"I have to assume so. She signed for my adenovirus cultures. But I keep asking myself why. What purpose could anyone have in contaminating cultures used to fight brain tumors?"
"Some professional rivalry?" Kate suggested.
Fielding shrugged. "I'm not exactly breaking new ground here; more like fine tuning a protocol."
"How about germ warfare?" Jack said.
Fielding smiled for the first time since they'd arrived—a small, condescending twist of the lips. "With an adenovirus? Highly unlikely."
Jack glared and spoke through his teeth. "I meant the contaminant."
Fielding's smile vanished. "Also unlikely. It doesn't seem to cause any symptoms."
"Other than personality changes," Kate said.
"If that. We can't be sure. But even if it does, that's not a terrorist scenario. They want terror—something of epidemic proportions like ebola where people are dropping like flies in pools of bloody excrement. From what I've learned so far about the contaminant it isn't air or fecal borne."
"Then it's blood borne?" Kate said, feeling a chill.
She glanced down at her palm. The puncture wound had healed. But had something entered through that little break in her skin?
"I believe so," Fielding said. "If only Jeanette or Holdstock or one of the others would cooperate, I might have a handle on it. I'd love to see if they've formed any antibodies. It's a strange virus that can occupy the cerebrospinal fluid—at least I'm assuming that's where it's concentrated—without causing any sign of encephalitis or meningitis."
"Which are?" Jack said.
"Anything from fever and headache to paralysis, seizures, coma, death."
Jack looked at her. "Jeanette looked pretty healthy this morning."
"Physically, she's been fine," Kate said.
But what about me? she wondered.
She felt okay now, but she remembered mild aches and chills and a headache yesterday and the day before.
"That's what's so puzzling," Fielding said. "There seems to be virtually no immune response—at least nothing that's clinically apparent. If only I could get a sample of blood…"
"We're going to let NIH worry about that," Jack said. "Aren't we."
"And the CDC," Kate added.
Fielding paled. "Look. I'm Jeanette's best hope. I'm way ahead of everyone on the contaminant. I've already started testing virucidal agents against it."
"And?" Kate said, praying for some good news.
"No luck so far." He licked his lips and spoke quickly. "But at least I know what doesn't work, and when I find one that does, I'm sure I can reverse the effects on Jeanette and the others. I've already started laying the groundwork for a polysaccharide vaccine against the contaminant."
"Good," Jack said. "Now the big boys can pick up where you left off."
Fielding pressed his palms together as if in prayer. "Please give me a little more time. I can do this faster than those big bureaucracies. They'll take forever to start meaningful research."
"Forget it," Jack said.
Kate opened her mouth to agree, but a wave of indecision swept over her, clogging the words in her throat.
Maybe Fielding's right. Maybe he can do more alone than those lumbering bureaucracies.
No. That was ridiculous. She had a duty to let NIH and the CDC know about a new virus that causes personality changes.
The indecision mounted… Why not give Fielding some time? With such low danger of contagion, why not wait… for Jeanette's sake. Just a few days…
She shook her head. Where did these crazy ideas come from?
"Kate?" Jack said.
She looked up and found Jack and Fielding staring at her. Fielding's face was hopeful, Jack's expression said, You can't be having second thoughts about this.
And that look broke through the wall of indecision.
"Call them now," she said, pushing out the words. Pain lanced through her skull as she spoke them.
"Right," Jack said. "I see you've got a speakerphone. Use that. We'll listen."
"No, please. I—"
"If you call CDC," Kate said, fighting to control her voice, to keep from screaming at this man, "you can salvage something of your reputation. If I have to make the call, I'll tell them how you refused to report a wild contaminant, and then you can kiss your career good-bye."
Fielding made the call.
Kate sat with Jack, listening to the speakerphone as Fielding wove his way through the CDC maze until he found the right someone in the right office who could handle his problem. Dr. Paige Freeman, who sounded as if she couldn't be over twelve, gave him specific instructions on how to overnight the sample to Atlanta.
Kate personally oversaw the sealing, packing, and shipping of the culture. They even waited for the FedEx man to pick it up.
Dr. Fielding had been subdued during all this, but his resolve appeared to stiffen as they were leaving.
"It's not fair, you know. I always follow strict anti-contamination procedures. I can't be held responsible if someone deliberately contaminated the culture. It's just not fair!"
"You believe in fair?" Jack said. "I suppose you believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy too. You think fair just happens? It doesn't. You want fair, you make fair."
Kate looked at Jack, surprised by his sudden intensity. What was he getting at?
But Fielding seemed to understand. He nodded, saying, "I still say I'm your friend's best hope. I've got a head start on this and I'm going to keep after it. If I'm going to get stuck with the blame for the contaminant, then I might as well take the credit for discovering how to control it. You watch. Before the CDC has even begun to roll, I'll have the solution for you."
Kate thought him overly optimistic but didn't want to discourage him.
"Thank you," she said.
"And if I could just get a sample of Jeanette's blood," Fielding said, "it would certainly speed the process."
"We'll see what we can do," Jack told him.
After they'd left Fielding's office, Kate asked, "How do you think we're going to get blood from Jeanette?"
He shrugged. "You'd be surprised. Lots of ways to get blood."
Kate sighed and let it go. At least the experts were on the case now. She knew the Center for Disease Control, despite its worldwide renown, was neither infallible nor omnipotent, but it had access to the best virologists in the world. She felt confident that a solution was on the way.
But just as her spirits began to lift, they dipped. Would she need treatment too? Although she had no way of knowing for sure, and did not want to believe it, Kate suspected that Jeanette had infected her with the rogue virus.
Why? Why would Jeanette do such a thing to her? She shuddered at the thought of an unidentified organism taking up residence in her body, invading her cells and multiplying. What could it be doing to her?
12
Stan paid the cabby and joined Joe at the curb.
"What do you think they were doing over at that medical center?" Joe asked.
"Beats me."
They'd followed their guy and his woman over to the East Side, hung around First Avenue for what seemed like hours, then tailed them back here to their starting point.
"Think he's got cancer or something?"
Stan didn't remember a sign on the building that said anything about cancer. What was going on in Joe's head?
"How would I know? And what difference does it make?"
"Because if he's got the Big C, maybe we don't do him right away. Maybe we wait and watch him rot for a few months, then do him."
They stood way up toward Sixth near a framing place where they had a long view of the front of the apartment building. Their guy hadn't gone in yet. He hung outside the front door talking to his lady.