The boss looked back to Ben and Halima. 'This true, son?'
'Yes,' Ben said with a sinking feeling, 'but-'
'I don't blame you trying to escape the village, son, but that's not going to happen now.'
'I wasn't trying to escape the village!' Ben shouted. 'I was-'
'OK, I've heard enough,' the commander overruled him. 'Our directions are clear: everyone's to be kept in quarantine. Nobody in there will be armed, so you should be perfectly safe.' He turned and walked away, leaving the guard to push Ben and Halima in the direction of a small group of villagers who were being organized by another of the faceless peacekeepers.
'Just shut down the mine!' Ben shouted over his shoulder. 'Whatever you do, shut down the mine!'
Seething with frustration, they started trudging to where the man had indicated. But Ben was hardly concentrating on where he was going, his attention diverted by the sight of more sick people being stretchered into the canvas tent. He knew perfectly well what he was looking for.
A white face.
He was halfway to the processing area when he saw it. Instantly he ran towards his father, doing his best to keep tears from welling up in his eyes; but before he had run even a few metres, he heard shouts from all around him. Appearing as if from nowhere, two armed peacekeepers stood between Ben and his dad. 'Stand back!' they shouted.
'No,' Ben snapped at them. 'It's OK, it's my dad.'
'No cross-contamination,' the peacekeeper insisted in an emotionless American accent. 'If you do not stand down, I will be forced to shoot. There will not be a second warning.'
Ben stood still. All eyes seemed to be on him. He looked past the guards to where his dad was being carried. Russell Tracey's face was still and pale; Ben watched in desperation as he was carried into the tent. Then he looked back at the peacekeepers, who still had their assault rifles aimed at him. Reluctantly he turned and trudged back to Halima.
'Maybe he is all right,' Halima said without much conviction. Ben didn't reply.
Ahead of them was a disturbance. Ben saw without surprise that Suliman was arguing with someone giving him instructions. Immediately he too was surrounded by two more armed peacekeepers, and eventually he moved, with a surly look but without further complaint, towards a group of people milling around waiting for yet more instructions.
As Ben and Halima approached, they realized that males and females were being separated. Distraught and tearful mothers were being forcibly removed from their sons; and fathers of daughters stood alone and confused as their families were taken away from them. Ben felt a sudden pang. He had been with Halima non-stop for days now; they had gone through such a lot together. Now he was to be separated not only from his father but also from the one person who had helped him through all this. He didn't want to leave her.
They stopped walking and turned to look at each other. 'We have to keep telling them to shut the mine,' Ben said quietly.
'I know,' Halima replied.
There was an awkward stillness between them, as they both searched for the right words to say. 'You will be all right,' Halima managed finally.
Ben tried to wear a brave smile. 'Hope so. Look, they can't keep us separated for ever. I'll probably see you before-'
But Halima had put a finger gently to his lips. 'You have done all that you need to do here, Ben. But you do not belong in this place. Promise me you will persuade them to let you go home as soon as possible.'
He looked into her eyes. 'I'll see you before then.' He glanced towards the medical tent. 'If I'm OK, I mean.'
Halima smiled. 'Perhaps. Perhaps not.' Her gaze lingered. 'But I will not forget you, Ben Tracey, or what you have done.'
And with that, she turned and joined the other women, not looking back to see Ben watching her leave, his face expressionless and his jaw clenched.
He took a deep breath to steady his raging emotions, then stepped towards the male villagers.
The rest of the day passed in a blur. Ignored by the African men around him, Ben followed as they were led into yet another tent. There they were instructed to remove their clothes. Ben did as he was told, standing awkwardly with the other naked, skinny, bedraggled men while their clothes were taken to the incinerator – in fact more of a huge bonfire – to be burned. They were then led outside again where plastic bottles full of stinking disinfectant were poured over their heads. When it dried, they were handed clean clothes – simple cloth trousers and T-shirts that made them look more like a group of convicts than anything else.
They then lined up to have their blood tested. The men ahead of Ben looked deeply scared as they waited for the American doctor – also masked and suited – to slide the slim, sharp needle into their veins. Many of them looked like they wanted to run, but they could not do so as they were being held at gunpoint. Eventually it was Ben's turn. The doctor looked at his white skin in surprise. 'You OK, pal?' he asked through his mask.
Ben shrugged. 'Kind of.' The doctor started dabbing an antiseptic wipe on his arm. 'Have they shut the mine down yet? It's really important.'
'Not my area.' He picked up a needle. 'You must be the guy that alerted us to the virus.'
'Yeah.' Half of Ben wanted to go into detail, but he was overcome with exhaustion now. He winced as the sharp needle punctured his skin. His blood slowly filled the syringe. 'What's the blood test for?' he asked.
'Antibodies,' the doctor explained. 'Some people are immune to viruses like this – that's why not everyone has fallen ill. I'm afraid you won't be able to leave the quarantine area until we've been able to confirm that you're not a carrier.'
Or that I am, Ben thought to himself. 'How long will that take?'
'Couple of days. The samples have to be flown back to the lab in Kinshasa.'
'But I've been in contact with it and I haven't got ill. Surely that proves-'
'Don't prove a thing, son. These things can take up to twenty days to become symptomatic.'
Twenty days. Ben felt a sickness in his stomach.
'And what if I'm not immune?'
The doctor hesitated before asking. 'Then I'm afraid you're going to have to stay in the village until the virus has run its course.'
Ben nodded gravely, before he asked the question that had been on his mind ever since he arrived back at the village. 'Um, you know the big tent – the one leading to the incinerator?'
The doctor nodded.
'The people they take there, are they all going to die?'
Again a pause. 'Most of them, son,' he replied. 'We're giving everyone antipyretics to reduce their body temperatures and antibiotics to deal with the virus, although it's too early for us to say whether they will have any effect. My own opinion is that they probably won't. In the end it'll come down to chance. A few people will make it, but it's impossible to say who.'
Ben went quiet.
'What's the matter, son?' the doctor asked quietly. 'Someone you know in there?'
'Yeah,' Ben replied. 'Yeah, you could say that.'
He walked away from the doctor and followed the line of people to a nearby tent. A sign outside said in big letters 'Quarantaine Masculine'. Male quarantine.
He took a deep breath, and walked inside.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The first few hours in quarantine were the worst.
Ben had only been in the tent for a very short while when, beyond the hubbub of frightened voices, he started hearing distant screams. At first he thought that they were human, but soon he realized that the sounds were too high-pitched for that, and too herd -like. In an instant he realized what it was. The village's livestock – the mangy cows and goats that he had seen wandering around – would be an infection risk. They had to be slaughtered. Ben couldn't work out if what he was hearing was the sound of animals having their throats cut, or their squeals of terror as they witnessed what was happening to their fellow beasts. Either way, it curdled his blood.