by Scott Britz
“Is that news?”
Cricket laughed nervously. “You know, this whole Atlanta idea—maybe it’s a mistake. I thought it would be good for you and me. But . . . I shouldn’t use you to try to work out my own problems. A good mother wouldn’t do that.”
Emmy rolled her eyes. “Mothers do it all the time.”
“I’m serious, Emmy. I love you and you’ll always be welcome wherever I am. But I’m not going to force you to come with me.”
Emmy’s gray lips trembled. “Am I going to die?”
“Oh, Emmy, why would you even ask such a thing?”
“I feel like I’m going to die. There’s something not right inside me. It’s like I can’t feel my insides anymore.”
“No, you aren’t going to die.” Cricket tried to sound confident, but her voice came out almost snappish. “I won’t let that happen.”
Emmy licked her parched lips. “If you pulled the plug on me here and now, I wouldn’t blame you. After what I did to you.”
“What you did?”
Emmy paused while Cricket daubed her lips with a small sponge on the end of a plastic stick. Then she turned her face away. “I . . . I made Dad divorce you.”
“Every child in a divorce thinks that.”
“No, really.”
The conversation was making Cricket nervous. She listened impatiently for Jean’s return. “Okay. How did you ‘make’ him?” she said, finding silence even more unbearable.
“I told him . . . about you and that French guy.”
“Étienne? You never even met him. What could you possibly have said?”
“That you were having an affair with him.”
Cricket laughed nervously. She’s way off the mark there.
“Be honest, Mom.”
“Emmy, whatever you may have imagined—”
“I found proof.”
“Proof?” Emmy’s voice was faint, and Cricket wasn’t sure she had heard her right. There couldn’t possibly be proof of something that had never happened. But Emmy was dead serious.
“Do you know you haven’t changed your e-mail password in seven years? I have it by heart. Took weeks to figure it out . . . watching you . . . a few keystrokes at a time: monONegavIRales21. It’s the name of a virus, isn’t it?”
“You spied on my e-mail?”
“I wanted to know what was so important in your life that it mattered more than me and Dad.”
“That was a shitty thing to do.”
Emmy’s lips kept sticking together, and Cricket daubed them again with the sponge.
“I found all these long e-mails to that French guy. . . . You’d, like, bare your soul. Tell him things you never talked about at home.”
Cricket remembered those e-mails. Before and after the divorce they had been the pillars of her sanity.
“I googled him.” Emmy went on. “He won that big bicycle race—”
“The Tour de France. He didn’t actually win it. Just one of the stages.”
“Plus he was smart. Some famous scientist at the Pasteur Institute. That’s like Harvard over there, isn’t it?”
“But, Emmy—”
“I hated him.” Her voice was low and hoarse, as though she were speaking from her stomach.
Hate Étienne? Cricket thought. Why would anybody hate Étienne?
“Remember when you missed my twelfth birthday?” Emmy asked with a jabbing tone. “Some conference in London. You were with him there. You didn’t even hurry back. . . . Then I found it—the e-mail where you talked about your affair.”
Cricket jerked her hand out of the isolator sleeve. She reached for her throat, only to have her fingers glide instead against the collar of her helmet.
“I remember it word for word.” Emmy closed her eyes, as if reading from a page still present inside her mind. “ ‘I live every day with my guilt, Tien. You say guilt is a useless emotion, and we scientists should be above it. We should live rationally. But a scientist looks at the whole picture—right?—and that includes Hank. If he knew how I felt about you, there’s no question he would feel betrayed. Isn’t that adultery? The feeling is what matters. The act of fucking is nothing but an asterisk.’ ”
“No, Emmy!”
“I showed it to Dad.”
“No! Tell me you didn’t.”
“I wanted to get rid of you. You and Dad were fighting all the time. I thought you were the one making him drink.”
“Emmy, you had no right.”
“Dad went crazy when he saw the e-mail. Then he got drunk big-time. . . . I felt like shit when I saw him bawling like a baby. I tried to tell myself it was your fault. . . . I hated you for it.”
Cricket listened in disbelief. Yet it explained so much. At the end, Hank had turned on her abruptly, mutely, irrevocably.
“I never wanted to hurt Dad. I never really wanted to hurt you, either. I just wanted you to be gone.”
It made Cricket sick to think how Hank must have felt. He was too proud to accuse her outright. If only he’d had a chance to vent his feelings to her face-to-face. She would have confessed on the spot. She would have borne every recrimination. But, no—she had never guessed at what he knew. Or thought he knew.
“When I heard that French guy died from some horrible disease, I was glad. I’m paying the price now, aren’t I?—dying of a horrible disease myself.”
“You aren’t going to die, Emmy.”
“I know that voice, Mom. That’s your ‘being brave’ voice. When you talk like that, I know you’re really scared. . . . But it doesn’t matter. I’m ready for it. I don’t like the person I am.”
“Emmy . . . I don’t know how to put this, but you were very wrong about Étienne.”
“You just admitted you loved him.”
“Yes, but not in that way. Tien . . . Étienne . . . he just wasn’t made like that.”
“Like what?”
“To make love to a woman.”
Emmy glared at her. “Get out of here!” she hissed. “Are you telling me he was gay?”
Cricket nodded. “Yes, Emmy. He was.”
“I don’t believe you. I saw the e-mail. You admitted to adultery.”
“Of the mind, Emmy. Not the body.”
“Bullshit! Adultery of the mind? What is that?” Emmy dug her fingers into the thin mattress of the isolator. Cricket glanced at the vital-signs monitor. Emmy’s heart rate was shooting up.
“Calm down.”
“So I . . . lied?”
With a Velcro-ripping sound Emmy twisted one wrist free of its restraint. Immediately she reached for the IV line in her other arm and began clawing at the tape that anchored it to her skin.
“No! Don’t do that.”
“I’ll kill myself. I’ll rip it out and bleed to death right now.”
Cricket reached back into the sleeve and grabbed Emmy’s wrist. Emmy fought back so violently that it seemed the isolator would tip over. Her heart rate went to 180. A couple minutes more and she would go into cardiac arrest.
“Emmy, shut up and listen to me!” Cricket shouted.
Stunned by the tone of her mother’s voice, Emmy froze.
“You didn’t lie. What Tien and I had was a kind of adultery. It wasn’t wrong of you to tell Dad. What twelve-year-old girl wouldn’t have? Besides, your father and I had already hit the rocks. If our marriage had been strong, this wouldn’t have broken us up.”
Emmy fell limp and turned her face away. Cricket reattached the restraint cuff, then checked the vital-signs monitor. Emmy’s heart rate was settling down. Her oxygen saturation bounced back up out of the red zone. But not enough.
“You must hate me now.”
“I can’t hate you, Emmy. I love you so much I don’t even have words for it.”
Just then, the whoosh of the air loc
k announced that Jean Litwack had returned.
“It’s time, Emmy. I need to put the tube in.”
“Can you forgive me?
“I do forgive you.”
Emmy’s voice was barely a whisper. “I wish . . . I could forgive . . . myself.”
Cricket drew two cc’s from a vial of Ativan and injected it into Emmy’s IV port. “Just relax now.”
Jean silently laid out the scythe-shaped, stainless-steel laryngoscope, along with a selection of endotracheal tubes. While she did so, Cricket pushed a syringe full of succinylcholine, a neuromuscular blocker, into the IV.
Emmy tilted her head back, looking into her mother’s eyes as she stood at the head of the bed. “I’m scared, Mom . . .” Emmy’s whisper trailed off into inaudibility.
“Everything’s fine, honey. This will only take a minute.”
Emmy closed her eyes and appeared to go to sleep. Cricket watched her breathing movements carefully. When they had almost stopped, she picked up the laryngoscope, tilted back Emmy’s head, and said to Jean, “Let’s try a thirty-two French tube.”
I’m scared, Mom. With a shudder Cricket realized that those might be the last words her daughter would ever speak.
Eight
NIEDERMANN SHIELDED HIS EYES FROM THE glare of the sun off the white sandstone tiles on the patio behind Weiszacker House. Loscalzo, in sunglasses and a leather jacket too hot for an August afternoon, sat with his legs crossed, drumming his fingers on a small, wrought-iron table, somehow managing to both chew gum and whistle at the same time. Niedermann recognized the tune—an old Sinatra standard, “I’ve Got the World on a String.”
“I don’t like meeting out in the open like this,” said Niedermann. “What you have better be good.”
Loscalzo threw a flash drive onto the table. “There’s the video on that disaster in Maputo. Off a cell phone. About three minutes in, our girl comes apart at the seams. Starts screaming about ebola. Talks like she’s out in the jungle. It’s pretty freakin’ scary.”
Niedermann was unimpressed. “That’s it?”
“You said this person was a priority.”
“That’s old history. I don’t give a shit anymore. She’s a thousand miles away in Atlanta.”
Loscalzo snickered. “No. Not so far.”
“No?”
“She’s right here. Over in that BSL-4 lab. While you were in the Big Apple, her daughter got sick and Doc Gifford said she could take care of her there.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I heard it with my own ears. Right here. Few minutes ago. The doc was talkin’ on the phone to somebody named Warren G. Niles, an infectious disease doc from Massachusetts General Hospital. He’s flyin’ out Friday morning.”
“You listened in on Dr. Gifford?”
Loscalzo smiled teasingly. “Don’t get all riled up. We had a nice, friendly meeting, the doc and me. I was sittin’ here when he came out to feed his dog. See that silver bowl in the grass? That’s top sirloin in there. The doc had a chef bring it out, sizzlin’ in a skillet. But the dog wouldn’t touch it for shit. The doc looked into the pooch’s eyes and mouth and nose, like he was sick or somethin’. Whole fine-tooth comb. But jeez—top sirloin? When I was a kid, we’d just leave the fuckin’ dog in the barn until he got himself well. Or not.”
“To hell with the dog. Gifford told you Cricket Rensselaer-Wright was still on campus?”
“No. He told Niles.”
“That doesn’t make sense. We moved heaven and earth to get rid of her.”
Loscalzo grinned. “Now you know why I thought you might want to have that Maputo footage. Cost me a bundle to get it, too.”
Niedermann quickly pocketed the flash drive. “Thanks. What do I owe you?”
“Forget it. This one’s on me.” Loscalzo waved dismissively. “How about that other thing? Got it?”
Niedermann brought out a bulging envelope from under his jacket. “Here’s fifty grand in cash. That’s way more than I’ve been paying you.”
Loscalzo looked at the money as if it were poison. “We had a deal, friend. Goods, not cash.”
“That’s not happening, Dom. There isn’t any Vector stock left. Maybe when we finish a new batch next week.”
“Next week? Tell Rod Baer to wait until next week.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“I don’t dare stiff people like him. My life wouldn’t be worth two cents if I tried that. He’s used to getting what he wants.”
“And me? What am I used to? Takin’ it up the ass?”
Niedermann said nothing—only held out the envelope, shaking it.
“I wouldn’t show that out in the open, if I were you.”
“Take it, then.” Niedermann tossed the money onto the wrought-iron table.
“No fuckin’ thanks.”
“Not enough?”
Loscalzo shot up from his seat and stormed toward the edge of the patio. Eyes downcast, he fell to scuffing the tiles with his boot. “You just don’t get the point, do you? It’s not about me. I don’t want a cent. It’s for my ma, understand? I’m tryin’ to do what’s right for her.”
Niedermann laughed. “Have you any idea what those doses go for? A million dollars apiece. This whole wad of cash wouldn’t touch it.”
Loscalzo’s face went dark. “What are you laughin’ at? My ma?”
“I’m laughing at you, Dom. Thinking you could shake me down over this.”
“What if I went to the FDA?”
“And told them what? That I’m holding out a few extra doses of the Methuselah Vector? Where’s the evidence?” Niedermann laughed again. “They’ll never find a trace. There’s not even a shred of proof that you ever worked for me.”
Loscalzo’s jaw muscles rippled. “Oh, you’re fuckin’ smart, you are.” He spit his gum out onto the lawn.
“Yes, I am. Now, if I need anything else from you, I have your number.” Niedermann had heard all the rumors about Loscalzo. Two years in federal prison for obstruction of justice. Some racketeering charges, never proved. A story about an informant in the longshoreman’s local who turned up in the East River minus his head and his fingertips. There was no question that Loscalzo could be dangerous. That was exactly why Niedermann had to be tough with him. Men like that had a sixth sense for fear.
Loscalzo wandered distractedly onto the grass and tapped the bowl of sirloin with the toe of his boot, sizing it up. Then he unleashed a flying kick, as if he were returning a football from the thirty-five-yard line. Chunks of sirloin steak scattered across the grass. “All I asked for was one stinking little hypo’s worth of medicine.”
“You can’t have it. There’s your wages—right there.” Niedermann nodded toward the envelope on the table. Money, he knew, was the last word with Loscalzo. “Now scram. Remember, I don’t just pay you to show up for work. I pay you to stay the hell out of sight, too. So get your ass back to New York before anyone starts asking questions.”
In a show of bravado, Niedermann turned his back and marched toward the house. He was relieved when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Loscalzo slink back to the table for the money.
But Loscalzo said something under his breath as he picked it up. Something Niedermann couldn’t quite make out.
Or I might just stick around is what it sounded like.
Nine
IT WASN’T SHRIMP SCAMPI, BUT CRICKET was glad for the tuna wrap Erich Freiberg and Wig Waggoner had brought her. Leaving Hank and Jean to watch over Emmy, she took advantage of her first break in hours to prop her aching feet on a chair, and to replenish her own body fluids with a Diet Coke. On the other side of the office desk, Freiberg and Waggoner watched her tear hungrily into her food.
Freiberg, who had called her out of Bay 2 to hear important news, sat with his hands p
rimly folded in his lap. “First things first. How is Emmy?”
“She’s holding on. Her body is fighting back with everything it’s got.”
Freiberg smiled. “Winning, I hope?”
Cricket dropped her wrap onto the desk and glared at him. “No. We’re losing. She can’t breathe on her own anymore. The chest X-rays are getting worse. She’s bleeding internally. I’ve given her ten units of whole blood, but still her hematocrit keeps dropping. I . . . I just don’t know what else to do.”
“Dr. Waggoner has discovered something that might help.”
Cricket’s gaze shot toward Waggoner. He was staring at the floor. There was a very long pause as Cricket and Freiberg waited. Suddenly Waggoner looked up in surprise. “Is this where I come in?”
Freiberg nodded. “Come in anytime, Wig. You’re the man of the hour.”
Waggoner unfolded a sheaf of papers from his lab-coat pocket. “I, uh, ran some analyses of that blood sample you gave me. A rapid PCR test, using the same primer sets as for Sample Number One—”
“Sample Number One? What is that?” asked Cricket.
“Jack Niedermann’s secretary. Yolanda Carlson,” said Waggoner, frowning at the interruption. “Here’s a printout of an agarose gel electrophoresis of the PCR products for Sample Number Two, the new one—your, uh, daughter.” As he spoke, he ran his finger across a photograph of a black rectangle. Twelve vertical columns, or lanes, were spread across it. The outside lanes were marked by irregularly spaced white lines, like the rungs of a ladder. Lane two showed a single white line. The next six lanes were empty. Lanes nine, ten, and eleven on the right each showed a single white line.
Figure 1. PCR (polymerase chain reaction) to test for the presence of viral DNA. Lanes 1 and 12: standard DNA size markers. Lanes 2 and 3: positive and negative controls to show that PCR reaction is working. Lanes 4 through 8: Emmy’s blood is completely free of Ebola, Marburg virus, Yellow fever virus, Eastern equine encephalitis virus, and human cold virus. Lanes 9 and 10: fragments of expected size are seen for two genes (thymidine kinase and glycoprotein M) from Human herpesvirus, type 1; this indicates that a herpesvirus infection is present. Lane 11: reaction is also positive for the capsid protein of Human herpesvirus, type 1, however the product is abnormally long (2,500 base pairs instead of 435). A detail from Yolanda’s PCR test (right side of figure) shows that her blood is also positive for capsid protein, but the product is even longer than Emmy’s (2,700 base pairs).
