"When did you first fall ill?" Levine asked.
"Four days ago!" he said, shifting constantly in his seat "Hit me like a train. Woke up and couldn't move. Burning up. And the pain! Felt as if my arms and legs had gone through the rolling presses. Then the cough came. Crikey!" He guffawed. "Had me thinking that the smokes finally caught up with me!"
"Were you short of breath, Nigel?" Haldane asked.
Collins hemmed and hawed. "When the coughing spasms came, couldn't stop to catch my breath. Between times, not so bad. No idea it was possible to feel so weak, though. Raising a cup of water took both hands, if I could at all." He blew out so heavily that his mask fluttered over his mouth. "Then yesterday the fever broke quick as it came. By evening time felt almost normal again." He pulled at his pajama tops. "Except skinnier."
"Nigel, where do you think you might have caught this virus?" Haldane asked.
"Not think!" He puffed out his mask again. "Know!"
"And where is that?" Haldane said.
"Lovely little waif of a girl," he said and then looked at Nancy Levine. "Sorry, Doctor, it's just that--"
"Mr. Collins," she cut him off impatiently. "Could you describe her please?"
He offered a similar description of the woman as Veronica Mathews had, and then he said, "Around suppertime. I stood beside her waiting for the lift. Kind of swayed on her feet the whole time. Not well at all. Coughing the whole ride up. Still she covered her mouth, polite-like, and she wasn't exactly hard on the eyes." Again, he glanced to Levine. "You know what--"
"I know exactly what you mean," she snapped. "Which floor did she get off?"
"Same as me. Twenty-seventh." He guffawed. "Union boys outdid themselves, getting me a room on the top floor!"
"You rode the whole way up with her?" Haldane asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Did you ever see the woman again?"
Collins shook his head.
"Did you remember seeing a mother and two little girls board the elevator?" Haldane asked.
"Another beauty, right?" Collins asked and then shrugged at Levine apologetically. "I can't help noticing, Doctor."
"Apparently not," Levine said. "Mrs. Mathews is tall with dark hair and large eyes. A former model with daughters aged four and five. Does that sound like her?"
"Exactly like!" Collins said. "Except she wasn't in the lift. I had seen her at the pool with her girls once or twice."
"You sure she wasn't in the elevator?" Haldane asked.
"Not with me or the coughing girl," Collins said. "At least not on the way up. I can't speak for the way down."
"Meaning?" Haldane asked.
"Well, when I got to my room, I turned around for one last little peep," he said sheepishly without looking to Levine. "The girl had sort of collapsed against the wall by the lift. Thought about going back to see if I could help. Then the lift door opened. She stumbled back in." He paused. "Never really thought much of it, but don't know why she bothered going all the way to the top just to turn around and head down. Maybe she missed her floor?"
Haldane rose from his seat, suppressing the urge to jump out of it. "Thank you, Nigel, you've been extremely helpful," he said as he headed for the door.
Out in the hallway, McLeod stopped him. "What's buzzing in your bonnet, Haldane?"
Haldane pointed at his chest. "Explain to me why a woman so sick that she can barely stand rides the elevator from the lobby to the top and then heads back down."
"Shite, how do I know? Maybe Nigel was right?" McLeod said. "Maybe she was so sick that she missed her floor."
"Then why did she go all the way down to the lobby and ride back up with the Mathews family?" Haldane asked.
"How do you know she didn't take another trip later in the day?" McLeod asked.
"Remember?" Haldane tapped the back of his hand against his other palm. "Both Nigel and Veronica said it was just before suppertime!"
McLeod tilted his head from side to side, wavering.
"And why has she disappeared without seeking help?" Haldane asked. "And where did she get the virus in the first place?"
McLeod's eyes widened to the point where his lazy one seemed to drift into the midline. "Are you suggesting that this woman was deliberately trying to spread her vile germs?"
Haldane shrugged. "Can you give me another plausible explanation?"
For the first time in all the years Haldane had known him, McLeod's eyes showed genuine fear. "What are we dealing with here, Noah?" he asked softly.
CHAPTER 20
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA
When Nicole Caddullo awoke, for a disoriented moment she wondered if she had fallen asleep in her bathtub. Then she realized her bedsheets were drenched. Confused, the nineteen-year-old assumed her roommates had dumped a glass of water on her in her sleep as a joke. Thanks, guys! she thought angrily, but after the violent shakes set in she began to piece it together. Waking up in the middle of the night burning up from fever, she had thrown the blankets and bedspread off her. She had assumed it was a dream, but the proof in the form of her tangled bedcovers now lay in a heap at the foot of her bed.
Not the flu! Nicole thought. Not today.
She had an oceanography exam to write. And then back to the Vancouver Aquarium where she worked as a guide for her afternoon shift. The Aquarium! She remembered the small woman with the jet-black hair who wore thick-framed sunglasses despite the sunless gray skies. She had stood beside Nicole at the sea otter show two days earlier. Nicole had almost asked the woman to leave because her harsh cough was distracting the trainers and disrupting the show.
I bet that's where I picked this up, Nicole thought bitterly.
Freezing, she sat up and reached for the blankets at her feet. Flopping back on the bed, she couldn't believe how the minimal effort winded her. Lying with her blankets bundled around her she panted and gasped as if she had just broken her personal best time for the three-thousand meter dash.
Rather than easing with rest, her breathing grew more labored with each passing minute. Then the cough started. Her whole chest rattled with each hack. She coughed harder and harder. Then she choked on a gob of phlegm as if it were a chunk of meat before finally managing to spit it into her hand. She glanced down and saw that her hand was full of blood.
The sudden overwhelming panic surfaced as a hoarse scream.
HARGEYSA, SOMALIA
Hazzir Kabaal sat in his sumptuous office, enjoying his fourth espresso of the day. He liked a strong coffee before bedtime; he had trouble sleeping without it. In recent days, it had become a moot point. With or without coffee, he hardly slept.
When the media blitz first erupted, Kabaal had swelled with a prideful sense of accomplishment. It soon turned into a bittersweet victory. Kabaal had forgotten how attached he had become to London in his four years spent there. He remembered Sheikh Hassan's warning: "When the West takes hold inside you it grows like a cancer that is difficult to cut out." He knew the Sheikh was right, but the pictures of the empty London streets and the fear in the voices of TV interviewees had stirred the slivers of uncertainty. If only the Sheikh were here, Kabaal thought, he would wipe away the doubt with his pious reasoning.
"Sometimes God's way is the hardest way," Kabaal reassured himself aloud.
"So I have heard," Major Abdul Sabri said.
Kabaal hadn't realized that Sabri had materialized in his doorway. Kabaal looked down and flushed with embarrassment. He cleared his throat. "Welcome back, Major. I trust you had a safe trip."
Sabri shrugged. He wore another plain white robe, but with his thick shoulders, opaque blue eyes, and an air of certainty he didn't need a uniform or a weapon to establish his dangerousness.
"You met Mr. Gamal?" Kabaal asked.
Sabri sauntered up to the desk, answering only when he reached the foot of it. "We spent time together, yes."
"And?"
"Bishr Gamal was a petty criminal. A thief and a pick-pocket." He paused. "But he supplemented his income working as a police informer."
Kabaal put his cup down and leaned forward in his chair. "Go on," he said.
"He was sent to spy on us at the mosque." Sabri looked over Kabaal's head as if already bored with the topic of conversation.
Kabaal tried to emulate Sabri's detached calm, but he couldn't keep the edge out of his voice. "Sent by whom?"
"Sergeant Achmed Eleish. A detective with the Cairo Police Force."
"Eleish!" Kabaal said. "That man has been dogging me for years."
Sabri nodded, displaying neither surprise nor interest in Kabaal's revelation.
"Eight or nine years ago, Eleish was shot by an activist who worked for my paper. Ever since he has been trying to prove my connection to The Brotherhood." Kabaal shook his head and sighed. "I should have taken care of him a long time ago."
"Shall I now?" Sabri asked.
Kabaal weighed the idea. "What exactly did Gamal tell Eleish?" he asked.
Sabri pointed from Kabaal to himself. "That we had been seen together. And that several of us had gone missing in the past weeks." He shrugged. "He didn't know much else."
"Much or nothing else?" Kabaal pressed.
"Gamal had heard mention of a desert base, but he swore he knew none of the details."
"Maybe he knew more than he was willing to tell?"
Sabri shot him a fleeting half smile. "After a couple of hours spent in my company, I don't think Mr. Gamal was capable of lying," he said as matter-of-factly as if the two of them had gone for a stroll.
"Did Gamal know if Sergeant Eleish had told others?" Kabaal asked.
Sabri shrugged.
Kabaal stared at his empty cup. "It would be foolish to assume Eleish is acting alone. If he disappeared now it would only raise suspicions and bring us even more attention."
"So what?" Sabri exhaled. "They couldn't find us if they wanted to."
"And neither will Eleish," Kabaal said. "For the time being, we should just keep an eye on him."
Sabri looked as if he might yawn at any moment. "There are many ways that Sergeant Eleish could go without raising suspicion. Cars crash. Police raids go awry. And the difference between poisons and heart attacks can be very subtle."
Kabaal hesitated, but then said, "Not yet, Abdul."
"As you wish."
Kabaal reached for a small stack of papers on his desk. "Our second wave has landed in America." He sighed. "Not without problems."
Sabri raised an eyebrow. "Problems?"
"Not in Chicago, but Seattle, yes." Kabaal reached for a paper on his desk and waved it at Sabri. "An e-mail from Sharifa Sha'rawi."
Kabaal read it aloud:
"Dear Tonya,
Arrived in Vancouver, Canada, with all our baggage. The line at the border crossing was too long. I never made it across to Seattle. I had to leave the present in Vancouver. We had a lovely time, but we couldn't stay. I'll be in touch. Love, Sherri"
Sabri nodded impassively. "So they turned her away at the border."
"Security is so tight these day. We should have flown her directly to Seattle." Kabaal shook his head. "I could have predicted that the logistics were too complicated."
Sabri shrugged. "Canada, America, what's the difference?"
Kabaal shook his head. "Canada didn't participate in the invasion of Iraq. We never intended to involve them."
Sabri's blank face broke into a slight smile. "Hazzir, you do realize that we have involved the whole world now?"
Kabaal looked down at the e-mail and nodded. "The Western world, anyway."
Sabri laughed bitterly. "You think the virus respects borders or religion? I doubt it will differentiate between the righteous and the infidels. And I know that the American bombs that follow will not."
"That is not the point, Abdul!" Kabaal looked up. "This is not about creating chaos. We will give them the chance to choose. To make amends. And once they do, we can stop spreading this unholy plague."
"God willing," Sabri said, straight-faced, but his eyes were loaded with doubt. "So when do we contact them?"
"Soon. Very soon," Kabaal said calmly. "But first, we must make them realize just how vulnerable they are."
CHAPTER 21
THE SHERATON SUITES, LONDON, ENGLAND
By the time Noah Haldane got back to the hotel, he had reached a slow boil. In his career, he had seen Ebola slaughter an entire village, a close friend die of SARS, and people perish in third-world hospitals for want of antibiotics readily available in any first-world drugstore. He had seen people put politics, stupidity, greed, and self-interest ahead of the welfare of victims, but never before had he suspected anyone of willfully propagating an epidemic.