“I’ll have the lab on standby.”
Pilcher filled in Spigotta on his other actions.
“Good,” Spigotta said. “Good. Very good, Aaron. Okay. I’ve got something I need you to do. Turn over the reins to… Sanchez is busy with the press?”
“Yes.”
“Yenor then. I need you to track down Frank Halloran. We’ve got some questions for him that came up during the background checks. If he’s not at U.S. Immuno, track him down ASAP.”
“I’m in Frederick. There should be agents closer to Baltimore.”
“I’ve got a feeling about this, Aaron. I want you to talk to him. You up to it?”
That was the question of the day. Pilcher thought of his friend Tres Rodriguez, blown to pieces. “Yes sir.”
Spigotta told Pilcher what had come up on the background checks. Pilcher nodded and clicked off. With a deep breath of night air that didn’t make him cough, he went looking for Agent Yenor.
15
Liz Vargas felt energized. She didn’t know why. Maybe it was the helicopter ride, something she’d never done before. Maybe it was simply relief at being alive, at having survived a massacre. Maybe it was the light supper and an hour lying on a cot, dozing. Whatever the reason, she felt up to whatever happened and just wanted to get on with things.
She tapped her fingers on Sharon Jaxon’s desk, a cluttered, gray-steel government issue in a cramped, windowless office at the United States Army Military Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, or USAMRIID. Jaxon smiled at her. She was on the phone with some guy, a boyfriend. Liz had offered to leave, give her some privacy, but Sharon waved her off, saying she just wanted to tell him they had a “situation” and she wouldn’t be over tonight.
Liz’s impatient gaze took in the office. Some of the clutter was paperwork, but a lot of it was memorabilia from parts of the world where Lieutenant Sharon Jaxon had been stationed: Asian dolls from Korea and Japan; odd bits of sculptured rock from Kosovo shaped like men with packs on their backs; aerial photographs of the Panama Canal.
“Okay. Sure. If the timing’s right, I’ll swing by for breakfast. Yeah, that too.” Jaxon laughed. “Naughty, naughty. Don’t count on it, though. I expect to be here a couple days. Yeah. Love you, too.”
She hung up, her face flushing a little pink with embarrassment. “Guys,” she said.
Liz smiled, but it was a little strained. “Good friend?”
Sharon nodded. “I’m thinking of moving in. Barring disaster, I’ll be here at Rid for the rest of my career. Dave’s a good guy. He’s a freelance copywriter, pulls in three times what I do working out of his back bedroom. Marketing materials mostly. Some ad copy. Not a scientist or in the Army, thank God. You have someone?”
Liz shook her head quickly. “No.”
Sharon reached out and touched her hand. “Hey, it’s all right. I didn’t mean to hit a nerve. I’m sorry.”
Liz sighed, some of her energy seeping away. “It’s just been a bad day. I was married for three years. Mitch was an oncologist at Hopkins. He died in a motorcycle accident two years ago.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Liz shrugged. “Thanks. The only reason I’m being bothered by it is because of… you know. Surviving a terrorist attack.” Tears well up in her eyes, but she wiped them away. She wouldn’t allow herself to think of all of the dead. So many of her friends, colleagues, people she talked to daily, ate lunch with. All gone.
Sharon turned serious. “If you’re not up to this, no one will think less of you.”
“If that’s possible,” Liz said bitterly. “You’re the only one who trusts me.”
Sharon leaned back in her chair, which let out a high-pitched creak. “That’s because Derek trusted you. If he went into a hot zone with you, that’s good enough for me.”
“Jeez, that guy. I didn’t know what to make of him. He got all freaked out before going into HL-4, even… even barfed, but he told me it was just stage fright. I mean, all those good luck charms!”
Sharon smiled tightly and steepled her fingers. “How was he inside?”
“No problem. Better than me. He knew just what to do and the only time he acted even mildly rattled was when he found that playing card.”
Sharon nodded. “Let me tell you a little bit about Derek Stillwater. When it comes to hot zones — in the lab or the field — Derek is the most realistic person I’ve ever met. He knows in a way most of us don’t that one mistake can mean his death. He knows it.” Something troubling crossed her face, a combination of worry and stress. Sharon paused for a moment, then shrugged. “Derek can probably take care of himself. We have something else to worry about. Just… you can trust Derek. In a pinch, you can trust him.”
There was something in Sharon Jaxon’s voice when she talked about Derek Stillwater that suggested they had been more than friends, but she didn’t pursue it.
“What’s taking so long?” she asked.
Sharon smiled. “Ben’s very cautious. Consider what he’s doing. You would be, right?”
Ben Zataki had taken the cultures of Chimera M13 and the cultures of Chimera M1, M2, M3 and M4 into the Level 4 suite and was inoculating them into cultures, preparing them to be injected into a batch of monkeys. He decided to do the preparations himself, then would organize the teams when dealing with the monkeys.
“Well, yes. But why didn’t he want my help?”
“You looked like you needed the rest.”
Liz sighed. Despite her second wind, her body ached and she knew exhaustion, both physical and emotional, was just around the corner. There was a knock at Jaxon’s door. “Come in.”
Ben Zataki stuck his head in. He looked as neat and put-together as before. “Ladies, I’ve scheduled a meeting for everybody in fifteen minutes. I’ve got to make a couple quick phone calls to Atlanta and D.C. and then we’ll be on our way.” His gaze met Liz’s. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. Ready to go.”
“Good. See you there.”
The team met in a second-floor conference room with no windows. The room was full and it was the first time Liz got a sense of unseen machinery at work, that the theft of Chimera M13 had set in motion forces that she could not stop.
Zataki gestured for everyone to sit, but remained standing. Even in green surgical scrubs he held a kind of dignified authority.
“Okay everyone. I’ve prepared our cultures including extras. I’ve set up an experimental procedure and assigned teams. Similar tests are currently being started at the U.S. Immunological Research facility and samples are being flown to the CDC. All of you will be assigned to monkeys and all but two will be inoculated with a high dose of Chimera M13. Four will be injected first with one of the weaker strains. The rest will receive doses at different intervals.”
Liz studied at the schedule that was handed around the room. She was paired with Sharon Jaxon. They were to assist in injecting the four monkeys with Chimera M1, 2, 3 and 4, and in injecting the rest of the animals with Chimera M13. Then, four hours later, they were to inject four of the monkeys with M1, M2, M3 and M4. Other scientists were assigned similar procedures with other monkeys at later increments: eight hours, twelve hours and twenty-four hours.
Liz wondered if they would have twenty-four hours. She wondered if the terrorists, whoever they were, would unleash Chimera on the public before twenty-four hours passed.
Everyone listened carefully as Zataki outlined their objectives, reminding everyone of safety issues. Liz saw that some of the people present seemed confused. Two of them were older men in military uniforms — Army, she thought. Two more were in navy blue three-piece suits. They looked like government agents of some sort, or lobbyists or politicians. Rigid, clean-cut, serious. They, in particular, seemed confused.