Page 23 of Hidden Empire


  Not that there was much the soldiers could do. Only thirty of them had gotten past the fever and they were still too weak to stand. Only a few others hadn't yet gotten to the fever stage. Most of these special ops soldiers would be lucky if they could hold a pistol and shoot at someone as they entered their rooms. The rest would never even know what they died of.

  All Cecily could hope for was to get word to AFRICOM to send in a Marine helicopter strike force. But how long would it take them to scramble the choppers and get to Calabar? How close behind this driver were the Arab troops? Every American soldier in Calabar could be dead before the first Marines arrived.

  They were nearing the turnoff to the university when she saw an elderly caregiver couple talking with what's-his-name from the radio. She couldn't leave them behind—they would be the first fatalities if they were still out here when the enemy soldiers arrived.

  WAR CORRESPONDENT

  A string of unbroken success leads people to expect their leader to be infallible, and when he falls short, they hate him. Complete failures are even worse, for then the leader is seen as weak. He is no longer treated as a factor by his rivals, who immediately move to fill the vacuum.

  The successful leader is one who is able to convince his people that they are in desperate straits, and only he has the strength and wisdom to keep them safe. Then the trick is never to put this reputation for strength and wisdom to the test. Glorious but untested reputations last forever.

  Rusty Humphries was not offended by Cecily Malich's initial hostility. He knew that conservative radio journalists like him had to deal with public attitudes toward reporters that had built up over two generations of arrogance combined with smug know-it-all political correctness. The kind of newspeople who pretended to be for the common man but disdained and despised everything the "great unwashed" believed in and cared about. And to Mrs. Malich, he would seem to be a jackal, coming to profit from the worst epidemic since the great influenza of 1918.

  The fact was he did have to put on an entertaining show every night. He had to chase ratings like anybody else, because without listeners there'd be no advertisers, and without advertisers there'd be no show. Unless you worked for NPR. Ever since he started sending comic songs and bits to Rush Limbaugh, he'd known that a solemn that's-not-funny attitude toward the news would never work for him.

  Yet even with his teasing attitude, Rusty took his job seriously. Terrorism wasn't funny. Neither was fundamentalist Islam. Neither was famine, neither was genocide. Yet Rusty went to Palestine and interviewed members of terrorist groups, and went to London to talk to Muslims from a radical mosque, and went to Darfur where refugees were starving when they weren't being machine-gunned or bombed, and then played the tapes on the air.

  He said to dangerous fanatics some of the things that Americans were dying to say. His listeners cheered. Of course, he ran the risk of literally dying for having said it. These were often pretty humorless people. But Rusty knew that his grin was better than Davy Crockett's—he had a talent for looking merry and happy no matter what he was actually saying, so bad people couldn't really believe they were being ridiculed to their faces. He walked out of some pretty dire places alive.

  So Rusty's listeners were used to the idea that when something truly wasn't funny, Rusty would still find what was funny about it—while speaking truth to violent men. If there was a trouble spot, and he could get a visa and transportation, Rusty went there.

  The trouble was that epidemics couldn't be jollied along. As Rusty's producer said to him, "You can't interview the virus. And all the people are dying."

  So he hadn't tried to get into Africa until President Torrent made an exception to his quarantine. With the departure of hundreds of Christians to try to minister to the sick and dying, Rusty saw his chance. If these people could go there, he could get there, too. The problem was going to be getting back. He talked with his contacts in the Pentagon and they promised him that if he would consent to spend three weeks in quarantine before coming home, they could get him at least to the ships off the Nigerian coast.

  That was his ticket in. He knew that once he was on a ship, he'd get to shore, and once on shore, he'd get his interviews and let his listeners know something about what it was like to be in the middle of a plague zone. Afterward he'd sit out the quarantine. Wherever the quarantine was, maybe he could do his show. If he had to, he'd do three weeks of radio over the phone.

  As with his trip to Darfur back in 2008, he'd find humor in his own woes, while taking the victims of the sneezing flu—and the Christians who had risked everything to come and care for them—seriously.

  And without his ever saying so, his listeners would know that he, too, had risked his life.

  It would be great radio.

  That was his plan, and so far it was working. Mrs. Malich had inadvertently given him a terrific interview—he didn't mind a bit when he got treated like in-your-face condescending journalists, because he knew his listeners loved hearing journalists get slapped around a little, even when it was a journalistic good guy like Rusty. You put a microphone in the face of a smart, honest American woman while she was busy trying to heal the sick, and you darn well should be given what for.

  The danger was that he couldn't really make his recordings with a breathing mask muffling his voice. So he had to make sure he talked only to people who didn't have the nicto, because he really did want to return home to his half-orphan daughters. They didn't deserve to lose yet another parent.

  Yet if he had to die, better to do it drumming up support for a good cause, while trying to tell people how to cope with an epidemic that was bound to hit American shores sooner or later, despite President Torrent's apparent belief that he could hold back the tide and move mountains to improve the view.

  Was he the only person in America who wasn't shiveringly thrilled every time Torrent opened his mouth? Come on, kids, the man's been president for three years, he's revealed himself to have the instincts of your standard liberal-bordering-on-socialist politician. Doesn't it bother anybody that this guy has tight control over the nominating and funding process in both parties? That you can't get a major party's nomination to either house of Congress without sucking up to him first?

  And now this quarantine—part of Rusty's pleasure in being here was the fact that these Christian demonstrators had practically forced Torrent to change his policy. He had it on good authority—a friend who was at the meeting—that Mrs. Malich had really helped change his mind. Rusty wished someone like her would run for president, but he knew she had too much sense. Isn't that the main problem with American politics? We keep having to choose among candidates who are so stupid they want the job, and so egocentric they think they can do it.

  So he was standing on the side of a main road talking to a couple of African Methodist Episcopalians, a married couple who were retired. When they heard about the epidemic, they knew they had to spend their last years—or, if things went badly, their last weeks—ministering to the sick. "It's how we walk in the footsteps of Jesus," said the wife. "He said, 'Come follow me,' and then where did he go? To the sick and afflicted."

  She had a great way of talking, and the husband interjected wry comments now and then, which she slapped down in a half-playful way that Rusty knew would get great laughs from both men and women in the audience.

  Then he heard a truck coming up the road. That was fairly rare in Calabar, even now that things were getting back to normal. He was sure it was a truck coming from outlying farms, and so he asked the Haywards to wait a moment till the noise from the truck had passed.

  But it didn't pass. The truck came to a rattling stop and Cecily Malich opened the passenger door. "Get on this truck, right now!"

  What was this about? Rusty's natural instinct was to say, Uh, I don't think so. But she looked urgent enough that he sensed a story.

  That sense became even stronger when he started toward the truck and she kept waving. "You too! Mr. and Mrs. Hayward! We've go
t to get back to the university!"

  When they got to the truck Mrs. Malich seemed to assess the Haywards' ability to get up onto the back of the flatbed truck and decided it wasn't likely to happen. "Please direct this driver straight to the College of Medical Sciences building," she said as she helped them into the cab. "I have to get to General Coleman."

  Rusty was happy as a clam that after all his working out and dieting, he looked so fit that she took it for granted that he could climb up; and so he did, then gave a hand to Mrs. Malich and her companion.

  The truck was moving before they were completely on, and yet Mrs. Malich made no complaint. As they rode, she filled him in on what she knew about the army unit that was coming.

  "Doesn't sound like we'll be glad to see them," Rusty agreed.

  "I've got to get a call in to the Pentagon or the ships just off the coast here or to the President, if I have to, because if we don't get help here, and fast, it's going to be a massacre."

  "It might just be a hostage thing," said Rusty.

  "For us caregivers, yes, it might," she answered. "But remember that hijacked plane that had a Navy SEAL on board? They kicked him to death—and then treated the civilians as hostages."

  "So our boys lying in their beds trying not to die from dysentery and fever and dehydration," said Rusty, "you think they'll come in and shoot them all?"

  "The driver thought the soldiers looked Arab. Definitely not African. Coming out of the northeast—Chad is up that way, if you go far enough, and then Sudan."

  "That's a long drive," said Rusty. "Like crossing the whole United States."

  Mrs. Malich was almost talking to herself. "Which means that if they decided on this raid because they heard that our boys were all infected, they had to put this together and hit the road—what, four? Five days ago? Five days ago, most of our boys were still in the coughing stage. Weakening, but still able to fight."

  "How did they hear about it?" asked Rusty. "I don't think even MSNBC would have reported that we had a whole base full of soldiers who were too weak to lift a weapon."

  "It wasn't the press," she said. "Word got out from the cooking staff, I think. With the best of intentions, I assume—the people here know that the reason the Hausas of the north aren't still coming down and slaughtering whole villages is because of what General Coleman and his men have been doing for them. But once the word gets into the rumor mill in Nigeria, it spreads across country faster than you'd believe—everybody's related to people all over the place and they don't have much public entertainment here, what with electricity being so intermittent."

  "So rumors are their soap operas," said Rusty.

  "And their NBA," said Mrs. Malich.

  "I think this doesn't look very good for our soldiers. Can you fire a gun?"

  She shook her head. "Have you seen the kind of kick those things deliver? I could fire it once, and then be hospitalized."

  "Not as bad as that!" Rusty wondered if he could shoot at the enemy. He had fired guns many times, but never had to aim one at someone with intent to kill. He knew that once you fired your weapon, you had announced to the enemy where you were—so you really needed to make your shots count for something.

  "Remember we came here as Christians and health workers," said Mrs. Malich. "If we take up weapons and shoot at the bad guys, then we're combatants—and combatants out of uniform."

  Rusty got the point. "I have a feeling that their version of Guantanamo, if we live to get there, won't be as nice as ours. Tearing up Bibles and flushing them down the toilet would probably be the nicest thing they did. If they have toilets."

  They slowed to a stop at the checkpoint, which was manned by four university students with clubs. Mrs. Malich stood up on the back of the truck and the students recognized her as Obufa Mma Slessor and let them through.

  Once they were at the headquarters building, Mrs. Malich asked the Haywards and her companion to tell everyone to prepare to evacuate immediately. "We want to be out in the city when they come here."

  "Hard to hide the white folks," said Mr. Hayward.

  "You aren't as black as anybody from around here, either," said Mrs. Malich.

  The Haywards laughed, but they got the point. There would be shooting at the university. The caregivers needed to be somewhere else—nursing the sick, just as they were supposed to.

  Mrs. Malich walked briskly to the stairs and up to General Coleman's quarters. Rusty trotted along behind, glad that she hadn't tried to ditch him at the door. Then it occurred to him that he might actually be helpful. If they didn't get the right answers from the Pentagon, he had friends there at the highest levels. He might be able to light some fires.

  Oh, wait. Mrs. Malich was a close adviser to President Torrent. That trumped any connection he had.

  Mrs. Malich knocked a couple of quick ones but then opened the door without waiting for an answer.

  General Coleman lay on his bed looking like a famine victim. He was white as a ghost, his skin hung off him like a Biggest Loser winner, and this was a man who didn't have an ounce of fat on him before he got sick. His body must have been eating away his muscle tissue during his illness. There was a white boy there, and when he greeted Mrs. Malich as "Mom," Rusty was able to make a wild guess as to who he was.

  Mrs. Malich made her report crisply, leaving out everything nonessential in the first go-round. Rusty wasn't sure Coleman was even awake, but when she was finished, he feebly said, "Good job. Help me up."

  "You're still burning up with fever," said Mrs. Malich. "Just tell me what to do and I'll do it."

  "Both," he said. "You do it, and I'll do what I have to do. Mark, can you bring me my bones?"

  Rusty had a horrible image of a man with all his bones removed, before he remembered that "Bones" was the unofficial nickname soldiers were giving the exoskeletons that were being prototyped. He had vaguely understood that they were being tested in Africa, but he had some idea of them being experimental. Now he realized that since the exoskeletons augmented a soldier's own strength, they might be able to get somebody in Coleman's shape up to something approaching normal walking ability.

  Did the exoskeletons help with balance? Because the way Coleman wobbled just sitting up on the edge of his bed with Mrs. Malich helping support him, Rusty worried that he'd fall over the first time a bullet passed near enough to cause a breeze.

  "Send a message to Admiral Sowell. Sign on as me. We need choppers and Marines in hazmat." Just that much seemed to wear him out. But now Mark was helping put on the exoskeleton while his mother went to the desk and started typing a message into the computer.

  Fortunately, the artificial intelligence routines in the Bones made them practically assemble themselves—Mark didn't have to do much more than bring the semiattached pieces close to the right position, and they seemed almost to grab each other and lock in place without anyone's help.

  Mrs. Malich got up from the desk. "They acknowledge and will comply."

  "Any ETA?"

  "Less than fifteen minutes after they get into the air. And they're monitoring your Noodles and drones so they'll know where they're needed."

  "Evacuate the Christians," said Coleman. It was only a whisper now.

  "Already started," said Mrs. Malich. "They've been asked to head out into the city—to the areas we've been working in. But I'm not counting on loyalty from the population. Not if these enemy soldiers are ruthless and you can't fight them off here. The people will play up to whoever seems to be winning. That's how you survive in Nigeria. The people who didn't play that way are dead or in exile."

  Rusty could hear how this would work on the air. Not very well, actually. Watching Coleman, he could see how absolutely weary and feverish he was. But on tape, all you'd hear was a kind of brusqueness. Coleman sounded almost bored. And rude to Mrs. Malich. Meanwhile, Mrs. Malich didn't sound like a Christian health volunteer. She sounded like senior management or a soldier's wife.

  Sound alone could be deceiving. But then,
sound with pictures could be deceptive, too.

  He was already taping, of course—voice-activated, sound-activated. He never wanted to miss something because he didn't know it was going to get said, or because he got caught up in the moment and he forgot to start the recorder until the best bits were over. This tape, though, would never be played over the air. But it might just help him remember everything that happened so he could tell the story to his listeners, if he ever made it home.

  "Mark," said Coleman. "Get the jeesh into their Bones, whoever can."

  Mark took off at a run.

  Coleman's Bones were fully engaged. Now he seemed to have a newfound strength. He stood up, he walked. But Rusty could see that the energy was all in the equipment. Almost as if the exoskeleton were animating a corpse.

  With his arms working now, Coleman reached for the helmet that went with the outfit. What did they call it, the Bean? No, the Noodle. As soon as it was engaged with the Bones, Coleman started clicking and smacking his lips—commands to the helmet and exoskeleton, Rusty knew from what he'd seen and read before. Then he was talking.

  "Drones up. Hostile force. Trucks, from east of Calabar, over the river, Ekang road." Coleman clicked a couple more times. "Reapers or Preds? I need to know how much armament we have." He listened. "It'll have to do." And then, after a moment. "Got the flu, nothing much."

  Meanwhile Mrs. Malich was looking at the small LCD readout on the outside of the Noodle. Rusty leaned in and could see that it was cycling through Coleman's vital statistics—heartbeat, blood pressure, that sort of thing—and Rusty realized it was so that if the wearer was unconscious, medics could still assess his condition. He was at 105 degrees.This was not good at all. Whatever Coleman was planning to do, his fever was reaching its crisis. Also, his judgment wouldn't be at its best with that kind of temperature.

  "Water," said Coleman. Mrs. Malich gave him a bottle with a straw built into the lid and Rusty realized it was an attachment to the exoskeleton—it stayed in place and the straw actually extended to reach Cole's lips when he made a quick slurping sound. That is so cool! I want that suit, thought Rusty. I want clothes that do what I tell them.