Page 44 of Viral Justice

“Welcome,cousin,” he said in Arabic to Max. He spread his arms and Max went along with the triple cheek kiss that was the way men greeted their relatives in this part of the world.

“I’m sorry it took so long to get here,” Max replied in the same language.

“No, no, don’t apologize. The world is a crazy place, yes?” He put a hand on Max’s back and guided him and his three shadows to a house near the outskirts of the village proper. A tent had been attached to it, doubling its size.

Max’s cousin opened a flap and waved the four of them in.

The tent had been added to the front of the house. The front door stood open and a sort of clay potbelly stove sat in the middle of the canvas room. All around it were people on cots and pallets. People who were coughing.

Max immediately pulled his mask and gloves out of his pocket and put them on.

Ali, Bull, and Tom followed suit.

Max’s cousin pulled one up out of the scarves around his neck and hooked it around his ears.

There were fourteen people that he could see on the cots and pallets.

“Are there more sick inside the house?”

“Yes, cousin.” The man’s voice was sad. “Many more. All day the sick have been coming to see grandmother, but she died an hour ago and we have no more medicine. Did you bring any with you?”

Not enough for all these people. “Is there somewhere I can show you?” Max glanced at the other bags.

“Yes, yes. Come.” Cousin led them into the house and to what might have been a bedroom, but it was mostly empty. Two dirty and stained windows filtered the winter sun, turning the room a hazy grayish brown.

Max put his duffel down and nodded at Ali, Bull and Tom to do the same. He stepped close to his cousin and said in English, “Are we safe?”

Cousin replied in kind. “No. My name is Jonah Cornett. I’m with the Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development. The ACTED is a French disaster relief organization. Dr. Amanda Beaulieu from the WHO contacted you...Dr. Maximillian?” For the first time the man sounded uncertain.

“Yes, Colonel Maximillian with the US Army’s Biological Rapid Response Team. Dr. Beaulieu asked for an infectious disease specialist to come and identify the pathogen making all those people sick.” Max glanced back through the doorway into the house full of sick people. “Where is Dr. Beaulieu?”

“We thought we had an influenza,” Cornett said absently. He shook himself like a wet dog trying to dislodge water, and continued in a stronger tone. “But half the people who were sick last night have died.”

“How many is that?”

“Thirty.”

“Where are the dead? I didn’t see any bodies as we came in.”

“The locals have a place up in the hills where they bury their dead. I don’t know if they’re all in the ground, but most of the bodies were taken away.”

A cold rock formed in Max’s gut. “Thirty, that’s eighteen more sick and twenty-six more dead than I knew about.”

“In the past four hours, a dozen people have stumbled into this house, three of them are already dead.”

Holy fuck.“Of what?”

Cornett shrugged. “Pneumonia?”

“What symptoms did they present with when they arrived?”

“A high fever, vomiting, dehydration, and a wet, racking cough.”

Pneumonia?Sudden onset of fever and vomiting followed by dehydration, pneumonia, and death. Pneumonia was a common secondary infection of flu, but it didn’t usually happen so fast. Could this be a swine flu outbreak?

“It’s the blood that’s upsetting people.”

Cornett’s words took a moment to register. “Blood?”

---