Weapon of Choice (14 page)

When Natalie arrived at the main entrance of the hospital, she bypassed the Information volunteer, walked straight to the elevator with a friendly wave. It was twelve thirty. Her mom and the kids had taken forever to leave and she had to get back before Tim became worried. That gave her an hour.

As she passed the ICU waiting room, she glanced inside to see if Trey's parents were in there. She didn't know the ICU rules, just that visitors were limited and couldn't stay long. She tried to remember all the stuff Mom told her that time a few months ago when she and Nicole had agreed to go along on rounds. Mom thought they should all become doctors. Natalie thought she might want to be one, but not a surgeon like her mother.

The sign on the ICU door said: V
ISITORS MUST BE 16 YEARS OLD
. No problem, Natalie was seventeen. She stepped inside, and walked directly to Trey's bed. A man with jet-black, tousled hair sat slumped forward in the only bedside chair. A faint snore confirmed that he had drifted off to sleep. This must be Mr. Standish. How would he react to her?

Concerns about Mr. Standish vanished once she got a glimpse of Trey. Her knees buckled and she grabbed the metal headboard for support. She'd expected him to be all bandaged up, some sort of body cast, but he looked so gray and frail and lifeless. Not caring whether his father woke, Natalie leaned over and kissed Trey. His lips felt dry, almost shriveled, except for a tiny speck of frothy mucous. With her hand she brushed back strands of black hair from his forehead, which felt very hot.

As Natalie had expected, Trey was hooked up to lots of tubes and drains. Both legs were in casts and elevated. She thought his breathing seemed labored, but that machine beeped a steady beep. He had not responded to her kiss, but perhaps he was numb—she knew he would be getting pain meds. The doctors wouldn't just let him suffer.

“Excuse me?” she heard a baritone voice before seeing the flicker of movement as the man in the chair looked up.

Her lips were still hot from Trey's, and she brushed at an annoying particle stuck to her lower lip. Before responding, she reached for a tissue from the box on the bedside table, and swiped it away.

“I'm Natalie Nelson,” she said, her voice sounding squeaky and her whole body starting to shake. “Trey's girlfriend. Are you his father?”

“Yes, I am. Before he drifted off, Trey had been calling out—”

“Mr. Standish,” Natalie interrupted in a rush. “Is Trey going to be okay?”

“He has a fractured pelvis and two broken legs. They had to take out his spleen and fix a tear in his liver.” The man sounded so weary, Natalie thought. Had he been here the whole time, since the accident?

“Now the nurses are worried about his temperature. Postoperative infection, they say, is quite common.”

As tears started to flood Natalie's eyes, she grabbed a fistful of tissues. Trey's father stood and Natalie felt a strong arm encircle her. “Trey just has to be okay. I—” She stopped before she blurted out how much she loved him.

“Trey never mentioned that he had a girlfriend. I mean a girlfriend that seems to care about him as much as you do, Natalie.”

“I have to be honest with you, Mr. Standish. He didn't say anything because of you and my mother.”

“I don't understand.”

Natalie looked at Trey. She thought his eyes fluttered when she spoke, but otherwise he was immobile. They did plan to tell their parents, eventually, about their decision to spend their lives together, to get married her first year of college, support themselves if need be. But they would keep the secret until after that lawsuit was settled one way or another.

“Trey and I agreed not to say anything. Our families have a conflict, which we're sure will pass with time.”

“Natalie, what are you talking about?”

“My mom is a doctor, and she's testifying as an expert in the lawsuit against your company, so we—”

“That Nelson. You're her daughter?”

“Yes.”

“You know, you look just like her. I saw her video deposition last week. She made some good points. But I would never let my business interfere with my son's happiness. I'm surprised Trey didn't realize that—”

“It's just that he has so much respect for you and for Mrs. Standish.”

“As I hope that you have for your parents,” he said.

Laura turned to face him, feeling an instinctive trust. “It's only my mother,” she said. “My father's dead.”

She then pulled away to touch Trey's cheek. “He's so hot,” she murmured. “Maybe Mom can do something.” Should she call her? She'd be so pissed that Natalie had faked an illness.

“Let me introduce you to Trey's mother,” Mr. Standish said. “He's our only child so both of us have been here around the clock. She's in the visitors' lounge. I'll go get her.”

Again, Natalie leaned over to kiss Trey, letting her long hair fall over his face. “I love you, Trey. Please, please get better. Please, Trey.”

Her attention on Trey, Natalie never saw the cluster of medical staff gather across the room. She did register the nurse's anxious voice: “Dr. Plant is covering for Dr. Nelson. Call him STAT.”

T
HURSDAY
, N
OVEMBER
28
T
HANKSGIVING
D
AY

Charles's badge got him onto the property, through building security, and into his lab. Because of the holiday, the building was almost deserted; he walked alone into his laboratory. What a break that on the very day The Order had called upon him, he had complete and exclusive access to what Will Banks called a “bioweapon.” Usually aloof, he took a moment to speak to the two armed men who guarded the secure incubator, commiserating with them about having to work the holiday—somebody had to feed the cultures and that somebody was him.

Charles was a microbiologist and a geneticist. Though he had an M.D., he was well aware that he was no clinician. Neither was he a chemist or a toxicologist or a pharmacologist. His job description at CDC was specific: to genetically develop killer staphylococci. What happened after that was not his concern. Supposedly his fellow researchers used his cultures to develop new antibiotics that would work against new natural strains of staph that were sure to emerge. That, he assumed, was the official cover story. What the government—the United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases—USAMRIID—really wanted were instruments of bioterror. Although never yet used to attack humans, his little clusters of round bacteria would kill like the plague, only quicker and with more pain.

Naturally, he wondered where The Order would choose to deploy his bioweapon. Banks had said nothing about their choice of a target. When Charles had signed on as a soldier in The Order, he had sworn absolute obedience, total secrecy, and infinite allegiance. And Charles, if nothing else, was a man of his word. He'd been called a coward and wimp, but nobody could accuse him of ever breaking a pledge.

Charles moved about the incubator, a space lined with enclosed shelves housing petri dishes of culture plates on one side and cubicles, all equipped with stainless-steel laminar flow hoods, on the other side. He'd identified the exact cubbyhole where he would stash his set of duplicate culture plates. The temperature and humidity would be ideal, and now that Stacy was moving up, he'd have daily access—which meant he'd have to hold off on his request for a transfer to another department. Banks had hinted that they'd be put to use soon, within days. The sooner, the better. What he was doing may be technically easy, but risk was everywhere. He had only to glance at the sophisticated camera system and all the auditory and motion detectors scattered about. His obsessive personality helped him mentally map where each device was situated so he could evade each mechanical roving eye. At least he thought he could.

Could The Order have chosen a political target? Release the bacteria at a civil rights forum? Or were they planning to attack a hospital? One of the newly integrated schools? The possibilities were endless. Would The Order claim credit for the attack? Probably not. With so many members of The Order already in jail, the leadership might rather sit back and gloat privately.

But most importantly, would they consult him about where and how to release the staph? Would they want him to play a part? Or would they try to appropriate the cultures and send someone else to get the bacteria to the target? Charles had tried assiduously to explain to Banks—his sole contact from The Order—that the bacterial growth phase was ultraaggressive. If not precisely controlled, the culture would burn itself out before its prime—only tens of people
would die rather than thousands. Well, maybe that was what The Order wanted. Charles did not know the endgame.

Charles emerged from the incubator. Mission accomplished. Duplicate cultures of flesh-eating staph safely hidden away.

T
HURSDAY
, N
OVEMBER
28
T
HANKSGIVING
D
AY

“What is it you don't understand?” Victor demanded. “My son is to be moved.
Now
. Medevac personnel have cleared him. George Washington University Hospital will admit him. Matthew has signed all the releases.”

“I'm sorry, Dr. Worth,” said a young female in Discharge, “I need a physician's approval. It's hospital policy.”

“Doctors have pagers. Page a doctor.
Now
.”

“I already did so, sir. Dr. Kellerman isn't answering his page, and since he's not signed out to another doctor, we have to wait for him to call in.”

“I can't wait. Do you know how much a medevac transfer costs? Will the hospital pay for that?” Victor didn't give a damn how much the flight cost. Matthew had to be moved well out of range of that infected ICU. Now.

“I'll try again,” the administrator said.

Victor's fingers drummed on her desk. He couldn't afford this delay. Even if Matthew was protected to the extent possible by the isolation protocol, the risk of exposure was increasing by the minute.

“Not picking up.” The clerk frowned.

“Then call Dr. Nelson,” Victor demanded. She'd at least tried to intervene to get ticokellin for Matthew.

The woman consulted her directory. “Dr. Plant is covering for Dr. Nelson. Let me put you in touch with Dr. Plant.”

Victor already had called her home, had left an urgent message requesting a call back. So far, nothing.

The woman dialed a number, waited, and then handed over her phone.

All was in order for a transfer, Victor explained; he merely needed a signature.

The male doctor wished he could help, he said, but since he had not actually treated Matthew—

Every minute of this struggle escalated the odds that Matthew would come in contact with the bacteria that was, at this very moment, killing Norman and the others. Every minute.

“Dr. Nelson operated on him, and you are responsible for her patients.” Victor felt his voice rise at least an octave. He must not sound as if he were losing control. “Okay,” he said, “then put me in touch with Dr. Nelson.” He added, “Please?”

“She's out of town with her family,” Dr. Plant said. “I really don't think she'd—”

“Look,” he said, “I'm a doctor. She and I have collaborated on this patient's care. She supports his transfer. She gave me her private number, in case something came up.” Victor had the scrap of paper ready and read off the Tampa number.

“Well,” Dr. Plant said, “I didn't realize—”

T
HURSDAY
, N
OVEMBER
28
T
HANKSGIVING
D
AY

The Jones family didn't live in the inner city anymore, but in a two-story brick house, just inside the Detroit city limit near 8 Mile Road and Grand River Avenue. Stacy Jones, M.D., M.P.H., sat at the foot of her mom's Thanksgiving dinner table, riveting the attention of her three younger sisters. She was Harvard educated, and employed by the CDC. Federal benefits and job security—and miracle of miracles, she'd just been promoted to director, Experimental Staph Section. Not bad for a thirty-two-year-old black woman from the Detroit ghetto.

Stacy had paved the way for her sisters, and they respected and admired her. Sharon was a labor lawyer in the Detroit firm where she'd interned. Rachel, following in her mom's footsteps, a social worker in inner-city Detroit, and little sister, Katie, was in her third year of med school at the University of Michigan in nearby Ann Arbor. Stacy beamed at her sisters, and accepted congratulations on her promotion. When they'd finished the Thanksgiving prayer, she gazed with pride and love around the table of five women. Her sisters had not always looked up to her, she vividly recalled. Stacy had gone through a rough phase when she'd turned thirteen in 1967, the year both of her brothers were killed in the Detroit riots. Look where the Jones family was now. Accomplished. Together. Happy, if not complete.

Preparing the meal had been a team effort. Stacy had flown in from Atlanta last evening and her sisters all lived locally. Mom was
alone now in the house, and the girls had been trying all morning to convince her to move into a townhouse in the suburbs. Lucy said she'd think about it.

“Or, you could move down to Atlanta with me,” Stacy said. “No more shoveling snow.”

The phone rang in the kitchen, and Lucy jumped up to get it.

“She never stops,” Stacy said, “and she'll never leave Detroit.” Her sisters nodded. Mom would never leave Anthony and Johnny though they had died eighteen years ago.

“For you, Dr. Jones,” Mom said, nodding at Stacy, then looking at Katie. “Next we'll be calling you Dr. Jones, too.”

“Guess I better take it.” Stacy managed another couple of mouthfuls of stuffing. “Part of this promotion is being available for emergencies.”