Pandemic (33 page)

Murray’s body looked like it might fail him at any moment, but his eyes burned with undiminished intensity. He was close to winning, and he knew it.

As for Cheng’s fat face, Margaret could barely stand to look at it. While she had hidden away in her home, Cheng had been climbing the ladders of both the CDC and the Department of Special Threats. In the CDC, he was the director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases. That made him the top dog there for dealing with the alien infection. If Tim’s yeast worked, if it provided immunity, Cheng would be a shoo-in to become the CDC’s next overall director.

As for the Department of Special Threats, the organizational chart wasn’t as neatly defined. Murray put people into roles as needed. There was no doubt, however, that Cheng was the DST’s number one scientist. Frank Cheng answered to Murray Longworth, to the president of the United States, and to no one else.

All Cheng’s power and status could have been hers. All she’d had to do was take it, but she’d chosen the coward’s way out.

Or maybe … maybe Cheng had tricked her somehow. Had he? And had someone helped him?

Margaret looked across the table, at Clarence. Clarence, who had allowed
her to stay home all that time. Had he worked with Cheng to keep her out of the picture?

She chased away that random, illogical thought, wrote it off to exhaustion. She rubbed her eyes as she listened to Cheng speak.

“We are making progress,” he said, his fat face split by an arrogant smile of self-satisfaction. “I’ve perfected the genome of the YBR yeast strain.”

Tim held up a finger. “
Excuse
me? The
what
strain?”

Cheng’s smile faded. “The YBR2874W strain, Doctor Feely.
Properly
named — Y for yeast, B for chromosome two, R for right arm, 2874 for strain number and W for coding strand.”

Tim slapped his hands on the table in an exaggerated bit of outrage. “Oh no you don’t, Chubby. Naming goes to the discoverer or creator, and I be both. We already have a
proper
name, you blowhard, and that
proper
name is
Saccharomyces feely
. But you can call it the
Feely Strain
, if you like. Note the repeated emphasis on the word
Feely
, as in,
you feel what I’m cookin’?
”

The teleconference screens let people in different parts of the world make actual eye contact, let Cheng look Feely right in the eyes.

“Naming nomenclature is an established practice, Doctor Feely,” Cheng said. “Many researchers are involved in this project. We wouldn’t want to disassociate them from any credit by putting only your name on it.”

And with that, it was instantly clear that Cheng’s decision
was
about disassociating someone. He intended to take the credit for Tim’s brilliance, for Margaret’s discovery of the new cellulase, for
everything
, even though he’d been safe on Black Manitou Island while Margaret and Tim had been shot at, nearly blown up and almost drowned. Cheng couldn’t grab all the glory if the strain was named after Tim.

Tim leaned back in his chair. He smiled, laced his fingers behind his head, and looked at Murray’s monitor.

“Director Longworth, perhaps you should arbitrate this disagreement,” he said. “As our impartial third-party observer, who is right? Cheng … or
me
.”

Murray stiffened. Tim seemed so confident, almost as if he had something on Murray, or as if the two had worked out a backroom deal.

The director waved a hand in annoyance. “Fine. Cheng, you wouldn’t have had anything to work on in the first place if it weren’t for Feely’s work. The yeast already has a name, so use it and let’s move on.”

Tim rocked slowly in his chair, smiling wide at Cheng.

Cheng’s fat cheeks quivered with anger. “Very well. We’ve initiated an intensive incubation program to increase the yeast cultures that were delivered yesterday. We’ve also, as I mentioned earlier, altered the genome to create additional strains — some of which, I might add, show far more potential to be our magic bullet.”

Margaret wasn’t surprised. Cheng was a climber and a glory grabber, no doubt, but he was no fool and he had a small army of scientists at his disposal. Creating multiple strains was the logical approach. The more weapons they developed, the better chance of having one or two that would devastate the enemy.

“Developing variant strains is mandatory, Doctor Cheng,” Margaret said. “But that doesn’t address mass production. How are we going to make enough of this stuff to dose over seven billion people?”

Cheng’s easy, arrogant smile returned. Margaret knew he’d come up with an original idea, one he’d be entitled to claim as his own.

“Breweries,” he said.

Margaret’s eyebrows raised … not just an original idea, a
brilliant
original idea.

Clarence looked from Cheng to Murray to Margaret — he didn’t understand what Cheng was talking about.

Tim leaned back in his chair, surprised. He looked almost disappointed that Cheng had thought of it and not him.

“That’s great,” he said. “How many breweries are involved?”

Now it was Murray’s turn to smile. “Most of the breweries in America, Canada and Mexico are onboard. President Blackmon’s been on the phone nonstop with beverage company executives. Believe me, she’s quite convincing.”

Tim shook his head slowly. “Well, spank my ass and call me Sally,” he said. “Cheng, I always thought you were a smelly, stupid douchebag with the integrity of a five-dollar whore, but you know what? You’re not stupid at all.”

Cheng started to give a nod of thanks, then stopped, unsure if he’d just been insulted.

Clarence looked at Tim, then to the screen, then at Margaret again, anywhere for an answer. “Sorry, can someone tell me what’s happening? Breweries?”

Tim slapped the table again. “
Beer
, man. People have been using yeast to
make beer for, shit, well since before we started recording history. We don’t need to build production facilities for” — he turned to look at Cheng — “for
Saccharomyces feely
” — Tim turned back to Clarence — “because all over the world there are places already equipped to brew yeast cultures around the clock. Those places are called
breweries
.”

Cheng’s face was reddening. Tim had refused to let the man have his moment of triumph; Cheng couldn’t help but chime in.

“And the distribution infrastructure is already in place as well,” he said. “Most of the breweries have either their own bottling facilities or direct contracts with them, fleets of trucks, dedicated distribution centers — they can brew it, bottle it, and ship it.”

No wonder Murray thought he was going to win.

“Sounds good in theory,” Margaret said. “But will it work for the entire planet?”

Murray waved a hand in annoyance. “Do you mind if we focus on the USA first, Margaret? This is a massive effort, yes — one of the biggest projects in our nation’s history. Fifty of the largest breweries already have starter cultures. Each of those fifty is delivering subcultures to at least ten more. In two days, we’ll have fifteen hundred American breweries producing inoculant. We can make everyone who drinks it immune.”

“
Temporarily
immune,” Margaret said. All eyes turned to her.

“Let’s not forget that one dose doesn’t last forever. Tim’s inoculant is good for …” She turned to Tim. “For how long?”

His eyes glanced upward in thought. He pursed his lips, tilted his head left, then right.

“Oh, about a week,” he said. “Then it’s going to fully process through the body.”

Margaret nodded. “A week. So you’re not just talking three hundred and twenty million batches for the good ol’ USA, Murray, it’s three hundred and twenty million batches a
week
. If the disease gets to the mainland, the inoculant can slow the disease’s spread — but it can’t stop it altogether.”

Cheng huffed. “Unless the disease breaks out in the next three weeks, we’ll have enough repeat doses for everyone in North America.”

Margaret shook her head in amazement; Cheng was really starting to piss her off.

“This disease could give a fuck about borders,” she said. “If you don’t get
regular doses to the entire world, you’re looking at a disaster of epic proportions. This is about logistics as well as production. Across the planet, one person in seven is starving not because the world doesn’t produce enough food, but because we can’t get food to all the people. And you really think that you can get a regular supply of this to
everyone
?”

Cheng’s face turned red with anger. “Yes, that is exactly what I think. This event will bind the human race together.”

Margaret saw the expression on his face, understood it — he was annoyed because she doubted his ability to save the planet. He wanted to see
his
face in the history books.

Careful what you wish for, Cheng …

“We can’t even bind
Americans
together, let alone the world,” she said. “And what are your plans for the people who refuse to take it, like the idiots who refuse to vaccinate their own children? What do you do when the companies that are so helpful now decide that they’ve done their part and they have to go back to business as usual?”

Cheng’s face furrowed into a tight-lipped scowl. “Doctor Montoya, this
is
the answer to the problem. We will find a way.”

Margaret wanted to grab his fat cheeks with both hands, twist his head, make him whine like the little weakling he was. She wanted to slap him.

“We have a chance at a
permanent
solution,” she said. “What about the hydra organism? There were ten people in that human artificial chromosome clinical trial — have you tracked down the other nine?”

Cheng leaned back. The scowl faded. He looked smug, like he’d defeated her argument merely by letting her say it out loud. He waited.

Murray answered her question.

“The president doesn’t like the hydra solution,” he said. “She doesn’t like the idea of introducing one unknown disease to fight another. And as you pointed out, it’s possible that the hydras are an airborne contagion — if we use them, they could spread uncontrollably and we have no idea what they might do. President Blackmon told us to focus on the yeast. If Cheng’s … excuse me, if
Feely
’s inoculant works, there’s no need to expose the population to an unknown organism.”

Her face felt hot. Now Murray was against her as well?

“
Blackmon
doesn’t like it,” she said.

Margaret knew what was happening. Cheng was sabotaging her work,
whispering in the president’s ear. Margaret felt an intense anger welling up inside of her.

She stared at Cheng. “So the president doesn’t like it, eh, Cheng? And who gave her the idea that the hydras were so godawful dangerous, huh?”

Cheng’s eyes sparkled with delight.

“You did, Doctor Montoya,” he said. “Your reports labeled the hydras an incalculable risk.”

She blinked. Her reports
had
said that.

“But … but that was before,” she said. “Surely you’re not so incompetent you can’t see what we’re up against. We still don’t even know if Tim’s yeast works. And if it does, what if the disease evolves to beat it? We have to at least pursue the hydras as an alternate solution.”

Cheng shrugged. “We have some people seeing if they can track down other patients of the HAC study, but to be blunt, I don’t put much credence in your theory, Doctor Montoya. I hardly think infecting people with your contagious
space worms
is a viable solution.”

She reached her fist high and brought it down hard, pounded it on the table like a gavel.

“That’s the
fucking point
,” she said. “The hydras are
contagious
. If it is airborne, and I think it is, it will spread from person to person without your fucking bottles and goddamn
distribution routes
.”

Cheng leaned in, sure of himself. He had all the power and he knew it, relished it.

“We’ll look into it, Doctor Montoya. I appreciate what you’ve done so far, believe me, but there’s little you can do while you are isolated on that ship. My team is on the front lines. We’ll manage it from here.”

She stood so suddenly her chair shot from under her. “The
front fucking lines
? I’d like to come up there and see you face-to-face, you miserable, fat
fuck
. I’d like to cut off your motherfucking
balls
and
fucking feed them to you
. Would you like that, you stupid cunt?”

A hand on her shoulder: Clarence, reaching across the table, looking at her in shock and concern.

“Margaret, take it easy.”

She blinked. Her words played back in her head. Her face flushed red. Everyone was staring at her. She slowly sat back down.

Clarence turned to face Murray’s screen.

“Director Longworth, Doctor Montoya is under considerable stress.”

Murray nodded. He looked less than pleased.

“I can see that,” he said. “Doctor Montoya, get some rest. Doctor Cheng, assign more people to look at that stem cell therapy, as Doctor Montoya requested.”

Cheng couldn’t hide his smirk. He stared right at her.

“Of course, Director Longworth,” he said.

“Good,” Murray said. “That will be all.”

His side of the screen blanked out, leaving just Cheng’s face.

“Good day, Doctor Montoya,” he said. “Enjoy your time away.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Margaret said, then she stormed out of the mission module.

Cooper and José worked to tie the
Mary Ellen Moffett
to the long pier. Jeff was in the pilothouse, managing the fine maneuvering that brought the ship into place.

Waiting at their slip were three vehicles: a white van, a long, black limo and a pickup truck. Four Chinese men stood outside the white van. They wore jeans and sweatshirts, very nondescript, but Cooper wouldn’t have wanted to bump into any of them in a bar. Hands in pockets, shoulders shrugged against the cold — they clearly hadn’t understood that the temperature at the docks was usually the same as the temperature out on the water. Maybe they were here to help Steve and Bo Pan?