The Deadliest Strain

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Ashraf Banaz and her colleague shared a newly repaired five-room house in an old neighborhood of Halabja. Clara Hearne was a physician at San Francisco General Hospital. She was in her thirties and eager to tell another American about everything she was involved in here.

Austyn had already heard about the collaboration between the American and Kurdish doctors from Fahimah. As the young physician repeated some of what he already knew, he found his mind drifting back to the moment when Fahimah and her cousin met earlier.

There had been laughter, tears, a million questions, while neither would stay quiet long enough to give the other one a chance to answer. Then the two of them had escaped to one of the rooms off the living room where Clara and Austyn were sitting. There had to be so much the two wanted to catch up on.

"Would you like another beer?" she asked.

Austyn looked down at the half-full bottle in his hand and shook his head. "No, thanks. I'm fine."

Clara had told him before that strict Islamic laws were enforced in Halabja, but only in public. People did what they wanted in their homes. He was also told that the two women bought the beer in Ankawa, a Christian town near Erbil.

"Where was I?" she asked.

Austyn couldn't remember, but he figured Dr. Hearne was the type that never forgot anything. He was right.

"Oh, yes, I was telling you… this work in Halabja is showing me one of the basic differences between American and Kurdish doctors. In New York City, research is a foundational feature of medical education. In the aftermath of September 11, doctors enrolled 60,000 patients from the city in prospective trials. Everything that happens to them is being recorded, and additional data will be collected on them as they age." She took a sip of her own beer. "In Kurdistan, there is no such research infrastructure. Medical education is antiquated. Skill sets like research that are considered an essential part of modern medical education have not yet entered the curriculum at the universities here. The result is a group of intelligent, clinically skilled doctors who are ill-equipped to collect data and publish their findings about the patient population."

He didn't entirely agree with this, as both Fahimah and Rahaf had published. But he remembered she was talking about the medical profession in this little corner of Iraq. Considering what these people had gone through, compared with the environment Clara was most likely from… well, there was no comparison. Austyn told himself that he didn't have to get defensive. He took a long swig from the bottle, amused by his own reaction.

Austyn decided to change the subject. "So, Clare… I'm curious. You two don't mind living in this house when two-thirds of the houses on the street are in ruins?"

"Not at all." Clare shook her head adamantly. "The manager at the hospital didn't want me to stay in Halabja. He claimed he couldn't guarantee the safety of an American woman. He wanted me to stay at Sulaimaniyah, where there are hot showers and clean drinking water. He said he'd have me be escorted here a couple of days a week to check on the data the nurses are collecting. But I said, no way."

"Is that how you and Ashraf connected?" Austyn asked.

"We knew each other before. So I told her what I was doing. She got an okay from her university. They tied a grant to it, and here we are."

Austyn was certain things couldn't have been as simple as that, but he appreciated her enthusiasm.

She took another sip of her beer. "You mentioned the rubble. In the morning, you'll see it yourself. There is a real charm in this place, set as it is into the foothills of the mountains."

"Still, the fighting and the poverty must get to you."

"That's true. The disconnect between the setting and the recent history makes it an emotionally taxing environment to work in. But enough about me. Ashraf wouldn't give me a straight answer about you or her cousin Fahimah. Where has she been? I heard her name mentioned before, many times, but I thought she was dead."

"Obviously she's not," he said, not wanting to reveal anything more. He didn't know how much of the truth Fahimah was telling her cousin.

"I hear she used to be a political science professor in Baghdad. I was premed all the way as an undergrad, but I loved poli-sci."

Austyn nodded.

"All of them — everyone I've met in their family — they're so wicked smart."

He nodded again.

"Another thing that Ashraf was vague about was about your job. What is it that you do?"

"I'm an epidemiologist. I work specifically on the spread of rare diseases." He looked around the living room. There was no TV. He wondered if these two women knew anything about the outbreaks in the U.S. and Afghanistan.

"So you're an MD?"

"No, just a researcher with a master's degree. I work on the investigative side of things. On how to stop epidemics."

She moved to the edge of her seat and her eyes narrowed. He almost laughed.

"Are you CIA?" she said in a low voice.

"No. No guns. No spying. No tricks." He thought Homeland Security might sound too much like CIA. "I work for NIH."

He did work for them at one time, so that was close enough.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry, but NIH can be a real pain in the butt sometimes."

"I hear that a lot."

Clara finished her beer, put the bottle on the coffee table and sat back.

"So what's your connection with Fahimah?"

"She is taking me to her sister," he said, assuming if Clara had heard about Fahimah, then she must know about the younger sister, too.

"You mean Rahaf?" she asked, frowning.

"Yes. I'm hoping that she can help us in some research we're doing," Austyn told her. "Have you ever met her?"

"No. No." She stood and picked up both of their bottles before walking to the kitchen. She looked disturbed.

Austyn looked at the doorway Fahimah and Ashraf had gone through. He thought he heard a noise, like Fahimah crying. He stood up as Clara came back into the room with two open bottles. She handed him one. He didn't want it and put it on the table.

"You know, I'm pissed off," she said, starting to pace the room.

"At what?"

"I'm pissed at their friends back in Erbil. After they called her, Ashraf was really worried about this."

"She was worrying about what?"

"That they wouldn't tell her," Clara muttered. "That it would be left up to Ashraf to break the bad news."

"What bad news?" Austyn asked.

"Rahaf has cancer. She's dying."