The moment Ted Lynch caught sight of Jack approaching, he pretended to hide behind his lab bench.
“Shucks, you found me,” Ted joked when Jack came around the end of the counter. “I was hoping not to see you until the afternoon.”
“It’s your unlucky day,” Jack said. “I’m not even on autopsy, so I’ve decided to camp out here in your lab. I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to run my probes …”
“Actually, I stayed late last night and even came in early to prepare the nucleoproteins. I’m ready to run the probes now. If you give me an hour or so, I should have some results.”
“Did you get all four cultures?” Jack asked.
“Sure did,” Ted said. “Agnes was on the ball as usual.”
“I’ll be back,” Jack said.
With some time to kill, Jack went down to the morgue and changed into his moon suit before entering the autopsy room.
The morning routine was well under way. Six of the eight tables were in various stages of the autopsy procedure. Jack walked down the row until he recognized one of the cases. It was Gloria Hernandez. For a moment he looked at her pale face and tried to comprehend the reality of death. Having just spoken with her in her apartment the day before, it seemed an inconceivable transition.
The autopsy was being done by Riva Mehta, Laurie’s officemate. She was a petite woman of Indian extraction who had to stand on a stool to do the procedure. At that moment she was just entering the chest.
Jack stayed and watched. When the lungs were removed he asked to see the cut surface. It was identical to Kevin Carpenter’s from the day before, complete with pinpoint hemorrhages. There was no doubt it was a primary influenza pneumonia.
Moving on, Jack found Chet, who was busy with the nurse, George Haselton. Jack was surprised; it was Chet’s usual modus operandi to stop into the office before doing his day’s autopsies. When Chet saw it was Jack, he seemed annoyed.
“How come you didn’t answer your phone last night?” Chet demanded.
“It was too long a reach,” Jack said. “I wasn’t there.”
“Colleen called to tell me what happened,” Chet said. “I think this whole thing has gone far enough.”
“Chet, instead of talking, how about showing me the lung,” Jack said.
Chet showed Jack the lung. It was identical to Gloria Hernandez’s and Kevin Carpenter’s. When Chet started to talk again, Jack merely moved on.
Jack stayed in the autopsy room until he’d seen the gross on all the influenza cases. There were no surprises. Everyone was impressed by the pathogenicity of the virus.
Changing back into his street clothes, Jack went directly up to the DNA lab. This time Ted acted glad to see him.
“I’m not sure what you wanted me to find,” Ted said. “But you are batting live hundred. Two of the four were positive.”
“Just two?” Jack asked. He’d prepared himself for either all positive or all negative. Like everything else associated with these outbreaks, he was surprised.
“If you want I can go back and fudge the results,” Ted joked. “How many do you want to be positive?”
“I thought I was the jokester around here,” Jack said.
“Do these results screw up some theory of yours?” Ted asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” Jack said. “Which two were positive?”
“The plague and the tularemia,” Ted said.
Jack walked back to his office while he pondered this new information. By the time he was sitting down he’d decided that it didn’t make any difference how many of the cultures were positive. That fact that any of them were positive supported his theory. Unless an individual was a laboratory worker it would be hard to come in contact with an artificially propagated culture of a bacteria.
Pulling his phone over closer to himself, Jack put in a call to National Biologicals. He asked to speak with Igor Krasnyansky, since the man had already been accommodating enough to send the probes. Jack reintroduced himself.
“I remember you,” Igor said. “Did you have any luck with the probes?”
“I did,” Jack said. “Thank you again for sending them. But now I have a few more questions.”