by Alex Kava
Still in his surgical scrubs he sat down on the bench in the gray area, his elbows on his knees, his jaw resting in his hands. He was exhausted. He knew McCathy had to be exhausted, too. Platt’s training and adrenaline would get him through. He had been in war zones, physically exhausted, mentally drained and forced to perform surgical procedures in makeshift operating rooms with blinking generator lights and limited sterile water. Somehow he’d learned to dig deep and find the stamina and the necessary energy to get through the next minute, the next hour, the next day. If he didn’t, it could mean someone’s life. A war zone wasn’t much different than a hot zone.
He stared at the stainless-steel walls lined with spraying nozzles for the decon shower that came afterward. The gray area was neither sterile nor hot. It was neutral territory. Or, as Platt’s predecessor had told him, “One last chance to change your mind before crossing over to the hot side.”
Platt checked his wristwatch then took it off and started getting into his suit. Regulations prohibited wearing anything inside your space suit that touched your skin other than your scrubs. Yet Platt knew several people who wore amulets or charms. Here in the gray area outside the Level 4 air lock it wasn’t unusual to see a variety of rituals or superstitions. Platt had seen scientists make the sign of the cross. He remembered one veterinarian who took out a picture of his wife and children and studied it before gearing up. Others went through a series of breathing exercises or relaxation techniques. McCathy didn’t appear to have any rituals or superstitions, unless his muttering “it’s goddamn unbelievable” had become a sort of mantra for him.
As for Platt, he wished he still had the family or even a photograph. Sometimes he thought it’d be nice to believe in making the sign of the cross, just like he did so many times growing up. Instead, he had no routines, no superstitions. Although he did always make sure he used the bathroom. Six hours in a suit had taught him that lesson very quickly.
He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck. He took several deep breaths before attaching his helmet then he pulled the handle on the steel air-lock door to enter the hot zone.
CHAPTER
35
Reston, Virginia
R. J. Tully grabbed his cell phone before the second ring. Just after seven o’clock on a Saturday morning but he wasn’t surprised to hear his boss’s voice. He was relieved.
“Good morning, Agent Tully.”
“Sir, how are you?” Tully wiped bagel crumbs off his chin as if caught. In the process he discovered a dab of Kleenex from where he’d cut himself shaving.
“I’m fine. How’s Agent O’Dell?”
The question took Tully off guard. He expected Cunningham to have a better idea of how Maggie was. From what he understood she was just down the hall from him.
“She was okay last night. I haven’t talked to her yet this morning.”
“Colonel Platt will be heading the task force,” Cunningham went on, all business as usual. “He’ll be in charge of containment and treatment if that’s possible. That means they’ll still be guarding the crime scene, but you and Ganza will be in charge of whatever evidence they collect.”
“You were inside the house, sir. Is there anything there?”
The pause lasted long enough that Tully wondered if he’d lost the connection.
“There must be something,” Cunningham finally said. “Whatever’s going on I think this one is personal.”
“Personal, sir?”
“Why risk delivering that message directly to BSU? I think he wanted to make sure I received it.”
Tully didn’t necessarily agree. The guy could have simply been thumbing his nose at all of them, letting them know just how close he could get without being noticed, without getting caught. But Tully wasn’t in the habit of disagreeing with his boss. From Cunningham’s perspective, especially after a night in the Slammer, Tully supposed it wasn’t a stretch to think this was a personal attack.
“Were you able to get Sloane on this?” Cunningham asked.
“Yes. In fact, I’m meeting him this morning at Quantico before one of his classes.” Then Tully remembered the impression he and Ganza found on the envelope. If it was personal maybe the message meant something to Cunningham. “Sir, do you know anyone named Nathan who might be involved in this?”
“Nathan?”
“We found a surface impression on the envelope that was in the doughnut box. The message was, call Nathan at seven o’clock.”
There was silence and this time Tully knew just to wait it out.
“My daughter’s name is Catherine,” Cunningham said and Tully heard a hint of alarm. “We call her Cather. Her mother loves Willa Cather. Any chance the impression spelled out Cather instead of Nathan?”
If Cunningham thought this was personal, Tully understood exactly what he was thinking, but he was trying too hard to make the pieces fit the puzzle. Tully remembered the blow-up image of the envelope and the impression. Under magnification it was quite clear.
“No, sir. I’m certain it was Nathan.” He heard the exhale, the gasp of relief before Cunningham could disguise it. “Is there anything else Ganza and I should be looking for, sir?” Tully asked. Did Cunningham know something he wasn’t sharing?
“Nothing except…” Cunningham started. “It’s just a gut feeling. I don’t think this is his only crime scene. There are others or there are going to be others.”
Tully wrote down a phone number Cunningham gave him, a direct line to his hospital suite at USAMRIID. He promised he’d call him as soon as he knew anything more. Before he closed his cell phone Tully noticed the pink envelope in the corner, a voice message had come in while he was talking to Cunningham. It was Gwen. She said she’d had a mysterious message from Maggie and couldn’t get hold of her. What was up? She also reminded him that they were supposed to have dinner that evening.
Tully thought for sure Maggie would have already talked to Gwen. Now he’d really be in trouble for not calling. Nothing would be a good enough excuse. To make matters worse, in her message Gwen had offered to bring over a pizza that evening for their dinner. She had been hinting for weeks about an invitation to his “cave.” If he was already in trouble for not calling, perhaps giving in to this little concession would absolve him.
He looked around the living room: shoes left in the middle of the room; mail and dirty glassware scattered on the coffee table; stacks of newspapers and dust competing for surface space. He winced at it all as he started to dial Gwen’s number.
At that moment Emma stumbled in, with Harvey leading the way to the back door. Her hair was tangled, her pajamas wrinkled, her eyes were swollen and half-closed as if she hadn’t gotten any sleep. And suddenly the dust didn’t seem so bad. What was worse for Tully was that his daughter and the woman he was dating would be in the same house, in the same room.
CHAPTER
36
USAMRIID
Inside the hot zone
Every time Colonel Benjamin Platt entered a hot-zone suite he was taken aback by how ordinary it looked. On the outside of the thick steel air-lock door it certainly gave the impression of entering something extraordinary, with the bright red biohazard symbol accompanied by DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT WEARING VENTILATION SUIT. The ID code looked like a digital keypad that could be a prelude to a flight deck. Entry required tapping in the correct code and going through a long list of procedures that when done correctly rewarded you with a voice and flashing green light that indicated YOU ARE CLEARED TO ENTER. All of this, including the gasp of air released from the lock, would insinuate something spectacular existed on the other side. And although the stark and sterile room should have been a letdown, Platt always felt a sense of reverence when he entered.
Yellow air hoses snaked out of white walls that were painted like a Jackson Pollock exhibit, thick clumps of epoxy splattered haphazardly. Similar gobs of white bulged around outlets and plugs, sealing any cracks. A strobe light hung from the ceiling, an alarm that automaticall
y was triggered if the air system failed. Metal cabinets lined one wall, a long counter on another, and a third was a viewing glass to the outside world.
Platt grabbed one of the yellow cords and plugged in his suit. Immediately the roar of air filled his helmet and his ears. McCathy had barely looked up at him, not willing to take his attention from the work his double-gloved hands were finishing. He had prepared four glass slides and had four microscopes, side by side, ready to view each individually.
Finally looking up, McCathy waved Platt over next to him. He placed each slide in its respective slot. Then he checked with a glance down the eyepiece of each microscope, giving a twist, sometimes two twists, to focus.
“FROM LEFT TO RIGHT,” McCathy yelled over the noise as he stood back. Platt could see the sweat on the older man’s face, fogging up the inside of his helmet. McCathy pushed the plastic against his face, leaving a smear but it didn’t distract him. He pointed to each of the microscopes. “EBOLA RESTON, LASSA, MARBURG AND EBOLA ZAIRE.”
Platt nodded. McCathy had put the viruses in order from best-case scenario to worst-case. As much as Platt hoped it was Ebola Reston he knew that wouldn’t explain why Ms. Kellerman’s body was crashing.
“I’LL NEED TO HIT THE LIGHTS,” McCathy told Platt, holding up a remote-control device. “IT’LL BE BLACK AS NIGHT IN HERE. WE CAN’T RISK BUMPING INTO EACH OTHER.”
Platt nodded again. His heart was back to banging in his chest, almost louder than the air pressure in his ears. It wasn’t the impending dark that caused the banging, although he knew better scientists than himself who would never attempt the combination of claustrophobia, darkness and a hot zone.
“YOU STAND THERE AND LOOK IN THOSE TWO MICROSCOPES.” McCathy pointed at the two directly in front of Platt. “I’LL TAKE THESE TWO. THEN WE WON’T BE RUNNING INTO EACH OTHER.”
Platt stared at the microscopes. McCathy would have Ebola Reston and Lassa fever. He had Marburg and Ebola Zaire. Don’t let either of them glow. He would welcome total darkness.
“READY?” McCathy asked, holding up the light-switch remote.
Platt placed his hands on the edge of each microscope so he wouldn’t fumble in the dark. He nodded again.
The room went pitch-black. There was nothing that emitted light. Not a red dot on a monitor. Not a crack of filtered light. Not a single reflection. He couldn’t even see McCathy who stood right beside him.
He found the eyepiece of the first microscope and tried to look through. His faceplate made it difficult. He saw only black. And now his heartbeat pounded so hard he thought the vibration might be obscuring his view. The faceplate was flexible plastic and Platt pressed it down until he could feel the eyepiece of the microscope solidly against his eye sockets. Still, he could see nothing.
“ANYTHING?” McCathy yelled from beside him.
“NOTHING FROM THE FIRST ONE.”
“NOTHING HERE.”
Platt waited. Sometimes it took a few minutes for the serums to mix and cause a reaction. Still, there was nothing. He reminded himself: Marburg on the left, Ebola Zaire on the right. He pulled back, took a deep breath and positioned himself over the other microscope, repeating the process.
“NOTHING HERE,” McCathy yelled about his second sample.
Platt barely positioned his faceplate and he could already see it. It wasn’t a faint glow. It was bright. He sucked in air and shoved his eyes hard against the microscope. Below him it looked like a night sky with a glowing constellation.
“Holy crap,” he muttered. He jerked his face away and found the other microscope. Nothing there. Back to the other. Still glowing, even brighter now.
“WHAT IS IT?” McCathy yelled.
“I’VE GOT ONE GLOWING.”
“I KNEW IT. WHICH ONE?”
Platt had to stop himself. He had to slow his breathing. He needed to think. He needed to remember. Marburg, left. Ebola Zaire, right. The pounding in his heart was no longer a problem. It was as if all sound, everything around him had stopped, had come to a grinding halt. Everything except for his stomach, which slid to his feet.
“IT’S EBOLA ZAIRE.”
CHAPTER
37
Saint Francis Hospital
Chicago
Dr. Claire Antonelli stared at the image of Markus Schroder’s liver. On the desk in front of her were various other images and test documents. She had gone over all of them more than twice. The man behind her was seeing them for the first time and even he was quiet. In fact, Claire found it unsettling how quiet Dr. Jackson Miles had become.
She glanced back at him. His deep-creased face was a perpetual frown. She remembered him once calling his wrinkles “well-deserved life lines.” He had those life lines for as long as Claire had known him, even back when he shepherded her through a tough residency, taking her under his wing when her all-male class made it clear that she was their outcast. Dr. Jackson Miles told her then that if he could become the first black chief of surgery then she could certainly overcome the discrimination she was dealing with.
“The liver’s enlarged,” she said, obviously only as a prompt.
“But otherwise doesn’t look unusual.” He didn’t take his eyes off the image, studying it as if it was a puzzle. “What about typhoid or malaria?”
“I’ve had him on antibiotics with no effects. Not even a break in fever.”
“E. coli or salmonella?”
“Not according to the blood tests,” Claire said and released a sigh. These were questions she had already asked herself. Confirming or dismissing them out loud to her onetime mentor didn’t make this any easier. “I thought perhaps a liver abscess or a gallbladder attack but the ultrasound doesn’t seem to agree.”
“Might not show it.”
Claire watched Jackson Miles rub his jaw with a huge hand that always surprised her in surgery when it was able to delicately work through the smallest incisions.
“I’ve sent off for more extensive blood tests, but I’m not sure I can wait. He’s becoming more and more unresponsive. I’m concerned he’ll slip into a coma.”
“Any chance he was exposed to something?”
“According to his wife even contracting malaria or typhoid is a stretch. At first I considered E. coli or anthrax. There was that farmer last year, remember who contracted anthrax somehow from his own cattle? Vera, Markus’s wife, told me they make periodic visits to Indiana. A family business she still owns, though someone else runs it for her. She said she hangs on to it for sentimental reasons.” Claire stopped herself when she realized it sounded like she was rambling. Too much. It was too much information. She didn’t need to go over everything out loud. “Markus works in Chicago as an accountant for a law firm.”
“Anyone else at the law firm sick?”
“I’ve already thought of that, as well.” Claire ran her fingers through her hair, trying to settle herself. She was operating on little sleep and cold pizza. The adrenaline high from seeing a healthy and happy Baby Haney had worn off. “There’s someone out on maternity leave,” she told him. “Another with a broken leg. No one with flulike symptoms.”
“Do you think the wife would agree to exploratory surgery?”
“What are you thinking?”
“There may be something latched onto the liver or kidneys that’s not showing up in the ultrasound.”
“You’ll do the surgery?” she asked and made sure it didn’t sound like a student asking her mentor for a favor.
“Get the wife’s approval.” He nodded. “We’ll both scrub up and take a look-see.”
He made it sound so matter-of-fact that Claire could almost believe it’d be that easy. Then he patted her arm with his gentle bear paw of a hand, and smiled down at her.
“We’ll do our best,” he said, detecting her apprehension, her skepticism. “That’s all we can do.”
Claire hoped Markus and Vera Schroder would see it that way.
CHAPTER
38
The Slammer
/> The telephone on the wall startled Maggie again. She had been so engrossed in her Internet computer searches that she hadn’t noticed someone come in and take a place by the window.
When she looked up, Platt’s eyes were on her, so intense, so penetrating she didn’t want to meet them. He knew something and it wasn’t good news. She took her time, closing a file, signing off a site and all the while letting the phone ring and letting him stand there.
“Thanks for the computer,” she said when she finally answered. “You’re about to tell me I’m going to get a lot of use out of it, right?”
He just stared at her and she could see his jaw was clenched too tight, so tight that the muscles twitched.
“You’re always trying to preempt me,” he said, his expression remaining unchanged.
“Sorry, it’s a habit. I’m usually the bearer of bad news. I’m not used to it being the other way around.”
“Are you always this cynical?”
“I chase killers for a living.”
“Awww…” He smiled, tilting his head back as if that were explanation enough. “You’re used to throwing people in the slammer, not being in it yourself.”
He pointed to her chair and started to sit in the one on his side, but stood back up and waited for her. She didn’t want to sit. She’d rather take bad news standing up, or better yet, pacing. But he looked so exhausted. His freshly washed hair was still damp. Dark bags puffed out under his eyes. A white smear of something—soap perhaps—left on his chin, bright white against the stubble. And he had changed clothes, a William and Mary T-shirt and navy sweatpants. But the same white Nikes.
“So something tells me you didn’t just get back from a leisurely jog?” she asked as she took her seat.
“No jog this morning.” He followed suit but sat up straight when she thought he looked as though he’d rather slump down and stretch out like he had before.
