Chapter 59. Betrayal
Suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. Home of Jacob Roessler. 11:00 p.m.
Murielle Winston and Jacob Roessler had spent the entire day speaking with government and health officials around the country and around the globe, advising them of the symptoms of the Mackinac Ebola Virus, the available but limited means of treatment, ideas on potential cures, methods of containment, barrier control protocols, and similar issues. They had also been on conference calls with research scientists in Portland, Oregon and another team in Baltimore at John Hopkins who were working on ideas for a vaccine. Roessler and Murielle Winston were putting in sixteen-hour days, and they were both exhausted. Roessler’s beat-up Honda had finally broken down that morning and was in the shop, so Murielle had agreed to give him a ride home.
“Thanks for giving me a lift,” said Roessler, closing the passenger door. Roessler put his head back in the passenger window and smiled. “Can you come in for a nightcap? It would be nice to unwind with someone for a half hour.”
“Oh, I can’t drink at this hour. I have to get home to Teddy. I haven’t seen him very much the last few weeks, and Charlie’s out of town. But thanks.”
“How about a coffee, then? Just for a half hour. I am so stressed out by all of this. There is just no one to talk to.”
Murielle Winston looked up at the brick townhouse. Well, she thought, Teddy is probably already in bed. A half hour wouldn’t hurt. And with Charlie gone, she did not have anyone to talk to.
“Okay, maybe for a half hour, but then that’s it. I will have to get home.”
“Great.” Roessler went over and opened her door.
Murielle looked at the young research scientist with the black wavy hair. He was ten years younger than she was. She hoped he was not flirting with her. She was very happily married, but he seemed harmless enough. He probably just wanted to talk. The two walked up the brick staircase, and Roessler grabbed a spare key from under the mat and opened the door.
“Left my house key on my key ring at the auto mechanic’s shop. Good thing I kept a spare.” Jacob Roessler took off Murielle’s trench coat and hung it on a hook on the back of the door and then led his co-worker into the kitchen, where he made a batch of coffee.
“Regular or decaf?” asked Roessler.
“Give me the strong stuff.”
“Strong stuff cominn’ up.”
“And two Equal’s if you have them.”
“Two Equal’s coming up.”
While Roessler made the coffee, Murielle walked into the small room adjacent to the kitchen, which appeared to be a small family room of sorts. The room had four or five bookshelves, filled with books. Murielle, like any scientist, loved books. She looked with curiosity as to what Roessler had on the shelves. There were dozens of books on virology, medical textbooks on hepatology and autoimmune diseases, anatomy texts, zoology treatises, and stacks of scientific journals, including the Journal of Virology, the Journal of Bacteriology, the PLOS Journal of Neglected Tropical Diseases, The Lancet, and bulletins from the CDC. Curiously, she also saw books on wine making.
“I didn’t know you were a wine aficionado,” said Murielle.
“When I was young, my birth father owned a vineyard. It has been something I have enjoyed since I was a boy. I am quite a wine expert, you know. If I hadn’t gone into virology, I probably would have been a sommelier. I have a whole wine cellar of unique bottles in the basement.”
“Birth father? So you are adopted?”
“Yes, both my parents died when I was very young. Car crash. Then I was adopted.”
“Oh, I am so sorry to hear that. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“Oh, no, it’s okay,” said Roessler, pausing, thinking for a moment about his parents. The moment was gone as quickly as it came, and he smiled and offered Murielle her steaming mug of coffee, sitting next to her at the kitchen table by the bay window. Murielle emptied her blue Equal packets and left the empty packets on the table next to the saucer. The coffee tasted good.
“Well, what about you? Charlie has been out of town for a while, hasn’t he? What’s he up to?”
“He is on a long, top-secret voyage near Belize. It’s kind of an Indiana Jones thing. You know how he is, always looking for the next great discovery. I think that’s why we get along so well, you know. I am focused on the reality of life, the really ugly dangers we are facing in the here and now. Charlie is the dreamer, always focused on the beauty of life and how we can make the planet better. He gives me hope and lets me escape life a little bit, while I keep him grounded. I think if I weren’t there, he would forget to buy food.”
Roessler laughed. “And how’s Teddy?” Roessler knew her boy was paralyzed.
“Oh, he’s doing fine. You know, he treats his disability as if it is not even there. Fortunately, he has his father’s happy outlook on life, and that helps him get through all of the hardships he needs to face with his paralysis. I just feel so bad about it all. I am one of the brightest scientists in America, if I do say so myself, and there is nothing I can do to bring him his legs back.”
“Don’t beat yourself up about that. He’s a good kid. He has a great attitude.”
“I know. He’s crazy about snakes, you know. We have four of them in the house. Sometimes he lets them run free and I almost step on one when I am going to the bathroom. Scares the hell out of me, but I feel too guilty to take them away from him. I just want to give him whatever he wants, you know?”
Roessler sipped his coffee. “Yes, I know.”
“I have hardly seen him in the last three months, though, with all this terrorist stuff. Now that they’ve shut down the borders, I am not sure when Charlie will be able to get back.”
“I am hoping it will be temporary.”
“I don’t know. It all comes down to whether anybody got in before the shutdown, and whether the FBI can track down immediately everyone who did get through. If even one person gets through, it’s going to be very bad. Did you read that bio profile on the terrorists that NSA sent over this morning?”
“Yeah, I read it. Looks like they are twins,” said Roessler.
“Matteo Graciano and Dominic Chastain were their adopted family names. Did you see their birth names? ‘Gegic’ and ‘Rkatsiteli.’ What weird names.”
“Must be family names, I guess,” shrugged Roessler.
“What kind of parent names their kid a weird name like that? It’s like Kim Kardashian and Kanye West naming their baby North West. If my parents named me that, I’d shoot them.” Jacob Roessler thought of his parents being shot by the Serbians, and he became immediately tense and irritated.
“You shouldn’t talk like that. You don’t know anything about their parents.”
Murielle Winston sensed that a pall had come over the room. What had she said that offended him?
“Um, yeah. No, you’re right, of course. Who knows what kind of names are regular names in Croatia, right?” Roessler was silent, sipping his coffee. Murielle decided to change the subject.
“So I never asked you-- are you from Atlanta?”
“No, grew up in Seattle, actually. Dad’s a lawyer, mom’s a dermatologist. He wanted me to go to law school. She wanted me to go to medical school. So I decided to disappoint them both.”
“I know what you mean. My parents do not understand why I want to work around lethal diseases. Why did you decide to do it?” Roessler paused, reflecting, and seemed sad.
“After my birth parents died, I was afraid of everything, you know. Always hiding under the bed, night terrors, the whole nine yards. I went to see a therapist, and she suggested that I try and pick a career where I had to face something truly terrible. Like be a lion tamer, or something. Then, if I was able to face my fears there, I could do almost anything. Her idea worked. I started getting into the study of deadly viruses. And when I work in the Hot Room now, I am not nervous at all. I am eerily content and happy, because I have faced the worst that nature has to offer and I have lived to tell the tale.”
“I decided to do it to save the world,” said Murielle. “Originally, I was into cancer research. I was going to create a cure for cancer. But the job opened up at the CDC, and it paid good money, so I took it. At first, I was nervous about working around deadly viruses. But now I see it as kind of a superhero thing, saving all of humanity from evil. That kind of thing.”
“Well, you’d look good in tights, that’s for sure,” laughed Roessler.
There he goes, flirting with me, thought Murielle. I really should leave, she thought. This is getting weird.
“Well, you know, I really should be getting home. I am tired, and we are going to have another long day tomorrow.”
“Sure, no problem,” said Roessler. “Before you go, do you want to see my wine cellar? It is my pride and joy.” Murielle hesitated. The invitation sounded a little creepy. “Come on. It will just take a second. You can’t miss this.” He ushered her over to a narrow door. He opened the door, turned on the light, and went down the steep stairs. Murielle followed behind him, ducking her head as she went down the stairs. When she got to the bottom, she saw fifteen rows of wine bottles.
“It is all temperature controlled, depending on the type of wine. I have my reds over here. Here are the Merlots, the Cabs, the Syrahs. And then, most of the bottles in my collection are whites. Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Moscato, Pinot Grigio, Gewürztraminer, Riesling, and then I have some other varieties over here.”
“Gewürztraminer? I have never heard of that? Is that a German wine?”
“Yes, it is from Alsace, Germany. It goes great with Asian food and pork. I even like it with sushi.” Roessler started to move closer to Murielle in the narrow space between the rows, and Murielle became convinced that he had lured her down here to start something. Murielle ducked around him and went to the next row over.
“What are these?” asked Murielle, pointing to the next row of whites.
“These are some unique finds from different countries. I have wines from all over the world here.”
Murielle started to look through the wine bottles, trying not to look Roessler in the eye. She was just about to announce that she had to leave again when one bottle in particular caught her eye. It was a bottle from the Finger Lakes Winery. It said at the bottom “Rkatsiteli 2011.” She looked at the bottle. She froze. Something clicked in her brain, and she looked back at Roessler, pretending she had not seen the bottle. He looked at Murielle suspiciously, and then looked back to the bottle, reading the label.
“This was so nice of you giving me the tour,” she said. “But I do really need to go.” She walked past Roessler, and headed for the stairs. Roessler sighed.
“I can’t let you do that,” he said.
“What?” Murielle said. She turned to look at him, and he was pointing a gun at her.
“Why did you have to see that bottle, Murielle? You’re always such a nosy body. But you’re not a very good poker player. I could spot you a mile away.”
“Rkatsiteli is the name of a white wine grape, isn’t it?” asked Murielle.
“Yes, it is, Murielle. In fact, the Rkatsiteli was Mikhail Gorbachev’s favorite dessert wine.”
“And when I asked you about those names upstairs, you knew that Rkatsiteli was the name of a white wine grape?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Is Gegic also the name of a white wine grape?”
“Yes it is, a very excellent grape from Croatia.”
“And are you named after a grape, Jacob?”
“Yes, I am. In more ways than one. When I changed my name, I named myself after Roger Roessler, a famous wine maker. But my birth name was Debit, which is another kind of Croatian wine grape.” Murielle Winston stared at the gun again, and began shaking.
“So the terrorists—they are your brothers?”
“Yes, they are, Murielle. And unfortunately, now that you know my secret, I cannot let you leave.”
“Jacob, my son is paralyzed. Charlie won’t be home for weeks, months maybe. My son is going to need me.”
“I am sorry, Murielle. They are just going to have to manage.”
“Jacob, people will miss me. They are going to go looking for me. Don’t you think it will be suspicious if the lead research scientist on this new Ebola Virus suddenly disappears in the middle of the crisis? Jacob, they will know it is you. There is no way you can get away with this.”
“Murielle, I only need to get away with it for a week. And no one, even you, is so important that people cannot do without them for a week.”
“Jacob, why are you doing this? You have worked your whole life preventing people from getting sick from these viruses. You cannot possibly want to kill people, innocent people, with a virus that could wipe out the whole planet? Why would you want to murder millions of people?”
“Unfortunately, Murielle, I cannot share my reasons with you.” There was a sudden noise like a car backfiring, and Murielle Winston felt immediate pain in her left shin. Roessler had shot her. She fell down to the ground.
“Murielle, I am very sorry to do that. I like you a lot, I really do. And I am not going to kill you. But I cannot let you escape, and if you are running around, you could expose what we are trying to accomplish.”
He quickly pulled a small knife and cut a piece of rope which was bound around a wine crate. He used the rope to tie Murielle’s hands behind her back. He used another piece to bind her legs. Murielle cried from the pain in her left leg. Good God, she thought, I am going to be paralyzed just like Teddy. Then he got out a rag from a drawer, and tied it around her thigh tightly. She screamed when he did this, and he put his hand over her mouth. He tied a tight knot, cutting off the blood supply to her tibia. Hopefully, this tourniquet would prevent her from bleeding out. He got out another rag and placed it in her mouth. Then he took her under the arms and put her in a smaller wine room, which was much chillier.
Murielle tried to protest, but the rag prevented her from speaking. She waved her head back and forth hysterically. Then he reached in her pocket and took out her cell phone, putting it in his own pocket.
“I’m sorry again,” he said. “I will check in on you later. Try and get some sleep.” He closed the wine room door and locked it with a key. He regretted doing that to Murielle. He really did like her. As he walked up the stairs, he kicked himself for his decision to hit on Murielle in the basement. He should have just stuck to the plan. Now he had this headache to deal with. He plugged in Murielle Winston’s phone to a charger in the kitchen so that he could see her text messages. Then he went to the top of the stairs to call his brothers in Trinidad.