“You know how picornaviruses have those really long, multifunctional, untranslated region fives? My work focuses on a ribosome entry source in one of those regions that’s very susceptible to protease manipulation. I want to stimulate the protein synthesis in infected cells, which should increase their pathogenicity and give it a neurological affinity.”
“Why in God’s name would you be doing that at the South Pole?”
“There’s no place for it to go.”
“To go? You mean, if there’s a breach?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re using the whole station as one big BSL-4 containment lab.”
“Jesus, no. I told you that before. My lab is biosecure. And Triage isn’t supposed to kill people, anyway. Just immobilize them.”
“Isn’t supposed to. But you’re not sure about that, or you wouldn’t be working down here. You just told me that.”
He didn’t agree, but neither did he deny it. Hallie’s stomach clenched again. The churning and rumbling in her gut was clearly audible.
“Polarrhea,” Blaine said. “Lucky you.”
“Is there any chance your pathogen could have breached containment and killed those women?”
“No way in hell.”
“How much experience do you have working with Level Three and Four pathogens?”
“Enough. Or I wouldn’t have been picked for this project.”
“What’s the first step in donning a Chemturion BSL-4 biosafety suit?”
“Take a piss.”
That was right. “Who’s running this operation?”
“NSF.”
She was about to laugh in his face, but then she remembered what Fida had said about NSF’s national security origin.
“I know it sounds crazy,” he protested, trying to regain some composure and control. “But there it is.” He shrugged. “How did you find out?”
“Believe in ghosts?”
“What? No.”
“You should. Emily told me everything.”
“Bullshit.”
“Like how you mixed Stoli and beer and Ecstasy at the New Year’s Eve party. Got drunk and high and babbled on about things you shouldn’t have. And like how she dumped you, but you kept hanging around, stalking her. I could go on.”
He stared, speechless.
“Let me ask you something else. And keep in mind that I might already know the answer to this question. Just seeing how many lies you’re telling. What did you dress up as for January’s Thing Night?”
“A Walking Dead.”
She waited, holding his eyes.
“Really. I swear. A zombie.”
“Can anybody verify that?”
“I don’t know. The costume was really good. Part of it was a rubber mask over a lot of my face.”
“Do you work with a partner?”
“In the lab? No. Security.”
“Have you ever been down into Old Pole?”
He looked at her like the Pole might already be depriving her of certain faculties. But when he spoke, he sounded hugely relieved to be talking about something other than Triage. “Yes.”
“Tell me about it.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Humor me.”
“Creepiest place you could possibly imagine. Like something straight out of the old Thing movie. The walls and ceilings are collapsing. Everything is fifty years old. Stinks. No lights. It’s like a labyrinth. You can get good and lost down there.”
Sounds just like a cave, she thought. She loved caves. “If it’s so bad, why go there?”
“There’s old booze, for one thing, stashed in odd places. But mainly, it’s fucking different. You can’t imagine what it’s like after you’ve been here eight or nine months. Your mind shrivels up. Day after day, nothing changes. Old Pole is new, odd as that sounds. Different. Scary. You go down there to make sure you’re still alive.”
“Even though you could get killed.”
“That’s maybe the point, I think.”
“How do you get down there? Through the Underground?”
“Not anymore. There was a tunnel, but Graeter found out about it and had it blocked.”
“So?”
“There’s an equipment shed a quarter mile from the station. Off to the right, about a forty-five-degree angle from the main entrance. The shaft is behind, out of sight of the station. There’s a plywood cover and snow on top of that. Why do you want to know? Are you thinking of going down there?”
She recoiled. “God, no. You couldn’t drag me down to a place like that. No way in hell. I was just curious. The way people talk …” Her stomach moved again, a feeling of viscous churning.
Blaine heard it, said, “You’d better hurry. That stuff can be explosive.”
“I learned that.” She stood. “We’re not done. Be here when I get back.”
She pointed at his shirt. “That looks like blood.”
She left him scrubbing the red spots furiously with a handful of napkins.
42
“We need to talk to Gerrin,” Blaine said. He had come straight to Merritt’s office after being grilled by Hallie. She had called Doc and Guillotte, who were on their way.
“The non-gov sat link they use is supposed to be secure. But every call is like a submarine’s periscope going up.”
“She knows, goddamnit,” Blaine said.
“She knows something. I’m not sure how much.”
“She asked me straight out about Triage. You said she asked you, too.”
“You fed her the story Gerrin gave and we all rehearsed. That was good. I pretended ignorance. She believed me. Do you think she believed you?”
“Not really.” He hesitated. “I don’t know. Maybe. Did you hear about Brank? It had to be goddamned Guillotte. The last thing we needed was another death.”
“He has his uses, you have to admit.”
“I’ve never liked Guillotte. There’s something wrong with him.”
“He’s French,” Merritt said. “There’s something wrong with all of them.”
“No. He’s a psychopath. There’s something wrong with all of them.”
“Stop that,” Merritt said. “It makes you look like an old woman.”
“What?”
“Wringing your hands.”
He looked down. “Didn’t realize I was doing it.”
A knock on the door. Guillotte and Doc came in. Blaine related the conversation with Hallie Leland. Merritt told them about her own.
“Maynard thinks we should call Gerrin. I’m on the fence. Let’s hear your thoughts.”
“Do it,” Doc said, his voice unsteady. “Damn the risk. It feels like things are starting to—”
“Will you take those goddamned glasses off?” Blaine interrupted. “This is a serious discussion.”
“It hurts my eyes,” Doc said. “You know that.”
“Stop it,” Merritt said.
“Leland may not know everything,” Blaine said. “But she knows enough to suspect that there’s a lot more. And she doesn’t strike me as the type who gives up easily.”
“No,” Merritt said. “She isn’t. But Maynard, Gerrin will want to know what went wrong. It will be his first question.”
“The answer is that nothing went wrong.” Blaine’s voice got louder. “I engineered a picornavirus that carries a strep bacterium payload. Not a big deal, actually. The real challenge was genetically engineering the streptococcus strain to have affinity for ovarian cells.”
“He’s not going to care about that,” Doc said. “He will want to know why three women died here after I swabbed their throats and drew blood with contaminated instruments. I want to know that myself.”
“Keep your voices down, both of you,” Merritt said.
“You know what he is going to think, Maynard,” Guillotte said. “That you fucked up the genetics.”