Ebola K: A Terrorism Thriller (7 page)

They sat in a booth at the restaurant,
because they
always
sat in a booth—usually the same booth.
They ordered their usual pizza from their usual waiter, Nick. And
as usual, Paul felt a pang of guilt because they spent too much
money eating out. The evidence being that they had a usual booth, a
usual pizza, and a usual waiter.

Heidi started checking her Facebook page on
her phone as soon as Nick left the drinks. She checked in at the
pizza place, checked the newsfeed, and wrote a comment about
something that made her laugh to herself.

Paul swirled the ice in his glass with the
straw and when the cubes had jingled against the glass enough
times, he said, “You might think this is a little weird.”

“What?” Heidi didn’t look up from her phone,
which wasn’t unusual. She liked to tell herself that she was a
multitasker, when in fact she was just good at lying to herself
about ignoring people.

Paul was used to it. “After that story on the
news yesterday I went to Costco and bought some stuff.”

“Uh-huh.” Heidi slid her finger down the
screen, glanced up, smiled, and looked back down at her phone.

“I bought a fifty-pound bag of rice, five
gallons of cooking oil, and some other stuff.”

Heidi scrolled again, read some more,
stopped, then looked up. “You what?”

“It’s probably nothing. I mean, I may be
worried about nothing, but after that story in the news about that
guy showing up in New York with Ebola, I got worried.”

“You think Ebola is here?” she asked.

“I honestly doubt it.”

“What does this have to do with buying fifty
pounds of rice at Costco?”

Paul looked around to assure himself that no
one was listening to the conversation. “I’m a little embarrassed
about it.”

Heidi put her phone down on the table. She
was ready to give her full attention.

Knowing that wouldn’t last long, Paul
continued, “I kind of feel like a prepper.”

“A prepper?”

“You know. Like those Doomsday Preppers you
see on TV.”

She cringed. “You bought rice because you’re
a Doomsday Prepper?”

“No, not really. Maybe a little. Like I said,
I got worried because of that Ebola thing in New York. If there’s
an outbreak there, things could kind of go to shit pretty quickly
in the rest of the country. I just figured if I spent a hundred
bucks or so at Costco, we’d be safe. In theory, we’d have enough to
eat for two or three months in case we couldn’t go out.”

“
Rice
?” Heidi’s tone made it clear she
was displeased. “Please don’t tell me it’s white rice.”

“They only had white in bulk. I couldn’t find
any brown.”

“Bland, boring
white
rice.” Heidi’s
face showed clear disappointment.

She was missing the point. Paul said, “Yeah,
I didn’t say we were going to like the food. Only that we’d have
something to keep us alive, just in case.”

Heidi leaned forward and put her elbows on
the table, entirely serious. “You know this sounds a little nuts,
right? I’m not saying you’re nuts, but you know, people might think
that. Do you really think there’s a danger?”

Paul leaned back and tried to look casual.
“No, not really. I just worry about it, that’s all. I guess I
figured a hundred bucks was a small price to pay to assuage my
fears over this Ebola thing. We can stick it in the basement and
not worry about it. If we need it, it’s there. If we don’t, we’re
not going to miss a hundred bucks.”

“This isn’t like you.”

“I know,” Paul agreed. “I hate white rice
too. But like I said, they didn’t have brown.”

“No, not the rice. You’re always so…I don’t
know. You don’t worry about stuff. That’s
my
job, isn’t
it?”

Paul shrugged. “This one concerns me a
bit.”

Uncharacteristically wordless, Heidi looked
down at her iced tea.

“I’m probably overreacting.” It seemed like
the right thing to say, and maybe it was. Nonetheless, Paul
couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe he hadn’t done enough. He was
trying to find the happy balance between doing enough and feeling
embarrassed for doing anything.

Looking back up at him, Heidi asked, “Do you
think we’ll see an epidemic here, like they’re having in West
Africa?”

“No.” Paul’s brow furrowed while he thought
about that snap answer. “A lot of people are sick. A
lot
. A
lot of people have died. More than in that SARS thing a few years
ago.”

“It’s been going on for three or four months,
right?” Heidi asked. “That’s a while. So you’d think more people
would catch it, right?”

Paul nodded. Her point was valid. “I just
don’t get how it spread to so many people in that short amount of
time. It’s supposedly transferred through bodily fluids, but it
seems like too many people are infected for it all to be explained
by just that.”

“I don’t understand. What are you getting
at?” Heidi glanced down at her phone. Her newsfeed was calling.

“I’m only speculating, but I wonder if there
isn’t an airborne strain that’s spreading over there.”

Heidi shook her head while she thought about
it. “Taking the reverse argument, if it
was
airborne and
it’s been around since March or April, wouldn’t a lot more people
be infected?”

It was Paul’s turn to sit back and ponder.
“Yeah. I think you’re right. Just the same, we’ve got some food in
the basement.”

“You know what worries me?”

“If your phone battery is going to last
through the day?” He smiled.

Heidi kicked him under the table. “No. With
Austin in Uganda, what happens if the epidemic spreads? Will the
university bring him home early?”

Looking at her across the table, Paul saw the
worry growing on her face.

“I know he’s not my son, but I feel like he
is.”

Paul grinned. “You’re getting maternal?”

Heidi kicked again, but missed. “Don’t be a
butt. You know how I feel about him.”

“Yeah, sorry.” Going back to the previous
question, Paul said, “I don’t know if the university will bring him
home early or not. It honestly never crossed my mind.”

“Do you want me to call tomorrow and find
out?”

Paul knew what that really meant was that
Heidi was going to call tomorrow and was just letting him know.
Still, things worked better if he played the game. “Yeah, that
sounds like a good idea.”

“Did he give you any contact
information?”

Paul shrugged. “No.”

“Didn’t you ask?”

“Of course.”

“Do you know the name of the program he went
there with?” Heidi asked.

Paul shrugged again. “No.”

“I thought you asked him for that.” There was
exasperation in her voice.

“I did ask. I don’t remember him emailing me
the information.”

“Did he send you his contact information in
Africa?”

“No.” It came out a lot more sheepishly than
Paul intended. “I asked him to send it. He just didn’t.”

“He didn’t send you anything? Did you ask
again?”

“Don’t nag.”

Heidi huffed. “You
have
to nag him
sometimes. You
know
how he is. This is about his safety in a
third-world country halfway around the world. Doesn’t it bother
you? Aren’t you worried?”

“Yeah.” One word was all he could get in.

Heidi shook her head. “I swear, Paul. You’re
lucky you have me around, or you wouldn’t know anything about
what’s happening with Austin. I’ll call Texas A&M tomorrow and
find out which summer abroad program he went over there with, and
I’ll find out who his faculty sponsor is, and I’ll find out if they
have an emergency contingency plan.”

“Thanks.” Paul tried not to roll his eyes but
some things just happen.

Heidi kicked him under the table again.

Several dozen five-gallon plastic buckets had
been found in one of the farm warehouses, distributed around the
ward, and placed between the beds and sleeping mats. The patients
weren’t allowed to use the outhouses behind the building—new
quarantine rules. Not that many of them could have made the walk
out behind the hospital anyway. Most couldn’t walk to the interior
restroom, which ran off the insufficient supply of water in the
hospital’s cistern. So the door to the interior restroom was
ordered locked, leaving the patients with one choice for relieving
themselves—the buckets.

Carrying two buckets sloshing with reeking
human waste, Austin shouldered his way through a door at the back
of the dark ward. The buckets came from beside the beds at the back
of the room, from among the first of the patients who had been
admitted with high fever, headaches, diarrhea, and vomiting. Most
of those also had the rash. Hell,
most
of the patients
inside had the rash. It seemed to be spreading across the ward as
if it were a disease all its own. Then there were the patients who
were bleeding from the eyes, nose, or ears. To Austin, that was the
irrevocable sign of hemorrhagic fever—the bleeding.

He crossed the grass behind the hospital and
stopped in front of the stinking pit near the tree line. Dumping
the buckets, he couldn’t help but notice black tarry lumps in the
red and brown liquid. Nearly retching, he quickly stepped away.

“Their organs are breaking down.”

Startled, Austin turned to look.

Nurse Mary-Margaret, with eyes red from lack
of sleep and crying, had followed him out. She’d obviously seen
what came out of the buckets and turned away to look up at the
grayish mists floating through the tops of giant trees up Mt.
Elgon’s slopes. At twelve thousand feet the dense forest gave way
to bare rock as the mountain reached to touch the sky.

“Breaking down?” Austin asked.

“I started seeing it earlier today.”

“What does it mean?”

“The Ebola virus causes blood to clot,” she
replied.

Austin sat the buckets down. “I’m confused. I
thought it made you bleed?”

“Early on, the blood clots in the veins.
Those clots clump together and clog arteries. When that happens,
dead spots form because flesh that can’t get oxygen from the blood
dies. This clotting uses up all of the body’s natural
coagulants.”

Austin couldn’t help but look down at the
residue in his buckets.

“The body starts to slough off the dead
flesh. That’s what ends up in the buckets, dead flesh from the
esophagus or stomach when it is vomited out. When the lining of the
intestines is sloughed off it is—” she hesitated.

Austin glanced at his buckets and looked back
at the pit—horrified. “It
is
Ebola, then.”

Nurse Mary-Margaret nodded, and her face,
with her mask pulled down below her chin, was nothing but sadness.
“It still makes no sense.”

Austin didn’t know if he wanted to ask.
“Why?”

Mary-Margaret replied, “You mean, how did so
many get sick so fast?”

It was a rhetorical question. Of course,
Austin didn’t know that answer. “Maybe when the doctor from the WHO
gets here, he can help.”

“He’s here already. He got here about fifteen
minutes ago.”

Austin perked up. “I didn’t see him.”

Nurse Mary-Margaret shook her head. “You’ve
been working so hard in here all day. By the way, how are
you
feeling?”

“Like shit.”

Nurse Mary-Margaret laughed. “I’m not one to
use that word, but I might. We all feel bad. We need help
here—thank you for pitching in. But how’s your fever?”

“Stable, I guess.” Austin touched the back of
his forearm—the part above the glove—to his forehead. “I don’t feel
any hotter. I think the work helps. I don’t know.”

“You’ll end up sick if you push yourself too
hard.”

“I’m already sick, will it make a
difference?”

Mary-Margaret tried to look hopeful. “I wish
I could tell you.”

“Then I’ll keep going as long as I can.”
Austin looked back into the ward. “You said the doctor from the WHO
is here?”

“We’ve set up another ward in the
school.”

“Another ward?” And before Austin could think
that it was a stupid thing to say, he said, “We’re so crowded in
here. We should move some of these patients—”

Mary-Margaret’s old face stretched sadder
with a slow shake, and that answered the question.

“There’s no room in the other ward?” Austin
asked as though he hadn’t already guessed the answer.

“No.”

“My God.” Austin shook his head. “How many
are sick?”

“Three hundred and eleven, at last
count.”

“How is that possible?” he asked.

“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

Austin stepped back so that he could see part
of the town around the hospital building. “I wonder how many are
sick in their homes, afraid to come for help.”

“We have volunteers out now, checking.”

“Do you think there could be a lot?” Austin
asked, shaking his head without meaning to. The hopelessness of the
absent, red eyes in the ward was infecting him.

Mary-Margaret said, “There might be more sick
people in their homes than here. This isn’t Denver. People here
don’t trust hospitals like they do in the states.”

“Jesus.” Austin paused and tried to tamp down
the frustration coming out in his tone. “Is everybody in the
village going to get it? How many people live in Kapchorwa?”

“Maybe eleven or twelve hundred within a mile
of the center of town,” she replied.

“So between the hospital, the school, and any
who are in their houses and afraid to come out, how many do you
think are infected? Half? More?” Austin didn’t want to believe
it.

Large numbers of dying people spread across a
desert refugee camp was an easy thing to depersonalize when seen
from the perspective of a couch in an air-conditioned room on the
other side of the world. Dying people who could be smelled, who
could be touched, whose tears flowed out of empty eyes—close enough
to wipe away with your own hand—that kind of dying was real in a
way that few people have the misfortune to understand. And all
around, people were dying—the ones Austin could see and many more
that he couldn’t.