“Learned? I’m not a biologist. I’m a retired general practitioner. You—”
“Be silent!” Omidi said. There wasn’t much time. Bahame’s speeches were characterized not only by their intensity, but also by their brevity.
“Help me and I’ll take you with me when I leave this place.” He pointed to the corpse the elderly physician had been hovering over when he arrived. “You must know something.”
“Yes,” De Vries said, looking around him nervously. “It’s a parasitic infection similar in some ways to malaria, but after it gets into the bloodstream it concentrates in the head — bursting the capillaries around the hair follicles and attacking the brain.”
“Is that how it spreads?” Omidi said. “Through the bleeding?”
“Yes…Yes, I think so. There are high concentrations in the blood and it enters through breaks in the skin and possibly the eyes; I’m not sure.”
“How long?”
“What?”
“How long until it takes effect?”
“Will you take me back to Cape Town? Back to my home?”
“I will put you on a commercial flight at Entebbe,” Omidi said, straining to hide his disdain for this descendant of the Christian conquerors who had subjugated Africa and the world.
De Vries nodded. “It’s a difficult question to answer. The only victim I’ve had an opportunity to observe began to experience agitation and confusion at around ten hours. My understanding is that there is significant variation, though. I would guess a range of seven to fifteen hours to the beginning of identifiable disorientation. After that, the disease appears to be very fast and consistent. Growing agitation until bleeding starts around three hours after initial symptoms and violent behavior follows almost immediately.”
“Death?”
“About forty-eight hours after full symptoms, though I’m told that most die of injuries or what is probably heart failure.”
The healthy woman in the cage sprang suddenly to her feet and started talking, wrapping her hands around the bars, unashamed by her own nakedness.
The doctor looked back at her, compassion visible in his expression despite the fact that his situation wasn’t much better. “Bahame always keeps one infected person imprisoned in here so that there’s no chance of the parasite dying out. When that one looks like he’s going to die, the woman will be infected to carry on the line.”
Omidi nodded. Again, workable in Africa but not practical for a large-scale attack on a modern country. He looked behind him to confirm they were alone and then pointed to the refrigerator. “Can a sample be frozen for transport?”
“No. It can’t live outside the body for more than a few minutes and is extremely temperature sensitive — every sample I’ve tried to refrigerate dies almost immediately.”
Footsteps became audible in the corridor, and they both fell silent. A moment later Bahame appeared at the entrance to the chamber.
Omidi tensed, uncertain how to act. Should he try to explain or just remain silent? There was no telling from one minute to the next what would cause the African to explode.
Fortunately, Bahame made the decision for him. “Get out.”
Omidi nodded respectfully and ducked back into the narrow passage, keeping an even gait as the cries of the doctor and the crash of toppling equipment echoed around him. Hopefully, Bahame would kill the old man. It was more likely that he would create unwanted complications than additional useful information.
Let him rot.
39
Brandon wouldn’t have wanted all this fuss, but as his friend I’m really happy to see it,” the man said, shifting uncomfortably behind the lectern.
Dave Collen tuned him out, unable to remember his name and completely uninterested in what he had to say.
The small auditorium was jammed with people, and he scanned the faces, wondering how many had actually known Brandon Gazenga and how many had come out of curiosity and the promise of free pastries. There were a few expressions of real emotion, but most of the people just looked on with grave detachment.
“I’m sure everyone here knows what a talented analyst Brandon was, but with the way the agency works, a lot of people never had the time to find out what a great guy he was,” the man continued, his throat constricting with sadness. “I had the privilege of working closely with him for the past few years…”
Collen continued surveying the crowd, still not finding what he was looking for.
The ramifications of having to kill Gazenga so soon were still evolving, but how he had died made matters even worse. Who would have thought he’d wait until he was suffocating on his filthy carpet to grow a backbone? After admitting to contacting Russell, he’d finally fessed up to the time and place of their meeting, and Collen had lived up to his end of the bargain, holding out the phony antidote.
He’d expected Gazenga to snatch the bottle and shake the useless pills desperately into his mouth. Instead, he accepted them calmly, slowly swallowing them and then letting his head settle to the floor. Collen hadn’t left until the analyst’s gaze became fixed and unseeing.
They’d sent their team to the rendezvous point, but it quickly became clear that Gazenga had known he was a dead man and lied. The tracker they’d put on Russell’s car showed her heading into Pennsylvania — something they discovered too late to set up another ambush.
Collen perked up when the door at the rear of the room opened and Randi Russell slipped through. He nudged Larry Drake and gave a nearly imperceptible nod. It wasn’t proof that she’d known Gazenga was the one who slipped her a note, but it was a strong indication. She was hardly the type to show up to a memorial — particularly one for a person she didn’t know.
“When am I going to see a final?” the DCI whispered, referring to the revised plan for Russell’s elimination.
“Soon. We have a few more details to work out. She’s living alone in a friend’s cabin while she’s stateside. It couldn’t be more perfect for us — no security system, no neighbors for miles, and only one lightly traveled rural road in.”
“Then why isn’t it done?”
“The contractor I want to use is difficult to contact in a way that doesn’t leave a trail.”
“No mistakes, Dave. Do you understand me? We can’t afford any more.”
Collen nodded, wondering if it was an overly optimistic assessment of the situation. He’d completed an exhaustive survey of Gazenga’s computer use, uncovering his carefully hidden search for someone to help him, but otherwise coming up empty. Russell appeared to be similarly clean.
Just because he hadn’t found anything, though, didn’t mean there was nothing to find. Most likely, Gazenga had been telling the truth when he said that he’d given Russell only a time and place. But it was far from certain.
Finally, the loss of their eyes in Uganda had been a disaster. They were left tracking Smith with marginal satellite images and a single unreliable man on the ground. As of an hour ago, they could pinpoint the team’s location with only a thirty-mile margin of error.
The fact that they couldn’t afford another mistake was certain. The question was whether they’d already made too many.
Randi Russell slid along the wall, joining in on the subdued laughter as the speaker told a story about a rafting trip he’d taken with Gazenga. She finally stopped at a table and lifted the tinfoil on one of the plates lined up on it.
Doughnuts.
She pulled one out and began gnawing at its edge as she made her way to an unoccupied corner of the room. The size of the crowd made her wonder how many people would show up on the day her own luck inevitably ran out. Living a life doing things that couldn’t be talked about in countries most people couldn’t find on a map hadn’t left her with a particularly large circle of friends. And the few she did have tended to be a little skittish about showing their faces or admitting they knew her.