Containment

by Hank Parker

  “I’ve got some bad news,” Cothran said. “Our captive escaped.”

  Mariah gasped. “What happened?”

  “A guard claimed that a couple of guys overpowered him in the night and took the keys. Had a nasty bump on the head to show for it and was unconscious when his relief reported at 0400. We’ve got to assume that whoever released the guy has the virus. The microbiology team from Manila couldn’t find any virus stocks in the jungle lab. Could be that our Omar fugitive is involved. Still no sign of that guy.”

  “Think they’ll try to hook up with the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas?” Mariah asked. “Near that jungle hideout?”

  “They’ll know we’ll be keeping a close eye on that group,” said Cothran. “My guess is they’ll try to leave the country. Doubt they’ll risk a flight. They’ll assume we’re watching all the airports in the Philippines. They’ll probably try to exit by the back door.” He walked over to a map on the wall, pointed to the northern tip of a large island west of the Philippines, and ran his finger along the waters to the east of the island. “Through Sabah—Malaysian Borneo. A key smuggling route to and from the Philippines and a watery highway for contraband. Not to mention terrorists.”

  Mariah scrutinized the map. “Sabah’s not far from Jolo,” she said.

  Alvarez nodded. “Even closer to western Sulu.” He pointed to a group of islands in the western Philippines. “They’ll probably try to cross by boat from this area. We do have some assets there, but there’s a lot of ocean to watch.”

  “If they get to Borneo with the virus, how hard would it be to intercept them then?” Curt asked.

  “Damn near impossible,” said Cothran. “They could easily make it into Indonesia. And there you’re talking hundreds of small islands. Thousands of boats. A lot of regional airports.”

  “September eleventh is only a few days away,” said Curt. “Doubt that they’re targeting Indonesia. Any way to put a hold on international flights out of that country?”

  “We thought of that,” said Cothran. “We approached the Indonesian government about grounding flights out of Jakarta. They refused. I don’t blame them. We couldn’t give them any specifics—only that we suspected that terrorists might be trying to board flights. And it’s not even guaranteed that they’d fly out of Jakarta. A bunch of airports in Indonesia—even Borneo—have flights to other Southeast Asia destinations. Or they could cross the Straits of Malacca on the water. It would be a quick trip in a high-powered smuggling boat. We’ll have people at all the obvious departure points watching closely, but we’re talking a lot of islands, airports, harbors. At this point, our best option is to try to keep them from getting to Borneo in the first place.”

  “How do we do that?” asked Curt. “You said yourself there’s a lot of ocean to watch.”

  Alvarez let his finger rest on a small island just east of Borneo. “Right,” he said, “but the quickest navigable route goes past this island—Sibutu. You can see how close it is to Sabah. You guys might be able to intercept them in that area.”

  Mariah saw that Cothran was looking directly at Curt and her. “No time to mobilize the task force,” he was saying. “And we’ll need your microbiology expertise.”

  Mariah’s first reaction was that finally, someone wasn’t telling her that she’d have to stay behind because a mission might be dangerous. She knew Curt wouldn’t object to her going. And she sure wouldn’t let him go without her. But everyone else always seemed to want to protect her. On the other hand, she admitted to herself that she was exhausted from everything that had happened over the past few days. She’d do all she could to overcome that exhaustion, but she hoped that she’d be able to pull her weight and deal with the stress that had been eating at her. The last thing she wanted was to hamper Curt or jeopardize the mission.

  As she struggled with her feelings there was a knock on the conference room door.

  Cothran rose, with a smile on his face, and headed toward the door. “Looks like your teammate is here,” he said. He opened the door and Angus Friedman walked through.

  Mariah watched as Curt quickly stood and Angus rushed over, almost running, arms outstretched. Without speaking, the two men hugged each other.

  Cothran moved next to Mariah and spoke quietly. “Curt’s his father,” he said. “Angus has known it for a while, was planning to tell Curt, but didn’t get the chance before he was captured. So I told Curt just before the meeting this morning. Turns out he’d already suspected it.”

  Mariah tried to hold back tears, then gave in, letting them flow. She could see that Angus was crying too. Now Curt had his hands on his son’s shoulders and was looking at him as if seeing him for the first time, saying something in a low voice.

  Cothran finally cleared his throat. “Don’t want to interrupt,” he said, “but we’ve got a tight schedule.”

  “Could we just hear a little about what Angus has been through?” asked Curt.

  “We’ll be thoroughly debriefing him later,” said Cothran. “But I’ll let Angus give you a quick overview.”

  Angus nodded and began to speak, directing his remarks mostly to his father. “My fault completely,” he said. “I went out for a walk after dinner that night in Manila. Wasn’t paying attention and got kidnapped. The guys who caught me turned me over to another group. That’s when it got a little rough. Bottom line is, they broke me.” He paused and looked down at the floor. Everyone waited for him to continue.

  “They know who I work for,” Angus finally said. “They know about our mission.” He raised his head and looked at Curt. “And, Dad, they know about you and me.” He lowered his head again.

  Curt moved toward Angus, placed his hands back on his shoulders, and looked directly at him. “It’s okay,” he said. “The important thing is you’re safe now.”

  After several moments, Cothran spoke again. “Angus will accompany us to Sibutu,” he said. “I’ll fly us down. We need to take off quickly. Can you all be ready to leave in a half hour?”

  * * *

  That afternoon a single-engine, four-passenger Beechcraft Bonanza banked over the island of Sibutu, leveled off, and homed in on a grassy runway surrounded by palm trees. Cothran was piloting the plane. On their way to Sibutu, they’d explored the southern reaches of the Sulu Sea, looking for suspicious watercraft, but they’d only seen local fishing boats.

  Cothran gripped the wheel in both hands and focused on the landing surface. “Be ready for a bumpy landing,” he said to the others. “I’m not sure how long it’s been since a plane has come in here.”

  Mariah cinched up her seat belt. Curt had praised Cothran’s flying abilities as they’d walked back to their huts together to pack their duffels. He’d told her that the plane belonged to the task force in Jolo and that they used it for scouting missions, which meant it should be well maintained. Plus, Cothran had raved about the plane’s performance and three-hundred-horsepower engine. But the runway, bordered all around by palm trees, looked pretty damn small to her. She glanced back at Angus, who was sitting just behind her, clutching the arms of his seat. He caught her eye and smiled.

  “I think we’d have been better off with a helicopter,” he said, motioning down toward the landing strip. “But at least it’s a short taxi to the terminal.”

  “I don’t see any terminal,” said Mariah. She turned to the front and watched the approach.

  The plane skimmed over the tops of the trees and dropped quickly toward the runway. Just before the wheels touched down, Mariah heard the engine rev up, and the plane bounced hard along the rough coral surface. Clenching her teeth to keep from biting her tongue, she focused on the line of palm trees on the far end of the airstrip.

  The Beechcraft rapidly decelerated and came to a halt mere feet from the end of the runway. When Mariah finally unclenched her muscles and looked around, Cothran was calmly taxiing toward a small building on the edge of the
field where a man in a bush hat was waving. They came to a stop and disembarked. The man approached, hand outstretched. “Welcome to Sibutu,” he said. “Ryan Maloney. Kind of the jack of all trades around here.”

  They all shook the man’s hand and introduced themselves.

  “Kennedy, huh?” said Maloney, sizing Curt up. “Good Irish name. You’ve probably got some priests in your ancestry. Or maybe drunks. Most likely both.” And at this he erupted into laughter, a loud bray that elicited chuckles from the others. “I can say that,” he said. “I’m an ex-priest myself. Caretaker here now. Here, let me help you with your bags.”

  Maloney led the way to a battered jeep. They piled in, and he drove toward a complex of buildings several hundred yards from the runway.

  “So what’s the deal with this place?” asked Angus. “A school, right?”

  Maloney nodded. “School’s been here for decades,” he said. “The original plan was that it would help convert the islanders to Catholicism. As you’ve probably heard, most of the people down here are Muslims—or animists. We didn’t convert too many. These days we focus on offering a well-rounded education. And we keep pretty low-key about religion.”

  “Catholics are targets now, right?” said Angus.

  “At least in some circles,” said Maloney. “You might have heard that a priest in Sibutu was murdered by Abu Sayyaf a few years back.” He stopped the jeep next to a long, one-story wooden building that looked like army barracks. “Here’s where you’ll be staying.” He pointed to an adjacent building. “Mess hall. Dinner’s at six. There’s drinks and snacks there if you want something now.”

  They walked up a short flight of steps to a covered porch. Maloney opened a door, revealing a clean but Spartan room containing a bed, simple dresser, wooden straight-backed chair, small plain table, and a wardrobe in one corner. “Bathroom’s over there,” he said, pointing toward a small door at the far end of the room. “There are several rooms in this building. All made up for guests. Sort them out however you’d like.”

  When their host left, Cothran turned to the others. “Character, huh?”

  “Is he connected to the task force?” asked Mariah.

  “Sort of. He’s lived in this part of Sulu since the eighties. It’s kind of a backwater with very few Westerners, but it’s strategically important. And of course, the area’s an Abu Sayyaf stronghold. After 9/11, the CIA tapped him to keep his eyes open and report what he saw. He agreed. Believes that fundamentalist Islamic fanaticism is a global threat to Christianity.”

  “So he’s going to work with us?” asked Angus.

  “Indirectly,” said Cothran. “He’s loaning us an inflatable boat. Good engine—pretty fast. Actually, we bought it for him.” He glanced at his watch. “Let’s plan to meet for dinner at six p.m. and then get some sleep. We’ll head out early tomorrow—to a small island with a good view.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  SEPTEMBER 6 (SEPTEMBER 7, PHILIPPINES TIME)

  NEAR SIBUTU ISLAND, PHILIPPINES

  In the predawn darkness, Mariah sat cross-legged on the beach of an uninhabited palm-treed island. Curt, Angus, and Cothran sat beside her, binoculars to their eyes. They’d arrived an hour earlier after a rough ride in choppy seas on Maloney’s motorized inflatable boat. From their vantage point they could see the coast of Malaysian Borneo, a few miles to the west. Cothran had picked this spot, reasoning that the old smuggling route ran by this island. Because they were on the lee side, he’d said, chances were that any boat making the passage would pass by this shore.

  There was a fresh, chilly breeze and Mariah was glad she’d worn a Windbreaker. She saw that Angus was wearing a fleece vest and that Curt had on the task force hat that Alvarez had given him. She stretched out her legs in the sand to keep her feet from going to sleep. Periodically, she scanned the horizon with her binoculars. Curt had taught her to take frequent breaks when using them and to never stare at one place for long, but she didn’t expect to see anything yet. Cothran had said that any boat trying to avoid detection wouldn’t use lights, and that they’d have better luck when the sun started to come up.

  “Heard you were involved with Machupo,” Mariah said to Cothran, partly to keep from dozing off and partly because she loved to talk about epidemiology.

  Cothran nodded. “In Ecuador in the nineties,” he said. “Know much about the virus?”

  “Bolivian hemorrhagic fever,” said Mariah.

  “Right. Killed a fifth of the Achuar tribal people in one area before we could contain it.”

  “Nasty disease,” said Mariah.

  Cothran nodded again. “Patients bleed out all over—even through the pores of their skin.” He scanned the horizon again with his binoculars. “Of course, Machupo was well known from Bolivia,” he said. “Carried by the vesper mouse. Then CDC started hearing about a similar disease in Ecuador. They sent me down to check it out, and I confirmed Machupo. Never known from there before and vesper mice don’t live in that area. We never found a local animal host. Best guess is a visitor brought it in. And it’s easily spread from person to person. When it comes to contagious diseases, it’s a pretty small world.”

  Mariah knew what he meant, had thought the same thing many times during her work back home at the Barn. The most remote places on earth were now readily accessible to visitors from far away, and those visitors didn’t arrive alone. They brought diseases—plagues and poxes previously unknown in remote areas and for which the local populations had no natural immunity. The result was often catastrophic. Almost overnight an indigenous group—of people or animals—that, over millennia, had adapted to and successfully coexisted in a seemingly hostile environment of predators and pathogens, could be virtually wiped out. But Mariah also realized that at the same time, many of the most dangerous emerging diseases in the world had their origins in isolated, sparsely populated areas like the surroundings of a distant jungle village. The few human beings who did live in such places often did so without apparent susceptibility to the deadly viruses that lurked around them, viruses that resided in sometimes unknown species that inhabited the deepest recesses of rain forests or caves. Then disturbance from the outside, in the form of travelers or settlers from faraway places, could unleash these dangerous pathogens and provide an abundant and vulnerable new host in which they could explosively replicate. When the visitors returned to their homelands they brought the new diseases with them, diseases for which their own countrymen had no defenses. These were the variables that powered the work of people like Cothran. Mariah felt like she understood him. She was glad he was on their team.

  The sky was lightening, and just as she lifted her binoculars to her eyes Angus pointed at the horizon.

  “Something there,” he said.

  Mariah zeroed in through her lenses. A dark object, moving slowly on the lagoon’s whitecapped water. A small white triangle projecting above it. “Looks like a sailboat,” she said.

  “A vinta,” said Cothran, peering through his own binoculars. “Small outrigger canoe. Carrying Badjaos—Sea Gypsies. They spend their entire lives on those boats. Tough life.”

  “So they never go ashore?” asked Angus.

  “They believe that if they even set foot on land, they’ll get sick and die. Badjaos can put up with some pretty horrendous conditions at sea. But lately some of them have started to leave their boats.” Cothran pointed to a small wooden shack on pilings on the outer reef. “That may be one of their huts,” he said.

  Mariah focused her binoculars on the structure. “It looks pretty well built,” she said. “I think I see bamboo siding and some serious posts beneath it. Are they usually so sturdy-looking?”

  Cothran stared through his binoculars. “You’re right,” he said. “No way that’s a Badjao hut. Too well built. Listen.”

  Mariah heard the putt-putt-putt of a boat engine echoing across the lagoon. Seconds later, a long,
narrow outrigger canoe came into view.

  “Pamboat,” said Cothran.

  “I read about those things,” said Angus. “Main means of transportation around here. They don’t look too seaworthy to me.”

  “You’d be surprised,” said Cothran. “They’re pretty stable with those outriggers.”

  Mariah watched closely as the pamboat headed toward the hut. She made out only one person, the boat operator, a short, round man wearing an old T-shirt and ball cap. But then she saw a second person emerge from the hut, dressed in a light jacket and slacks. He was holding a rectangular black object that looked like a briefcase and he seemed to be waving at the boat. The man and his bag looked out of place in the surroundings.

  “Looks like our fugitive. Omar,” said Cothran, staring through his binoculars. “Guy in the boat must be a local. Probably hired to take Omar to Sabah.”

  Mariah realized they’d have to act fast. In minutes, the boat would rendezvous at the hut and Omar would slip aboard. Not long afterward, he’d be in Sabah and it would be virtually impossible to find him again before it was too late. She watched Cothran pull a handheld radio from the side pocket of his jacket, extend the antenna, press the talk button, and speak quietly into the transceiver.

  “Helicopter’s temporarily grounded,” said the garbled voice on the other end. “Took a bit of a beating in a storm on the flight back from Manila. We’re repairing it, but it’ll be a few more hours.”

  “What about a boat?” said Cothran.

  “If we sent one from Jolo, they wouldn’t get there until tonight. Your best bet is to wait for the helo.”

  “Roger, wait one,” replied Cothran. He turned to the others. “Guess you heard that.”

  Angus had risen to his feet. “So it’s up to us,” he said. “Let’s get moving.”

  “Hold on a sec,” said Cothran. He spoke again into the radio. “We can’t wait,” he said. “We’ll proceed on our own. I’ll keep in touch.” Without waiting for a reply, he turned to the others on the beach. “Angus is right,” he said. “We need to move quickly.” As they all stood and moved toward the inflatable, Mariah pointed to the hut where the man on the hut platform descended a short ladder and stepped into the arriving boat, case clutched in his right hand. The boat took off and powered toward the reef entrance.