"Why do you think you were given that order?" Matt asked.
She shrugged again. "I assumed that we had what we needed — that final disposition of her case would be coming down."
"What do you mean?" Austyn asked, alarmed.
"This woman was a scientist in Saddam Hussein's biological warfare program. Our people have collected tons of samples and evidence at the site where she was captured. She was the sole survivor of the air attack. So what are we going to ask? What's she going to confess to? We already know what she was working on. And as far as other facilities like the one she was found in, she was the nuts-and-bolts person — the actual scientist — and that was her lab. She wasn't administering any other labs. That much she told her captors at the time of her arrest, and our evidence has confirmed that," Adams explained. "Our understanding is that she is being kept here until it's time to move her again to some other facility… permanently."
Austyn looked out the window of the jeep at the stark countryside. Dust, rocky hills and more dust. Every now and then a lone tree had sprouted in the middle of nowhere. It occurred to him that Rahaf Banaz was one of those lone trees. The difference was that she'd been uprooted from the dry rocky terrain of her native Kurdish Iraq and dropped inside the walls of one prison and then another, probably for the rest of her life.
He tried to shake the image. Thoughts like that wouldn't help him get his job done here. She was a ghost because of her own choices, and there were American lives that could be saved if he stayed focused on his task.
"The intelligence information that was passed down to us indicated that the strain of bacteria found in the U.S. seems to match what the prisoner was working on," Captain Adams told them.
"That's correct," Austyn replied, turning his attention back to the occupants of the vehicle. "But considering how long she's been in American hands, we can't accuse her of having a direct connection with any attack."
"What we're hoping to gain is information," Matt continued. "We'd like to find out who else might have had access to her research back then. Who was working with her, besides the scientists we know are dead. We want her cooperation."
"Good luck."
"Even more important, we hope she'll tell us how to produce an antidote."
Captain Adams turned more fully around to face them. "There's none?"
"No," Austyn said. "Not yet. That's why we're here. Dr. Banaz may be the one with the key." He wanted to be hopeful. He wanted to think that their trip might be as simple as asking her the questions, and the scientist offering them all the answers. He wasn't foolish enough to think it would really happen, but it certainly was worth hoping for.
"My communication mentioned a bacteria that produces some kind of flesh-eating disease," Adams said. From her expression, it was obvious that even her years of tough military training didn't offer protection from imagining how horrific a death this could be.
"Necrotizing fasciitis. In extreme circumstances and without medical attention, the flesh-eating disease can claim a life in twelve to twenty-four hours," Austyn explained. "But what we're dealing with now is a super-microbe. The bacteria we've seen in Maine is much worse than anything the medical community has had to deal with in the past."
"That bad?" Captain Adams asked incredulously.
"What we know… what we've seen… is that there are no external wounds, no warning signs. Once contracted, this super-microbe eats away at the internal organs of its victim," Austyn told her. "The disease actually consumes its victim from the inside out. Septic shock and death can occur in less than an hour."
The silence in the Humvee was unbroken for a few minutes. He realized the gravity of the situation hadn't hit the two people riding in front until now.
"And how contagious is it? How does it spread?" Captain Adams asked.
"Very contagious. But as far as how it spreads… there's a lot we don't know," Matt explained. "Two families — seven people and their pets — were found in advanced stages of decay in Maine by the owner of the property, who radioed in for help. Unfortunately, he and the two emergency personnel who arrived on the scene contracted the disease at the site. An additional emergency group, already on their way, suspected a disaster and called in for more help."
"We're assuming the disease spreads primarily by contact, but we don't know. It's possible that normal protective gear won't stop the microbe. Insects or even airborne particles may also spread the disease, manifesting themselves in the body of a potential victim," Austyn said, continuing where his partner stopped. "In short, there's too much that we don't know. We have no idea if those ten casualties are all we're dealing with. We have no clue how the first family contracted the bacteria. Maybe they brought it in from some other part of the country, and we're focusing our attention on the wrong source. We don't know if there's an incubation period for the germ in the body before it becomes active."
He could go on and explain everything that he didn't know, but that would take forever. They had hundreds of questions — but that was why they were here.
"How were you ever able to tie this to what was found in Dr. Banaz's laboratory in Iraq?" Captain Adams asked.
"The computers in Washington showed a match in the DNA sequence of this super-microbe to what was in Banaz's lab in Iraq," Matt told them. "A database of billions of combinations, and that's the only match we have identified so far."
Captain Adams adjusted the glasses on the rim of her nose. Her struggle with the information she'd received was obvious in her fisted hands and tight jaw muscles. 'There are fifty-two soldiers living in close quarters at the Brickyard. There are thousands of troops stationed in or traveling through Bagram Airbase. I don't want to sound paranoid, but we're very exposed," she said. "Have either of you had any contact with those bodies?"
Austyn perfectly understood her concern. "No, the island has been quarantined."
"How about the samples, the DNA sequence? How was all this collected and tested?" she persisted.
"The protective gear was upgraded to the levels NASA uses in space. The sanitation techniques used are similar to what we use with nuclear spills. We've had no new report of the disease since the initial outbreak," Austyn told her.
Captain Adams didn't look very relieved. She turned around and stared straight ahead.
Austyn had seen the same reluctance back in U.S. The professionals that had finally traveled to the small island to monitor a sample collection had drawn the short straw. Though Austyn and Matt weren't allowed to be part of the on-site investigation, neither had been terribly disappointed. There was so much that they didn't know about the microbe. Despite all the precautions, there was no guarantee that an outbreak might not happen right now.
"In your opinion, do you think Dr. Banaz will cooperate once we tell her what's going on?" Matt asked.
"Are you prepared to offer her a deal?" Captain Adams asked.
"We've come prepared to negotiate," Austyn answered. "We'll do whatever it takes."
The satellite phone attached to the front dashboard came to life. The driver answered it and passed it along to his superior. Captain Adams said very little, but listened intently. Austyn could tell from the tightening of her shoulders that the message was not to her liking. Still, he turned his attention back to the road as the Humvee hit a large pothole. The landscape was beginning to change. The rocks were now interspersed with clumps of greenery. From what he'd seen from above, he suspected they were near their destination.
Captain Adams turned around in his seat to look at them once she'd ended the call. She made no explanations.