Bio-Strike

Now his car swung over to the right side of the road, slowed, and turned gently into a circular drive. Ahead and behind, the flanking carabineers throttled down their motorbikes. At the end of the drive he could see the large gray hospital building rising above a handsome lawn with tiled walks, shaded benches, and a glistening multitiered fountain that drizzled off wavery rainbows of sunlight.

The Hospital de Gracia was the newest and best-equipped medical facility in Bolivia. The physicians recruited for its staff held model credentials. Like the luxurious homes in its surrounding neighborhood, it had been built and financed with money from the illicit cocaine trade and was affordable only to those of high status and privilege.

How ironic, then, that the patient admitted under absolute secrecy ten days ago had vowed before the nation to eradicate the cartels and to apprehend and prosecute the mysterious foreigner called El Tio, who had unified them in his recent ascendancy.

The man in the officiales uniform plunged deeper into his recitation, his lips fitting comfortably around the Latin.

“Averte faciem tuam a peccatis meis, et omnes iniquitates meaas dele…”

Turn away thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities…

“Cor mundum crea in me, Deus, et spiritum rectum innova in visceribus meis… ”

Create a clean heart in me, oh God, and renew a right spirit within my bowels…

“Ne proicias me a facie tua, et spiritum sanctum tuum ne auferas a mei.”

Cast me not away from thy face, and take not thy holy spirit from me.

The motorcade pulled into a wide space that had been left vacant in front of the hospital’s main entrance, the carabineers lowering their kickstands to dismount. One of the lead riders came around back and opened the door for the passenger. Lifting his satchel off the seat by its strap, he let himself be helped from the car. He could almost feel the eyes watching from other vehicles around the parking area, peering at him through tinted windows.

It was to be expected, he thought. There would be a great many secret police.

He climbed the stairs to the hospital entrance with his head still slightly bent and the carabineers on either side of him, sensing their unease as he continued giving whispered utterance to Psalm 50, the Miserere, one of the preliminary invocations for the dying.

“Libera me de sanguinibus, Deus. ”

Deliver me from blood, oh God.

A somber delegation of hospital officials and white-coated doctors met the visitors in the lobby and guided them toward the elevator bank with a minimum of formalities. A pair of soldiers in gray green fatigues were posted at the head of the corridor. They held submachine guns and wore the insignia of the Fuerza Especial de Lucha Contra el Narcotrafico, the military’s elite anti-narcotics task force.

The soldiers hastily checked the small group’s identification papers and motioned them into an elevator. A third FELCN guard stood at the control panel. He pressed a lighted button, and they hurtled up three floors.

Moments later, the elevator doors reopened, and they started toward the intensive care ward.

* * *

Humberto Marquez, the vice-president-elect, was waiting in an anteroom. He stepped toward the man in the officer’s uniform and gave him a firm handshake.

“I thank you for your swift response to our summons,” he said. “And for your tolerance of the rather unusual security measures we’ve had to adopt in bringing you here.”

“Would there had been no cause for any of it.”

“Indeed.” Marquez ushered him inside. “Our coalition government is bound together by a fragile thread. If news of why you’ve come leaks out before I can meet with old rivals whose differences were just lately reconciled…”

“That thread might well begin to fray even before you are sworn into office. I understand.” The man placed his canvas bag on a low table beside the doorway. Though the committee of doctors and hospital officials had entered the room with him, he noted that his police escort had stayed respectfully out of earshot in the hall. “Please, tell me of his condition.”

Marquez did not reply immediately. An attorney by background, he possessed an automatic verbal restraint that had served him well since his entry into politics. His manner formally polite, his frame as tapered as his dark gray suit, he nodded his chin at one of the doctors.

“As the one in charge of this case, Dr. Alvarez, it is perhaps best that you address such questions,” he said.

The doctor looked from Marquez to the uniformed man.

“The presidente is semiconscious and on a ventilator,” he said. “I hope you will forgive any impropriety, but let me be direct in my advice: Omit whatever rites you can, for time is short.”

The visitor kept his eyes on the doctor for two or three seconds. Then he nodded silently. What more was there to say?

He unbuttoned the officer’s blouse he’d been given to conceal his black clerical shirt, shrugged it off, and draped it neatly over the back of a chair. His other vestments were in the satchel with the articles he would require for the sacrament. He opened the bag and began arranging them on the table.

“Un momento, Padre Martin. Por favor.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the doctor.

“Yes?”

“It pains me to interfere. But we have safety practices regarding apparel. Protective clothing must be worn in the ward.”

“Such as?”

“Latex gloves and a gown are standard. As is a filtration mask.”

Martin raised his eyebrows. “Has the presidente’s illness shown itself to be communicable?”

“The presidente’s illness is still undiagnosed.”

“That was not my question.”

Alvarez exchanged a glance with him.

“No additional cases of infection have been reported,” he said. “To my knowledge.”

“Then I will follow the directives of the church. And, God willing, leave here with my good health.”

The doctor’s hand went up in a forestalling gesture. But it was the troubled look in his eyes that gave Martin pause.

“Listen to me, please,” he said. “I have witnessed much suffering in my years of medical practice, but when I go home to my family, it is pushed from my mind. That is how I cope — or always have in the past.” He hesitated. “The affliction that has taken hold of Presidente Colon is a mystery. Ten days ago he was admitted for examination after complaining of symptoms associated with the common flu. Aches and pains in his joints. Some feverishness. Mild gastronomic discomfort. But there is nothing common about his illness. What I have watched it do to his body, its rapid acceleration… I cannot escape the thoughts and images. They will often come upon me suddenly as I put my arms around my wife or look into the faces of my two young sons. And when it does, I am afraid for them. I am afraid.”

Martin looked at the doctor steadily, appreciating his frankness. It had seemed a difficult thing for him to step from behind his wall of clinical detachment. But Martin had not changed his mind.

“Our callings revolve around mysteries of a different nature, my friend,” he said after a few seconds. “You must come to terms with yours, and I with mine. As each of us deems fitting and necessary.”

They were quiet for a while, Alvarez’s eyes shifting to one of the administrators. Martin watched him get an almost imperceptible nod. Then the doctor turned back to him and sighed.

“Very well,” he said resignedly. “I will bring you to the ward.”

* * *

The president-elect’s room was segregated from the rest of the intensive care ward and guarded by more FELCN troopers. Alvarez led Father Martin quickly through the security check and then down a long hall to its door.