by Scott Britz
“Well, I’m nervous as hell about it.”
“Then trust Emmy. Let her help.”
“Emmy? Trust her? She hates me.”
“No. She thinks you abandoned her because she’s not good enough. You cast a pretty formidable shadow, Cricket. Emmy really wants you in her life. She just needs to know that you want her.”
“And what about you? Will you ever forgive me for taking her?”
Hank stared at her a long while but said nothing. Then he got up and disappeared into his study. Cricket heard a series of thuds as he rummaged through the closet. When he came back, he was carrying a Brazilian rosewood guitar, a Martin she had bought him for his thirtieth birthday. She was surprised that he still had it.
Hank sat on the couch and quickly tuned the instrument. “Sit.” He pointed to the floor between his knees.
“Really?” She pushed the coffee table away and scooted in front of him. With her head tipped back, her ears were inches from the sound hole of the guitar.
He began to play. She listened, eyes closed, barely breathing. It was the saraband from the B minor violin sonata of Bach, her favorite. The slow, sad harmonies seemed to flow over her like a waterfall. Hank was speaking to her—not just in the music, but in the act of playing it. The sitting together, the homage to happiness long past. See, I am with you, he was saying. I know how cruel life can be. But . . . there is beauty in it, too.
With a final arpeggio the music stopped. Hank set the guitar aside and bent forward to touch his lips to the part of her hair. He had kissed her like that so many times. It was as though all the years of separation had never been. Turning toward him, she rose onto her knees and pressed her lips against his. He wrapped his arms around her. Feelings she scarcely remembered came flooding back. Why? she asked herself. Why did I ever let you go?
And then the doorbell rang.
For a moment, neither of them moved. Then Hank kissed Cricket one last time and got up for the door.
At the threshold stood a tall, thin, poorly shaven man with short, black hair and thick, round glasses—Wig Waggoner.
“It’s pretty late, Wig,” said Hank sternly. “Are you lost?”
“No, I’m sure this is the right address. I came straight from the lab. Dr. Rensselaer-Wright is here?”
Hank sighed. “Yes, come on in. Would you like a drink?”
“Maybe some crackers. Do you have any crackers?”
Hank fetched a box of Triscuits from the kitchen cupboard and shook it. “This do?”
Waggoner nodded. Ripping open the top, he started in, eating two crackers at a time. “I ran a rapid PCR test on that blood from Yolanda Carlson,” he mumbled, as crumbs rained from his mouth. “I had to synthesize my own primers for most of those viruses. You’ll be happy to know that she tested completely negative for acute cold-virus infection. My lab had nothing whatever to do with her illness.”
Cricket got up from the floor. “Any positives?”
“Yeah. Human herpesvirus, type 1.”
“Herpes?” Cricket winced with disbelief.
“Yeah. Off-the-charts positive. As far as I know, nobody at Acadia Springs works with herpesvirus, so that lets us all off the hook. She probably caught it in the time-honored way—you know, unprotected sex and stuff.”
“Was anything else positive?”
“Nope. Not even ebola. Good God, ebola!” Wig chuckled as he stuffed another cracker into his mouth. “So, uh, I guess we’re done, then. Case closed. You can go back where you came from and leave us to get on with our work.”
Cricket stepped close, her chest almost touching his. “Wig, are you aware that Yolanda Carlson is dead?”
A quavering hand pushed his glasses against his nose. “Dead?”
“Yes. Quite dead. From herpes—is that what you want us to believe?”
Wig glanced at Hank. “Are you sure? Dead?”
“I just performed her autopsy, Wig,” said Cricket. “She had massive organ damage. Liver and spleen practically disintegrated. Do you think herpes can do that?”
“I’m no expert.”
“Well, I am. And I think you’d better recheck your PCR reactions. You screwed up big-time on this.”
“I did check them. I ran positive and negative controls—”
“Your results are simply wrong, Wig. Incompatible with the clinical and pathologic findings. Go back and try harder.”
Waggoner backed away, mumbling to himself. “Maybe the annealing temperatures. Too high? Too low? I’m pretty sure there are no palindrome sequences that could self-prime. . . . The magnesium concentration . . . I could check the magnesium stocks . . . or maybe substitute Pyrococcus for Taq polymerase.”
“Good night, Wig,” said Cricket.
As he pushed the door shut, Hank called after him, “Why don’t you just take that box of Triscuits with you? You look famished.”
WEDNESDAY
Two Days to Lottery Day
ONe
IN THE SMALL, OCTAGONAL ROOM, GIFFORD sat drinking pomegranate juice at a wrought-iron table, bathed in the still-reddish light of sunrise over Frenchman Bay. The ring of tall jalousie windows had been opened wide to catch the cool morning breeze.
He felt numb, scarcely human since the shock of Yolanda’s death. Around 3:00 a.m. he had gone down to the BSL-4 lab, suited up, and looked at her. He felt outraged that Cricket had done the autopsy without consulting him. Couldn’t she have given him a chance to view the body before going ahead with her mutilations? The thing that lay on the autopsy table, with its staring ruby-red eyes, wasn’t Yolanda. Robbed of her soothing contralto voice, her feline grace, her fiery temper, it was unrecognizable. Not enough of her left to say farewell to, or even to move him to tears.
Was it my fault? he wondered. He had seen it—that goddamn cold sore. But she didn’t seem sick then. He could have prevented it altogether if he had given her the Methuselah Vector. Her enhanced immune system would have protected her. But how was he to know this would happen? She was young and beautiful. She shouldn’t have needed the Vector for years to come.
Twice he had failed when it mattered most. First Doreen, and now Yolanda. He regretted injecting himself with the Vector. To go on living seemed repugnant. There was too much sorrow in this life. Better to have caught what Yolanda had and join her on that stainless-steel slab. But that, he knew, was impossible now. No virus on earth was strong enough to kill him.
Standing a little behind Gifford’s right shoulder, Mr. Thieu, in a double-breasted white jacket and black skullcap, opened the lid of a stainless-steel serving cart and neatly pivoted to lay a white china plate in front of Gifford. On it was a sandy-colored, coarse crepe, folded like an envelope. Peeking out from the edge were scrambled egg and asparagus, sprinkled with cheese.
“Galettes bretonnes au sarrasin,” Mr. Thieu announced.
Gifford had forgotten that Mr. Thieu was there. He forced himself to take a bite, then set down the fork and drained the small juice glass. His stomach felt queasy as he noticed a Band-Aid on the end of Mr. Thieu’s thumb. “How is that cut of yours? Any better?”
“Much better, thank you, sir. Very foolish when knife slip cutting tofu. But Monday very busy. Mind too full.” He looked at Gifford’s uneaten crepe with concern. “Sir is not pleased with the galette today? The egg is brouillé as he likes it. Mr. Thieu scramble it himself.”
“I’m sorry. Maybe it’s the cheese. I just don’t have any appetite.”
“It is Chabichou de Poitou, very good cheese of goat.”
“Isn’t the Chabichou a smooth cheese? This is very pungent, like Greek. I’m afraid it’s turning my stomach.”
Mr. Thieu took the fork from Gifford’s hand, deftly cut off a small piece, and tasted it. He winced. “Mr. Thieu so sorry. It is not Chabichou de Poitou. It’s very wrong. I will take it back.”
“You didn’t actually make this yourself, did you?”
“Sir knows everything. It is made by Enrique. Mr. Thieu slept.”
“Overslept? You?”
“Please to excuse it. Took medicine last night for pain inside head. Make very sleepy. Not wake till sun come up.”
“Are you ill, Mr. Thieu?”
“It’s nothing. Please.”
Gifford dabbed at his lips with his napkin. “You do look a little pale. Why don’t you go back to bed? I think I can survive Enrique’s cooking for one day.”
Hearing the pocket doors to the breakfast room slide open, Gifford turned to see Niedermann in a dark suit, almost black, with a red silken tie. “Good morning, Jack. Mr. Thieu, I’m finished, but could you set a place for Mr. Niedermann before you go?”
As Niedermann sat down, Mr. Thieu lifted the lid from a second plate of galettes and silently set it in front of him.
“You’re looking a bit drawn, Charles,” said Niedermann. “Puffy, red eyes. Trouble sleeping?”
“It’s . . . Yolanda.”
“Right. Terrible tragedy. Speaking of which—have you seen the e-mail I forwarded to you from USAMRIID?”
“Yes. They came up with the same result as Wig. Human herpesvirus type 1. But why it turned so aggressive, they have no idea.” Gifford looked back over his shoulder. “I think that will be all for now, Mr. Thieu.”
Mr. Thieu nodded and bowed as he backed through the door, pulling the serving cart on silent rubber wheels.
“I’m gonna have to run after breakfast,” said Niedermann, with a forkful of scrambled egg already in his mouth. “Got an eleven-thirty flight out of Bangor to New York.”
“Lottery preparations?”
“Damage control, actually.”
Gifford raised an eyebrow in surprise. “How so, Jack?”
“Well, uh, I was hoping Dr. Rensselaer-Wright would be here to give us her perspective on it.”
“Cricket?”
Niedermann glanced at an empty chair beside him and asked, a little indignantly, “How come she’s not having breakfast with us? Sleeping in? She is staying with you here in Weiszacker House, isn’t she?”
“No, she’s not.”
“Oh? Where does she sleep, then?”
“She’s over at Hank’s place.”
Niedermann washed down a mouthful of food with a swig from his water glass. “Doesn’t that strike you as odd, Charles?” Niedermann dabbed his lips with his napkin. “She’s practically your heir apparent here at Acadia Springs—isn’t she?—and you have something like a dozen spare bedrooms, including the one she grew up in, but she’s staying with her ex-husband?”
Gifford was annoyed by Niedermann’s provocative tone. “What are you insinuating?”
“Nothing. Nothing.” Niedermann drained what was left in his water glass. “It’s just that I’d expect her to be sitting with us right now if she were taking your offer seriously. The fact that she’s not suggests that her loyalties lie elsewhere. She must have something bigger in mind.”
“Bigger than Acadia Springs?”
Niedermann nodded gravely. “I’m convinced that she and Hank have been cooking it up for months.”
“She only came here to get her daughter, Jack.”
“Do you believe that? Now—this very week—as we prepare the biggest product rollout in the history of the pharmaceutical industry? That coincidence isn’t too big for you to swallow?”
“What else could she want?”
Niedermann paused before lowering his voice. “The Methuselah Vector.”
“Nonsense!”
“I wish it were. She accosted me yesterday, Charles. Right after you left the lab. Demanded an equal share of the Methuselah Vector patent, and of all your royalties and shares in the company. She threatened to make a scandal that would shut down the Vector project for years to come. She and Hank Wright are in it together. Originally, they were going to use this trumped-up issue about redundant targeting to blackmail Eden. But Yolanda has given them much stronger ammunition. They’re claiming that the Methuselah Vector is what killed her.”
“What? That’s absurd.”
“I can prove it.”
“You have proof?”
From under his lapel, Niedermann brought out a sheet of paper, folded into thirds. “I was hoping to ask her about this in person.” He shook it open. “It’s an e-mail she sent last night to her section chief at the CDC, Robert Keyhoe.”
Gifford seized it angrily. “How did you get this?”
“Protecting the Methuselah Vector is my job.”
The long e-mail reviewed Yolanda’s autopsy findings. Gifford couldn’t bear to read the grim details. However, Niedermann had highlighted one paragraph at the end in yellow:
I’m at a complete loss, Bob. It’s the worst I’ve ever seen. A healthy adult woman dead within hours, despite everything medicine could throw at her. I’ve looked at every possible source for the virus here on campus. Nothing. A complete dead end. I’m convinced we’re looking at a disease never before encountered by mankind. And, having eliminated every other conceivable agent, only one remains: the Methuselah Vector. We must do everything we can to prevent the Lottery from taking place on Friday. We need time to study this. Please talk to Phillip Eden and see if you can get a postponement. I’m going to quarantine this campus in the morning.
Gifford’s face exploded with rage. “I don’t believe this. How could she go behind my back? Doesn’t she know what’s at stake? This is about more than stock shares and royalties and patents. This is about life and death for millions.” He wanted to go on, but he was beyond speech. His face and neck turned red.
Niedermann raised his own voice. “If I were president of Eden Pharmaceuticals, I’d know what to say to her. I’d tell her to go fuck herself. I’d have a platoon of lawyers all over her, hitting her with injunctions every time she opened her mouth. But Phillip Eden isn’t up to that. He’s terrified by what she could do to the company. Even a false rumor could gut the value of his shares. Your shares, too, Charles. That’s why I’m flying out to New York. I’ve got to try to put a little steel in his backbone. But I don’t know—”
“Stop her, Jack.”
“Sure. I’ll talk to Eden.”
“Eden isn’t enough,” Gifford protested. “She’s got the power of the CDC behind her. She really can quarantine this whole campus if she wants to. She can ruin this project. Ruin it! Why doesn’t she just put a bullet through my brain?”
“What can I do?”
“You’ve . . . you’ve got all these VIPs. These senators and governors—can’t they help?”
Niedermann couldn’t resist a smile. “Now you see what they’re good for.” After giving Gifford’s question some more thought, he shrugged. “Still, it’s got to be Eden’s call.”
“To hell with Eden.”
“Really? Do you mean that, Charles?”
“Of course I mean it. The Lottery has to go on, exactly as scheduled. Nothing must stand in the way of the Methuselah Vector. Nothing—nothing is more important.”
“Do you see now why Eden must be replaced?”
Gifford paused as he took in the implications. “This is about the proxy, isn’t it?”
“What if I told you I could make this whole problem go away with one phone call?”
“Do it!”
“Wouldn’t that justify your faith in me?”
“Yes, yes, I’ll sign it. I’ll sign your damned proxy.”
Niedermann pushed back his chair. “Let me go back to my office and get the form—”
“Not now, Jack. On Friday. If the Lottery goes on as planned, I’ll sign the proxy the moment it’s done.”
“All right. Let’s shake on it.”
Niedermann held out his hand and Gifford took it. But Gifford’s
hand was trembling. “Look at that. Look what she’s done to me!” Gifford exclaimed. “She’s turned me into a nervous wreck. She and Hank—”
Niedermann broke off the handshake and calmly poured a glass of pomegranate juice from a pitcher. “Drink, Charles. It’ll calm you down.”
“I can’t calm down,” Gifford muttered. “After all I promised her! I offered her the institute, for chrissake—”
“Never mind. In ten minutes our problems will be over. I’m going to handle it, Charles.”
“What will you do?”
“Get rid of her. Now. This very morning.” Niedermann lifted the glass and tilted it against Gifford’s lips, forcing him to drink. “Just listen—and watch.”
Two
CRICKET ENTERED THE SMALL WAITING ROOM of Gifford’s office, clutching a blue folder against her chest. He’ll have to believe me now, she thought. He knows it’s serious. That’s why he’s asked me to come so early.
Mrs. Walls picked up her desk phone and pressed the intercom button. “Dr. Rensselaer-Wright is here to see you.” Curtly hanging up the phone, she looked up at Cricket. “You may go in now.”
Cricket patted her hair, straightened her blouse and plain brown skirt, and opened the door. Gifford stood up as she entered. “Thanks for coming so promptly,” he said, offering his hand. But his touch and his look were cold, so different from the day before. Was it because she had failed to save Yolanda? Surely no one could have saved her. Hadn’t she warned him?
Cricket was surprised to see Jack Niedermann in the room, facing her from a chair beside Gifford’s. “Good morning, Mr. Niedermann,” she said with a wary nod.
“Good morning, Doctor.” In contrast to Gifford, Niedermann smiled, but his cheeriness seemed out of place. He didn’t get up to shake her hand.
The office was lighter and airier than she remembered, her recollection reaching back to days long ago, when she used to play on the floor with LEGOs while Daddy busied himself with his papers and phone calls. Over the mantel then had hung a darkly yellowed, cracked painting of Oedipus and the Sphinx. Now, the portrait of Doreen was so lifelike it startled her.
