Ward Z Read online

  Walking over to the bed, I look down and see that there's finally a look of calm on Ribery's face. Still, her final words are ringing in my ears and I can't help but wonder why she was so determined to make me burn not only her body, but also everything that came into contact with her. Ten years after my initial encounter with this kind of tumor, I've finally found a second case and it actually seems as if Ribery agreed with me. Why else would she have gone to so much trouble just to see me?

  "This body isn't to be sent to the morgue," I say after a moment. "I'm going to perform the autopsy myself. I'll need someone to assist me, but I want to be the one who leads the examination of her body."

  "You can't be serious," Dr. Gerrold replies.

  "Deadly," I continue, turning to him. "I don't want to read someone else's report. I want to open her up myself. You're welcome to join me and observe, but I want to know what really happened to her, and I want to see it with my own eyes. At least that way, I can't dismiss any unusual findings as a mistake."

  "This is just another attempt to maintain the ridiculous idea that her tumor was in some way unusual," he replies.

  "If it wasn't," I continue, "then explain what just happened to her. Why's she dead?"

  "Her body must have been through a lot," he points out. "The treatment she received in Paris, combined with the stress of traveling here, must have been too much for her heart." He waits for me to say something. "We've both seen it before, Andrew. Patients can't always take the physical strain of their treatment regimen, and this woman went through more than most."

  "I'm doing the autopsy," I say firmly, as the nurses begin to pack away the equipment. "I don't care what you say. Even if it's the last thing I do as a respected member of this hospital's staff, I'm performing Dominique Ribery's autopsy. You can invite the entire faculty to watch if it'll make you feel better. In fact, I'd prefer it if you're all there. I don't want you to doubt me later on. I know this is irregular, but -"

  "What the fuck is that?" Nurse Aubry says suddenly.

  Turning, I see that she's over at the window, staring down at the car park many floors below.

  "What's wrong?" I ask.

  "I..." she starts to say, but it's clear that whatever she's seen has left her in a state of ashen-faced shock. "What the fuck?" she says after a moment, turning to me. "Do you know about this?"

  "What?" I ask, hurrying over to join her. As soon as I look out the window, however, I see exactly what she's talking about. "I think we have a problem," I say, unable to stop staring at the swarms of army trucks heading toward the hospital. "I think we have a very big problem."

  Cally Briggs

  "Get your coat on," I say, helping Emma into her sleeves while glancing nervously at the door. I'm terrified that a nurse might come and disturb us at any moment, but fortunately there seems to be some kind of commotion in one of the other rooms, so everyone's a little distracted.

  "Are you sure you're allowed to go outside?" Emma asks for the hundredth time.

  "I'm sure," I say, before hurrying over to my bed and double-checking that the note is still in place. I have no doubt that Dr. Page and the nurses are going to be angry at me for leaving, but there's no way I'm ever going to miss this opportunity. I've left a message explaining that I've taken Emma out for a few hours, and assuring them that we'll be back soon. I figure there's no need for them to know exactly where we're going. After all, they'd probably head straight down to the pub and pick us up.

  "I'm cold," Emma says. "Maybe we should stay inside."

  "What's wrong?" I ask, unhooking my drip-bag from the trolley and carefully placing it in my coat pocket, while making sure not to dislodge the line running into my wrist. "Don't you want to go to lunch with me?" I push the trolley into the corner, before glancing over at Emma and realizing that she's conspicuously failed to answer my last question. "Honey," I continue, trying to hold back the tears that are welling behind my eyes, "it's going to be fun. It'll just be you and me. Don't you think that sounds good?"

  She stares at me.

  With my bottom lip starting to tremble, I hurry over and grab her hand, before leading her to the door. Leaning out into the corridor, I see that the coast is clear. In fact, the ward seems remarkably quiet: there are a few patients milling about, but whatever's going on in the examination room, it apparently required the attention of all the on-duty members of staff.

  "Come on," I say, leading Emma by the hand and hurrying past the abandoned nurse's station. Ahead, at the end of the corridor, the main door looks tantalizingly close. All we have to do is get through that door and into the stair-well, and then we can either run down to the ground floor or take an elevator. I'm going to ring a taxi as soon as we're off the ward, and this time in half an hour we can be sitting at a table by a roaring fire in that gorgeous little pub. It's not much, but right now, it's the only thing I want in all the world.

  "Going somewhere?" asks Anthony, emerging suddenly from a supply room. He smiles, before suddenly he seems to realize that something's wrong. "Are you going somewhere?" he asks, his voice filled with suspicion.

  "We're just going for a walk in the hospital garden," I reply stiffly. Damn it, I'm a terrible liar.

  "Did Dr. Page give you permission?" he asks.

  "Of course," I say, glancing down at Emma and seeing that she seems to be equally suspicious. I pause for a moment, before turning back to Anthony and silently mouthing the word 'please'.

  He pauses.

  "Okay," he says after a moment. "Well, have a nice time." He pauses again. "In the garden."

  "Thank you," I say quietly, before leading Emma away from him. We're only a few seconds from the door now, and I'm just praying that we can get there without anyone else spotting us. The last thing I need is to be apprehended by Dr. Page or one of his sanctimonious nurses. Finally, however, we get to the door and I reach out to push it open.

  "Halt!" shouts a voice, and suddenly half a dozen fully-armed soldiers appear on the other side of the door.

  Stepping back, Emma screams.

  One of the soldiers secures the door, making sure that it's locked.

  "What are you doing?" I shout, trying but failing to get the door open.

  "Step back from the door," the nearest soldier says firmly.

  "Mummy, what's happening?" Emma shouts, her eyes filled with tears. "Are they mad at you?"

  "No," I say, my heart pounding as I watch the soldiers adding a series of additional locks and chains to the door. "No, this..." I take a step back, unable to quite process what I'm seeing. "This is something else..."

  "What the hell is going on out here?" Dr. Page shouts, pushing past me and trying to open the door. "Open this immediately!" he shouts to the soldiers. "You have no authority here!"

  As the soldiers move aside, a taller, more authoritative-looking man in full military uniform steps closer to the door. "Are you Dr. Andrew Page?" he asks.

  "I demand to know what the hell you think you're doing!" Dr. Page shouts, still trying to get the door open.

  "My name is General Michael Kent," the man replies. "As of this moment, due to the nature of one of your patients and in particular the very grave threat posed by her condition, this entire ward is being declared a hazardous site. No-one is to enter or leave until they're given permission to do so. Given the extreme nature of the biological threat contained in this ward, anyone who makes an unauthorized attempt to leave will be met with extreme, fatal force. Is that understood?"

  "Mummy," Emma says, wrapping her arms around my waist. "What's happening?"

  "I don't know," I say, taking another step back.

  "This is an outrage!" Dr. Page shouts, banging on the window. "You can't lock us up in here!"

  "Mummy!" Emma says, starting to cry. "What are they doing?"

  I stare at the soldiers for a moment, before turning and looking down at Emma. "It's okay," I stammer. "It's all going to be okay."

  "This ward is under military quarantine," General Kent c
ontinues, as more and more staff and patients start to gather all around us. "Effective immediately, I'm in charge of the entire site while we work to determine the precise nature of the threat posed by Dominique Ribery."

  "Dominique Ribery is dead," Dr. Page says firmly. "She died a few minutes ago."

  "Then the situation is more serious that we realized," General Kent says calmly. "I'm sorry, Dr. Page, but I can't let anyone out of there."

  "Mummy," Emma whispers, holding me tighter and tighter. "I want to go home to Daddy now."

  "It's going to be okay," I say, reaching down and tousling her hair. "I promise, everything's going to be okay." As the words leave my mouth, however, I realize that I have no right to be giving her false hope. In fact, as I hear a helicopter pass above the building, I'm starting to worry that we're in the middle of something huge. More and more soldiers are gathering on the other side of the door, and after a moment I hear a series of thuds high above, as if people are running across the roof. "It's going to be okay," I say again, although this time, I'm not sure I believe the words as they leave my lips.

  Epilogue

  Five years ago

  "Tell me what happened to Henri," said the man, standing just inches away on the other side of the glass. "All we found was a burned patch of grass and a few bones."

  "He told me to burn everything," Dominique replied, wearing the white uniform of the quarantine facility. "He was my superior, so I had no choice but to obey him. We developed a good working relationship over the years, in Haiti and before that in Mozambique and Tangiers, but at the end of the day, he was in charge and he wasn't afraid to pull rank when necessary. He gave me very specific instructions to -"

  "Why?"

  "Why what?"

  "Why burn everything?"

  She paused. "He was worried about contagion. And infection. He was worried about it spreading."

  "Be specific," the man replied. "What was he worried about spreading? Come on, Dominique. Don't stall here."

  "I'm not stalling!" She paused for a moment. "There had been some unusual complications," she said eventually. "We've been working with so many people, so many diseases, and after a while they all began to overlap. On top of that, we were both taking so many pills to try to keep ourselves safe, we started to lose track. Finally..." She paused again. "Henri became sick. We weren't sure what was wrong, exactly, but eventually he was unable to leave his bed. A few days earlier, he'd been treating a young boy who was suffering from a large growth on his gut, and that boy suffered similar symptoms before he..."

  The man waited for her to continue. "Before he what, Ms. Ribery?"

  "The boy died," she replied. "Henri did everything in his power to help, but nothing worked. We couldn't even diagnose the boy, not properly. His symptoms kept switching. One minute he had a high temperature, the next minute he was cold. One minute he was coughing, the next minute the cough was gone but he was suffering cranial bleeding or diarrhea. You name it, whatever you can think of, that boy developed. Then he died of a massive heart attack, before we had a chance to help him. About a week later, it was clear that Henri was going to die in the same manner. He was developing exactly the same symptoms."

  The man paused. "Do you know who I am?" he asked eventually.

  "You're from the government."

  "Wrong. I'm from an agency that deals with biological hazards. My name is John Lincoln and it's my job, basically, to decide what to do with you." He paused for a moment, and it was clear that he was sizing Dominique up, trying to decide whether or not he trusted her. "So you burned the tent?"

  Dominique nodded.

  "After Henri died?"

  "Not exactly."

  "Not exactly?"

  "He was still conscious."

  Lincoln frowned. "You burned him alive?"

  "He... told me to burn it," she continued. "He told me to burn everything. I tried to give him something for the pain, something to knock him out, but his body was beyond the point of salvation. Eventually, he said he couldn't feel anything anyway, so it seemed academic."

  "And he told you to burn everything in the tent?"

  She nodded.

  "Everything?"

  "Everything."

  "I see." He paused again. "Forgive me for pointing this out, but weren't you in the tent?"

  "I was."

  "But he wanted you to leave before you started the fire, I guess."

  "That's right." She paused, aware that she was perhaps not the world's greatest liar. "We both considered that I hadn't been exposed to the infection. I hadn't treated the boy, you see. He was Henri's patient."

  "But Henri was your patient. In the end."

  "He was."

  "So do you still think that you're not infected?"

  "I know I'm not," she replied. "Based on everything I know about the sickness, I'd have shown symptoms by now. They'd be unmistakeable. I'm clearly fine. You've run hundreds of tests on me since I got here, and as you've already admitted, there's no sign of anything that might cause concern. Surely you can see that there's nothing wrong with me."

  "Here's the problem," he said after a moment. "You keep saying that you're fine. You keep insisting that there's nothing wrong with you, and that whatever killed Henri, it hasn't infected you." He paused. "And yet you also say that you want to stay in quarantine, just in case. Those two impulses seem somewhat contradictory. Don't you agree?"

  "I'm not sick," she said firmly. "You have to be able to see that."

  "But you'll understand if we keep you in here for a while," Lincoln replied. "As a precaution."

  "I wouldn't leave," she replied, "not even if you tried to force me. I have to be sure..."

  "I thought you were sure?"

  "I need to prove to myself that I'm right."

  "So there must be a sliver of doubt in your mind," he pointed out.

  "If that was the case, I'd have killed myself back in Haiti."

  "Would you?"

  She paused. "Did you know that Henri had cancer?"

  Lincoln stared at her for a moment. "I didn't know that," he said eventually.

  "He did," she continued. "He had tumors on his liver. He had only a year or two left anyway. He'd been diagnosed earlier in the year and the news energized him. He wanted to do something meaningful, something that meant his time here wouldn't be wasted. . That's why he went to Haiti. It's why he dragged me along."

  "You were lovers?"

  "Something like that." She paused again. "He wanted to help people. He was a good man, and he believed that he could make a difference. I think, before he died, he achieved that. He saved many lives. He pushed himself too hard sometimes, and he demanded the same level of dedication from those around him."

  "Is this relevant to your current situation?" Lincoln asked.

  "I... suppose not," she replied. "I just thought you should know what kind of a man he was and why I followed him all the way to that hellhole."

  "I know what kind of a man he was," Lincoln replied with a fake, thin-lipped smile, "and I'm pretty sure I understand why you followed him to Haiti. Believe me, Ms. Ribery, I've done a considerable amount of reading about your past, and I've mapped out every relationship you've ever had." He paused for a moment. "We'll keep you in here for two weeks -"

  "Two months," she replied, interrupting him. "Minimum."

  "We'll see. We'll start with two weeks, and then we'll go from there."

  "Two weeks isn't long enough," she told him. "I'm sure I'm healthy, but if we're to be absolutely certain, I need to stay in here a little longer. I..." She took a deep breath. Time for another lie. "I promised Henri that I'd stay in quarantine for a few months. It was his dying request."

  "He sounds like a very intense man."

  "He cared about the world," she insisted. "He put the good of the world and its people above his own life."

  "And are you the same?" Lincoln asked. "If you had to choose between saving your own skin, and protecting the world from, for example
, the outbreak of a pathological new disease... would you be brave and sacrifice yourself?"

  Dominique stared at him for a moment. There was no way he could know about the decision she made back in the tent, so she figured he must just be fishing.

  "Fortunately," she said cautiously, "I've never had to deal with such a decision."

  "We'll see," Lincoln replied, turning and heading to the door. "I'll be back tomorrow. We can talk about the results of your blood work-up and then maybe we can decide what, exactly, we're going to do with you for the next few weeks. If you're going to be sitting around in our quarantine facility, we might as well make use of you. I hope you won't mind working for your supper."

  Once she was alone, Dominique remained standing by the glass window. She felt fine and healthy, and she kept telling herself that there was absolutely no reason to suspect that she was infected at all. Still, she couldn't help thinking back to Henri's final words, in particular his demand that she should burn with him. She knew, deep down, that she should have sacrificed herself in order to ensure that the infection was never able to spread, but she also hoped that everything would be okay. All she had to do was stay in quarantine for months, maybe even a year or more, and then everything would be fine.

  "I'm not infected," she whispered to herself, staring at her reflection in the glass panel. "I'm not. I can't be."

  Part Three

  The Carrier

  Prologue

  Two years ago

  "Mummy?"

  "It's okay, sweetheart!" Cally calls out. "Just finish your beans!"

  "What are you doing, Mummy?"

  "Nothing, sweetheart, I just..." She pauses, trying not to let the pain creep into her voice. "I'll be down in a moment!"

  Silence.

  "Sweetheart?" Cally continues, terrified that her daughter might come to the bottom of the stairs and look up. "Just stay in the kitchen, okay?"

  "Why?"

  "Have you finished your beans?"