Contagion (33 page)

     “If I can prove someone is behind this affair it will certainly be worth the risks,” Jack said. “My fear is that there might be a real epidemic.”

     “Chet seems to think you’re acting foolishly,” Terese persisted.

     “He’s entitled to his opinion,” Jack said.

     “Please be careful when you go home,” Terese intoned.

     “I will,” Jack said. He was getting weary of everyone’s solicitude. The danger of going home that evening was something he’d considered as early as that morning.

     “We’ll be working most of the night,” she added. “If you need to call, call me at work.”

     “Okay,” Jack said. “Good luck.”

     “Good luck to you,” Terese said. “And thanks for this ‘no waiting’ idea. Everyone loves it so far. I’m very grateful. ‘Bye!”

     Jack went back to Nodelman’s chart as soon as he put the phone down.

     He was attempting to get through the reams of nurses’ notes. But after five minutes of reading the same paragraph over and over, he acknowledged he wasn’t concentrating. His mind kept mulling over the irony of both Laurie and Terese asking him to dine with them. Thinking about the two women led to pondering again the similarities and differences in their personalities, and once he started thinking about personality, Beth Holderness popped into his mind. As soon as he thought about Beth, he began musing about the ease of ordering bacteria.

     Jack closed Nodelman’s chart and drummed his fingers on his desk.

     He began to wonder. If someone had obtained a culture of a pathological bacteria from National Biologicals and then intentionally spread it to people, could National Biologicals tell it had been their bacteria?

     The idea intrigued him. With the advances in DNA technology he thought it was scientifically possible for National Biologicals to tag their cultures, and for reasons of both liability and economic protection, he thought it was a reasonable thing to do. The question then became whether they did it or not.

     Jack searched for the phone number. Once he found it, he put through a second call to the organization. Early that afternoon on Jack’s first call he’d pressed “two” for sales. This time he pressed “three” for “support.” After being forced to listen to a rock music station for a few minutes, Jack heard a youthfulsounding male voice give his name, Igor Krasnyansky, and ask how he could be of assistance. Jack introduced himself properly on this occasion and inquired if he could pose a theoretical question.

     “Of course,” Igor said with a slight Slavic accent. “I will try to answer.”

     “If I had a culture of bacteria,” Jack began, “is there any way that I could determine that it had originally come from your company even if it had gone through several passages in vivo?”

     “That’s an easy one,” Igor said. “We phage-type all our cultures. So, sure, you could tell it came from National Biologicals.”

     “What’s the identification process?” Jack asked.

     “We have a fluorescein-labeled DNA probe,” Igor said. “It’s very simple.”

     “If I wanted to make such an identification, would I have to send the sample to you?” Jack asked.

     “Either that or I could send you some of the probe,” Igor said.

     Jack was pleased. He gave his address and asked for the probe to be shipped via overnight express. He said he wanted it as soon as possible.

     Hanging up the phone, Jack felt pleased with himself. He thought he’d come up with something that might lend considerable weight to his theory of intentional spread if any of the patients’ bacteria tested positive.

     Jack looked down at the charts and considered giving up on them for the time being. After all, if the opposite turned out to be the case, and none of the bacteria was from National Biologicals, perhaps he would have to rethink the whole affair.

     Jack scraped back his chair and stood up. He’d had enough for one day. Pulling on his jacket, he prepared to head home. Suddenly the idea of some vigorous exercise had a strong appeal.

     26

     MONDAY, 6:00 P.M., MARCH 25, 1996

     Beth Holderness had stayed late to get all the throat cultures of the hospital employees planted. The evening crew had come in at the usual time, but at that moment they were down in the cafeteria having their dinner.

     Even Richard had disappeared, although Beth wasn’t sure if he’d left for the day or not.

     Since the micro section of the lab was deserted except for her, Beth thought that if she were to do any clandestine searching, this was as good a time as any. Sliding off her stool, she walked over to the door to the main part of the lab. She didn’t see a soul, which encouraged her further.

     Turning back to microbiology, Beth headed over to the insulated doors. She wasn’t sure she should be doing what she was doing, but having said she would, she felt some obligation. She was confused about Dr. Jack Stapleton, but she was even more confused about her own boss, Dr. Martin Cheveau. He’d always been temperamental, but lately that moodiness had reached ridiculous proportions.

     That afternoon he’d stormed in after Dr. Stapleton had left, demanding to know what she had told the medical examiner. Beth had tried to say that she’d told him nothing of consequence and had tried to get him to leave, but Dr. Cheveau wouldn’t listen. He even threatened to fire Beth for willfully disobeying him. His ranting had brought her close to tears.

     After he’d left Beth had thought about Dr. Stapleron’s comment that people at the hospital, including her boss, had been acting defensively. Considering Dr. Cheveau’s behavior, she’d thought Dr. Stapleton might be right. It made her even more willing to follow up on Dr. Stapleron’s request.

     Beth stood in front of the two insulated doors. The one on the left was the walk-in freezer, the other the walk-in incubator. She debated which one to search first. Since she’d been in and out of the incubator all day with the throat cultures, she decided to tackle that first. After all, there was only a small area in the incubator where the contents were unfamiliar to her.

     Beth pulled open the door and entered. Immediately she was enveloped by the moist, warm air. The temperature was kept close to body temperature, at 98.6° Fahrenheit. Many bacteria and viruses, especially those that affected humans, had understandably evolved to grow best at human body temperature.

     The door behind Beth closed automatically to seal in the heat. The compartment was about eight by ten. The lighting came from two bulbs covered with wire mesh mounted on the ceiling. The shelving was perforated stainless steel. It extended floor to ceiling on both walls, along the back, and down the center, creating two narrow aisles.

     Beth made her way to the rear of the compartment. There were stainless-steel boxes back there that she’d seen on numerous occasions but had never examined. Grasping one of the boxes with both hands, Beth slid it out from its shelf and put it on the floor. It was about the size of a shoe box. When she tried to open it, she realized it had a latch that was secured with a miniature padlock.

     Beth was amazed and instantly suspicious. Few things in the lab were kept under lock and key. Picking the box up, Beth slid it back into place. Moving along the shelf, she reached around each box in turn. Every one of them had the same type of lock.

     Bending down, Beth did the same on the lower shelf. The condition of the fifth box was different. As Beth stuck her hand around its back, she could feel that the padlock’s clasp had not been closed.

     Insinuating her fingers between the unlocked box and its neighbors, Beth was able to slide it out. As she lifted it, she could tell it wasn’t quite as heavy as the first locked box; she feared it would be empty. But it wasn’t. As she lifted its cover, she saw that it contained a few petri dishes. She also noted that the petri dishes did not bear the customary label that was used in the lab. Instead they only had grease-pencil alphanumeric designators.

     Beth gingerly reached into the box and lifted out a petri dish labeled A-81. She lifted the top and looked in at expanding bacterial colonies. They were transparent and mucoid and they were growing on a medium she recognized as chocolate agar.

     A sharp mechanical click of the insulated door opening startled Beth. Her pulse raced. Like a child caught in a forbidden act, she frantically tried to get the petri dish back in the box and the box back on the shelf before whoever was entering saw what she was doing.

     Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time. She’d only had a chance to close the box and pick it up before she found herself face-to-face with Dr. Martin Cheveau. Ironically, he was at that moment carrying a box identical to the one she was holding.

     “What are you doing?” he snarled.

     “I’m...” Beth voiced, but that was all she could say. Under the pressure of the circumstance, no potential explanation came to mind.

     Dr. Cheveau noisily stashed his box on one of the shelves, then grabbed Beth’s away from her. He looked at the open latch. “Where’s the lock?” he growled. Beth extended her hand and then opened it. In her palm was the open padlock. Martin snatched it and examined it.

     “How did you get it open?” he demanded.

     “It was open,” Beth asserted.

     “You’re lying,” Martin snapped.

     “I’m not,” Beth said. “Honest. It was open and it made me curious.”

     Likely story, Martin yelled. His voice reverberated around the confined space.

     “I didn’t disturb anything,” Beth said.

     “How do you know you didn’t disturb anything?” Martin said. He opened the box and glanced inside. Seemingly satisfied, he closed it and locked it. He tested the lock. It held.

     “I only lifted the cover and looked at one culture dish,” Beth said. She was beginning to regain some composure, although her pulse was still racing.

     Martin slipped the box into its position. Then he counted them all. When he was finished, he ordered her out of the incubator.

     “I’m sorry,” Beth said after Martin had closed the insulated door behind them. “I didn’t know that I wasn’t suppose to touch those boxes.”

     At that moment Richard appeared in the doorway. Martin ordered him over, then angrily related how he’d caught Beth handling his research cultures. Richard acted as upset as Martin when he heard. Turning to Beth, he demanded to know why she would do such a thing. He wondered whether they weren’t giving her enough work to do.

     “No one told me not to touch them,” Beth protested. She was again close to tears. She hated confrontations and had already weathered a previous one only hours earlier.

     “No one told you to handle them either,” Richard snapped.

     “Did that Dr. Stapleton put you up to this?” Martin demanded.

     Beth hesitated, not knowing how to respond. As far as Martin was concerned her hesitation was incriminating. “I thought as much,” he snapped.

     “He probably even told you about his preposterous idea that the plague cases and the others were started on purpose.”

     “I told him I wasn’t supposed to talk with him,” Beth cried.

     “But talk he did,” Martin said. “And obviously you listened. Well, I’m not going to stand for it. You are fired, Miss Holderness. Take your things and get out. I don’t want to see your face again.” Beth sputtered a protest and with it came tears.

     “Crying is not going to get you anywhere,” Martin spat out. “Nor are excuses. You made your choice, now live with the consequences. Get out.”

     Twin reached across the scarred desk and hung up the phone. His real name was Marvin Thomas. He’d gotten the nickname “Twin” because he’d had an identical twin. No one had been able to tell the two of them apart until one of them got killed in a protracted disagreement between the Black Kings and a gang from the East Village over crack territories.

     Twin looked across the desk at Phil. Phil was tall and skinny and hardly imposing, but he had brains. It had been his brains, not his bravado or muscles, that had caused Twin to elevate him to number-two man in the gang. He had been the only person to know what to do with all the drug money they’d been raking in. Up until Phil took over, they’d been burying the greenbacks in PVC pipe in the basement of Twin’s tenement.

     “I don’t understand these people,” Twin said. “Apparently that honky doctor didn’t get our message, and he’s been out doing just what he damned well pleases. Can you believe it? I hit that sucker with just about everything I got, and three days later he’s giving us the finger. I don’t call that respect, no way.”

     “The people want us to talk to him again?” Phil asked. He’d been on the visit to Jack’s apartment and witnessed how hard Twin had hit the man.

     “Better than that,” Twin said. “They want us to ice the bastard. Why they didn’t have us do it the first time is anybody’s guess. They’re offering us five big ones.” Twin laughed. “Funny thing is, I would have done it for nothing. We can’t have people ignoring us. We’d be out of business.”

     “Should we send Reginald?” Phil asked.

     “Who else?” Twin questioned. “This is the kind of activity he loves.”

     Phil got to his feet and ground out his cigarette. He left the office and walked down the litter-strewn hallway to the front room, where a half dozen members were playing cards. Cigarette smoke hung heavily in the air.

     “Hey, Reginald,” Phil called out. “You up for some action?”

     Reginald glanced up from his cards. He adjusted the toothpick protruding from his mouth. “It depends,” he said.

     “I think you’d like this one,” Phil said. “Five big ones to do away with the doctor whose bike you got.”

     “Hey, man, I’ll do it,” BJ said. BJ was the nickname for Bruce Jefferson. He was a stocky fellow with thighs as thick as Phil’s waist. He’d also been on the visit to Jack’s.

     “Twin wants Reginald,” Phil said.

     Reginald stood up and tossed his cards on the table. “I had a crap hand anyway,” he said. He followed Phil back to the office.