Chapter 65. Resistance
Trenton, New Jersey. Warehouse district.
Connie Lewis and Deb Brueger were each tied to a chair in an abandoned plastics factory in Trenton, their mouths covered in duct tape. Right now, there was only one man guarding them. He was a skinny, ugly man, with pockmarked skin and bad teeth. He was wielding an assault rifle. The two women were desperate. They had to get out of here or the virus was going to kill them. Connie Lewis began making desperate loud sounds from behind the duct tape. The guard was irritated that the women were not being quiet. He ripped off Lewis’ duct tape and asked her what the problem was.
“What do you want?” the man barked.
“I want to make a deal,” said Connie.
“Oh yeah? What kind of deal?” asked the ugly man.
“Leave my friend for your boss, let me go, and I will have sex with you.”
Connie’s girlfriend Deb was at a loss over this betrayal, and began her own noise-making from behind the duct tape.
The ugly man took the tip of his gun and put it between the buttons of her shirt. He yanked upward violently.
“I got a better idea,” said the man. “You and I have sex, and then if the sex is good enough, I will decide whether to let you go or kill you.”
“Deal,” said Lewis. Brueger was horrified by the bargain, and tried to pull free, but her wrists and ankles were firmly bound to the chair. The guard shrugged, surprised that she had agreed to the proposal.
The guard untied Lewis’ ankles and stood her up, leaving her wrists tied. He pulled her close to him. Lewis was suppressing the urge to vomit. The man was completely disgusting, but she put on the best act she could. Lewis put her mouth on the guard’s mouth and began deeply and passionately kissing him. The guard liked that. Then Lewis spit in the guard’s face.
“You fucking bitch!” screamed the guard, who smashed the butt of his gun into Lewis’ face. When she was on the ground, the guard kicked her hard in the stomach three times, causing her to cough up blood. Then he tied her up again.
“Why the fuck did you do that?”
“Guess what, genius? Now you are infected too!”
“Infected? What do you mean ‘infected’?”
“Well, I guess you never listen to the news, Einstein, because if you did, you would know that each of us is carrying the Ebola virus. Unless treated immediately, it is lethal and will kill you in seven days. You just kissed me, which means you have it now, too.”
“Bullshit.”
“Really, why don’t you turn on CNN and get educated? You are now going to die in a week, unless you get treated at the hospital. When you go to the hospital to get treated, they are going to ask you where you got the virus from. And it is not going to take the detectives long to figure out you and your men have kidnapped us. So your only hope is to let both of us go, we all three get treated together, and we tell the cops you cooperated. That way, maybe you get a reduced sentence.”
The man came over and hit each of them again in the head with the butt of his gun, knocking them to the ground in their chairs.
“Bitch!” he snarled. Then he stomped off to the break room to try and find a TV.
Natal, Brazil
The first patient infected by the Mackinac Ebola Virus who had not seen the warnings on television to get treated at the government center was a taxi cab driver, who showed up at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in downtown Natal. The intake nurses, all wearing full scrubs, duct-taped wrists and ankles, and respirator masks, immediately took the man into a separate quarantine room to inquire about his symptoms. When they saw the bloodshot eyes, they immediately left the room and locked the door, calling the government hotline, as instructed. Within twenty minutes, a military ambulance arrived at the hospital and took the taxi cab driver to the government quarantine center. He would die within twenty-four hours. The message was delivered to the President of Brazil. The first casualties were arriving.
Memphis, Tennessee
FBI Agents Green and Wilcox knocked on the door of the Bundle of Joy Adoption Agency. An elderly woman with gray hair wrapped in a bun answered the door. She was dressed in a long, plain gray, cotton T-shirt, jeans, and flip flops. She opened the screen door with a friendly smile, and her blue eyes greeted the Detectives behind her pink plastic glasses held on a chain around her neck.
“Mrs. Champion?” asked Agent Green.
“Yes?”
“We’re the two FBI Detectives. I’m Agent Green. We spoke on the phone earlier today.”
“Oh, yes, Detectives, come right in. Sorry about the mess, you know. I have been so busy.” The woman picked up some children’s toys from the floor and put them in a wicker basket. She led the two men to her kitchen table.
“Can I get you some tea?”
“No thank you, Ma’am,” said Green. “Did you get the subpoena that was dropped off yesterday?”
“Yes, Detective. I have pulled all the files you requested. These type of files are normally supposed to be confidential and all, but I guess if you have a warrant or whatever you call it, it is okay with me.”
“We’re looking for information on three young Croatian boys who were initially placed with your agency in January 1996. Their names were Debit, Gegic, and Rkatsiteli Gurdic. The older boy was Debit, who was twelve when he was placed; the other two were twins and were each eleven years old.”
“Yes, Detective, I remember those boys well. Incredibly intelligent, those three. Many of the other adopted children we see have profound learning disabilities—usually the result of institutionalization, malnutrition, or lack of parental involvement. But these three tested off the charts. None of the games here were a challenge for them. I had to go out and buy them crossword puzzle books.”
“How were they socially?” asked Agent Green.
“Not good. They were very withdrawn, spoke only to themselves. They would not socialize with the other children. They resisted authority fiercely. They could cause quite a tantrum if you tried to tell them to do something they did not want to do. The oldest one, Debit, I thought I would never get him placed.”
“Did any of the boys ever express dissatisfaction with being in America?”
“Now that’s an odd question. No, I cannot say I remember that.”
“What can you tell us about their life before they were placed with your agency?”
“Well, it’s all spelled out there in that folder. They were born in a small Croatian village by the Adriatic Sea. The father owned and managed a vineyard. The mother was a homemaker. They had one younger sister. The father’s business failed, and the father had to seek work in Sarajevo. They were caught in the wars then. It was a very hard time. The family managed to escape Sarajevo, and in 1995, the family made it to Srebrenica, which was supposed to be an established, U.N.-protected refugee camp. But unfortunately, things got very bad there.”
“What do you mean they got bad?” asked Agent Wilcox.
“Have you ever heard of the Srebrenica Massacre?”
“No,” said Green.
“The Serbian Army slaughtered tens of thousands of people there in the summer of 1995. Most of them were Muslims, but some were Croat Catholics like Gurdic’s family. The United Nations had sent a small contingent of peacekeepers. Most of them were from The Netherlands. But many of the Dutch peace keepers did not like Muslims. In fact, some Muslims complained that the peace keepers were as bad as the Serbian soldiers. Eventually, Bill Clinton got the Americans involved, and we started air bombing the Serbs, but it was too late for the people in the Srebrenica camps. I don’t know the specifics of what happened to the mother and sister of these boys, but I can tell you that the father was killed. The mother and sister never got out of the camps, and they were presumed dead. But the three boys escaped, running into the woods. They were eventually rescued by missionaries, and then they were placed here with our agency in January 1996.”
“So this Gegic,” said Wilcox, “He went to St. Louis, as I understand it?”
“Yes, Gegic went to St. Louis. Rkatsiteli went to Cleveland. And Debit went to… let me see. Yes, Debit went to Seattle.”
“Why weren’t they placed all with one family, if they were brothers?” asked Wilcox.
“Ah, Agent Wilcox, I can see you do not know much about adoptions. Placing a teenager with a new family is hard enough. Most parents want to adopt infants. There are fewer problems that way. When you adopt a teenager, who knows what baggage you are getting yourself into? Then there is the fact that the boys are foreign. Right there, you eliminate all the parents who only want American children to adopt. Then you have the multiple-placements problem. Hardly any parents want to adopt more than one child at a time. So placing three international children who are eleven and twelve years old all with one family would be close to impossible. We were lucky that we placed them at all.”
“Separating from your brothers like that, after you have already lost your father, mother, and sister—that must be traumatic?”
“Yes, indeed. These boys were absolutely despondent over being separated. But there was nothing else we could do.”
“Can you give us the information on the families who adopted the three boys?”
“Sure, it is all right in the folder. Can you send me a Xerox of that back? That folder is my only copy of those records.”
“Absolutely. We thank you for your time, Ma’am.” Green took the folder, and as they left the adoption agency, Green turned to Wilcox. “We gotta find that third brother.”
Wilcox nodded and the two got back in the car. On the way back to the airport, Wilcox made arrangements for two flights to Seattle.