Mahuk.
"Yes. But we are all watched, hence the subterfuge."
Jon smiled grimly. "The more subterfuge, the better the CIA likes it."
Randi's unease rocketed to the surface. "The longer you're together, the more danger to everyone. Ask what you came to ask."
Jon ignored her. He focused on Dr. Mahuk. "I've already learned a great deal about the three Iraqis who died of an unknown virus last year. They'd been in southern Iraq on the Kuwait border at one time or another near the end of the Gulf War."
"So I was told, yes. A virus unknown in Iraq, which is strange."
"The whole thing is strange," Smith agreed. "One of my sources says there were also three survivors last year. Do you know anything about that?"
This time it was Dr. Mahuk who had to be prompted.
"Doctor?" Randi said.
The pediatrician slid off the table and padded to the door that was closed on the main corridor. She opened it quickly. No one was outside. She looked left and right. At last, she shut it and turned, her head cocked as she listened for intruders. "To even speak of the deaths and survivals is forbidden," she said in a strained voice. "But, yes, there were three survivors. All in Basra, which is in the south, too, as you must know. Close to Kuwait. It sounds to me as if you may have formed the same theory I have."
Jon said grimly, "Some kind of experiment?"
The pediatrician nodded.
He asked, "All three survivors were also in the Gulf War, stationed near the Kuwait border?"
"Yes."
"It's odd that all those in Baghdad died, while the ones in Basra survived."
"Very odd. It was one of the aspects that drew my attention."
Randi studied the pair. They were talking cautiously around an issue she did not quite understand but sensed was momentous. Their gazes were focused on each other, the tall American man and the small Iraqi woman, and the intellectual tension was palpable. At the moment, as they probed their mutual quest, the outside world had receded, which made them more vulnerable--- and Randi more alert.
Jon asked, "Can you explain why those in Basra survived, Dr. Mahuk?"
"As it happens, yes. I was in the Basra hospital, helping to treat the victims, when a team of doctors from the U.N. arrived and gave each an injection. They not only improved, four days later they showed no ill effects from the virus. They were healed." She paused and deadpanned, "It was remarkable."
"That's an understatement."
"It is." She crossed her arms as if she had just felt a chill. "I would not have believed it had I not seen it."
Smith jumped up and paced around the room. His high-planed face was deep in thought; his blue eyes cold, glittering, and outraged. "You know what you're telling me, Doctor? A cure for a fatal and unknown virus? Not a vaccine, but a cure?"
"That is the only reasonable explanation."
"Curative antiserum?"
"That would be the best possibility."
"It would also mean those so-called U.N. doctors had the material in quantity."
"Yes."
Jon's words spilled out in a rush: "A serum in quantity for a virus that first broke out in Iraq's six cases last year and then mysteriously reappeared a little more than a week ago in six more cases halfway around the world, in America. And all twelve victims had served on the Iraq-Kuwait border during the war or had a transfusion from someone who'd served on the border."
"Precisely." The pediatrician nodded vigorously. "In two countries where the virus had never existed."
The two medical doctors faced each other across a great silence, both reluctant to say the next sentence.
But Randi could. "It's not remarkable. It's not even a miracle." They turned to stare at her as she spoke the unspeakable: "Someone gave all of them the virus."
It sickened Jon. "Yes, while only half were given the serum. It was a controlled, lethal experiment on humans who were uninformed and gave no consent."
The pediatrician paled. "It reminds me of the depraved Nazi doctors who used concentration camp inmates for guinea pigs. Obscene. Monstrous!"
Randi stared at her. "Who were they?"
"Did any of those doctors with the serum tell you their names, Dr. Mahuk?" Jon asked.
"They gave no names. They said helping the men could get them into trouble with our regime and with their supervisors in Geneva. But I am sure they were lying. There was no way they could have entered Iraq and worked at that particular military hospital without the government's knowing."
"How, then? A bribe?"
"A large bribe in some form to Saddam himself,