Pandemic

"She sounds like a bigwig," Jackson said. "Her title's a mouthful, anyway. Director of Counter-Bioterrorism for the Department of Homeland Security."

"Sure. I met her at a conference." He remembered her fiery intensity as much as her California-girl good looks. "What does she want?"

"She wouldn't tell little old me," Jackson said. "But she left about forty numbers for you to call her at."

Haldane patted around the nightstand until he found a pen and a pad. "Give me the first two," he said.

After she recited the numbers, she asked, "When are you coming home?"

"Soon as I can, Karen."

"Good," Jackson said. "I know that little girl of yours is missing her daddy."

Not as much as her dad is missing her, Haldane thought as he hung up. With the phone still in his hand, he dialed the operator.

On the second ring, someone answered. "Hello, Haldane residence."

He experienced another rush of disappointment as he realized he was talking to his mother-in-law, Shirley Dolman, not his wife. "Hi, Shirley, it's Noah."

"Oh, my goodness, I'm talking to China," Dolman said as if the entire country had called her. "How are you, Noah?"

"Fine," he said. "How is everything back home?"

"Things are well," Dolman said in her syrupy tone. "Chloe is asleep. And I'm afraid Anna is out with a friend."

"With a friend," Haldane repeated. He checked his watch, and recalculated. It was after 10:00 P.M. in Maryland. "Did she say whom?" he asked.

"No, matter of fact she didn't," Dolman said. "But she said she wouldn't be home until after midnight. They were going to a late movie, you see."

"Oh."

"She left her cell phone on in case of something with Chloe. I'm sure you can reach her on that, Noah."

"Great, thanks, Shirley. You take care."

Haldane dropped the phone back on the cradle. He had no intention of trying his wife's cell. Why interrupt her movie? he thought. Not that he believed she was at the theater, but movie or not, Haldane couldn't shake his absolute conviction that Anna was with her.

* * *

It was near dusk by the time the officials arranged for a car to take Haldane and McLeod out to the site of quarantine in the northeast section of Jiayuguan City.

Staring out the window of the car, images of Tiananmen Square from the student uprising in 1989 popped to Haldane's mind. The sight turned his stomach. He had once dabbled in student activism during his undergrad days. While the students at Tiananmen had to face firing squads or the caterpillar tracks of tanks rolling toward them, all Haldane got out of his activism was a security escort back to his dorm.

There were no tanks in Jiayuguan, but trucks and military vehicles were plentiful. Masked soldiers patrolled the streets, rifles slung prominently over their shoulders. Several muscular German shepherds strained at leashes. A barbed-wire fence snaked around the far side of the street, isolating an entire section of the city.

"These lads don't mess around when it comes to quarantining," McLeod said, his wide eyes surveying the scene outside the window.

"What the hell are they doing?" Haldane said.

McLeod nodded. "They're doing it right, Noah."

Haldane frowned at his colleague. "You don't honestly believe that?"

"How else do you stop it from escalating?" McLeod pointed out the window, as if identifying individual viral particles standing behind the barbed wire.

"You set up a real quarantine with reasonable checks and balances," Haldane said. "You don't create a concentration camp for victims!"

Their driver waved a hand and pointed ahead as the car approached a break in the barbed wire. "See, the people come in and out through there."

With a makeshift hut, a swing gate, and numerous masked guards, it resembled a sci-fi version of one of the old Cold War checkpoints between East and West Berlin. Their car pulled up across from the checkpoint. Before the driver had switched off his engine, Haldane and McLeod hopped out of the car and headed for the action.

With back doors wide open, two empty ambulances had pulled up in front of the gate. Among the official personnel milling about, Haldane recognized the chief health officer, Yung Se Choy. His uniform resembled something the police or fire brass back home wore to formal occasions. It changed Choy's appearance, filling him out and making him look more important than the nervous bureaucrat he had earlier seemed. But the tousled mop of hair and barely concealed cleft lip scar were unmistakable.

Haldane caught up with Choy in front of the gate. "Hello, Dr. Haldane," Choy said with a slight bow.

"Mr Choy, what is all this?" Haldane indicated the barbed wire and guards.

McLeod and their driver joined the two of them at the gate. The driver began to translate Haldane's question, but Choy answered in English before he could finish. "A quarantine," Choy shrugged, appearing amazed that it wasn't self-evident.

"This is not a quarantine," Haldane shook his head angrily. "This is a siege."