All Fall Down (8 page)

‘But you can’t keep things like this quiet these days!’ said Paul. ‘Let me guess – it leaked online.’

‘That’s right. First of all, Twitter. A lot of people in LA tweeting about how sick they felt. Then a couple of days later, those people stop tweeting, and the friends and families start to leave messages mourning the deaths of their loved ones, apparently from the flu. And then a doctor at a hospital in LA ripped the whole thing open with a blog post about how this super-flu had started filling up the hospital, how he’d never seen anything like it – not realising it’s actually Watoto because no doctor in LA would ever have encountered Watoto. Of course that blog got picked up by people on Twitter and Facebook and it hit the national press. I only found out about it at the airport when you were saying goodbye to Jack. Fortunately, the message we received after the terrorist attack on the hotel has not been leaked.’

‘Isn’t the CDC supposed to be in charge in these situations?’ Kate looked up from the paper. Her entire body felt cold.

Harley nodded. ‘In the normal course of events, yes. But in this instance … well, I haven’t been entirely … forthcoming with you about how this is all set up.’

‘Why doesn’t that shock me?’ Paul said.

‘All right, all right.’ Harley glanced nervously out of the plane window. The three FBI agents were standing motionlessly by their cars. ‘Look, I shouldn’t really be telling you this, but we’re in a need-to-know situation here. Under normal circumstances, the Centers for Disease Control would take the lead in the event of an epidemic or pandemic within the United States, while the WHO would have global responsibility. But in cases where terrorism is—’

‘Terrorism? So you suspected terrorist involvement before the bombing?’ said Paul.

Irritated by Paul’s continued antagonism towards Harley, Kate flapped a hand at him to be quiet so they could hear what the MI6 man had to say.

Harley continued: ‘After the anthrax attacks in America in 2001, the US Government set up an agency called the BIT – Bioterror Investigative Team. Initially it was a small unit, working out of FBI headquarters, monitoring and investigating suspected bioterrorist groups and individuals. Then, after Clive Gaunt’s attempt to release the Pandora virus in London by infecting your son with it, the two governments decided it was time to join forces. The BIT became an international agency, charged with monitoring bioterrorism on a global basis. Whenever something out of the ordinary happens – like an exotic virus breaking out where it shouldn’t – the BIT steps in. I joined them not long afterwards, and because of our previous … involvement, it fell to me to enlist your help and escort you over here. Usually I’m based in London, but I’ll be staying on to help with intelligence.’

‘So you
did
suspect terrorist involvement before the bomb went off?’ Kate asked.

‘Like I said, if something out of the ordinary occurs, we investigate. And this case was unusual from the start. It made no sense, Watoto showing up on the reservation. No one who worked there had been to Africa. And even though hundreds of people pass in and out of the casino every day—’

‘Watoto has a short incubation period,’ Kate interrupted. ‘It’s highly unlikely someone who’d contracted the disease in Africa would make it all the way to a casino outside LA. They’d be far too sick by that time to want to go gambling.’

‘Exactly. Which made us suspect the source of the virus was closer to home. That’s why BIT took the lead on this. Obviously we’re working with the CDC, who will keep the public informed and try to contain the outbreak. But it was BIT who put together this team and set up the facilities where you’ll be working. Previously, the team were going to be based in LA, but in light of the media coverage we’ve decided to move the whole operation out here. Also, it hasn’t been announced yet but the airports in LA are going to be shut down tonight. No more domestic or international flights in or out of the city.’

‘That makes sense.’

‘And to prevent leaks to the media, only necessary personnel will be permitted anywhere near the lab. Which is why we can’t allow you in there, Paul.’

Before Paul could respond, there was a loud knock on the door of the plane. It opened and Agent McCarthy stuck his head through. ‘Time’s up.’

‘Give me one more minute,’ Harley said.

‘We’ve got to get moving.’

Kate stood up. ‘Let’s go. I’ve heard enough.’

Paul blinked up at her, surprised. ‘Kate?’

She gestured to the pictures in the newspaper. ‘I don’t want to waste any more time sitting around here speculating about who, how or why this outbreak happened. Right now, I just want to get on with helping to find a cure.’

In the doorway, McCarthy applauded with slow handclaps. ‘Finally, someone around here speaks sense.’

Paul got to his feet and Kate took both his hands in hers. ‘I wish you could come with me, but it sounds as if I’m going to be working all hours. I won’t get to see you anyway.’

‘But I want to help.’

‘There’s nothing you can do,’ Harley said firmly.

Paul opened his mouth to argue, but McCarthy stepped forward to usher her away: ‘Let’s get going. Dr Maddox, you’re coming with me and Agent Thompson. Harley, you should wait for further instructions. Agent DiFranco will drive you and Mr Wilson.’

He smiled grimly at Paul’s expression. ‘Don’t look so frightened, my friend. We’re not taking you to Los Angeles.’

The old man knew death was coming. He felt it stirring deep within his bones, in the way they creaked when he heaved himself out of his bunk each morning. He heard it in the pleading of his heartbeat whenever he got excited or did anything strenuous. Sometimes, when he looked out at what all the guards told him was ‘the best view in the prison’ – over yonder at the bay, the flat horizon a taunt for the men held in this Federal Correctional Institute – he thought he could see death coming for him, a dark shape in the distance, creeping closer every day.

Well, screw death. He wasn’t afraid. Just as long as he got to do one more thing – that thing he’d been waiting all these years to do – before he shuffled off this mortal coil.

He stood at the window now. For the last fifteen years, this room in the low-security wing of the prison had been his home. Once, before he was betrayed, before that
bastard
took a large sharp rod and fucked him with it, he had lived in a beautiful house, the kind of place his father could only have dreamed of. His brains had taken him a long way. He was a Mexican immigrant who’d been living the American Dream. He’d had a great job doing important work – OK, so some of it was illegal, but that did not make it any less vital. In his spare time there had been stunning women, luxury yachts, fine wines. The only ones who wanted his attention in this godforsaken shithole were a lot more hairy and a little less tender than the women who had never even written him in prison.

He clenched his teeth, waiting for the tremors of anger to subside, his hand resting on the cool surface of the microscope they allowed him to keep. It was not much better than a child’s microscope, pitifully inadequate. Still, it was better than nothing. Beside it, he had placed his reading material, the
Journal of Virology
and
The Infectious Disease Review
at the top of the pile. He liked to keep up with what was happening. There had been so many advances, so many fascinating new diseases, since his incarceration.

He picked up a copy of
Immunology Today
and leafed through it, but couldn’t concentrate. For weeks now he’d been on edge, more desperate than ever to get out of this shithole. Since he’d been here, both his parents had died; his sisters had married and remarried and spawned children he’d never seen. He’d missed the chance to become a father. And the men who put him here had made it clear there would be no parole, even though he had never murdered anyone with these hands, never robbed a bank or tried to blow anything up.

He was a sacrificial goat. The man who knew too much.

He switched on the TV and channel-hopped, a little flutter of anticipation in his belly. Prisoners were only allowed a few channels: ESPN, CNN and Fox News, the Weather Channel, and a handful of Christian channels on which preachers hectored and begged for money. He had pleaded for the Discovery Channel, for the occasional documentary about his favourite subject, but the bastards would not listen.

Now, he settled on Fox News, and the presenter’s words immediately grabbed him.

‘…
Indian Flu, a deadly new virus that is sweeping through Los Angeles …’

The old man sat on his bunk and stared, rapt, at the TV.

‘… symptoms are similar to a bad case of flu: fever, head cold … Victims describe it as being like the worst case of flu you’ve ever had, multiplied by ten …’

He leaned forward. It was happening.

‘… and then the victim is killed by what appears to be a seizure …’

They showed footage of people waiting, shivering, in a hospital, dozens of them lined up. He could almost picture the virus particles swirling and leaping through the air around them.

‘… the CDC reports that this particular flu virus has not been seen before, but denies that it is a new strain of swine or bird flu. Sufferers are being advised to stay at home and drink plenty of fluids. Do not go to the hospital. A special helpline has been set up …’

For the next two hours, the old man continued to stare at the TV.

This was it. The one. For many years, he and scientists like him had issued warnings that one day a mighty plague would sweep the earth. The authorities – the CDC and the WHO and all those other government motherfuckers – pretended they were prepared for it.

But he was the only man in America who knew what it was and how to stop it.

He called for the guard. After a few minutes, one of the older guards arrived. Officer Hillier. He looked tired.

‘What’s up, Doc?’ he asked wearily.

In the prison, people always said this to him. It drove him nuts, but he ignored it.

‘Is anyone in the prison sick?’

Hillier raised an eyebrow. ‘What kinda question is that?’

‘A perfectly reasonable question. I just want to know if anyone in the prison has contracted this virus they’re talking about.’

Hillier looked over the old man’s shoulder at the TV. ‘Oh, that. Just a buncha people with a bad cold. Yeah, a few people here have got sick. Why you asking? Want to experiment on them, huh?’

The old man grinned at him. ‘You’re an asshole, Hillier.’

‘And you just lost your privileges for a week, Doc. And that includes using the phone and the internet. And the TV.’

He hadn’t expected that. ‘No, please, Hillier, I need—’

The big guard stuck a broad finger in his face. ‘Shut the fuck up. I’ll send someone to take away your TV later. Enjoy it while you can.’

The old man watched the guard retreat from the cell, banging the door shut behind him, and shook his head, the thinnest of smiles on his lips.

Let them take away his TV, his internet, his phone. They’d all be dead soon. If they knew what he knew, Hillier and the rest of them would be offering him all their money, their houses, their fucking
wives
in return for his help. Hillier was one of the people whose slow, hideous death he’d buy a ticket to watch.

He knew he wouldn’t have to wait long.

‘So, Dr Maddox,’ said Agent McCarthy, leaning back in the seat and stretching his arms over his head, linking his fingers together, palms facing the car roof. The leather underneath his buttocks complained noisily. ‘Been to Sequoia before?’

He was a big man, particularly when stretching, and his bulk seemed to fill the back of the car. His flesh had the compacted appearance of someone who works out a lot but who also loves his food a little too much.

‘Sequoia?’ Kate looked out of the window. All she could make out was the faint outline of bare rocky peaks rising against the deepening blue of the evening sky. ‘The big tree?’

‘The national park,’ said McCarthy, making a face at her.

‘Oh. Yeah. Sorry, I did know that. I blame the jet lag. No, I haven’t been there before. But it is the home of those giant trees, right?’

‘Right. We don’t get to drive through it, though.’

‘The park?’ The conversation felt to Kate, through her jet lag, as though it was going in claustrophobic spirals of incomprehension.

‘No, the real famous sequoia, the one everyone’s heard of: it fell across the road in the thirties and the sucker was way too big to be moved, its trunk is, like, twenty foot wide, so they cut a hole in it and made it into a tunnel instead.’ He made sawing gestures with his right hand, and then curved his palm in an arc, as if stroking an invisible cat’s head, to indicate the tunnel.

‘Redwoods are even bigger, though – they’re over the other side of the park. Those puppies are so big you can drive right through the middle of ’em, even when they’re still living.’

Jack would love that, Kate thought, driving right through a tree. She vaguely remembered seeing photographs of sequoias – or maybe redwoods – in an encyclopaedia. It was so surreal, she thought, to be in this car with two FBI agents, making small talk about big trees.

‘Right,’ she repeated dully, pulling out her BlackBerry to text Paul, but there was no signal. Being separated from both him and Jack within such a short space of time was making her feel irritable and lonely. And she felt nervous too. There were people out there who wanted to kill scientists. Still, this was probably the safest place she could be – in a car with two FBI agents.

‘Shit signal in this whole area,’ commented McCarthy, air-texting with his thumbs. Kate couldn’t decide whether she liked him or whether he annoyed her. At least he had a bit of personality, she thought, unlike the silent Thompson behind the wheel, who hadn’t said a single word the entire journey. Apart from his arms turning the steering wheel, he hadn’t even moved. Kate had spent some time staring idly at the back of his neck, small tight rolls of flesh from his bald head descending like supersized wrinkles into the collar of his black jacket, and it had remained completely immobile.