Chapter 51. Trail
Natal, Brazil. Metropolitan Tow Lot. Warehouse District.
There was a heavy cross wind on the day Amy Rosario threw her soccer jacket out the warehouse window. The jacket blew a block away to an automobile tow lot, surrounded by a chain link fence. The bright green jacket caught on one of the top posts, lightly ruffling like a flag on a battlement. For eight and seven year-old brothers José and Juan DiCarlo, this lot was their playground. They pictured themselves as professional race car drivers. When the big man who brought the cars into the lot wasn’t looking, they would jump in the cars and pretend to drive like Indy 500 race car drivers. José was inside a Ford Tempo, in the driver’s seat, grabbing the steering wheel with both hands, wildly jerking the wheel right and left. Juan was the policeman trying to stop the criminal driving the getaway car. He dove onto the hood of the Tempo, ordering his brother to stop the car. His brother ignored the officer, peeling down the highway, swerving to make his brother fall off the hood. As Juan pretended to slide off the car, he looked up and saw something bright green fly through the air like a kite and land on the top of the auto lot fence. Curious, he told his brother, and the two scrambled over the cars to the fence. Juan climbed the fence quickly, like a monkey, as he had done this many times before. He got to the top and took the soccer jacket off.
“Toss it down,” said his brother.
“OK, but it’s mine when I get down. I found it.”
“OK,” said his brother.
Juan threw the jacket down to his brother, climbed down the fence, and then inspected the jacket. It was nice. He put the jacket on. It was a little big for him, but it felt good.
“Look at me. This will be my racing jacket.”
He put on the jacket, and modeled for his brother. “Hey, can I wear it sometimes?”
“Sure,” said his brother. The two continued to play race car driver for the rest of the afternoon. At the end of the day, they finished their play and went home.
When they got home, Juan quickly ran through the door towards his room. He did not want his mother to see the jacket. She was very religious. She would think he stole it and make him give it to the church.
“Wait a minute!” yelled his mother. “Have you boys been playing in that auto lot again? Let me see your hands. You need to wash up before dinner.”
Juan took off his jacket, threw it on the bed and then ran into the kitchen.
“I saw you wearing something green when you came in. Where is it?”
“Oh, it’s nothing, Mama. Just a jacket I borrowed from a friend.”
“A friend, eh? Let’s see the jacket.”
Juan sheepishly showed his mother the jacket. This was a very nice football jacket. None of his friends would give him such a nice jacket.
“Where did you get this, Juan?”
“Mama, it just flew through the air to us. Someone must have been throwing it away. Can’t I keep it? I need a professional race car jacket.”
Juan’s mother inspected the jacket, and saw the writing on the back. Immediately realizing the implications, she kissed her son’s forehead.
“Juan, you have done a very good thing today.” She took the jacket and went into the living room to make a phone call. Juan wondered what he had done which was so good. As long as he got to keep the race car jacket, he didn’t care.
The White House, Washington, D.C.
Anna Scall, President of the United States, had just finished her conference call with representatives of USAMRIID and the C.D.C. The Powerpoint of Murielle Winston and Jacob Roessler from the C.D.C. had been chilling. Terrorists had the Mackinac Ebola Virus and had already developed a distribution channel. The virus could already be in the United States. Reports from various state health agencies reported no outbreaks yet. They had little time to act. Roger Tsung from USAMRIID had been adamant. The borders—all of them—had to be closed.
The decision would be very unpopular. International business would grind to a halt, throwing hundreds of thousands of Americans out of work. American tourists and business people who had gone on international trips would simply be stranded in the country where they were visiting. But what else could she do? If she didn’t shut down the borders, everyone in the country could be killed. This was one of those times when she wished she wasn’t the President.
Her chief-of-staff had scheduled a press conference for 9:00 a.m. the next morning. She had told the Prime Minister of England. Other than that, she was not giving a head’s-up to any other international leader. Her phone would be burning up tomorrow. The borders would be closed as of midnight tonight.
Dallas, Texas
Tom Bergman’s international flight from Brazil landed in Dallas a 9:00 p.m. that evening, just under the cut-off. Many of the other Americans who watched the end of the game at the stadium that day would be stranded in Brazil due to the President’s lockdown of the border. On the plane with Bergman were twenty-seven other infected Americans who had attended the soccer game with The Netherlands and had left early for the airport. Bergman and his wife looked at the Flight Board in Dallas. Their connecting flight to Minneapolis was in forty-five minutes. They had better hurry.
Natal, Brazil, Warehouse District.
The football game was over. The Netherlands had beaten the United States. One of the men had taken the call from Davy Branco to tie up the loose ends with the girl. She was not needed anymore. They were getting out of town tonight. The man who took the call opened the door to the room where they were keeping Amy Rosario. As she tried to scream through the gag in her mouth, he carried her to the back of the pale yellow plumbing van and threw her in the back. They were going to kill her now. That was certain. She frantically went through options in her head as to how to escape. She could not think of anything. One of the men started the engine and the second man got in the passenger seat.
“Where are we going?” asked the man in the passenger seat.
“We got the call from Davy. The stadium job is done. We’re supposed to tie up loose ends and get out of the country.”
“When are we getting paid?”
“Davy’s paying us tonight at the drop point.”
“What are we supposed to do with Tinkerbell here?”
The driver ignored him, looking back at the girl. “Let me figure that out.” The van started to pull out, when it was rammed at high speed by a fast-moving police vehicle. Manuel Rosario and a team of officers stormed the plumbing van, pointing sawed off shotguns at the two men in the van.
“Drop it, motherfucker!” yelled Rosario. The two men held their hands up in surrender. One of the female officers went to the back of the van and found Amy.
“I’ve got her, Manuel.” The female officer took the gag out of her mouth and cut the Zip-ties.
“Honey, are you okay?” asked Rosario, with his eye and his shotgun still on the driver of the van. Amy started crying. “I’m okay,” she whimpered, getting out of the van.
Rosario took out the two henchmen from the van and put them in handcuffs in the back of another officer’s squad car. As he did so, he smashed the driver of the van in the head with the butt of his rifle, causing an orbital fracture. These two were going to pay. “Take ‘em downtown,” he said to one of the other officers. He hugged his daughter and apologized for her ordeal. “I’m going to drive you to your grandmother’s, and then I am going to deal with these men.” Amy nodded her head and got into her dad’s car.
She drove with her father in silence for a few minutes. Then she told him how she had escaped the handcuffs. He was impressed. Rosario thought about that for a moment. If he had not taught her how to escape from handcuffs, she would probably be dead right now. He looked at his daughter. She was obviously shaken up, but she looked like she was regaining the color in her cheeks.
“Dad,” she said. “When they started to drive away, they mentioned that they were getting paid by someone named ‘Davy,’ who was getting out of the country, because the ‘stadium job’ was done. Does that help you at all?”
Detective Rosario frowned. He knew who “Davy” was, but he had not heard of “the stadium job.” That sounded ominous. Rosario got on his police radio and asked the dispatcher if there was anything unusual reported at Natal Stadium. No, he was told. He told the dispatcher to put out an APB for the arrest of Davy Branco for kidnapping. Then he asked to be connected to the head of security for the stadium. What could possibly be going on at the stadium?
Atlanta, Georgia.
Murielle Winston returned home to her paraplegic son after a long day at the office. As she pulled her Taurus into her driveway, she winced. Her gut was filled with acid. She grabbed a Tums from the glove compartment. If she was right about the virus, then the entire world was facing a cataclysmic plague, and her husband was trapped outside the safety of the United States. If she was wrong about the virus, then the President just shut down all international borders on her say-so. That would mean the end of her career for sure. And her long hours had kept her away from Teddy a lot this week. What if there was an emergency and he needed her? She tried texting and calling her husband Charlie multiple times. If he could just get a flight back tonight…. Still no answer.