Pandemic

Epilogue

THURSDAY, 10:25 P.M.

With a powerful sense of fatigue and an even stronger sense that he was lucky to be alive, Jack started up the stairs in his building. Still hearing David’s warnings echoing in his ears, he seriously considered calling Detective Lou Soldano the moment he got in the apartment to find out if it might be possible to get a police detail to guard his house and family. Yet, as he rounded the first landing and started up the second flight, his mind switched to the idea of calling Warren. Jack had had the opportunity to see Warren and his boys in action on multiple occasions, and in terms of guarding the neighborhood and just knowing what was going on, no one could come close. By the time Jack got to the door to his apartment, he’d made up his mind. It was going to be Warren, not Lou, that he would count on.

Once he had his key out, Jack paused to buck up his courage. He expected Laurie to be rightfully annoyed with him for multiple reasons, including not having contacted her all day. If the tables had been reversed, he knew he would have been seeing red. Feeling appropriately penitent, he opened the door.

The first thing he noticed was a wonderful sense of calmness. There was no noise, and in particular there was no sound of TV. That had to mean that the in-laws were most likely in bed. Jack glanced over at the guestroom door. It was closed, and there was no line of light beneath it. He looked at Caitlin’s door. It, too, was closed, but hers had a line of light, so she was obviously still awake. But since she was in her room, the children had to be in bed.

After hanging up his jacket and slipping out of his shoes, Jack climbed the next flight of stairs. As the kitchen and great room progressively came into view through the balustrade, he could see both rooms were vacant. There was only a single table lamp burning next to the couch. He’d not seen his home quite so peaceful in the evening for weeks. Before Sheldon had shown up, Dorothy would have the great room television on until all hours, sometimes watching The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and even The Late Late Show with James Corden.

In his stocking feet and as silent as a cat, Jack walked down the hall toward the study. The door was open, and a bit of light spilled out into the corridor. Both the children’s doors were closed. When he got to the open office door, he could see Laurie bent over the desk, poring over construction blueprints. She was facing away from him. So as not to frighten her, he knocked softly on the open door. The ruse worked, as she twisted around calmly, probably expecting to see JJ. When she recognized it was Jack, her expression rapidly changed from relief to irritation.

“Where in heaven’s name have you been,” she demanded.

“Vacationing in the beautiful Garden State,” Jack said, incapable of allowing an opportunity for a bit of sarcasm to pass. It was a reflex response almost beyond his control.

“Let’s not make this worse than it already is,” Laurie snapped. “Why haven’t you called or responded to one of my blizzard of texts? Were you deliberately trying to terrify and antagonize me? What the hell were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t doing a lot of thinking, I’m afraid,” Jack said. “I was mostly reacting.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Laurie said sharply, clearly losing whatever patience she was trying to maintain. “Why the hell didn’t you contact me just to say you were okay?”

“All right, try to calm down,” Jack said, keeping his tone as soothing as he could. “I’ll explain everything.”

“I have been worried sick about you,” Laurie blurted. “And I’ve had to deal with that while trying to manage one of the absolutely worst days of my professional life, which you also bear a good deal of responsibility for causing.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said, as sincerely as he could.

“Is that all you can say?” Laurie demanded.

“To be truthful, I haven’t had one of my better days, either,” Jack said.

“And what on earth do you mean you were mostly reacting and not thinking? And why New Jersey? What the hell were you doing in New Jersey all this time?”

“I was revisiting Dover Valley Hospital and GeneRx, and I have to say I have learned some astonishing things.”

“It’s after ten o’clock at night,” Laurie said. “What have you been doing at Dover Valley Hospital until ten o’clock without so much as a call or, God forbid, a single text to say ‘I’m still alive’?”

“It would have been difficult to call or text since my phone was confiscated,” Jack said.

“Why?” Laurie demanded. “Who took your phone?”

“Listen!” Jack said, trying to sound more in control than he felt. “I’ll tell you everything, and believe me, there is a lot to tell. But first I’d like to hear how you have fared here in the city with the flu pandemic false alarm.”

“Luckily, things are getting back to a semblance of normal,” Laurie said as Jack grabbed his own desk chair, pulled it over to Laurie’s desk, and sat down. “The subways are mostly running again,” she continued. “The buses are back in service. The airports are functioning relatively normally. The schools are also open — or will be tomorrow. Theaters are open. And the media has been extraordinarily helpful in getting out the message that there is no pandemic flu or any viral outbreak spread by aerosol.”

“Thank God,” Jack said. “But it is still being reported that there is a kind of mini-pandemic brewing. Correct?”

“Absolutely,” Laurie said. “The media has made it clear that although most of the deaths have been here in the New York metropolitan area, there have also been similar deaths in London, Rome, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.”

“I hadn’t heard it’s also popped up in California,” Jack said. “Good lord, I don’t know whether to be impressed or appalled. Considering the fluidity of the youth culture of today, I feel like a stodgy prude.”

“There was a death in each of those California cities,” Laurie said. “And I have to give the media credit for getting the general public to understand that the NYC subway played absolutely no role whatsoever.”

“That’s appropriate,” Jack said. “Associating the outbreak with the subway as if it had something to do with its cause is an example of journalism at its worst.”

“It’s a tabloid tactic,” Laurie said. “People harbor an atavistic fear of subways, like basements. Making the association probably sold more papers, which ultimately was the goal.”

“Whatever,” Jack scoffed. “It was irresponsible and certainly contributed to the panic, considering how many people rely on the subway.”

“The regular media made up for tabloid irresponsibility,” Laurie said. “They have gone out of their way to make it absolutely clear that the disease spreads by body fluids like HIV and not by the respiratory route. The initial fear that it was a rapidly fatal respiratory disease is what made this disastrous false alarm as bad as it was. All day today, while we have been struggling to control the situation, all of us, from the mayor on down, have marveled that no one seems to have anticipated this kind of false alarm could have happened. Even that bogus incoming-missile alert that happened in Hawaii in January 2018 didn’t make anyone realize in retrospect that all the planning, drills, and exercises directed at the feared reoccurrence of a 1918 Spanish flu pandemic would have set the city up for a false alarm of this magnitude. The expense that this has caused is beyond belief, especially when the losses that businesses sustained are factored in.”

“Has any solution been proposed?” Jack asked.

“Not specifically,” Laurie said. “But in general, it is recognized that there has to be some sort of failsafe mechanism in place so this doesn’t happen again. We can’t have a single watch commander in the city’s Emergency Operations Center sitting in front of a switch capable of unleashing the whole shebang.”

“What about my administrative leave?” Jack asked. “Did that come up again?”

“No, and I didn’t try,” Laurie said. “Nor do I plan to, at least not for a few days. This has been a serious debacle and heads are going to roll, and it could be mine. Both the mayor and even the Commissioner of Health are looking at me. Particularly, the mayor sorely needs a scapegoat even bigger than you.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said with true sincerity. “I’ve certainly learned my lesson about loose talk.”

“I should hope so,” Laurie said. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re home.”

“Thank you,” Jack said. “What about the CDC? Did they show up even though it was a false alarm and not a flu-like respiratory problem?”

“They did for sure,” Laurie said. “And they are centering their attention on the real outbreak. But tell me! Have you had anything to eat?”

“I haven’t,” Jack admitted.

“Are you hungry?”

“I should eat something, I suppose,” Jack said.

“Caitlin made a pasta tonight,” Laurie said. “There is some left over. Are you interested?”

“Sure,” Jack said.

Together they walked out of the study and down the hall to the kitchen. While Laurie got the pasta out of the refrigerator and put it into the microwave, Jack sat at the countertop. He used her mobile to place a quick call to Warren.

“I have to make this very short,” Jack said when he got Warren on the line. “I just got home after a harrowing day. The problem is that I’ll be needing some serious protection for me and my family from a kind of Chinese Mafia. What happened last night out in the street wasn’t an accident. The person who was shot was gunning for me. I’ll call back later to give you the full story, but first I have to tell the story to Laurie. Can you supply the protection? It has to start now.”

“I suppose,” Warren said. “But I’m sure as shit going to need to hear why.”

“I promise I’ll give you all the details a bit later,” Jack said before he disconnected.

“What was that about?” Laurie asked with concern. She had paused with her hand on the microwave door when she’d heard what Jack had said. “Why do we need protection?”

“I’ll explain it all in a minute, as it needs a bit of background,” Jack said. He put Laurie’s phone down on the countertop. “First tell me what the CDC has done.” He reasoned there was a grace period before the bad guys found out he’d managed to fly the coop and might have managed to get home.

Laurie eyed Jack for a moment, unsure if she were willing to let the protection issue wait. Jack assured her again he’d tell her everything but wanted to know what the CDC did.

“They did a lot, and I give them full credit for taking total command,” Laurie said. As she spoke she got the pasta out of the microwave and put it in front of Jack. “They are incredibly organized and efficient. A full team arrived here this morning from Atlanta, headed by several Epidemic Intelligence Service Officers, and went to work immediately. They are all really incredible. Already they have made significant headway identifying all the possible contacts here in New York City. And two additional teams went out to the West Coast to do the same thing. And with their sister organization in Solna, Sweden, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the same thing was accomplished in London and Rome.”

“Has the CDC identified the virus yet?” Jack asked. “Or has the Public Health Laboratory here in the city?”

“I don’t believe so,” Laurie said, “but I understand they think that they are on the brink.”

“I already know what the virus is,” Jack said. “So we can give them an important leg up. It’s a type of gammaretrovirus B that has the ability to infect human cells.”

Laurie’s jaw went slack and slowly dropped open as she stared at Jack in disbelief. “How on earth do you know what kind of virus it is?” she questioned.

“My Jersey Boys told me,” Jack said. “Kidding aside, researchers out at GeneRx in Dover, New Jersey, were able to identify the virus rather quickly because they had an idea what it was. And what’s more, thanks to CRISPR/CAS9 and an entire team of molecular biologists working around the clock, they already have devised a rapid test to diagnosis it, as well as a cure to get rid of it. So we’ll be able to give that to the CDC as well, which should go a long way to improving your standing vis-à-vis the mayor and the Commissioner of Health.”

“Good Lord! It very well might,” Laurie said. “A diagnostic test and a therapy! And so quickly. That’s terrific! That will totally solve the outbreak problem. I’ve heard people extol the promise of CRISPR/CAS9, but this sounds extraordinary.”

“As a gene-editing tool, there is no doubt that CRISPR/CAS9 is loaded with promise,” Jack said. “Yet peril exists as well. In this instance it’s rather fitting that CRISPR/CAS9 will be solving this outbreak, because it also caused it.”

“You’re talking in circles,” Laurie said. “How on earth did CRISPR/CAS9 cause a fatal mini-pandemic of a heretofore innocuous retrovirus?”

“To answer your question, I need to tell you exactly what happened to me today, and, at the same time, I’ll be able to explain why you, as the chief medical examiner, are going to be calling the Office of Criminal Investigations at the FDA in the morning. But first I have a confession I need to make.”

“What kind of confession?”

“I’m afraid I have been selfish of late. Emma’s tentative diagnosis really threw me into an egocentric tailspin. I understand that now. While trying to cope, I haven’t been supportive of you and the stresses that you’ve been under, between being the new chief and your own struggles with Emma’s situation. I’m truly sorry, and I’ll try to be more understanding and helpful. I’m amazed you have the patience to deal with the politics while running the whole OCME. I’m really proud that you have been able to do it. I know I couldn’t. No way.”

Laurie blinked away a few threatening tears and took a deep breath. In her mind, Jack knew, she’d been an overly emotional type since her preteen years. “Thank you,” she managed to say as she struggled to get herself under control in response to Jack’s mini-confession. She had always considered her emotional lability as a handicap, especially as a professional. “It has been stressful for me for sure on all fronts, but I’m committed to do the best I can. Your support is enormously important to me.”

“Well, I promise you will have it a hundred percent.”

“I’ve been thinking, too,” Laurie said. “And despite everything that happened today and maybe because of it, I found the nerve to tell my parents when I got home tonight that I thought it would be best if they returned to their apartment tomorrow. To my absolute surprise they took it in stride.”

With some effort, Jack refrained from cheering aloud. Instead he said, “Thank you. I know that took guts, but it will be best for everyone. And thank you for putting up with me. I’m lucky to have found you. We might have our disagreements, but when push comes to shove, we really are soul mates.” And while in his head he was doing cartwheels of joy, Laurie was none the wiser as he pulled her into his arms.