Biowar

56

Johnny Bib waited as the small Bell helicopter hovered over the garage. The door on the left side opened and a bundle was lowered slowly by rope. When it hit the ground, Johnny ran forward, thinking he’d untie it. Instead, the man in the helicopter let go of the rope and it fell down on Johnny’s head as the chopper whirled away.,

This would not have happened to him had he taken his mother’s advice and learned to play the piano when he was five, Johnny thought to himself. It was a mistake he’d paid for all his life.

The bundle proved to be a large duffel bag, so packed that Johnny had to drag it along the ground to get it inside. He found the encrypted phone at the top and dialed into the Art Room.

“It’s Johnny Bib,” he said. “I thought I was going home.”

“Johnny, we have a lot to do,” said Rubens, who was in the Art Room. “You’re already in the house and—”

“There’s no more information here.”

“I’m going to let Chris Farlekas talk to you,” said Rubens. “He may have some ideas.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Hi, Johnny. How are you?” said the Art Room supervisor, coming on the line.

“Lousy.”

“Sick?”

“Just lousy.”

“Come now. We need you to be strong.”

Farlekas was fond of “Win One for the Gipper” crap. He didn’t understand mathematicians at all. He probably couldn’t even balance his checkbook.

“Forty-three dollars and seventeen cents.”

“What’s that, Johnny?” asked Farlekas.

“My checking account balance.”

“Uh, okay. Listen, I’m going to put Dr. Chaucer on-line. We had some ideas.”

The line clicked.

“Hello,” said Chaucer. “The line’s secure now, right?”

“In a manner of speaking. Technically, the encryption used in these phones is hardly tamper-proof. As was shown by the Dalton-Blitz paper of 2003, working—”

“Actually, I was wondering if we could turn our attention to the disease,” said Chaucer. “It would be helpful to understand the vector. If you could look through his papers for articles on disease, perhaps.”

The room seemed to light up. Finally the doctor had said something that made sense, thought Johnny Bib.

“What sort of vector?” asked Johnny.

“That’s exactly the question,” said Farlekas.

An odd sound behind him caused Johnny to jump. “A cat,” he said involuntarily. “I hate cats!”

“Dr. Kegan has a cat?”

“It’s right there,” said Johnny, pointing. The fur ball finally got the message and retreated.

“Don’t pet it. Don’t pet it at all,” said Chaucer.

“I don’t intend to.”

“Is that it?” asked Farlekas.

“It could be. We’re going to have to capture it.”

“Not me,” said Johnny Bib.

“Someone has to.”

“I’ll fly to the moon first.”

“That may be your next assignment,” said Rubens, breaking into the line. “If you don’t do what Dr. Chaucer and Mr. Farlekas tell you to do, precisely and expeditiously, you will be on the moon.”

Rubens agreed with Chaucer that having Johnny Bib handle the cat was too dangerous. Fortunately, the cat’s hunger and a can of tuna fish made luring him into a room where he could be quarantined relatively easy. One of the CDC teams was nearby, interviewing residents; they were detailed over to the house, along with a pair of state troopers, two animal control officers, and a special hazardous materials unit with contamination suits. In the meantime, Rubens had Farlekas contact Lester in Europe. Rather than the doctor, however, Lia came on the line.

“Why are we still in isolation?” she demanded.

“Miss DeFrancesca, always a pleasure. Put Dr. Lester on the line, please.”

“When the hell are we getting out of here?”

“Lia, we can work out your personal issues—”

“Personal issues?”

“Put Dr. Lester on the line,” he said.

“Quite a pistol,” said Lester when he finally took the phone.

“Quite. Would a cat be a potential host?”

“Possibly. At this point, I wouldn’t rule anything out.”

“Is Dean off the hook?”

“Probably just food poisoning. As I told you while I was en route, the fever was never that high. I can ask him about the cat.”

Rubens looked up. Farlekas was waving at him from the front of the Art Room.

“Excuse me, I have to speak to one of my people. Here’s Dr. Chaucer.” He clicked the line over to Chaucer, then went down to Farlekas.

“Tommy’s helicopter went down. We’re not sure what the hell’s going on over there.”

“You have a location?”

“They barely got off the ground. They’re a good fifty miles inside of Burma. There are three guerrilla camps close enough to throw rocks at them. One other thing,” added the Art Room supervisor. “Right before he got on the helicopter, he said he didn’t feel too good. He thought he had a fever. Somehow I don’t think we’d be lucky enough to have two cases of food poisoning on the same mission.”