Peter May - Snakehead

Margaret laughed. ‘Felipe. I’m not a student of genetics. I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

But Mendez didn’t respond to her amusement. He was too intensely focused. ‘The point is, Margaret,’ he said, ‘There is no way to control gene flow in Fusarium , and that’s what makes it such a successful pathogen. If you drench a geographical area with the stuff, which is what we’re doing, you’re not just going to kill the coca plant, you’re going to infect large numbers of people and animals with some pretty horrific diseases.’

‘God.’ Margaret sat up and took a sip of her vodka. ‘And does the government know about this?’

‘They damn well ought to,’ Mendez said. ‘There’s more than enough evidence out there.’

‘What sort of diseases are we talking about?’

‘Well, in humans with normal immune systems, you can expect widespread skin and nail infections, a pretty nasty respiratory disease, and fungal infection of the liver.’ Mendez took a gulp of his Scotch. ‘In people with underdeveloped or ageing immune systems, i.e., the young and the elderly, it’s known to cause an early ageing disease called Kaschin-Beck. It particularly affects children. But it’ll also affect chickens, rats, monkeys…’ He stood up and went to refill his glass. ‘For Christ’s sake, Margaret, it’s tantamount to waging biological warfare on the people of Colombia. Is it any goddamn wonder that others want to do the same to us?’

He took another large gulp of Scotch, forcing himself to take a deep breath, and then smiled. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s late. You’ve got problems enough of your own. And you’re not interested in all this stuff.’ He shrugged apologetically. ‘It’s just one of my hobby-horses. When you’ve got time on your hands, sometimes you let things stew a little too much.’ He pointed the remote at the TV and switched it off again. ‘So,’ he said, returning to his seat and nudging Clara aside with his toe, ‘maybe we should change the subject, and you could tell me about you and your Chinese policeman.’

Margaret looked at him cautiously. ‘You tell me what you already know.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I did a little inquiring in the last twenty-four hours…’

She sighed wearily. ‘Don’t tell me you’re another of those who disapproves of cross-cultural relationships?’

There was sympathy in Mendez’s smile. ‘Hardly, my dear. As a Mexican who married a white, Anglo-Saxon American girl, I lived in one for more than thirty years. So I know what it’s like to have to deal with the unspoken disapproval of both your families, to be aware of the whisperings of colleagues.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘It was worse for Catherine, of course. Married to a spic, even one who was now an American citizen. She had to deal with a whole mountain of disapproval.’

Margaret nodded. ‘Yes, the man’s always a lucky dog, the woman a whore.’

‘Ouch,’ Mendez said. ‘I detect some pain in there.’

‘A little bruising, that’s all,’ Margaret said. ‘Li and I…well, let’s just say there was always some impediment to our having a settled relationship.’ She smiled a little bitterly. ‘Usually me.’ And she drained her glass. ‘I met him when I first went to China after Michael…well, after Michael’s death.’

‘I know how Michael died,’ Mendez said quietly after a pause. He was staring into his glass, and then his eyes flickered up to meet hers. ‘I made a point of finding out after we spoke yesterday. I was shocked. Couldn’t believe it at first. It just didn’t seem like the Michael I knew.’

‘I lived with him for seven years,’ Margaret said. ‘Thought I knew everything about him. When I obviously knew nothing about him at all. It makes you feel like such a complete idiot.’

Mendez said, ‘That’s really why I came to see you tonight, my dear. To tell you how sorry I was. About Michael. You must have gone through hell.’

Margaret nodded sadly, memories flooding back, her defences against them always so easily breached. ‘It’s why I went to China in the first place,’ she said. ‘A kind of escape. And Li Yan was just so…different from anything or anyone I’d known before. He helped me get a perspective, rebuild my life.’ She gave a small, despairing shake of her head.

Mendez did not miss it. ‘What?’ he asked quickly.

She said, ‘He needs me right now, probably more than I ever needed him, and there’s not a damned thing I can do to help him.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s a long story, Felipe.’

Mendez grinned ruefully. ‘I’m awake now,’ he said.

She nodded. ‘Me, too.’ Her eyes were gritty, and her limbs felt like lead, but that overwhelming sense of sleep that had threatened to engulf her when they first got in had somehow passed. So she told him about Li and his sister. The whole sad tale of Xinxin, and how fate had somehow contrived to bring Li Yan and Xiao Ling together again in the most bizarre of circumstances — Xiao Ling, an illegal immigrant, paying off her debt by working as a prostitute, infected by the virus. ‘She’ll be detained with all the rest,’ Margaret said. ‘Locked up for God knows how long. I don’t know how Li Yan’s going to deal with that.’

‘She can apply for bail at the immigration court,’ Mendez said.

‘She’s infected, Felipe! They’re not going to let her, or anyone else, back into circulation. They’re going to be kept in isolation. Quarantined. We don’t know what triggers the flu yet. I mean, you know that better than anyone.’

‘It’s true,’ Mendez nodded solemnly. ‘We don’t know what triggers it. But we’re already building up extensive intelligence about what doesn’t.’

‘How do you mean?’

He said, ‘Department of Health and INS interviewers have been instructed to question people already taken into custody on what they’ve been eating and drinking since they arrived in America. That way we should be able to establish very quickly a list of “safe” foods. A diet that we know will not trigger the virus.’ And Margaret remembered her almost prophetic words to Steve. If Chinese food triggered the virus it would have happened by now . Of course, it made sense. Mendez went on, ‘Under proper supervision, there’s no reason why someone like Xiao Ling couldn’t be released into the protective custody of her brother. And I don’t see any reason why she shouldn’t be able to claim political asylum either. On the basis of what you’ve told me, she could easily argue that she was persecuted in China under the one-child policy.’

He stood up. ‘I know a very good lawyer in Houston,’ he said. ‘Owes me a favour or two. I’ll call him.’

‘What? Now?’ Margaret had been caught by surprise at how quickly this had all turned around.

‘Sure.’

‘Felipe, it’s the middle of the night!’

Mendez grinned. ‘If I’m not in my bed, I don’t see why anyone else should be.’

They drove past dilapidated wooden huts and old trailers set back among the trees on University Avenue. Battered pick-up trucks looked abandoned in dirt drives cluttered with rusted car wrecks and accumulations of trash. The occasional shiny new satellite dish stood pointing incongruously toward a leaden sky, the first red light of dawn creeping into it from the east.

As they went up the hill toward Main, they passed, on the left, the unimpressive offices of the District Attorney. Across the street the old county jailhouse was now home to a law firm.

Mendez chuckled. ‘Most folks would say that all lawyers should be put in the local jailhouse.’ Which was ironic, because they were on their way to meet the lawyer they hoped was going to get Xiao Ling freed from custody. He and Margaret had driven straight up to the Holliday Unit, while it was still dark, to collect Li. Li had spent a sleepless night there wrestling with the conflicting options that confronted him. Margaret’s phone call had come like a bright light shining into a very dark place. Now she sat up front, beside Mendez. Li sat in the back staring gloomily from the window. His initial hopes had since faded with news that the INS was almost certain to oppose Xiao Ling’s release.