“I’m a virologist trained in epidemiology,” Lee said. “I stayed on Bonefish Key to concentrate on the probable path an epidemic would take and how best to position our resources and the vaccine-production facilities.”
“That would make you an integral part of the project.”
“I like to think so. The vaccine would be useless without a strategy to deploy it. It would be as if a general sent his troops into battle without a plan.”
“What would have happened to the project if you had been kidnapped?”
“Not much,” she said with a shrug of the shoulders. “The plans are almost all in place, waiting for the cure to be synthesized into a viable vaccine. With the lab gone, there isn’t much chance of that happening.”
“Don’t give up hope, Dr. Lee. The lab is the object of a massive search. In fact, Joe and I are on our way to Micronesia to see if we can help the searchers.”
Lee dropped her gaze to the map lying on the table.
“You’re going to Pohnpei?” she asked.
“It looks that way,” Austin said. “Have you been there?”
“No, but the island was the epicenter of the deadly epidemic that struck the Pacific whaling fleet in the mid-1800s. This is extremely significant.”
“In what way, Dr. Lee?”
“At Harvard Medical School, I did a paper for a Professor Codman that was based on an article I came across in an old medical journal. The doctor who wrote the article had compiled statistics about a group of New Bedford whaling men who had been virtually disease-free for much of their very long lives.”
Austin tried to glance at his watch without being obvious. He had little interest in oddball medical phenomena. The whine of the Citation’s engines warming up provided a convenient out.
“It has been a great pleasure meeting you,” he said. “We’re going to be taking off soon . . .”
“Hear me out, Mr. Austin,” Lee said, raising her voice above the engines.
Austin smiled at the unexpected firmness.
“Go on, Dr. Lee, but please keep it brief.”
She nodded.
“The men in the study group had all crewed aboard the whaling ship Princess. They became ill after the ship stopped in Pohnpei.”
“I still don’t see the connection to the lab . . .”
It was Song Lee’s turn to be impatient.
“It’s right there in front of you, Mr. Austin. The crew all survived! If that doesn’t get your attention, maybe this will. The symptoms of the disease were almost identical to those of this latest epidemic. The crewmen should have died, but instead they enjoyed robust health for the rest of their lives. Somehow, they were cured.”
“Are you saying that what cured the whalers might work for the new virus?” Austin asked.
“Precisely.”
Austin’s mental machinery kicked into gear. A bunch of whalers lived disease-free to a ripe old age after a trip to Micronesia, the same neighborhood where the blue medusa lives. He connected that to what Kane told him about the toxin keeping its prey healthy until the medusa made a meal of it. He glanced around at his colleagues.
“The log of the Princess for that expedition would make interesting reading,” Paul Trout commented.
“I tried to track the 1848 logbook down through Harvard’s Widener Library,” Lee said. “My research led me to New Bedford. A dealer in antique books named Brimmer said he might be able to locate the book, but I was about to leave for home and had to put the whole thing aside.”
The pilot’s voice called back from the cockpit.
“We’ve been cleared for early takeoff. Anytime you’re ready . . .”
“Thank you, Dr. Lee,” Austin said. “I apologize for cutting you short, but we’re really about to leave.”
“I want to come with you,” she said without thinking.
The statement had leaped from her mouth on its own, but then she punctuated it with a firm set of jaw.
“That’s not possible,” Austin said. “We’ll be on the move, and things could get rough. Joe has uncovered information that suggests a Chinese Triad named Pyramid is involved in all this.”
“A Triad?” She got over her surprise quickly. “Why would a Triad be interested in the search for an antiviral vaccine?”
Zavala answered the question.
“The Triad developed the virus as part of a scheme to destabilize the Chinese government,” he said. “Your vaccine would have spoiled their plans. They had to take control of the lab to prevent the antiviral from being used by others.”
“This is overwhelming,” Song Lee said, “but it makes sense. My government is deathly afraid of social unrest, which is why it clamps down so hard at any sign of organized protest. All the more reason to take me with you. I should be part of any attempt to stop something started by my countrymen. I’m intimately acquainted with the entire research program, and there may be something relevant on Pohnpei.”
Austin eyed Lee’s smoky-smelling T-shirt and shorts, apparently the same clothes she had been wearing on Bonefish Key.
“You’d be traveling pretty light, Dr. Lee. We can give you a toothbrush but not much else.”
“I’ll take that toothbrush, and I can buy clothes when we get there.”
Austin sat back and folded his arms. Despite his body language, he was enjoying Song Lee’s display of pluckiness.
“Go ahead, Dr. Lee. You’ve got thirty seconds to make your case.”
She nodded.
“I believe that the blue medusa jellyfish the lab was using in its research was part of native medicine used to cure the crew of the Princess. And if we can find the place where it happened, it might lead us to the lab.”
“That’s a pretty slim premise, Dr. Lee.”
“I know that, Mr. Austin. But it’s something. Right now, we have nothing. Please don’t tell me it’s any more dangerous than the Florida mangroves where I was kidnapped and almost shot.”
Zavala chuckled softly.
“Lady’s got a point,” he said.
Austin turned to the Trouts.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I was thinking of having Dr. Lee stay with my aunt ’Lizbeth on Cuttyhunk Island until the danger passed,” Paul said.
Gamay chortled.
“I know your Aunt Lizzy. She’d drive this poor woman crazy with her incessant talk about beach-plum jelly.”
“Gamay’s right about Lizzy,” Paul said. “And Dr. Lee is right when she says her expertise in the lab’s work could come in handy. I know how you like insurance.”
Austin had a reputation around NUMA for daring that bordered on the reckless. Those he worked with, like the Trouts, knew that his risks were always calculated. He was like the high-stakes riverboat gambler who kept not one but two Derringers up his sleeves.
Austin threw his hands in the air.
“Looks like I’m outgunned, Dr. Lee.” He got on the intercom to the cockpit. “Ready to go in five minutes,” he told the pilot.
Gamay asked, “What would you like us to do while you’re in Micronesia?”
“Get in touch with Lieutenant Casey and tell him that Dr. Lee has joined us. Contact Joe’s FBI friend and fill her in.” He paused in thought, then said, “See what you can do about tracking down the Princess’s logbook.”
“We’ll start with Perlmutter and let you know,” Paul said.
The Trouts wished the others luck and descended to the tarmac. They watched as the Citation X taxied down the runway and leaped into the sky.
Paul gazed at the pink-tinged clouds of dawn.
“Red sky at morning,” he said, “sailor take warning.”
“That sort of stuff went out when weather satellites went into orbit, Captain Courageous,” Gamay said.
Paul was a third-generation fisherman, and weather lore had been passed down in his family from father to son. Gamay was annoyed whenever Paul reverted to his old-salt persona.
He smiled slightly, and said, “Storm is still a storm.”
She took him by the arm, and said, “Put on your foul-weather gear. You haven’t seen the storm that compares with getting Perlmutter out of bed.”