Pierce spent the flight making all the necessary arrangements so that his sojourn to West Africa would be brief and goal-focused. A veteran world traveler, he knew what kind of things could go wrong, and took the appropriate proactive countermeasures. He had kept his UN passport and credentials current—many years ago, he had done a stint at the UNESCO World Heritage Commission, and was still on the rolls as a consultant—which streamlined the otherwise ponderous process of getting a visa. He made sure he was current on all his shots and even took a dose of malaria prophylaxis. He had arranged for a local expediter, a man with the unlikely name of Daniel Cooper, who came highly recommended by the UN personnel on the ground in Monrovia. Pierce had even taken the added step of GPS-plotting the route from the airport to the World Health Organization office located on Avenue Mamba, in the capital city. His ducks were all in a row. He was ready.
The only thing he had forgotten was best summed up by the old military adage: The first casualty of war is always the battle plan.
He stepped down onto the tarmac at Spriggs Payne Airport expecting to be greeted by Cooper, but there was no sign of anyone waiting to meet him. He called the phone number—the same number he had used to contact the man just four hours earlier—but the call would not go through. He waited a half hour, repeatedly trying the number. He then called the WHO office and discovered that the problem was with the local phone service. He finally abandoned the effort and hired a taxi to drive him into the city.
Instead of the stereotypical brash and aggressive cabbie, Pierce’s driver was oddly quiet. When Pierce told the young man where he wanted to go, the only response was an ambiguous nod. When the man did speak, his soft tone and odd dialect was almost incomprehensible. The nation of Liberia had gotten its start in 1820 as an American colony, intended as a home for freed slaves. Even though English remained the primary language, the passage of time had evolved Liberian English into a distinct species that, while recognizable on its face, was peppered with unique phrases, many borrowed from native languages in the region. Pierce assumed the driver understood him, but given the man’s unassuming personality, it was difficult to say.
The drive, only a few miles according to the GPS, took more than half an hour, bogged down by both vehicle and foot traffic. The glacial pace ensured full exposure to the sights and smells of the trash-strewn, underdeveloped Monrovian hinterland—sheet metal shacks and cinder block homes with no doors or windows, the smell of cooking oil and wood fires, automobile exhaust and raw sewage. Pierce had seen worse in his travels, and he felt nothing but sympathy toward the locals, for whom such crushing poverty was a daily fact of life. Nevertheless, the grim crawl along the choked streets left his already damp spirits thoroughly soaked. The tropical humidity did the same for his clothes.
He thought the situation would improve once he reached his destination, but it was not to be. The WHO offices were shuttered. To add insult to injury, as he was futilely banging on the door, a man got out from behind the wheel of a beat up old Ford Ranger pick-up parked in front of the building, and came over.
“They all gone, bossman.”
“I can see that,” Pierce growled. “Do you know when they’ll be back?”
The man shrugged. “Sometime. They gone into the bush. Left a couple hours ago. You Pierce?”
It took a moment for the question to sink in. He rounded on the man. “Who are you?”
The man flashed a broad grin. “Your good friend, Mister Daniel Cooper. I come to see you.”
“Of course you are,” Pierce said. He rubbed the bridge of his nose trying to banish an emerging headache. “You were supposed to meet me at the airport.”
“You took a taxi,” Cooper pointed out.
“Why on Earth would I want to meet you here if…” Pierce cut himself off. There was nothing to be gained by demanding that Cooper recognize his mistake, so he turned his attention to the more immediate problem. “Do you know where the doctors went?”
“They gone into the bush,” Cooper repeated. “Bad news. Maybe typhoid. Maybe something worse.”
Pierce knew what ‘something worse’ meant.
Liberia had been hit hard by the Ebola outbreak of 2014. More than nine thousand had been infected with the hemorrhagic fever virus, many of them health care workers who had been ill-equipped to deal with such a deadly disease. Almost half of the cases proved fatal—a staggering death rate—but the loss of life told only part of the story. The already beleaguered nation had been virtually paralyzed by fear. People in villages hid the infected rather than helping them seek treatment. Doctors and nurses were blamed for spreading the disease. Mobs had attacked and looted clinics. Superstition and conspiracy theories had spread like wildfire. It was considered bad luck to even utter the name of the disease. Ultimately, the outbreak had been brought under control, with no new cases reported in months, but the Monrovians could be forgiven for being a little on edge.
“Do you know where they went?”
A slight shrug.
“Can you take me there?”
He nodded to indicate the general direction of Pierce’s destination. “Twenty mile. Maybe thirty. I can show you where they go.”
Pierce weighed his options. The smart thing to do was to simply wait for the WHO personnel to return, but how long that might be was anyone’s guess. Cooper certainly didn’t know. “Fine. Let’s go.”