"Yes, miss. The pain in most of my joints went away over the years, but my knee never quite recovered. While my vision is acceptable, my eyes have not been the same, either. Still, you could say that I was very fortunate."
Gant asked, "What is it you are talking about?"
She explained, "The first outbreak of Ebola virus. It occurred in Yambuku, Zaire. Hundreds of people got sick, and only a handful survived. A few of those who survived were left with chronic problems."
Waters picked up, "Epiphora, in my case, as well as arthralgia and occasional bouts of desquamation."
Stacy translated, "That explains your eyes, and I'm guessing the arthralgia causes enough joint pain to require the cane, and the scaly skin comes from desquamation."
"You are a physician?"
"No, I—" she stopped as she noticed the major's eyes narrow to daggers.
Waters's disposition grew deadly serious. The cabin seemed to go quiet, to the point that the hum of the plane's engines dominated her ears.
"Yambuku was my home until I was nineteen years old. That's when the monster came from the river. That's what my mother called it. The monster. It devoured our community as surely as a dragon from a King Arthur tale might consume a village."
Stacy saw his eyes drift off again and glaze over. It seemed as if a flicker of fire burned in his pupils, a reflection of a memory. Yet it was more than thoughts of his past. As he told the story of his encounter with that monster from the Ebola river, it seemed to Stacy that that monster was still with the doctor. Not only in joint pain and damaged tear ducts, but in his head.
"It started with one man — a teacher — who thought he had malaria. They gave him an injection of chloroquine at the Mission Hospital. Ten days later he was dead. You know, in a Western hospital that would have been the end of it. The needle would have been discarded."
A tear ran along the man's cheek, spawned more from his condition than emotion.
"Well, within thirty days most of the staff had died and the hospital closed. By then the disease had spread to several villages. When the World Health Organization finally mobilized, it was too late. They were in country for only about a week by the time the last of the infected died."
"I'm sorry."
"Three hundred and eighteen souls contracted the disease. Two hundred and eighty died. The monster, it seems, was quite efficient. To put that in perspective, you would have a higher chance of survival standing two thousand feet from ground zero at Hiroshima than being infected at Yambuku."
Waters paused, his mind lost in reflection. Stacy sat equally quiet as she absorbed the entirety of his story. She had spent a great deal of time studying and working in Africa, from Libya during the civil war to an archeological dig in Ethiopia, with several stops in between. For all its beauty, the dark continent offered its share of horrors. The jungle was an incubator of both miracle cures and nightmarish curses.
Apparently Major Gant did not respect the moment of silence. It seemed he had listened to Waters's story, but not detached himself from where they were and why.
"Tell me, Doctor Waters, what was the chance of survival on Tioga Island today?"
That shook them both back to the here and now.
"That is a sad story you tell," Gant went on, with each word stilted and deliberate. "Today you killed more than one hundred innocent people. Today you were the monster, Dr. Waters."
At that moment memories clicked into place for Annabelle Stacy like a series of heavy-duty circuit breakers powering up.
"Wait a second. That's it. I know you!"
Her face grew stiff, her eyes bulged, and Dr. Stacy stood fast, looming over Dr. Waters. Her sudden movement woke a pair of guards sitting nearby. Both jumped to their feet but, given the pressurized cabin, they reached for truncheons instead of guns.
"Easy now," Dr. Waters held a hand out toward her.
Major Gant sat in his seat as if his butt were spring-loaded and ready to launch, but he managed to subdue the urge.
"Sit down," Gant told her, but it sounded as if he might be convincing himself of the same.
Stacy glanced around and saw the goons ready to strike. While her anger did not subside, she did find her seat again.
"I know you," she repeated. "I recognize your face from the INTERPOL bulletins. The limp was one of your characteristics. Zaire was your homeland. It all fits now. You're Sungila. Keon 'Dre Sungila."
"Very good," Waters answered. "That is, yes, one of the many names by which I have been known. You'll find that Jabilo was another."
Gant's eyes alternated between the two. He asked with a hint of frustration in his question, "Who exactly is Dr. Waters?"
Stacy tried to speak but her teeth clenched in what appeared to be pure fury. It took several seconds but she finally formed words.
"He's Africa's version of Joseph Mengele. This man is wanted by several different governments, and most would probably shoot him on sight."
"Yes," Waters agreed. "I did manage to build quite a reputation for myself."
"And you are … you are proud of that?"
"I have made discoveries and advances that might change the way we treat the world's most deadly diseases. Over the last ten years I have engaged in more successful medical research than any university, any research hospital."
Major Gant chimed in, "I, for one, have never heard of you."
"That's because no one wants anything to do with his results," Stacy said. "Like the Nazi experiments on hypothermia. They used concentration camp inmates and POWs against their will, dunking them in tanks full of ice water to study the effects, which almost always ended in the subject's death. Enjoying the fruits of research that is rooted in unethical behavior is in itself unethical."
"Much of the Nazi data has, in fact, been used," Waters countered. "Just like my research will someday be used, when I have died or enough time has passed."
"Like your research on kuru? Do you think anyone will touch that?"
Gant asked, "What is kuru?"
She answered, "A neurological disorder also known as the laughing sickness. One of the rarest diseases on the planet, primarily confined to a tribe in Papua New Guinea. The root cause was cannibalism, with tribe members consuming persons suffering from an illness similar to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease."
"A nasty affliction," Waters noted.
"An isolated disease," Stacy shot back. "Geographically isolated, culturally isolated, and the means of transmission was rather specific. There will be no kuru pandemic, but you certainly did your research, didn't you?"
"What did he do?"
Stacy answered Gant, "He brought kuru to Africa and was able to replicate the disease with injections. He created his own outbreak so he could study it. This man is more likely to start a pandemic than stop one."
Waters did not seem particularly bothered by her words. His eyes found focus somewhere else.
"There are monsters in the world, young lady. They hide in the jungles, the river deltas, even underground. Like Ebola, sooner or later they come crawling out from their dark corners and strike. The more civilization cuts into the shadows of our planet, the more of these monsters will be released. The more they will grow, adapt, and change to become more efficient killers. Fighting them will not be a matter of a research grant or overtime at the CDC."
"Tell that to the people you infected and watched die," Stacy nearly snarled.
He told her, "It is a war, and you don't fight any war worried about individuals. In this battle results will be measured by generations. In the end, everything I have done will benefit mankind as a race. We will be safer and stronger because some people are willing to make a short-term sacrifice of conscience in exchange for long-term results. Ten years … maybe twenty years from now, a child will live because of what I have done."