Authors: Louise Voss
Paul and Harley had barely spoken on their drive through the city, aside from a brief argument over whether to have the radio on or not. Paul fiddled with his phone all the way, as if it might magic up a call from Kate, until Harley snapped at him to put it away. There was sporadic network coverage, but no calls flashed up on his screen.
The rest of the time he stared out of the window, transfixed by the horrifying and surreal sight of buildings burning, people lining up outside smashed store windows, waiting for their turn to ransack the stock. Cops stood by watching. It reminded Paul of the riots in London in the summer of 2011, but on a much bigger scale.
Harley kept the windows rolled up. He looked very pale.
‘It will be like this everywhere,’ Paul said, ‘if we don’t find a vaccine.’
As they were nearing the prison, Harley’s phone sprang into life.
‘Oh my God,’ Harley said, the colour draining from his face. ‘All of them …? What about Kate Maddox?’
‘What?’ Paul interjected. ‘What’s going on?’
Harley waved him away irritatedly. ‘We’re in LA. OK … let me just do this and then we’ll be head back.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘The lab’s been attacked. They’re all dead.’
‘No!’ Paul cried out.
‘Sorry, sorry – that’s not definite, they may not all be dead. Kate’s missing. Along with one of the other scientists, a Japanese virologist called Junko Nishirin. We think someone’s taken them.’
‘Or maybe they escaped,’ Paul said, clinging to hope. ‘We need to go and look for her. Now. Let’s abandon—’
‘No!’ Harley snapped. ‘We’re almost there. The prison is ten minutes away. We’ve driven all the way through this hellhole of a city to get here and I am not turning back now. Besides, there will be very little we can do to help. Everything that can be done to find Kate is already being done.’
Paul had never felt so helpless, so desperate. Suddenly, making Mangold pay for Stephen’s death ceased to matter. Everything else paled into insignificance compared with finding Kate.As if reading his mind, Harley barked, ‘Paul, get a grip. Let’s go see Diaz, find out what he knows about Mangold and this virus, then we’ll head back north, OK?’
Paul’s mouth was dry. He thought about coming
clean, telling Harley that he’d exaggerated Diaz’s role in developing the virus, that he’d said all that purely to enlist Harley’s help. But he suspected that if he told the truth now, Harley would turn him out of the car and head back to Sequoia alone. Instead he gave Harley a nod and said, ‘All right.’
Glencarson Prison was almost exactly as Paul had imagined it: an imposing cluster of white buildings on the outskirts of Long Beach, the ocean calm and still beyond – apart from the constant buzz of helicopters that roamed the coastline.
Harley parked the car outside the prison. At the gate, he flashed his badge and explained that he urgently needed to talk to a prisoner.
The prison officer, who wore a name tag identifying him as M. Johnston, had a bald head and the bushiest moustache Paul had ever seen, looked them over and said, ‘Did you call ahead?’
I tried,’ Paul replied. ‘But no one answered. Why?’
‘Because we don’t have many prisoners left, that’s why. Had an outbreak of the Indian flu. Half the inmates are in the medical block; a further quarter are in body bags already. Only a few COs left standing. We’re supposed to be getting reinforcements, but it hardly seems worth the effort now.’
‘What about Camilo Diaz?’ said Harley. ‘He’s the man we’ve come to see.’
The officer caressed his moustache. ‘Doc? Yeah, he’s still alive. He’s in minimum security.’
‘Can you take us to him now?’ Harley asked.
The officer scanned the deserted road that led to the prison, judged that there wasn’t much risk in leaving his post. ‘I guess. Come on, follow me. I reckon if you’re carrying the Indian flu you’ll have already given it to me.’
‘Ditto,’ said Paul.
‘Nah, I reckon I’m gonna be OK. I never catch a cold. My wife always said I got the constitution of a bear.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Yup. A big ole grizzly. God rest her soul.’ Paul and Harley exchanged a shocked look as Johnston muttered, ‘Goddamn Indian flu.’
Paul blurted, ‘Your wife died of Indian flu?’
‘Yup. Day before yesterday.’
‘I’m so sorry. What … what are you doing here, at work?’
Johnston shrugged, the shrug of a man who is lost but desperately trying to cling to something to keep himself from falling apart. ‘Somebody needs to look after the inmates we got left.’
The three men fell silent as they passed through a second gate and walked across a dusty courtyard towards the minimum security wing. Johnston swiped a card at the door and they entered a cool, quiet building that housed the non-dangerous prisoners. Entering a prison for the first time since his own stint behind bars made Paul’s skin crawl. But this place had a very different atmosphere from the cramped, noisy jail in which he’d done his time. It felt almost civilised – or would do, were it not for the air of death that hung over the place.
Johnston led them into the visitors’ room. ‘Wait here and I’ll fetch Doc to you.’
Harley and Paul sat down at one side of a rectangular table and watched as Johnston let himself through another locked door. He slammed it behind him, the sound echoing through the silent building.
‘Poor guy,’ Paul said.
Harley rubbed his face with his palms then stared at them as if he’d made a terrible mistake. ‘This place is swarming with the virus. Johnston’s almost certainly carrying it. If we get out of here without catching it, it will be a miracle.’
Paul felt a chill run through him. Up until now, he
hadn’t allowed himself to entertain the thought that he
could
get
the virus. Before he had a chance to formulate a response,
the door reopened and Johnston appeared. With him was an old man in an orange prison-issue jumpsuit. Camilo Diaz. He had a thatch of hair the colour of vanilla yoghurt: off-white flecked with specks of black. He stood straight and tall and appeared healthier than anyone Paul had seen for days.
Johnston led Diaz over to the table and they sat opposite Paul and Harley.
‘Who are you?’ Diaz asked in a strong voice.
Harley placed his badge face-up on the table. ‘Jason Harley. I’m with the Bioterror Intelligence Team.’
‘Bioterror?’ Diaz had a slight accent – South American or possibly Mexican. ‘So you’re here about this so-called Indian flu? Don’t tell me that asshole CO actually got a message out for me.’
Harley blinked. ‘What message?’
‘I told one of the guards here – Hillier – that I needed to talk to someone about the outbreak. You aren’t here because of that?’
‘Hillier’s dead,’ said Johnston. ‘Flu took him yesterday.’
‘We’re here because we want to talk to you about Charles Mangold,’ said Harley.
Diaz shot Harley a look. ‘Well, that’s a stroke of luck because I want to talk to
you
about Charles Mangold.’
Paul leaned forward. ‘What was the message you tried to get through, Mr Diaz?’
‘
Doctor
Diaz. This virus, it’s not a flu but a new variation of a virulent African virus called Watoto. As soon as I heard the first news reports and learned about the symptoms, I suspected Watoto. And then the guards and the other prisoners here started to get sick and I carried out some tests.’
‘Tests?’
‘I have certain privileges here. A colour TV. A supply of books and journals. And a good microscope and some basic lab equipment in my room. One of the sick COs let me take a blood sample from him. There’s no question: it’s Watoto. We called it Watoto MR. Today they’re calling it Watoto-X2.’
‘And this is the virus you were testing on employees at Medi-Lab?’ Paul asked.
‘Yes … well, it’s more complicated than that. But essentially, yes. It was one of the viruses we tested. I tried to alert the authorities days ago. And now here you are, finally!’ His bitter laugh echoed round the room. ‘Over two decades I’ve been in this goddamn place, with the most pathetic equipment, when I could have achieved so much. All I can do now is play with common cold samples, if I am lucky enough to catch one, and read research papers. It’s funny, for years I tried not to think about Medi-Lab – it made me too angry, after the way Mangold betrayed me. It seemed our research was doomed to remain in the dark, forgotten. Then a few months ago I read a fascinating paper by an Englishwoman about Watoto. I thought, at last, somebody else is going to discover the cure. She’s going to find the satellite.’
Paul sat up straight. ‘You mean Kate Maddox?’
‘Yes. Do you know of her?’
‘She’s my girlfriend.’
Diaz clapped his hands together. ‘My, my. The plot thickens, no? And where is your brilliant ladyfriend now?’
‘We don’t know,’ said Harley quietly.
Paul felt fear and nausea fill his body again. ‘Hold on, did you say somebody else is about to discover the cure? You mean, somebody as well as you?’
Diaz stared at them impassively, as if challenging them to disbelieve him.
Paul and Harley both leaned across the table. Paul said, ‘And does anyone else know it? Does Mangold know?’
Diaz pulled a disgusted face. ‘Yes. He does. But it was me who discovered the cure. I was the first one to test it – on myself. Years ago.’
‘And do you remember how to create it?’
‘Of course I do! I am not senile.’
‘This is incredible,’ Paul said. ‘You need to tell us. We need to get something into production straight away.’
Diaz sat back and laced his fingers. ‘I can do that, certainly. But I have two conditions. First, I must be released from this place. I want my freedom.’
‘That’s impossible,’ Johnston said.
Diaz shot him a look of contempt. ‘Maybe I should wait until you’re all dead, then I can take the keys from your body and let myself out. I’m immune. Watoto could wipe out half the world, but I will survive. I don’t have many years left and I want to spend them as a free man.’
‘OK,’ said Paul. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Hang on,’ Harley protested. ‘We can’t—’
‘What choice have we got?’
Johnston, sitting quietly beside Diaz, nodded in agreement.
‘What’s the second condition?’ Harley asked.
‘I want you to take me to Charles Mangold. Now.’
Rosie and Lucy trudged in silence along the side of the Ventura Highway. They had been walking all day, and the sun was setting. Nobody had stopped for them, and no police cars had passed by. Rosie’s mind raced constantly; should they stay out of sight or keep going? They were targets for muggers and looters, their hands already conveniently bound behind their backs – or would it be better to try and attract attention, to get help? They had nothing worth stealing, no money, jewellery, phones; nothing. She kept glancing at Lucy, her heart bursting at the shock and trauma etched on her daughter’s features.
‘At least we’re together, baby,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t bear it if you were going through this without me.’
At that moment, Rosie sneezed, and it was as if the sneeze short-circuited her brain, scrambling all the signals as though her thoughts were a mass of tangled wires. For a second the ground tilted beneath her and a flood of nausea washed over her. Unable to steady herself, she stumbled and fell to her knees.
‘Mom? Are you OK?’
Confused, Rosie nodded and staggered back up, waiting for her head to clear. She swallowed bile; cold sweat drenching her. ‘I’m fine. But we have to get this damn tape off our wrists.’
‘I bet people would stop if we could wave at them. But we can’t,’ said Lucy in a small voice as they made their way right to the edge of the freeway for the twentieth time that day. There was very little traffic, just the occasional laden-down car heading out of town to join the queues of people trying to get out of the city.
‘There’s a ramp over there,’ Rosie said, dipping her chin in the direction of the interchange ahead. ‘Let’s head for that and pray that someone will stop for us when they come off the freeway.’
‘Nobody has yet,’ said Lucy miserably. As they staggered along, shoulder to shoulder as it was the only way they could touch, she kept looking across at her mother.
‘Mom … are you sick?’
Lucy’s voice seemed to come from the end of a long tunnel. Rosie opened her mouth to reply, and found she couldn’t speak for a few moments.
‘I don’t feel too good,’ she confessed, and Lucy stopped in horror, tears jumping to her eyes.
‘You have the virus!’
‘No, baby, I’m sure it’s just stress,’ Rosie mumbled. ‘Or hay fever … You know I always get hay fever around now.’ But her legs were so weak and unsteady it was as if her kneecaps had been removed. ‘I’m so tired. I need to lie down for a while,’ she admitted.
Lucy looked around for somewhere to rest, her shoulders shaking with sobs. ‘Don’t you dare die on me,’ she howled suddenly. ‘I don’t have anyone else!’
Men’s voices rang out from the nearby slip road. ‘Oh, thank God,’ Rosie said, ‘Come on, we can get help.’
They forged forward, one last push, thought Rosie – but then stopped short. There was indeed a group of men, seven or eight of them, all white, in their thirties, incongruously dressed in smart business suits. Or at least the suits would have been smart when they’d first donned them – well over a day ago, by the looks of them. Now they were ripped and dirty, and Rosie saw a patina of vomit all down one man’s tailored jacket. They weaved up the ramp, in the middle of the street, singing angrily, several of them swigging openly from bottles of what looked like bourbon. They were all very drunk – but they were the first people Rosie had seen all day.
‘Excuse me,’ called Lucy, a moment before Rosie, who was beginning to have a bad feeling about this group of men, could stop her. ‘Please could you help us?’
They all stopped as one at the sound of her voice, and turned to look. There was a mixture of expressions on their faces: rage, bewilderment, hopelessness, inebriation. Rosie’s knees were trembling so badly she could barely stand, and it wasn’t just the onset of her fever.