National Security

CHAPTER 12

The black telephone on Megan Mahoney’s desk rang for the fifth time, then fell silent. Like a soldier in a garrison, Mahoney found the pressed uniforms, seedy politics, and confines of public health stifling. If she had wanted an office, she’d have been a surgeon or some other kind of specialist.

Even the walls of her posh apartment outside Atlanta threatened to crush her if she stayed inside too long. She belonged in the field.

The phone rang again, more urgently this time, if such a thing was possible. Mahoney picked it up.

“Dr. Mahoney. How may I help you?” She was put off by the interruption but saw no reason to let her Southern manners slip.

“Hallo, Dr. Mahoney. Dr. Alain Leclair here… National Institute of Health.” It was a male voice, slightly nasal and thickly French. He pronounced her name “Mayho-knee” with a heavy accent on the last syllable. “I must to speak with you regarding the shipment of certain culture specimens…”

Mahoney got a half dozen such calls a month, usually from third world countries with no labs of their own.

“The instructions for mailing bio samples are all on-line.” She started to give him the Web address.

“I am familiar with the CDC website,” Leclair said. “In truth, I’m not certain why I was given your name. I have not looked at the samples, myself. My counterparts in the Ministry of Interior had sealed them before they came into my possession.”

Leclair blew his nose, loud enough that Mahoney had to hold the receiver away from her ear. Sniffing, he continued. “These are blood and tissue samples — collected in Roissy.”

Mahoney sat upright, pushing herself away from the computer. She bit her bottom lip.

“Did you say Roissy?”

“Oui. A small community near the Paris airpor—”

“Tell me, Doctor, exactly how are the samples packaged?” Mahoney felt as if someone heavy was sitting on her chest. “You are positive you didn’t try to examine them yourself — touch them in any way?”

“Oui, I did not.” Leclair said. “They were packaged when I rec—”

“Okay.” Mahoney felt herself begin to breathe again. “Listen to me very carefully, Dr. Leclair. You must place the Roissy samples in a biosafety level-four containment lab immediately.”

Neither Leclair, nor anyone in the French government, would have been told the whole truth regarding the incident with Northwest 2. They knew only of an Algerian lab with some sort of bioterrorism connections. Mahoney had been told the place was firebombed to ashes or she’d have been on the first flight across the Atlantic. She fumed that no one had seen fit to inform her of any surviving cultures.

The French had no way of knowing that the virus from Roissy was, in all likelihood, responsible for the death of over four hundred people.

“I can assure you, the samples are quite well packaged, Dr. Mahoney,” Leclair protested. “We are professionals here in France. The CDC protocols were followed to the letter. You have no need to—”

Mahoney’s Southern sweetness had its limits.

“Damn it, Leclair,” she snapped. “Hang up the telephone right now and take the specimens to the nearest BSL-four containment — someplace you’d take the deadliest stuff you’d ever even thought about.”

“Impossible,” Leclair huffed.

Mahoney threw up her hands. “And just why is that?”

“Quite simple,” Leclair sniffled. “I do not have them. The FedEx messenger picked them up from my office five hours ago. They are already en route to you.”