The Ninth Day Read online

  Oz stood still.

  “Go!” Emma said.

  He turned and ran down the hall. Emma kept up her search, opening the numbered doors on the way. Nothing. She turned into the main hall, jogging to each successive door and opening it. On the sixth she hit pay dirt. She stepped inside a large room, twice the size of the earlier offices, and flicked on the lights. Refrigerators lined two sides of the square-shaped area, and glass-fronted cabinets lined the others. She ran to the refrigerators first.

  Dozens of medications in bottles of all shapes and sizes filled every inch of the appliance. While labels arranged by alphabet made finding the medication possible, Emma wasn’t sure if the bottles were organized by the name of a disease, the bacteria it fought, or by some other system with which she was unfamiliar. She’d have to take as much as she could and sort it out later.

  She backed away from the refrigerator and looked around for something to hold all the bottles. She saw nothing that would be of use. She briefly considered using the trash can, but discarded the idea. It would be hard to carry while she ran to the meeting place.

  A shrieking filled the room as the alarm system triggered.

  A far corner held a desk and she sprinted to it. Emma yanked on the lowest, and largest, drawer. It opened to reveal a set of hanging file folders, organized and labeled. She opened the corresponding drawer on the other side of the chair and found a pair of black low-heeled pumps, neatly arranged in the bottom. They rested on top of a piece of canvas. Emma pulled the canvas out from under the pumps and saw that it was a tote bearing the initials BAP. From the hall Emma heard the sound of raised voices and doors being slammed. The sounds drew closer as the searchers checked each room. Emma ran to the door, and turned the lock on the handle before returning to the refrigerator. She held the open tote in front of the first shelf, and used her arm to sweep the medications inside. The noise from the slamming doors came closer. She moved to the second shelf and swept her hand once again. Bottles and plastic containers fell into the tote, making a clinking noise as the ones in glass containers hit the others. Some missed the opening and landed on the tile floor, the glass containers among them breaking with a shattering sound that set Emma’s teeth on edge. The rest rolled away.

  The door handle rattled. Emma stopped, her heart pounding as she watched the knob. It jiggled again. Emma turned back to the third shelf and started picking up the bottles and placing them inside the tote as quietly as she could.

  “Open it, now!” Mono’s voice came through the panel.

  Emma quit filling the tote and closed the refrigerator door. She needed a place to hide, but the room was devoid of any nooks and crannies. The only possible hiding place was the area under the desk where the desk chair rested.

  She heard a woman’s voice, speaking in an Eastern European language, pleading with Mono. Emma could tell from the inflection that the woman was scared out of her mind and begging.

  “I said, open it!” Emma heard a punching noise accompanied by a woman’s cry. She placed the tote over her shoulder and headed to the desk.

  Emma rolled the wheeled desk chair to the window and hauled it up by the arms, grimacing as she tried to lift it higher. She staggered backward with the chair’s weight, but managed to keep her feet while she swung the metal legs with their steel rollers against the glass with all her might. The hit made a booming sound and the window bounced with the impact, but the double-paned glass held. A bullet cracked through the door and embedded itself into the wall three feet from where Emma stood, creating a dent.

  “Puta!” Mono screamed through the door. Emma swung the chair again, her arms aching in pain as she tried to both hold the chair high enough and swing it fast enough to crack the glass.

  Another boom. This time a long fissure appeared in the pane.

  Two more bullets splintered the door. Shards of plywood flew into the room. The shots landed one foot away from Emma, shoulder high. White, chalky pieces of drywall flew into the air. Several bits hit Emma in the cheek.

  She swung the chair again. This time the glass broke, shattering into a million cracks. The chair wheels punched out a circular hole in the window about the size of a large dinner plate. Far too small for Emma to climb through. She dropped the chair onto its feet directly in front of the pane, grabbed the bag, moved back, and took a running start.

  Mono kicked open the door.

  Emma leaped, placing one foot on the chair seat and turning her body so that her shoulder lined up with the pane. The rest of the glass broke open with the force of the hit and she felt herself free falling downward. She landed on the grass below with enough force to knock the wind out of her. Bits of glass showered down.

  She rolled up and started running at a forty-five-degree angle to the window. Bullets thudded into the grass around her. She made it to the parking lot and plunged into the surrounding trees. The bag banged against her side with each pump of her arms. She felt a cold liquid soak through her pants at the hip, but she was too engrossed in getting away to stop and check the source. She ran at a breakneck speed down the road in the direction of the store. The high light poles that lit the store’s parking lot appeared before her. She kept sprinting in a straight line, scanning the area. She saw the Caliber idling in the back, hiding in shadow. When she reached it she pulled open the door, tossed the tote inside, and followed it in. Vanderlock said nothing, but tore off, driving in the opposite direction of the lab. Oz lay in the backseat, once again with his back against the door, his eyes closed.

  Emma snapped on her seat belt and reached up to lower the visor. She slid open the cover to the embedded mirror, which lit up in order to allow her to see her reflection.

  A line of blood ran out of her nose.

  Chapter 38

  Vanderlock drove for half an hour without speaking. Emma stared out the window, trying her best to keep calm and keep thinking. The sight of the blood draining from her nose had panicked her. She was having a hard time keeping her mind from flying off in a million different directions.

  ”Oz, you awake back there?” Vanderlock said.

  Oz shifted. “Yeah. Why?”

  “ ’Cause I want you to hear this.” Vanderlock nodded at Emma. “Oz told me that you know what we have?”

  “It’s anthrax after all, isn’t it?” Oz said.

  “I never thought it was anthrax because that’s not communicable between people. This disease appears to be communicated by touch as well as inhalation.”

  “What do you think it is, then?”

  Emma paused. Oz sat up, still holding his tee shirt to his deformed nose, but now looking at her, a question in his eyes. Vanderlock flicked a serious glance her way, then returned his gaze to the road.

  “I think it’s a derivative of leprosy.”

  The car jerked when Vanderlock did. “Are you kidding me?” he yelled.

  Oz groaned from the backseat.

  “Damn it, you’d better be right about this. Because if you’re not, I’m going to kill you just for scaring the shit out of me.” Vanderlock sounded as panicked as Emma felt.

  “Is leprosy curable?” Oz said.

  Emma inhaled. “Yes. And honestly if all you had was leprosy I’d be relieved, because leprosy is completely curable. Take a course of antibiotics and it’s over. At least the traditional type of leprosy is. But traditional leprosy takes years to develop and this is a hell of a lot faster growing than that.”

  “Could you be wrong then?” A thread of hope ran through Oz’s voice.

  Emma shook her head. “This last look confirmed it. The bacteria appeared strange, as if mutated, but it was still closer to leprosy than anything else. Right now I’m thinking that something La Valle did with his fields, coupled with the herbicide being dumped on them, created this new form of disease.”

  They drove in silence for a minute. Emma stared out the window, mulling over every fact she’d ever learned about leprosy. “Now we just need to find some antibiotics to cure it. Powerful ones.”<
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  “We’re driving to a hospital. Right now. Before Mono comes back,” Vanderlock said.

  “I agree,” Emma said. She felt a pang as she thought of Raoul’s hostages, but their situation was now so dire that she didn’t think there was any way to salvage it and convince La Valle to let them all alone. Not anymore.

  “Absolutely not,” Oz replied. “No hospital.”

  Vanderlock looked at him in the rearview. “Why not? We know what it is. We go in there, tell them what we have, get treatment.”

  “And get killed by La Valle’s men when they find us,” Oz said. “Or, worse, give this to everyone we touch.” He looked at Emma. “You know how this is spread?”

  Emma shook her head. “No one really knows how leprosy is spread and this disease is behaving so differently that I don’t think we can assume anything. I saw a few cases when I volunteered in India. Contact seems to be required”—Oz appeared ready to interrupt and she held up her hand—“but that doesn’t mean we can’t warn the hospital personnel in advance that we might be carrying a contagious disease. They can prepare for our arrival.”

  “And La Valle’s men?”

  “I’ll call Banner. He’ll send someone to protect us,” Emma said.

  Oz shook his head again. “I don’t know who that is, but I don’t want some hospital security guard getting killed by Mono.”

  “Banner owns Darkview, a contract security company out of Washington. He hires the best. Special forces, ex-military, sharpshooters. You don’t need to worry,” Vanderlock said. “He and I don’t always see things the same way, but the guy is more than a match for La Valle. I’ll get on a major highway. You can still decide if this is what you want.”

  Oz seemed to mull the thought over.

  After thirty more minutes they reached an interstate. An hour later a blue sign appeared giving notice that lodgings, gas, and a hospital were all located at the next exit.

  “Go to the hospital,” Oz said. Emma breathed a sigh of relief. Their ordeal was almost over.

  “Any sign of Mono?” Emma said.

  “Not yet,” Vanderlock replied.

  The sign directed them to a small community hospital on the outskirts of town. Three square buildings, each four stories high, sat in a row, connected by enclosed glass bridges on the third level. The lights glowed in the darkness, and Emma watched as a doctor in blue scrubs walked between the buildings on the bridge. Vanderlock drove into the semicircular driveway following a sign that said ER. He pulled up next to an ambulance.

  “You should go in,” he said to Emma. “You have the fewest symptoms.”

  Emma crawled out of the car and entered through the automatic glass doors that slid open with a pneumatic sigh. The waiting area was jammed with people. Adults, children, and babies all occupied the resin chairs. Emma steered away from them, acutely aware of her possibly contagious state. A nurse in blue scrubs sat in a counter area marked with an overhead “triage” sign. She typed furiously on a computer keyboard. Emma stopped three feet away, ignoring the two chairs placed in front of the station.

  “Excuse me? I have an emergency. My friend is in my car and he has something that might be contagious. I’m afraid to bring him in and infect the others.”

  The nurse, a young, friendly-looking woman with a name badge emblazoned with NANCY WALTERS looked up from her keyboard.

  “Contagious? What does he have?”

  “Leprosy,” Emma said. “Or something far more virulent that mimics it. I’m not sure.”

  Nancy stopped typing. “Leprosy? Are you kidding me?”

  Emma shook her head. “I wish I was.”

  “Where did you say he was?”

  “In the car, which is parked in your driveway.”

  “What’s his insurance company? They may require prior authorization.”

  Emma shook her head. “I don’t think he has any.”

  The nurse got up from her desk. “Wait there.”

  Minutes later Nancy reappeared, walking fast, this time from another direction. She wore gloves and a face mask. Behind her came a young man in a white lab coat, also with gloves on his hands. His face mask hung on a thin elastic cord around his neck. They both stopped ten feet short of Emma.

  “I’m Doctor Emmanuel. You said you have a man in the car with leprosy? That’s not an emergency. All you need to do is set up an appointment with a specialist and get some antibiotics.”

  “It’s not exactly leprosy, but a virulent mutation of the disease with fast-growing symptoms that mimic it. Possibly contagious.”

  “Do you have it?”

  Emma nodded. “I think I’m in the early stages.”

  The doctor put on his face mask. “You need to go to another hospital. We’re not set up for hazardous diseases. Our ICU is small, and it’s full right now.”

  “How far is the next hospital?”

  He named a medium-sized city in Kansas. “Four hundred miles away.”

  Emma gaped at him. “Four hundred? Are you joking? He’ll die by then.”

  The doctor put his palms out. “I’m sorry. I’m new. It’s July and I just rotated in as a resident. The attending is on vacation, but I called him and he told me to send you to a teaching hospital. He said we don’t do highly contagious diseases here. We transfer them.”

  “That’s patient dumping. Someone appears in the emergency room you have to stabilize them before transfer.”

  He shook his head. “Not if we don’t admit them in the first place.”

  Emma wanted to hit the man. Only the fact that she would infect him as well kept her from doing so. She curled her hands into fists.

  “Can you at least get me some antibiotics for traditional leprosy? There are three that work.” Emma named them. “Perhaps they’ll slow his progress.”

  The young doctor shook his head. “I’m not supposed to write a prescription without a full workup on a patient. Besides, if this isn’t leprosy then the antibiotics won’t work.”

  “Listen to me. He’s in a bad way. He’ll die. Please.”

  The doctor still hesitated.

  “I’ll give you some samples,” Nancy said. “Don’t go anywhere.” She jogged off, back down the hall.

  Emma turned back to the doctor. “I need to use your phone.”

  He shook his head. “You shouldn’t touch anything. The attending said to get you out of here. He said if you touch anything the entire hospital will have to run a sterile protocol. We’ll have to close. We’ll lose days. He said you have to leave.”

  Emma felt her frustration growing. “Then you make the call for me. It’s the least you can do. His name is Banner. You need to tell him that Emma was here, that there’s a shipment of marijuana crossing the country that is infected with this disease as well, and that he has to stop it. Do you understand me?” She rattled off Banner’s number. The resident made no move to copy it down.

  “If I report you were here we’ll have to close.”

  Emma took a step toward him, and he took two rapid steps back. “You’re a mandatory reporter. I come in here talking about an infectious disease, you damn well better report it.” Nancy came jogging down the hall again, a paper bag in her hand. She stopped well clear of Emma, bent down, and slid the bag to her across the floor.

  “I got you samples of rifampicin and clofazimine. We didn’t have any dapsone, I’m sorry.” Emma opened the bag. Four individual bubble packs of each drug filled it. The few pills were a joke, even Emma knew that it wasn’t enough to save Oz, given his advanced condition. Still, she was grateful to Nancy.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Can you call a friend for me?”

  Dr. Emmanuel waved her off. “She can’t call anyone. Use your own cell phone outside the hospital. You have to leave.”

  Nancy nodded her agreement, a sad look on her face. “I wish you luck. Get him to St. Jude’s. They can help.”

  Emma turned and stormed out of the hospital. A child ran in front of her and stopped, staring. Emma slowed, to
ok great pains to avoid him, and jogged out the door.

  Chapter 39

  “What about the shipment? You’re telling me La Valle is spreading leprosy?” Oz said in an agitated voice. Emma had recounted the dismal experience in the hospital to both Oz and Vanderlock.

  “I’ll handle stopping the shipment,” Emma said. Oz gave her a dubious look, and Vanderlock gave her a serious one. She handed him the antibiotic samples.

  “Take one of each. Maybe they’ll slow the progress, buy us some time. You want some?” Emma’s last question was directed at Vanderlock. He shook his head.

  “Let Oz have them. He’s in worse shape.” Vanderlock showed his hand to Emma. The sores covered the entire palm and last three fingers. She lifted the tote so both Oz and Vanderlock could see it.

  “I’ve got a bag full of drugs here. All of which treat rare diseases. If there’s even one investigational antibiotic, we’re going to take it.”

  “And if not?”

  “Then we go to a teaching hospital. To a specialist.”

  Vanderlock drove on. “You think the traditional treatment won’t work?”

  “This thing isn’t acting like traditional leprosy. There is a resistant strain, though. At least there was when I was dealing with this in India. Several patients came in with it. The ones with the nosebleeds often had the resistant form.”

  “Okay, we try the new stuff too.” Vanderlock was back to his calm self. Emma could hear a slight strain in his voice, but nothing like the shocked reaction he’d just had. “We need to disable the tracking device in order to do this right, without the fear that Mono will come breathing down our necks again, and we need a place to hole up for at least a day.”

  Oz shifted. “I don’t think we should waste time trying to locate and disarm the tracker. They can be hidden anywhere in the car and it would take me the better part of a day to find it. You said it’s a radio transmitter?”

  Vanderlock considered the question. “I’m pretty sure it is. Not GPS. More like those systems you can buy to recover your car if it’s stolen.”