“Yes,” Bernard said.
“Is there anything we can do, personally?”
He pretended to consider, then shook his head. “If you’ll excuse me, there’s work to do before we announce.” He left the conference room and walked down the outside corridor to the stairs. Near the front of the west wing was a pay phone. Removing his credit card from his wallet, he inserted it into the slot and punched in the number of his Los Angeles office.
“This is Bernard,” he said. “I’m going to take my limo to the San Diego airport shortly. Is George available?” The receptionist made several calls and placed George Oilman, his mechanic and sometimes-pilot, on the other end of the line. “George, sorry for such short notice, but it’s something of an emergency. The jet should be ready in an hour and a half, fully fueled.”
“Where this time?” Oilman asked, used to long flights on short notice.
“Europe. I’ll let you know precisely in about half an hour, so you can file a flight plan.”
“Not your usual, Doctor.”
“Hour and a half, George.”
“We’ll be ready.”
“I’m flying alone.”
“Doctor, I’d rather—”
“Alone, George.”
George sighed reluctantly. “All right.”
He held down the receiver switch and then punched in a twenty-seven-digit number, beginning with his satellite code and ending with a secret scramble string. A woman answered in German.
“Doktor Heinz Paulsen-Fuchs, bitte.”
She asked no questions. Whoever could get through on this line, the doctor would speak to. Paulsen-Fuchs answered several minutes later. Bernard glanced around uneasily, realizing he was taking some risk being observed in the open.
“Paul, this is Michael Bernard. I have a rather extreme favor to ask of you.”
“Herr Doktor Bernard, always welcome, always welcome! What can I do for you?”
“Do you have a total isolation lab at the Wiesbaden facility you can clear within the day?”
“For what purpose? Excuse me, Michael, is it not a good time to ask?”
“No, not really.”
“If there is a grave emergency, well, yes, I suppose.”
“Good. I’ll need that lab, and I’ll need to use B.K. Pharmek’s private strip. When I leave my plane, I must be placed in an isolation suit and a sealed biologicals transport truck immediately. Then my aircraft will be destroyed on the runway and the entire area sprayed with disinfectant foam. I will be your guest… if you can call it that… indefinitely. The lab should be equipped so that I can live there and do my work. I will require a computer terminal with full services.”
“You are seldom a drunkard, Michael. And you have never been unstable, not in our time together. This sounds quite serious. Are we talking about a fire, Michael? A vat spill, perhaps?”
Bernard wondered how Paulsen-Fuchs had found out he was working with gene engineering. Or did he know? Was he just guessing? “A very extreme emergency, Herr Doktor. Can you oblige me?”
“Will all be explained?”
“Yes. And it will be to your advantage—and your nation’s advantage—to know ahead of time.”
“It does not sound trivial, Michael.” He felt an irrational singe of anger. “Compared to this, everything else is trivial, Paul.”
“Then it will be done. We can expect you—?”
“Within twenty-four hours. Thank you, Paul.” He hung up and glanced at his watch. He doubted if anyone at Genetron understood the magnitude of what was about to happen. It was difficult for him to imagine. But one thing was clear. Within forty-eight hours of Harrison informing the CDC, the North American continent would be placed under virtual isolation—whether officials believed what was said, or not. The key words would be “plague” and “genetic engineering firm.” The action would be completely justifiable, but he doubted if it would be sufficient. Then more drastic measures would be taken.
He did not want to be on the continent when that happened, but on the other hand, he did not want to be responsible for transmitting the contagion. So he would offer himself up as a specimen, to be kept at the finest pharmaceutical research firm in Europe.
Bernard’s mind worked in such a way that he was never bothered by second guesses or extreme doubts—not in his work, at any rate. When in an emergency or tight situation, he always came up with one solution at a time—usually the correct one. The reserve solutions waited in the background of his thoughts, unconscious and unobtrusive, while he acted. So it had always been in the operating room, and so it was now. He did not regard this faculty without some chagrin. It made him seem like a bloody robot at times, self-confident beyond all reason. But it had been responsible for his success, his stature in neurophysiological research, and the respect he had been accorded by fellow professionals and public alike.
He returned to the conference room and picked up his briefcase. His limo, as always, would be waiting for him in the Genetron parking lot, the driver reading or playing chess on a pocket computer. “I’ll be in my office if you need me,” Bernard said to Harrison. Yng stood facing the blank white marker board, hands clasped behind his back.
“I’ve just called CDC,” Harrison said. “They’ll be getting back to us with instructions.”
The word would soon go out to every hospital in the area. How soon before they closed the airports? How efficient were they? “Let me know, then,” Bernard said. He walked out the door and wondered for a moment whether he needed to take anything else with him. He thought not. He had copies of Ulam’s floppy diskettes in his briefcase. He had Ulam’s organisms within his blood.
Surely that would be enough to keep him busy for a while.
People? Anyone he should warn?
Any of his three ex-wives? He didn’t even know where they lived now. His accountant sent them their alimony checks. There was really no practical way—
Anybody he truly cared for, who truly cared for him?
He had last seen Paulette in March. The parting had been amicable. Everything had been amicable. They had orbited around each other like moon and planet, never really touching. Paulette had objected to being the moon, and quite rightly. She had done very well in her own career, chief cytotechnologist at Cetus Corporation in Palo Alto.
Now that he thought of it, she had probably been the one who had initially suggested his name to Harrison at Genetron. After they broke up. No doubt she had thought she was being very fair-minded and objective, helping all concerned.
He couldn’t fault her for that. But there was nothing in him that urged a call to her, a warning.
It just wasn’t practical.
His son he hadn’t heard from in five years. He was in China someplace on a research grant.
He put the notion out of his head.
Perhaps I won’t even need an isolation chamber, he thought. I’m pretty damned isolated already.
17
They nearly died. Within minutes, Edward was too weak to move. He watched as she called his parents, different hospitals, her school. She was frantic with fear that she might have infected her students. He imagined a ripple of news going out, being picked up. The panic. But Gail slowed, became dizzy, and lay down on the bed next to him.
She struggled and cursed, like a horse trying to right itself after breaking a leg, but the effort was useless.
With her last strength she came to him and they lay in each other’s arms, drenched in sweat. Gall’s eyes were closed, her face the color of talcum. She looked like a corpse in an embalming parlor. For a time Edward thought she was dead and sick as he was, he raged, hated, felt tremendous guilt for his weakness, his slowness to understand all the possibilities. Then he no longer cared. He was too weak to blink, so he closed his eyes and waited.