Free Cold Silence by James Abel

ten. And you doctors apologize because you did not really know at all, and you blame the unclean primitive Africans. Well, there are a thousand healthy people a few miles away from here. My people.”
    I said nothing. I stood in the heat and rain and felt drops running down my scalp and forehead and into my eyes.
    â€œHassan the clan leader. Hassan and his cruel, harsh men. Hassan who thinks life means nothing. By the way, not everyone here agrees with my decision. They do not want to even let you go. You see?”
    â€œAt least let me get the healthy ones out of here.”
    No answer.
    â€œYou can’t do this.”
    â€œGo,” he said gently. “Go back to the plane. Fly away and tell them we didn’t start it. That’s all you have to do. I’ll do what is necessary. I’ll do the rest. Haven’t you figured out yet why I made you strip? I want to make sure you don’t carry out contagion on your clothes.”
    The guns seemed to lower, as if the metal itself knew there would be no carnage yet. The stillness was profound. We stripped and, naked, sluiced by rain, trudged back to the shot-up Land Rover. We needed to figure out what had happened, to understand this thing. Nakedness suited our condition. We were devoid of power in this particular hell.
    Eddie said, “I don’t want to leave, One.”
    Hassan’s voice replied, “I cannot control them for long. But it isup to you. That is the power of God. To offer men choices. Drive away while you are safe.”
    Eddie mouthed,
Hell.
    Hassan watched our lips in his binoculars.
    â€œJust go,” he said.
    And thirty minutes later I watched our gape-mouthed pilot stare at our nakedness as we climbed into the plane and donned the clothes we’d discarded when we arrived. “Take off and circle back,” I told the pilot. “Stay high.”
    Risky, but I have to see what he’s going to do.
    We rolled down the dirt runway, to the ululations of the Somali women, who had turned away from our nakedness. They were showing grief, I knew now, timeless, human grief for the dead. The plane took to the air as I saw the first wispy spirals coming from the south. Then the smoke became a black column. We banked toward the research camp until I saw exactly what was happening.
    â€œFlame throwers,” breathed Eddie, horrified.
    Maybe they’d used the guns first. I hoped so. It would have been quicker and merciful. We’d been too far away to hear shots. But either way they were finishing it with flaming gasoline. Skinny militia fighters with canisters on their backs had circled the compound. Burning gasoline-covered tents and corpses, bonfiring the thorn tree barrier, creating heat so profound it convoluted the air and made our plane bounce. Orange flame spiraled toward heaven.
    â€œGo back to the base,” I told the pilot.
    â€œThis is the worst thing I ever saw,” said Eddie.
    We did not speak for a while. We couldn’t. We kept seeing that fire in our heads. But at least we had samples. We had saved nail clippings and skin and blood from those who were now ashes. I forwarded the photos to D.C. I could only hope that, back at the base, our samples would give answers. And that the thing we’d just encountered was local, not contagious. A chemical. A gas. A freak accident.
    We never reached the base, though.
    Because fifteen minutes later, as we crossed back into Kenya, it got worse again, when the sat call came through.
    â€œWe’re diverting you, Joe,” the admiral told us. “The State Department long-range Gulf Stream will meet you at Moi, in Nairobi. Those photos were awful.”
    â€œIt’s in Israel?” I asked, remembering the words I’d heard before, about Galilee, from the Situation Room. “It’s spread? It’s out already?”
    There was shocked silence from the line, and I thought I felt raw emotion over space, bouncing up from the capital,