‘Ready?’ I asked, taking the facial spray out of the bag. ‘We’ll make this quick.’
I held a clean slide and the small canister under the hood and sprayed.
‘Let’s dip this in a ten percent bleach solution,’ I said when I was done. ‘Then we’ll triple bag it, get it and the other ten off to Atlanta.’
‘Coming up,’ Wheat said, walking off.
The slide took almost no time to dry, and I dripped Nicolaou stain on it and sealed it with a cover slip. I was already looking at it under a microscope when Wheat returned with a container of bleach solution. She dipped the Vita spray in it several times while fears coalesced, rolling into a dark, awful thunderhead as my pulse throbbed in my neck. I peered at the Guarnieri bodies I had come to dread.
When I looked up at Wheat, she could tell by the expression on my face.
‘Not good,’ she said.
‘Not good.’ I turned off the microscope and dropped my mask and gloves into biohazardous waste.
The Vita sprays from my office were airlifted to Atlanta, and a preliminary warning was broadcast nationwide to anyone who might have had such a sample delivered to them. The manufacturer had issued an immediate recall, and international airlines were removing the sprays from overseas travel bags given to business and first-class passengers. The potential spread of this disease, should deadoc have somehow tampered with hundreds, thousands of the facial sprays, was staggering. We could, once again, find ourselves facing a worldwide epidemic.
The meeting took place at one P.M. in the FBI’s field office off Staples Mill Road. State and federal flags fought from tall poles out front as a sharp wind tore brown leaves off trees and made the afternoon seem much colder than it was. The brick building was new, and had a secure conference room equipped with audio-visual capabilities, so we could see remote people while we talked to them. A young female agent sat at the head of the table, at a console. Wesley and I pulled out chairs and moved microphones close. Above us on walls were video monitors.
‘Who else are we expecting?’ Wesley asked as the special agent in charge, or S.A.C., walked in with an armload of paperwork.
‘Miles,’ said the S.A.C., referring to the Health Commissioner, my immediate boss. ‘And the Coast Guard.’ He glanced at his paperwork. ‘Regional chief out of Crisfield, Maryland. A chopper’s bringing him in. Shouldn’t take him more than thirty minutes in one of those big birds.’
He had no sooner said this than we could hear blades thudding faintly in the distance. Minutes later, the Jayhawk was thundering overhead and settling in the helipad behind the building. I could not remember a Coast Guard recovery helicopter ever landing in our city or even flying over it low, and the sight of it must have been awesome to people on the road. Chief Martinez was slipping off his coat as he joined us. I noted his dark blue commando sweater and uniform pants, and maps rolled up in tubes, and the situation only got grimmer.
The agent at the console was working controls as Commissioner Miles strode in and took a chair next to mine. He was an older man with abundant gray hair that was more contentious than most of the people he managed. Today, tufts were sticking out in all directions, his brow heavy and stern as he put on thick black glasses.
‘You look a little under the weather,’ he said to me as he made notes to himself.
‘The usual stuff going around,’ I said.
‘Had I known that, I wouldn’t have sat next to you.’ He meant it.
‘I’m beyond the contagious stage.’ I said, but he wasn’t listening.
Monitors were coming on around the room, and I recognized the face of Colonel Fujitsubo on one of them. Then Bret Martin blinked on, staring straight at us.
The agent at the console said, ‘Camera on. Mikes on. Someone want to count for me.’
‘Five-four-three-two-one,’ the S.A.C. said into his mike.
‘How’s that level?’
‘Fine here,’ Fujitsubo said from Frederick, Maryland.
‘Fine,’ said Martin from Atlanta.
‘We’re ready anytime.’ The agent at the console glanced around the table.