Viral

have to wait, until she was able to leave Sundiata and live with Michael. But things had changed overnight, as they often did, in ways she hadn’t anticipated or been able to control, and now Marc was hers. Her son.

He was learning to distinguish places on the map, to identify countries by name; it was not anything she needed to teach him. “This is the largest country in the world,” he kept telling her, as if it were something she couldn’t see. She had explained to him that Africa was not a country, it was a continent. But the distinction didn’t seem to register. Why was the United States a country, and China was a country, and India was a country, but not Africa? he had asked her once. He liked the idea that it was so large. Larger even than the United States.

Joseph Chaplin had arranged their passage from Sundiata, and Michael had found her employment at a health clinic near the border, where the vaccines had been shipping for almost a month. Dr. Oku officially worked there three days a week now, although the need was always greater. The job she’d been hired for was to replenish first- aid kits in the region’s schools. But the real demands went far beyond that. Most of the children suffered chronic malnutrition and skin disease and much worse. The shanty dwellers couldn’t afford to buy water, so they drew contaminated water from streams. There was a plethora of orphans here, too, who needed to be fed and cared for.

Sandra Oku was primarily here as a witness, though. She knew that and accepted it. She was here to observe the flow of vaccines and anti-virals, which had been shipped in by train and on trucks in generic-looking unmarked boxes. A spray medicine for what was coming, in large numbers, just weeks from now. Charles Mallory didn’t want to involve her beyond being a witness. And that was okay. She had a faith that had carried her this far, that was stronger than any other force in Africa. A faith that was not going to be beaten back by anything else, not even the “ill wind.”

THIRTY-TWO

JON MALLORY SLEPT FITFULLY that night, waking up several times and hearing sounds—the wind in the trees, warm air in the ducts, the roof creaking, and other noises that he couldn’t identify, some of them inside, some outside. He kept thinking of Tom Trent’s face, his restless eyes. And the message from his brother that he couldn’t decipher.

He turned over repeatedly. Opened his eyes and stared into the darkness. Slept for a few minutes and woke. Shortly after three, he clicked on the bed lamp. For several minutes he studied the sequence of letters and numbers again. Something that he should have figured out by now. A next step, one he should have already taken.

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep again. Couldn’t. He got up and walked into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and poured himself a glass of water. Stood by the kitchen window, gazing out at the yard. Sipped, looking at the night shadows in back. Sipped again. The mist moving from fence to fence and across the lawn. The brick backs of other houses. Windows all dark. People asleep.

And then he thought of something that hadn’t occurred to him before: thirty-six letters and numbers.

Six rows of six lines. A grid.

He caught his own reflection in the glass at a certain angle—his hair disheveled, his expression severe—and thought of Thomas Trent’s familiar-unfamiliar face. The way his eyes had scanned the Mall as if expecting to see someone he recognized. Jon moved slightly so that his own face disappeared and he saw only the back yard—the long sweep of scrubby lawn stretching back to the dark area around the oak tree. It was then that he began to sense something wasn’t quite right: the shadows. The shadows were wrong: beneath the oak tree, an oblong shape extended sideways and forward from the stone bench.

What almost seemed to be the shadow of a man, or a woman, sitting on his stone bench, facing the house. Watching him.

Jon clicked off the kitchen light, and he looked again, waiting as his pupils widened in the darkness. Was he imagining it? No. Something was off-kilter. He walked into the living room. Parted an edge of the curtains and peered out. Saw it more clearly now: a figure was seated on the stone bench, leaning forward.

He walked to the bedroom, trying to get his bearings. Looked out front: yellow street light cast shadows on the lawn. He considered the possibilities. It was too obvious to be someone doing surveillance. Could there be another explanation? A homeless person? A neighbor’s child? He glanced at the phone, thought about calling 911.

Instead, he treaded back through the dark hallway to the living room, the floorboards squeaking. Thinking maybe the figure would be gone when he looked again. Surely, the person had noticed him switch the lights on and off. Had seen him standing in front of the kitchen window.

Jon Mallory pulled back the drape and looked: the figure was still seated on the bench, in more or less the same position—facing the house, hands resting on his knees. Jon squinted into the darkness. A man, it seemed, although the shadows and the drifting fog made it difficult to tell.

He listened to the clicking of the living room clock. Waiting for the figure to move. To reveal something. Three minutes passed, then four. Finally, impulsively, Jon switched on the back porch light, and the lawn lit up with a moist glow. His pupils narrowed. The light made deeper shadows among the trees, and the figure seemed to elongate slightly, its shadow blending with those of the trees and the shrubbery along the back fence. But no, that was just a trick of the light. Shifting in his imagination, an almost surreal visage—appearing for a moment to be a beggar, a man with his arms outstretched, as if asking for a handout. The hands clearly turned up, not down. His clothes tattered, like those of a homeless man. Then he saw that something was wrong with the man’s face. It seemed distorted, more a mask than a face. And as Jon continued to look, he sensed that maybe this wasn’t a real person at all. Maybe it was some sort of mannequin or statue, which someone had placed there. Leaning forward, hands together, palms up. A pilgrim asking for forgiveness. But who? Why?

Jon turned back to the room. He pulled his down jacket out of the hall closet, slipped barefoot into his loafers. Took the flashlight from the side of the refrigerator. Opened the door and stepped out. The night air was cold and bracing on his face, smelling of dirt and bark and something faintly unpleasant. The figure didn’t move as Jon Mallory stood there.

He scanned the flashlight beam across the wet lawn, left to right, right to left, from fence to fence. Stepping toward the oak tree, and the bench where he had sat dozens of times. Wondering how this man had entered the yard. What he wanted. Walking, holding the light in front of him like a weapon, arcing its beam across the lawn, picking up the glow of moisture in the grass and the fence links and the tree bark. Hearing his footfalls crunch the leaves. Halfway across the lawn, he pointed the light at the figure and stopped. Saw the distorted facial features. A small man, dark-haired. Jon Mallory moved the light beam up and down, cutting through the mist. Expecting the man to move, to dart away from him. But there was no response.

“Hello!” he called. “Who’s there?”

Jon held his breath, listening. Pointed the flashlight beam again.

And then he began to see the face more clearly, and to realize what it was. Saw the dark hollow recesses behind the glasses where his eyes should have been. Saw the wounds on either side of his head, the swollen neck. And he knew that it wasn’t a person; it was a corpse.

JON LOWERED THE flashlight beam slightly and walked forward, seeing more as he came closer: The exposed arms and chest were purple and blotchy. The face was discolored. A crescent of his left cheek seemed to be missing, so that the teeth showed, giving the appearance that he was grinning.

He felt a stab of panic as he reached the corpse, breathing a familiar odor in the cold air. But who was it? What was it?

Jon stopped two feet in front of the man now, his heart thumping. He shined the light on his face, listened to the night’s silence. Traced the arms to his upraised hands. Then turned away, shivering. Looked toward the house. The neighboring yards. Wondering if anyone was watching him. Everything was quiet. Still, except for a faint, occasional stirring of breeze in the dying shrubbery and the phone wires. The neighborhood asleep.

He pointed the light again at the body, ready to examine it now. It was a mutilated corpse. The arms stretched to its knees, the fingers cupped, each hand holding two objects. Jon Mallory stood above it now, keeping the circle of light on the hands for a moment. Moving it from one to the other. Clicked off the light.