken premise that the bacteria had been localized to Maine. We had to fly most of these people in from LA. The mobile crime labs came in from Phoenix, but they couldn’t get on the site until the proper protective gear arrived.”
Faas appreciated Devera’s loyalty to her team.
“How about the local emergency re
sponse?” he asked.
“They were instructed not to approach the victims,” the other agent explained. “Local police were tasked with closing the trails and keeping the gawkers away.”
Without divulging specifics, Homeland Security had communicated these instructions overnight to every law enforcement agency across the country.
“Beyond the initial five people, we’re certain that no one else has been infected?” he asked.
Bea exchanged a look with the other agent.
“We can’t say that for certain. We don’t know where the two teenagers in the truck were before stealing the vehicle. We haven’t even been able to positively ID the two,” she explained. “There were a couple of backpacks and wallets in there, but we’re not sure if they’re stolen property, as well.”
Faas turned as a command control van pulled up behind the SUVs. This was a new method of investigating. The agents in charge weren’t being allowed on site.
“As far as our people being infected,” the other agent told him, glancing toward the van, “they seem to have everything under control down there. The protocol we’re following is similar to that for an Ebola outbreak.”
Bea broke in. “Now that the van has arrived, we’ll be directing operations from up here.”
“Maine and now Arizona,” he said aloud. “Any connections between the victims? Any similar places they visited? Things they ate or drank? Anything that ties them together? This folder is empty. I need a lot more.” He handed the manila folder back to Bea.
“As I said, we don’t even have a positive id. Everything has been taken away to the lab. We’re hoping that in a couple of hours we’ll have more to report.”
“Hoping isn’t enough. You’d better be sure that you have a lot to report,” Faas said impatiently. He was frustrated and snapping at his people, not that it made him feel any better.
“Have you been in contact with Agents Newman and Sutton about this?” he asked her, softening his tone.
“Yes, I spoke to Agent Sutton just before you landed.”
He’d spoken to Matt a couple of hours ago. They’d located Dr. Banaz but they didn’t have any information, yet.
Faas noticed a news helicopter had appeared over the canyon. Two military choppers approached the newcomer and the media aircraft swung around and started back the way it came.
“What the hell are they doing here?”
“I’m afraid it’s already out,” Bea said, frowning. “I assumed you knew. The dead jogger took a picture of the truck and bodies with his cell phone and sent it to KPHO in Phoenix. I just heard that they showed it on the air about five minutes ago. It’s just a matter of time before the national media is camped out here.”
Faas squinted his eyes against the bright sun and watched the news chopper disappear behind a distant red rock butte. He had to warn the President. He’d been involved with the decision to keep the news of the disease a secret from the beginning. The shots of the site that this news crew is carrying back wouldn’t help.
Creating mass hysteria had been a primary concern from the start. The President and his advisors had decided that containment, preparation for other outbreaks, and vigilance were the best course of action. Now, having appeared to have contained the disease within each outbreak location, they needed to track the microbe to its source. As far as Faas was concerned, that was exactly what Austyn Newman would accomplish.
Even in handling the potential source of the microbe, however, this president was so different from the last. President Penn’s position was that America’s sometimes justifiable fears about Middle Easterners had been exploited too much for political advantage. Penn felt that immigrants here had suffered enough this past decade. There was enough hatred and prejudice as it was. They didn’t need fingers pointed at them without substantial proof.
Faas understood the president’s sentiments. He was an immigrant himself. His father was Danish, his mother from Curacao. An only child from a broken marriage, he was shipped off to the US to live with a great uncle when he’d been in the sixth grade.
As he’d grown up here, discrimination and prejudice had been immediate and deliberate at school, at the jobs he’d held during high school, and on the playing fields. He was black to some, white to others, a foreigner to all of them. He was smart, spoke English with an accent, worked hard, didn’t break the rules, and that made him an outsider. He was everything other kids didn’t want him to be. It was only when he’d gotten into the Foreign Service program at Georgetown that things had begun to change for him personally.
His youth had prepared him well for life, though. Faas’s position as intelligence chief at Homeland Security dictated that he suspect everyone, and he believed that it would be inexcusable for him to overlook the forest as he searched for the poisoned tree. He had a job to do, and he would do it.
In the president’s desire for secrecy at this point, however, he was entirely supportive. Faas Hanlon was the last person who wanted to be going before news cameras once an hour to tell the American public that they still didn’t know anything.
They’d done a good job so far of keeping the lid on the outbreak in Maine. Sedona, a more wide open area, would be a different story. In the canyon, where the police crews were holding back the crowds, a news van had moved in and was raising its broadcast antenna. Yes, Sedona was going to be a problem.
The cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Faas stepped away from the others and looked at the display. Well, he thought with a sigh, he wouldn’t have to call the president.
John Penn was calling him.
Nine
Brickyard Prison, Afghanistan
“There’s nothing else.” Matt frowned, his fingers flying over the keyboard as his eyes scanned the screen. “This is all duplication. There is virtually nothing about her online, other than occasional references to her as missing.”
“What about the University of Baghdad website?”
“Same thing. The links go to the new websites set up over the past three or four years. Everything took a while to be rebuilt after Saddam’s regime fell and the civil war started. The new sites have nothing we want.” He clicked over the classified intelligence Internet engines. “Look, even the archived web presences going back to ’91 show very little. These are the pages that were in existence during the years she was on the faculty.”
Austyn’s eyes ran over the pages. “How about political science department webpage,” he asked.
“Just her name on the list of faculty. No pictures, no individual pages, nothing.”
“Go to the last year. What shows up on the faculty list?”
“This is it.” Matt clicked back to the main page of the university. There were a few pictures of the buildings and some links to the different departments, but nothing useful. “They were worrying about other things, at this point.”
“Like ‘shock and awe.’” Austyn, looking over his partner’s shoulder, frowned at the screen. “And the Brits had nothing from her time at Oxford?”
“Grades and evaluations. Not a picture, not a fingerprint, nada. We could hunt up roommates and professors, but there’s nothing online.”
“So what you’re saying is that we’re wasting our time looking for Fahimah Banaz on the Net.”
“You got it.” Matt nodded. “She just predates the era of the ‘information superhighway,’ as you old guys liked to call it.”
“Yeah, the Dark Ages,” Austyn retorted.
The younger agent got serious again. “We’ve got people in Baghdad. We can send a couple of them over to the university and have them physically go through what’s left of the old personnel files.”
“Let’s get the ball rolling on that.”
“Also, we could have our field people start some discreet inquiries about Rahaf.”
“If the initial queries turn up nothing, we’ll have to move quickly past the ‘discreet’ part. We don’t have time to waste if she’s out there and behind this.”
�
��If we get nothing right away, we’ll offer rewards for any information about her,” Matt suggested. “If she’s out there, someone will know something. Offer US dollars, and the locals tend to talk.”
“Good.”
Austyn straightened up and moved to the wire reinforced window separating them from Dr. Banaz in the other room. He raised the blinds and looked in at the woman.
He’d had her moved after she’d torn up the other cell. Through the window, they could both see each other. This room was furnished with a cot, as well. And a new tray with food and drinks had been brought in, but she had yet to touch it. Austyn had positioned two female guards inside the room with her. He wouldn’t risk having her hurt herself.
She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, her back against one of the walls. Her eyes were closed. The old blanket was spread across her lap. She was back to her meditation pose. He wondered if she really did have the ability to escape her surroundings mentally. She had to. How else could she have survived and kept her sanity for all these years? If the hole in which he’d found her in was any indication of the type of cells she’d been kept in, it was amazing that she hadn’t tried to take her own life a hundred times.
Inside the room, one of the guards said something to the other. Each room was sound-proofed. Austyn didn’t hear what they said, but he could see that they both were watching the prisoner. It was obvious from their wariness and overt bravado that they were a little afraid of her.
Not a muscle moved on the prisoner’s face. Her hands rested calmly on her knees. She looked to be totally at peace. He was a window shopper when it came to things like meditation. He admired those who could do it. But to him meditation was almost the same as relaxing, and that was something that he lacked in the gene pool. His parents were the same way, and his siblings. No one in his family took vacations. They took on projects.
