The Ares Decision

27

“No problem. Hotel.”

Sarie chuckled quietly in the backseat as Jon Smith’s head sank into his hands. They’d found their driver a few miles from the arms market hoofing it back to Kampala. He’d seemed a little shocked to see them alive but gratefully climbed back behind the wheel after checking his rust bucket of a cab for damage.

“No,” Smith said for the fifth time. “Hospital. We want to go to the hospital first.”

Howell’s detour, while admittedly productive, left them no time to stop at the hotel before their appointment with the director of Kampala’s main medical facility.

“No problem. Hotel.”

Smith groaned and fell back into his seat.

“I think he’s missing the subtlety between the words ‘hospital’ and ‘hotel,’” Sarie offered. “What’s it actually called?”

He must have been more tired than he thought not to come up with that himself. Sixty hours of travel took a hell of a lot more out of him than it had when he was thirty.

“Mulago,” he said, enunciating carefully. “Not hotel. Mulago Hospital.”

The driver’s eyes widened with understanding. “Mulago? You sick?”

“Yes! You’ve got it! I’m sick. Very, very sick.”

“Mulago. No problem.”

Fifteen minutes later they pulled up to an enormous crate of a building surrounded by a railing painted an unfortunate baby blue.

“Mulago!” the driver announced as Smith threw open the door and slid out from beneath his pack.

He crouched and leaned back in to look at Howell. After his hour of normality at the arms market, he’d turned melancholy again — something worryingly at odds with his personality. “Can you stay with the car, Peter? We won’t be long.”

The Brit leaned his head back and stared up at the mildewed headliner. “I don’t have anything else on my calendar.”

Hello, I’m Dr. Jon Smith and this is Dr. Sarie van Keuren. We have an appointment with Dr. Lwanga.”

The woman stood with surprising nimbleness from behind a desk about half her size. The stern expression she’d worn when they approached transformed into a toothy smile. “Of course,” she said in lightly accented English. “I have your appointment right here. If you will just follow me, please.”

She led them less than ten feet to an open office door and then stepped ceremoniously aside so they could enter.

“Dr. Lwanga?” Smith said, approaching a bespectacled man standing at an odd angle that suggested childhood polio. He closed the book in his hand with a snap and limped toward them. “Drs. Smith and van Keuren. It is a great honor.”

“Likewise,” Sarie said. “You have a beautiful facility here.”

“There isn’t much money,” he responded. “But one does what one can.”

“We know you’re busy, Doctor, and we don’t want to take up too much of your valuable time…,” Smith started.

“Of course. What is it I can do for you?”

Smith fell silent, letting Sarie take the lead as they had agreed. She was a minor celebrity across the continent for her work on malaria and knew better what questions to ask. He’d just stand by and make sure she didn’t get overexcited and reveal too much.

“Jon and I are heading north on a brief expedition to find a parasitic worm that affects ants. But while we were doing our research, we found a mention of another parasite that caught our attention.”

“I’m afraid this isn’t really my area,” Lwanga said apologetically.

“We came to you because there are reports that it may victimize humans, causing rabies-like symptoms and possibly bleeding from the hair follicles. Also, it seems to affect only the North, which is where you grew up, isn’t it?”

Lwanga’s expression seemed strangely frozen as Sarie continued.

“We couldn’t find any information on what animals might host the parasite or really any corroboration that it even exists. Does it ring a bell by any chance?”

The African suddenly came back to life. “I’m afraid not. I’ve never heard of anything like what you’re describing.”

“Would you know someone we could talk to — maybe a doctor working in the rural areas to the north? Someone who could help us ask the right people the right questions?”

“It’s been a long time since I left my village and I’ve been very remiss about staying in touch.” He stuck out a hand in what was clearly a dismissal. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help. Now, you’ll have to excuse me. I have rounds.”

“That was a very strange meeting,” Sarie said as they came back out into the heat of the afternoon sun. “I don’t want to seem negative, but I’m not sure that he was being completely honest with us.”

It was obvious that she was having a hard time coming right out and calling the aging physician a liar, but Smith had no such qualms. In the world of professional liars he lived in, Lwanga was a rank amateur.

“He knew exactly what you were talking about, Sarie. Did you see the tea service next to his desk?”

“Ja.”

“How many cups were on it?”

“How many cups? I don’t know.”

“Ah,” Smith said. “You see, but you do not observe.”

“Sherlock Holmes,” she said with a grin. “Does that mean I get to be Watson?”

“Not yet. But I see potential. There were three cups and steam coming from the pot’s spout. You know better than me that Africans are nothing if not polite.”

She nodded slowly. “He intended for us to stay on a bit.”

“Until you brought up crazy people bleeding from the hair.”

“The stuff about him losing touch with his village is nonsense, too, Jon. African politeness is nothing compared to African devotion to family.”

They crossed onto the sidewalk and Smith reached for their taxi’s door. “And so the plot thickens.”

Dr. Oume Lwanga stood at the edge of the window, peering down into the street below. The phone in his hand was slick with sweat, and he had to grip it tightly to keep the smooth plastic from sliding through his fingers.

“They said that specifically,” President Charles Sembutu’s voice on the other end said.

“Yes, sir. They didn’t give details of which rabies symptoms, though madness seemed implied. They did distinctly say bleeding from the hair.”

“That’s all?”

“They were interested in a possible animal host but said their main objective was a worm affecting ants — that this other parasite was just something that came up in their research. They didn’t seem certain it even existed.”

“Where are they now?”

“Getting into a brown taxi with a box on the roof.”

“Is there anyone else in it besides the driver?”

“I think there’s someone in the backseat. From my position it’s hard to tell. Do you want me to—”

The connection went dead and Lwanga watched the cab pull away from the curb, feeling a pang of guilt. Their fate was in God’s hands now.