“What was that?” She exclaimed trying to peer through the window into the darkness. Mike and Camilla both giggled.
“It’s probably a grizzly bear come to join in the fun,” Camilla laughed.
Sarah glanced at the door that was at the back of the kitchen and led out to the porch. She couldn’t see anything. As she reluctantly turned to head to her room, she saw some motion out of the corner of her eye. A man stood there, staring wildly at her.
She screamed.
Mike and Camilla both followed her gaze and saw the man there in the window. He was motionless for a moment, then fell against the door, and slid down out of sight.
“What the hell!” Mike said as the three of them rushed toward the door. Mike flipped on the light, and they looked out the window at the man lying on his back on the porch, apparently unconscious.
“What do you think?” Camilla asked.
Mike yanked open the door and stepped out onto the porch, moving cautiously. “Look at his arm!” Mike said as he tapped his foot into the man’s side. “He’s out.”
“What should we do?” Camilla asked.
“Let’s get him inside,” Sarah said as she walked out onto the porch.
The three of them picked the man up, carried him into the house, and placed him on the couch in the living room.
Sarah sat down on the couch next to the man and slowly unwrapped the blood-soaked rag from around his arm.
“There’s a first-aid kit in the kitchen,” she said to Mike. “Can you get it?”
Sarah gasped. One of his forearm bones poked through his skin. A viscous substance, probably marrow, oozed from inside the bone. “That’s not good,” she muttered as Mike placed the first-aid kit next to Sarah.
He caught a glimpse of the arm as he leaned over her. “Oh my God,” he said almost gagging. “That looks terrible.”
Camilla watched silently, tugging on her lip.
“It’s a bad break,” Sarah said as she touched the man’s forehead. “He’s in shock. Grab me some blankets, will you?”
“Sure,” Camilla said.
“What are we going to do with him?” Mike asked.
“I don’t know,” Sarah said. “Seth’s set broken bones before, but I think a break like this is going to require a hospital and doctors.”
Camilla came back into the room carrying a couple of thick blankets. Sarah poured some hydrogen peroxide on the wound and wrapped it in fresh gauze.
As she secured the end of the gauze, she said, “This is a big problem.”
“I’d say it is,” Camilla agreed. “I thought you said this place was so remote no one would ever stumble by. We’ve been here six hours and we’ve already got an injured stranger lying on our couch.”
Sarah motioned for them to follow her into the kitchen. “Someone now knows where we are,” she said. “This was obviously not part of the plan but we need to decide what to do with him.”
“He doesn’t know who we are though?” Mike said.
“But he knows we’re here! We don’t want anyone knowing that, or that I even exist. The last thing we need is attention,” Sarah said.
“What do you think happened to him?” Camilla asked.
“I don’t know. Car wreck maybe?” Sarah replied.
“If it was a car wreck, why was he behind the house?” Mike asked.
“How would I know?” Sarah snapped.
“Maybe he was hiking and got lost – took a tumble,” Camilla offered.
“Could be,” Mike said. “I wonder who he is.”
“Go check if he has any ID on him,” Sarah said.
Mike turned and left the room to check.
“We can’t keep him here, Camilla. We have to get rid of him before he wakes up and sees where he is and who we are. Christ, he’ll recognize you for sure.”
“I know,” Camilla replied. “So we get rid of him?”
“Definitely.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Why not? It’s simple.”
“Wait a second, are you saying we should we kill him?”
“No. Jesus, I’m not saying that,” Sarah looked at Camilla amazed that she would suggest that. “What do you think I am, a monster? He needs to get to a hospital. I’m saying we drive him up to the highway and drop him off someplace where he’ll get found, preferably before he wakes up and certainly before it gets to be light out,” Sarah said.
Mike walked back into the room. “He had a driving license in his wallet,” he said throwing it on the table.
“Good,” Sarah said.
“At least they’ll know who he is when we drop him on the highway to get found,” Camilla said.
Sarah stepped forward to take a look at the license. She stared at the name on the license in shocked disbelief. “Son of a bitch.”
DAY 6 – FRIDAY, JULY 3
7:45 am Boston, Massachusetts
It was a cold, rainy day as the FBI car came to a stop in front of Mass General and just as Arthur was about to get out of the car to meet up with the Boston team, his phone rang.
“What’s up, Cecil?” Arthur asked, leaning back into the seat. Cecil was one of his best analysts.
“Lots.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Been working this virus. We tried tracking the people but that was a dead end so I followed up on the other clues and one of them has turned into something.”
Arthur’s blood pressure and heart rate increased. Cecil was fact-based and when he said he had something you could bet he did.
“Talk to me, Cecil.”
“We did some phonetic—”
“I don’t need to hear how you did it.”
“Sorry, Ngami is a real place. A region of Botswana. Relatively sophisticated infrastructure, stable government, a success story for Africa for sure,” Cecil said. “So the virus allegedly makes people infertile, right?”
“That’s what the reports said.”
“So I called the largest hospital and want to guess what I found out.”
“Go on.”
“Births have plummeted the past few months. Right now there isn’t a pregnant woman to be found in any of their maternity wards.”
Arthur sat upright. “What? Are you certain?”
“Absolutely. The WHO is all over the place, trying to figure it out but they can’t. All they know is the sperm counts of everyone they’ve tested are well below normal, actually, well below viable.”
“Viable?”
“Not enough of the little swimmers to realistically fertilize an egg.”
“Oh my God,” Arthur said as he pressed his hand to his forehead and massaged his temples. His mind was racing. The W.H.O was the best at these sorts of crisis. “Why haven’t I heard about this? Did I miss something? Why didn’t the WHO raise any alarms?”
“They didn’t know what they were dealing with. It was very regional. I spoke with their director on the ground in Botswana. She was very helpful but also very perplexed,” Cecil replied.
“Jesus.”
“There’s more.”
“More?”
“So all of this is one big cluster of coincidences. We have the virus rumor and now some loose but compelling corroboration but still nothing concrete so I take a look at international travelers over the past year going to and from Botswana and correlate it to the names we know.”
Arthur leaned forward again and unconsciously held his breath, knowing what he was about to hear. “And?”
“And, we’ve got a David Rose turning up in Botswana almost nine months ago.”
“Who’s David Rose?”
“The pilot who was shot down.”
“Go on.”
“He turns up in Botswana nine months ago and, obviously, we don’t know if this David Rose is our dead pilot David Rose but I got this same David Rose arriving on an international flight from Botswana via Heathrow into Boston three weeks ago and then hopping a shuttle flight to Bangor.”