'Don't sweat it. We'll lose him at the embassy. You know, sometimes I wonder if it wasn't a good deal when my folks got kidnapped out of Africa. Don't tell anybody I said that, okay? South Alabama is like heaven on earth compared to this shithole.'
He parked the car in the embassy's back lot and took them inside. A minute later one of his people walked out, started the Chevy, and headed right back out. The tail car went with him. 'Shirts,' the CIA resident officer said, handing them over. 'I suppose you can leave the pants on.'
'Have you talked to MacGregor?' Clark asked.
'On the phone a few hours ago. We're going to drive over to where he lives, and he's going to get into the car. I have a nice quiet parking spot picked out for our chat,' Clayton told them.
'Any danger to him?'
'I doubt it. The locals are pretty sloppy. If we have anybody tailing us, I know what to do about it.'
'Then let's move, buddy,' John said.
'We're burning moonlight.' MacGregor's quarters weren't all that bad, located in a district favored by Europeans, and, the station chief related, fairly secure. He lifted his cellular phone and dialed the doctor's beeper number—there was a local paging service. Less than a minute later his door opened, and a figure walked to the car, got in the back, and closed the door a second before it moved off.
'This is rather unusual for me.' He was younger than Chavez, John was surprised to note, and eager in rather a shy way. 'Who exactly are you chaps?'
'CIA,' Clark told him.
'Indeed!'
'Indeed, Doctor,' Clayton said from the front seat. His eyes checked the mirrors. They were clear. Just to make sure, he took the next left, then a right, and then another left. Good.
'Are you allowed to tell people that?' MacGregor asked as the car pulled back onto what passed locally as the main drag. 'Do you have to kill me now?'
'Doc, save that for the movies, okay?' Chavez suggested. 'Real life ain't like that, and if we told you we were from the State Department, you wouldn't believe us anyway, right?'
'You don't look like diplomats,' MacGregor decided. Clark turned in the front seat.
'Sir, thank you for agreeing to meet with us.'
'The only reason I did so—well, the local government forced me to disregard normal procedures for my two cases. There's a reason for those procedures, you know.'
'Okay, first of all, could you please tell me all you can about them?' John asked, switching on the tape recorder.
'YOU LOOK TIRED, Cathy.' Not that it was all that easy to tell through the plastic mask. Even her body language was disguised.
SURGEON looked over to the wall clock behind the nursing station. She was technically off duty now. She would never learn that Arnie van Damm had called the hospital to make sure the timing went right for this. It would have enraged her, and she was mad enough at the whole world already.
'The kids started arriving this afternoon. Second-generation cases. That one in there must have got it from his father. His name is Timothy. He's in the third grade. His dad's on the next floor up.'
'Rest of the family?'
'His mom tested positive. They're admitting her now. He has a big sister. She's clean so far. We have her sitting over in the outpatient building. They set up a holding area there for people who've been exposed but don't test out. Come on. I'll show you around the floor.' A minute later they were in Room 1, temporary home of the Index Case.
Ryan thought he must be imagining the smell. There was a dark stain on the bedclothes which two people— nurses, doctors, he couldn't tell—were struggling to change. The man was semiconscious, and fighting the restraints that held his arms to the bed bars. That had the two medics concerned, but they had to change the sheets first. Those went into a plastic bag.
'They'll get burned,' Cathy said, pressing her helmet against her husband's. 'We've really dialed up the safety precautions.'
'How bad?'
She pointed back to the door and followed Jack into the corridor. Once there, with the door closed behind them, she poked an angry finger into his chest.
'Jack, you never, ever discuss a patient's prognosis in front of them, unless you know it's good. Never!' She paused, and went on without an apology for the outburst: 'He's three days into frank symptoms.'
'Any chance?' Her head shook inside the helmet. They walked back up the corridor, stopping in some more rooms where the story was dismally the same.
'Cathy?' It was the dean's voice. 'You're off duty. Move,' he commanded.
'Where's Alexandre?' Jack asked on the way to the former physicians' lounge.
'He's got the floor upstairs. Dave has taken this one himself. We hoped Ralph Forster would get back and help out, but there aren't any flights.' Then she saw the cameras. 'What the hell are they doing here?'
'Come on.' Ryan led his wife into the changing room. The clothing he'd worn to the hospital was bagged somewhere. He put on scrubs, in front of three women and a man who didn't seem all that interested in ogling any of the females. Leaving the room, he headed for the elevator.
'Stop!' a female voice called. 'There's a case coming up from ER! Use the stairs.' And obediently, the Secret Service Detail did just that. Ryan led his wife down to the main floor, and from there out front, still wearing masks.
'How are you holding up?'
Before she could answer, a voice screamed, 'Mr. President!' Two Guardsmen got in the way of the reporter and cameraman, but Ryan waved them off. The pair approached under armed scrutiny, uniformed and plain- clothes.
'Yes, what is it?' Ryan asked, pulling his mask down. The reporter held the microphone at full arm's length. It would have been comical under other circumstances. Everybody was spooked.
'What are you doing here, sir?'
'Well, I guess it's part of my job to see what's going on, and also I wanted to see how Cathy is doing.'
'We know the First Lady is working upstairs. Are you trying to make a statement to the nation—'
'I'm a doctor!' Cathy snapped. 'We're all taking turns up there. It's my job.'
'Is it bad?'
Ryan spoke before she could explode at them. 'Look, I know you have to ask that question, but you know the answer. These people are extremely ill, and the docs here, and everyplace else, are doing their best. It's hard on Cathy and her colleagues. It's really hard on the patients and their families.'
'Dr. Ryan, is Ebola really as deadly as everyone has been saying?'
She nodded. 'It's pretty awful, yes. But we're giving these people the best we got.'
'Some have suggested that since the hope for the patients is so bleak, and since their pain is so extreme —'
'What are you saying? Kill them?'
'Well, if they're really suffering as much as everyone reports—'
'I'm not that kind of doctor,' she replied, her face flushed. 'We're going to save some of these people. From those we save, maybe we can learn to save more, and you don't learn anything by giving up. That's why real doctors don't kill patients! What is the matter with you? Those are people in there, and my job is fighting for their lives—and don't you dare tell me how to do it!' She stopped when her husband's arm squeezed her shoulder. 'Sorry. It's a little tough in there.'
'Could you excuse us for a few minutes?' Ryan asked. 'We haven't talked since yesterday. You know, we are husband and wife, just like real people.'
'Yes, sir.' They pulled back, but the camera stayed on them.
'Come here, babe.' Jack embraced her for the first time in more than a day.
'We're going to lose them all, Jack. Every one, starting tomorrow or the next day,' she whispered. Then she started crying.
'Yeah.' He lowered his head on hers. 'You know, you're allowed to be human, too, Doctor.'
