Ebola K: A Terrorism Thriller: Book 2 by Bobby Adair Read Free Book Online Page A

are true, I’m afraid of what we’ll find in our tests.”

Chapter 13
    From the air, Dallas expanded in a gridwork stain across a tan-colored sea of dead, late-summer grass. The pilot, in his pre-landing announcement, told the passengers that the temperature in Dallas was one hundred and four. Salim understood the reason why all the vegetation had withered to desert hues.
    The airplane banked into the turn and started the final descent. From his window seat, Salim saw a labyrinth of runways astride six semicircular terminals. He recalled being fascinated the first time he’d seen an airport from above. He’d even been interested in many he’d seen after. Chicago O’Hare—he’d arrived there near midnight—had been particularly beautiful, with its millions of lights twinkling against a black earth.
    Mostly, he’d seen too many airports, had too many flights, and awakened too many times to a wrong-colored sky, black when it should have been blue, blue when it should have been dawn. Salim was unstuck in time and place. His circadian clock sent his body messages that contradicted those sent by his eyes. Everything jumbled in his brain. His stomach was roiling. His ability to concentrate was shot. It was hard to focus his eyes when he tried to read his tickets.
    Of one thing he was certain: he had an urgency brewing in his bowels.
    He looked across the laps of two other passengers and gave a brief thought to climbing over them and running for the restroom at the back of the plane. He couldn’t. The seatbelt light was on. The plane was landing. He had to stay seated or risk arrest by an overzealous sky marshal. He’d never make it to a restroom then.
    The plane would be on the ground in two or three minutes; it might still be another fifteen or twenty before it was parked at the terminal. From there, Salim needed to get out of his seat and hustle up the gangway.
    Please, let there be a restroom close by.
    The diarrhea had been a problem over the past three flights. When it initially hit, Salim had been only an hour into a five-hour flight, and he’d spent a good deal of that flight locked in the restroom. The ordeal had been embarrassing. The other passengers stared at him. Some snickered as he made trip after trip up and down the aisle. He’d disturbed his neighboring passengers with his comings and goings, and he felt sure he’d disturbed the passengers close to the restroom with the unpleasant smells that escaped when the door was open.
    Salim’s belly gurgled some more, and cramps followed. He clenched his teeth and closed his eyes as he leaned back in his seat.
    “We’ll be down in a second,” the elderly woman said from the seat beside his.
    He smiled politely and nodded.
    “Do you live in Dallas?” she asked.
    Salim had been chatted up by how many passengers now? He didn’t understand why it was getting hard to keep his thoughts straight. “Just visiting,” he said.
    “You live in Chicago?”
    That’s where the flight originated. But he didn’t know anything about Chicago. To tell the lie that he lived there might put him at risk of being exposed for what he was.
    The airplane bounced through some turbulent air, and the seatbelt tugged across Salim’s lap. He winced. “I’m from Denver. I’m visiting my cousin in Dallas.” That was the briefest version of his story. Why was this woman talking to him now? She’d been silent the entire flight.
    “Denver to Dallas via Chicago?” The woman smiled. “I hope you saved a lot of money on that flight.”
    Without consciously choosing to, Salim rubbed a hand over his aching forehead as he tried to dredge up the best part of his lie, the one he’d picked up from a frequent flier on an early leg of his journey. “I’m on a mileage run.”
    The old woman burst into a fit of giggling.
    When will this damn flight end? A little bit rudely, Salim told her, “I’m flying discount flights to maximize my frequent flier miles.”
    “Oh, dear.”