34
LyonBio
Lyon, France
Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Raines, US Navy Captain “Camp” Campbell and retired FBI agent Billy Finn were huddled in the executive offices with a much-relieved and revitalized Thierry Gaudin. The Frenchman wasn’t nearly as ready to get back to work as the three Americans were. Raines pushed hard for production schedules from manufacturing.
“Thierry, you understood the timeframe when you accepted the project.”
“Leslie, I know, but we have had set-backs and too much drama. It can’t be done. Five million doses in seven weeks? By October fifth? Impossible. We haven’t even done a human clinical trial.”
“We’ve been over this, Thierry,” Raines said as she got closer to her threshold of patience. “The human clinical can be waved. This is an emergency situation. We have no choice.”
“Not if LyonBio’s name is on the product. It must have a clinical trial.”
“How many?” Camp asked.
“One trial is sufficient I suppose, given these circumstances. But finding patients who might randomly be exposed to inhalation tularemia is not something you can just run an advert for on the Internet.”
“What about volunteers? What if we find volunteers who would be willing to take the vaccine and then be exposed to the bacteria?” Camp pressed.
Thierry smiled.
“Sure, do you really think 20 people from Lyon would be willing to take 50 Euros to see whether or not they will get infected by a bio-weapon?”
“What about three people? What if three people would take the vaccine right now and step into the pilot house to see what happens?”
Raines and Finn snapped their heads around to face Camp.
“Ah, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but change that number to two. This old boy ain’t stepping into the rabbit fever chamber,” Finn said as he got up and distanced himself from Camp.
“Camp!” Raines said quietly and directly.
“Come on, Les… did you create a vaccine-resistant tularemia or not?”
“I did.”
“And did you then create a super vaccine that kicked that bacteria’s butt?”
“Yes, but—”
“But nothing. I believed in you from the first day I met you, from the day you rescued my rear end after I borrowed 200 rats from Uncle Sam. Come on, it’ll be fun.”
“Fun? Have you gone insane?”
“Have you got a better idea?”
Raines was silent.
“Wait, even if the vaccine makes you immune from the tularemia, there’s still no way that we can manufacture, package, ship and deliver five million injectibles by early October,” Thierry said.
The reality was sinking in. The mission was too big.
“Injectibles… Les, why does it have to be a vaccine injection? Can we make these things sublingual?” Camp said as he found new energy.
“Sub what?” Finn asked.
“Sublingual, tiny droplets under the tongue,” Camp explained.
“A solution of the vaccine hits the floor of the mouth as tiny droplets,” Raines explained. “The mouth is full of high density blood cells in the mucous membranes there. Immune system cells capture the vaccine and migrate them quickly throughout the body. The impact on the lungs would be immediate. A sublingual could disseminate immunity to a broader range of organs in a faster amount of time.”
“Did you say time? We need time,” Camp said with a school-boy grin.
“It might even be better than a nasal spray. No complications in the central nervous system.”
“But would it be efficacious?” Thierry asked. “Will it work?”
“Let me worry about that,” Raines said as she stood up. “Can you produce five million sublingual doses by October first?”
Thierry dropped his head.
“There are too many variables… too many unknowns. I cannot guarantee anything.”
“But will you try?” Raines pleaded.
“Yes… I’ll try.”
Raines and Camp headed for the door as Finn followed from a distance.
“Thierry, we will need you to clear out the pilot house for a few hours tomorrow morning. There’s not enough time to test a sublingual but we can test an IM, intramuscular injection of the vaccine,” Raines said as they left the room.
Camp and Raines walked past the personal protective equipment staging area and over to the vapor-locked door leading into the BSL-3 chamber inside the pilot house as Finn went into the control room. Two LyonBio employees were sitting at their chairs, studying charts and more likely than not talking about Bernard. They didn’t realize that the ‘janitor’ was now in the room. Finn saw all that he needed to know, just as Raines had told him. Because of contamination to their clothing, skin and hair, Camp and Raines couldn’t go into the chamber like monkeys. The red lever would activate the misting system that pulled the vaccine resistant strain of the tularemia bacterium out of the holding tank. Six seconds later a fine mist would fill breathing tubes directly into their lungs as they would have to pinch their nostrils to avoid general release of the toxins. Finn’s job was easy. He was supposed to release a toxin, a bio-weapon recipe that Raines had cooked up, an enhanced tularemia concoction that had never before existed on the earth naturally. More than an illness producing bacteria, the weapon had lethal potential, especially among the weakest who inhaled the microbes.
Finn could only hope that the vaccine was more powerful than the poison.
Raines and Camp paused at the vapor-lock doors as other employees came and went. She pulled two syringes out of her lab coat and handed one to Camp. She rolled up her sleeve and tore open an alcohol swab and cleaned her arm. Camp paused then carefully stuck the needle into her arm, pushing the plunger in gently as the vaccine worked its way into her system. Camp pulled his sleeve up and dabbed his own skin with another swab. Raines pulled the cap off the needle and injected the vaccine into US Navy Captain “Camp” Campbell.
Finn walked out of the command center and joined them by the door.
“I’m going to head to the lab and get started on the sublingual,” Raines said. “I’ve got to do a lot of research and make several calls. Let’s call it as 0930 hours tomorrow morning. I want these vaccines to bake in our bodies for 24-hours.”
“Aye, aye ma’am.”
“Camp… this is an attenuated vaccine derived from avirulent Francisella tularensis. It’s not dense, and it’s not pathogenic. But it’s not Type B either. It’s a hybrid. I want you to take these with you.”
Camp held out his hand as Raines loaded him up with some tablets.
“If you get sick, feel the least bit odd, take the streptomycin. If you feel real bad, chances are that I will too. Finn get him back here immediately, and we’ll hook up two doxycycline IV’s and see if we can knock it down.”
“Les, why don’t we just stay together?” Camp said with a hint of romantic intention.
“I’m racing against the clock, sailor. I need you and your sorry-ass FBI friend to get out of my hair.”
Raines winked at Finn as Camp reached out to touch her hand before the two men walked out of the pilot house and into the parking lot for the ride back to the Hilton Lyon Hotel.
General Ferguson got the SIPRNET email Camp sent from his hotel room just as he and the coffee-pouring majors were about to head over to the DFAC for dinner.
“SITREP: Sir, everything back on track with LyonBio. Human clinical trial underway. Slight change of plans for delivery method. Not enough time for injectibles, so Raines is back in the lab creating a sublingual version. It’s within the realm of possible / hopeful. V/R, Camp.”