I have endeavored to keep detailed notes on his progression and have instructed the staff to take pictures on the hour. Frankly, documenting the disease is perhaps the only useful thing I can do. I have also dedicated much of my time to recording the details of the two Americans’ travel, including where they visited and whom they talked to. Additionally, I have asked Lucas about his friend’s history of symptoms. I believe it will prove quite helpful to epidemiologists investigating this outbreak. I will forward my notes as I have time.
The British patient, who was brought in from the airport, remains in critical condition. I’m not optimistic that he will survive the night.
Lastly, we face a new crisis here at MCRH: personnel. I arrived this morning to find that over half of the hospital’s staff did not report for work. I cannot blame them. As I have said, we are ill equipped to deal with these patients. I have instructed nurses to wear gowns, boot covers, facemasks, goggles, and double gloves, but I fear these measures may prove inadequate, and our supplies of protective equipment will very soon run out.
I ask you again:
Outside his office, a nurse yelled, “Dr. Kibet!”
Seconds later, the door swung open. The man was bent forward, his hands on his knees, catching his breath. “More infected,” he said between pants.
Elim grabbed his coat, and the two men raced down the corridor to triage. Elim stopped in his tracks, taking in the horror.
Ten people, all local villagers, all very sick. Sweat and vomit stains covered their clothes. A few stared with yellowed, bloodshot eyes.
A nurse drew a thermometer from a man’s mouth and turned to Elim. “A hundred and five.”
It had spread to the villages. Elim wondered if help would be too late—for all of them.
Chapter 11
When the Air Force transport reached cruising altitude, Peyton stretched out across several chairs, strapped herself in, and slept.
She had gotten only four hours of sleep the night before and had been going as hard as she could all day. Still, she set her alarm for only thirty minutes later. She wanted to be fresh but not groggy for what came next.
Perhaps the most valuable skill she’d acquired while working at the CDC was the ability to sleep nearly anywhere. It had taken her years to master the practice. For her, thinking was the greatest enemy of sleep. When she was battling an outbreak, her mind never stopped working; thinking became a compulsion. But during her second year of fieldwork, she had learned a sleep technique she’d used ever since. When she needed to rest, she closed her eyes, refused to let her mind think, and instead focused on her breathing. She first forced herself to draw her breaths into her belly, allowing her abdomen to expand, not her chest. With each exhalation, she focused on the tip of her nose, where the breath touched as it flowed out of her, and counted the breaths. She rarely got past forty.