Chapter 34. Kigoma
After arriving in the small African city of Kigoma, C.I.A. Agent Jimmy Pond spoke to some local citizens and learned the location of the Kigoma Missionary Baptist Hospital. One of the citizens had mentioned that the hospital was “gone.” Pond had a hard time understanding the citizen until he drove their small SUV over a beat-up and potholed asphalt road and cleared the crest of a small hill. Below their location about a half mile away were the black-charred ruins and burned timbers of a previously-existing structure. Murielle Winston was aghast.
“If that is what’s left of the hospital, I think we are in big trouble.”
Pond pulled the SUV up to the site. Two men clearing up debris told the team that the hospital had exploded about a week or two beforehand. When Pond asked the cause of the explosion, the men told him that the hospital had been leveled by a natural gas explosion. Yes, many patients had died. Yes, some foreign doctors had also died. The men directed Pond to the fire chief’s office down the road.
The team pulled up to a small one-story house and entered the office of the fire chief, Chief Wengi. The short, skinny bald African fire chief was sitting at a small desk, wearing khaki shorts and a khaki shirt. Pond looked on the wall, seeing numerous certificates, and put together that the fire chief also doubled as the police chief, the health inspector, and the game warden. Pond introduced himself as an American health investigator from the CDC and flashed the chief a fake badge. The other members of the team entered the small office and flanked around Pond. Pond addressed the chief in Swahili, which the chief seemed to understand.
“Chief, these are my associates from the Centers for Disease Control in America. We are investigating a potentially dangerous virus which originated in a Watongwe village about five miles south of Kasiha. There were two youngsters who contracted the virus. We have learned that their parents took them to the Kigoma Missionary Baptist Church. What can you tell us?”
“Yes, the sick boys. I heard about that. Some of the people in our town are very superstitious, and they did not understand when they saw the doctors walking around in their suits. They looked like they were from outer space. I got a lot of calls.”
“How did the hospital explode?” asked Pond.
“Natural gas explosion. Must have been a leak.”
“Has any team explored the site to determine cause and origin?
The chief did not understand what he meant by “cause and origin,” but after Pond explained, the chief laughed.
“Inspector Pond,” said the chief, “We do not have dedicated teams of fire investigators just sitting around waiting for an explosion, like you do in America. I am the police chief, the fire chief, the health inspector, and the game warden. We have limited resources.”
“Have you done any investigation?” asked Pond. “Because I can have a team here by tomorrow morning to go through everything—with your permission, of course.”
“The Italians have already sent a team of people. They are down at the site now. But you are welcome to bring your own people if you want.”
“Where are the bodies?”
“The bodies?”
“Of the people killed in the explosion.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” said the chief. “We have them in wooden coffins behind the boat house. We have not had time to sort through them yet.”
Murielle Winston stepped forward. “The bodies were not kept in cold storage?”
The chief looked at her with skepticism. He was not used to taking criticism from a woman. “Miss….?”
“Agent Murielle Winston.”
“Ms. Winston, we have very few refrigeration systems here. We are used to the heat.”
Agent Pond shook the chief’s hand. “Chief, we are going to need your help. We are concerned that this virus could spread to Kigoma and beyond. Do you have any other deputies or officers?”
“Yes, we have about twenty men who act as volunteers.”
“OK, I would greatly appreciate it if you could get your men to form a perimeter around the city, and prevent anyone from getting in or out until we sort this out.”
“That will create a lot of chaos and make a lot of people angry. What will I tell them?” asked the chief.
“Tell them the truth. Tell them we have a deadly virus which could kill them, that everyone should remain in their homes for now.”
The chief looked skeptical and shook his head, unsure of what to do.
Bjorn Jendel spoke next. “Chief, this is one of the deadliest viruses the world has ever seen. It is an airborne form of Ebola. We have no cure for it. If you catch it, it will kill you. Our plan is to set up a testing site on the north end of Kigoma. Then we can have your villagers come to the tent one at a time and we will test them for the virus. This will take some time, but it is the best way to ensure that no one has contracted the virus.”
The chief considered. He knew his citizens would object to the quarantine. On the other hand, he did not want anyone to die.
“OK, I will do it. But you need to make sure that your testing goes as fast as possible.”
“Chief, we will also take you up on your generous offer to allow our fire investigation teams and forensic examiners to check out the site and the bodies from the explosion. In the meantime, we will go down to the hospital site, and take a look at the remains of the bodies ourselves. Thank you for your help.”
The team exited the small office and huddled around for a quick meeting.
Bjorn Jendel spoke first. “Our first duty here is to make sure that this virus does not spread. Therefore, I am going to take responsibility for the testing site. Jacob, help me get some tables and a tent set up. Murielle, I need you to start talking to villagers to see what they know. Go with Agent Pond, because he speaks the language. Did the boys and their parents stay at the hospital the whole time? Did anyone leave the hospital? We need to know if this has spread.”
Captain Roger Tsung had a different angle. He was on this task force to make sure that terrorism was not involved. He thought that the convenient timing of the explosion was suspect. “I am going to talk to the Italian teams down at the explosion site. I will meet up with you later. In the meantime, I am going to call my contact at the FBI and get an FBI bomb and arson investigation team, an FBI medical examiner and forensics team, and appropriate facilities to store and transport the bodies.”
Tsung left the group and walked down the dirt road towards the hospital site. As he walked, he made dozens of calls back to Fort Detrick and to the FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. After Tsung relayed his instructions, preparations were made to send reinforcements that evening by Chinook helicopter to Kigoma. Tsung then called a contact at the DIA and requested an interpreter who spoke Italian to get on the phone with him immediately. After ten minutes, Tsung received a call back. An interpreter was on the line to help him speak to the Italian investigators already on site.
Tsung walked with his iPhone in hand over piles of twisted black debris and spoke to an older man wearing jeans, hiking boots, and a green T-shirt. Through the interpreter on the phone, Tsung shook the Italian investigator’s hand and identified himself:
“I am Roger Tsung. I am with the American Centers for Disease Control,” he lied. Tsung did not want to announce to the other man that he was with the military.
“I am Fire Inspector Paulo Pogrizi.”
“I heard you had some doctors on site here,” said Tsung.
“Yes, we did,” said Pogrizi. “All dead. We had three scientists. We found three burned bodies inside the remnants of RACAL suits, with charred oxygen tanks strapped to their backs.”
“How about the other people in the hospital?
“We have a total of twenty-five bodies or parts of bodies, including the three Italian doctors.”
“This look natural to you or was there any sign of foul play?”
Pogrizi looked at Tsung nervously, as if he was unsure whether he should give this information to a foreigner. Then again, Italy and the United States were allies, and it was in both of their interests to get to the bottom of what happened here. Pogrizi decided to give Tsung the information, and walked him through the black debris over to the remains of the staircase to the basement.
“Careful walking through here. Fire started in the basement, no question about that. Burn patterns show that. It was definitely a gas explosion, but it looks to me like someone sawed through one of the copper gas lines in the basement.”
Pogrizi walked over to a cleared area and showed Tsung a table with some items laid on the top. On the table was a piece of copper tubing. Pogrizi picked up the piece and showed the end to Tsung.
“You can see the hacksaw marks right here. These marks were not made as a result of the explosion. These are saw marks, no question about it. And take a look at this.”
Pogrizi picked up a charred tire iron off the table. “We found this inserted between the two metal handles of the front doors to the hospital. I think we have an arsonist who put the tire iron through the door handles to prevent anyone from coming out.”
Tsung looked at the evidence. It definitely looked like arson. Pogrizi then walked over to the street, where a fluorescent orange painted line ran down the street away from the hospital. Another Italian investigator was taking pictures of the orange line.
“And look at this. This is a narrow, burn trail leading away from the hospital, which turns a corner and goes behind the alley up there. We had it marked with orange paint to delineate it for evidentiary purposes. This is the classic calling card of the arsonist. Our team has concluded that the arsonist disconnected the gas service line, waited until the gas levels built up in the basement, and then poured a gasoline trail leading from the basement, out the front doors and down the street into this alley. He lit the trail of gas with a match and then walked away.”
Tsung nodded his head. It seemed conclusive.
“Any suspects?” asked Tsung.
“That’s not my job, but we have some other team members going door-to-door taking a canvass. In my mind, though, I would look to some Tanzanian local, who heard about the virus and then became frightened that the virus would spread. I figure he got spooked and thought burning the place down was the only way to stay safe.”
“Makes sense. But if he was that afraid of the virus, why would he go into the hospital to cut the gas line? He would be risking exposing himself to the virus.”
“I don’t know. This thing really angers me,” said the Italian investigator. “Three of our scientists were flown here specifically to help them. It kind of makes you wonder why we help people in other countries.”
Tsung nodded, not saying anything in response. Tsung was a soft-spoken man of few words. He preferred to keep his thoughts and opinions to himself. Tsung took pictures of the copper line, the tire iron, the orange line, and the other pieces of evidence, as well as the charred ruins left by the blast. Tsung asked the Italian man if he had a list of the names of the dead. Pogrizi directed him to another Italian team member, sitting on a piece of plywood and working on a laptop. The assistant handed Tsung a list of names. Tsung surveyed the list and frowned. Something did not look right.
“Where did you get the names for this list?” asked Tsung.
“The patient records for the Kigoma Missionary Baptist Hospital are kept on a common computer server with a sister hospital in Dar es Salaam. The server is located in Dar es Salaam. We were able to access patient records from that hospital’s database to come up with a list of the sixteen patients. That figure includes the two brothers who contracted the virus and the two parents of the boys. The Chief of Police told us that there were four nurses and two doctors. That makes twenty-two. Then we have the three Italians from the Institute Nationale-- Guido Macchione, Antonio Paciello, and Matteo Graciano. That brings the grand total to twenty-five.”
Tsung studied the list. “I think you are missing one,” Tsung said to the assistant, comparing the list the assistant had given him with the e-mail from the CDC. “Where is the uncle?”
“What uncle?”
“There was an uncle.” Tsung took out his handwritten notes on a legal pad. “The boys had an uncle, whose name was Elvis, who also came to the hospital.”
“If he was a patient, his name would be in the system.”
“But what if he wasn’t sick yet? What if he wasn’t logged in as a patient yet because the staff was busy with the other patients?”
“Well, if the uncle was there,” said the assistant, “Then where is his body?”
Tsung thought about that. It was possible that the uncle had never made it to the hospital or had left the hospital. It was also possible that his body was so close to the blast at the time of the explosion that his body was simply burned to ash. Neither of those possibilities seemed likely to Tsung.
Tsung thanked the assistant, and then returned to speak with the fire investigator, Paulo Pagrizi. “Paulo, I have one more question for you.”
“Yes, what is it?”
“It was reported to us that the boys became infected after being bitten by a cave bat, and that the parents brought the cave bat with them in a metal cage to the hospital. Did you see the bat, a bat skeleton, or the metal cage?”
“No bat. No skeleton. No cage.”
“You’re positive?”
“Yes, if one of my men or I had an animal cage in the hospital, that would have been evidence we would have separated, photographed and catalogued, because we would have been worried that the virus could be spread by an animal. Trust, me there was no bat; no bat skeleton; no bat cage.”
“OK, thank you, Paulo.”
Tsung thanked the assistant and called his boss Colonel Dennis White in Fort Detrick, Maryland, giving him an update. White was worried.
“So we have an arsonist who blew up the hospital, killing twenty-five people. We don’t know who the arsonist is or whether he or she has been infected. And we have a missing body from the wreckage.” said White. “Hmmm.”
“The most troubling thing for me, Colonel,” said Tsung, “is that the bat’s cage is missing. I suppose that our witness could be incorrect about the parents bringing the bat to the hospital, but if she is right, then that means the most likely answer is that the arsonist took the bat and cage from the hospital before he blew it. And why would anyone do that, unless….”
White finished his sentence. “…unless he is a terrorist.”
Tsung let the silence hang in the air. It was certainly a possibility. He would phone Murielle and have her ask the neighbors in the canvass if they had seen a bat in a cage.