Plague

'Maybe you can. My name is Dr. Leonard Petrie and I'm down at the hospital here with Dr. Anton Selmer. Look, I've just seen your morning edition and it doesn't seem to bear any relation to what we know to be the real facts.'

'I see.'

'What we have here is a form of Pasteurella pestis, which is the medical name for plague. It's very virulent, and very dangerous, and so far as we know to date, almost a hundred and fifty people have died. By the end of the day, it could be five or six times that figure.'

There was a silence. The sub-editor coughed, and then said, 'Well, Dr. Petrie. Your theory is very interesting.'

'What are you talking about? These are facts! I've seen dead people on the streets myself.'

'Oh, sure.'

'Aren't you interested? Isn't this newsworthy? Or have you gotten so goddamned deadened to violence that when a hundred and fifty Miami residents die of the plague, it only rates two lines on the inside page?'

'I am not deadened to violence, Dr. Petrie. I am simply doing my job.'

Dr. Petrie frowned. 'I wish I knew what your job was. So far, it seems to amount to out-and-out misrepresentation.'

'I resent that, Dr. Petrie.'

'Oh you do, huh? Well, I resent a newspaper that deliberately obscures the truth.'

The sub-editor sighed. 'Dr. Petrie, we're not dummies. We know what's going on, and so does City Hall and the County Health Department and the US Disease Control people in Washington.'

'Well, there isn't much evidence of it.'

'Of course not. We've already been briefed along with all of the other media that we have to play this thing right down. No screams, no shouts.'

'No facts?' said Dr. Petrie, incredulous.

The sub-editor sighed again. 'Dr. Petrie, do you have any idea what would happen if the majority of people in Miami became aware that plague was loose in the city? Panic, looting, robbery, violence — the city would die overnight. Apart from that, people carrying plague would spread over the surrounding countryside faster than you could say epidemic. It's not the way we usually do things, this play-down policy, but in this particular case we felt obliged to agree.'

Dr. Petrie was silent.

'The city health people have known about the plague since Friday of last week,' the sub-editor continued. 'A young baby in Hialeah went down with it, and died. The doctors did a routine test, and passed the information to Mr. Firenza. He went straight to the federal health authorities, they sought higher sanction, and the government decided that fewer people would be exposed to risk if they kept it quiet.'

Dr. Petrie said, 'You can't keep it quiet! The rumours are going around already. Have you seen US 1 and the North-South Expressway? People are beginning to drive out of Miami like rats out of a sinking ship.'

The sub-editor coughed. 'They won't get far.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, you're not supposed to know this, doctor, but you're bound to find out sooner or later. Every route out of Miami is sealed off. The whole city has been in the bag since about midnight last night. The National Guard have orders to stop and detain anyone trying to leave or enter the city limits.'

'And what about people who insist?'

'They're detained along with the rest of them.'

Dr. Petrie rubbed the back of his neck. 'I don't know what to say,' he said wearily. 'I guess you've told me all there is to know.'

'I just hope you see what we're doing in the right light,' said the sub-editor, with unexpected sincerity. 'I mean, we love this city, and we're real worried about this plague, but if we let the pig out of the sack, this whole place is going to be ripped apart in five minutes flat.

Especially when people realize that they can't escape.' Dr. Petrie nodded. 'Yes,' he said. 'I should think you're right.' Then he laid the phone back down, and sat there for twp or three minutes with his head in his hands.

'Well?' said Adelaide. 'What was all that about? Don't keep us in suspense.'

He took her hand, and squeezed it. 'It appears that we have been taken for mugs. Donald Firenza and his health department have known about the plague since Friday. As soon as they identified it, they sought advice from the federal government, which is probably the real reason that Becker is in Washington. The federal government has covertly sealed off Miami during the night, and is arresting and detaining anyone who tries to get in or out.'

Dr. Selmer said, open-mouthed, 'They knew? They knew about the plague all along and they didn't warn us?

'I guess they realized that warnings were futile. This plague kills people so fast, the whole population might have contracted it by now. All they want to do is stop it spreading.'

'But what are they doing about it? Are they trying to find an antidote? What are they doing about us? They can't just seal off a whole city and let it die.'

Dr. Petrie drummed his fingers on the edge of Dr. Selmer's desk.

'No,' he said softly. 'I don't suppose they can.'

Throughout the afternoon, and into the evening, it became clear that the plague was spreading through Miami and the suburbs like a brushfire on a dry day. Dr. Petrie and Dr. Selmer tried several times to get through to Washington, and to Donald Firenza, but the telephone switchboards were constantly busy. They were aware that four of their plague victims had been telephone operators, so it was likely that the exchange was seriously undermanned.

They worked hour after hour in the cold fluorescent light of the emergency ward, sweating in their flea-proof clothing, comforting the dying and easing the pain of the sick. Dr. Petrie saw an old woman of ninety-six die in feverish agony; a young boy of five shuddering and breathing his last painful breaths; a twenty-five-year-old wife die with her unborn baby still inside her.

Ambulances and private cars still jammed the hospital forecourt, bringing more and more people to the wards, even though the regular ambulance drivers had almost all sickened and died. Nurses made makeshift beds from folded blankets, and laid the whispering, white, dying people down in the corridors.

During a break in his work, Dr. Petrie stood in one of those corridors and looked around him. It was like a scene from a strange war, or some whispering asylum. He rubbed the sweat from his eyes and went back to his latest patient.

Dr. Selmer looked up from giving a streptomycin shot to a young teenage girl with red hair. 'What's it like out there?' he said hoarsely. 'Are they still coming in?'

Leonard Petrie nodded. 'They're still coming in, all right. How many do you reckon now?'

Dr. Selmer shrugged. 'If all the hospitals are coping with the same amount of patients — well, six or seven hundred. Maybe more than a thousand. Maybe even more than that.'

Dr. Petrie shook his head. 'It's like hell,' he said. 'It's like being in hell.'

'Sure. Would you take a look at Dr. Parkes? He doesn't seem too well.'

Dr. Parkes was an elderly physician who used to have a practise out at Opa Locka. Dr. Petrie had met him a few times on the golf course, and liked him. Now, across the crowded emergency ward, he could see Dr. Parkes wiping his forehead unsteadily, and taking off his spectacles.

'Dr. Parkes?' he said, pushing his way past two part-time trolley porters.

Dr. Parkes reached out and leaned against him. 'I'm all right,' he said quietly. 'I just need a moment's rest.'

'Dr. Parkes, do you want a shot?'

'No, no,' said the gray-haired old man. 'Don't you worry about me. I'll be all right. I'm just tired.'

Dr. Petrie shrugged. 'Well, if you say so. You're the doctor.'

Dr. Parkes smiled. Then he turned away from Dr. Petrie, and immediately collapsed, falling face-first into a tray of surgical instruments, and scattering them all over the floor.