Robert Ludlum's(TM) The Ares Decision (Covert-One) Page 16

  They were on the crest of a tall butte, lying in the middle of the dirt road that they’d spent the last hour switchbacking up. Smith adjusted the focus on his binoculars, sweeping across verdant valley until he found the cause of the dust plume.

  “Yeah. Open personnel carrier. Two men in front, another six in back. All armed.”

  “And since that’s the only motorized vehicle we’ve seen for going on fourteen hours, I reckon it’s safe to say they’re following us.”

  “President Sembutu told us to call him if we had any problems,” Sarie said. “Maybe he sent those men to make sure we don’t get in any trouble.”

  They both looked back at her.

  “Just a thought.”

  “I agree that they’re probably Sembutu’s men,” Smith conceded. “But I’m not sure their intentions are so benign.”

  “Well, one thing I can tell you for certain is that someone in his office has been calling ahead,” she said. “We’ve driven through three military checkpoints without so much as anyone even looking in the car. I’m guessing that’s a first in this part of Africa.”

  Smith rolled onto his back and looked up into the unbroken blue of the sky. “I think you’re right about Sembutu greasing the skids for us…”

  “The question is, why?” Howell said, finishing his thought.

  Sarie pulled her new rifle from the backseat and sighted through the scope at the approaching truck. “I don’t think there’s much we can do at this point. There aren’t a lot of intersections and we’re leaving a pretty obvious trail.”

  “Maybe I’m just being paranoid,” Smith said, putting a hand out and letting Howell pull him to his feet. “He might think we’ll find something he can use. And how does it hurt him if we find out that Bahame is using a biological weapon? I don’t think he’d object too much if the U.S. unloaded a few B-52s on Bahame’s camp.”

  “Or maybe he believed the ant story,” Sarie said.

  Smith shrugged. “Anything’s possible. And there’s no telling when you might need a little extra firepower.”

  “Depending on who it’s aimed at,” Howell said, sliding back behind the wheel of their vehicle and slamming the door behind him.

  “He doesn’t seem all that happy,” Sarie said, shouldering her rifle.

  “No, he doesn’t, does he?”

  “Something happened to him here,” Sarie said. “Something horrible.”

  It was a reasonable hypothesis that he himself had considered. But it left the question of what exactly that thing was. He knew Howell and men like him—hell, he was a man like him. After everything the Brit had seen over the course of his career with the SAS and MI6, what could affect him like this?

  “You should ask him about it,” Smith suggested.

  “Me?” she said, lowering her voice to a harsh whisper. “Are you kidding? I mean, he’s an interesting guy to have dinner with, but have you noticed that he always looks like he’s about thirty seconds from killing you with a pocketknife?”

  “I think that’s an exaggeration.”

  “Yeah? Then why don’t you ask him? You’ve known him for years, right?”

  “Yeah, a long time,” Smith admitted. “But our relationship is…Well, it’s complicated.”

  Sarie tilted her head a bit and concentrated on his face. “Why is it I get the impression that all your relationships are complicated?”

  Howell started the engine and revved it loudly, giving Smith cover for a strategic retreat. “I have no idea. I’m just a simple country doctor.”

  * * *

  OKAY, WE’RE LOOKING for a turn,” Smith said, running a finger along the fuzzy satellite photo Star had printed for him. She’d marked distances on both axes, which was a testament to her thoroughness but completely useless in the real world of African roads. “I assume it will be an obvious left in the next twenty clicks or so, but it’s hard to be any more precise than that.”

  They entered a small village and Smith waved through the open window at the children running alongside them. It was impossible not to be taken by the ease of their laughter in the midst of poverty unimaginable to most Americans.

  “It’s incredible, isn’t it?” Sarie said from the backseat. “These people have nothing of value to anyone—no running water, no electricity, no money. But even that’s too much for people like Bahame. He can’t just leave them alone to enjoy the simple life they can carve out for themselves.”

  She leaned through the window, briefly clasping the hand of the most persistent kid as they rolled out of the village.

  “Any one of those children could end up being forced into Bahame’s army,” she continued. “Or worse, they could end up like the people who attacked those soldiers in the video you showed me. If we’re right and this is a parasite, Bahame’s eventually going to lose control of it. The more he uses it, the harder it’s going to be to contain.”

  The apparent contradiction broke Howell from his trance. “It seems that the more practiced he becomes at using it, the less likely he is to lose control, no?”

  Sarie stretched out on the seat, laying her rifle next to her and using her hat to block the sun streaming through the window. “Not exactly. What I’m worried about is that by using it like he is, he’s going to weaken it.”

  Howell pondered that for a moment. “I’m still not following. Weaker is better.”

  “The word ‘weak’ doesn’t mean what you’re thinking,” Smith said. “Right now the parasite—assuming it even exists—is fairly unsophisticated. Call it poorly evolved where humans are concerned. It infects people every few decades, those people infect a few others, and they all die within a time frame short enough that it never spreads very widely.”

  Sarie picked up his thought. “But these types of infections can become more effective by getting weaker. Killing your host quick is a bad survival strategy—particularly when the population concentrations are well separated.”

  “Exactly. The longer the host lives, the more copies the parasite can make of itself—both in the original victim and because it has more opportunity to jump to a new host.”

  “And that’s only part of it,” Sarie said. “Other mutations could be beneficial too. If this infection was ever widespread enough for natural selection to really start working on it, you could see less-violent behavior.”

  “Definitely,” Smith agreed. “All the parasite wants its host to do is open a few cuts in an uninfected person so it can find a new home. Better to attack and injure instead of attack and kill. A dead body is no good to it.”

  “I’d also expect to see the onset of symptoms slow down,” Sarie said. “Which would allow the parasite to travel farther to find a new host. Right now, I’d hypothesize that fast onset is beneficial because a lot of the victims are so badly injured in the process of transmission, they don’t have much time left. Their strength and speed actually might not even be an adaptation to help them infect new victims—in a way it makes them too dangerous. That might just be a by-product of the parasite trying to animate a person who, under normal circumstances, would be too badly hurt to do much more than lie there.”

  “Interesting. I hadn’t thought of that,” Smith said. “But what if—”

  “You people spend a lot of time on mental masturbation, don’t you?” Howell interrupted.

  “It’s more productive than the other kind,” Sarie said with a quiet chuckle.

  “So what you’re telling me is that if we just sit back and do nothing, the parasite might eventually become harmless.”

  “It’s not unprecedented,” Smith said. “There are some formerly nasty bugs out there that aren’t much worse than a cold now. The problem is the millions of people who would die while we sat around waiting for Mother Nature to help us out.”

  37

  Northern Uganda

  November 24—1001 Hours GMT+3

  MEHRAK OMIDI RAN ALONGSIDE Bahame, trying to stay close but occasionally having to dodge around trees and other obstacles. T
hey and the armed guards surrounding them were moving as quickly as they could without making undue noise, paralleling the road at a distance that provided an intermittent view of it.

  Most of the infected had outpaced them, but two stragglers remained visible through the leaves. One was a child of no more than four—too young to understand his own rage and how to exercise it. The other was even more disturbing: an old man with a severe compound fracture of the lower leg that he didn’t seem to be aware of. He repeatedly stood, lurched forward a few meters, and then collapsed with a spurt of arterial blood. Omidi slowed a bit, transfixed by the man’s struggle as he finally became resigned to dragging himself forward with his elbows.

  It took another five minutes to reach the village, and Bahame grabbed his arm, pulling him to a place that provided sufficient cover but still afforded a partially blocked view of what was happening.

  Again, Omidi found himself stunned. The village men were fighting desperately—with sticks, with machetes, with farm implements. One man had an old rifle but was taken down while he was still trying to get it to his shoulder. The infected were everywhere—their speed and strength making them seem like a much larger force than they actually were.

  A fleeing woman crashed into the trees directly in front of them, causing Bahame to pull Omidi beneath the bush they were crouched behind. She barely made it ten meters before a young boy drenched in blood chased her down and dove onto her back. It took only a few moments before she succumbed to the brutal beating, but he didn’t stop. The dull thud of his fists mixed with the screams and panicked shouts coming from the village until he finally collapsed. Whether he was unconscious or dead was impossible to determine.

  One of the huts was on fire now, and Omidi glanced at Bahame, seeing the flames reflected in eyes glazed with power. It was at that moment he realized the African wasn’t playing a role or pandering to his followers. He truly believed in his own godhood.

  The wails of an infant began to emanate from the burning hut, and an infected man ran in like a savior. A moment later the child went silent.

  When he reappeared, the long, bloodstained robe he wore was burning. Despite the increasing intensity of the flames, he rejoined the fray, sprinting toward a woman trying to find refuge in a corral full of panicked goats. He fell just short of reaching her, collapsing with his hands on the rickety fence as he was consumed.

  Omidi slipped from beneath the bush as the remaining villagers were run down. He no longer saw rural Uganda, though. He saw New York, Chicago, Los Angeles. And it was magnificent.

  38

  Northern Uganda

  November 24—1906 Hours GMT+3

  CALEB BAHAME SLOWED THE jeep, increasing the distance between it and the lumbering truck turning twenty meters ahead. The terrified faces of the villagers they’d captured peered at Omidi through the holes cut in the trailer, fighting for air and trying to understand what had happened to them and their families.

  All were injured, but only superficially. The seriously wounded villagers had been executed where they lay and their bodies burned. The few who had managed to avoid contact with the infected had been allowed to escape in order to spread word of Bahame’s sorcery and power.

  It was the slightly injured villagers who were the unlucky ones. They had been herded into the truck to replace the infected who had disappeared into the jungle and would eventually die there, lost and bleeding.

  Bahame had calculated the time to death after infection took hold and the range of one of his demons on foot—making sure to attack only villages remote enough to not allow a chain of infection.

  Details, however, were not of great concern to the African. Could animals spread the parasite? Was there variation in the way it attacked the brain? Could it mutate? What if one of the infected came upon and attacked a herdsman or traveler who then returned to their village?

  All these important questions were answered the same way: with assurances that his network of spies would recognize and kill anyone infected by the parasite who managed to escape his makeshift quarantine.

  It was a system that would work for a time in Africa but that would be completely unscalable. No, to use the parasite in Europe or America, a good deal more sophistication was needed.

  It took another half hour to reach camp, and when they finally pulled in, it was to the deafening cheers of Bahame’s soldiers. They surrounded the jeep, falling silent only when their shaman stood on his seat and raised his arms. He recounted his tale of victory, the rich baritone of his voice rising over the buzz of the jungle and the pleas of the people packed into the sweltering truck.

  Omidi slipped out of the jeep and weaved through Bahame’s mesmerized troops. A quick glance behind him confirmed that it wasn’t only the ragged children who were captivated—Bahame himself seemed completely lost in his own delusions. A perfect time to exercise a bit of curiosity.

  The Iranian made his way to a cave glowing with electric lights. There were two guards at its entrance, one no older than twelve and the other looking a bit queasy from the cloud of diesel fumes spewing from the generator next to him.

  Omidi carefully ignored them as he approached and scowled dismissively when they started speaking to him in their native language. Both had undoubtedly noted his favored position with Bahame, leaving them wide-eyed and unsure whether to try to stop him.

  The benefit of being a psychotic messianic leader was that your terrified followers were desperate to succumb to your will. The drawback was that they sometimes couldn’t be sure what exactly your will was. If they challenged Bahame’s honored guest in error, they would almost certainly be slowly and horribly put to death. On the other hand, if this wasn’t an authorized visit and they didn’t intervene, their deaths were equally assured and would be equally unpleasant.

  In the end, they were swayed by his calculated confidence and let him pass into a natural corridor narrow enough that he had to occasionally turn sideways to get through. Bare bulbs hung from cables secured to the cave’s low roof, and he followed them, ignoring branches leading into the darkness. The temperature and humidity diminished as he penetrated deeper, but the stench of blood, excrement, and sweat became increasingly oppressive. Finally, the passageway opened into a broad chamber and Omidi stopped a few meters short, examining it unnoticed.

  He recognized the elderly white man as the one who had arrived with the man Bahame beat to death. He was wearing a stained canvas apron and goggles as he leaned over a partially dissected corpse. At the back of the chamber was a wall of blood-spattered plastic set up in front of a hollowed-out section of stone fitted with steel bars. Inside, an infected man lay on the dirt floor, panting like an animal and watching an outwardly healthy woman sobbing in a similar cage some three meters away.

  When Omidi finally stepped into the chamber, the infected man let out a high-pitched scream and rammed an arm through the bars with enough force that the sound of crunching bone was clearly audible.

  The old man looked up and took a few hesitant steps back, holding the scalpel he’d been using out in front of him.

  “Be calm,” Omidi said in English. “I’m a friend.”

  “A friend?” the man stammered. “My name is Thomas De Vries. I was kidnapped from my home in Cape Town. I was taken—”

  The Iranian held up a hand for silence as he scanned the equipment around him. It was in poor condition and a bit haphazard, but most seemed functional—including a modern microscope and small refrigerator. “What have you learned?”

  “Learned? I’m not a biologist. I’m a retired general practitioner. You—”

  “Be silent!” Omidi said. There wasn’t much time. Bahame’s speeches were characterized not only by their intensity, but also by their brevity.

  “Help me and I’ll take you with me when I leave this place.” He pointed to the corpse the elderly physician had been hovering over when he arrived. “You must know something.”

  “Yes,” De Vries said, looking around him nervously. �
�It’s a parasitic infection similar in some ways to malaria, but after it gets into the bloodstream it concentrates in the head—bursting the capillaries around the hair follicles and attacking the brain.”

  “Is that how it spreads?” Omidi said. “Through the bleeding?”

  “Yes…Yes, I think so. There are high concentrations in the blood and it enters through breaks in the skin and possibly the eyes; I’m not sure.”

  “How long?”

  “What?”

  “How long until it takes effect?”

  “Will you take me back to Cape Town? Back to my home?”

  “I will put you on a commercial flight at Entebbe,” Omidi said, straining to hide his disdain for this descendant of the Christian conquerors who had subjugated Africa and the world.

  De Vries nodded. “It’s a difficult question to answer. The only victim I’ve had an opportunity to observe began to experience agitation and confusion at around ten hours. My understanding is that there is significant variation, though. I would guess a range of seven to fifteen hours to the beginning of identifiable disorientation. After that, the disease appears to be very fast and consistent. Growing agitation until bleeding starts around three hours after initial symptoms and violent behavior follows almost immediately.”

  “Death?”

  “About forty-eight hours after full symptoms, though I’m told that most die of injuries or what is probably heart failure.”

  The healthy woman in the cage sprang suddenly to her feet and started talking, wrapping her hands around the bars, unashamed by her own nakedness.

  The doctor looked back at her, compassion visible in his expression despite the fact that his situation wasn’t much better. “Bahame always keeps one infected person imprisoned in here so that there’s no chance of the parasite dying out. When that one looks like he’s going to die, the woman will be infected to carry on the line.”