Pandemic

"Not necessarily, my humble friend," Nantal said in his buttery smooth French accent. "After all, who helped coordinate their quarantine?" He raised his glass to Streicher. Then he turned to Haldane with a proud, paternal nod. "And was it not you who initiated the livestock slaughter?"

Haldane shrugged.

Nantal looked around the indifferent faces at the table. "Your modesty aside, mes amis." His smile broadened. "It does not hurt for the WHO to get a little credit and positive press now and again. Downplay it all you want, but you've earned this." His hand swept fluidly across the sea of dignitaries and cameras in front of them. "The WHO has earned it. And I for one won't shy away."

"Glad to hear you say that." McLeod pointed at his chest. "Means you won't have any problem with me taking the next three months off."

"Duncan? You're asking for vacation time?" Nantal laughed. "This truly is a day of marvels."

As McLeod was about to respond a waiter tapped Nantal on the shoulder. After a brief whispered exchange, Nantal rose to his feet. "Excuse me, I must take a phone call."

After Nantal left, the speeches began. For the benefit of the WHO team, the deputy premier spoke in English. Haldane had heard the same type of political speech a hundred times before — pure rhetoric and revisionist history. The deputy premier commended the local medical personnel's "heroic battle" against the virus, and hailed their success in halting its spread. He praised the people of Jiayuguan City's bravery as if they had chosen to be fenced in behind barbed wire. He often used the term "we," even though he had kept three thousand miles between himself and the epidemic. And finally, he lauded the WHO team for coming to offer their expertise to the local specialists "where needed," implying that while they had appreciated the help it wasn't actually required.

During the protracted standing ovation for the WHO doctors that followed the speaker's remarks, the same waiter who had pulled Nantal away from the table came for Haldane.

* * *

Nantal sat behind the desk in the borrowed office, speaking urgently in French into the phone's receiver. When he saw Noah at the door, he waved him over to the chair across from his.

When the Frenchman hung up the phone and looked up at Haldane, his face was fixed in a disconsolate frown. Haldane couldn't ever remember seeing Nantal fazed before. His boss looked as if he had aged ten years in the thirty minutes since he'd left the dinner table. "What is it, Jean?" Haldane asked.

Nantal spoke in a quiet subdued tone. "A little girl in a London hospital has tested positive for the virus."

Haldane shook his head, refusing to make the connection. "What virus?"

Nantal just stared at him.

"You're not serious, Jean!" Haldane leaned forward and gripped the edge of the desk. "The Gansu Flu has shown up in London, England?"

Nantal nodded.

Haldane stood without even realizing it. "Has the girl been over here in the last month?"

Nantal shook his head. "She's not Chinese. Neither she nor anyone else in the family has ever been to China."

Haldane lowered himself back into his seat. "Then why do they think it's the Gansu Flu?"

"A PCR probe. Our European Influenza Surveillance ran the blood test. It matched."

Haldane shook his head, unwilling to accept the lab's verdict and its implications. "Then someone in the lab screwed up!"

Nantal stared at Haldane for several seconds. "Noah, there are others," he said softly.

"Others!" Haldane's heart slammed against his rib cage. He took a deep breath. "Okay. Back up, Jean. Tell me what you know."

"There have been five cases reported in London," Nantal said. "They all came from the same exclusive hotel, the Park Plaza Tower, in London's business district One of the victims has already died."

Haldane gritted his teeth. "The little girl?"

"No. A fifty-five-year-old American oil company executive. He was found dead in his hotel room."

The fact that it wasn't the little girl brought a sense of irrational relief to Haldane. The shock subsided. His mind raced, already planning steps ahead. "Do we have the index case?" he asked.

Nantal ran a thumb and a finger along his eyebrows and then shook his head. "None of the victims have traveled to China in the last three months."

"So someone else brought it over," Haldane said. "All right, who was the first to become sick?"

"We will never know when the oil company executive first developed symptoms, but the four-year-old girl was the first to be hospitalized."

"When?" Haldane demanded.

"Three days ago."

"One more day and she'll make it," Haldane mumbled to himself.

Nantal tilted his head. "I'm sorry, Noah, I do not follow."

"Nothing." Haldane tapped the desktop in front of him. "The other cases, Jean. When were they first reported?"