The Deep Zone

“Like being skinned alive, slowly.” Hallie tried to imagine what it would be like, but then gave up. “No drug on earth could blunt that agony.”

“No.” Barnard looked grim. “None.”

“It’s horrible,” she said. “But at least it’s contained.”

Barnard coughed, looked at the others.

“There are more cases?”

“His squadmate, a kid from Kansas, was the first—the zero man. Since then, two nurses and another patient in the medical unit.”

“Who’s in charge at that place?”

Barnard took a deep breath, let it out, rearranged his bulk in the chair. “An Army doctor. National Guard, actually. It’s a field hospital with Level II trauma capability and that little morgue you saw, but they stabilize serious cases for transport to CENMEDFAC, in Kabul.”

“He’s still in there?”

“She. By herself, unfortunately. The Taliban launched a region-wide offensive. May or may not be a correlation. But there have been heavy casualties, so Terok’s other two doctors were called to other COPs.”

“She’s dealing with wounded and ACE. Tough assignment.”

“Yes.”

“Well, at least that COP is quarantined. Terok, was it?”

Again Barnard hesitated, stared down at his pipe’s empty bowl.

“My God, Don. People got out? How many?”

“Two went back to a forward operating base called Salerno, fifty miles east. But the big worry is CENMEDFAC.”

“The mother of all Army hospitals over there.”

“Right. Four patients were transferred there. All had contact with the cases at Terok.”

“CENMEDFAC sends the worst cases stateside.”

“Right.”

“So it could be coming here.”

“It is here, Dr. Leland.” Lathrop, sitting forward. “Some of them arrived two days ago.”

For a moment, nobody spoke. Hallie was stunned, the ramifications spinning out in her mind. As they sat in silence, Barnard’s secretary, Carol, came in. It was well after working hours, but she would never leave until he did. She was a trim widow with a rust-red beehive hairdo and a different-colored polyester pant suit for every day of the month.

“Here you are. I thought you people might want a snack.” She placed a tray with roast beef and turkey sandwiches and a big pot of coffee on the table.

“Thank you,” Hallie said. “I needed this. Nothing since breakfast.”

Carol put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s good to see you again, Hallie. I’ve missed you.”

Hallie smiled, patted her hand. “I’ve missed you, too, Carrie. You and Don.”

After a moment, Carol left them. The men poured cups of coffee but took nothing to eat. Hallie gobbled half a sandwich, poured coffee, dumped in cream and sugar. Not her usual way, but she needed energy.

“So where do things stand now?” She got the words out through a mouthful of roast beef.

“Colistin is buying us some time.” Barnard did not look relieved saying that.

“But it’s like water building up behind a dam. Colistin is the dam,” Lew Casey put in. “Those four cases from Terok remained at CENMEDFAC for three days. During that time they came in contact with dozens of patients and staff.”

“Where did the cases go here in the U.S.?”

The two scientists looked at Lathrop.

“Reed got one, Bethesda another, and two went to the burn center in Georgia.”

Hallie stopped chewing. “Those places are full of people with compromised immune systems. ACE will burn through them like fire in a hay barn.”

“And it will keep going,” Barnard continued. “There’s constant interchange between military facilities like those.”

“This is horrific. You’ve got thousands of sick and wounded soldiers in facilities all over the country. They might have survived combat injuries only to be killed in our own hospitals.” Feeling her eyes fill, Hallie set her cup down. “Sorry, gentlemen.”

“Don’t worry. A little emotion is good for the blood,” said Barnard, and the others nodded. “But it gets even worse. If this ACE can really attack healthy subjects as well…”

“The entire armed forces could be decimated. Not just the sick and wounded.”

“You see now why your presence is so important.”

“You need the drug we had been working on. Superdrug for a superbug.”

“Yes. You were close. Another few months and I believe you’d have had a whole new family of antibiotics.”

“Weeks, maybe.” Hallie recalled the research very well.

“That’s why Don wouldn’t let me spirit you away, actually.” Lew Casey sounded rueful.

“But I never finished. For obvious reasons. So Al must not have done it, either.”

Barnard shook his head. “Dr. Cahner—Al—is a very good microbiologist. I know the two of you got on well. And did fine work together.”

The two of them had worked well as a team, but it had been more complicated than that. More than twenty years older than Hallie, Al had reminded her, at first meeting, of those men she saw scrutinizing labels in supermarket aisles and reading books over the daily specials in chain restaurants. For their first months in the lab together, he spoke of nothing but work and always lunched by himself. He was never rude, just solitary.

But month after month they worked, pressed together in the microbiology laboratory, always conscious that they were in the company of Level 4 pathogens that had killed hundreds of millions of people throughout history. She came to respect Cahner’s grace under pressure and the precision of his lab techniques. She sensed, too, that he recognized her own dedication to good science and, even more, admired her ability to handle demons like Yersinia pestis with steady hands.

After eight months they started eating lunch together in the canteen. His meal never varied: a Red Delicious apple, a carton of V-8 juice, tuna salad on whole wheat with lettuce and tomato. He wasn’t much for idle chat, but she learned that he’d happily talk about microbiology. One day she mentioned that the CDC had just sent a team of pathogen hunters to some caves in Gabon.

Munching a bit of sandwich, he said casually, “Those African caves are nasty. I was in Bandubyo myself.”

She almost dropped her coffee. “Bandubyo?”

He looked sheepish, meeting her astonished gaze. “Well, yes. It was back in—let me think—’03 or maybe ’04.”

“My God. Ebola-B was discovered in that cave. The worst of the Ebola family. What were you doing there?”

“I was part of a WHO team of virologists and microbiologists. Some people had contracted hemorrhagic fever after eating Passiflora edulis grown near the cave.”

“Passion fruit.”

“Right. We determined that fruit bats from the cave contaminated the crops. Passion fruit and cassava both, in fact.”

“Bandubyo,” she repeated, shaking her head. “That is supposed to be one hell of a cave.”

“There was a lot of vertical. And to penetrate the dark zone we had to do some diving. Inside, the cave was clean. But from the twilight zone with its bat chamber on out—red-hot with what turned out to be that new species of Ebola virus.”

“I hadn’t realized you did that kind of fieldwork.”

“Oh, when the need arises. I don’t get out often enough to keep my skills really