"Yes, sir. From the autopsies, we've been able to determine the time of death, and in each incident, one victim is clearly more severely decomposed than the others. Our conclusion is that the initial victim contracted the disease prior to passing it on."
Faas saw Bea Devera take out a file and leaf through it.
"Also, there's the destructive path of the disease," Judson added. "It's clear that the first individual had contracted it internally. In these individuals, there's much more damage to the internal organs than to the external tissue."
"Okay, so then we know the primary victim must have contracted the infection by eating, drinking or inhaling the microbe," Penn summarized.
There was a general agreement.
"We have a wide age group here, ladies and gentlemen," Penn reminded everyone. "What would be a substance commonly ingested, whether we are talking about a teenager or a man in his seventies?"
"The substance is obviously not very common," Faas added, "as there have been only twenty-four deaths so far."
"The number of deaths is irrelevant, Mr. Hanlon," Penn shot back. "We've had four instances of this outbreak in the past forty-eight hours. At this rate of increase, we could be talking about twenty-four hundred deaths by next week."
Faas nodded. "Point taken, sir."
"Whatever this substance is, it has a nationwide distribution," Penn told them. "It's out there for the public to use. We seem to have a time-release bomb that is only starting to go off."
"They all had a cold," Bea Devera said in a lower voice.
This was the first thing she had said since the meeting began, and it took a few moments for the agent's words to register with everyone.
"What did you say, Agent…?"
"Devera, Mr. President. I said that one victim at each site had a cold or the flu. They were sick," she explained, leafing through her files and pulling out individual sheets of paper.
Faas noticed that the room had become totally quiet. All eyes were on Bea.
"Continue," the president encouraged.
"Moosehead Lake, Maine. One witness reported that the fourteen-year-old, Lizzy Hansson, was fighting a cold when they arrived for their vacation," Bea announced.
Faas noticed that one of Judson's assistants was taking notes. Another was leafing through her files.
"Rich, how does that match with the autopsy reports?" Penn asked.
Rich Judson's assistant slid a sheet of paper in front of him. "Lizzy Hansson appears to have been the first fatality on that site," the NIH director announced.
Penn looked at Bea again.
"Sedona, Arizona. Lenny Guest, age eighteen. He was fighting a flu or cold the day of his death. That was why he'd stayed off work and was hanging out with his friend."
Judson was looking over his people's files and gave a thumbs-up.
"Washington, D.C. Leo Bolender, age thirty-two, had a cold."
They all knew Leo was the only fatality at that site.
"Chicago, Illinois. Herman Ogden, age seventy-seven, had been fighting a cold for a week," Bea continued.
There was another nod by Judson.
"Boston, South End Bakery. Tasha Giles, age forty-nine, had returned to work after being out two days with a cold. She wasn't really improving, either, according to a boyfriend."
"This agrees with what we have," Judson said, nodding again.
Penn leaned back in his chair. "Very good, Agent Devera," he said. "This could be a breakthrough, ladies and gentlemen, don't you think?"
The energy in the conference room had definitely picked up.
"I don't need to tell you what to do next. You each have your own jobs to do. But start with pulling any prescription or nonprescription medication these people might have taken. Test the hell out of anything that was left over in their cabinets." Penn turned to Faas. "Do you remember the cyanide injected into Tylenol bottles… what was it… twenty, thirty years ago?"
"That was 1982, sir," Faas answered. "Seven people in the Chicago area collapsed suddenly and died after taking Tylenol capsules that had been laced with cyanide.
Five females and two males, all relatively young. They were the first victims ever to die from product tampering."
Faas had been working for the FBI back then. Just out of college and the academy. A wave of copycat tampering had followed that original incident. They never caught the Tylenol killer. A somewhat bumbling suspect who had attempted to cash in on the unprecedented publicity was arrested and charged with extortion, but not with the murders. The police concluded he was merely an opportunist.
Faas considered the possibility of terrorists using this method to spread the microbes. No one was taking credit. Nothing was showing up on Al Jazeera. Nothing.
He wondered if their search in Iraq would turn out to be futile. What if someone here in the U.S. was responsible for the epidemic… just another case of product tampering? He almost hoped that was the case, but he wasn't willing to stop any part of this investigation.
"For a change, I can pass on some good news in my address," Penn told them.
"I would not advise that you be too specific, sir," the NIH director reminded the president. "We have billion-dollar industries that could be affected by this."
"Yes, pharmaceutical companies. Their lobbyists and lawyers will be all over us. I won't forget," he assured Judson. "I'll be vague but I'll make sure to hint at positive news in the ongoing investigation."
"Mr. President," Faas added. "If you could, continue to stress the importance of respecting the quarantine perimeters to impede the spreading disease."
"Point noted." Penn scribbled something on the pad of paper in front of him. "Another thing. I also want to talk about a Federal Bioterrorism Rapid Response Card."
"New York and a couple of other states have had cards available for a while, sir," the HHS secretary said.
"Yes, I have it here." The president took a multifold card from a staff assistant standing nearby. He pulled open the information card and tossed it onto the conference table. "I want the federal government to distribute one of our own. A card put out by New York isn't going to help people in Maine or Arizona or Montana… or wherever this thing hits us next."
Faas had passed New York State's Rapid Response Card on to the president's secretary this morning, and it was good to see Penn bring it out here in this meeting. When he'd sent it over, Faas had suggested that copies be requisitioned from New York and passed out in the D.C. area. The small brochure consisted of tables of information on recognizing and diagnosing illnesses possibly caused by bioterrorism, along with treatment and prevention measures for first-responders. Everything from inhalational and cutaneous anthrax through viral hemorrhagic fevers to smallpox was included. Naturally, there was nothing about any fast-acting flesh-eating disease.
"Combine the best of whatever is included on existing information cards, update it to include this situation, and make it available at every government office and distribute it through the schools and any other venue you can think of," the president ordered. "Aside from English, I want it printed in Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, Arabic… whatever. And I want that out yesterday."
James Abbott signaled for one of his own staffers, who left the room running.
"People feel better when they have clear instructions," Penn said. "It lets them know that we care… and that each person has a stake and a responsibility in this time of crisis."
The president ran through his list of agenda items.
"Oh, yes. This brings me to a very important issue. This thing is getting big enough that it needs a name. In the past, we have dealt with SARS… Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome… AIDS, avian flu and a hundred other conditions, all of which have a recognizable name or acronym. When we can put a name or a face to an enemy, that enemy becomes a little less frightening. We still respect it as a foe, but it is no longer the faceless monster in the dark. Am I making my point clearly?"