Larry decided his meeting with Senator Mary Collis had gone much better than expected. Having extracted a firm commitment to ask a few questions and get back to him, Larry thanked her and walked back to the Quincy Hotel, hoping to snatch a few hours of sleep. He had only just picked up his key and stepped out of the lift to his room when his phone rang.
“Dr Brown? It’s the US Embassy, Abuja. Would you please hold the line?”
Still holding the phone, Larry clicked open the door to his room and sat on the bed.
“Larry!” The voice of the ambassador boomed, as if he was sitting next to him on the bed. “Been trying to get you. Office in Lagos said you must be out and about. They hadn’t seen you for three days. Your phone was off. Had a problem with it or something?”
“No, sir, it’s OK,” said Larry. “I’ve just been out and about as the office said.”
“Well, now, I promised to get back to you on this virus thing. Trouble is we’ve had a whole bunch of Nigerian politicians here this week, including the president himself - trouble on the border with Chad, the oil pipeline fire down south, you name it. Not at all sure we want any involvement, but we got to give them some airtime. Now then, we’ve done a few checks on your virus. Laura, in the office here, has worked wonders. I’ll get her to call you, but here’s the gist. You need to speak to USAMRID - the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Fort Detrick, Maryland, Larry. They are the experts.”
Larry interrupted. “I already did, sir. Waste of time. I got nowhere.”
“OK, right, I see. Well, then you need to speak to the Biological Weapons Convention people.”
Larry sensed he was using a crib sheet given to him by Laura, whoever Laura was. “Useless, sir. There aren’t any people. It’s a website, and even the website is out of date.”
There was a pause, and Larry thought he could hear someone next to the ambassador. Perhaps it was Laura, but Larry had already had enough. “Look, sir, this needs someone with genuine clout at US
government level to sit up and take notice. That person needs to sit and listen, hear me out and then do something.”
“I hear what you’re saying, Larry. Let me chat to Laura again, and we’ll see where we go with this.” Larry sighed.
“Yeh, hang on, Larry. Laura wants a word. She’s stood right next. Try to sort this thing out. Yes, let’s get together . . . I’m nearly done . . .
yeh.” The ambassador’s voice tailed off. Larry was sure he had been having a simultaneous discussion with someone else, and it wasn’t Laura. But it was Laura who spoke next.
“Hi, Larry, it’s Laura. How are you? Been trying to find you. Sorry about all this stuff turning up nothing, but if there’s anything more that I can do, let me know. Oh, and by the way, there was another guy on the phone looking for you yesterday. His name is - let me see . . .
yeh, here we go - Abdouleye. You want me to spell that? No? But I
got a note here saying he met you in Kano. He’s a doctor, so you must have been talking doctor stuff sometime. You want his number for another chat?”
“Yes,” said Larry.
“Anything else I can do for you right now?”
“No thanks,” he said. “I’ll sort it.”
In less than an hour, Larry was talking to Dr Abdouleye.
“I never forgot our meeting in Kano,” Abdouleye said “You told me you wanted to know more about the Dr Mustafa, who ran the tests on the medicine. Can we meet again?”
“I’m in the USA,” Larry admitted. “But don’t tell the embassy. They don’t know.”
“You lost interest in all those deaths?”
“Definitely not,” Larry said. “It’s why I came here. I’m in Washington.”
There was a pause. “Yes, I see. Good. You remember I told you there was also a white man here? Dr Mustafa arrived first. I think it was to set up the clinic. The white man joined him just before the tests started. It was because people saw a white doctor at the clinic that they trusted Mustafa.”
“Do you know the name of the white doctor?”
“Yes, he was Dr Suleiman He stayed about one week but then left.”
“How do you know this?”
“From the wife of one of the patients who died. She says her husband was healthy, but they needed money. They had heard about cash being offered to test a new medicine for influenza that had already been tested on monkeys. People didn’t need to be sick already. It was just a last safety check on humans. Her husband attended the clinic, and he was given a dose of the medicine from an asthma inhaler.
Several men, including her husband, then got sick. They were told they would be moved to a hospital for more checks, and more money was paid. After one month, the woman had heard nothing, so they
went to the clinic. But there was no one there. Mustafa had gone.
They reported it to Kano State government. They inspected it and then closed it. The woman then heard about many other men. But I thought you should know about the white doctor. Does it help?”
“Definitely,” Larry said. “Tell me his name again.”
“The woman said it was Dr Suleiman.”
“Could it have been Dr Solomon, not Dr Suleiman?” Larry asked.
There was a distinct pause. “Yes. It could. I am just passing on what I was told, but the woman told me he was not an Arab. He only spoke English. Mustafa spoke Arabic.”
“If I send a photo of a man I know as Solomon, can you check it out for me?”