The Nirvana Plague (16 page)

The big transport plane was escorted through the evening by a wing of Raptors. Marley spotted them now and then against the horizon.

Benford advised everyone to sleep if they could, but between the roar of airframe noise, the underpadded seats, and the strangeness and uncertainty of their mission, they couldn’t. So they passed the time debating the reality of the disease they were going to diagnose — poring through the data, the reports, the videos — arguing, clarifying positions, solidifying alliances.

After nightfall, approaching the coast of Gabon, the planes refueled in flight, then shot out over the belly of Africa. They gave the brilliant coastal cities a wide berth, and passed on east into the darkness, threading a zigzag course between unfriendly countries. The darkness below was interrupted only by the occasional electric-yellow glow of a town or the jagged red march of a clearing fire.

Near dawn, as they angled toward the east coast, the trailing moon revealed a mountain of cloud piling up to the north — round massifs of silver and shadow. And now and then the whole range of it was lit up from within by vivid white flashes.

Marley overheard one of the soldiers saying, “Holy shit, is that artillery?”

“No, fool, it’s just lightning.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Artillery is worse.”

It was early afternoon local time when they finally put down on the island of Socotra, off the horn of Somalia, at a rough inland airfield the Americans were renting in official secrecy from Yemen, for which loss of face among their Arab confederates the Yemeni ruling house exacted a fantastic number of compensatory American dollars — one of the many ways in which the Arab Federation financed its continuing existence with its official enemies’ unofficial monies.

A row of green inflatable barracks lay like fallen beehives either side one end of the runway. Under orders to get some rest, Benford’s weary taskforce deplaned and followed the troops inside.

But forty-five minutes later their aides were waking them up as Benford strode into their midst.

“Change of plans, people,” she announced. “Seven new cases were reported to MHS overnight. All of them in the Kashmiri theatre. We can be there before nightfall if we head out right away. Command is profiling a transport mission for us right now. Get your boots on, please.”

Everyone was groggy. Delacourt sat up, trying to comb her long hair with her fingers.

“Seven new cases?” she said.

“That’s what I said. Biggest occurrence yet. And all in one place.”

“We’re not actually
in
the military, are we?” Sikora mumbled.

They had spent less than ninety minutes on the ground. Now they were taking to the air again, sitting in tiny folded seats in the hold of a back-loaded transport helicopter. Surrounded by a flight of wasp-like helicopter gunships, they shot out low over the Arabian Sea, leaving the green strip of island behind them.

Benford briefed them on the mission plan en route. “They’re flying in replacements tonight and bringing the cases back out tomorrow. I thought we could fly in with them.”

“Why don’t we just wait for them on the carrier?” Wenslau complained. “We can see them there. They’re bringing them out anyway.”

“I want Dr. Marley and the rest of you to have a chance to see these cases as close to when and where they happen as possible.”

“When and where they happen is not a very pleasant place to be though, is it?” Wenslau snapped. “I mean, that’s your whole theory, isn’t it? That being
in harm’s way
is the very thing that’s triggering it, right?”

“If you don’t want to go, Mr. Wenslau, don’t go.”

Wenslau hadn’t had much to say about anything until now. But until now he hadn’t been scared.

Two hours out they were met by a squad of fighters, and the gunships peeled off and headed back to Socotra. The fighters flew patterns around them all the way out to the carrier.

Delacourt pointed them out to Marley.

“Look at those fighters,” she said, quietly. “What do you think is really going on?”

He looked at her curiously. “What do you mean?”

“How do you suppose one little colonel is able to get this kind of support?” she said. “Flights round the world with a snap of her fingers. Helicopters. Fighter escorts. Think what they’re spending to get us all the way out here.”

“They’re afraid of this thing. ‘Force depletion,’ you know.”

Delacourt’s green eyes beheld him seriously, stifling his impulse to make light of her implications.

“There’s more to this than we’ve been told, Dr. Marley.”

Half the team flatly refused to continue on past the carrier landing. Benford, Marley, Peters, and Delacourt agreed to go on. They spent less than twenty minutes on the carrier’s pitching deck, transferring from one helicopter to another — one of four battle transports getting ready to fly out. Benford asked the officer in charge of transport logistics to issue sidearms to her staff. The field commander authorized him by radio and the supply officer issued Benford and the aides M9 Berettas. That almost put Peters off continuing, but Sikora needled him into staying the course:

“It’s just a precaution,” he said, winking like a streetwalker.

“Against what?” Peters snapped. “That’s my question.”

“Against anybody taking you for a gutless lab rat. Don’t you respect your Hippocratic oath?”

“I’m a researcher, asshole, not a clinician.”

“You’re a scientist, right? A seeker of truth? Time to do some seeking.”

“Yeah? So why aren’t you going?”

Benford cut in, irritably: “We’ve only got room for eight. Four of us and four aides. If you don’t want to go, don’t go.”

“You’re the skeptic,” Sikora said. “You should go.”

“All right, I didn’t say I wouldn’t!”

“And remember: try to keep all your parts connected to each other.”

“Fuck off.”

“That’s the spirit, Fred!” Marley said.

It was Thursday morning in Chicago.

Karen called the Board of Health to inquire whether Roger’s quarantine could be lifted now. When that failed, she demanded. When demands failed, she hung up and called her department secretary to tell her she would not be able to work today.

Ten minutes later, the department chair called back.

you very fucking much.a cat alive. her pocket. " it to Ally“Karen? Dr. Hauk.”

“Hi.”

“I gather your husband is still in quarantine.”

“Yes.”

“I gather you’ll be canceling your lectures again today?”

“Yes.”

“It
is
your husband, not yourself, under restriction, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t see how this can be considered an absence on account of medical emergency.”

“I don’t care what it’s considered.”

“Unfortunately, the university does care, Karen. — What’s wrong with him anyway? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“We like to call it ‘the creeping crazies’.”

“I see. How long do you anticipate this is going to continue?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t think the department can just let this situation continue indefinitely, do you?”

“Depends what you mean by ‘indefinitely,’ doesn’t it? I mean, so far we’re only talking about two whole days.”

“Today makes three.”

“I sit corrected. I guess you count beans better than I do.”

“There’s no reason to be hostile, Karen.”

Karen said nothing.

There was a pause while Hauk searched for words. Finally he managed: “What would you suggest we do?”