Pandemic

"There have been some attacks by a man not too far from the mosque." Eleish shook his head gravely. "The monster is targeting pious women. Women who wear the hijab. And Sharifa…" He snapped his fingers as if searching his memory for the surname.

"Sha'rawi," the short woman supplied it for him.

"Yes, of course," he said. "We have one body. Excuse me, ladies, for my frank description, but it is in such a condition that we cannot identify it. We have no reason to believe that Sharifa Sha'rawi is this woman, but we know that she has been missing since before we found the body…" He let the implication hang in the hot air.

The third woman who hadn't spoken a single word in Eleish's presence uttered a gasp and swayed on her feet. The tall woman shot out a hand to steady her.

Eleish heard the sound of shouts. He looked over the women's heads to see two robed men advancing quickly toward them and yelling to him.

"You have been most helpful." Eleish swiveled and began to walk away. "I will be in touch soon with hopefully good news of Sharifa's safe discovery."

He strode quickly for his car, resisting the urge to run. He hopped into the driver's seat and started the ignition before glancing in the rearview mirror. The two men had stopped to question the women, but he could see their irate faces fixed on him as he pulled out and drove away.

Driving back into Cairo's smoggy congestion, Eleish was sweating; more than just from heat. Now that he had traced the terrorist in Vancouver back to Kabaal's own mosque, he was convinced beyond a doubt that he had linked the man to the bioterrorist conspiracy. He felt deeply satisfied to finally validate years of suspicion, but by doing so, he realized he had just endangered his life along with those of his wife and daughters.

CHAPTER 25

VANCOUVER, CANADA

Gwen Savard sat at the desk in her spacious "executive suite" on the thirty-second-floor of the Harbourview Hotel, gloomily staring out the window at world-famous Stanley Park, Coal Harbour, and the snow-dusted North Shore Mountains beyond. Gwen was as close as she was going to get — for the next four days, at least — to the glorious December sunshine outside.

Jake Maguchi's coughing fit sentenced Gwen and Noah to a minimum of five days in quarantine. Noah had had to fight to convince the authorities that while symptom-free Gwen and he presented no risk to the general public and required only isolation. When the staff at the American Consulate finally came around, they insisted on quarantining the two doctors in style at the five-star Vancouver hotel.

The staff set up a functional office for Gwen, including fax, two phone lines, high-speed Internet, and computer with video-conferencing capability. Though fully connected to the outside world, she couldn't shake her sense of solitude.

Haldane had made light of the situation, comparing his predicament to a bomb squad technician who had stepped on a land mine he was supposed to diffuse. Gwen suspected that behind his relaxed exterior, he shared her fear of the unknown, but his professionalism never wavered. From the moment Maguchi collapsed, Haldane — in spite of potential exposure to the deadly virus — stuck by the pathologist's side, refusing to relinquish his care until convinced Jake was in safe hands. A scientist, not a physician, Gwen had little to do but stand back and admire Noah's cool competence and gentle bedside manner.

Noah's selfless efforts seemed to have been in vain. Gwen had spoken earlier to one of the doctors at the ICU who told her: "Dr. Maguchi is fighting an uphill battle." When pressed, the weary doctor added, "It will require a miracle of biblical proportions for him to survive another twenty-four hours."

Though Savard had only known Maguchi for minutes, she had warmed to him right away. Not only did his dismal prognosis sadden her, it heightened her own sense of vulnerable captivity.

Gwen's reflex response to a challenge had always been to step beyond her comfort zone and into the eye of adversity, but now adversity had entrapped her. She had no choice but to wait and see if the virus, from which she was supposed to protect her country, infected her. The specter of failure loomed all around. She tried to quell the memories of being the little girl who always managed to disappoint her mother, but she couldn't shake the feeling that the child had grown up to fail her entire nation.