Bio-Strike (2000)

by Clancy, Tom - Power Plays 04

  “No problem.”

  “Great, they should give me a better sense of how this has evolved,” Oh said. “The material’s out to Stanford within the hour, I’ll drive down to personally sign for it and get cracking.”

  “I thought you mentioned you were taking Cindy out for an Italian dinner tonight.”

  “She got used to losing me to an electron microscope and assay plates the day our honeymoon ended, Eli.”

  It was late afternoon when Pete Nimec stepped out of the elevator to find Gordian’s admin staring at his office door from behind her desk.

  “Norma,” he said. “How you holding up?”

  She turned to him slowly as he approached.

  “As best I can, Pete,” she said. “Has Mrs. Gordian gotten in touch with you again?”

  He shook his head. “We assume she will after that government epidemiologist has a look at things.”

  Norma was quiet.

  “I don’t want to think about him not being in there.” She indicated Gordian’s office with her cheerless eyes. “And somehow I can’t think about anything else.”

  Nimec looked at her.

  “I know,” he said.

  “Nothing seems right,” she said. “It’s so strange. He’s one of those people I’ve taken for granted will always be with us. I can’t imagine him being seriously ill. He’s so much larger than most ...” She paused. “I’m sorry. Of course it doesn’t make sense.”

  He reached across the desk and touched her shoulder.

  “Maybe not,” he said. “But you aren’t alone. Everybody who cares about him feels that way a little.”

  She put her hand on his and let it rest there a moment.

  “Thank you.”

  He nodded in silence.

  “It’s incredible how much Mr. Gordian is able to manage,” she said then. “I’ve spent the past two afternoons canceling his appointments. That luncheon with senators Richard and Bruford from the Armed Services Committee. Meetings with senior executive board members. With a representative from the Silicon Valley Business Alliance. I can’t tell you how many others.”

  “You have to field a lot of questions from the press since that stroke story appeared?”

  “Enough,” she said. “I’ve stayed with Megan’s official explanation to the letter. Dizziness, maybe too much yard work, routine tests.”

  “That’ll hold a while,” he said.

  “And hopefully we won’t have any reason to go beyond it.”

  “Hopefully.” He paused. “Norma, while we’re on the subject of Gord’s schedule, I need a favor. Something Vince Scull thinks might be important to the doctors. Would you be able to provide a list of his verifiable contacts over the past couple, three weeks? The ones with whom he physically connected, that is.”

  She looked at him.

  “Yes, I log all his engagements into an electronic scheduler,” she said. “The calendar automatically appears when I turn on my computer every morning. I input whether the date is kept, missed, or reshuffled. Occasionally, Mr. Gordian will have me enter a list of talking points beforehand. Or his handwritten impressions of how the meeting went.”

  “I won’t ask for Gord’s private notes. Just the names of people he met and who they work for. Maybe where their meetings took place. Can you swing that for me right now?”

  “Pete, I’ll do anything to help. Now, later, don’t hesitate to check with me for whatever information you want,” Norma said. The thought that she could be of use had given her a kind of animation. “Would you like a printout or disk?”

  “A copy of each sounds good to me.”

  “You’ve got them,” she said, then slipped a rewritable CD into her drive and began tapping on her keyboard.

  “I’m sorry, truly sorry, but I can’t help you with that information,” said Carl VanDerwerf from behind his desk. His job title at UpLink was Managing Director of Human Resources.

  “An’ I’m tellin’ you I got to have it,” said Rollie Thibodeau from the seat opposite him.

  The two men stared at one another, clearly at an impasse.

  “We have to be sensitive to the privacy of our employees,” VanDerwerf persisted. “Moreover, there are state and federal laws. You may not be aware of the penalties we could incur. The liabilities were someone to press a suit about your prying into their personnel records for confidential details—”

  Thibodeau held a hand in the air to interrupt him.

  “Never mind these people’s ages, work experience, or whether they like to pole vault or pole dance in their rec time. Doesn’t matter to me if somebody’s a kleptomaniac, nymphomaniac, single, married, divorced, a bigamist, or takin’ care of his or her shut-in Aunt Emma,” he said. “Just give me the names of employees in this building who took sick days the past couple weeks, and the departments where they work. You got to have that on file.”

  VanDerwerf produced an exasperated sigh. “Certainly we do. For payroll and insurance purposes. But if you’d allowed me to finish my sentence a moment ago, you would know the law requires that we keep an individual’s medical background confidential.”

  “Nobody’s talkin’ background. Thibodeau said. ”What you got your neck poked out for? Just let me know who’s called in sick lately. An employee does or doesn’t choose to get into the reason why, it be up to him.“

  VanDerwerf sighed again.

  “Sir, just as you are responsible for our corporate security operations, I supervise all phases of personnel function. At all levels from senior executive to mail room clerk. My decisions must be guided by UpLink’s established policies and procedures and by applicable government regulations.” He pursed his lips, ran a finger across his neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper mustache. “Now, I’m not denying that unanticipated situations will sometimes arise that demand judgment calls. Should you care to explain the basis of your request ... address my own need to know if it is associated with rumors circulating about Mr. Gordian’s condition ... I’m sure we can reconcile our differences in a mutually amenable, commonsense manner.”

  Thibodeau glowered. “You sayin’ it ain’t okay for me to ask a fella straight on whether he had a cold or a sprained ankle last week, but it’s fine for you to stick your bill into the boss’s affairs through a third party?”

  “That is an oversimplification rendered in insulting terms. My capacities include oversight of UpLink’s health-care costs, and Mr. Gordian is covered by our corporate policy. The wall of silence surrounding his absence stands to put me in a difficult position with our provider. I merely suggest we trade off—”

  “I heard enough, you officious little prick.” Thibodeau pushed off his chair and stood over the desk. “Talk about insults, what do you call wastin’ my time, pretendin’ to be grieved up over employees’ rights when you only lookin’ to talk trash—?”

  “That was not my intention—”

  “Come see!” Thibodeau boomed, thrusting a finger at him. “You don’t commence to turn over what I gotta have, you’ll know how a bug feels when it’s been stepped on with a hikin’ boot.”

  VanDerwerf blinked, rapidly stroking his mustache, spots of color on his cheeks and forehead.

  Then he released his third and longest sigh yet.

  “Okay,” he said in ruffled capitulation. “My staff’s ready to leave for the day. I’ll have them get the names to your office first thing tomorrow morning.”

  Thibodeau shook his head and sat.

  “Best make that your office in fifteen minutes,” he said and glanced at his wristwatch. “Meanwhile, I’ll just make myself comfortable an’ wait for them right here.”

  True to his promise, Eric Oh was at the Stanford lab in time to receive the radiographs and diagnostic specimen from Lieberman.

  They arrived via special courier a little after five o’clock, the serum packed separately in accordance with international requirements for transport of fluid, tissue, cultures, and other substances believed to contain etiologic agents—live microbial
organisms that were potential causes of infectious disease in human beings.

  Or, as they were broadly categorized in the rule books: Dangerous Goods.

  Its seal wrapped in waterproof tape, the labeled vial had been placed in a tubular plastic container, the spaces around it filled with sufficient wadding to absorb every drop of sera within should an accidental leak or breakage occur in handling. The secondary receptacle was then capped, taped for watertightness, labeled with the name, address, and phone number of the sender at San Jose Mercy, and encased in an outer shipping canister. Besides a duplicate of the sender’s identification and contact information label, this third canister bore the standard tag for biomedical etiologic materials prescribed by the federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, highlighted by a bright red biohazard trefoil against a white background and bearing the appropriate phone number for notification of the CDC should the package become damaged.

  These same procedures had been followed for the transport of the sample to Berkeley, as well as for the air shipment of the sample to Atlanta, with additional black-and-white stickers mandated by the International Air Transport Association for containers of dry ice and infectious substances.

  Before putting on his protective attire and bringing the package into the virology lab’s biosafety cabinet, where he planned to spend perhaps an hour or two studying its contents, Eric rang Lieberman to let him know it had reached him safe and sound. He then went out to a nearby fast-food restaurant, ordered a couple of cheeseburgers to go, and ate them drowned in ketchup, trying to imagine it was the tomato sauce he’d so looked forward to enjoying at his canceled dinner.

  He knew he was kidding himself, of course.

  There wasn’t the slightest chance in the world that the burgers would relieve his unfulfilled longing for calamari.

  And given his suspicions about Gordian’s case, there was also virtually no chance he’d be leaving the laboratory for many long hours to come.

  “From what I can see here, we got thirty-four employees in the building called in sick over the last three weeks,” Thibodeau said.

  “Seven ... no, sorry, make that eight, are currently out,” Megan said.

  “None of them for longer than three days,” said Ricci.

  “The rest of the absences average two days,” Nimec said. “I do notice one person, a Michael Ireland in Legal, who’s been down five and counting....”

  “Mike fractured his leg rock climbing,” Megan said. “He and his fiancée are friends of mine.”

  “Scratch his name off the list,” Scull said and did so on the copy in front of him, drawing a line through it with his pen.

  It was a quarter to seven in the evening, regular work hours long past, Nimec’s office once again having become a strategy room for Sword’s core leadership group ... plus one, since Vince Scull was, technically speaking, not a member of the organizational security division. They had pulled up chairs to whatever flat surfaces were available—or reasonably clearable—and were poring over photocopies of the separate computer printouts obtained by Nimec and Thibodeau, verifying, cross-checking, and generally hoping for a lead that might steer them toward a carrier from whom Roger Gordian could have received his infection.

  “Anyone think it’s worth talking to the people on Rollie’s list who took off sick and are already back to work?” Nimec said.

  “My opinion’s that it isn’t, with one possible exception,” said Ricci. “This bug has the boss flat-out kayoed. Somebody’s on his feet after a couple days, he’s not likely to be our contact.”

  “That’s if it hits everyone the same, a big assumption to make,” Scull said. “Certain people could have a natural resistance and be mildly affected. Or not be susceptible at all. Or they could be what are called asymptomatic hosts, intermediaries for the bug to hitch a ride on. Our germ bag might be unaffected but have an acquaintance or relative who’s deathly sick—”

  “Point taken, Vince,” Nimec said. “But I think our hunt has to stay narrow for now, or we’ll find ourselves lost in the woods.”

  Thibodeau nodded. “The direct route gets us nowhere pickin’ up tracks, we widen our range.”

  Megan looked at Ricci. “You mentioned an exception ...”

  “Yeah. A James Meisten. His name’s the only one that’s on both lists.” He looked down at the printouts spread side-by-side in front of him. “He was out sick yesterday, back today. Also met with the boss last Friday.”

  “I know him a little,” Megan said. “He was at the Marketing and Promotions conference about the info kiosks.”

  “So we phone him at home tonight even though he’s returned?”

  “I suppose it couldn’t hurt.” She frowned. “Candidates aren’t exactly leaping out at us, are they? And when I weigh what Vince said ... it gets so tangled. I can think of so many possibilities off the top of my head. Assuming the carrier is even a human being as opposed to something that flies, creeps, or crawls, he doesn’t have to be a person who actually had a scheduled meeting with Roger. It could be somebody who chatted with him in the hallway or elevator. Or whose office he popped into on the spur of the moment. Or who shook his hand during a thirty-second introduction. And that’s before we even consider people on his appointment schedule from outside the company. Businessmen. Politicians. Social interactions we don’t have the vaguest idea about. He has friends, family members ...”

  She let the sentence trail.

  “Thought we were sticking to the straight and narrow,” Ricci said to her. “We’ve got Meisten, which is better than nothing. And, far as it goes for the boss’s unplanned contacts, we should look at Thibodeau’s list, try to pinpoint employees most likely to have crossed his path without an appointment over the course of a normal workday. See if that takes us anywhere.”

  “I’ve already been doing that,” Nimec said. “Only name that stands out as a possible is Donald Palardy.”

  “Palardy heads one of the sweep teams,” Thibodeau said. “Rotated out of Brazil ’round the same time I did.”

  Nimec was nodding. “He called in sick Monday.”

  Ricci looked at him.

  “A day after the boss collapsed.”

  “Yeah. And he’s still on the absentee list.”

  Everyone in the room was momentarily quiet.

  “Don’t see how we can read too much into this,” Scull said. “Sweeps are conducted early, right? Before most of us get to work. We’ve no reason to believe he and Gord have ever been in the same room together.”

  “No reason to think they haven’t, either,” Ricci said.

  “I know for sure Palardy’s been inside the boss’s office,” Thibodeau said. “We got four teams in the building. All of them be assigned permanent sections. An’ his section includes the top executive suites.”

  Ricci exchanged glances with him.

  “No shit,” he said.

  “Non, ” Thibodeau said.

  There was more silence in the room.

  “I think we ought to give him a call,” Ricci said.

  Lathrop exited the CNN Web site after finding no updated headlines about Roger Gordian’s condition and then restored the Profiler application to his computer screen.

  Blondie’s luscious face reappeared in front of him, enlarged and enhanced from the digital video he’d taken near the carousel in Balboa Park. None to his surprise, the program still hadn’t made her. The only reason he’d bothered running her image through it again was that he’d procured a handful of new investigative files from one of his infoworms—although for some reason this particular worm wasn’t penetrating very deep inside the apple lately and soon would be worthless as an informant. It was part of the natural order of things, Lathrop thought. The ebb and flow. They rose to grace, they fell. They gained access, they lost it. But he had other sources at his disposal in a lot of different places. And there were always prospects to be cultivated among the greedy and disenchanted.

  Leaving his desktop on, he swiveled a
round in his comfortable leather office chair and reclined to watch his coon cat toy with a favorite ball of yarn. She prodded it with her front paws to set it rolling and then crouched in readiness to pounce, her tail flicking back and forth on the floor.

  “Okay, Missus Frakes,” he said in a fond tone. “Let’s see you go for it.”

  The cat cooed at the sound of his voice. Then she sprang upon the wound-up yarn and twisted onto her back, holding the ball against her middle with her forelegs, kicking and raking at it with her sharp rear claws.

  Lathrop smiled a little. She would work the thing till it became unraveled and spread loosely across the carpet. Just as he was working his own ball of yarn. The biggest he’d ever chanced upon.

  He sat thinking about what he actually knew, what further information he’d been able to surmise from it, and what choices and opportunities the sum total presented to him.

  His surveillances at Balboa and the harbor parking lot combined to tell a pretty amazing story. Whatever her identity might be, it was certain Blondie was a courier for El Tío. And her purpose in meeting Enrique Quiros had been to deliver the jewelry box for the obscure narco distributer and instruct Enrique to pass it along to the guy he’d then arranged to meet harborside. His name was Palardy. A member of the security or countersnoop team at UpLink International whose gambling jones had gotten him in over his head with some serious operators, and who’d paid off a piece of his debt by turning over classified information about the defense systems of UpLink’s manufacturing compound in Brazil. El Tío’s involvement in the terrorist raid on that base was unclear to Lathrop, but it probably didn’t have much importance at this stage, and he hadn’t concerned himself with it.

  The main thing for him was to keep on top of what was happening now. Because events were already moving fast, and he had the sense they were about to kick up to a breathless pace.