The reporter beamed her TV smile. “And how could you possibly know all that?”
Paul leaned forward in his chair. “This is no magic trick. Anyone can gain this level of intellect and awareness of the world around them. That’s why I’m seeking this temporary restraining order from the courts—to put a stop to this ill-conceived and uninformed attack on Neuritol and give Congress a chance to declare it legal. Neuritol isn’t addictive or dangerous. It doesn’t belong in the same category as narcotics.”
“Thank you for taking the time to talk to me today. Any last comments to our viewers?”
Paul looked into the camera. “Try it for yourself. Don’t wait for the government to decide what’s best for you. Then write your representatives and tell them Neuritol should be legal.”
“Thank you, Dr. Johns.” The image cut to a head-on view of the reporter. “The lawsuit was filed in Arizona court today by Dr. Johns’ attorneys. Senator Velasquez, a Republican from Texas, has already gone on record saying that he agrees with the suit, and not only claims that Neuritol ought to be legalized but that its use should actually be encouraged in our schools.”
“Why file the suit in Arizona?” Mei-lin asked.
“Maybe that’s where he is,” I said. “Or maybe that’s where the crackdown is particularly active.”
“Didn’t you say he had a university lab where he was studying this organism?” Mei-lin asked.
“Yeah, he’s at UMD.”
“Any chance we could get in there and look at his stuff? Because, you’re right, the way to attack this thing is to understand it as a fungal organism, not as a brain disease. If I could see his notes, maybe examine some of his cultures, it could go a long way. Shortcut anything I could do myself.”
“Paul’s been missing for days,” I said. “The university hasn’t seen him. I guess it’s possible they would let us go and poke around, if we could spin them a good story. I wouldn’t know the first thing about what to look for there, but maybe you would.”
She shrugged. “It would be worth a try.”
We took Mei-lin’s BMW down I-95. It was the first really hot day of the year, and she cranked her air conditioning to keep us comfortable. The sun brightened the campus quad to a brilliant green and lit the brick buildings to postcard quality.
We found the main office, but all nearby parking was taken. She put the car in park and flipped the blinkers on. I got out and trotted up the stairs. It didn’t occur to me until I opened the front door that it was Sunday—I had long since lost track of the days.
I found one student with bloodshot eyes manning the desk, but she said all the keys were in a safe, and she didn’t have any authority to let me into anywhere. When I came back outside and climbed in the car, Mei-lin had her phone pressed to her ear.
“Mommy loves you,” she said. “Be good for Daddy, okay? And help take care of your brother. Yes, I love you, too. Bye-bye. Okay. Bye-bye.” Her voice abruptly dropped the child-like tone. “Yeah, I’ll be home when I can, okay? I’m sorry about your game. This is important. I will. Bye.”
“How old?” I asked when she hung up.
Mei-lin sighed. “My son’s two, and my daughter is four going on twelve. Wants to do everything herself these days. Yesterday, I found her making her own peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Which meant not just the bread, but her hands, and the table, and her dress, and her hair were covered with sticky mess. I had to bathe her for an hour to get it all out.”
I grinned. “Good thing they’re cute at that age.”
“You’re telling me. You have any kids?”
“Not hardly. Not even a girlfriend. Maybe someday, though.”
“My two-year-old’s favorite game right now is to collect things from all over the house and carry them around in a box. I can’t tell you how many things we’ve lost that way. He’s probably driving my husband crazy. Brad hates it when I’m away on weekends.”
“Should we head on to the lab?”
She put the car into gear. “Might as well. No point coming out here without at least giving it a try.”
We drove around in circles for a while, trying to find a parking space, and eventually found a spot only a few blocks away from the Plant Sciences building. I had little hope that we would be able to get inside. Compared to Fort Meade, it might be laughable security, but that didn’t mean I knew how to get past it. The doors were locked, requiring an ID card that we didn’t have.
Walking passed manicured lawns in the bright sunlight, it seemed impossible that in Brazil American soldiers were fighting and dying, or that the beautiful brick building in front of us might house a sample of an organism dangerous enough to topple governments.
“Now we get creative,” I said. I knew the grad students who worked with Paul in the lab must have access as well, and I’d used my dad’s iPhone to look them up on the drive over. I chose the first more or less at random, a woman named Jintara Sirisukha. She answered on the first ring.
“Hello?”
“Ms. Sirisukha?” I said, probably mangling the pronunciation.
“Yes?” She sounded suspicious. I figured I had about five seconds before she hung up on me.
“My name is Martin Wilson,” I said, adopting an official tone. “I’m an investigative agent with the CDC, and we have reason to believe your lab is host to a Class Five hypervirus.” Mei-lin raised her eyebrows at me and mouthed: hypervirus? I shrugged.
“My lab?” said the voice on the phone. “You mean the mycology lab?”
“I’m afraid so,” I said. “We’ve sourced the vector to the Plant Sciences building, and we need to inspect every room. The provost gave us your name as someone with weekend access. I’m sorry to inconvenience you, ma’am, but it’s a serious situation.”
“Okay,” she said. “Give me five minutes. I’ll be right over.”
I put the phone back in my pocket. “And that’s how it’s done,” I said.
Mei-lin put her hands on her hips. “You’re kidding me. That worked?”
“She’s on her way.”
“If there’s such a thing as a hypervirus, I’ve never heard of it. And the CDC only has four biohazard levels.”
“I was improvising,” I said. “Don’t argue with success.”
“And what happens when she arrives and finds us with no identification, no biocontainment gear, no protective suits? We don’t have so much as a face mask.”
I grinned sheepishly. “You’ll just have to talk medical at her, I guess. If not, we’ll go to plan B.”
“Which is?”
“I don’t know. I’ll make it up if we need it.”
Jintara arrived, an attractive Asian woman in jeans and a purple T-shirt who spoke with an accent I guessed to be Thai. I explained that we were just the administrative investigators, ensuring access for the full containment crew that was on its way. It sounded lame even to me, but Jintara didn’t question my story. She seemed more concerned with what would become of the experiments she had underway and how our investigation might contaminate her samples.
“I really don’t think it could have come from us,” she said. “I know everyone who’s gone in and out of that lab, and no one’s sick with anything.” She said a girl named Sarah up on the third floor had been out sick for two weeks, and I pretended to take down her information.
She led us down the echoing hallway to the Chaverri Mycology Lab and swiped her ID. Mei-lin put a hand on her arm. “You’d better stay out here,” she said.
Jintara looked uncertain. “We won’t touch anything,” I said. “We have labs of our own; we know how important it is not to introduce contaminants.”