Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
TEVENNE
From the air, Tevenne looked like paradise. White villas stepped down the jungle hillside toward a crescent of pale sand. Infinity pools mirrored the sky. Frangipani trees lined stone walkways. The main pavilion overlooked the ocean like a luxury sanctuary carved into the cliffs.
The brochures called it a wellness retreat. Privacy for healing. No one advertised what the lower levels were built for.
Two floors beneath the resort spa, the air changed. The scent of eucalyptus and citrus vanished, replaced by antiseptic, latex, and the metallic scent of blood. Rows of medical rooms stretched down the corridor. Some doors were closed. Some were not.
Inside one room, a young girl lay curled on her side gripping the rails of a hospital bed. She couldn’t have been older than sixteen. Her belly was swollen with pregnancy. She cried out as a contraction tore through her.
A midwife moved quickly to her side. “Breathe,” the woman said softly.
Across the hall, another girl rocked in a chair with a newborn pressed against her chest, exhaustion hollowing her eyes. Three doors down, a postpartum patient slept under heavy sedation.
Two security guards stood outside the nursery. Inside the nursery, twelve bassinets lined the wall, each with a small plastic identification tag carrying a number. There were no names.
Dr. William Blake walked down the corridor with efficiency. He wore surgical scrubs beneath a white coat. To anyone glancing quickly, the facility looked like a high-end fertility clinic. And parts of it were. But the client list told the real story.
Tech billionaires.
Foreign ministers.
Energy executives.
Men who wanted children but didn’t want complications.
Tevenne provided solutions. They offered healthy infants, delivered quickly and legally. Well, with the appearance of “legally.”
The alarms began an hour before sunrise. Blake stepped into the medical control room as a nurse rushed toward him. “Doctor, we have three more fevers in Maternity Wing B.”
“Temperature?”
“104.”
Blake paused. “Symptoms?”
“Cough. Muscle pain. Rapid fatigue.”
Another nurse appeared behind her. “And two postpartum patients just spiked.”
Blake walked to the monitoring board. Patient charts flickered across the screen.
Several were marked in red: Pregnant, Postpartum, Staff. Even one of the wealthy clients.
Blake opened the viral lab results.
Influenza A — positive.
Influenza B — positive.
He leaned closer to the screen. “Simultaneous infection.”
A security officer stepped into the room. “Doctor, the clients are asking questions.”
“Of course they are.”
“Word’s spreading.”
Blake nodded slightly. “How many?”
“Six fevers now.”
“And staff?”
“Two security.”
That was faster than expected. Too many infected bodies were in a confined environment. And pregnancy complicated everything. Their immune systems were suppressed. Their respiratory capacity was reduced. The virus didn’t need to evolve. It only needed opportunity.
Upstairs, opportunity was turning into panic.
The first helicopter blades began spinning up above the helipad.
A silver-haired man in a tailored linen suit stormed across the courtyard.
His assistant hurried behind him carrying a leather document case.
“This is unacceptable,” the man snapped. “You guaranteed safety and security.”
A resort coordinator kept her voice calm. “Your aircraft is ready, Mr. Vale.”
“Damn right it is.” He lowered his voice. “My child is due in two weeks.”
“We will contact you the moment the surrogate delivers.”
“That is not the agreement.” Another sharp, wet cough echoed from the veranda behind them. The man stepped away instinctively. “Get me off this island.”
Back underground, Blake entered the maternity ward, where the sound hit him immediately. Women were crying. Monitors beeped. There was the low, rhythmic tone of fetal heart trackers. One young woman lay shivering violently under a blanket.
A nurse checked her temperature. “104.7,” she whispered.
Blake studied the chart. Twenty-one weeks pregnant. Dual infection.
The nurse looked at him anxiously. “Should we transfer her?”
“To where?”
“The Seychelles hospital.”
“Impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because questions would follow.”
The nurse stared at him. “This is a medical emergency.”
“Yes,” Blake said calmly. “And a political one. She stays if you want to be paid.”
Another alarm sounded down the corridor. A postpartum patient began coughing violently. Blood dotted the sheet. A newborn cried in the bassinet beside her.
The nurse rushed forward. “Get the baby out of here!”
Blake stepped back into the control room. His phone vibrated. “Yes.”
A calm voice spoke on the other end. “They’re seeing cases on Kasavoa.”
Blake nodded even though the caller couldn’t see him. “That was inevitable.”
“You sent an infected patient there.”
Blake’s eyes shifted to the screen again. “No, I didn’t.”
A pause followed on the line. “You didn’t? The man was Varga. One of the security supervisors.”
“How did he get there?”
Blake turned toward the observation window. Through the glass, the maternity ward moved with urgency. Nurses checked monitors. A young woman gripped the rails of her bed through another contraction. Security was stationed along the hallway doors.
His expression tightened slightly as the man on the line said, “Nurse Aurelia Fowler transferred him.”
“Without authorization?”
“Right.”
“Why would she do that?” Blake exhaled slowly. “Because she believed someone outside this island might actually treat him.”
The voice on the phone hardened. “And you allowed it.”
Blake watched a nurse adjust an IV line in the ward below. “No, I simply couldn’t stop her.”
“You realize that means the infection is now visible.”
Blake’s gaze lingered on the crowded maternity wing. “Visibility was only a matter of time.”
Outside, another helicopter lifted from the pad. A private jet warmed on the small airstrip. More wealthy clients were leaving, but the pregnant girls were not on those flights. Neither were the nurses or security staff.