Containment (23 page)

Roderick nodded.
"No one's to blame, except evolution. And dumb luck."

"
Over twenty thousand people are going to die from this dumb luck unless we can find a way to destroy this thing," said Kraig. Included in that twenty-thousand-plus, he realized, were two people, Cecily Sunday and Lisa Murdoch. He tried hard to put that out of his mind but it kept coming back. Yes, there were twenty thousand people, but two of them were people he cared about. That shouldn't make a difference but somehow, against his will, it did.

"
There are a lot of things we still don't know but must find out," said Roderick. "We must discover what protobiont is made of, how it replicates, how it invades the human body, and how it kills."

Kraig
felt like someone dropped an ice cube down the back of his shirt. Rod, of course, was right. "That's a lot of stuff."

"
I suggest we get started by bringing in a few people who may be able to help. I have, in fact, taken the liberty of calling them without asking your permission. Strictly speaking I was exceeding my authority—"

"
Forget it! Just do it. Do whatever's necessary." Kraig stared at the ticker, which had incremented before his eyes. It was now up to 159.

Montgomery County, Pennsylvania / 8:45 a.m.

When he opened the front door of his house and saw the armed officers, Pradeep Rumanshan stepped back in alarm. He'd seen movies where "they" came to get you, "they" took you away somewhere, and you never came back.

One of the officers flashed a badge and asked Pradeep for identification. After the chemist had given it, the officers stepped inside.

They wanted information. Laboratory notebooks, data disks, anything related to the work Pradeep had done at Vision Cell Bioceuticals.

"
I did nothing wrong or immoral," Pradeep kept repeating. He showed them everything, all his notes that he'd kept at home. He told them that most of the data and the lab notebooks were still at the company's building.

"
No they're not," one of the officers said. "They're in the car."

Pradeep began to get even more frightened.
"If you have them then you know I did nothing wrong."

"
Nobody's saying you did, sir. Would you mind coming with us?"

"
Where?"

"
To Bethesda, Maryland."

Pradeep was not sure whether he had a choice or not, but he decided the time was not right to argue. If this was part of the process of proving his innocence then he would do it without complaining. He called his fiancée
—a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania—then packed a small bag with clothes and toiletries.

Outside, Pradeep stepped toward an official limo
—black with tinted windows so that you couldn't see inside. A forbidding vehicle.

"
Sir, do you know the whereabouts of Dr. Norschalk?"

"
Gordon?" Pradeep paused as an officer opened one of the rear doors. Pradeep took a peek inside; no signs of hoodlums with brass knuckles and tire irons. He let out a deep breath.

"
Yes, sir. Dr. Gordon Norschalk, your colleague at Vision Cell Bioceuticals. Would you happen to know where he can be found?"

Pradeep thought a moment, then pulled out his personal data organizer.
"I can find his address."

"
No, no sir. We know his address."

Pradeep gave a puzzled look.
"I have not conversed with him recently. No, I misspoke—we talked over the phone." He related the details.

The officer wrote the information down.
"This was the last time you heard from Dr. Norschalk?"

Pradeep nodded.
"You cannot find him?"

The officer didn
't answer. He simply urged the chemist to get comfortable and then shut the door.

Looking out the window, Pradeep sat and watched the spring scenery as the car motored down the street. Pink buds were forming on the trees. Life was being renewed for another season.

He tried not to think about Vision Cell Bioceuticals during the whole limo ride to the airport. But he failed miserably.

Medburg, Pennsylvania / 10:00 a.m.

As he'd expected, he had landed hard. Even with all the padding it had almost knocked the wind out of him. Gordon picked crushed packing peanuts and plastic air bubbles out of his cardigan the whole morning. And that was after he finally managed to unwrap himself—no simple task since the force of the landing had flattened many of the layers, pressing them together so tightly that they seemed to be stitched or knitted.

It would have been far easier if they
'd just let him walk in. But of course they wouldn't do that. And they might have even dragged him to a psychiatric ward if he'd asked permission to enter the containment zone.

Perhaps, thought Gordon grimly, a psychiatric ward is exactly where I belong.

Gordon looked around. Like most April days in Medburg, the sky was overcast—cloudy, damp, and drizzling. Gordon wandered around the streets, feeling the need to keep moving, but he consulted the map as he walked. Luckily his data instruments had survived the fall better than the packing peanuts.

He had no idea where to go. He knew where he was
—the map plus the GPS receiver told him that—but there was no specific destination in mind.

Only a specific person.

Bethesda, Maryland
/ 12:15 p.m.

Kraig was napping when he heard his name. The voice woke him at once.

Not th
at the voice was loud. It was actually soft. Kraig recognized the voice at once and that's why he snapped awake instantly.

"
Lisa?"

The telephone speaker crackled to life:
"I'm just calling to...."

Kraig waited. Finally he said,
"Lisa, I'm sorry."

"
I'm just calling to
thank
you for this assignment."

The sarcasm in her
voice was evident. "I'm sorry. If I'd known what I was sending you into...I didn't know."

"
Of course not. Of course you didn't know. None of us knew."

"
Where are you?"

"
I'm in the hospital." A sob escaped her. "With the others on the team, I assume. They have us isolated. Anyway, I'm sitting here alone, in my room...they have the ventilators all ready and waiting. Even though they know full well that doesn't do any good...and I know it too."

"
Hang on, Lisa. We're working on a treatment."

"
What was
your
first assignment, Kraig?"

Kraig paused, thinking back.
"I don't remember...it was something about a hemorrhagic fever in Florida, I think. People were afraid it was an Ebola outbreak."

"
And was it?"

"No. No, as I recall it was some noncontagious tropical disease that some tourist had gotten in South America and came back home with."

"
Sounds like my first assignment has yours beat pretty handily."

Kraig didn
't know what to say. "Yeah, I guess." He was thinking, this is killing me. But he never considered cutting her off. She wanted to talk, vent her rage, whatever, he would listen. It was the least he could do, and a damn sorry least it was.

The computer screen flashed on, displaying a visual communication panel. Kraig glanced at it and saw the face of Roderick Halkin.

Lisa was trying to say something, but having trouble. "Kraig...I just...."

Kraig perked up. Roderick was saying something but Kraig muted the computer speaker. He turned to the telephone.
"Lisa? Lisa, are you okay?"

"
Yes," she said weakly. "I haven't croaked yet."

There was silence that lasted a full minute. Kraig started sweating. Roderick
's face was showing a carefully measured dose of impatience.

"
Lisa," said Kraig finally. "Lisa, Rod Halkin wants to talk to me. I've got to go. There might be some important news...we're working on this as hard as we can. I promise you, we're working as hard as we can."

"
I'll let you go now," said Lisa. "I just wanted to...
thank
you for this assignment."

The computer
beeped, indicating that the line had been disconnected.

Kraig wiped his face. He paused before increasing the volume of
the speaker. His gaze was drawn once again to the ticker. 178. He winced.

Finally he activated the visual communication channel.

"I haven't interrupted anything important, have I?" asked Roderick.

Great, thought Kraig. More sarcasm. He felt his control slowly, inexorably slipping away. Cyan lights appeared in the office.
"Not at all," said Kraig evenly. "I was just talking to someone with a death sentence hanging over her head, that's all. Nothing serious. What's up with you?"

Roderick glanced an apology.
"We could all do with a rest," he said. "Unfortunately we don't have the time. I have with me in my office Dr. Pradeep Rumanshan, the combinatorial chemist at Vision Cell Bioceuticals. Dr. Rumanshan was good enough to come to Bethesda for a discussion."

The camera in Roderick
's office widened its view to show a small dark fellow sitting beside Roderick Halkin. The couple made an interesting contrast, Kraig noted briefly. The odd couple.

Kraig and Pradeep exchanged greetings.
"I will do everything and anything in my power to help you," pledged Pradeep.

"
We want your help to reconstruct some of the chemicals you made in the lab," said Roderick.

"
If you think it'll be of service," said Pradeep uneasily. "But I fail to see how any of these chemicals has anything to do with the pathogen."

Roderick told him what they knew of the pathogen
—its capacity to replicate even without any genetic materials—and he summarized his theory of protobiont and its origins in the brain cell cultures of Vision Cell Bioceuticals.

While he was listening, Pradeep
's eyes widened. When Roderick finished, the chemist's lip was quivering. "But if that's true...."

"
If it's true," said Roderick, "then we have our work cut out for us."

"
If it's true...." Pradeep couldn't seem to finish the sentence.

"
It's nobody's fault," said Kraig.

Pradeep shook his head.
"No. We have to accept responsibility...if it's true." He looked at Roderick. "You're convinced."

Roderick gave no reply. He simply stared at the chemist with a steady gaze.

"But are you sure you want to try and remake this...thing?" asked Pradeep. "Wouldn't it be better to analyze the samples of it that you've already got?"

"
We're working on that," said Roderick, "but that takes a considerable amount of time—something that's in short supply. If you use your notes to reconstruct your last few chemical batches we can test those."

"
Work from the top-down instead of from the bottom-up," explained Kraig.

"
It's another avenue with which to arrive at an answer," said Roderick. "Possibly faster. Instead of breaking down its components and analyzing them, we'll try to synthesize the beast again and, if we succeed, we'll know what it's made of. And we'll discover something of its nature."

Pradeep nodded.
"Hair of the dog that bit you."

Kraig gave him a puzzled glance.
"What?"

"
It's not important," said Roderick. "Just an old saying." He smiled at Pradeep. "If you have your notes together, shall we get started?"

"
I will not rest until the problem is solved," vowed Pradeep.

* * *

As soon as Pradeep and Roderick got busy in the lab Kraig picked up the telephone.

A moment later a voice answered.

"Cecily?" said Kraig.

"
Yes."

Kraig paused.
"How are you doing?"

"
I've been better."

An agonizing moment for Kraig passed. The ticker incremented. The moment it did Kraig called out,
"Cecily!"

"
I'm still here."

Head bowed, shoulders slumped, Kraig muttered something unintelligible.

"So I guess you heard," said Cecily.

"
Heard what?"

"
My mouse died."