Not yet. Everything will be fine. Don’t worry.
At six p.m., Elliott’s office phone rang. He snatched it up and listened, surprised at the voice on the other end: the head of watch at the EOC.
“Elliott, we just got a flood of signals in; this respiratory disease is amplifying. Millions more cases—”
“Uh-huh, uh-huh,” Elliott said, interrupting. “Keep an eye on it. I’ll call you back.”
“But I think—”
“I’ll call you back.”
He hung up the phone and briefly considered calling the director to see if he had tried calling him.
He stood and paced across the room. His blood pressure had to be through the roof. He was glad Rose couldn’t see him. He took a pill bottle from his top desk drawer and swallowed a blood pressure pill.
After what felt like hours, Elliott’s phone rang again.
“All right,” the CDC director said. “They’re putting two RDFs on standby and dispatching an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Aden. The CIA special ops teams at the Mogadishu airport are also on alert. As soon as they have reliable intel about the hostages’ location, they’ll move in.”
“That’s it?”
“It’s all we can do until we know where they are.”
“So, what, we’re going to wait for these kidnappers to webcast their demands? Or maybe force our people to read a statement? Or are we just going to wait and hope somebody gets drunk in a Mogadishu dive bar and mentions some American hostages?”
“What do you want, Elliott?”
“I want special ops raiding those camps in Somalia. We ought to be turning that place upside down.”
“What if they’re not there? What if they’re in Ethiopia, or still in Kenya? Raiding the camps could get American soldiers killed. And it could provoke the kidnappers to kill our people in retribution.”
“First, those soldiers signed up for that,” Elliott said. “Special operatives know the risk, they know they’re putting themselves in harm’s way to save American lives. That’s their job. And when our people deploy, they go out there with a simple assumption: if they get in trouble, the United States of America will come for them. We’re not keeping our promise. How are we going to ask the next class of EIS agents to put themselves in harm’s way if we aren’t willing to protect this class? Huh?”
“I’ll keep you posted, Elliott. Go home. Try to relax.”
The line went dead. Elliott threw the phone across the room. The gray Ethernet cord that connected it to the wall yanked it back like a yo-yo and slammed it into the desk.
His door flew open, and Josh, his assistant, peered in. The younger man always stayed until Elliott left for the day. He looked down at the broken IP phone. “I’ll… call IT.”
When the door closed, Elliott took out his cell phone and dialed an old friend.
“I’ve got a story for you.”
“On the record?”
“Strictly off.”
“Related to the Kenya outbreak, or this new thing?”
“Kenya. CDC employees have been abducted. The White House knows. They’re not doing a damn thing.”
Chapter 37
When Elliott got home, he poured himself a drink and downed it quickly. Then he had another, and sat in the large chair in the corner of his mahogany-paneled office, staring at nothing in particular. His eyes settled on a picture taken seven years ago, in Haiti. He and Peyton were facing the camera, his arm around her. It had been taken the day they found out there were no new cases in the cholera outbreak. That had been a happy day—one of the few during that grueling deployment.
He picked up the remote and turned on the flat-screen TV.
CNN has learned that the abduction took place in eastern Kenya, near the border with Somalia…
Elliott watched the rest of the segment. It ended with: The White House has issued a statement saying they are “following the situation and considering all options for the safe return of American and Kenyan personnel.”
He walked to the kitchen, looking for Rose, but instead found a whole, uncooked chicken in a glass dish on the center island, beside a few chopped vegetables. Rose had texted him to tell him she would cook, and he wondered if something had gone wrong.
Rose had retired from teaching when their first son was born. She had been a wonderful mother. After the death of their youngest son in the pool, she had dedicated much of her time to tending the garden they had created in its place—and to cooking the vegetables she grew there.
The oven was on. Elliott squatted down and hit the light. It was pre-heated but empty.
“Rose?” he called.
No response.
He walked to her office off the kitchen. The day’s mail lay on her desk, unopened.
He found her in their bedroom, lying on top of the comforter, her clothes still on, the lights off. The curtains were open. The setting sun shone through the French doors that led to the patio.
“Rose?”
She didn’t move.
Elliott sat on the edge of the bed and gripped her hand, feeling her pulse with his finger. She was burning up, her heartbeat rapid. He held the back of his hand to her forehead. Definitely running a fever.
She opened her eyes and, upon seeing Elliott, instantly grew worried. She glanced at the clock on the bedside table.
“Oh, no, I must’ve fallen asleep.”
She pushed up on trembling arms, coughed, and fell back to the bed, reaching for the tissue box on the nightstand. Elliott heard the congestion in her chest as she coughed violently into a tissue. There were plenty more used tissues in the wastebasket beside the bed.
“When did you start feeling sick?” he asked.
“Shortly after you left this morning. It’s nothing. I’ve got to get dinner ready.”
Elliott felt her neck. Her lymph nodes were swollen; her body was fighting an infection.
She sneezed into the tissue, then sneezed again. Elliott brought the box closer, leaving it next to her in the bed.
“No, Rose. You’re going to stay in bed, and I’m going to fix dinner.”