The Deep Zone: A Novel (23 page)

AS A MAJOR AND TEROK’S SENIOR MEDICAL OFFICER, LENORA
Stilwell had her own computer station, and one that was email-enabled, to boot. Command had finally lifted the ban on email, but any mention of ACE was a court-martial offense, with national security implications, et cetera, et cetera. On her desktop she set down the cup of coffee that was now as much a part of her walking-around attire as stethoscope and clinic coat. What time would it be in Tampa? She could send an email home at any time, of course, but there was a better chance of catching Doug and Danny during waking hours, which would allow her to have an actual exchange. She knew the time zone differentials, had done the calculus hundreds of times, so why was she having trouble now figuring out what time it was where Doug and Danny were?

It was Friday. Or was it? She checked the calendar function on
her watch. It was Saturday, March 3. Now the time differential. Tampa was eight and a half hours behind the time in her location up in northeast Afghanistan. It was 12:13
A.M
. at Terok, so it would be … it would be
… damn
. She frowned, closed her eyes, forced her brain to kick over. Okay: 3:43
P.M
. in Tampa. Doug would be at work, Danny working after school. No way to catch either one of them for real-time commo.

She started to get up, then sat back down.
Wait. Give it a try. No telling when there’ll be a chance again
. She flipped her laptop open, keyed in passwords, and opened her email program.

Whoa. Can’t say that
. It would suggest that there had been casualties, which could reveal some bit of intelligence with value to some unknown source somewhere. Or, at the very least, bad news for the home front. Start again.

She hit the Send button and sat back to wait. Doug had an iPhone, so even if he wasn’t at a computer, he might receive the email and reply. She watched the computer screen, listened for the little incoming-mail chime. A full minute passed, then two, and she reached to close the laptop, which was when it chimed and the email reply popped up. Doug still wrote like a civilian with all the time in the world, not like a time-poor Army doctor who calculated the half seconds she could save by leaving out punctuation, abbreviating where possible, and butchering normal grammar.

Cindy was Cynthia Merrit, Danny’s steady girlfriend, a beautiful, petite blonde whose voice always sounded to Stilwell like harp strings being softly plucked. She wanted to be a pediatrician and had been away for much of the previous week looking at colleges. Going fishing on the boat was taking their Scout 34 out for some tarpon fishing. MacDill was MacDill Air Force Base, just south of Tampa. National Guard members had access to all facilities of all service branches—commissaries, clinics, pools, everything.

She sent the email, fiddled with her earlobe waiting for the reply, looked around for a Butterfinger, saw none. Reminded herself to tell Doug to send another box. She was one of those fortunate people with a high-rpm metabolism that allowed her to eat anything she wanted and not gain weight. Keeping weight
on
was actually more of a problem. She didn’t pig out on Butterfingers, but one a day wouldn’t kill anyone.

She laughed at that. They had been together long enough for them to read each other’s minds often, as he had just done. How long before they started to look like each other?

She was about to hit the Send button when such a shot of adrenaline rushed through her that she gasped out loud.
The commissary
.

Oh God. She deleted “Lenny” and typed furiously.

She started to hit the Send button again, then stopped herself.
I can’t say that. ACE info is top classified, close hold. The censors will pick it up and there will be fobbits all over me. Doug won’t get the message that way anyway
.

As a physician, and a surgeon, and one who practiced in a combat area, Stilwell did not lose control easily. But now she recognized the signs of incipient panic in herself: hyperventilating, lightheadedness, shaking from adrenaline overload.

You don’t know that there’s any problem at MacDill
.

But you don’t know that there is not, either
.

You can’t let them go there. It’s not worth the risk. Just for groceries
.

How to stop them?

She could feel Doug, halfway around the world, waiting for an email from her. If she made him wait too long, he might assume she’d had to break off for some emergency. She closed her eyes, tried to calm herself, forced her thoughts to become orderly. Then she thought of something.

She sent the email, then shook her head.
Do you copy?
Lapsing into Armyspeak.

His reply came in seconds.

No.
No
. She typed furiously, all caps. Maybe she could catch him.

NO. YOY DINR UNDERSTNND. CANNOT GO TOI THE CONIMA]

She stopped.
More haste, less speed
. It was garbled. Panic was disrupting her motor skills. Doug would be gone already. And in a message like that, or like the one she might revise and send, the Army’s censoring software would detect excessive anomalies and
route the email to a human reviewer. And then … there would be hell to pay. After this was over, there would be a hard sit-down with the fobbits called insects, partly because they came from Internal Security, the Army acronym for which was InSec. Partly, but not completely. The other reason was that they were slimy men roundly detested for a willingness to walk their careers forward over the backs of other soldiers. She could not let that happen. There was too much need here.

But Doug and Danny, going to the commissary? The thought just about cracked her professional discipline. She sat back, wrapped one arm around her chest, and shoved the knuckles of her right hand into her mouth.

A few minutes later, someone knocked, very softly, on the flimsy plywood door to her plywood closet of an office. She composed herself, steadied her voice.

“Come in.”

The door opened just wide enough for one of the nurses to poke her head in. A beautiful young black woman from Brooklyn. She remembered that much. But not the nurse’s name. She knew it, but could not remember it, and that was a bad sign. So she just smiled and waited.

“Ma’am, there’s a call for you.” Muffled voice from the Chemturion hood.

“Can you handle it for me, please? I just need a few minutes here to finish up some paperwork.”

“Ah, ma’am, I tried to take a message. But it’s a colonel, ma’am. Says he spoke to you about coming here. Said to get you ASAP.” The nurse’s face contracted around the word “ASAP,” as though she had just tasted something sour.

The fobbit
. Damn. She had forgotten all about their conversation yesterday. No, the day before. Or had it been last week? She could not recall. But she did seem to remember that the colonel had said he would arrive on Thursday, which had come and gone. Today was Saturday. What the hell? Well, colonels didn’t make their schedules
to suit majors. He was here and had to be dealt with. “All right, I’ll speak with him. Is he inside here someplace?”

“No, ma’am. He’s outside. I don’t think he wants to come in. Even with a suit on.”

“He actually has a suit on? Out there? Okay, no problem. Thanks for letting me know.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The beautiful nurse went away, leaving Stilwell’s door ajar. She got up, rubbed her hands over her face in an attempt to scrub away some of the fatigue, and walked to the nurses’ station, where the telephones were located.

“Stilwell.”

“Major, this is Colonel Ribbesh.”

She had forgotten all about him. His voice sounded stiff and formal and distorted by his suit hood.
Pissed off because some general ordered him to come out here
, she thought.
Now he’s going to pass it right on down the line
. She wondered why he was wearing a biosafety suit, even though he was outside the unit.

“I had apprised you of my ETA, Major. There were some changes required. Did your staff apprise you?”

“No, Colonel.”

“That’s too bad. I instructed my staff to do so.”

I just bet you did, fobbit. Preemptive strike is called for here
.

“Colonel, no disrespect, but I’ve got four more patients to see stat. Can this wait?”

“I’m afraid not. I understand you’ve declined to utilize a Bravo Sierra Lima-dash-Four unit.”

“Correct.”

“I think you should don one ASAP, Major. I know you’re aware that NBC regulations specifically state that all medical personnel in Level Four quarantine conditions shall be required to utilize Bravo Sierra Lima-dash-Four units at all times when in the presence of pathogens.”

“Thanks for your concern, Colonel, but no. Now I have to—”

“Major Stilwell, that wasn’t a request.” Colonel Ribbesh sounded
like a teacher she’d had in seventh grade, a little man bitter as brine whose life purpose, it seemed, had been to make other people suffer. “It was an order. From a superior officer.”

She took a deep breath, fought her temper back down. “Colonel. These boys fight every day without magic suits. I can’t take care of them in one. And I’m sure
you’re
aware of Army General Order Seventeen, Section Four, Part b, which states that in situations pertaining to the health and welfare of military personnel, medical authority shall prevail over all other considerations. I have to go.”

Let it go right there
, she told herself, but then it just came bubbling out. “See, a soldier just died and I need to pronounce his death to make his sure his family becomes eligible for what meager benefits the Army sees fit to pay parents for their dead enlisted-men sons, because if one bit of paperwork, just one tiny piece, is missing, well, they can kiss those benefits goodbye. But thank you for your concern.”

Stilwell hung up, shook her head. There was, of course, something else.

What’s your name, Sergeant?

Daniel, ma’am. Wyman
.

Suppose one of these boys had been
her
Danny and it was another doctor? What would she expect of
that
one? The answer was obvious—to her, at least. The others still in here all wore the suits. They were volunteers, sergeants and corporals, nurses and lab techs and a couple of physician’s assistants who’d stayed to help, and she was glad they were protected. But for her, not being able to speak directly to these sick kids, to see them and touch them and hear their voices undistorted, was unthinkable.

Not long after Daniel Wyman died, Stilwell herself took up residence in the quarantined hospital, catnapping when she could on a cot, subsisting mostly on coffee and the microwavable meals normally given only to patients. She had been working for more than fifty hours now without really sleeping, and was beginning to feel the red, gritty edge of serious fatigue.