The Deep Zone by James M. Tabor Page B

’04.”
    “My God. Ebola-B was discovered in that cave. The worst of the Ebola family. What were you doing there?”
    “I was part of a WHO team of virologists and microbiologists. Some people had contracted hemorrhagic fever after eating
Passiflora edulis
grown near the cave.”
    “Passion fruit.”
    “Right. We determined that fruit bats from the cave contaminated the crops. Passion fruit and cassava both, in fact.”
    “Bandubyo,” she repeated, shaking her head. “That is supposed to be one hell of a cave.”
    “There was a lot of vertical. And to penetrate the dark zone we had to do some diving. Inside, the cave was clean. But from the twilight zone with its bat chamber on out—red-hot with what turned out to be that new species of Ebola virus.”
    “I hadn’t realized you did that kind of fieldwork.”
    “Oh, when the need arises. I don’t get out often enough to keep my skills
really
sharp. But I can still hold my own if I have to.”
    This was a side of Al Cahner she had not known about and would not have suspected. But he was trim and looked reasonably fit, so it was not completely outlandish to imagine him exploring wild caves. And she could not help but admire him for it. Penetratingviral caves was as bad as fieldwork got, partly because it was so dangerous and required a host of technical skills like rock climbing and vertical rope work and scuba diving. The really bad part, though, was that such caves sometimes housed pathogens of unearthly virulence.
    “I gather you’ve done some cave work yourself,” he said.
    I wonder what else he knows about me?
Hallie thought, but didn’t press the subject. BARDA was not a large facility. People talked.
    “Yes. For fun and work both. A lot of cave diving, too.”
    “It takes a special kind of person to do that for
fun
. It is dangerous business.”
    “There’s no margin for error, that’s for sure.”
    They talked a bit more about caves and viruses, then went back to their food. But the conversation had changed Hallie’s perception of her lab partner.
There’s more there than meets the eye
, she thought. And then:
All he needs is a little TLC
.
    Their bond grew, and as the months passed they talked about themselves, laughed at odd fellow workers, bitched about the bureaucracy, damned do-nothing politicians—took the small risks that inched them closer together. Of all the things they talked about, Hallie was most surprised to find that Al Cahner was a walking encyclopedia of baseball statistics. He was especially fond of the 1950s—“baseball’s golden age,” he called it. He could recite ERAs and slugging percentages and double-play combos as if he were reading them off a page. He also delighted in the
sounds
of baseball. Not the smack of a fastball in a catcher’s mitt or the ring of a cleanly hit home run. The sounds he found most beautiful were players’ names, which he loved to recite, almost like a kind of poetry:
    “Granny Hamner. Enos Slaughter. Ryne Duren.”
Pause
. “Paolo Discomenides. Hart Workman. Joe Bolt.”
Pause
. “Gino Cimoli. Rabbit Hopper. Artie Dedeaux.”
    Hallie had never been a baseball fan. One of her brothers had played cornerback for Duke; the other had been a flanker for the University of Colorado on a nationally ranked team. Both had beenhigh school standouts, so she had been watching football games since she was ten. Nevertheless, she enjoyed listening to her lab partner’s name-poems, and enjoyed, as well, seeing him smile.
    On her last afternoon, when stone-faced security guards escorted her back to retrieve her personal effects, Cahner appeared stunned. The blood drained from his face so rapidly she feared he might pass out. But then, glaring at the guards, he asked what in God’s name was happening. They just stood and stared. He turned to her.
    “I’m leaving” was all she could say, and she knew it was only the first of many such encounters to come.
    After several unsuccessful tries to learn more