Plague

CHAPTER 38

Samantha had always been interested in visiting Lima. Ever since she had studied the Inca culture and their mysterious disappearance. But she didn’t get to experience Peru now other than through the window of a rickety cab, driven by a man that was drunker than their pilot. The architecture of the buildings was magnificent; the people appeared lively, the older ones wearing traditional Peruvian clothing. Handmade and colorful. The young ones dressing as any twenty-something would dress on the streets of London or New York.

But watching a city pass by through the window of a cab was the same as watching it on television. She was removed from it; an observer. She wanted to go out, eat the food, talk to the people, walk the streets. But that was impossible, Benjamin assured her. The next flight to Iquitos was leaving in less than an hour and there wouldn’t be another one for five days.

They had exited the cabs at the airport and were waiting for the plane to refuel. She stepped away from the others with Duncan and they sat on worn seats and watched the tarmac of the small airport outside.

“Ralph told me something weird,” she said. “He said that Billy Donner doesn’t work for the FBI and he doesn’t know who he is.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, and I believe him.”

“Well, one of the things I’ve found working for the military is that those secretive guys-CIA, FBI, NSA-they never say what agency they’re actually with. Delta Force agents tell people they’re mechanics and janitors. They use a lot of deception to make sure no one can track them. He seems like a G-man to me. Maybe he’s a spook. Best cover would be law enforcement. People wouldn’t ask too many questions.”

The humidity and heat were nearly unbearable. Sam felt the heat coming off the walls and pouring through the windows. It felt like a sauna. She stood up and went to the bathroom. Standing over the sink, she splashed cold water on her face and down her neck, over her arms and chest. There were no paper towels so she wiped her skin with her fingers as best she could and then headed outside again. Agent Donner was standing by the windows by himself, staring out at the crystal blue sky.

“It’s beautiful here,” she said, coming up from behind.

“Yes,” he said, not turning around. “I came out here once before, a long time ago. It hasn’t changed at all. I like having that consistency. If you leave New York or DC for a decade and go back, you’d think you stepped into a new city.”

She walked next to the glass, looking out at a plane that was getting ready for takeoff. “So what made you want to join the Feds?”

“Duty, I guess. If there is such a thing. Maybe it’s real, or maybe it just means doing something without any rational reason behind it. I don’t know. I’m too old to figure it out I guess.”

“How old are you if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Fifty-eight.”

“What? Really? You don’t look a day over forty.”

“I appreciate that, but don’t ever let the exterior fool you about what the landscape’s like on the interior.”

“So how long have you been with the FBI?”

“Nineteen years. I was law enforcement before that, and Army before that.”

“What’d you do in the Army?”

“This and that. Nothing too exciting.” He turned and looked at her. “Can I ask you something now?”

“Sure.”

“Why are you here?”

“What do you mean?”

“Benjamin’s clearly a fool and the virus is contained on an island. It’s unlikely it’ll get out. Why did you risk your life coming to this place just to see a woman who is rumored to have survived it?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense to me either but I just had a feeling that this is where I had to be.” She folded her arms, leaning against the glass of the large window. “I think about those people on the island. Seeing loved ones dying slowly with no one around to help. I can’t stand it. When I close my eyes, their faces are painted on my lids.”

“They did nothing to deserve that, but you did nothing to deserve the guilt you’re feeling now. The virus was a force of nature, like a tornado. You couldn’t control it.”

“No, but I could’ve stayed and helped. At least I could’ve tried harder to stay.”

“And you’d be dead just like the rest of them. Who exactly would that have helped, Dr. Bower?”

“Sam,” Duncan said, “you’re going to want to see this.”

Samantha walked over. There was a YouTube clip playing on Duncan’s cell phone. It was of a news broadcast from Los Angeles. The broadcast ran for a total of five minutes and twenty-seven seconds, but Sam only heard one line. It was a single sentence that rang in her ears and made her knees feel like they were about to buckle:

And again, for those viewers just tuning in, a case of the deadly Honolulu virus known as Agent X has been reported at Good Samaritan Hospital here in Los Angeles.