Biowar

50

“What the hell is going on?”

“Miss DeFrancesca, you’re going to have to calm down.”

“Don’t call me miss. What the hell is going on?”

Rubens placed his palms together before his chest, pressing them together as he relaxed his shoulders. He’d decided before the conversation started that he would be patient.

“There’s a possibility that you have been infected with a man-made bacteria,” Rubens told her.

“God damn it.” Lia paced on the screen, walking across the white linoleum. “I knew it.”

She and Dean had been evacuated to an American air base in Germany, where a set of trailers was equipped for medical isolation. The facilities were not quite as elaborate as Rubens had been told, but at this point they would have’to do.

“We are working on finding the cure,” added Rubens.

“You knew it all along,” she said, turning toward the camera.

“That’s not correct,” Rubens told her. “We only began to suspect recently.”

“How recently?”

“Recently.”

“You’re a bastard.”

“Such language, Lia, really. Did they teach you that in the Army?”

“Screw off.” She kicked at the linoleum on the floor, twisting away from the camera and then back. “Where’s the antidote? That’s what this is about, isn’t it? Kegan sold them the bacteria and promised to give them an antidote.”

“You’re jumping to conclusions. We don’t know that he sold them anything. We do believe, however, that he did have a cure for this disease. So we’re pursuing leads to that effect.”

“How?” she snapped.

“Mr. Karr is running it down as we speak.”

“I want to help him.”

“Not possible at the moment,” Rubens told her. He wondered what her reaction would be if he said that they weren’t even sure yet whom Kegan had been dealing with.

Lia looked down at the floor for a moment, then raised her eyes back at the video camera transmitting her image. The anger had vanished from her face — not a good sign, Rubens knew.

“I can get out of here, you know.”

“Lia, I’m sure you can.”

Not only were there four guards on each of the two windows, but there were a dozen men at the only door, and another six or seven milling around the sides. The outer fence ringing the trailers was surrounded by a company of soldiers, several machine gun-equipped Humvees, and at least one Mlal tank. But Rubens had no doubt Lia was correct.

“Dr. Lester is en route to examine you himself,” added Rubens in what he hoped was a conciliatory voice. “He should be there within a few hours.”

“Who’s Lester?”

“He’s with the CDC. There will be some blood tests, and the results should be pretty clear. Believe me, this has our top priority.”

“Oh, peachy.”

“As we speak, Johnny Bib and his team—”

“Oh, God, not that nut.”

“Johnny’s team is tracking down the construction of the organism as well as this so-called antidote.” Rubens realized belatedly that the word so-called was an extremely poor choice on his part. He rushed to continue. “We have some very good ideas about it. And since the man who’s the center of the attention here is a friend of Mr. Dean’s, I’m confident that once we apprehend him he will be more than glad — he’ll be anxious to help.”

“What’s he going to do if he’s dead? You hear him in there?” Lia gestured to the other room. “He’s groaning.”

“Is his IV set up correctly?”

“You think I’m a nurse?”

“I was under the impression your background included extensive medic training.”

Lia growled and disappeared into the other room. Rubens understood that she would not be returning anytime soon.

“What do you think?” asked Telach.

“I think we’d better see if they can spare some more soldiers for the perimeter guard,” said Rubens.