All Fall Down

A growing horror combined with her grief over Isaac: someone had targeted the immunology conference. They were trying to kill people like her. Had it not been for Jack’s chickenpox, she would have been in that room with Isaac.

Kate offered to stay the night with Shelley and Callum, but Shelley refused. ‘I just want to be alone with Callum,’ she’d said, brokenly, hugging Kate as they both wept again. Kate tried to insist, but Shelley was adamant.

‘I’ll be back tomorrow morning,’ promised Kate, lifting her glasses to wipe her eyes.

As she and Jack hurried home down the lane, her BlackBerry kept bleeping. She disengaged her hand from Jack’s, and glanced at the phone’s display. Three missed calls from Harley; but the only person she wanted to speak to – apart from Isaac of course – was Paul. When she got back to the cottage, she told Jack he could watch TV for a while instead of having a bath, then went straight into the kitchen where Paul was making dinner.

‘Hi, sweetheart, I thought we would have pasta to—’

He turned and saw her face. ‘Kate, what is it?’

She fell into his arms and sobbed against his chest. He stroked her hair and held her, waiting patiently for her to start breathing normally again so she could tell him what had happened.

He spent the next ten minutes fussing over her, telling her to sit down, asking her over and over if he could do anything, get her anything. She sat at the breakfast bar and stared at her hands. They were trembling. But mostly, she felt numb. Then she remembered.

‘I need to call Harley. He’s been trying to ring me. Can you see if Jack needs anything while I call him?’

‘Sure.’ He looked at her with wide eyes. Paul wasn’t usually very good with big emotional scenes. He never knew what to say. Anything that didn’t require fixing or have a solution flummoxed him. But he had been good friends with Isaac too. He shared her pain – and her fear.

She called the MI6 officer.

‘Dr Maddox,’ he said, as soon as he answered, ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you. Have you heard …?’

‘About the bomb? Yes. It’s … Do you have any idea who did it?’

He paused, as if he was wondering how much he could tell her. ‘No, no, we don’t. No one has claimed responsibility. None of the survivors saw anything, and the room in which the CCTV was recording was on the ground floor and was destroyed in the blast. I’m very sorry about your research partner.’

‘I should have been there with him.’

‘I know. But luckily for us—’

She interrupted him. ‘What do you mean, “for us”?’

‘Listen, a lot of top people in your field died in that attack. If you’d been killed too, when you’re the leading expert in Watoto … It doesn’t bear thinking about. Kate, Dr Maddox, we really need you to join this team to find a cure for the virus. Please reconsider.’

‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘Do you think they are connected? The outbreak and the bomb?’ In all the grief and confusion, it hadn’t struck her before.

Harley took a breath. ‘We had a phone call. A message. An hour after the bomb went off.’

‘What did it say?’

Harley recited the message. ‘And She sent a plague upon the Earth, a plague born in the cradle of mankind, and those who would stand in Her way were consumed by the fire of Her wrath. None should dare stand in Her way.’

‘Is that it?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you think it’s genuine?’

‘We’re taking it seriously, yes.’

‘Can’t you trace these things?’

‘The call was made from a throwaway mobile phone. Impossible to trace.’

‘The cradle of mankind,’ Kate said, echoing the message. ‘That’s meant to be in Tanzania, where Watoto originates.’

‘Yes.’

She took a sip of the sweet tea Paul had handed her. ‘It’s a warning, isn’t it? Anyone who tries to stop the plague will be killed.’ She felt a chill run down her spine.

Harley said, ‘I realise that telling you this will probably make you more reluctant to help, but …’

‘I have a responsibility.’

He made a noise as if he was waiting for her to continue.

‘I do have a responsibility. Isaac’s already been killed. I knew some of the other scientists at the conference, too. And these terrorists, whoever they are … we can’t let them win. The virus is only on the Indian reservation at the moment, isn’t it?’

Harley hesitated for a moment. ‘Yes.’

‘But surely the terrorists are going to try and spread it beyond there, if they’re threatening a plague?’

‘That’s why it’s even more vital that we find a vaccine as quickly as possible. And why we need you.’

Kate took another sip of tea. She could hear the TV in the other room, the high-pitched blare of a cartoon. She had almost made up her mind. She had to go. If the World Health Organization was now putting its resources into finding a cure, she owed it to Isaac to do everything she could to contribute.

But what about Jack? Did she really want him to accompany her to America, a country that was under threat of a killer virus? Paul too. She herself was immune to the original Watoto virus, but not necessarily a mutated one. She knew Paul would insist on taking the risk, but Jack was a different matter. At least Vernon wasn’t anywhere near California. She could give him strict instructions about safety precautions to follow. And at the first hint that the virus was anywhere approaching Texas she would make sure Jack was on the next plane back to the UK, to her sister’s.

‘Are you still there?’ Harley asked.

‘Yes. I’m thinking. Let me go and talk to Jack. I’ll get back to you in the next hour.’

She terminated the call and walked into the living room, where Jack was sitting cross-legged on the floor, his head tilted backwards and mouth slightly open, far too close to the television. Tears had left pale tracks down his cheeks.

‘Jack, I need to ask you something.’

He looked up, slightly annoyed at the interruption of his viewing. She muted the TV and sat down next to him, holding his sticky hand. ‘We might have to change the plans for the summer holidays—’

He jumped up, an expression of panic on his face. ‘You’re not going to tell me I can’t go and stay with Dad, are you?’

‘No – probably not. In fact, the opposite. All I was going to say was, I’ve been offered a job in America and I don’t know exactly how long it’s going to last. It might be a month, which would be ideal because then I can pick you up from Dad’s and we could fly home together – but it might be longer than that. Would you be OK with staying at Daddy’s for longer, if that’s how it works out? I don’t want to take the job unless you would.’

‘Would I have to go to school in Dallas?’

‘I don’t know. Unlikely – but it’s a possibility. You’d be able to come back to your class here afterwards though.’

‘I would miss you,’ he said thoughtfully, still staring at the muted cartoon. ‘But you know Charlie Freestone in Year 3? He lives half a year with his mum and half a year with his dad. So we could be like that. It’s only fair that Daddy gets to see me half the time too. I miss him. And you remember that boy next door I played with last summer – Bradley? I could play with him every day when I’m over there, and go to school with him.’ He hugged Kate round the neck. ‘Yay! I’m gonna go and Skype Daddy!’ His face fell. ‘But what about Callum? I can’t leave him, his dad’s died …’