Survivors? Elliott felt a glimmer of hope. If they had survived the disease, then analyzing their antibodies—which had defeated the virus—could be the key to finding a treatment.
“Listen to me, Millen. We’ve got to get those survivors back to the CDC for analysis.”
“How?”
“I’ll arrange transport. Just get to Mandera and stay safe. I’ll call you back. Keep your phone charged.”
It took Elliott three calls before he reached someone who could transport Millen and the survivors back to Atlanta. It would be more than three days before they arrived in America—but better late than never.
Elliott napped in the family room until the morning sun blazed through the French doors. The house was still quiet, and he took the opportunity to do some work he dreaded, work he knew had to be done.
In his study, he turned on his computer and made a list of everyone he needed to warn. Then he made a list of his neighbors. He and Rose lived in an established, older neighborhood just outside Atlanta, close to the CDC. The homes weren’t mansions, but they were authentic, well-built, and expensive. Doctors, lawyers, and business owners shared the street with them. Elliott wrote down the names of the neighbors he thought he could rely on, the ones he thought would have steady hands in a crisis.
And a crisis was coming; he was certain of that.
At seven a.m. he brought Rose, Ryan, and Sam into his office and told them his plan. By the time he was done, Rose was crying quietly. Ryan and Sam nodded solemnly and told Elliott he had their full support.
Next, he began making calls to the people he wanted to warn.
By ten o’clock, five husbands and wives sat in his living room.
“I’m sorry to take you away from your families,” Elliott said, “but I believe your families, and mine, will soon be in very real danger.”
Surprised, confused expressions stared back at him.
“What are you—”
Elliott held up a hand. “Just… give me a minute, Bill. It’ll all make sense.
“In 2004, Congress passed the Project Bioshield Act. On the surface, it was a bill that called for five billion dollars to spend on stockpiling vaccines and other countermeasures against bioterror and pandemics. But what the public doesn’t know is that there are secret provisions in the act—provisions that are only invoked in the event of a catastrophic biological event. I believe we are witnessing the beginning of such an event. I believe this respiratory virus—X1—may actually be the early stages of the Ebola-like hemorrhagic fever that is currently devastating Kenya. If they are one and the same virus, I believe that Project BioShield will soon be invoked to try to stop that outbreak.
“When that occurs, the America we know and love will change very drastically. What I’m about to tell you must never leave this room.”
When Elliott was done speaking, one of the men leaned forward and said, “Let’s say you’re right. What do we do?”
“That’s why you’re here. I have a plan. And I need your help.”
Chapter 47
In the metal and glass cell, Desmond lay on the narrow bed, watching the never-ending slide show. A few of the photos were from his childhood, but the bulk of them depicted him at industry trade shows or at business meetings. They began in his early twenties and ran nearly up until the present. Either his captors didn’t have pictures of his personal life, or none existed. The people who came and went outside his cell asked him a range of questions, careful to never reveal anything about their cause and goals, but here and there, he gathered small clues, which he cataloged, hoping they would help him escape.
After they left, Desmond felt his stomach growl. They had fed him very little, perhaps hoping to keep him weak and docile.
Instead, the sensation brought back another memory.
For the first year that Desmond lived in Oklahoma, his uncle left him at a preschool when he was working on the rigs. The kids there were of varying ages, but at six years old Desmond was among the oldest. Several of the other oil workers left their children there too, and he made a few friends. But every time Orville returned to pick him up, he argued with the owners about the price, complaining that it was highway robbery.
One day, Orville announced that he was leaving Desmond at home. He put some money on the counter and told Desmond that if he had to come home to tend to him, he’d make him sorry.
Desmond used the money to buy food at the small grocery store in town. The owner helped him count out the money and stretch it as best he could. His diet consisted of beans and canned meat. Still, he ran out of money a few days before his uncle returned. At the grocery store, he didn’t ask for credit. He asked where he could find a job.
“For a six-year-old?” The skinny man with small glasses laughed.
Desmond looked at his shoes.
“I’ll give you some things on credit, Desmond. You can settle up when your uncle gets back.”
“I’d rather not,” he said quietly.
Thankfully, the grocer told him to sweep out the supply room and stock some of the shelves and sent him home with enough food to get him through a few more days.
When his uncle returned, the first thing he said was: “How much have you got left?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? You spent it all? On what, boy? A new Barbie doll?”
He stormed off, muttering that Desmond would eat him out of house and home.
The man was obsessed with money. He would work on whatever rig paid him the most. He didn’t care how dangerous it was or how bad the camp conditions were. He wanted the money. And he kept it all to himself. He deeply distrusted banks.
“They’re all crooks,” he said, one night when he was into the second half of the bottle. “Fools, too. They’ll loan any Tom, Dick, or Harry money—your money, that is, the same dollars you put in the vault. The thrifts are the worst. They’ll be busted soon, you watch.”
Desmond was actually quite surprised when, a few years later, over a thousand savings and loans—thrifts, as they were known—collapsed, costing American taxpayers over one hundred and thirty billion dollars to bail them out. It was perhaps the only one of his uncle’s predictions and conspiracy theories that came true.
His uncle continued to leave him home alone after that first time, and Desmond soon figured out how to make the money last: he supplemented it with meat from animals he killed. Some he took out of season, but he figured the game warden probably wouldn’t fine a six-year-old boy slowly starving to death.
He made sure to have a few dollars left over, waiting on the counter when his uncle returned—and sometimes he managed to have a bit more, which he saved for himself.
When he’d saved enough, he visited the pawnshop at the edge of town. He had stood outside this shop at least two dozen times, gazing through the window at the bike, imagining himself riding it, all the places he would go.
Now he went inside, laid his money on the glass-top display case, and said, “I’ll take the bike in the window.”
The proprietor picked up the bills, counted them out, and said, “You’re short ten dollars.”
“That’s all I’ve got.”
The man said nothing.
Desmond reached for the bills. “Take it or leave it. I’m going to the hardware store next to make them an offer.”
The man let out a ragged smoker’s cough. “If you were a grown man, I’d tell you to piss off. But I like you, kid. Take it. Damn thing’s been in the window a year now anyway.”
It was Desmond’s first taste of freedom, the first thing he had ever saved up for and bought on his own. He treasured it more than any gift he’d ever been given.
He also hid it from his uncle. That lasted six months. It was the best period of his entire childhood.
With the bike’s added range, he was able to visit the next town over, Noble, which had shops along the main street, a post office, a small cinema, and a library. Inside the library, he wandered the stacks, searching for
the books Charlotte had read to him. He just wanted to see the covers again to remind him of those weeks they’d spent together.
A woman with gray hair was taking books from a cart and placing them back on the shelves. “Can I help you find something?”
Desmond shook his head.
“You can check out anything you like,” she said. She studied him for a long second. “It’s free. You bring them back whenever you’re done.”
It wouldn’t do him any good; he still couldn’t read.
“Is there a… time when someone reads?”
The woman hesitated. “Uh, yes, there is.”
“When?”
“There’s… several times. When would be convenient?”
He told her, and she said that would be fine. Her name was Agnes. Desmond liked her voice. It was soothing and neutral, like other people in Oklahoma. It didn’t carry the meanness his uncle’s did.
As he was leaving, Desmond realized he hadn’t asked about the book. It could be one he hated or one about people falling in love for all he knew.
Trying not to sound rude, he asked Agnes what book would be read.
“There’s several to choose from,” she said. “What sort of books do you like?”
“Adventure books,” he answered without hesitation. “Where the hero gets away.”
“Then you won’t be disappointed.”
And he wasn’t. The next day, he returned to find Agnes knitting behind the counter. She set down her work and held up a book.
“Are you ready?”
He nodded. As he had suspected, he was the only one at the storytelling session. That was fine by him.
He lost himself as the words she spoke became pictures in his mind, then characters that were as real as anyone he had ever met. The stories felt like another life he had only forgotten—a life much better than the one he was living.
Story time was his escape. The weeks when his uncle was home were a prison sentence.
Summer ended, and a letter arrived from the county school district, assigning him to an elementary school where he’d start kindergarten in the fall.
Orville tossed it in the fire with disgust.
“Kindergarten.” He said the word as if it tasted like sour milk. “You don’t need to get any softer than you already are.”
That was fine by Desmond. He far preferred the library.
After Thanksgiving, Agnes began teaching him to read. He picked it up quickly. She used a good strategy: she read the first part of the book, enough to get him enthralled, then helped him read the rest. It was like learning to ride the bike: hard at first, but a breeze once you got the hang of it.
By Easter, he was reading to her.
And she was changing, little by little. She fell asleep during the stories. With growing frequency, she reached into her purse, took out a pill, and swallowed it.
One day that summer, he arrived to find the library closed. It stayed closed every day for a week. Desmond walked into the post office next door and asked the man behind the counter if he’d seen Agnes.
“She’s at Norman.”
“Who’s Norman?”
The postman looked at Desmond like he was an idiot. “The hospital. Norman Municipal. Well, regional now, as if it matters.”
“What’s she doing there?”
“She’s there with the cancer, why else?”
Desmond stood there, his world collapsing.
“Is she coming back?”
He could tell by the look on the man’s face that she wasn’t.
“How do I get there?”
“You better speak to your parents about that.”
“What roads do I take?”
“Norman’s ten miles away, young man. Your parents can take you. Now get on, I’ve got work to do.”
At the gas station on the edge of town, Desmond bought a map. The hospital was marked with a large H.
The next morning, he plotted his course and packed food in a bag. Desmond never knew exactly what day Orville would be back from the rigs, but he usually arrived home by early afternoon, so Desmond waited until four p.m. before setting out, just to be sure he wasn’t coming. He couldn’t imagine what the man would do if he caught him riding home on a bike he had bought with Orville’s money.
He figured the trip would take less than an hour, but he was wrong—it took him nearly three. The sun was setting when he reached the Norman city limits. The parking lot lights glowed in the clear night as he rode up, dropped his bike by the front door, and staggered in.
The woman at the reception desk gave Desmond Agnes’s room number. For the first time in his life, he rode an elevator. On the fourth floor, he walked slowly toward Agnes’s room, afraid of what he’d see.
The door was closed. He pushed the handle, let the thick wooden door creak open. The lights were dim inside. Agnes lay on her side, machines beeping softly around her.
She turned at the sound of the door, saw Desmond. A smile crossed her lips, and tears filled her eyes.
“You shouldn’t be here, Desmond.”
He couldn’t think of anything to say. He just walked into the room, up to her bed, and held out his small hand, which she took.
“Why didn’t you…” He didn’t complete the sentence, because he had no idea what he intended to ask. He hadn’t thought this part out. In his mind, he had never accepted what the postman had said. He’d expected to arrive and learn that it had all been a mistake.
She exhaled. “I was going to tell you I was moving away. I didn’t want you to know I was sick, didn’t want this to be your last memory of me.”
Desmond studied his feet.
“Did your uncle bring you?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“Surely you didn’t ride your bike.”
She apparently took his silence for confirmation.
“Desmond,” she said slowly. “That was very dangerous. Where’s your uncle?”
“On the rigs. Won’t be back for a few days.”
A nurse appeared in the open doorway.
“Do you need anything, Miss Andrews?”
“Yes, dear. Some blankets for my nephew. He’ll be spending the night. And, this may be a tall order, but I wonder if there are any children’s books in the hospital?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll bring some.”
That night, Agnes read to Desmond for the last time. It was two a.m. when he drifted off to sleep in the reclining chair by the window.
In the morning, Agnes made him promise never to return, that it was too dangerous and that she would only grow sicker.
“Those are my wishes, Desmond. Will you respect them?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He pedaled his bike slower on the return, the wind no longer in his sails. Why did everyone he cared about die? And the people he hated—meaning his uncle—live? Life was unfair. The world was cruel.
It was midday when Desmond got home. His mouth went dry when he saw his uncle drinking on the porch.
“Pretty bike, Des. Where’d you get it?”
Desmond tried to swallow, but it felt like he had a mouth full of sawdust. “Found it,” he said with a cough.
“So you stole.”
“No. I found it—”
“If you found it, then it belongs to someone—someone you stole it from. Put it on the back of the truck. I’ll take it to town and return it to its rightful owner tomorrow.”
“I own it,” Desmond said, anger overtaking his fear. “I bought it.”
“Bought it,” his uncle said, acting impressed. “With what money?” he spat.
Desmond looked away.
“You answer me when I ask you a question, boy. What money?”
“The money I saved.”
“Saved?” His uncle was mad now. “No. You bought it with money you stole—from me. I gave you that money to put food in your ungrateful little mouth. You were supposed to give me back whatever was left. You kept it for yourself and bought a little
play toy.”
Desmond grew quiet, let his uncle go on about how soft and useless he was. The tirade lasted nearly two weeks, until his uncle was set to go back to work. Instead of placing some money on the counter, he told Desmond to pack a bag.
“Time to show you the real world.”
The real world Orville Hughes intended to show him was a camp outside a rig just north of the Oklahoma-Texas border. He put Desmond to work: cleaning outhouses, washing clothes, peeling potatoes, and doing anything the roughnecks didn’t want to do. It was hard work, but it wasn’t dangerous work. His uncle said he was too weak to be a real roughneck. He’d probably always be too soft, the man told him.
The workers were shaped like barrels, with muscular arms that hung at an angle, never straight down. They reminded him of the robot on Lost in Space, a program Desmond watched when his uncle was away. But unlike the robot, these men were constantly covered with oil. Their every other word was an obscenity. The stories about prostitutes and their lewd jokes never ended. They worked twelve hours on, twelve hours off, constantly drank coffee when they were awake, and never smoked near the rigs. There was a small TV with bunny ears covered in foil, and they fought about it after every shift. Baseball was usually on, and there was always a card game in one of the tents.
Exactly one man out of the entire group read in his off-hours. Desmond befriended him, and he was nice enough to pass Desmond the book he had been reading, which he recommended highly.
Try as he might, Desmond couldn’t get into the novel, which was about people hunting for a Russian submarine.
Strangely, spending time at the rigs actually helped his relationship with his uncle, such as it was. The man paid him less attention, even gave him some of the money he earned, and allowed him to keep the bike. Desmond had little desire to venture out, however. He was dead tired when they returned home from the camp.
Before they were to leave again, he did ride to the library. It had reopened, and a younger woman sat behind the desk, reading a textbook, scribbling notes. Desmond avoided her.
He checked out five books, which he read during the next tour.