Weapon of Choice

by Patricia Gussin

  She had to shove this organization into gear before it self-destructed. She faced him down, “How many patients did you tell me have fallen ill to this infection, Dr. Kellerman? And how fast are they deteriorating? And, yes, you called me. I’m here and I know what I’m doing.”

  Stacy didn’t know exactly what she was doing, but who did in an emerging situation like this? Little comfort, but she was as well equipped to deal with this as anybody she could think of, other than her boss, of course, and she’d have to get him on the case immediately.

  “So young and …” Kellerman hesitated. “How can you have any experience?”

  And so nonwhite is what Kellerman did not quite say. “I have expertise, Dr. Kellerman, so unless the hospital trustees ask me to stand down—” Stacy was winging it now. Hospital trustees?

  “Duncan, I have a personal interest in this,” Laura said. “I just found out that my daughter was in the ICU yesterday when all this was starting. Now she’s febrile with a high white count.”

  “My God, Laura, how could that have happened?”

  Stacy thought she detected genuine sympathy in Kellerman’s tone.

  “She was visiting her boyfriend, the Standish boy.”

  “Oh my, he’s one of the sickest,” Kellerman said. “I just spoke to his parents, tried to prepare them for worst.”

  “Let’s get started,” Stacy said. “I want to see the patients; I want you and the ICU head nurse to take me through every detail of every patient’s course. Then, I’ll get to the labs to see the cultures and the sensitivity results; meet with your infectious disease nurse and the director of nursing to go over infectious disease protocols. I’ll call my boss, maybe conference in experts at the CDC.”

  “Duncan, can you show Stacy the patients?” Laura asked. “I’m going to admin to get the board of directors involved. They’ll need to hear Stacy’s recommendations and get this hospital locked down. And then I’m going to see Natalie. I’d appreciate it, Duncan, if you could check on her after you’re finished with Stacy.”

  “Laura, let’s get your computer staff here, too,” Stacy said. “I’ll need them to input data to the CDC system.”

  Stacy, already back in sterile garb, waited as Kellerman pulled booties over his shoes.

  “I’ll gladly see your daughter,” Kellerman said. “Will you ask one of the nurses to call and tell my wife not to expect me home?”

  If the CDC imposes a quarantine, none of us will be expected home.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29

  In the safety of his BMW sedan, Charles looked at the test tubes he had protected in strips of bubble wrap and placed in a Styrofoam six-pack case with a flip-up handle. He debated transporting them in the spacious trunk, but with no means to secure them there, he decided to stow them on the floor of the passenger seat. God protect him from a crash. If anything disrupted the tubes and exposed their contents, he’d be dead. And so would anybody else who came in contact with his microorganisms.

  Charles rarely bothered to park in his garage—temperate Atlanta weather wasn’t rough on the car. He’d pull up to the semicircular portico leading to the front door and park there, the lord of the manor. But today, he fumbled for the remote, opened the garage door, and waited for the door to close behind him before he got out of the car. He couldn’t risk a neighbor or anyone else observing him with the package. Silly. What were the odds of someone thinking, Charles has toxic staphylococci in that little cooler. Nevertheless, he proceeded stealthily.

  No one would be here, in his own home, to challenge him. He hesitated, clutching the small, insulated box, before opening the door leading from the garage to his kitchen. What if the CDC had cameras in places that he did not know? He answered his own question: they’d have swarmed him already.

  Will Banks sat at the kitchen table, a rifle leaning against his knee, a plate of sugar cookies and a glass of milk in front of him. Will had always kept his own food in the basement, and he stayed out of the rooms on the first floor and the upstairs rooms, for that matter.

  “Chuckie?” Banks set down the glass of milk to lay his hand on the butt of the rifle. “Mission accomplished?”

  Charles glanced about for a safe place to set down the case, where it would be undisturbed.

  “That’s the shit? You got enough bad bacteria in that little box to kill off a roomful of degenerates? Here, let me see what you got?” He started to get up.

  Charles stepped back, extending one arm in a back-off gesture.

  “Don’t even think about it. I told you how lethal these cultures are. Just the tiniest leak here, the most infinitesimal inoculum could—would—kill you and me. So, sit back down. Please.”

  “Yeah? You sure this stuff works?” Banks dropped back into the chair, his hand returning to the rifle.

  “I told you. I’m an expert in this particular infectious organism. This staph doesn’t need an open cut. It’ll attack intact skin and mucous membranes. So anybody it touches will become ill and most likely die. But first, they will infect others. It’ll be a chain reaction.” Where could he safely store the cultures until tomorrow night? While he wanted the cultures as far from his person as possible, he had to have them close to feel certain that nobody else could mess with them.

  “The Order only cares about the guests tomorrow night. You told me that anybody who eats the special dessert cream puff thing will catch the disease. Right? And you said that they’d have boils on their skin. Just like the plague in the Bible—where all the Egyptians get boils before Moses gets the Israelites to the Promised Land.”

  Charles didn’t know if Banks had his Bible right or not, but yes, the victims would have skin lesions. “Here’s what will happen. The staph will penetrate into the mucous membranes of the mouth, no problem there. It will spread rapidly through the blood to the rest of the body. Yes, the skin will be affected by a condition described as ‘flesh-eating’ or ‘toxic epidermal necrolysis.’ ”

  “Flesh-eating. Yeah, that’s what I promised The Order. They loved flesh-eating. That’s the thing that pushed them to a yes vote.”

  Charles had never seen a case of toxic epidermal necrolysis, a dire condition more likely associated with streptococcal rather than staphylococcal bacteria. But he had seen pictures in full color. Not only skin, but fascia and adipose tissue and muscle dissolving down to the bone, you’d have nothing left but a semi-liquid slimy residue of lysed cells. And all that as organ after organ shuts down: lungs, kidneys, the liver, the heart, the inner part of the brain that controls respiration and circulation. Life itself.

  What am I about to unleash?

  Charles had earned a medical degree along with his Ph.D. in microbiology, but his focus always had been research. He had no interest in clinical medicine and had elected not to complete the year of internship training required by the state to practice medicine in Georgia. Maybe he should have. Maybe he’d have a better appreciation of what he was about to do. And maybe he, not Stacy Jones, with her M.D., M.P.H., and her fellowship certifying her as an infectious disease specialist, would be director of the Experimental Staph Section. And maybe he wouldn’t have been compelled to pitch his idea to The Order.

  But pitch he had. The Order endorsed his mission. He was on.

  “Here’s how it’s going down, Chuckie.” Banks took a gulp of milk then pulled his wallet out of his pocket. He removed a plastic card and handed it to Charles. “Logistics. Take this ID, go to the Palace Hotel, ask for the assistant manager. She’ll be expecting you. Tell her you’re the pastry chef dude, to see the head pastry chef. Name’s Lonnie Collins.”

  Charles stared at Will’s hand with the plastic card. He was in no rush for it. Louisiana driver’s license in the name of Bernard Boyle. Photo looked a lot like him. Same dirty-blond hair. Brown eyes in a pudgy face, no smile. Charles wanted Banks to eat the photo of the unattractive Bernard, cheap tan polo shirt and all.

  “What do I know about cooking or baking?” Char
les protested. He pinched the corner of the license like a dirty tissue between thumb and index finger. “No way I can pose as a chef of anything.” Could this be his way out? Truly, there was no way he could pass as a chef. Maybe it wasn’t too late. No one ever would have reason to know he’d taken the staph. He could kill the cultures with nothing but boiling water.

  “No worries, Chuckie. Lonnie already told the management he needs help—big event tomorrow night. He has your “résumé.” He’ll interview you personally. Now,” Banks picked up his rifle and the plate of cookies, “all you gotta do is just protect those little bugs. You’ll work out the final details with Lonnie.” He was gone to his basement lair.

  Charles gingerly carried the Styrofoam cooler upstairs to his room, wedged it behind his shoe rack, and left immediately for the Palace Hotel. Just follow the plan. Was this what the military was like? Blind obedience, no thought to ethics or morality or consequences.

  When Charles arrived at the Palace, he followed Will’s instructions, unsure whether he was pleased or distraught that the plan proceeded just as Banks had laid out.

  The attractive assistant manager was overjoyed that he’d shown up. She hadn’t even asked for his ID, the Louisiana driver’s license for a Bernard Boyle. “Lonnie Collins has been driving me crazy,” she said. “His main assistant didn’t come in yesterday, and we have a huge event tomorrow. In case you haven’t heard, our profiterole is our signature dessert. People come from all over the world to eat those fluffy creations. I must admit a weakness for them myself.”

  Don’t snatch one tomorrow night, lady.

  The engaging young woman reached for the phone, dialed the kitchen, and having delivered her message, chitchatted with Charles about Thanksgiving.

  A large-boned, crew cut blond man interrupted. “Mr. Boyle,” the man said, not waiting for an introduction, “follow me to my office.”

  Nothing more until Charles was seated across the desk from his potential boss. “Okay, no bullshit,” the man who must be Lonnie Collins said. “I know why you’re here. You’re ready to poison tomorrow night’s guests. Mostly black people. Some whites. Too bad, but they shouldn’t be mixing socially. I’m told that you’ll inject a super bacteria into my famous profiteroles. Man, I really hate that idea. People come to dine here because of my profiteroles. But what choice do I have. They got my daughter.”

  “What?” Charles asked. “What does your daughter have to do with this?”

  “You’re dealing with The Order, man. I don’t know how you got into it, but I got initiated when my daughter was in high school and whoosh, the schools got integrated. Listen, I got nothing personal against black people or brown or yellow. I just don’t want any of ’em pollutin’ white kids’ schools. No reason they should. Let them have their own schools.”

  “Your daughter?” Charles asked again.

  “Yeah, I joined The Order for her. To try to protect her. Now she’s eighteen, going off to college next year. Emory. Full scholarship. She’s a competitive swimmer.”

  “Great school,” Charles said. “My alma mater.”

  “Like I said, The Order does not screw around. I stopped going to their events a couple of years ago. Too damn radical for my taste.”

  Charles noted how Lonnie kept glancing at the door, which he’d taken care to lock. His right foot tapped a nervous pattern on the tile floor.

  Radical? Yes, killing off a few hundred people with a super-potent bacteria qualifies as radical. “I hear you,” Charles said.

  “But The Order still has me in their database. I get a visit from one of ’em—day before Thanksgiving. I’m home with my wife. Son of a bitch tells me what they got in mind. I said, okay, I’ll think about it. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘we have Diana.’ My daughter! ‘The choice is yours,’ he said.”

  “You’re saying they kidnapped your daughter?”

  “Yes. The guy showed me one of those Polaroid shots, still damp. Just a few minutes after I’d heard the doorbell, and Diana said not to bother, she’ll get it. She was still in her bathrobe. A neighbor, I figured, or one of her friends. Someone’s always coming by. My wife was cooking. I’m still reading the paper, finishing my coffee. The doorbell rang again and now I go to open it. This man from The Order pushes right past me. I showed him into my study; my wife is not a fan of The Order. That’s when he laid it out. First, the picture of my daughter—in her bathrobe, no shoes, a gag stuck in her mouth, pinned by a large man against a white van parked in the driveway. She looked so scared, man. I’m out of my mind. Whatever The Order asks, I’m ready. No ifs, ands, or buts. Just do it. Well, Mr. Boyle, it’s all yours. So let’s talk business, man.”

  As simple as that. An abduction of a child. Charles thought of Russell, lying in a casket, mourned by a wife and kids. He glanced down at his attire, a dark suit, conservative tie, starched white shirt. After this “interview” he’d be expressing his condolences to Russell’s wife. He hoped the kids wouldn’t be there.

  “I see,” Charles said. And he did. Lonnie Collins had no choice. The Order wouldn’t think twice about Diana Collins’s life.

  “You’re a single man?” Lonnie asked.

  “I am,” Charles said. Did being single make him more expendable?

  “The guy from The Order said that you might come under suspicion. If so, you would have to get away from Atlanta. You good with that?”

  Charles had given this a lot of thought. Factor into his decision what had happened to Russell, factor in the safe houses that Banks had promised. Would he turn his back on a mansion and destroy his career. Considering his miserable personal life, his unacceptable new boss, and his parents’ pride when they’d find out about his service to The Order, Charles knew what he had to do.

  “I’ll handle it,” Charles said.

  Both men would toe the line. Do The Order’s work, like two good soldiers.

  “Let’s do a tour of the kitchen,” Lonnie Collins said. “You’ll need the lay of the land.”

  “I can’t cook or bake.” As soon as he said the words, Charles realized how foolish he sounded.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29

  Emma Goode heard herself say, “I need my beauty rest.” She never napped, but today the notion had its appeal. The day after Thanksgiving, the day before her party extravaganza.

  Her eldest granddaughter had helped her choose the jewelry she’d wear with her Gianni Versace gown tomorrow night. “Okay, Grandma, but don’t forget I’m taking you to see The Nutcracker at the Fox Theatre tonight. I still remember you took me to see it the first time when I was six. I wanted to be a ballerina. Too bad that didn’t work out.”

  “That would have been delightful, Karen, but going to medical school at Emory isn’t a bad second.”

  “Seriously, you know I really want to be a doctor.”

  “I am proud of you, child. I had always hoped one of my children would go to medical school, especially your mother, but no, they either went into the family business or became lawyers.” Emma rolled her eyes as she always did when the subject was lawyers. She’d had her share of them. The good and the bad.

  “You get some rest, Grandma. I promised Mom I’d go with her to get some last-minute accessories for my sisters. Dressing five girls for a big party has its challenges. Too many prima donnas, Dad always says.”

  “And expensive.” Emma couldn’t forget the money it cost to keep her seven kids in clothes. Two girls, followed by two boys, then two more girls, and one last boy. And now, she had fifteen grandchildren. All here in Atlanta to celebrate her seventieth birthday, and her retirement after almost fifty years at The Atlanta Daily Reporter tomorrow. No wonder she could do with a nap.

  As she sat on the side of the bed and shed her shoes, she glanced at her portrait wall. Fourteen of her grandchildren, each one photographed at the age of four. Such a cute age, just before they start losing their front teeth. Old enough to cooperate. Young enough so their innocence still shines through. Th
e tradition had begun with Karen, who’s now twenty-one; number fourteen is that bundle-of-energy, Wyatt—about to be five next month. Not yet represented on the wall was Emeril, who’d just recently turned the magic four but still resembled a “terrible two.”

  I am so blessed, Emma thought, her eyes closing for just ten minutes.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29

  When Victor arrived the next morning at George Washington University Hospital, he’d been almost giddy with relief to find Matthew sitting up, eating from a tray of regular hospital food. Color had returned to Matthew’s face, and he had either shaved himself or someone had done it for him. The purplish blotches on his face even seemed to have faded during the night. Matthew still was connected to an intravenous line, but he no longer was on oxygen. He smiled at his dad.

  For the second night in a row, Victor had not slept. After destroying the last culture in his collection and assuring himself that his basement was sterile, he’d contemplated sleep. But he needed to see his son. So he showered, changed into clean clothes, and drove to the hospital. And now, rewarded with Matthew’s smile, he was glad he’d come. Matthew needed him and Victor would not fail him.

  But his elation soon gave way to the realization that he and his son still needed to talk more about the HIV virus and AIDS—Matthew’s illness. How there was no cure, no treatment. Matthew surely would rather hear it from his father, a Ph.D. microbiologist, instead of from a stranger. But, Matthew still would hear the truth as a death sentence. How could Victor sugarcoat that?

  Victor settled into the bedside chair and encouraged Matthew to talk about growing up in Florida, how he loved the indigenous plants: palms, the ferns, the lilies, even the scrub palmettos. Victor hadn’t summoned the nerve to bring up the AIDS subject; Matthew had not asked.

  Mid-morning, while a nurse took Matthew’s vital signs, Victor nodded off.

  Matthew said, “Father, go home. You look like you’re about to collapse. Matter of fact, you look worse than me. Please go home, sleep. You’ve done so much for me. It hurts me to see you so tired.”