“I guess we could accommodate you two,” he capitulated.
“Us three,” Izabel said.
“Of course. Our Brazilian guest is welcome.”
Izabel Santo was regarding me for the first time with something like approval.
Then the President was gone and Ray steered the talk back to logistics as if the argument had never happened.
Eddie passed me a note. RAY WILL SCREW US WHEN HE GETS THE CHANCE!
Two hours later, when New York came into view, Ray was back, telling us smoothly, too smoothly, as things would turn out, that he’d arranged exactly what I’d asked for, my own unit. But we were only half listening, because even from the air, the view made it clear that something was wrong.
“Panic,” Eddie breathed, eyeing rivers of brake lights crawling one way, at midday. Lanes heading into the city seemed empty. “Looks like half the city is trying to get out.”
I was thinking that I was looking at the newest place on earth to serve as a field for Wilderness Medicine. New York has been called a jungle, and medically speaking, it was now that. In the real jungle lived creatures who spent their entire lives in the upper canopy, like the rich in New York, who would be the best protected. The less fortunate people here ate and slept on the streets, and, as in the Amazon, bottom dwellers would be more at risk. There were those in the middle, who ventured up and down, crossed boundaries each day: subways, offices, shops. And among them, maybe in New York, maybe in Newark or Philadelphia, or nearby, a speck, anonymous, a person or group hurting them.
Down there somewhere is the vector, I thought.
I did not mean mosquitoes.
I meant whoever was spreading them.
We will find you, I thought.
FIFTEEN
DEATH TOLL RISES IN TERRORIST OUTBREAK
The New York Times
The death toll from black malaria, as health officials have dubbed it, has topped 1,800 with another 3,211 in serious condition in area hospitals. Most are expected to die. Panic has spread in the metropolitan area and surrounding states. Parks are empty. Thousands have fled. Children are being kept at home. “There’s no way to know from looking which mosquito is harmless and which might kill you,” admitted Dr. Wilbur Gaines of the CDC. Officials urge calm, and although so far only 12 cases have been reported outside of New York, Philadelphia, or Newark: “There’s no way of knowing whether our aggressive spraying and public health program will kill all the infected insects, or whether more will be released,” Gaines told the White House yesterday at a private meeting. Customs officials are paying extra attention to shipments coming into the U.S. from Brazil. “But unless the parties responsible are located, we must regard every day as one in which a new attack may come,” Gaines said. “At least, thanks to Joe Rush, we closed down the lab where these new, hideous weapons were created.”
Tom Fargo caught sight of Joe Rush on TV while climbing from the subway, at 7th and Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn’s Park Slope. His belly tightened with rage. The “hero of Brazil,” as reporters called him, was on a newsstand TV, being interviewed at Columbia University, where he led a special unit working with the ill, the adoring NBC correspondent said.
If not for you, Washington would have no idea what is happening. My shipment wouldn’t be held up. But I am stuck here, unable to finish the job until the boxes arrive.
“I’ll deliver them to your shop by two this afternoon,” his freight carrier, Singh, had promised.
It was now one o’clock. Sixty minutes to go.
Tom had gotten Singh’s phone call in his darkroom, as he stared at a road map on which he’d circled the next targets. Even Dr. Cardozo didn’t realize Tom’s true reasons for choosing them. Cardozo just cared about heightening panic. One target was as good as another to him.
All Tom had to do was load up the Subaru and drive off, once the shipment came. Main roads were guarded, but small ones were carrying escapees out of New York. Thanks to the new GETOUT app on his iPhone, he could instantly access clear routes. In America everything was for sale under the notion of so-called personal freedom. Freedom to buy AK-47s. Or encrypt phones so the FBI could not listen in. Freedom to post the locations of unguarded roads.
But I need those boxes! The adults can survive fifteen days in those containers, the larvae up to ten.
His shipper had said, “Customs is going through everything from Brazil. Aircraft engines. Wood. Coffee. The warehouse is crawling with agents.”
Four thousand more vectors. But if they sit in the warehouse much longer, they will perish.
“Mr. Fargo, if we’re late, sit tight,” Singh had said.
Is it a trick? Is he working with the FBI? Have they found something? Do they know it is me?
Tom strolled along 7th Avenue, watching for anyone following, eyeing him from a window or parked car. His reflection in a locked leather goods shop window showed a calm man. He was not that at all.
Still, all around him, success. The street was almost empty. Windows in apartments were locked or screened. Tom passed an elementary school, normally open for summer school, closed; the twenty-four-hour-a-day Greek diner, closed. A couple walking toward him wore mesh masks even during the day. A Humvee filled with National Guard rolled past the Duane Reade pharmacy, open, but signs in windows read: OUT OF ANTIMALARIAL MEDICINE. NO INSECT REPELLENT OR MOSQUITO COILS. TRY HARDWARE STORE! Beside that, graffiti in white paint: KILL MUSLIMS! NO IMMIGRANTS!
It would only get worse, he knew.
Forty minutes left.
The White House has not disclosed my demand to the public. Maybe they’re considering it, just like that fool Hobart Haines taught me.
He flashed to the old blowhard, bragging at the dinner table, bragging on drives in Colorado, in the house, or at a restaurant, a sixty-year-old mouth with legs, lecturing. People think making deals is dirty! But we got the hostages out! We gave Iran a few guns — so what? Pressure in the right place achieves what armies cannot do. When to negotiate! When to give in! That’s the question!
Tom detoured into a fenced-in parking lot near 6th Avenue and 3rd Street. The Subaru occupied the last slot on the left. He waved at the guard booth and made sure the car started. The door panels were firmly closed, no hint of the hidden compartment beneath. In the trunk were camping supplies, disguises, a med kit, cash, golf clubs, dried food, and a clean, new MasterCard in another name.
Hobart Haines, in Tom’s head, droned on. Presidents say they will not make deals with enemies, but they do. Kennedy faced down the Russians during the Cuban Missile Crisis. But behind the scenes he pulled U.S. missiles from Turkey. Nixon said he’d never talk to North Vietnam. He sent a rep there at the same time.
Back on the street, Tom headed for the gallery. Every trip there was risky. The tiny shop was the vulnerable intersection point where shipments were delivered.
Thirty minutes to go until Singh arrived.
Walking, Tom saw with satisfaction that many parking spaces were open because residents had fled. Dog parks were empty. Subways ran on weekend schedules during the emergency, because many transit workers from other states refused to come in. Most pedestrians wore long-sleeved protective clothing. Tom’s ball cap dropped a cloth over the back of his neck to ward off insects. He’d smeared on DEET, to smell like other people. It was easy to tell who had access to medicines, because they moved with more New York assertiveness: fast and busy. Everyone else slinking around. Some people smelled of homemade mosquito repellents flourishing on the Internet. Lavender and vanilla mix. Witch hazel and ground apples. Alleged natural safeguards that were useless.