Cabero picked up the phone and dialed the number to the Hermana de la Misericordia Clinic. A nurse picked up and he asked for Alvarez. He got on the phone. “I’ve been waiting two days.”
“Sorry,” Cabero said. “Busy.”
“Did you read the file?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think?”
“About what?”
“You didn’t read the file, did you?”
“I just told you I did.”
“I want to send a sample of his blood and have it tested with you. We don’t have the laboratories for it here.”
“Fine. Send whatever you like.”
“Have I done something to upset you, Jose?”
“I’m sick of these tourists coming here with dreams of finding lost cities and ending up dead. Then it’s my mess to clean and I get yelled at by every bureaucrat who sees tourism drying up. I’m just sick of the whole thing.”
“Sick of it or not this American is going to cause problems. We have over ten tours a day with each person paying thousands of dollars.”
“I know,” Cabero said dismissively. “Send the blood. I’ll have someone look at it. What are we looking for?”
“Unknown pathogen.”
CHAPTER 3
Clifford Lane finished the tour near the Jutai River and thanked the five remaining guests, taking a moment to answer questions and exchange emails. A few of them told him they’d like to stay in touch and talk about another tour next year.
When he was done he gathered up his supplies, rolling his tent and strapping it to his backpack, which lay on the ground. He went to stand on the edge of the river and dialed a number on his cell phone. There was still no reception. He turned the phone off and heaved the backpack on before taking a deep breath and starting the two-mile hike to the village and the Jeep that awaited him. From there, it was on to a plane headed for Brazil for a few days of relaxation before going back home to Honolulu.
As he trekked through the vegetation he felt an enormous amount of sweat pouring down his forehead. It made his shirt cling to his back and he had to stop every few minutes and guzzle down as much water as he could. His legs began to feel weak from the dehydration and he stopped underneath a large capirona tree and lay down, putting his arm over his face to shield it from the sun that was beating down through the canopy. He felt hot and faint and remembered that he hadn’t eaten since this morning. He pulled out a granola bar and some jerky and ate them slowly with a bottle of water. Waiting another few minutes, he felt better, rose, and began to walk.
Clifford climbed aboard the 747 bound for Rio de Janeiro and collapsed into his seat. It seemed he couldn’t get the sweat to stop pouring out of him no matter how much water he drank. The fever had increased to the point that he couldn’t sleep and the previous night, which he’d spent in a hotel, he’d lain in bed with an icepack on his head, rubbing furiously at a rash that was developing on his chest.
He reached up and turned on the air conditioning, pointing the fan over his face. Leaning his head back, he closed his eyes and his eyeballs felt hot against his lids. He debated just getting a sooner flight back home to Honolulu where his girlfriend, a nurse, could get him in to a good doctor at a good hospital right away.
“You doin’ okay, buddy?” the guy next to him asked.
“Fine,” he said without opening his eyes.
Clifford felt vomit rising in his throat. It came in waves, up and down his esophagus. He unbuckled his belt to go to the bathroom and the motion exhausted him.
“Holy shit!”
Clifford opened his eyes. The man next to him was staring at him liked he’d fallen out of the sky. He was about to ask what was wrong when he noticed the backs of his hands. They were turning a deep black just underneath the skin. Drops of blood fell on them from his nose. The blood was bright red, almost comically red; he’d never seen a red quite that color. He stood up to run to the bathroom when the man next to him screamed. Clifford looked down and saw the blood that had dripped over the man’s face.
“Sorry,” he said to no one as he stumbled out into the aisle. He leaned on the seats and pulled himself forward though his legs were not responding. It was like they were moving in slow motion; heavy, weighed down by something he couldn’t see.
Clifford reached for the doorknob of the bathroom as people on the plane were alerting the stewardess. He grabbed the doorknob, felt its warmth in his palm, and then the world went black as he fell forward into the door.
CHAPTER 4
Dr. Samantha Bower looked up from her textbook and at the clock on the wall of the cafeteria at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. It was nearly one in the morning and her back was beginning to ache from an old soccer injury she’d incurred in high school. The fact that she had gone skydiving earlier that morning and landed hard on a steeply inclined hill didn’t help the old injury.
She stretched from side to side and checked her iPhone. Her boss, the director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Diseases within the CDC, had decided to take a three-week European vacation. The task of finishing the report on a rare strand of influenza infections in Mongolia-that the deputy director of Infectious Diseases wanted right away for no reason at all-fell on her shoulders. It’d been ten days of eight hours in her actual work, fielding calls, drafting research memos, and filing reports, and then eight hours on her own time, fielding calls, drafting research memos, and filing reports.
She decided she’d had enough for today and stood up, picking up her book, Kann’s DNA Virus Replication, and headed out the doors to the parking lot. It was warm and the moon was up in the dark sky. The lighting over the lot was dim, as many of the bulbs were out. Few things in the building were maintained well but no one that worked there seemed to mind. As the director had said in a recent speech, they were at the forefront of medicine and microbiology. Using theories to predict outcomes in real-life scenarios. It was, as far as she could tell, the most exciting place for a physician or microbiologist to work, though few of her colleagues from medical school would think so.
She hopped onto Interstate 75 and headed home in her silver Jeep Grand Cherokee. She rolled down the windows and let the air flow over her face and through the car, rustling some papers in the back. Atlanta at this time of night was no place for her to be out but she had never been afraid. Her father had warned her that Atlanta had more car-jackings per capita than any other major American city. But she saw instances, like car-jackings, as statistical probabilities not real threats. By driving at night she had increased her probability of being car-jacked but the chance was still so remote that she wasn’t worried. Then again, lightning had to strike somewhere.
It took her thirty-five minutes to reach her brownstone in a quiet suburb just near Sandy Springs. She parked in the driveway, too tired to open the garage, and set the alarm to her car before deactivating the alarm to her house.
The house was cool and the air conditioner clicked off as she entered. It was decorated modestly with little extravagance other than a few photographs and paintings related to music, a career as a violinist being her first choice since she was a child. Sam kicked off her shoes, set her alarm, and crawled into bed without brushing her teeth or changing.
Sam awoke at ten in the morning. It was Saturday and the sun was streaming through the windows, lighting up the open spaces in her home. She considered calling her sister Jane in San Francisco and then decided to shower first.
After showering and changing into denim shorts and a black Calvin Klein shirt, she turned on her iPhone and grabbed a protein shake out of the fridge. She stepped outside and wondered whether she should take a quick walk around the park that was located a few minutes up the block.