Plague

by H W Buzz Bernard

  Richard studied the notes he’d made. He’d circled several to separate them from his doodles.

  “So, you’re telling me BioDawn could be doing a Lewis and Clark routine, putzing around with plague or smallpox, searching for safe, effective vaccines? Shouldn’t an army lab be doing this?”

  Landry looked at his watch and stood. “Well, I need to be on my way,” he said. “I want to assure you there’s nothing nefarious about this project, Mr. Wainwright, but it’s nothing that needs to be talked about, either. Loose lips...” He held his forefinger to his mouth and flashed a cold, reptilian smile, something akin to an alligator clacking its teeth in warning.

  Richard hated to admit defeat, especially on home ground, but he knew he’d learned as much from Landry as he ever would. Virtually nothing. “Ms. Mierczak will see you out,” he said. “Thanks for your time.”

  He reached across his desk and shook Landry’s hand. As he did so, his gaze fell again on his rank insignia. Silver eagles, wings spread, gripping a sheath of arrows. A full colonel. Richard’s breath caught in his throat.

  Landry nodded, turned and strode out of the office.

  Richard, his head swimming in a flash flood of confusion, watched him go, then stared at his doodle pad. He’d crudely sketched the insignia of an oh-six, a full colonel, sketched it the way he remembered it from a young lieutenant’s perspective: The eagle’s head looking forward, the clutched arrows pointing to the rear.

  Landry had worn his backward, on the wrong shoulders so that the birds’ beaks pointed to the rear, the arrows, forward. It was a mistake newly-minted colonels and movie colonels sometimes made. “Just remember,” a crusty old oh-six had once told him, “the head looks forward; great expectations. The arrows point the other way; ready to be jammed up your ass when something goes wrong.”

  Richard slammed his fist onto the desk. He’d been reeled in. Landry obviously was no rookie colonel. Which meant he wasn’t a colonel, period.

  Somewhat tentatively, Anneliese poked her head through the door. “Everything okay?” she asked.

  “Fine,” Richard said. “It’s just a damn good thing I wasn’t born a fish.”

  “A fish?”

  “Too easy to reel in.”

  “Oh. Well.” She appeared puzzled and apprehensive at the same time. “Is there anything else I can do?”

  “Bring me a phone book, please.”

  “Do you want me to make some calls?”

  “No. This is something I need to follow up on myself.”

  A short time later he punched in the main number for Dobbins ARB and asked to be connected to Colonel Landry’s office.

  “I’m sorry,” the female voice on the other end of the line said, “we’ve no listing for a Colonel Landry. What unit is he with?”

  “USAMRIID.”

  “Say again.”

  He spelled it out.

  “I’m sorry, sir, no listing for that either. Maybe the colonel is somebody who’s here TDY.” Temporary duty.

  “Maybe. Thank you.” He hung up.

  Using an Internet search, he learned USAMRIID was headquartered at Fort Detrick, Maryland. He punched the number for the post and asked for the organization. He was connected immediately. A gruff sergeant answered. Richard identified himself and asked for Colonel Landry.

  “Colonel who?”

  “Landry. Full bird. He’s a project officer.”

  “Project officer! What project?”

  “BioDawn. In Atlanta, Georgia.”

  “Hold on.” A lengthy pause followed. Eventually, the sergeant returned. “Sorry, sir, there’s no Colonel Landry assigned to USAMRIID. And nobody here has heard of a project called BioDawn.”

  “It’s a corporation.”

  “That either.”

  “The colonel is assigned to your branch office at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Atlanta.”

  “I think you got some bum information, sir, we don’t have an office at Dobbins.”

  But Richard already had realized as much. He thanked the sergeant and thumped the receiver down in anger. Or perhaps fear, though he wouldn’t yet admit that to himself. The only thing the meeting with Landry, or whoever he was, had accomplished was to add another blind passageway to the warren of non-information, disinformation and threats.

  Anneliese, seeming to sense his frustration, poked her head into the office. She smiled, a sweet school-kid smile. “I’m sorry things aren’t going better,” she said. Her soothing tone reminded him of Karen, the way her maternal instincts would kick in after he’d had a hard day.

  “Some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you,” he said.

  “Bear, one; Mr. Wainwright, zero?”

  “Worse than that, I think.”

  “I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do, anything I can get you?” She stepped into the office.

  Richard held up his hand. “No,” he said. “Look, why don’t you take off a little early and enjoy what’s left of the afternoon.”

  She hesitated, then said, “I do have some errands to run.”

  He shooed her away with a dismissive flick of his hand.

  He spent the remainder of the afternoon replaying in his mind the bizarre events of the past few days, trying to freeze-frame clues and splice scenes that would suggest his next step, but it was a fruitless effort. He found no diaphanous genie, arms folded, smiling benignly, arising from the swirling crosscurrents of deception and menace to grant his wish of enlightenment.

  He considered, momentarily, bailing out. Returning to Sunriver. Back to bucolic beaver ponds and food-bearing widows. But even if he could, even if von Stade hadn’t threatened his kid brother, Sunriver would provide no escape, no haven. Karen’s specter would smother him, wrapping itself around his memories and thoughts, squeezing the joy from them like a hungry python.

  No, better to deal with the poltergeists of the present, not that he had a choice. A faux colonel. A will-o’-the-wisp scientist. A vanished informant. A quasi-mythical assassin. And Anneliese. He shook his head. No answers, only questions.

  And questions, too, about the risk to Jason. Richard wondered if the threat levied against his brother had been for real or only a straw man. Time for another bed check by big brother. He phoned Jason.

  “Hey, bro’,” Jason answered. “Twice in one week! To what do I owe the honor? You still worried about over-zealous investigators stalking me?”

  Richard forced a chuckle. “Nah. Nothing like that. Just lonely, I guess. New job. Far from home. It’s good to hear a familiar voice.”

  “You sure you’re okay, Dickie? Sometimes I don’t hear from you for weeks on end.”

  “Look, kid, I’m fine. How about you, any new women in your life?”

  They lapsed into banal chatter for fifteen minutes. After they said their goodbyes, Richard felt better but still somewhat circumspect about Jason’s situation.

  Richard stood and retrieved his briefcase. Time to call it a day. As he left the office, he scanned the latest news headlines on his iPhone. While waiting for the elevator to whine its way from the lobby to the fifth floor, he read the introductory paragraphs of the lead stories. He noted with only idle curiosity a piece headlined: “Three die from virulent flu-like disease in metro Atlanta.” The elevator arrived. He slipped the phone into his pocket and stepped into the lift.

  Outside, evening was devouring the waning daylight, and the setting sun had turned thin mares’ tails of cirrus into pinkish-orange filaments miles above the earth’s surface. Richard surveyed the parking lot carefully before exiting the building. At the far end of the lot, the flashing amber lights of the patrolling security vehicle cut through the dusk. He walked toward his car. Like an old mackinaw, the sultry embrace of the growing darkness wrapped itself around him—but couldn’t prevent the c
hill that shot up his spine.

  A figure sat in the passenger seat of his Mini.

  Chapter Eleven

  NORTH METRO ATLANTA

  WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21

  Richard pivoted and headed back toward the building.

  “You really should lock your doors,” Anneliese called after him.

  Richard stopped and turned. “I thought you’d gone home,” he said, his heart rate decelerating from its sudden foray into double time.

  “I did. I had to prepare supper. You’re invited.”

  “Not much notice.” He walked to the Mini.

  “Your meeting didn’t go well this afternoon, I could tell. You need to unwind a bit. Relax.” She flung open the driver’s-side door. “Get in. Take me home.” A velvety command.

  He hesitated, then, recalling his decision to play the smitten male, he threw his briefcase onto the rear seat, got in and started the car. As he backed out, he glanced at Anneliese. Headlights from vehicles on the main road reflected from her eyes, illuminating a sexual fierceness he hadn’t seen, only sensed, before. On one level, he knew he should refuse her invitation in order to evade her jasmine-scented fantasy world and, if nothing else, dodge temptation. On another level, he needed to learn how she fit into—for she surely must—the web of mystery and threats that had descended upon him.

  They reached the exit to the lot. “Left,” she said.

  The Mini yowled onto the main road. Anneliese fed him a constant stream of terse directions—lefts, rights, straight aheads—and within ten minutes they pulled into a gated apartment complex, Tara Bluffs. A sign at the entrance boasted the community overlooked the Chattahoochee River. He parked the car. She took him by the hand and led him up a flight of stairs to a second floor apartment. She unlocked the door and pulled him gently inside. “Jacket,” she said.

  He removed his suit coat and handed it to her.

  “Tie.” She held out her hand.

  He slipped off his tie.

  “Good start,” she said. “Now tell me what you drink.”

  “Jack Daniels. On the rocks.”

  “I wouldn’t have guessed. Scotch or a martini, maybe. Not whiskey. Have a seat while I hang these up and get our drinks.” She gestured toward the living room.

  Soft, indirect lighting revealed a room tastefully, and not inexpensively, decorated. A cream-colored leather couch and chairs. Teakwood end tables. A coffee table inlaid with Italian tile. Persian rugs protecting an ash-blond hardwood floor. He seated himself on the couch.

  Several pieces of framed modern art—he didn’t know what else to call them: swirls and blotches of color slapped onto white backgrounds—interspersed with Ansel Adams photography and Georgia O’Keeffe paintings, hung on the walls. A bouquet of sunflowers sprouted from a terra-cotta vase. Yet the apartment seemed somehow cold, devoid of emotion and character, devoid of Anneliese. There were no pictures of her, no pictures of family members, nothing that reflected her presence. It could have been a hotel suite.

  The clink of bottles and glasses reached his ears as she prepared the drinks. He stood and walked to the kitchen.

  “Smells good,” he said.

  “Me, the Jack Daniels or the chateaubriand?”

  “Booze never smells good.”

  “Two choices left.”

  “In rank order then: You, dinner. Can I help?”

  “Everything’s ready. But if you’d like, the plates are up there.” She pointed to a glass-faced cabinet next to the sink. “Silverware in there.” She indicated a drawer snugged beneath a black granite countertop. “And you might as well grab the carving knife and put it next to the carving board.” She gestured at a drawer adjacent to the one holding the utensils.

  He completed his tasks, and she shooed him back to the living room. The plaintive, almost bluesy voice of a female vocalist, drifting from a hidden sound system, trailed him into the room. Anneliese, bearing drinks, followed.

  “Who is that?” he asked. “The music.”

  “Adele. You don’t know her?”

  “I know Janis Joplin. Madonna.”

  She shrugged.

  He held his drink up to the light, as if inspecting it. “Why wouldn’t you have guessed whiskey?” he said.

  She sat next to him on the couch, kicked off her shoes and tucked her legs underneath her. She wore a short, black, evening-style dress that migrated north along her thighs. Not quite to the pole, Richard observed, but pretty damn close. Two thin shoulder straps supported the top of her dress, and he wondered if they were up to the job. Anneliese was not over-endowed, but her blessings probably put most of her clothes to a severe tensile-strength test. She clearly had not provided them any extra help tonight. She was a woman not embarrassed by what nature had given her.

  A crease of a smile unfolded across her lips. “You just don’t seem like the whiskey type.”

  He sipped his drink. “Why not?” He looked directly into her eyes and softly chanted, “Whiskey, raw whiskey and wild, wild women...”

  “Do you think I’m a wild woman?” Her tone was playful. She shifted slightly, and her dress rode toward the arctic circle.

  Richard forced himself to stay focused on her eyes. “I don’t know what to think about you, Anneliese. Who are you?” He set his glass on the coffee table. “Tell me about Anneliese Mierczak.”

  She tugged her dress down, just slightly, and turned her head away for a moment as if studying Ansel Adams’ Yosemite, then said, “My mother was Cuban, my father, eastern European.”

  Richard let his gaze drift over her again. “A mix of East and West,” he noted. “It turned out well.”

  She smiled and laughed softly, a complement to the muted background music that permeated the room with sexual moodiness. “Thank you.”

  “How did your parents meet?”

  “Daddy was born in the Ukrainian SSR. He met Mother during the time he was working for the Russians in Cuba in the 1980s.”

  Richard reached for his drink. The Jack Daniels burned as it went down. He wasn’t much of a drinker and could feel a mellow buzz vibrating in his head.

  “But you were born in the U.S.?”

  “Boston. And it was there I met a nice Italian kid from the North End who won my heart and hand, and I married when I was 20.” She raised her glass to her lips, sipped and set it down. “Vodka,” she said, “maybe I’m more Russian than Cuban.”

  He took another swallow of whiskey. He felt a bee racing around in his head as though it had discovered a clover farm. “If I may ask, what happened to the marriage? Obviously you’re not—”

  She reached out and touched his sleeve. “You may ask. It didn’t last long. Italians, I discovered, traditional Italians like my husband anyhow, wanted their wives to stay at home and raise kids. Preferably, lots of kids. Well,” she paused and looked into her vodka, “I wasn’t able to get pregnant—whether my problem or his, I don’t know—and I wasn’t about to stay at home, anyhow. It wasn’t a marriage made in heaven. So we parted ways, amicably, thankfully, after a few years. But I walked away with nothing. No money. No marketable skills. No job.”

  “You needed a better lawyer.”

  “I couldn’t afford one.” She paused and eyed his drink. “If you’re interested, I’ve got something we could smoke... a little more kick than Jack Daniels.”

  He declined and pulled the conversation back to the track it had been on. “So it’s been tough then, making it on your own?”

  “I kicked around doing secretarial and menial clerical work for awhile, living in YWCAs and cheap apartments and discovering most of my bosses were more interested in raising my skirt than my status.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. A warning or a titillation?

  She wriggled closer; their legs touched. She reached out again, this ti
me stroking his cheek lightly with her hand. “Thank you,” she whispered. “You’re a good man, decent. You’ve treated me like a lady. And since you won’t ask, I’ll tell you, because you’ll wonder like any man would. I got ahead, became an executive assistant, because I discovered I had a unique talent for managing and overseeing the minutia of corporate business, the sorts of things that can overwhelm busy executives. I didn’t have to compromise my morals. And yes, I like men.” With the hand that had brushed his face, she tipped his chin up and leaned into him, kissing him on the lips. Softly but firmly. She pulled back. “But I pick my own.”

  Richard knew he’d been picked; the question was why? But it was a question quickly becoming lost in a world lit by the fire in Anneliese’s eyes, spiced with her perfume, warmed by her nearness, shared in the rhythm of her breathing.

  She fitted her legs more firmly underneath her and squirmed into him. Her dress hiked northward again, this time past the point of no return, revealing ebony panties. The straps of her dress tumbled from her shoulders, and her breasts seemed only a single inhalation away from total freedom. She kissed him again and guided his hand to her breast, sliding his fingers over the corrugation of its areola until they reached the erectness at its center. With her other hand, she explored his lap until she found his own erectness.

  She released her exploratory grasp and pulled back. “Bedroom,” she said. It came out hoarse, barely audible. A gasp. She stood, pulling him up by his arm. The top of her dress crumpled gracefully around her waist. He stood, and they embraced, locked together, each feeling the other’s firmness, sharing the other’s excitement and anticipation. Their lips feathered one another’s, lightly at first, then more resolutely and rapidly.

  Again Anneliese stepped back, this time turning and in a quick, smooth motion pulling her dress over her head and dropping it to the floor. She stepped out of her panties and pivoted to face Richard. Nothing left to the imagination. A gift of grace. Naturally airbrushed. She beckoned him toward a hallway. “This way,” she whispered and backed into the dimness of the hall, her gaze fixed on him, her eyes aflame.