Free Pandemic by Daniel Kalla Page A

translator glanced at Haldane with a proud nod.
    Haldane chuckled and nodded back. "And the other man?" he asked.
    "Tan," the translator said, thumbing at the tall, thin man. "He also got sick a week ago. He never became as very sick as Xiang. Only a heavy cough. But..." The translator cleared his throat. "Tan's sister died from the virus three days ago."
    "Oh," Haldane said. "Please tell him how sorry we are."
    The translator and Tan spoke for a moment. Tan raised a hand and waved it at Haldane, leaving him confused as to the intent of the gesture.
    "We want to ask some questions about their illness," McLeod said to the translator.
    Through the translator, McLeod and Haldane focused their questions on the early symptoms of the infection. Neither patient had the classic sore throat or vague aches that are the harbingers of the common flu. Their symptoms began with a sudden fever and weakness, followed within hours by agonizing muscle pain, cough, and some degree of respiratory collapse.
    Haldane had heard enough to know that whatever caused ARCS was one scary pathogen. It hit quickly. And it hit hard.
    After thanking the patients for their time, the translator banged on the door. Released by the security guard, they headed into a stairwell and up to the fourth floor. Haldane had to twice catch the railing when he tripped on the stairs walking in his bulky rubber suit.
    On the fourth floor the contingent passed through another set of sealed doors. Though Haldane couldn't read the Chinese lettering, from the bustling activity of the staff at the nursing station he recognized the ward for an Intensive Care Unit. Not as sleek or modern as the North American or European ICUs Haldane had seen, the air was taut with the same sense of urgency. Maybe more so.
    After consultation with the nurses, their translator led them to one of the closed rooms that surrounded the nursing station like the spokes of a tire. But this door wasn't locked. As soon as they opened it, Haldane understood why. The patient wasn't going anywhere soon, except possibly the morgue.
    As they approached the bed, the translator explained, "This is the doctor. Dr. Zhao Fung."
    "Which doctor?". McLeod asked.
    But Haldane answered before the translator. "He's the town doctor. The one who looked after the two men we just interviewed."
    The translator nodded his head vigorously.
    "Shite!" McLeod said. "I thought they told us there hadn't been any intra-hospital spread."
    The translator waved his gloved hand. "No hospital in that town. Only the ... clinic ... where he worked. He used the best precautions he had, but..."
    Haldane nodded absentmindedly. He was thinking of his colleague, Dr. Franco Bertulli, dying of SARS in a similar room in Singapore after following all the recommended precautions. He remembered how Bertulli joked about his mother encouraging him to go into medicine because she thought it was so much safer than his alternate choice, the police force. In the case of both Bertulli and Fung, the viruses managed to circumvent their protective measures. In the end, medicine turned out to be a very unsafe choice for both doctors.
    Dr. Fung looked older than fifty. Behind a deathly pallor, his face was swollen and contused. His oozing lips were as thick as the endotracheal tube sticking between them and leading to a ventilator, or artificial life-support system. Bloody sputum fluttered inside the transparent plastic tube, flapping back and forth with each breath the ventilator forced in and out, like a piece of paper trapped at the opening of a vacuum hose. Bruises covered his flaccid arms. A blanket shrouded the rest of his skin from his chest down, but Haldane knew that he would see similar welts and bruises on any exposed surface. Haldane made the diagnosis from the foot of the bed: disseminated intravascular coagulopathy or DIC. The inflammatory reaction instigated by the virus was chewing up the clotting factors in the patient's blood. As a result, he was