“So your nine-year-old, um, I mean, twenty-year-old brother is in Africa and he’s responsible?”
“Yes, but—” Olivia thought about it for a moment. “He’s one of those suburban kids who doesn’t understand anything about the real world.”
“Naïve?”
“Yes, that’s a good word.”
“So, besides being naïve in a third-world country—which, I might add, could be a good way for him to grow past his naiveté—what has you worried?”
Olivia put on a fake expression of exasperation. “There was the Ebola we talked about.”
“Oh, yeah. I think you mentioned that.”
She said, “I’m afraid he’s not going to take the necessary precautions.”
“I’m assuming you’re not talking about condoms.”
“Dr. Wheeler!”
“You should call me Mathew.”
“I think I’ll stick with Dr. Wheeler for now.” Privately, Olivia was starting to think that maybe she and Mathew could be on a first name basis—except for the age difference, which seemed pretty stark to her. “Let’s not talk about my little brother and condoms, okay?”
“You do know that twenty-year-old college boys seldom think about anything that doesn’t involve a condom, right? Oh, he is in college, isn’t he?”
“Yes, Texas A&M.”
“Oh?”
Olivia shook her head. “Dad was a die-hard Texas Longhorn. I think he went there just to piss off my dad.”
They looked at each other, idling in their conversational cul-de-sac.
Dr. Wheeler sat up straight and slapped a hand on the table. “Back to business. I’m sure you don’t have all day to sit here and flirt with me. Ebola and your brother. What about it? He’s not in Liberia, Guinea, or Sierra Leone, is he?”
“Uganda.”
“What’s he doing there?” Dr. Wheeler asked.
“He’s a teacher at a school for street kids.”
“Street kids. You mean like the Backstreet Boys?” Wheeler smiled at his humor.
Olivia just shook her head.
“I didn’t think it was a bad joke.” Dr. Wheeler drew a breath full of mock exasperation. “So, orphans?”
“Yes,” answered Olivia.
“That’s good. He’s in Uganda teaching orphans. He’s not a medical worker or anything like that?”
“No.” Olivia frowned. “Not even close.”
“He doesn’t eat undercooked bush meat, does he?”
“Bush meat?” Olivia grimaced. Whatever that was, it didn’t sound good.
“Bats, apes, and such.”
“Eew.”
“Sounds like a no. You probably don’t have anything to worry about.” Dr. Wheeler’s confidence was about as infectious as the disease.
“I know.”
“But here you are. And asking questions for a reason.”
Olivia looked away. “Yes.”
“Do you know how many people died last year of malaria?”
She rolled her eyes and ventured a guess. “Eleven?”
Dr. Wheeler laughed. “Dishing it back out. Okay.” He put on a serious face. “Over six hundred thousand. How many died of the Ebola virus last year?”
“None,” Olivia answered right away.
“So you’ve done some homework. How about the year before that?”
“Fifty-one.”
“How many in the history of the disease? If you don’t get this one right, I’ll know you weren’t listening during my presentation.”
Olivia said, “I was so taken with your charm that I didn’t catch a single word.”
“When you use that much sarcasm, it actually hurts my feelings.”
“I’m guessing it just bounces off a deeper layer of ego.” Olivia smiled. “Maybe sixteen hundred died of Ebola. The point I guess you’re making is that Austin’s chances of dying of another infectious disease like malaria are higher than they are of dying from Ebola.”
“Astronomically higher,” Dr. Wheeler said. “A person can get malaria from a mosquito bite just for going fishing in the wrong spot. You almost have to go out of your way to get Ebola.”
“But thirteen hundred cases have been reported in West Africa, and not only is the number increasing, but the curves are becoming steeper. If you graph the number of cases over time, the curve appears to be exponential.”
“You have done your homework. And you apparently paid attention during your Algebra classes.” Dr. Wheeler smiled slyly. “Tell me, why do think that is?”
“Because I liked to be prepared.”
“No, I mean, why is Ebola spreading rapidly?” he asked.
“Poor hygiene. Limited availability of medical facilities—”
Dr. Wheeler cut in, “And little trust of the medical infrastructure that exists.”
“—cultural norms,” she continued.
“Like eating undercooked bush meat. You know certain species of bats are Ebola reservoirs, right?”
Olivia nodded.
“Of course,” Dr. Wheeler went on. “You know if people expose themselves to infected flesh, they risk infection themselves. And people there don’t have the same cultural inhibitions against eating bats, monkeys, rodents, or anything else they can toss over the fire. Africa isn’t anything like Atlanta. We can run down to the grocery store when we get hungry. For most Africans, it’s not that simple. You eat what you can get.”
“I know that.” Olivia didn’t need a lesson on the different levels of affluence around the world.
“Sorry. I’m just making my point.”
“Which is?” Olivia asked.
“Ebola is transferred through bodily fluids. That’s it.”
“There was that test with the pigs and monkeys,” Olivia countered.
“Yes, but pigs give off more aerosolized particles than pretty much any other species.” Dr. Wheeler pantomimed a gesture to emphasize the point. “A repeat of that study with macaques failed at getting a primate-to-primate transmission. Infected monkeys on one side of the room, clean monkeys on the other. Same setup as with the pigs. The infected monkeys died. The clean monkeys stayed clean and went on to live happy little monkey lives.”
“Happy monkey lives as test animals?”
“You never know, maybe they’re testing the addictive effects of long-term Viagra use right now.”
Olivia giggled. Wheeler laughed.
Olivia looked over her shoulder at the open conference room door, feeling slightly self conscious but not sure why. “But the Ebola virus could mutate.”
“Are you trying to get worked up about this?”
Olivia chose not to answer the question.
Dr. Wheeler leaned forward again, put his elbows on his desk, and scrutinized Olivia for a moment. “Yes. The virus could mutate. And before you ask, yes, viruses mutate all the time. I suspect not always for the better—better for the virus, I mean. You know mutation is a random process, although it seems like it’s not. Natural selection is not random. Once a mutation occurs, nature decides whether it is better or worse for the organism. The vast majority of the time, it’s not. The odds of this Ebola outbreak mutating to become more contagious are astronomically small. Don’t worry so much.”
“Sorry, Dr. Wheeler.”
“Your brother will probably be fine. As long as he follows some basic guidelines, he’ll come back from Africa healthy. If he comes back with a disease of some sort, the odds are it’ll be something other than Ebola.”
“What’s this about Ebola?”
Both Olivia and Dr. Wheeler looked toward the voice coming from the open door.
Chapter 33
Dr. Wheeler waved Dr. Gonzalez in to join them. “Olivia, this is Dr. Gonzalez, one of my coworkers at the CDC. Dr. Gonzalez, this is Olivia Cooper. She was at my presentation and acknowledges that this is an NSA building, without admitting that she works here.”