Stinger Page 4

Farlow said slowly, “P. falciparum has a high rate of spontaneous mutation. Christ, six percent of its genome is already devoted to antigenic variation. And part of its life cycle is sexual, with more chances for frame shifts. This mutation could have arisen completely spontaneously.”

  “Or,” Melanie said, “it could have been genetically engineered.”

  “Melanie—”

  “In which case we might be looking at an attempt at racial genocide.”

  Farlow held up a hand. He knew her history: Black Panthers, the arrest for anti-apartheid demonstrations, activism for various black causes, her refusal to date white men, although she accepted them as friends. Melanie had always felt he’d had reservations about her, at the same time that he admired her scientific work. The combination made him uneasy—but that should be his problem, not hers.

  “Look,” Farlow said, “let’s take it one step at a time, okay? Without any premature theories. First, I’m going to have somebody else repeat your tests, Melanie, before we even consider vectors. Just as a check. But you’re on the epidemiology team for this, of course.”

  She said grimly, “Just try to keep me off it.”

  Interim

  The child lay in her bed, listening to her mother yell at her older sister.

  “Don’ never gonna get anywhere in this life if you don’ go back to school … no more sense ’n a baby … stuck all the resta her life on some dyin’ tobacco farm … sixteen years ol’ and she think she know everything in God’s green world …” Bang. Bang. BANG.

  The child smiled. The first bang, and the last one, was Mamma clapping around cooking pots, which she always did when she was mad at Rhonda. The middle bang was Rhonda, slamming the screen door as she stamped out of the house. None of this upset Kwansia. It was morning. It was normal.

  And it was Saturday.

  Soundlessly, Kwansia slipped from her bed. The room was tiny, furnished with only a battered dresser and thin-mattressed bed. The screen on the window bellied inward, worn soft as old cloth, loose at the edges. The child was careful not to tear it any further as she raised the window and climbed through.

  The day was beeee-uuuu-ti-ful! That was the way Kwansia’s kindergarten teacher always said it: beeee-uuuu-ti-ful! When school ended in a few weeks, Kwansia would miss Mrs. Calthorne, but not very much. It was too summery out, and summer was too much fun, and right now sunshine made the water on the big farm pond shine like it was gold.

  Barefoot, she padded across the back field, keeping out of sight both of her mother’s kitchen window and of Rhonda, sulking at the road as she waited for the bus to town. Kwansia wiggled her toes in the grass, which felt so good she started to trot, just to have even more grass stroke her feet. Someone mowed yesterday; the grassy smell was fresh and sweet. Heaven, Kwansia thought, was going to smell exactly like Mr. Thayer’s farm just after it done got mowed.

  She stopped, out of breath, by the cow barn. Kwansia liked cows. She liked the way they looked at her, like they was thinking, chewing their grass gum. She liked the kittens in the hay loft, their eyes just open. She liked—

  Something sharp stung her arm. Kwansia jumped, shook herself all over, then looked down. The mosquito was still there. Instead of slapping it again, Kwansia raised her arm until the mosquito was inches from her face. It didn’t fly away. She stared at it, fascinated.

  Its nose was stuck right in her skin! How did it do that? Almost as dark as her arm, the mosquito balanced on six long skinny legs. There were white dots on its wings. It looked so funny, bent over like that, almost standing on its head to eat little bits of her.

  “I got lots,” the child told the mosquito. “Everything on God’s green earth got to eat.” Her mother often said that.

  “Kwansia, where you at? You outside again without no shoes?”

  Guilty, Kwansia yelled, “Here, Mama!”

  “You get in here and eat your breakfas’!”

  The child brushed the mosquito off her arm and ran toward the house through the glorious spring morning. The mosquito, sated, flew toward the quiet waters of Thayer’s pond.

  Three

  Fidelity, bravery, integrity.

  —FBI motto

  * * *

  Cavanaugh arrived at Rivermount Junior High, a consolidated school district, just as the bell rang to change classes. The central hallway, which moments before had been a peaceful, locker-lined thoroughfare, instantly took on the character of the D.C. beltway during a nuclear evacuation.

  Cavanaugh flattened himself against the wall in self-protection. He hadn’t set foot in a junior high since he’d been in junior high, and surely then it hadn’t looked like this? All the boys looked like runts inexplicably dressed in clothes three sizes too big for them. All the girls looked like hookers. Makeup, big hair, short skirts, developed figures—these girls couldn’t possibly be the same age as the boys pushing past them. They looked at least five years older and from another culture entirely. Some of them were also dazzlingly pretty.

  After the stampede had slowed, Cavanaugh found the principal’s office and was escorted to the Large Group Instruction Area, a term he’d never heard before, which turned out to be the cafeteria with a stage built at one end. The eighth grade, eight to a table, awaited him. As he mounted the podium, every male eyed the bulge of his gun, including the teachers. He had no idea what the girls eyed, and didn’t want to think about it.

  “Hello. My name is Robert Cavanaugh, special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  Feminine titters from a table off to the right. What was so funny about that?

  “I’m here today to talk to you about careers in the FBI. The Bureau needs bright, ambitious young people, and by the time you finish college, it will need even more of them.”

  Titters from a table to the left. A blonde Madonna-wanna-be put her perfectly manicured finger between her bright red lips and made a discreet barfing sound. A teacher stood up and directed “The Teacher Look” at that table. Cavanaugh inwardly cursed the Adopt-a-School Community Outreach Program and whatever underemployed moron had dreamed it up.

  But they warmed as he talked, or at least enough of them did so that no other teacher had to stand and give The Look. Cavanaugh covered the standard information: FBI mission, programs, successes, opportunities, employment requirements. Then he threw it open for questions.

  An intense-looking black kid in a Dilbert T-shirt stood. “Agent Cavanaugh, how closely do you monitor the Ku Klux Klan activities on the Internet? I don’t just mean their Home Page, but the information going by in the chat rooms and stuff like that.”

  Cavanaugh shifted his weight behind the podium. He had received intelligence about the local chapter of the KKK, of course, but he had no idea they had a Home Page, much less chat rooms. That was the sort of thing monitored by analysts, not agents, who received the information in hard copy as they needed or requested it. And 70 percent of Cavanaugh’s civil rights cases, like agents’ everywhere, concerned not racial discrimination but alleged police brutality. Although they were often the same thing.

  However, looking down into that serious, intense young face, Cavanaugh didn’t want to say any of this. For the first time, he realized that the black eighth graders and the whites, with few exceptions, sat at separate tables.

  “The Bureau stays on top of Klan developments in every form the information is offered. All agents receive instruction in computer use during initial training at Quantico, and refresher courses afterwards as needed.”

  The kid nodded and sat down, evidently too young to realize that Cavanaugh had said nothing. A girl stood. “How much money does an FBI agent make? How much do you get?”

  “Pay scale depends on position and length of service. And you really don’t expect me to stand up here and tell you my personal income, do you? The IRS might be listening.”

  That got a laugh. Other kids asked about weapons training, fingerprinting, UFOs (The X-Files had a lot to answer for), bombing cases, and if he’d
ever met the president. Then a boy stood near the back. Taller than most, he looked as if he had no flesh at all, only skin stretched over bones as sharp as chisels. His hair, skin, and eyes were all the same color, pale as dry sand. He blinked twice and said, “Does the FBI ever hire entomologists?”

  The whole room exploded into laughter. Cavanaugh couldn’t see why, except that it seemed to be provoked by the kid himself, not the question. Catcalls from all over: “Go back under your rock, Insect Boy!” “What a dork!” “Earl, you look like one of your bugs!” Three teachers stood and gave The Look. One also clapped his hands and called out, “People! People!” The students ignored him. Then the bell rang. The eighth grade grabbed its book bags and fled as if from chemical contamination. The teachers followed the students.

  Only Earl didn’t move. He stood rooted, staring at Cavanaugh. In sixty seconds, the room was empty except for Cavanaugh, Earl, and the principal. Cavanaugh addressed this minuscule audience, since clearly Earl was not going to budge until he did.

  “The FBI has what it calls Professional Support Personnel positions, who do jobs like computer specialist, lab technician, photographer. I don’t know if Professional Support Personnel includes an entomologist, but I would guess not. When we need technical science advice outside of the usual forensic activities, the Bureau often consults with scientists at the National Institutes of Health, which is right outside Washington in Bethesda.”

  Cavanaugh, proud of this answer, waited for Earl to nod and leave. He didn’t. Instead he blinked his pale eyes twice and said, “You ought to have an entomologist.”

  “Well, as I explained—”

  Two more blinks. “Insects tell us a lot about everything.”

  “Thank you, Earl,” said the principal. “Now you should go to your next class.”

  Earl threw the principal a look of utter despair, startling on that bony, washed-out face, and slouched off. The principal climbed the stage steps to Cavanaugh.

  “Interesting boy, that Earl Lester. Absolutely fanatical about insects, and knows everything there is to know about the latest research. But somewhat deficient in social skills, as you saw, which unfortunately evokes a negative reaction from his insecure peers.”

  Cavanaugh wondered why principals talked like that. The principal walked him to the main entrance, mingling jargon and thanks.

  Back in his office in Leonardtown, he sat at his computer, accessed Web Crawler, and typed in KU KLUX KLAN. And there it was: the KKK Home Page, with a history section, frequently asked questions, organization listings (including the chapter in Robert’s jurisdiction), and pictures. In fact it looked depressingly like the FBI Home Page, except that the Klan couldn’t spell (“upholding there tradition”). Web Crawler also gave him sites for chat groups about the Klan. He found one billing itself as WHITE PRIDE OF MARYLAND and followed a few of its message linkages through the hateful, pathetic conversation:

  I WANT TO BE IN THE KLAN WHEN I’M OLDER. EVERY WHERE I GO ALL THE NIGGERS ARE CUTTING ME DOWN AND I DON’T LIKE IT ANYMORE.

  TIM—I WANT TO BE IN THE KLAN TOO. OKAY DO WHAT YOU WANT, AND DON’T LET ANYBODY TRY AND STOP YOU.

  BLACK POWER!!! HEY TO ALL OF U INBREEDERS FROM THE KLAN. IM JUST WONDERING WHATS GOING ON IN YOUR LITTLE BRAINS. IM NOT BLACK, BUT ME AND ALMOST THE REST OF THE WORLD LOVE THEM. ON THE OTHER HAND JUST WHERE ARE BLACKS ACCEPTED IN THIS WORLD? ANYONE WANT THEM? HOW ABOUT AFRICA? NO. THEY ARE KILLING EACH OTHER BY THE THOUSANDS. BECAUSE BLACK BEHAVE WITHOUT CLASS AND DIGNITY, NO BODY EVER WILL ACCEPT THEM UNTIL THEY TRY AND ACT LIKE THE REST OF US.

  HEY DOES ANY BODY KNOW ABOUT THIS BUNCH OF STROKES KILLING NIGGERS IN KING GEORGE VA? MY COUZIN IS A ORDERLY AT MEMORIAL HOSPITAL AND HE SAYS THEY HAVE WAY TO MANY NIGGERS DYING OF STROKES. GESS WHAT I SAID BACK?!!

  Cavanaugh straightened in his chair. He dragged his cursor to the SAVE icon on his PC.

  The Potomac River Bridge on Highway 301 connected Charles County, Maryland, to King George County, Virginia. Driving over it, Cavanaugh noticed the giant water-borne mowing machine cutting channels through hydrilla, an aquatic weed that had sneaked into the U.S. from someplace else. The channels ran from launching ramps and marinas to the open water of the Potomac. Without constant mowing, the hydrilla, which sprouted as fast as eighth-grade girls, would wrap itself around boat propellers. The machine whirred along; above the driver’s head hummed a cloud of insects.

  Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hospital in Dahlgren, Virginia, was about the same size as Dellridge. Cavanaugh talked to the director, who showed the same paranoid distaste as Dellridge about the idea that blacks might not receive equal health care to whites. Nor did he believe Cavanaugh when Cavanaugh said that wasn’t his concern. But he gave Cavanaugh the information he wanted and didn’t want:

  In the last three weeks, cerebral strokes in black patients had occurred at triple the usual rate. There had been no change in rates for other ethnic groups, except for Indians from northern India.

  “Indians?” Cavanaugh said.

  “Yes. We have a growing Indian population, many of whom are doctors employed by our numerous pharmaceutical firms. Three Indians have had similar strokes in the last two-and-a-half weeks, which I have to admit does seem a little unusual, especially since two were comparatively young. And three came from Jamnagar. Does that help?”

  “Afraid not,” Cavanaugh said, noting that the director had turned much more cooperative when discussing Indian stroke victims at Memorial Hospital than black stroke victims. Federal civil rights laws did not extend special protection to Indians. “Were autopsies done on these stroke patients?”

  “I’d have to check, but I imagine they were on at least some of them, the ones who didn’t fit the profile for a stroke—you know, much younger than average, nonhypertensive, no elevated cholesterol, things like that.”

  “Would you please fax me copies of those autopsy reports?”

  “Certainly,” the director said, clearly not happy. “May I ask just what the FBI’s concern is here?”

  “I’m sorry, I’m not able to say,” Cavanaugh said, which was certainly true. He was fishing in the dark. “One more question, Doctor. It’s true that an autopsy only finds those things it’s looking for, right? I mean, anything large like a gunshot wound would be noticed, but subtle stuff, slight metabolism differences, something like that, that wouldn’t show up in a routine autopsy, would it?”

  “Such as what?”

  Cavanaugh had no idea. “Just … differences among brains? Or blood?” He sounded lame even to himself.

  The director said neutrally, “It’s true that an autopsy includes some tests and not others, since there are literally hundreds of different tests it’s possible to perform on a dead body.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “One more thing, Agent Cavanaugh. I just want to add that Soldiers and Sailors Memorial has an outstanding commitment to providing quality care to all our patients. And the record to prove it.”

  They were almost exactly the same words used by the director at Dellridge. Maybe, Cavanaugh thought, hospital administrators had to memorize set speeches, the way law-enforcement officers had to memorize the Miranda Rights. That made sense, when you thought about it. On the whole, Cavanaugh approved. The whole world would be better off if it ran by shared and easily recognizable rules.

  The thing is, I don’t feel I know the rules here,” Judy said. “In our relationship, I mean.”

  She and Cavanaugh sat on their tiny deck in the red twilight, sipping wine. Judy, who disapproved of pesticides on ecological grounds, had installed a bug lamp on the deck so they could sit there after dark without being nibbled alive by mosquitoes. Every few seconds a hapless insect flew into the lamp’s purple light, was fried by an electric field, and dropped to the deck. Small insects made a quiet zap as they fried; moths made a loud ZAP! that made Cavanaugh’s neck crawl. He had read that bug zappers were actually ineffective against mosquitoes; 99 percent of what they fried were some other bugs. Ho
wever, he didn’t mention this to Judy. Things were fragile enough already.

  “I’ve been trying to see this from your point of view, Robert,” Judy said in a reasonable voice. “I know you do care for me.”

  “Yes, I do,” Cavanaugh said.

  “And I can understand that you’re reluctant to risk another marital failure.”

  “Yes.”

  “What I can’t understand is your belief that we would be a failure.”

  Zap.

  “I mean, Robert … I’m not Marcy.”

  “I know you’re not.”

  “Although sometimes I think you wish I were.”

  Zap!

  “No,” Cavanaugh said carefully. “I don’t wish you were Marcy.”

  Judy looked out toward the river. Boat lights moved on the dark water. By the purple light of the bug zapper Cavanaugh could see she was trying very hard not to cry, to stay calm and reasonable. This made him feel worse. Judy was not a calm person, she was intense and open, that was one of the things that had attracted him. And now he resented her for it. Was that fair?

  Could it be true that he wanted her to be more like Marcy? Cool, controlled Marcy, who never got upset or hurt by anything he did, thereby letting him just be himself …

  Zap.

  Judy said, “Sometimes I think you don’t really know what you want.”

  I want this conversation to end. “Judy, I … I’m just not ready.”

  Her tone shifted. “And when do you think you’ll be ready?”

  “Don’t push me.” The second he said it, he knew he shouldn’t have. But she surprised him. Instead of getting hurt or angry, she said with genuine contrition, “I’m sorry. I have been pushing, haven’t I? That can’t feel very good to you. I mean, your point of view is just as valid as mine.”