Payback (16 page)

Mustapha
nodded, picking up the bag. “Follow me.” He led her to another door of the
community center. Inside there was an office area, simply furnished with
several desks, chairs and cabinets. “Will this do?”

“Perfect,”
she said. “We’ll need to have this room cleaned with a water-bleach solution,
just in case anyone came in here infected.”

“No one
has been in here for days, I assure you.”

“A
single drop of blood can contain a massive amount of the virus and be
infectious for days if not weeks. We can’t take any risks.”

Mustapha
nodded. “I’ll take care of it right away.”

Sarah
yawned, stretching, catching a whiff of her own body odor from the protective
suit she had been wearing for hours earlier. “I need to get some rest and to
bathe somewhere.”

Mustapha
nodded. “We’ve got showers. No hot water, but nothing’s really cold around
here,” he said, smiling. She followed him down a hallway to another side of the
building, away from the main hall where their clinic had been set up. “Can I
ask you a question?”

Mustapha
seemed almost hesitant, raising a red flag with Sarah’s subconscious. She felt
her stomach flip in fear of what might come. “Yes.”

“If I
were to be exposed, like from a needle prick or something, anything I guess,
how long would it be before I could infect someone else?”

Sarah
breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, it depends. You’re not contagious until you
start to show symptoms, and those can start to show anywhere from two days to
several weeks after. It all depends on the individual.” She stopped. “Why, do
you think you’ve been exposed?”

He shook
his head. “I hope not. I mean, I’ve been careful and fortunately my family
hasn’t been affected yet, but I guess I’m just curious. If I were infected
today, for example, would I, or you I guess—a doctor—be able to tell?”

Sarah
shook her head. “Not without a blood test.”

“Then
how do they screen people at the airport?”

“They
check for an elevated temperature and unfortunately rely on the honesty of the
passengers.”

“What do
you mean?”

“They
interview everyone to see if they’ve been exposed in some way. Unfortunately as
we saw with the case in the United States, people will lie just to get out of here.
If they aren’t exhibiting any symptoms yet, then there’s no way without doing
blood tests on every passenger to prevent them from leaving.”

“Sounds
insane.”

Sarah
smiled. “Agreed, but there’s not much else we can do. Locking the country down
would simply mean it would be harder to get medical staff in and out along with
supplies.”

“I would
think you just restrict the civilians. I mean, we’ve got tourists still coming
here, people from your country coming here to visit family.”

Sarah
frowned. “I know. Unfortunately it’s hard to regulate stupidity.”

Mustapha
laughed. “No, that is true in your country I guess as much as it is here.” He
opened a door, showing her a shower and change room. “What do you think would
happen if you had a large outbreak in your country?”

Sarah
stepped inside, pausing. “Define large?”

Mustapha
shrugged. “I don’t know, fifty, hundred?” He pointed to a locker. “There are
clothes in there. You’ll have to share with the other doctor, we were only
expecting one of you.”

Sarah
opened the locker and nodded, several sets of medical scrubs sitting in a pile.
“These will do perfectly. We’re going to need to launder them every day
though.”

“Some of
the women in the village will take care of that.”

“It will
need to be done in boiling water.”

“Of
course.”

Sarah
smiled, slightly embarrassed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

Mustapha
cut her off with a raised hand. “You didn’t.” He pointed to the showers.
“There’s a tank on the roof that has been pumped full of water. It works on
pressure. Try not to waste it because someone has to refill it.” He pointed to
a nearby sink. “There’s soap and shampoo. It hasn’t been used and that’s all
there is.”

Sarah
stepped over to the shower, it from all outward appearances looking like any
other simple shower except that the red and blue temperature dots were
meaningless. “Understood.”

“I’ll go
wake your partner,” said Mustapha.

“No!”
Sarah raised her hand apologetically. “Sorry, I mean, let me do that. I’ll only
be a few minutes.”

“Very
well.” Mustapha stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him. She
noticed a small pushbutton lock on the door and pressed it, the comfort it
provided slight. She stripped out of her sticky clothes, piling them on the
floor by the door, then turned the knob for the shower. Cool water flowed from
the showerhead, the pressure excellent. She stepped under the blast of water,
her eyes closed, and simply stood there for a minute letting the water run over
her naked body, the stress and sweat of the day slowly rinsing away.

She
thought of Mustapha’s question and wondered herself what would happen if there was
a significant outbreak back home. If fifty or a hundred people were to become
infected somehow, what would happen?

Mass
panic.

The
economic damage would probably be worse than the human toll. The disease was
difficult to spread if proper protocols were in place, and with modern
communications and good medical support systems, the infected would be isolated
quickly and anyone they had contact with traced.

But all
it would take would be one person, infected and contagious, to be working at a
restaurant, dealing with customers, handling food, for it to spread to possibly
hundreds more over the course of their being infected and undetected.

For
there was a fatal flaw in the capitalist system when it came to the spread of
infectious diseases.

Those
who handle our food and clean our buildings are the lowest paid workers,
meaning they were also the same people who could least afford to take a day off
sick. They were most likely, due to simply being poor, to force themselves to
go to work when sick, and all it would take would be one to have the disease,
be contagious, and handle the food that went out to the customers.

And at
the onset of an outbreak, those newly infected customers would assume they
simply had the flu, and instead of isolating themselves and contacting the authorities,
they too would quite often force themselves to go to work for the same economic
reasons or because they had an important project due at the office.

It would
spread for the same reasons the flu spread—people simply didn’t stay home when
they should.

She
wasn’t concerned about some sort of zombie apocalypse. If the spread continued
curfews could simply be declared—it wasn’t like the infected would be dragging
themselves through the streets, moaning “Brains!” while the uninfected tried to
remember their Walking Dead episodes.

It would
be the panic created that would probably hurt more people in the end. The
public would stay home, the economy would grind to a halt, and it would last
for weeks, possibly months, until the authorities could convince people the
outbreak had been halted.

She
paused working the shampoo into her hair and thought back to Mustapha’s
questions, and again felt a chill run down her spine.

And
still wasn’t sure why, the questions innocent and nothing she hadn’t heard
dozens of times before.

You’re
being paranoid.

She
resumed washing her hair, frowning.

And
you have every right to be.

She
rinsed the shampoo out of her hair and tossed her head back, wiping her eyes
clear. She opened them and gasped, a face pressed against a window high on the
wall quickly disappearing. Instinctively she covered her exposed flesh as best
she could, but at that moment, she had never felt more vulnerable or exposed in
her life.

And
Tanya’s words echoed in her mind.

“Once
he leaves, it will be open season on us.”

Hastings Ebola Treatment Center, Freetown, Sierra Leone

Dawson was careful not to step on any of the bloody footprints on
the floor as he surveyed the scene of the crime. The body had been moved but
everything else had been left in place, at least according to the Sierra
Leonean authorities. The evidence certainly seemed to match that already
provided in the briefings he had been privy to, and he saw little value in
being here, but as part of their cover, he had to at least feign interest.

“Agent
White.”

Dawson
looked over his shoulder and saw Niner beckoning him. He stepped back into the
hallway and saw a well-built man standing with the rest of his team sporting a
fashionable suit, dark sunglasses despite being indoors, and a brilliantly white
smile. He extended his hand. “Lamina Margai, Agent
White.
I’ll be your
liaison while you’re here.” Dawson looked at the hand, leaving his own clasped
behind his back. Margai quickly withdrew it, smiling. “Sorry, old habits are
hard to break.”

Dawson had
little doubt this man was military or at least former military—definitely
security of some type. He wouldn’t want to scrap with him in any case. “Mr. Margai,
pleased to meet you. How about we let the forensics team get to work while we
discuss the latest updates outside.”

Margai
smiled. “Of course. Follow me.” They strode quickly down the hallway, the rooms
off either side repurposed classrooms from the former police training center.
Exhausted and nervous medical personnel coming off shifts shuffled past, the
entire treatment center subdued since they had arrived.

He
couldn’t blame them.

One of
their own had been murdered in the most gruesome manner possible, and two
kidnapped. Not to mention that day in and day out they dealt with death by one
of Mother Nature’s most perfect killers, too often powerless to save those
brought to them too late.

Yet not
a single person had asked to be reassigned or to go home.

Impressive.

He had a
tremendous amount of respect for these people. Hundreds of them had died despite
their protective gear and training, and hundreds more probably would die before
this was over, yet they kept coming, they kept volunteering.

They
were soldiers in the fight against an invader that couldn’t be seen.

He
didn’t envy them, preferring his targets viewable under the sight of his weapon
rather than a microscope.

But the
true misery was not inside this relatively sedate cluster of buildings, it was
outside the makeshift hospital that was devoid of laughter, devoid of even the
sounds of innocent children so often unavoidable no matter how serious the
warzone.

Here
there was only misery and death, hope drummed out of the population despite the
fact in some of these clinics nearly fifty percent were surviving.

Which
meant fifty percent were dying.

The
insanity of the disease, of the situation, was obvious outside the walls.
People would arrive, some under their own power, some dropped off by relatives,
and most were turned away, the clinic full.

And
instead of going into isolation, they would cross the street and wait at a bar
for a position to open, either through death or a rare success, while spreading
the disease further.

It was
ridiculous.

Margai
saw where he was looking. “It’s sad, isn’t it?”

Dawson
nodded. “More needs to be done.”

“Yes. We
are doing all we can, but we are a poor country. Perhaps when we have oil, we
will get more attention.”

Dawson
didn’t take the bait. In his briefing notes he had read about Sierra Leone’s
economic situation and of how they were hoping to develop possible offshore
oil, but that was years away. And the sad thing was the man was probably right.
If this country had resources that the rich countries of the West were
dependent upon, it would have most likely received a more rapid response. “Have
there been any leads?”

“No,
nothing of consequence. Three supply trucks were signed out with the proper
paperwork by Major Koroma, they were driven to the port, loaded with medical
supplies, then last seen clearing a checkpoint as they left the city with the
two missing doctors claiming to be delivering supplies to the Port Loko Treatment
Center.”

“And I
assume those supplies never arrived.”

Margai shook
his head. “Obviously a ruse. We’re checking reports that they were spotted at
another checkpoint heading south but we haven’t been able to confirm those yet.
Outside of the city things are unfortunately pretty lax.”

“Understood.
What can you tell me about Major Koroma? Any idea why he’d do this?”

“I never
knew the man, but I’ve spoken to several of his colleagues and all are shocked
by this. Frankly, they can’t believe he’d do this. He’s a family man, dedicated
soldier, well respected by his men and superiors, and non-political.”

“Religious?”

“He’s
Muslim if that’s what you’re asking.”

Dawson
smiled slightly. “No, I mean could he be motivated by religious reasons,
regardless of whether or not he was Christian or Muslim?”

Margai smiled
broadly. “Of course that’s what you meant. And no, I’ve heard nothing
suggesting he has any type of extremist leanings. If anything he was considered
quite moderate by his Imam.”

“You
spoke to him?”

“Yes,
but his Imam here in Freetown; what happens back in his home town, I honestly
couldn’t say. He may be a completely different man there.”

“Either
he
is
a completely different man when back home, or he’s
become
a
completely different man. Something has caused this apparently upstanding
soldier to betray his country.”