National Security

CHAPTER 37

“Megan?”

“Yes…”

“It’s Justin. Where are you?” His voice was frantic as if he was bursting with information. At first, she was afraid he was calling with bad news about his symptoms from the needle stick. Then she remembered he should have been in the Slammer, incommunicado.

“Justin?” she said. “Where did you get a phone?”

“I was going crazy in there, Meg,” he said. “I convinced Dr. Kraus to let me out.”

“Roberta let you out of the Slammer?” Mahoney gasped, throwing a puff of condensation on her face shield. Justin must have been putting some serious moves on the tall German scientist for her to cave in against such strict protocols. Kraus had always joked that she had a thing for his dimples.

“I’m not even feeling sick. Anyway, I promised her I’d stay in the BSL-Four containment and do some work.”

“I’ll bet you did.”

“Anyway,” Justin said, “that’s not the important part. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be fine.”

“Justin, I’m kind of busy here,” Mahoney sighed.

“I know, but I think you’ll want to hear what I’ve got. Check this out, Megan. We injected C-06 with the optic jelly on the eleventh and paired him with C-12 as a breathing buddy, right?”

Mahoney looked at her watch, doing the math. She felt her legs go a little wobbly, wondering where such a conversation was heading. “Right. That would have been about ninety-six hours ago — roughly four days…”

“A little over that,” Justin said. “But here’s the deal. I couldn’t sleep so I checked C-12 last night around midnight and he was clean. Then, I ran another test about three hours ago. He’s got it, Megan. His blood is swimming with filovirus. The virus is contagious, but not right away. My blood is still okay so it looks like I’m home free.”

“Symptomatic?” Megan found herself chewing the inside of her cheek, an awful thought working its way to the fore in her exhausted brain.

“C-12?” Justin said. “No, he’s fine. But I when I went to check on C-06 half an hour ago, he had blood literally gushing out of his nose. He’s crashing, Megan, and he’s crashing fast. The virus in his blood has changed. The protein sheaths are dissolving. I think that’s what makes it turn contagious.”

“It’s been a long time since my head’s seen a pillow,” Mahoney said. “Run down the timeline with me so I can make sure I have it straight.”

Justin plowed ahead, unaware that he was talking about anything but captive crab-eating macaques.

“Okay, Meg, here’s what we’ve got. The macaque we injected after we had to put C-45 down — C-06—didn’t become symptomatic after we injected him until the fifth day, but his breathing buddy in the next cage, sharing nothing but air, caught the virus sometime during the fourth night…”

Mahoney’s eyes fell to the overturned wastebasket. She was struck by a sudden, sickening thought. Justin had no idea about the real ramifications of what he was saying.

“Do me a favor,” she said weakly. “Check the contents of the glass vial we brought in yesterday.” Going from call to call on suspected terrorists she’d not had time to look at it herself.

“Already done,” Justin said. “It’s not a virus at all. It’s some kind of shellfish toxin. There’s enough in the vial to kill one man almost instantly, but that’s all.”

“A suicide drug…” Mahoney’s voice trailed off. Her eyes shot around the room. The carpet around Hamid was soaked in a dark, rapidly spreading stain. Droplets of the Arab’s blood had splattered like rain both during the fight and subsequent shooting. Chaffee’s face and hair were flecked in red. The customs inspector looked like a Civil War surgeon after a brutal amputation. “You’re saying C-06 passed the virus before he showed any symptoms whatsoever?”

“Yes. Do you know what this means?” From the jubilant tone in Justin’s voice, it was obvious all he was thinking about was that it meant he was clear of any infection from his needle stick.

Megan teetered on her feet, clutching at the edge of the table with her glove to remain standing.

“Everything all right, Doc?” Quinn took her arm to steady her.

The bulky hood moved back and forth slowly, swishing as Mahoney shook her head. She whispered, feeling as if she might vomit.

“Pandora…”