Circus, he thought, and punched up another home page–but, no, it was just a few weeks too early in the year for that. Too bad. Too bad indeed! Badrayn groused. Didn’t the big circuses travel in private trains? Damn. But that was just bad timing, and bad timing could not be helped. The auto show would have to do.
And all the others.
GROUP TWO’S MEMBERS were all fatally ill now, and it was time to end their suffering. It wasn’t so much mercy as efficiency. There was no point at all in risking the lives of the medical corpsmen by treating people condemned to death by law and science both, and so like the first group they were dispatched by large injections of Dilaudid, as Moudi watched the TV. The relief for the medics was visible, even through the cumbersome plastic suits. In just a
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few minutes all of the test subjects were dead. The same procedures as before would be exercised, and the doctor congratulated himself that they’d worked so well, and no extraneous personnel had been infected. That was mainly because of their ruthlessness. Other places–proper hospitals–would not be so lucky, he knew, already mourning the loss of fellow practitioners.
It was a strange truism of life that second thoughts came only when it was too late for them. He could no more stop what was to come than he could stop the turning of the earth.
The medics started loading the infected bodies on the gurneys, and he turned away. He didn’t need to see it again. Moudi walked into the lab.
Another set of technicians was now loading the ‘”soup” into containers known as flasks. They had a thousand times more than was needed for the operations, but the nature of the exercise was such that it was actually easier to make too much than it was to make just enough and, the director had explained offhandedly, one never knew when more might be needed. The flasks were all made of stainless steel, actually a specialized alloy that didn’t lose its strength in extreme cold. Each was three-quarters filled and sealed. Then it would be sprayed with a caustic chemical to make certain the outside was clean. Next it would be placed on a cart and rolled to the cold-storage locker in the building’s basement, there to be immersed in liquid nitrogen. The Ebola virus particles could stay there for decades, too cold to die, completely inert, waiting for their next exposure to warmth and humidity, and a chance to reproduce and kill. One of the flasks stayed in the lab, sitting in a smaller cryogenic container, about the size of an oil drum but somewhat taller, with an LED display showing the interior temperature.
It was something of a relief that his part in the drama would soon be over. Moudi stood by the door, watching the lesser personnel do their jobs, and probably they felt the same. Soon the twenty spray containers would be filled and removed from the building, and every square centimeter of the building would be rigorously cleaned, making everything safe again. The director would spend all of
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his time in his office, and Moudi–well, he couldn’t reappear at the WHO, could he? He was dead, after all, killed in the airplane crash just off the Libyan coast. Someone would have to generate a new identity and passport for him before he could travel again, assuming that he ever could. Or perhaps as a security measure–no, even the director wasn’t that ruthless, was he?
“HELLO, I’M CALLING for Dr. lan MacGregor.”
“Who’s calling, please?”
“This is Dr. Lorenz at CDC Atlanta.”
“Wait, please.”
Gus had to wait for two minutes, by his watch, long enough to light his pipe and open a window. The younger staffers occasionally chided him about the habit, but he didn’t inhale, and it was good for thinking . . .
“This is Dr. MacGregor,” a young voice said.
“This is Gus Lorenz in Atlanta.”
“Oh! How do you do, Professor?”
“How are your patients doing?” Lorenz asked from seven time zones away. He liked the sound of MacGregor, clearly working a little late. The good ones did a lot of that.
“The male patient isn’t doing well at all, I’m afraid. The child, however, is recovering nicely.”
“Indeed? Well, we examined the specimens you sent. Both contained the Ebola virus, Mayinga sub-strain.”
“You’re quite certain?” the younger man asked.
“No doubt about it, Doctor. I ran the tests myself.”
“I was afraid of that. I sent another set to Paris, but they haven’t got back to me yet.”
“I need to know a few things.” On his end of the line, Lorenz had a pad out. “Tell me more about your patients.”
“There’s a problem with that, Professor Lorenz,” MacGregor had to say. He didn’t know if the line might be bugged, but in a country like Sudan, it was not something he could discount. On the other hand, he had to say something, and so he started picking his way through the facts he could disclose.
710
“I SAW YOU on TV last night.” Dr. Alexandre had decided to see Cathy Ryan at lunch again for that very reason. He’d taken a liking to her. Who would have expected an eye cutter and laser jockey (for Alex, these were more mechanical specialties than the true medicine he practiced–even that profession had its rivalries, and he felt that way about almost all surgical specialties) to take an interest in genetics? Besides, she probably needed a friendly voice.
“That’s nice,” Caroline Ryan replied, looking down at her chicken salad as he took his seat. The bodyguard, Alexandre saw, merely looked unhappily tense.
“You did okay.”
“Think so?” She looked up, saying evenly: “I wanted to rip his face off.”
“Well, that didn’t quite come across. You were pretty supportive of your husband. You came across smart.”
“What is it with reporters? I mean, why–”
Alex smiled. “Doctor, when a dog urinates on a fire hydrant, he’s not committing vandalism. He’s just being a dog.” Roy Altman nearly choked on his drink.
“Neither one of us ever wanted this, you know?” she said, still unhappy enough to miss the jibe.
Professor Alexandre held his hands up in mock surrender. “Been there, done that, ma’am. Hey, I never wanted to join the Army. They drafted me right out of med school. It turned out all right, making colonel and all. I found an interesting field to keep the brain busy, and it pays the bills, y’know?”
“/don’t get paid for this abuse!” Cathy objected, albeit with a smile.
“And your husband doesn’t get paid enough,” Alex added.
“He never has. Sometimes I wonder why he doesn’t just do the job for free, turn the checks back in, just to make the point that he’s worth more than they pay him.”
“You think he would have made a good doc?”
Her eyes brightened. “I’ve told him that. Jack woufd have been a surgeon, I think–no, maybe something else,
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like what you’re in. He’s always liked poking around and figuring things out.”
“And saying what he thinks.”
That almost started a laugh. “Always!”
“Well, guess what? He comes across as a good guy. I’ve never met him, but I liked what I saw. Sure as hell he’s no politician, and maybe that’s not a bad thing once in a while. You want to lighten up a little, Doctor? What’s the worst thing that can happen? He leaves the job, goes back to whatever he wants to do–teaching, I guess from what he said–and you’re still a doc with a Lasker on the wall.”
“The worst thing that can happen–”
“You have Mr. Altaian here to take care of that, don’t you?” Alexandre looked him over. “I imagine you’re big enough to stand in the way of the bullet.” The Secret Service agent didn’t reply, but his look at Alex told the tale. Yes, he’d stop one for his principal. “You guys can’t talk about this sort of thing, can you?”
“Yes, sir, we can, if you ask.” Altman had wanted to say this all day. He’d seen the TV special, too, and as had often happened before, there was light talk in the Detail this morning about popping a cap on the reporter in question. The Secret Service had a fantasy life, too. “Dr. Ryan, we like your family a lot, and I’m not just saying that to be polite, okay? We don’t always like our principals. But we like all of you.”
“Hey, Cathy.” It was Dean James, passing by with a smile and a wave.
“Hi, Dave.” Then she noted a few waves from faculty friends. So, she wasn’t as alone as she thought.
“Okay, Cathy, are you married to James Bond or what?” In a different context the question might have set her off, but Alexandre’s Creole eyes were twinkling at her.
“I know a little. I got briefed in on some of it when President Durling asked Jack to be Vice President, but I can’t–“