He gazed upward, taking in the lit windows. Rooms with a view, windows looking nowhere. The lower windows were barred, not uncommon in a major city, but something that made Pilcher feel like a failure as a law enforcement officer. The bad guys should be behind bars, not the good guys.
His eyes lingered on the rungs of the fire escape ladder dangling a good four or five feet above his head. There was no way Stillwater, injured or not, could have jumped and snagged the ladder. Unless…
He stepped close to the nearest window and shined his light on the bars and the recessed concrete pane they were set into.
There. A smear of blood.
Glad for his regular workouts, Pilcher clambered up on the window sill, looking over to realize the bottom rung of the fire escape ladder was now neck level. He reached out, caught the bars and pulled himself up. To the top, he thought. That’s where Stillwater is. On top of the damned building.
He began the long climb up fire escape.
He was coming to the end of his ten minutes when he pulled himself over the ledge and onto the roof of the building. He shined the flash around and quickly recognized a small puddle of blood on the tarred roof. No drops. A puddle. It was hard to evaluate from blood, but Stillwater’s wound had been more than a scratch.
Blood, but no Stillwater.
He paced around, looking for him, but he wasn’t on the roof. Pilcher approached the elevator housing, a concrete and steel box in the center of the roof. There was a steel door and it was open. He let himself in. No Stillwater. Had he been here? Had he let himself into the building and walked out the front door while the cops were searching for him?
Pilcher checked his watch and decided he had to get going. He reminded himself as he let entered the building and descended to the main floor to not underestimate Stillwater. The man would get hold of him when he could.
But right now Pilcher had to get this dead woman’s cell phone to the lab.
23
Liz Vargas opened her eyes, then promptly closed them. She waited, eyes shut, listening. This is a nightmare, she thought. A very bad dream of the worst sort. I am going to wake up. I am in my own bed. I will get out of bed, take a shower, have a bagel and coffee, then drive to work.
She opened her eyes.
On a chair next to the bed she was lying on sat a figure in a blue spacesuit. Through the faceplate Liz recognized Sharon Jaxon.
The room looked remarkably similar to a hospital room. There was a TV on the wall, a hospital bed, a couch, chair and one of those wheeled tray-tables that only exist in hospitals.
A curtain hung over the window, but Liz was certain the window looked out over some observation area of The Slammer. The outer walls of The Slammer, she knew, would be like those of the Hot Zone, designed to keep lethal microorganisms inside.
Sharon Jaxon reached out and pinched off her oxygen hose to stop the roaring inside her suit. “How are you feeling?”
Propped on a pillow, Liz had to think about it. She was tired. That was understandable. It had been a totally hellish day. Long and stressful did not even begin to describe it. But aside from the fatigue? Well…
“I’m scared,” she said.
Jaxon’s helmet bobbed as she nodded. She reached out and patted Liz’s arm. “We’re going to make a decision in five hours whether to inoculate you with one of the early Chimeras. We’re running hourly antibody screens on the monkeys. In the meantime, we want to give you some anti-virals, but we wanted your opinion on which ones are the best bet.”
Liz struggled to a sitting position. “How long? How long have I been unconscious?”
“About fifteen minutes. Not long.”
Liz felt herself calm slightly. She had Chimera M13 in her system. Chimera was an astonishingly fast-acting virus, closer in reaction time to the effects of Salmonella or Botulism than a typical virus. It wasn’t something they had specifically designed for when they created the bug. There were arguments against a fast biological weapon. Some epidemiologists felt that bugs with rapid spread — and that killed their hosts — tended to burn themselves out. The spread of their infection, in other words, was faster than the travel velocity of its host. These scientists argued that this was why Ebola hadn’t run completely amuck and killed off Africa during the last two outbreaks in Zaire and Cameroon.
It was why smallpox, with a ten to fourteen-day incubation period was so lethal. During the infectious period the patient, not knowing they were infected, exposed a potentially higher number of people. Same thing with HIV, only worse.
The counter-argument was that a bug like Chimera could wipe out a vast population exactly because it acted so quickly.
Nobody knew which was true. Until Chimera hit the population, scientists could only guess.
“We didn’t try any anti-virals on Chimera,” Liz said, feeling hope flood her body like a warm drink.
“Colonel Zataki’s in Washington,” Jaxon said. “I got him on the phone just before he went into the briefing and he suggested we try Acyclovir, Ritonavir, Ribaviran and Pleconaril. Or any combination. What’s your opinion?”
“Briefing?” Liz realized she was distracted, that she should be concentrating on her treatment, but her brain, like a three-year-old’s, was looking for distraction. She was thinking, There is no cure, don’t you understand? I’m going to die and I’m going to die soon and it is going to be horrible.
Jaxon said, “He’s briefing the White House personally. He decided the aides they’d sent over weren’t smart enough to get it right. Plus the President called and told him to be there.”
“That would probably be a factor.”
Jaxon smiled. “Yeah. Liz… the anti-virals.”
“Why not all four?”
“I’ll check to see what the cross-reactions are. I’ll be back.”
“Did you ask Frank Halloran? He’d probably have an opinion.”
Sharon Jaxon shuffled out of the room without answering, the door closing behind her with a sucking sound. Liz sighed, trying to think, but couldn’t. Her brain would not work. All she could think was, I am going to die.
24
Secretary James Johnston settled into his chair at the long conference table and took a sip from the water glass by his spot, using the drink as an opportunity to inspect the people who had already arrived. The President wasn’t there yet, no surprise. The attorney general was — she would be chairing things — as were the Joint Chiefs, the director of the CDC and the director of Health and Human Services. He recognized Dr. Daniel Zataki from USAMRIID and was surprised. He had been under the impression Zataki wouldn’t be there. He hoped his presence didn’t indicate an even uglier turn of events.
There were a dozen representatives from various emergency response units, the director of FEMA and a handful of civilians he suspected were from the National Science Counsel. He wasn’t wild about that. In his years in the military he’d hated dealing with scientists. Ask five scientists the same question, you were likely to get five different answers. He remembered during the Gulf War asking his scientific advisors what the most dangerous biological or chemical agent Iraq might use on the Coalition troops.
One had said anthrax.
Another confidently claimed botulin toxin.
Yet another said VX gas.
The fourth asserted smallpox.
Exasperated, Johnston had turned to Derek Stillwater, who, at that time a captain, had not offered an opinion.