The Ares Decision

22

Jon Smith jogged to the top of the stone stairs and turned toward the pillared building that dominated the University of Cape Town’s lush campus. The craggy mountain that framed the nearly two-hundred-year-old college seemed almost too perfect to be real — a patchwork of gray and green beneath an unbroken blue sky.

The temperature had climbed into the mid-eighties, but a cool breeze coming off Table Bay rippled across the thin cotton of his shirt as he threaded his way through backpack-toting students in search of Dr. Sarie van Keuren.

After a few wrong turns, he found the door he was looking for and entered, scanning the lab for the meticulously groomed Betty Crocker look-alike depicted on the school’s website.

He’d almost decided that she wasn’t there when a bulky young man in a rugby shirt wandered off and revealed the woman behind him.

Granted, all faculty photos had a certain staged quality to them, but they’d taken it to another level with her. In real life, the wavy blond hair was well on its way to winning its fight with the tie trying to contain it. Her face was a slightly sunburned tan that faded into a yellow bruise on her left cheek. The nose that had seemed so regal from the angle the photo was taken hinted at an old injury and was just crooked enough to keep her face from devolving into generic California surfer girl.

She looked up from the clipboard in her hand and he immediately started toward her, hoping she hadn’t noticed him staring.

“Can I help you?” she said in a pleasant African drawl.

“Dr. van Keuren? I’m Jon Smith.”

“Colonel Smith! I was starting to think you’d gotten lost somewhere over the ocean.”

“We spent some time sitting on the tarmac in London and got in a couple hours late.”

He offered his hand and she pumped it energetically, the athletic outline of her body hinted at beneath the flow of her lab coat.

“Well, let me be the first to welcome you to our beautiful country, then.”

“Thanks. And thanks for agreeing to meet with me on such short notice. Every time I ask someone about parasites, your name seems to come up.”

She ignored the compliment. “Never a good idea to refuse a request from the most powerful military in history. USAMRIID, right? A virus hunter from Maryland. I’ve only been to New York and Chicago. I want to go to Montana, though.”

“Being African, you might find it a little cold right now.”

“But it’s wild, isn’t it? Big sky country. I love that phrase.” She used her hands like a symphony conductor when she repeated it. “Big sky country. It explains so much.”

She had an engaging way of talking just a little too fast, as though there wasn’t enough time in life to say everything on her mind.

“I never thought about it. I guess it does.”

“But you’re not here to listen to me babble. You want to talk about parasites. Do you have an interesting one for me?”

He looked around him, confirming that none of the students were within earshot. “That’s the problem. I’m not really sure. It’s not my area of expertise.”

“Of course. Viruses…How awful for you.”

“Sorry?”

A pained expression spread across her face. “Well, I mean, they’re just little bags of DNA, really.”

“I take it you’re not a fan.”

“Oh, I don’t mean to be insulting, but they’re technically not even alive, for God’s sake.”

“They may be small, but they pack a big punch,” he said, feeling a sudden inexplicable urge to defend his life’s work.

“Oh, please. What’s the best you’ve got? Smallpox? Malaria — now, there’s a nasty little parasite that’s killed more people than all other diseases combined. In fact, you can make a lucid argument that it’s killed half the people who ever died.”

She grabbed his arm and tugged him toward an enormous glass tank against the lab’s far wall. “Let me show you something.”

Her size belied her strength, and he allowed himself to be dragged along.

“This is Laurel,” she said pointing to a foot-long fish swimming around the tank. “She’s a spotted rose snapper from California. Tap the glass. Go ahead. Get her attention.”

Smith did as he was told and Laurel swam toward him, opening her mouth as she approached.

He barely managed not to take a step backward when he saw something that looked like a small lobster staring out at him from the fish’s maw. “What the hell is that?”

“Hardy,” she said, grinning broadly. “Cymothoa exigua. When he was young and tiny, he swam through Laurel’s gills and attached himself to her tongue to feed off the blood from the artery underneath. Eventually, the tongue rotted away and Hardy replaced it. Doesn’t harm the fish at all. They’ll live together like that for their entire lives.”

“You win,” Smith admitted. “That’s truly disgusting.”

“Isn’t it brilliant?” she said, snatching a worm from a dirt-filled box and dangling it over the tank.

As Smith watched her feed the unfortunate fish, he couldn’t help thinking of his fiancée, Sophia. They had worked together at Fort Detrick and she’d had the same endless fascination for her field as Sarie did. In the end, though, it had killed her.

“Colonel Smith? Are you all right? I’m sorry. Did Hardy upset you? He has that effect on some people.”

His smile returned and he concentrated on making sure it didn’t look forced. “No, Hardy’s fine. In fact, if you have somewhere we can talk privately, I may be able to one-up you.”

Her tiny office was crammed with books that looked like they’d spent most of their lives in the field, but most were completely obscured by her fetish for sticky notes. There was hardly a square inch available anywhere that didn’t have a reminder of some type attached to it. He paused in the doorway to read one demanding — with multiple exclamation marks — that she not forget a faculty meeting held just over two years ago.

Sarie cleared a spot on her desk and pointed to the courier bag slung over Smith’s shoulder. “Is your specimen in there? Is it from Maryland?”

“No and no.”

Smith’s attention was drawn to a picture of her and a very old man standing over a dead antelope of some kind. She was holding a rifle and grinning out from beneath a broad straw hat.

“Eland?”

“Kudu. Terrific eating if you get a chance while you’re here.” She pointed to the case again. “Now, did you mention something about a new parasite? Something no one’s ever seen before?”

He chewed his lower lip. “What I have in here is very secret and—”

“Ja, ja,” she drawled. “You told me that over the phone, Colonel. Or do you prefer Doctor?”

“Jon.”

“Jon. Secrets are so corrosive to the soul. Why don’t you just show me? I’m certain it will make you feel better.”

“I need to impress on you that this is something my government would consider at the very least top secret.”

“You’re killing me, Jon. I am absolutely sweating with anticipation.” Her tone turned playful. “I understand that if I talk, you’ll have to kill me.”

“I’m not sure that’s the case, but it’s an option that would get discussion.”

She started to laugh but then seemed uncertain that he was joking. There was a brief pause before she nodded. “Fine. I swear on my father’s grave. Now, give it here.”

She seemed a bit perplexed when he pulled out a laptop and set it on the desk, but lowered the shades behind her and leaned over the computer to watch the video that was starting.

Smith cleared a chair of books and dropped into it, a cloud of dust rising around him as he watched her turn increasingly pale.

“Hectic,” she mumbled when it was over. A few moments passed before she could get anything else out. “Who were the people that died?”

“It’s not important.”

“I’ll bet it is to them.”

He didn’t respond.

“Where was the video taken? Somewhere in central Africa?”

“Uganda. The men you saw were there to try to capture Caleb Bahame.”

“Bahame?” she said, the hatred audible in her voice. “I’m sorry they didn’t find him. Find him and kill him.”

He held out a redacted copy of the CIA’s report and the information Star had come up with on the parasite angle.

“Eighteen ninety-nine?” she said, leafing through it. “I see you like to keep your research current.”

He actually managed a half smile. “So what do you think, Doctor?”

“Sarie.”

“Sarie. Could a parasite cause that kind of behavior?”

“It’s certainly possible. Making people violent isn’t all that difficult.”

“But the behavior is more sophisticated than that.”

“You’re referring to the fact that they don’t attack each other?”

He was impressed. She was as quick as her reputation suggested. “Exactly. That’s why we’re leaning toward the cause being a combination of narcotics and charisma. But we want to be sure.”

“What do you know about the blood?”

“It’s not painted on, if that’s what you mean. But they could have cut their scalps for some kind of ceremonial purpose.”

“I doubt it. Ceremonial cutting, sure, but why hide it under your hair? Why not a big, intimidating slash across your chest? And as far as them not attacking each other goes, it wouldn’t surprise me. If a parasite is affecting their brains, what mutation could possibly be more beneficial than one causing them to recognize other infected people and leave them alone? It would be a huge evolutionary advantage over similar parasites that cause their victims to end up in some kind of free-for-all. From the parasite’s standpoint, that’s suicide.”

“Still,” Smith said skeptically. “The kinds of specific changes that would have to be made to the human brain in order to make all this work seem far-fetched.”

“Oh, no, I disagree. Take Toxoplasma gondii, for instance. It’s a protozoan normally parasitic to cats but it can infect a number of other species, including humans. The one we’re interested in for the sake of this example is rats. Now, rats are terrified by the smell of cat urine — a not-so-surprising survival adaptation. However, rats infected with Toxoplasma are not only unafraid of cat urine; they’re actually attracted to it. Not great for the rat, but just lovely for the Toxoplasma, which gets to return to its preferred host when the rat gets eaten.”

“So you’re saying—,” Smith started, but she kept talking — whether to him or to herself he wasn’t sure.

“And what about Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga? It’s a parasitic wasp that attacks a certain Costa Rican spider. Its egg hatches on the spider’s abdomen and sucks its blood. Eventually it releases a chemical that causes the spider to spin a complex web designed to protect the wasp instead of catching food. Then there’s a different parasite that breeds underwater but infects grasshoppers. The only way it can procreate is to cause the grasshopper to commit suicide by drowning itself.”

She began pacing back and forth across the crowded office, occasionally pausing to look at a particularly interesting note stuck to the walls or furniture. “So what we potentially have here is a parasite that’s spread through blood — thus the bleeding from the hair.”

“And the violence,” Smith said.

“Exactly. You’ve got to get the blood into your victim, and what better way than to attack them, open cuts, and then bleed into them. It’s similar to your viruses. They cause you to sneeze or cough or have diarrhea. All simple strategies to move from one host to another.”

“So what do you think? Bottom line.”

“I think there’s a very good chance you’re dealing with some kind of pathogen. Based on the documents you brought and the complexity of the behavior, I’d say a parasite is your best bet. It’s really quite incredible! We’ve never seen anything like this in humans. I mean, Toxoplasma is fairly common in our species, but the only significant psychological effect we can find is that it makes us lousy drivers.”

“Did you say ‘drivers’?”

She nodded. “Might have something to do with appetite for risk. Not really sure. So are you going to Uganda?”

“Based on what you’re telling me, I don’t suppose I have much of a choice.”

“Is there time for us to swing by my house?”

“Excuse me?”

“I just need to grab some gear before we leave.”

Smith opened his mouth to protest but then caught himself. She had extensive field experience in Africa, was the world’s foremost parasitologist, and based on the photo on the wall, could handle a rifle. No point in being hasty.

Jim Clayborn sat in the grass on the University of Cape Town campus, keeping an eye on an Iranian exchange student who had taken an intense, and extremely suspicious, interest in Dr. Sarie van Keuren.

In his peripheral vision, he watched the young man casually retrieve his cell phone as van Keuren appeared with a tall, fit-looking man who according to his rental car agreement was Colonel Jon Smith of the U.S. Army. The Iranian snapped a few shots of van Keuren being introduced to an older man who stank to high heaven of British special forces.

Clayborn tapped a brief text into his own phone, then ran it through a state-of-the-art encryption algorithm before sending it off to Langley. They weren’t going to be happy. Things looked like they were about to get complicated.