The Blacker Death: An Ebola Thriller (21 page)

Birot stood up with the gun in his hand.

“Sit down, hot shot,” I said, “and drop the piece.”

“Killing me gains you nothing, Brian.”

I pointed my shotgun at his shit-eating grin. “Don’t call me that. Ever. Last chance before I blow your head off. Where is she?”

I heard footsteps behind me in the reception room. “Izzy is that you?”

“Yes, Bam. It’s me.” She sounded out of breath.

“What the hell happened? Where’ve you been?”

“I had few things to take care of,” she said, as the butt end of her 12-gauge smacked against the back of my head.

I came to in a chair in Birot’s office with a headache that would put my best hangovers to shame. My hands were cuffed behind my back. Izzy was sitting across from me, talking in Dutch into her cell. She hung up and looked at me.

“I’m sorry, Bam. I hope I didn’t hit you too hard.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m just making sure the refueling station is ready. We have a long trip ahead of us.”

“No, I mean what the hell are you doing?”

“You haven’t guessed?”

“I guessed you’re on the wrong side. Just not why.”

Birot walked into the room. “My dear, the EB-25 is loaded and our carriage awaits. Please say your good-byes and be quick about it. I’ll be upstairs.”

“Yes, Father.”

As the pompous prick left the room, I looked at Izzy. “Father?”

She shrugged my surprise off like an old coat she was donating to the Salvation Army, one that kept her warm when she needed it, but didn’t mean a damn thing to her when it was time to throw it away.

“Aimée is my married name,” she said. “I’m divorced, naturally, or we wouldn’t have… well, you understand…”

“No, I don’t think I do.”

“I gave you a chance to back out. I didn’t want this to happen, but you are so stubborn.”

“What about the retired cop back in Belgium, the farm with the turnips and flowers, the acting career?”

“I’ve always been a good actor. Mother was right about that.”

“Christ, Izzy.”

“Come on, Bam. To have a younger woman pay attention to you, to have a real partner who knows what she is doing in and out of the bedroom? Admit it. It was more fun than you’ve had in years.”

“You used me.”

“You were a means to an end.”

“So, it was all an act?”

“Not all. That first night at Pico’s I found you attractive, interesting, a worthy conquest. I like older men who are strong and a little rough around the edges, especially when they know how to give me such pleasure, as you do.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that?”

“It’s true.”

“Just like I’m supposed to believe you hung around because you wanted to?”

“I admit, Father had something to do with that. You were obsessed with your partner’s death. You had to know why even though it was none of your affair. You were getting too close, and you are just too good a detective. He suggested I remain with you to make sure there were no surprises before it was time for us to leave.”

“I should’ve seen this coming. I knew it was too good to be true.”

“I know it’s small consolation, but you are very, very good, Bam. You forced us to leave ahead of schedule. Father was not entirely pleased.”

“Sorry I screwed up your plans.”

“I
will
miss you, Bam.”

“Then, give it up. There’s still time.”

“To do what? Save the world? Say I’m sorry? It’s gone too far for that.”

“Where will you go?”

“Someplace warm.”

“Taking a boat and heading south?”

“Our retirement plans are a bit more complex than yours.”

“You can’t run from the Blacker Death. It’s everywhere. You Birots made certain of that.”

“We won’t have to. Did Father ask you to join us, by the way?”

“Yeah, he did.”

“And you said no.”

“That’s right.”

“I told him you would. He was convinced you were a practical man who could be reasoned with, but you are too stubborn, like a bulldog. I wonder if you would have answered differently had you known about me.”

“I might have. Take these cuffs off and ask me again. Maybe I’ll say yes.”

“And you would be lying. I know you too well, lover.”

I turned away from her when she put her hand on my face and tried to kiss me.

“It’s too bad about your brother,” I said. “I guess his death wasn’t part of the master plan.”

“François did not have to die. He chose to. He was a brave soldier who gave his life for the cause.”

“The cause? You mean the extermination of the human race? You’re as crazy as daddy.”

She pointed her gun at me.

“I guess this is it,” I said. “Good-bye, Izzy.“

“Close your eyes, sweetheart. I promise, you won’t feel a thing.”

“No can do. You’re going to have to pull that trigger looking me right in the eyes. I want you to remember this moment when you’re sitting on the beach somewhere drinking your Chimay, trying to forget what you really are.”

There were two shots from somewhere beyond the reception area and then what sounded like a baby howling. Then there was a scream. It was Birot. Izzy turned and made a move for the door. I guess it was a reflex action on my part. I don’t know, but I stuck out my foot and tripped her. She came down hard on the sharp corner of the coffee table.

Birot screamed bloody murder while something else out there howled like a banshee. I kicked the gun away and started searching through Izzy’s pockets for the key to the cuffs. I found it. The screaming stopped. The howling got louder, closer. Izzy came to, threw me off her, and reached for her gun as three angry monkeys came through the doorway. They took her down before she could get a shot off and started tearing her apart. When I stood up and shed the cuffs, one of them jumped me, pounding and scratching like an angry whore. Its teeth clamped down hard on my arm and I screamed.

I don’t remember much about what happened next, just bits and pieces. I remember Izzy screaming, begging me to help her. I remember getting one hand free and knocking the bonobo off me. I remember finding my knife in my pocket and jamming the blade so far into that monkey’s ugly puss that it would never get another chance to bite anyone else again. I remember seeing my shotgun on Birot’s desk and emptying it into the apes on top of Izzy. I remember the blood… everywhere…

Izzy was lying there in it. Jesus, what a mess. There was nothing I could do. She said she was sorry. About everything. I told her I was too. I told her to hang in there, that I’d get help, and then she was gone.

I found Birot, at least what was left of him, on the stairs to the roof. There were two more dead monkeys up there. When I got up top, I found a helicopter and one dead chopper pilot. Behind the pilot’s seat was a crate like the one I’d seen in the basement and a couple of suitcases. I headed down to the lobby where I climbed into the SUV and backed out into the parking lot.

Something Izzy said had got me to thinking. Why wasn’t she afraid of catching Ebola? Hell, I was so paranoid I’d burnt my sofa and drown myself in my best liquor after hearing that Billy might, just might, have it. And when I broke into her brother’s car, I was ready to strip right there and take a bath in Clorox, and there she was, cool as a cucumber, making jokes. All that time, I thought it was because she was a hard-ass, a real trooper, not afraid of anything. I’d actually admired her for it. But back there in Birot’s office, when I said something about running from the epidemic, she said, “We won’t have to.” And her father, he’d been with his infected son. He knew François had it, yet he wasn’t afraid either. It didn’t add up.

And then it came to me: the empty rack on S5 in the chilled storage room, the crate marked EB-25, the harvested tobacco plants, the delivery system he’d perfected, it all made sense now. Birot had figured out how to manufacture the antibodies needed to cure Ebola-B, and they’d loaded the crate of it, the EB-25, onto the chopper to take with them.

 
I pulled out my cell to call in the cavalry. I wasn’t getting a signal, so tried the car radio, but all I got was static. I got out of the car to go back inside to make the call on a hard line. That’s when the building lit up like the finale at the Fourth of July fireworks. It was that son of a bitch Birot’s last shot at a world he hated so much.

As I lay there on the grass, ears ringing, head pounding, I figured that was all she wrote for me. I’d been bitten by one of those damned chimps and had a couple of days before the symptoms started. And once they did, I’d be dead in forty-eight hours. Nobody looking over me in a spacesuit, no ice chips when I was thirsty, no encouraging words when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, just dead.

I drove back to Jersey. When I pulled into the driveway, Baby was watching me from the kitchen window. Shep met me at the door, happy to see me, like nothing was wrong. I made them bacon and eggs, found a pack of Pall Malls and a bottle of scotch, and went outside to sit on the front step. I drained the bottle and had a cigarette. Then I called Tim, let the phone ring once, and hung up. I waited, but he never called back. I tried again, let it ring for ten minutes, and hung up again. I tried the Six. I tried Jimmy. I tried West Detectives, Tom Stalter, my son, my daughter, my ex. Nobody was home.

I went back inside and turned on the TV. The only stations still broadcasting were the ones where a computer looped through old sitcoms 24/7. I fired up the laptop. Most of my usual haunts on the Internet were already gone. What newsfeeds left were dead, no posts in over a day. Social media was dead. The secure FBI net: dead. I posted messages everywhere I could, hoping someone would answer. The lights were on, but nobody was home.

I kept trying for two days. That’s when I started feeling sick. The thermometer said my temperature was 103
°
. I felt like I was on fire. I put Shep and Baby out in the yard, closed the windows, and locked the doors. I decided they could fend for themselves. I didn’t want them catching it from me.

I figured I was finished, but I was damn sure not going out the way Billy did. I would have preferred my .38, but it was long gone, and there was no way in hell I was going to end it with the Glock, so I took out my vintage Colt .45, loaded it, set it on the kitchen table, and had another scotch and one last cigarette.

It’s funny the things you think of when you’re getting ready to commit suicide. Some people write a note explaining why. Some make sure their will is in order. I called Tim again. I had to try him one last time, just to hear his voice, just to talk to him without asking him for a favor or to break the law for me. There was no answer. I stared at my phone and at the little red dot next to one of the screen icons, blinking to remind me of the MP3s I’d transferred from Tim’s server to my phone, the copies of Birot’s calls that I had never listened to.

I guess Izzy was right. I am a bulldog. If there was one loose end, I had to tie it up before I was satisfied. I listened to the first call. It was Birot calling for a cab. He had a nice voice, like Izzy’s. I went on to the other one, the one he’d made to his father the morning he died.

“Father, it’s François,” he said.

“Where are you, son?”

“Somewhere in Philadelphia. I don’t know.”

“Did you take the EB-25?”

“No.”

“François, please. Don’t do this.”

“This is a horrible thing I’ve done.”

“It was necessary, my son.”

“This is necessary too.”

“François, please.”

“I don’t deserve to live, Father.”

“Your mother did not deserve to die, and neither do you. Take the shot.”

They began speaking in Dutch, until François said good-bye and hung up.

The little red dot on my phone stopped blinking and turned green. For once, I was home when the light came on. I knew what I had to do.

Did I mention I’m a packrat? I’m sure I did at some point. I’m the guy who buys the stuff other people throw away. My office at the Six looks like an episode of American Hoarders. My house isn’t much better. You get the idea.

I set the Colt aside and went looking for the only thing that mattered anymore. I thought I’d left it in one of my jackets but it wasn’t there, and it wasn’t on the dresser in my bedroom or on the bookshelf. Those little monkeys were banging their cymbals inside my head so loud I couldn’t think straight. I went back downstairs, figuring maybe I’d left it in the glove compartment of the car, but I never made it that far. When I got to the porch, Shep and Baby were sitting outside the door looking at me. They wanted in. I wanted to throw up. That’s when I reached for the trashcan.

Like I said, only three things in life are guaranteed: you’re born, you die, and somewhere in between, if you keep playing the odds, you’ll get lucky. When I looked down into that trashcan, I saw it — the plastic box with the Research Voorhoede logo on it and the auto-injector inside, loaded with the last dose of EB-25, the one François Birot felt too guilty to take, the one his sister, Isabelle Birot Aimée, had thrown away.

I took the shot and made it as far as the living room floor. That’s when I started recording this. I’m uploading it to the Internet now. I don’t know if anyone’s out there listening, but my name is Bam Matthews, I’m an FBI agent, and in forty-eight hours, give or take, I’ll either be damn lucky or stone-cold dead. Guaranteed.