by Ken McClure
Tally sighed and said, ‘I can’t say things are going wonderfully well for me either. Monique is a bright girl and she’s adamant the vaccine killed several members of her friends and family.’
‘I know she maintains they were perfectly healthy when they got the vaccine, but it could have been a close-run thing; they could have been incubating the disease at the time and it had just gone a bit too far for the vaccine to work.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Tally after some hesitation. ‘That would be the simplest explanation.’
‘Then go for it.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Take a day off,’ said Steven, ‘head for a beach, take a long walk.’
Thoughts of Phillipe Lagarde decided to accompany Steven on his south coast beach walk. On the face of it, it seemed a bizarre coincidence that his name should crop up in connection with Ebola vaccination in DRC in Tally’s neck of the woods, but the more he thought about it, the more unsurprising it became. Whatever else the man became involved in, he was working as a WHO vaccination strategist in DRC at a time when Ebola was rampaging through the country. He remembered reading that in the impromptu CV that Jean had composed for him a few weeks ago and feeling admiration for the man. He’d gone from the hell of fighting one disease in DRC to combating another, Polio, in the towering mountain passes between Pakistan and Afghanistan. But then, came his murder and the news from the intelligence people that Lagarde was implicated in the infiltration of major aid agencies by organised crime. He might be dead, thought Steven, but he had ruined an otherwise decent beach walk.
Tally decided to drive over to the regional aid headquarters for Equateur Province to see if she could get some clear indication of what was happening in Kivu as none of her nearest fellow area managers seemed to know. She arrived to find that Marcus Altman, the WHO regional manager was currently travelling round Equateur to make sure that they really were clear of the disease and wasn’t expected back for three days. She explained that she was seeking information about the situation in the north and was met with shrugs and apologies. One Red Cross man said, ‘It’s every bit as bad as we thought: the last reliable figure we had was 130 deaths around the city of Beni and people were fleeing south.’
A familiar voice said, ‘Hi.’ And Tally turned to find Hans Weber, Altman’s assistant and the young man who, along with Mary Kelly, the MSF nurse, had escorted her through her first few days in DRC.
‘Hello, nice to see you,’ said Tally. ‘You’re not out on the road with Marcus?’
‘No, I stayed to look after the next batch of vaccine due in today. Was there something you needed?’
Tally shook her head, ‘No, I was looking for information about what’s happening up in Kivu. I heard the outbreak was being contained, then I heard it wasn’t, then someone said it was spreading at an alarming rate.’
‘It’s incredibly difficult to get information out of what’s virtually a war zone,’ said Weber. People are afraid of the disease, but they’re also afraid of the rebels. On top of that they’re afraid of foreigners coming into their lives and doing things they don’t understand so they start doing things like hiding their dead.’
Tally’s eyes opened wide.
‘They’ve heard tales of foreigners – us – coming in and taking away loved ones and burning them so they hide them and, of course, end up infecting themselves. If time is not on your side and people don’t speak the same language, there’s a complete lack of communication and people doing what is exactly the right thing to do can look absolutely dreadful.’
‘Of course.’
‘Many are fleeing – or trying to flee but many will be killed by rebel groups if they come across them. If they make it to the south, people there don’t want anything to do with them and some have started fleeing themselves, alarmed by the rumours of mass invasion from the north. The mines are grinding to a halt as the miners decide it’s not worth putting their lives at risk by hanging around.’
‘You said rumours of a mass invasion, do really you think that’s likely?’
‘No one can say for sure. Perhaps rumours are worse than reality. The government school of thought is that the outbreak will be over within three to four months.’
‘So, the bottom line is that no one knows?’
‘Correct.’
‘There was one thing I wanted to ask Marcus about, perhaps you can help me. The official WHO report on the big outbreak in 14-16 said that no one died through use of the experimental vaccine.’
‘That’s right,’ said Weber. ‘It’s the same one we’re still using.’
Tally adopted a pained expression. ‘It’s just that Monique Barbet, the teacher in the village you took me too when I first arrived, is sure that the vaccine was responsible for the deaths of several friends and members of her family.’
‘How did they die?’
‘Ebola.’
‘I think that is your answer. They must have been in the early stages of the disease when they were given it, too late for the vaccine to be of any use.’
‘Mm, that’s what I thought, but she doesn’t think so. All things considered, I think you have to be right,’ Tally agreed.
‘I don’t think Monique likes us very much;’ said Weber, ‘it’s something we all have to get used to. We come to places of great danger to help, do the best we can and the people end up hating us.’
‘As if life wasn’t hard enough,’ sighed Tally. She drove back to her ‘area’ home, thinking about her day and feeling distinctly uneasy about what was happening to her life in general. She re-visited her feelings of guilt over having had such a comfortable, trouble-free life and remembered persuading herself that she needed exposure to some of the raw realities of life experienced by medical colleagues she would normally never meet. She had volunteered to join them to do what she could and she had, but now she felt the ground move beneath her feet. The anchors of stability she had taken so much for granted were disappearing and it wasn’t a comfortable feeling. At home, Steven was engaged in an investigation that had clearly put him into great danger – bad enough for him not to want to talk about it, although he had admitted violence had been involved – and she herself was in a country where no one knew exactly what was going to happen tomorrow.
According to some, Ebola was running riot across a large province in the north, a place infested by warlords and bandits. People were reportedly fleeing while the government, on the other hand were suggesting that things were coming under control and all would be well in a matter of months. Realists or cynics, according to your point of view, construed this as an attempt to stabilise economic interests by keeping mineral mining operational – possibly an unsuccessful gambit as there were stories of miners getting out fast, fearing an invasion of disease-carrying people from the north.
On a smaller scale, she was faced with keeping her promise to Monique Barbet about going back to her village to tell her anything she found out about the vaccine used for her family, if only to tell her that she must have been mistaken about her family’s state of health at the time. She suspected that Monique would dismiss her as ‘one of them’ and that would be an end to it.
The really troubling thing for Tally was that Monique was a very intelligent woman who had seen Ebola before and would be familiar with its stages of development . . . and, of course, she herself had recently learned that the man in charge of carrying out vaccination at the time in Monique’s village was one of the murdered people in Steven’s investigation. She couldn’t quite see why this could possibly have any connection to adverse effects of the vaccine on Monique’s family, but the information was there and it wasn’t going to go away. Rather than have this niggle away at her any more, Tally decided to drive straight on to Monique’s village and get it over with.
On the previous two occasions, Tally had found Monique teaching the village children outside the hut that served as the school. This time both the playground and school were empty when T
ally parked the Land Rover and got out, but she had to concede that it was much later in the day than last time. She started walking around the village, hoping to meet someone to ask where Monique lived, but people tended to turn away when they caught sight of her, apparently remembering that there was something else that needed their immediate attention. It was an unpleasant feeling; Tally could see what Weber had meant about being hated. She was wondering what to do when she noticed two children playing outside one of the huts and walked towards them. To her relief they recognised her and smiled.
‘Monique?’ she asked.
They shook their heads slowly, but Tally tried again and this time one of them pointed to a large hut, standing on its own about fifty metres away. Tally smiled and thanked the children just as their mother appeared and shushed them inside without acknowledging Tally.
Tally tried telling herself that being totally rejected by society should be seen as a new experience and added to her list of new experiences, but it didn’t work. She felt awful. It took all her resolve to steel herself and approach the hut entrance, calling out, ‘Monique . . . Monique . . . it’s me, Tally.’
She was about to give up and turn away when Monique appeared in the entrance; her expression was neutral.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Tally, ‘I had hoped we could be friends, but it seems not. I promised I would come back and tell you what I could find out about the vaccination of your family and that’s why I’m here. ‘The official position is that no one suffered any serious side effect from the vaccine, which was experimental, but it’s the same one being used right now and it seems very safe and effective. Everyone is sorry about the deaths of your family and friends, but they say they must have been incubating the disease when they were vaccinated.’
‘That’s what you said last time,’ said Monique.
‘Yes, but I checked everything out thoroughly. It’s the only logical explanation. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s a lie.’
‘That’s what you said last time,’ said Tally, having difficulty keeping the anger she felt out of her voice. Why do you keep saying that?’
‘They contracted Ebola three weeks after being vaccinated.’
Tally was shocked. Her face muscles struggled to find an appropriate expression. There was something very wrong here. If the people had been incubating the disease at the time of vaccination, the vaccine wouldn’t have saved them and they would have gone on to develop the disease within a few days . . . not three weeks . . . definitely not three weeks.’
‘Yes,’ said Monique, ‘The aid team came back after three weeks to check that there had been no problem with the vaccine – they said they wanted to keep an eye on things. My friends and family all assured him that they felt fine and thanked the volunteers for protecting them.’ Monique snorted at the memory. ‘They all developed Ebola by the end of the week.’
‘This sounds crazy,’ said Tally, searching for an explanation. ‘Did the aid people give your family a second dose of vaccine when they came back?
‘No,’ said Monique.
‘You’re sure?’
‘Absolutely, they just asked everyone if they were feeling all right, no side-effects, no pain, no sickness.’
‘And Voila they all got Ebola,’ Tally murmured.
‘I think you should go now,’ said Monique, beginning to look nervous. ‘My people won’t trust me if they see me talking to you all the time.’
‘Understood,’ said Tally. ‘but this isn’t over.’
FIFTEEN
The phone rang and Steven opened his eyes to see 2.57 a.m. on his bedside clock. The phone screen told him it was John Macmillan.
‘Big trouble, Steven, you’re not going to believe this, but we’ve got a case of Marburg disease on our hands.’
Steven was suddenly very awake.
‘A man has been admitted to the Royal Free Hospital with all the signs of Marburg; he works at Porton Down.’
‘My God, was he working with the virus?’
‘He’s not a scientist,’ Macmillan replied, ‘he’s an electrician on the maintenance staff; the last job he worked on was in the lab where they opened Petrov’s flask.’
‘But there can’t be a connection,’ Steven protested, ‘the contents were harmless.’
‘That’s what Porton say too.’
‘What was he doing there?’
‘There was a problem with the radio link between the lab and the viewing gallery.’
‘That’s right, it didn’t work.’
‘He was sent to find the fault. He did and repaired it, but next day, he reported feeling unwell when he was working on something else. Luckily, he wasn’t sent home. Porton has a set procedure for any member of staff falling ill: they automatically assume possible contact with something nasty and keep the patient isolated on the premises until a proper diagnosis is made. Usually it’s just colds and flu and stomach upsets like everywhere else, but occasionally it can be the real deal and, considering what they work on at Porton, this always triggers a full-scale alert and establishing exactly what happened becomes an immediate top priority, as in this case.’
‘Have they done that yet?’ Steven asked.
‘No, not yet.’
‘Not good,’ said Steven. ‘Surely they must know every job the man has been working on in the past week or so and where he might have been exposed to the virus?’
‘He’s been on holiday,’ said Macmillan. Carrying out the repair to the intercom was the first job he’d been assigned to since coming back.’
‘Crazy, crazy, crazy,’ murmured Steven. ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that he was on holiday in central Africa?’
‘Costa del Sol in Spain, like thousands of other Brits.’
‘His wife and family?’
‘Thankfully all well, he was at work when he started to feel ill.’
‘A blessing.’
Steven tried a recap of events. ‘We gather in a high security lab, with the scientists taking every conceivable precaution against possible exposure to any deadly microorganism in Petrov’s flask or any vapour arising from a concentrated hallucinogen and they find it contains nothing more dangerous than salt water. The next day an electrician goes into the lab to fix the intercom and comes down with one of the most hellish diseases on earth, Marburg disease. How?’
‘Is the question everyone is asking.’
‘Are they asking if the scientists who opened the flask could have missed something?’ Steven asked.
‘I think we both know that Porton scientists don’t make that kind of mistake,’ said Macmillan, ‘although it was the elephant in the room for a very short time until they themselves insisted that the contents of the flask be examined again by fellow scientists who agreed, of course, that it was salt water and nothing else.’
‘Good,’ said Steven. ‘I suppose they have stocks of Marburg virus at Porton?’
‘That would be a question they wouldn’t answer if past experience is anything to go by. It’s a very secretive place – as our first line of defence against biological attack, it has to be. What’s on your mind?’
‘If they carry out nucleic acid sequencing of the virus the electrician has gone down with and find out what strain it is, there’s a good chance they should be able to tell us where it came from,’ said Steven, ‘whether it’s one of Porton’s own strains . . . or a Russian one . . . or one from CDC Atlanta . . . or a new one altogether.’
‘I suspect they may already be doing that,’ said Macmillan acidly.
‘Of course, they are,’ said Steven, feeling embarrassed. ‘Sorry, this has put me a bit on edge. Do you know anything about the condition of the electrician –Damn, I hate calling him that, do you know his name?’
‘Tom, Tom Harland, age 37, married to Chloe, two daughters, nine and seven. He’s very ill, but probably in the best hospital in the UK to treat him.’
‘Good luck, Tom,’ murmured Steven.
‘I’ll let you know when I hear mor
e.’
Steven let his head fall back on the pillow although going back to sleep was out of the question. Instead, he looked up at shadows on the ceiling while running through every expletive he could think of to describe the situation.
The situation was to get worse
At ten o’clock next morning, Chloe Harland watched her husband die in the Royal Free Hospital. He was in a transparent isolation tent with two nurses wearing full bio-safety gear doing their best to keep him as comfortable as possible on a journey they were praying would end soon. Chloe had never felt so helpless or lonely. She had been obliged to put on full safety gear too, but her plea that she be allowed to hold her husband’s hand and at least say good bye to him had been declined. She was standing about three metres away from him but it could have been a million miles.
Chloe had lost track of time. She had rushed to the hospital as soon as she’d got the phone call suggesting she should come in, leaving her mother, who had come to stay for the duration of the crisis to look after the children. Everything had been done in such a hurry: there had been no time for the multitude of questions going around in her head. She had been helped into safety gear and a visor by nurses whose total attention was given over to making sure that everything fitted properly and all gaps were sealed before ushering her into the isolation suite where she could watch proceedings, separated from an inner tent by plastic. It was transparent but such a tangible barrier.
The change that had come over her family circumstances in the past few days had been so dramatic that she had difficulty in accepting any of it as being remotely possible. The awful writhing figure she could see through the transparent screen could not really be her Tom, the man who a few short days ago had been laughing and splashing about in the Mediterranean in the Spanish sunshine with their daughters while she took pictures on her phone to send to Granny and Grandad. Her Tom was fit and well, joking, smiling, his body showing the tan that two weeks in Spain had given him as he swept Janey, their youngest up into his arms and then took Ella, her sister, by the hand to walk up the beach towards her. She could see them, she could see them, she could see them . . . The . . . thing in the bed wasn’t Tom, it was something from a horror movie . . .Oh God, how could she think that? Oh God, make it stop, make it all stop . . .’
