“Amazing!” exclaimed Tad, one afternoon when Marissa demonstrated a technique she’d devised to salvage bacteria-contaminated viral cultures. “I can’t imagine Dubchek turning down your proposal now.”
“I can,” answered Marissa. She debated telling Tad about what had happened in the L.A. hotel, but once again she decided not to do so. It wouldn’t accomplish anything and might cause problems in Tad’s relationship with Cyrill.
She followed her friend into his office. As they relaxed over coffee, Marissa said, “Tad, you told me when we went into the maximum containment lab that there were all sorts of viruses stored in there, including Ebola.”
“We have samples from every outbreak. There are even samples frozen and stored from your two outbreaks.”
Marissa wasn’t at all sure how she felt about people referring to the recent epidemics as “hers.” But she kept that thought to herself, saying instead, “Is there any place else that the Ebola virus is stored, other than here at the CDC?”
Tad thought for a moment. “I’m not sure. Do you mean here in the
U.S.?”
Marissa nodded.
“The army probably has some in Ft. Detrick at the Center for Biological Warfare. The fellow that runs the place used to be here at the CDC and he had an interest in viral hemorrhagic fevers.”
“Does the army have a maximum containment lab?”
Tad whistled. “Man, they’ve got everything.”
“And you say the man in charge at Ft. Detrick has an interest in viral hemorrhagic fever?”
“He was one of the people along with Dubchek who had been sent out to cover the initial Ebola outbreak in Zaire.”
Marissa sipped her coffee, thinking that was an interesting coincidence. She was also beginning to get a germ of an idea, one so unpleasant that she knew she could not consider it a reasonable hypothesis.
“One moment, ma’am,” said the uniformed sentry with a heavy Southern accent.
Marissa was stopped at the main gate to Ft. Detrick. Despite several days of trying to argue herself out of the suspicion that the army might have somehow been responsible for Ebola being loosened on an unsuspecting public, she had finally decided to use her day off to investigate for herself. Those two muggings continued to nag at her.
It had only been an hour-and-a-half flight to Maryland and a short drive in a rent-a-car. Marissa had pleaded her field experience with Ebola as an excuse to talk to anyone else familiar with the rare virus, and Colonel Woolbert had responded to her request with enthusiasm.
The sentry returned to Marissa’s car. “You are expected at building number eighteen.” He handed her a pass that she had to wear on the lapel of her blazer, then startled her with a crisp salute. Ahead of her, the black-and-white gate tipped up, and she drove onto the base.
Building #18 was a windowless concrete structure with a flat roof. A middle-aged man in civilian clothes waved as Marissa got out of her car. It was Colonel Kenneth Woolbert.
To Marissa, he looked more like a university professor than an army officer. He was friendly, even humorous, and was unabashedly pleased about Marissa’s visit. He told her right off that she was the prettiest and the smallest EIS officer he’d ever met. Marissa took the good with the bad.
The building felt like a bunker. Entry was obtained through a series of sliding steel doors activated by remote control. Small TV cameras were mounted above each door. The laboratory itself, however, appeared like any other modern hospital facility, complete with the omnipresent coffeepot over the Bunsen burner. The only difference was the lack of windows.
After a quick tour, during which the presence of a maximum containment lab was not mentioned, Colonel Woolbert took Marissa to their snack shop, which was nothing more than a series of vending machines. He got her a donut and Pepsi, and they sat down at a small table.
Without any prompting, Colonel Woolbert explained that he’d started at the CDC as an EIS officer in the late fifties and had become increasingly interested in microbiology and ultimately virology. In
the seventies, he’d gone back to school, at government expense, to get a Ph.D.