Peyton was eating dinner with Elim, Desmond, and Avery in the building’s cafeteria when an African woman approached them and sat beside Elim. Peyton instantly recognized her: she was one of the survivors from the village. Was it a coincidence that she was here? The village was hundreds of miles away; how did she get to Dadaab?
Elim looked exhausted, but his voice was strong. “She’s a very lucky young lady.”
“Yes,” Peyton said, taking a bite of the stew. She was glad there had been no label on the vat. “A few more hours in the air and she might not have made it.”
“Perhaps. But she is lucky because she has you watching out for her.”
Peyton had never been able to take a compliment; they seemed to wrap around her like a rope, constricting her, paralyzing her. She turned red.
“Just doing my job,” she said quietly, taking another bite of mystery stew. “What happened here?”
“Biology,” Elim said. “The virus got loose in the camps.”
“How many are dead?”
Elim paused. “We’ll be counting the survivors when it’s over, Dr. Shaw.”
“Any estimate would be helpful. I think this is perhaps the first large population center the virus struck. And please, call me Peyton.”
He nodded. “There were about three hundred thousand people here when this began. I expect about ten thousand to survive.”
Peyton sat in shock. “A three percent survival rate?”
“With better care, rehydration salts, the number might double—five or six percent.”
The words hung there like a bell tolling. No one spoke for a long moment. Ebola Zaire killed ninety percent of those it infected. Mandera was even more deadly than that—and in its early days it was as contagious as the common cold. It was the perfect killer.
But why? How was the pandemic connected to the Looking Glass? What was the Looking Glass? What could possibly be worth killing 95% of the world’s population? Or was there another plan?
Conner McClain had all but confessed to having a cure to the virus; finding that cure was the world’s only chance. They needed to start putting the pieces together.
Peyton swallowed. “I really hate to ask. We came here for Hannah, but we were also hoping to find a couple of things.”
Elim raised his eyebrows.
“We need a satphone.”
He nodded.
“And a plane.”
He broke into a smile Peyton couldn’t read. She was reflecting on how outrageous the request was when he said, “I think I can help you.”
When they finished their meal, Elim led them through the building’s main corridor. The facility was in complete disarray. Every room had been ransacked. To Peyton, it looked like a middle school with no teachers, trashed by students running wild. Half-empty boxes littered the hall; desks were overturned, drawers pulled out; supply closets stood open.
Elim opened a locked utility closet. The tiny room was overflowing with electronics—cell phones, tablets, and laptops—like a vault of plastic and silicon treasures.
“When containment broke and everyone started getting sick, the order of this place fell quickly. There were no refugees or aid workers any more. Only survivors and the dying. The aid workers stored their electronics here, hoping they would be of use to someone eventually.”
“You can’t use them?” Desmond asked, surprised.
“You’ll see,” Elim said, a hint of dread in his voice.
An African woman approached them and said, “Dr. Kibet, she’s awake.”
Hannah, Peyton thought.
Avery didn’t wait another second. She grabbed a laptop and a solar charger, stacked a tablet on top, then began piling cell phones up like a Jenga tower, which wobbled after a few seconds.
Desmond eyed her curiously.
“Not sure where we’re headed,” the blonde said. “Satellites might go out. We’ll need phones from European, American, and Asian carriers on different networks.”
The woman always seemed to be a step ahead.
Desmond collected a few phones as well.
Elim pointed to a shelf where a stack of smartphones lay. Attached were the CDC-issued satsleeves. The sight made Peyton’s mouth run dry, like discovering a pile of dog tags from fallen comrades. She stared at the plastic and glass tombstones. How had they gotten here?
She took two of them. One for her, one for Hannah.
Desmond watched Peyton follow Elim back to the OR. He found her compassion for Hannah incredibly endearing. Peyton cared with all her heart. She had poured everything she had into caring for her young colleague—had risked her own life to save her, to bring her this far. He knew one thing: any person on Earth would be lucky to have Peyton Shaw looking out for them.
He felt Avery’s eyes on him, watching him stare as Peyton left. In a way, Desmond found her to be Peyton’s mirror image. They were both headstrong and determined. They cared about their mission, and they didn’t let anything get in their way. Maybe that was why they clashed so much—they were too much alike. But Avery took lives; Peyton saved them.
Desmond felt irresistibly drawn to both women, like a force of nature; him a hunk of metal, them magnets exerting strong pulls in opposite directions. He found each intriguing in different ways. Each woman was a mystery he wanted to solve.
When Peyton slipped out of view, Avery retreated to a conference room and closed the door. The move surprised Desmond. She wanted to be alone. Why?
Ever since she’d shared her story on the helicopter—and even before that—he had questioned whether he could trust her. She could be a plant, assigned to find out where he had hidden the Rendition device.
Or she could be telling the truth.
He pushed the door open. She had spread the phones out on the long table and was activating them.
“I need to check in with my handler,” she said. She turned to him. “You need help?”
He paused, debating whether to stay and see who she called.