“All right,” Tyron agreed, following Kieling across the field toward the enclosure.
Inside the wire, Riley watched the two men coming. It had been a restless day so far, and he’d spent a good portion of it simply walking the inside perimeter of the wire. By now he’d made a discernible path in the short grass.
“Good news or bad?” Conner asked, coming up behind him.
Riley knew she’d spent most of the late morning/early afternoon working. Keeping busy to keep her own mind occupied. Filming interviews with the other people inside; doing voice-overs on video already taken; and trying to keep Mike Seeger occupied. The cameraman had done his job, saying nothing except in response to a direct question. When not working, he sat on one of his equipment cases, reading from his Bible, his lips silently moving.
Comsky had spent the time making sure those who had been hurt in the crash were progressing all right. The others had occupied themselves as well as they could. Riley was worried not just about Seeger but also about Lome and some of the other army people. They did not have the type of personality that accepted inaction in the face of danger.
“Probably no news,” Riley said. “One thing I learned a long time ago in the army was that the guy on the ground is always the last to know what’s going on.”
“You’re such an optimist,” Conner said.
“At least I didn’t say it was bad news,” Riley said. “So I guess I’m not a pessimist either.”
The two men came to a halt just outside the entrance.
“We found that Sergeant Ku was treated at the local hospital,” the man with “Kieling” stenciled on his chest said. “Some of the staff there are now down with what looks like the same virus.”
“How long ago was Ku there?” Comsky asked.
“The morning of the fourteenth,” Kieling replied.
“Only two days ago,” Comsky calculated. “And already they have symptoms?”
“Yes. We need you to take everyone’s temperature,” Kieling said. “Check for fever.”
“And if we have a fever?” Sergeant Lome’s voice was angry. “What then? Do you have a treatment? A cure?”
“This virus probably isn’t one hundred percent fatal,” Tyron said. “We don’t have any idea what its fatality rate is. There are some variants of Ebola that aren’t fatal at all. Last year I met a woman who had survived Ebola and—”
“If you’re trying to cheer us up, don’t,” Conner said. “We were with Sergeant Ku and we saw what this virus did to him. Let’s just get this over with.”
“Do you have any idea what this is?” Comsky asked. “They should have had a chance to look at it back in the States by now.”
“We know it’s a filo-virus,” Kieling said succinctly. “We don’t know how it’s spread. We don’t know what its reservoir is. Quite honestly, we don’t know a goddamn thing about it.”
“Do not take the Lord’s name in vain!” Seeger cried out.
“Come on, now, take it easy,” Conner said, putting a hand on Seeger’s arm. To her surprise, he threw her aside, and the burly cameraman dashed forward to the hole in the wire and through it. He grabbed Kieling and lifted him off the ground, the muscles in his arms bulging.
“Blasphemer!” He shook Kieling.
“Don’t!” Riley yelled as he saw what was about to happen.
Seeger tossed Kieling into the barbed wire fence. He then jumped on top of him. The two rolled about in the fence, Kieling encumbered by his suit and unable to defend himself.
“Stop it!” Riley called out as he ran forward. He grabbed Seeger from behind, only to be shrugged aside. Riley could feel tears in his clothes and skin as he waded back into the fight among the sharp edges of the razor wire. Lome and Comsky joined him and they tried grabbing the civilian. “Take it easy, now,” Riley said. “We don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“It is God’s will!” Seeger said, slamming Kieling’s head into the ground. “We cannot stop it.” He gave one last thump on Kieling, then turned and faced Riley and the others.
“God’s will this, asshole,” Lome said, drawing his 9mm pistol from its holster.
“Put that away,” Riley said. He leaned forward, feinted at Seeger’s face with his right hand, and, when the man moved to block, slammed his left hand, open palm first, into Seeger’s chest.
Seeger lay still, gasping for breath, and Riley, Comsky, and Lome quickly subdued him. Several men had come running over from the AOB during the confrontation, and they supplied a couple of sets of plastic wrist cinches with which they restrained the cameraman, pulling him out of the wire.
Riley reached down and gave Kieling a hand, pulling him to his feet. “You all right?” he asked as he helped him get untangled.
Kieling didn’t answer. He was looking down at his suit. He reached up and pulled off his helmet, showing his face to the others for the first time. “Well, I don’t need that anymore.” He looked at Riley. “I guess it’s no longer we they.” He peeled off the space suit and they could see the blood from several cuts, seeping through the jumpsuit he wore underneath.
Twenty minutes later, the situation had calmed down a bit. Seeger was under guard in one of the tents. Tyron had gone back to the habitat, shaken by what had happened to Kieling. Riley and Conner watched as Kieling took temperatures along with Comsky The two medical men conferred quietly when they were done, then turned to the group.
“Everyone’s normal so far,” Kieling announced.
“I assume that’s good,” Conner said.
“So far, so good,” Kieling confirmed, “although it’s only been a day since you were exposed to Ku’s blood. Tomorrow will give us a better idea. The people in the hospital are at that point right now.”
“What will you do?” Riley asked.
“I’m going to go where I can be of some use,” Kieling said. “Since I can’t go back into the habitat without destroying its integrity for Tyron, I’m going to go to the hospital in town and lend a hand and try to learn what I can.”
“Do you two have any more information at all on this?” Riley asked. “Anything from the States? From higher headquarters?”
“We have some imagery of eastern Angola,” Kieling said. “It shows patterns of the disease spreading around the countryside.”
“Can I take a look at that?” Riley asked.
“What for?”
“I don’t know,” Riley replied. “Maybe to feel useful. Just like you’re going over to the hospital.”
Kieling shrugged. “Sure. Go over to the habitat and ask Tyron to pass it out to you.” With that, he headed toward town. Riley had to admire the scientist. He’d taken what had just happened as if it were no big deal. But then again, Riley reminded himself, of all the people here, Kieling was the best prepared for what they were facing and had probably faced the same threat before. At the very least, Kieling had the advantage of having thought this through and let his imagination do its worst before facing the reality.
As Riley got set to head to the habitat, Comsky grabbed his arm. “We need to talk.”
“What’s up, Ape Man?”
Comsky led him away from the others. “We have four people running fevers.”
“What?” Riley exclaimed. “But Kieling said—”
“I know what he said,” Comsky quietly cut in. “I agreed with him that we not tell anyone. What good would it do? It would just add to the stress and panic, and you saw how well Seeger handled it.”
Riley could see the logic in that. “Who are the four?”
Comsky gave a weary smile. “Well, me of course. I about ate Ku’s blood working on him.”
“I’m sorry,” Riley said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe it’s—”
“Hey,” Comsky said, “I expected it.”
“Who else?” Riley asked, half-knowing whom the others would be.
“The helicopter pilot who got cut up in the crash.”
“But he wasn’t in contact with Ku,” Riley said.
“I know. Kieling and I talked about that. It’s one of the reasons he’s going over to the hospital. The way this thing spreads is very strange. Almost like it is airborne to a certain extent. He’s going to see if he can get a handle on the vector. Find a common link among those infected.”
Riley felt a bead of sweat roll down his forehead.
“Conner’s hot,” Comsky added.
“Oh, shit,” Riley muttered. This had been his idea. His responsibility. He looked at Comsky, who was looking away. “And I’m hot, too, right?”
“One hundred point eight degrees.”
Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina, 16 June
Paratroopers were used to delays. “Hurry up and wait” was the unofficial motto of the 82d, and this morning was proving to be no different. There were planes out on the runway, six C-141 Starlifters, but loading had ceased several hours ago and over two thousand soldiers milled about the green ramp, whiling away the hours, waiting for word to embark. The green ramp was a large building with rows and rows of oversized wooden benches. It was the final staging area for all jumps and deployments, and every 82d soldier had spent numerous hours inside there waiting for an airborne operation.
The carefully choreographed deployment time schedule was already shot to hell, and officers fumed as they saw the little checkmarks on their efficiency reports go down a notch or two. It was bad form to be late showing up for a war.
The PA system crackled, then a voice came on, telling all battalion and separate unit commanders to report to the loadmaster’s office. The designated officers quickly complied, eager to find out what the new schedule was. When they came back, the look on their faces was of confusion. The deployment was off.
Even as the soldiers heard the news—welcome for some, not so for others with visions of combat infantry badges and medals to be won—a C-141 swooped in and landed, disgorging disgruntled troopers who had been halfway over the Atlantic Ocean before being turned back.
The official word the commanders passed down was that the operation was going so smoothly in Angola that the troops already there could handle the rest of the mission. Those who had half a brain didn’t buy that for a second. Over the past twenty years, the U.S. army had never sent ten soldiers to do a job when it could send twenty.
Something was going on, but from the lowest snuffy in the ranks through the ranking man inside the green ramp, they knew one thing: as Riley had told Conner on the other side of the ocean, they would be the last to know.
Pentagon, 16 June
Colonel Martin glanced at the digital clock overhead, then back down to the summary he’d just been sent from his people at Detrick. Since the last report, there was nothing new. The most disturbing information was the failure thus far to identify the infection vector. The lab was in the middle of several experiments and had discovered so far that this particular filo-virus lasted longer in the open than Ebola or Marburg. After almost ten minutes of exposure to light and air, it was still alive. By twenty, 90 percent was dead and by a half hour, the virus was completely wiped out. But ten minutes was a very long time for a virus to live in the open.
That might help explain the massive extent of the outbreak in Angola. At USAMRIID they were exposing monkeys to the airborne virus. The problem was they would have to wait until the monkeys showed symptoms of the disease to determine how far it could travel through the air. And whether it could infect through the respiratory system.
And time was the problem. The deployment had been halted, but there were still over eight thousand American troops on the ground in Angola—not to mention over ten million Angolans. And the random borderlines drawn on the map wouldn’t stop this thing. It was just as likely to burn east and north into Zambia and Zaire. South it would be blocked by the desert. All international travel in and out of Angola had been halted, but there was the possibility that someone had already left the country infected. As international air travel made the globe smaller, it made the possibility of a disease jumping an ocean that much stronger.
The only good news was that, as rapidly as this virus sickened and killed, it could not hide long in those it infected. Martin felt reasonably confident that it would be contained. The problem was the cost of that containment in terms of those already infected.
Martin was startled from his reverie by General Cummings’s voice. “What exactly is W.H.O.?” he asked, spelling out the letters.
“The World Health Organization, sir,” Martin replied.
“I know that,” Cummings said. “My real question is, why are they interested in Cacolo, Angola? I have a report here that WHO is alerting a virology investigative team to go to Angola in response to a request for help from an organization known as Medicins Sans Frontieres.”
“That’s a group called Doctors Without Borders,” Martin said. “They’re a medical aid organization that works in the Third World. They probably have people in Cacolo who are seeing the disease.”
“Great,” Cummings said. “This is going to be out on the wire soon. Some smart-ass in the media is going to put that together with the news blackout from Luanda and we’re going to have big trouble.”
We already have big trouble, Martin thought to himself, but he kept quiet. He had already picked up the pulse here in the War Room, and he didn’t much care for it. As best as Martin could describe it, there was more concern over the way this situation looked than the way it really was. He thought of those camera commercials: “Image is everything.” It certainly was here.
He still didn’t think that General Cummings and his staff understood the full implications of this outbreak and he couldn’t blame them, because he couldn’t give them hard figures to work with.
But did it matter how they approached this situation? Martin had to ask himself as he watched Cummings working with his staff. There was nothing they could do other than control the image.
Cacolo, Angola, 16 June
Riley spread the imagery out on the ground and knelt down, studying it in the afternoon sun.
“What do you have?” Conner Young appeared at his shoulder.
Riley checked her out. She seemed okay, but he knew he also looked the same. He hadn’t really felt the fever, but shortly after Comsky had told him, he had felt hot. He knew that could be his mind playing tricks on him, and he chose not to dwell on it.