On her last afternoon, when stone-faced security guards escorted her back to retrieve her personal effects, Cahner appeared stunned. The blood drained from his face so rapidly she feared he might pass out. But then, glaring at the guards, he asked what in God’s name was happening. They just stood and stared. He turned to her.
“I’m leaving” was all she could say, and she knew it was only the first of many such encounters to come.
After several unsuccessful tries to learn more from her, he again fired sharp questions at the guards, who only shrugged. One said, “Hey, we don’t know anything. We’re just doing our jobs here, you know?”
Cahner started to berate the two men, but Hallie said, “It’s not them, Al,” and he let it go. So all he could do was stand and gape during the ten minutes it took for her to collect the pictures of her family, epidemiology reference books, laptop, back issues of Science. By the time she finished, she saw that he had composed himself somewhat.
As they shook hands for the last time, he held on and said, “This is horrible, Hallie. I don’t know what to say. But if you ever need anything that I can provide, you must call.”
She nodded and, still holding his hand, leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, which made his eyes fill with tears.
Barnard pulled her back from those recollections. He said, “There has been no breakthrough.”
She understood. “Or else you wouldn’t have me here.”
“Right.”
With the coffee and sandwiches, she was feeling better, but sensed she was missing something still. “Why haven’t I heard anything about this in the media?”
“Damage control at the highest levels. President O’Neil has called in quite a few chits. But it won’t stay contained for long.” Lathrop sounded pained.
“How many military hospitals are there?” Hallie wanted to run the numbers.
“More than two thousand in the U.S. More overseas.”
“How many patients in those?”
“As of six P.M. yesterday, 217,452.”
“And not just from this war, but from others, right? Plus all those dependents hospitalized to give birth, get hernias fixed, whatever.”
“That’s right.”
Hallie felt sick. “So it’s not only active-duty soldiers. Families packed into bases, circulating through movie theaters, clinics, gyms, kindergartens. My God, the list is endless. You could not create better pandemic conditions if you tried. What’s the transmission factor?”
“Unknown,” said Barnard. “The other ACE is similar to smallpox.”
Lew Casey continued: “Smallpox carriers take about seven days to become contagious. After that, in an urban environment, they infect an average of twelve people every twenty-four hours. Those carriers infect others. Exponential growth. A million or more in two weeks.”
Lathrop rubbed his face. “Military bases, with higher population densities than cities, would be much worse. Ships at sea, submarines—the Pentagon, for God’s sake.”
Then Barnard spoke, in a tone Hallie had never heard him use before:
“ ‘Potentially the worst threat since Pearl Harbor.’ Those are not my words, but President O’Neil’s.”
SEVEN
HALLIE POURED HERSELF MORE COFFEE. SHE TURNED TO LATHROP.
“Is anything else being done?”
“Yes, of course. Everything possible with the information still on close hold, anyway. But it’s all reactive.”
“How long do you think we have, Don?”
“With colistin and aggressive containment, ten to fourteen days. No more.”
“That’s not enough time.”
“No.”
“So the only real hope is…”
“That highly classified work you had been doing here at BARDA.”
Classified. BARDA.
She had been so focused on the burgeoning catastrophe that she had all but forgotten what had happened thirteen months earlier. Now those two words took her back to the small and windowless room—its smells of cigarette smoke and body odor, its contents a metal conference table, six chairs, and two men. The table and chairs were gray, the men were black and white.
“Please close the door and have a seat.”
The black man’s voice was cool, neutral. Neither rose or offered to shake hands.
“My name is David Rhodes. I’m the ARILO—agency research integrity liaison officer with the CDC’s Office of General Counsel—for your case.” He spoke slowly, carefully, sculpting each word, the cadence of a preacher at a funeral.
“My case?” Hallie had been peremptorily summoned from her lab and was not happy. “And who is he?”
“Agent Rivers is with HHS. Office of Internal Security.”
Rhodes was smooth and utterly composed. A lawyer’s lawyer. His cologne smelled like sun-warmed roses. The other one wore a cheap suit and his tie had a stain just below the knot. A double-dipping ex-cop or maybe ex-Bureau. His cologne smelled like industrial disinfectant. Rivers’s face was a collection of wrinkles and pinches from a lifetime of frowning. Rhodes’s was smooth as dark ice. He had a thick neck and that quiet, precise voice. A manila folder lay in front of him, perfectly squared to the angles of the table. Looking at it, and at his huge hands, she saw that he wore a Penn State ring. Linebacker, she thought.
“You need to know that I am in the middle of extremely critical—”
“We know whachure workin’ on.” Rivers cut her off, bored, looking at the ceiling.
“And we are aware of its importance.” Rhodes kept his eyes on hers. “That’s one reason we’re here. There has been a security breach. Traced to you.”
First came denial: she laughed. “A security breach? Is this some kind of prank? Did Don Barnard put you up to this? The lab people?”
“No joke, Doc.” Rivers hacked out a smoker’s phlegmy rattle. He did not cover his mouth, and microdroplets of saliva sprayed the table.
Buy time. “Show me some ID, gentlemen.”
They had valid credentials. Rivers’s included a gold badge with blue numbers. When he put his black leather ID folder away, she noted that he made sure to flash the Glock 9mm in its brown Bianchi shoulder holster.
“What kind of complaint?”
“It appears that you have been providing secure research information to an outside party for unauthorized remuneration.”
She translated the bureaucratese in her mind. “You’re talking about selling government secrets?”
“That’s right.”
“First, that is a lie.” Hallie tried not to sound like it, but she was furious and afraid. “Second, if there is to be an investigation, you are required first to inform me and my immediate superior, allow me to retain counsel, and present your allegations before a panel headed by the associate director of science and including at least one CDC employee of my choosing.”
“You’ve read your personnel manual.” Rhodes seemed impressed.
Rivers did not. “What the personnel manual don’t include is that with national security, that personnel process goes in the dumpster.”
National security. Twenty-first-century McCarthyism.
“How long has this inquiry been going on?”
“I’m not at liberty to divulge that.” Rhodes tapped the manila folder with his index finger. A fly buzzed around Rivers, who seemed not to notice. “But we’re confident that a court would find probable cause to believe a security breach occurred and that you were responsible.”
“This is insane!” Hallie jumped out of her chair. “I’m getting the hell out of here and calling my lawyer, gentlemen.”
Rhodes’s voice, soft but urgent, stopped her. “Dr. Leland. I seriously advise you to wait. Hear us out. Then you can always retain counsel… and so forth.”
That was reasonable. Still furious, she sat back down. “So tell me.”
“Emails have been intercepted. From your home computer to and from an external source, containing secure BARDA information. Deposits have a
lso been tracked to an account in your name at Grand Cayman National Bank. They correspond to payments and dates in the emails.”
“This is unbelievable. I don’t have a Cayman account, Mr. Rhodes. Never have.”
Rivers suddenly sat up straight, put his elbows on the table. “We don’t even have to talk to you, Doc. We could refer this to the United States attorney. Like that.” He snapped his fingers and in the small room it sounded like a slap. “For criminal charges.”
It was like trying to fight her way through a whiteout in the mountains, no points of reference, cliffs and crevasses all around. Stop. Make them wait. “Rhodes and Rivers. What a coincidence.”
No one smiled.
“What’s in that folder?” she asked. “The charges?”
Rhodes pushed a single sheet of BARDA stationery across to Hallie. It had today’s date. She read it, looked up in disbelief.
“This is a letter of resignation.”
“Better for the gubment.” Rivers poked a finger at her. “Better for you.”
“Jesus Christ. Look, I need to think about this. To talk to a lawyer, at least. You can understand that. Isn’t that my right?”
“Absolutely.” Rhodes looked at her calmly. “But you should understand that we can make this offer here, now. On the table for this meeting. If you walk, it goes away.”
“It was me, I’d take it.” Now Rivers tried to sound collegial, supportive. She found him less nauseating the other way, but ignored him regardless.
“All it needs is your signature, Dr. Leland.” Rhodes waited, watching her.
She was furious and terrified and confused. Her face felt hot. It was hard to get a good breath in the small room, its air thick with the men’s smells.
“Who was I supposed to be selling data to?”
Rhodes glanced at Rivers. “I’m not at liberty to divulge that.”
Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. She had no frame of reference, no experience to fall back on that might help her know how to react. But she did know that Washington was always all about leverage, and suddenly something occurred to her.
“What’s CDC afraid of? Why are you doing this in secret?”
For the first time she saw a glimmer of uncertainty in Rhodes’s eyes. He twisted the Penn State ring, looked at Rivers, who shrugged, more concerned with the little wart on his left palm that he was picking with the fingernails of his other hand. Rhodes took a while, appearing to consider his words very carefully.
“You know how important secrecy is to BARDA’s mission. Therefore to CDC’s. A very public security-breach trial could do irreparable harm. There are people in the government who would like for BARDA to go away. Every dollar spent here is a dollar not spent on guns and tanks. If you get my drift.” With his two index fingers, he drew a pentagon in the air.
Leverage. Now she had some. Now they were afraid.
“I could walk out of here right now, gentlemen. Make just three calls. My lawyer, my senator, and the Washington Post.” Like there really is a “my lawyer,” she thought. But they would not know that. Or… maybe they would.
“That’s true, Dr. Leland.” Rhodes’s hands were folded on the tabletop again. “But you may know how much Washington lawyers cost. And as I said, if you walk out of here, we have no choice. It goes to the U.S. attorney immediately. There will be preliminary hearings, discovery, perhaps press conferences. Possible criminal charges, as Agent Rivers said. Think carefully. A government scientist selling top secret biological research—”
“Alleged,” she snapped so sharply that Rivers looked up from his wart.
Rhodes nodded, smiled, happy to stipulate the parsing that, she herself knew, would make not a whit of difference. “Yes, alleged to be selling top secret research. Even if you are cleared, your career will be over. Why would anyone hire you when there are thousands of untainted microbiologists out there?”
“I’m telling you, Doc, you’re better off taking what we’re offering.” Rivers’s smile showed yellow smoker’s teeth and a serious lack of flossing. She almost screamed at him to shut up. But she knew that Rhodes was right.
She could not afford a pricey lawyer. Her mother had some money, but Hallie would never ask for it. Even if she got a lawyer, the story would be in the Post and on the news programs for days. National news. International, probably. The media liked few things better than espionage stories. Genocide, maybe, and senators getting caught with bimbos or, even better, seducing pages of the same sex, but not much else. The stories would include her side, of course, but their allegations would have the real weight. She could see the headlines:
LEAKS FROM SECRET BIORESEARCH LAB
WOMAN SCIENTIST IMPLICATED
“You ever read about D.C. Jail?” Rivers seemed to know her thoughts, spoke while examining the wart on his palm. “I been there, Doc, dropping perps off. Terrible things happen. Especially to people like you.”
“You can really do this?” She ignored Rivers, addressed Rhodes. There were not many things she feared, but Hallie was honest enough to admit that being locked in the District of Columbia Jail was one. The stories that came out of that place—broom-handle rapes, mutilations, medieval things.
“Yes. We can.”
She could fight but, as Rhodes said, even if she won, she lost. Or she could sign. Go quietly. Live to fight another day.
Hallie had never been the kind of person who agonized over decisions. Weigh risks and benefits, figure the calculus, make the call. Another day always came. She looked up. Rhodes was holding out a pen. Rivers leaned back, smirking, fat hands folded on his paunch.
A part of Hallie wanted to curse them. Instead, she reached into the pocket of her lab coat and took out the Mont Blanc Meisterstück Solitaire her father had given her when she’d received her doctorate at Hopkins.
“I have my own.”
Without hurrying, she uncapped the pen, signed her name, ignored Rivers, and looked Rhodes in the eye.
“You’re doing a bad thing here, Mr. Rhodes. Sooner or later, we all pay for the bad things we do.”
The fly buzzed around Rivers’s head, and he still seemed oblivious to it. Rhodes kept his eyes locked on hers, saying nothing, but he rubbed his Penn State ring as if it were an amulet and she saw a flicker in his dark eyes, sudden and bright and quickly gone, that told her he knew it to be true.
EIGHT
NOW, IN BARNARD’S OFFICE, IT WAS NOT LOST ON HER THAT she could simply say, Sorry, gentlemen, BARDA screwed me royally, and walk right out.
But really, she didn’t even come close to that. Instead, she sat thinking of the thousands of young soldiers. And not only young ones. Old ones, too, from older wars, hanging on in VA hospitals all over the country, living out their lives with whatever remnants of bodies and minds their wounds and wars had left them. And soldiers’ families. It went on and on.
“You said Al is still working on the project.”
“That’s right.”
“How much biomatter does he have left?”
Barnard looked embarrassed. “None, I’m afraid.”
“It’s all gone? Every last milligram?”
The basis of their research had been an extremophile from the Archaea domain. She had retrieved the biosamples while on an expedition exploring a monstrous cave in Mexico called Cueva de Luz. She had brought almost 100 grams of viable organism out of the cave with her. Half of that had expired before they learned how to keep it alive. When she had left over a year ago, more than 20 grams had remained. In microbiological terms, that was a ton.
“I’m afraid so. Al’s worked himself near to death, Hallie. I worry about him sometimes. And he took your departure hard. But at some point, science goes from craft to art. Al’s a fine craftsman, but he’s not an artist.”
“Can we synthesize replicant?”
Lew Casey broke in: “We’ve tried for months. Can’t get the mitochondrial dissemination right. It could be more months—or never.”
“While t
housands of hospitals become…” She searched for the right word.
“Death camps.”
Hallie took a deep breath, sat back, rubbed her eyes. She hadn’t slept now for almost eighteen hours, and the cave rescue had been exhausting. She needed fresh clothes, a hot meal, a shower, sleep. But others were in much, much worse shape. Sleep could wait.
“We have to go back to Cueva de Luz.” She stared at Barnard. “There’s nothing else.”
“You cannot imagine how much I was hoping to hear you say that.”
She’d said it, but not without dread. Cueva de Luz was a true supercave, thousands of feet deep and many miles long, located in the high, remote forest of southern Mexico and filled with bizarre and exotic dangers. Journey to the Center of the Earth but worse, and for real.
“It’s not going to be as easy as it was last time.” Barnard’s voice was grim.
She gaped. “Easy? Don, it was a nightmare. I didn’t think any of us were getting out. Two didn’t, as you know.”
“I know that expedition was hellish. But there are other complications now.”
“Such as?”
Lathrop looked at his gold wafer of a watch. “Dr. Leland, we can fill you in later. Just now, however—”
She ignored Lathrop, addressed Barnard: “We’ll need a team. That will take a week at least.”
Lathrop smiled for the first time since she’d walked into the office. “Already done!”
“What? Where? When do we meet them?”
“Right now. You’re the last to arrive. The others are waiting downstairs.”
It was past nine P.M. when the four of them took a secure elevator to the lowest level that BARDA acknowledged publicly and then dropped on down to Sublevel 1, the first of four classified levels that it did not acknowledge. The elevator stopped. Barnard entered an alphanumeric code on a keypad, the elevator door opened, and they walked forward into a biosecure chamber with gray walls and blue germicidal UV lights. The door slid closed behind them and there was a soft hiss as the chamber’s airtight seals engaged. Clicks and whirs, integrated sensors and analyzers scanning them for pathogens, explosives, biological material. Presently a group of lights on the air lock’s far wall glowed green and the inner door slid open.
The Deep Zone Page 6
