One of them said, “Will this work?”
Zataki shrugged. “Mr. O’Brien, right?”
O’Brien nodded.
Zataki said, “We don’t know. That’s what we’re trying to determine.”
“But you think it will?” O’Brien fidgeted with a gold pen, tapping it nervously on a leather-bound folder in his lap.
Zataki gazed at him. “If it doesn’t, Mr. O’Brien, we’re in serious trouble.”
“But what should I advise the President?”
Zataki said, “There isn’t much to advise, Mr. O’Brien. I’ve spoken with Anthony Pfeiffer at the CDC and he’ll be at the meeting. We won’t have anything useful or definitive before tomorrow night.”
“That’s not good enough,” O’Brien said, unable to keep a petulant whine out of his voice.
“Without a doubt,” Zataki said. “But it is, nonetheless, the best we can do. The best anybody can do.”
The second suit said, “If this works, and if these terrorists let this germ loose, will we have enough of the vaccine available to use on the public?” He was heavier set than his lean, younger partner, and spoke more slowly with fewer fidgets.
Zataki peered at him over his half-moon reading glasses. “Samples of all four of the weaker strains—”
”M1, M2, M3 and M4?”
“Yes. As well as a sample of M13, have been turned over to Sidney Alloway. She is the head of Geiger Pharmaceuticals. She runs both a vaccine manufacturing facility in New Jersey, and the means to mass produce a virus or bacterial agent. They will begin growing large amounts of M1, M2, M3 and M4 as soon as possible in case we’re able to use them as a vaccine.”
Liz’s stomach did a slow flip-flop.
Zataki continued. “They will also be growing M13 and attempting to develop a Salk vaccine for Chimera.” A Salk vaccine was a dead virus, treated with Formaldehyde.
All the color drained out of Liz’s face and she thought she was going to vomit. Sharon glanced at her, then grabbed her arm. “Are you okay?” she whispered.
“You’re going to grow industrial lots of Chimera?” Liz burst out.
Zataki turned. “Yes, Dr. Vargas.”
“That’s… Chimera’s too dangerous. That’s crazy! It’s the most dangerous virus on the—”
”We’re well aware of the danger,” Zataki said, voice even. “But we don’t have a choice.” He paused, gaze piercing her. “Do we?”
She shook her head and collapsed back in her chair, realizing fully the Pandora’s box they had opened. She remember Derek Stillwater saying, “When you steal the devil’s pitchfork, you become the devil.”
O’Brien said, “And if these don’t work? What are we going to do if none of these versions of Chimera work? What will we do if we don’t have a workable vaccine and the terrorists release M13 somewhere on the public?”
Zataki frowned. “The standard procedure is rings of containment. In the case of a virus like Chimera, victims will be transported to isolation facilities — here at USAMRIID or at the CDC or various hospitals — and anybody who has come into contact with the victims will also be isolated, thus setting up rings of containment around the victims.”
“And if someone gets through the rings of containment?” O’Brien demanded. “If you miss somebody?”
Zataki said, “If the virus spreads faster than we can contain it? If the public panics and runs? If the public is noncompliant? That’s simple, Mr. O’Brien. Hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of people will die.”
In time the meeting was wrapped. The White House representatives headed back to Washington, D.C. to tell their boss that the only thing being done to deal with a possible biological attack was a wild-ass longshot that most of the scientists thought wouldn’t work. The military was preparing their troops, but more importantly, were setting up armed perimeters around U.S. Immuno and Geiger Pharmaceuticals.
Somewhere out there, Liz thought as she changed into scrubs, was a lone troubleshooter and an FBI team trying to track down the terrorists before they unleashed Chimera. She made a silent prayer to a god she didn’t really believe in that they would be successful.
Once dressed, the two women proceeded into the next level to tape rubber gloves to their scrubs and socks, then don their spacesuits.
“Looks like Frank and…” Acid flooded Liz’s throat. She swallowed it back, breath coming hard. “…and Jim based our hot level facility on yours.”
“There are only so many ways to do it,” Jaxon acknowledged. She took a close look at Liz. “You up to this? You look a little strained.”
“Yes. I’m up to this.”
“Good. There will be a bunch of observers this round. In the middle of the night it ought to thin out, but don’t get freaked by the number of spacesuits you see.”
“Sure.”
They moved into the spacesuit area and donned their blue suits. The one Liz Vargas wore was brand new and crinkled as she unfolded it. It had the distinctive “new suit” smell. She didn’t like the smell. For some reason it reminded her of her husband’s death, of the Medical Examiner’s Office, of the funeral home. It reminded her of saying goodbye. They suited up, checked each other’s suits for cracks or leaks, then proceeded into USAMRIID’s Biological Safety Level 4 facility.
Jaxon had been right. There were eight or nine people already in there, trying not to bump into each other. She didn’t like the crowd. They would be working with hypodermic needles contaminated with Chimera M13. One pinprick would mean certain death.
Chimera M13, within the limits of their testing, was fatal one hundred percent of the time. Marburg and Ebola were fatal about twenty-five to thirty-five percent of the time. That was largely because they were simian viruses that made the leap to Homo sapiens. They were not well-adapted to human beings.
Smallpox, which was perfectly adapted by nature to infect and kill human beings, was also fatal about a third of the time.
U.S. Immuno had improved on nature, if any sane person would consider it an improvement. Chimera M13 killed every subject it had been tested on. They believed, from a population point of view, that the real number would be somewhere in the ninety to ninety-five percentile range, that in a large human population there would be a small percentage of human beings with immune systems resistant to this disease.
Of course, Chimera had never actually been tested on human beings. It had been tested on cultures of human cells with spectacular success, and on monkeys as well. They had run it on a barrage of mice, rats, guinea pigs and rabbits. Fatal, fatal, fatal. On laboratory animals it was one hundred percent fatal. No human being had ever actually been infected.
The monkey room was at the far end of the hot zone, a large rectangular space. On top of counter tops were wall-to-wall monkey cages, each draped with plastic sheeting to prevent the spread of airborne disease. Liz and Sharon gestured for the crowd to stay along the walls, which they did, more or less. Like any crowd, it had a life of its own, shifting and drifting, people gesturing to each other with sign language, barely able to hear each other through their spacesuits even when shouting.
Jaxon picked up a metal tray containing syringes of M1, M2, M3 and M4. Together they proceeded to the four monkeys on the far left. At the first cage, Jaxon used a lever to bring the false rear wall of the cage forward until the monkey was pressed and immobile against the front of the cage. Jaxon took a syringe from a second tray and injected the monkey with the tranquilizer Telazol. She stepped back and waited. Within moments the monkey became unconscious.