He ran his fingers along the rubber seal that lined the edges. The door had been designed to be watertight in case the underground tunnels ever flooded. Nor would light leak out. He’d tested it by leaving a strong flashlight pointed at the door, then closed it and studied it with his night-vision goggles. Not a shimmer had passed through.
He climbed in and pulled the door closed behind him, carefully drawing the bolt across. Right now he was the safest he had been since the police had driven him out of his house the night before. He was also hungry, smelly, and lonely. But he had the cure to all that in his backpack — his computer.
Wedging himself with his back against one side of the round tunnel and his feet against the other, he started up his laptop. As a supernerd, Joe didn’t tolerate network lag. He had a router downstairs in the parlor and one upstairs in his bedroom on the bookcase that served as the interior door to the secret passage.
Wi-Fi strength should not be a problem here. Quickly, he connected and accessed his surveillance cameras. Nobody was at the elevator or in the tunnels right now. Unfortunately, he hadn’t installed cameras inside his house, so he couldn’t verify that it was empty. He bet that it wasn’t.
To find that out, he needed to track movements in and out of the house since he’d been driven out of the house the night before. He connected to the server that stored the surveillance videos and loaded the corresponding one. Four men (green) had left in the elevator late last night, about half an hour after their arrival. Vivian Torres had gone with them. Two (blue) men had stayed.
Every half hour the two men went through his front door. One went down the left tunnel to check the elevator and the door that closed off the tunnel in that direction. The other went right and checked that door. They must have assumed that the only way into the house was through one of those tunnels, because they didn’t bother to leave someone inside. Each check took them between five and six minutes.
Eight hours later, they had been relieved by another two men who followed the same routine. Eight hours after that, another two men came on shift. It looked like they’d settled in to stake out his house for the long term.
He’d been afraid of that. That left him only the five- to six-minute window when they went out to check the tunnel doors and the elevator. If he was quick and careful, that ought to be enough.
A glance at his watch verified that the men wouldn’t be going out on their foray any time soon. No point in wasting the free Wi-Fi. He left the surveillance camera views up on his laptop, hid his IP address, then searched for toxoplasmosis.
The first site brought up a cross section of a human brain with bright yellow dots in it and arrows pointing to the marked cysts.
He read the text below it.
Parasitic protozoans, called toxoplasmosis, infect all mammals on Earth. About 25 % of all Americans currently carry these parasites in their blood and brains. Although once thought to be harmless in children and adults with healthy immune systems, new research indicates that the parasite is related to both mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia and Parkinson’s disease, and reckless behaviors, causing higher incidences of automobile accidents and promiscuity.
Toxoplasmosis is incurable.
So, Rebar having toxoplasmosis might be unremarkable. Millions of other people had it, and they hadn’t been targeted by a contract killer. Joe checked the time at the corner of the screen. Twenty more minutes before his guards left the house. He kept searching.
The symptoms of toxoplasmosis are minor in most people — muscle aches, fever, tiredness, sore throat, and nausea.
He remembered when he’d met Rebar in the tunnel. The man had been flushed, thin, and feverish-looking. Toxoplasmosis could have caused that. Not in someone with a healthy immune system, but toxoplasmosis could be deadly in those with compromised immune systems, such as those infected with HIV, organ transplant recipients, or the elderly.
He hadn’t seen AIDS or HIV mentioned in the autopsy or any mention that Rebar might have received an organ transplant or chemotherapy, so his immune system might or might not have been compromised. But maybe the parasite didn’t need a compromised immune system to take over anymore. Maybe the parasite had become more virulent.
Joe researched it further.
The toxoplasmosis parasite causes rats to not only lose their fear of cats, but to become attracted to the scent of cat urine — leading them to be killed and ingested by cats. It is only in a cat’s digestive tract that the parasite can complete its lifecycle and reproduce sexually, forming eggs that are expelled in the cat’s feces.
Joe read that paragraph twice. He grimaced. If a microscopic parasite could persuade rats to run willingly to their deaths, what could it do to humans?
In humans infected with toxoplasmosis, studies show that men behave with greater recklessness, becoming more involved in fights and car accidents than their statistically similar peers. Women, on the other hand, become more compliant and sexually promiscuous.
In addition, patients with some mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, have higher than average infection rates. Women infected with toxoplasmosis have been shown to have twice the suicide rate as non-infected women.
A microscopic parasite could have a very profound influence on a person’s brain. A seemingly trivial creature could cause someone to hear voices, be depressed, or even take his own life. Feeling paranoid, he checked for a link between agoraphobia and toxoplasmosis, but didn’t find one. So, whatever had sent him over the deep end, it wasn’t this tiny parasite. Although that didn’t mean it couldn’t be a different one.
He did a quick search to see how it was transmitted — to make sure that he couldn’t have caught it from Rebar.
Toxoplasmosis is usually transmitted by eating undercooked meat from an animal that contains the parasite. This can include beef, pork, venison, etc.
In rare cases, toxoplasmosis has been transmitted via blood transfusions or organ donations.
He hadn’t eaten Rebar or come in contact with his blood, so maybe he was safe. Joe took a deep breath and let it out. He was likely not infected by a killer parasite that made you do crazy things. That might be the best news he’d heard today. He checked the time. Five more minutes.
What about Saddiq? Unless he’d worn a full CDC contamination suit to bash in Rebar’s head, he’d probably come in contact with Rebar’s blood. If it had come in contact with an open wound or his eyes, there was a chance that he’d become infected, too.
It would explain his reckless behavior — killing Brandon in the street, randomly shooting his gun empty in the steam tunnel. None of his actions jibed with the deliberate, professional man described in his military files.
It made him an even more dangerous opponent.
Joe checked the time. 10:45. He crawled up the tunnel, laptop tucked inside his hoodie. When he got to the top, just inside the door that led to the house, he opened his laptop and checked his surveillance cameras. His watchdogs were leaving — one was fat with straight black hair and the other was skinny with big ears. He named them Abbott and Costello. Abbott went right, Costello went left, and Joe set his watch alarm for four minutes. That gave him a minute of cushion in case Abbott or Costello decided to speed things up.
He pushed the bookcase open slowly, glad that he’d oiled those hinges, too. His bedroom smelled wonderful — like wood and lilacs, remnants of the previous occupants and a reminder of his everyday world.
There was no way around it. He had to take risks now.