“To be totally honest, I don’t know,” Jack said, ultimately deciding truth was better than deception. “At this point, I’m concerned we mightbe witnessing the beginning of a new disease that potentially spreads by body fluids. You might have been exposed, but there is no way to know. Perhaps you should take that into consideration and avoid having intimate contact with anyone else for the time being. As soon as we know more we will be in touch with you. I can promise you that, since we’ll have your contact information from the identification process. That’s all I can say.” It was essentially what he had told John, which didn’t help the man. Yet on the spur of the moment he couldn’t think of anything else.
33
THURSDAY, 8:45 A.M.
Jack hit the button for the third floor in the back elevator of the Public Health Laboratory building. As he did so, he couldn’t help noticing how beat-up the cab was. He knew it was the service elevator, which had to carry a huge assortment of freight over many years, but how that resulted in all the damage, he had no idea. There was not a single surface that wasn’t scarified. As a civil servant himself, he wondered how it was that city property could look so worse for wear. Its battered state seemed fittingly emblematic of the disarray of his own life.
While he slowly ascended, he thought over the autopsy he’d just done on John Carver. It had been an unsettling experience, as there had been a moment at the very beginning that had made him pause. In all his twenty years as a forensic pathologist it had been the first time doing an autopsy that he’d had an emotional response, as it was also the first time he was called upon to eviscerate a person he’d so recently interacted with. He’d considered himself a professional hardened by repetition, but obviously it wasn’t entirely true. The situation had made him realize he was more of a softy than he’d thought.
After that initial psychological bump in the road, the autopsy hadproceeded apace. Once again, both he and Vinnie had done the procedure in full moon suits, even though Jack thought that the protection they used against HIV would have been adequate. Most important, the autopsy findings were exactly the same as Carol’s and Helen’s. The man’s lungs were entirely filled with edema, exudate, and near liquefaction such that he had essentially drowned. It made Jack appreciate with striking clarity the human immune system’s power to do harm as well as good.
After the autopsy was over and with Vinnie involved in cleaning up, Jack had taken it upon himself to deliver the lung fluid samples to Aretha, which was why he was currently in the Public Health Laboratory building’s elevator. Yet playing delivery boy wasn’t his only motivation. He also had been eager to hear if she’d made any progress on her identification efforts and to discuss with her his retrovirus idea. Getting there had been easier than he’d anticipated; the horde of reporters and TV trucks had abandoned their stakeout of the old OCME building.
Similar to his first visit on Monday, Aretha was waiting for him when the elevator doors opened on the third floor, just outside the level 3 biosafety laboratory. She was her typical lively self and was happy to relieve Jack of the new samples. Her cornrow hairstyle looked as if it had been recently redone. Jack imagined it took time to achieve, but the end result was a work of art.
“Have you recovered from that weird episode last night?” Aretha said straight off. “That was one strange scene. Did someone really get shot? That’s so bizarre and scary.”
“With everything that has happened today, I haven’t even had time to think about it,” Jack said. “I assume you heard about the pandemic influenza panic this morning.”
“Oh, absolutely,” Aretha said. “We were all called at the crack of dawn to get in here to prepare for what we thought was going to be a surge of samples. I can’t tell you how relieved we were when it turned out to be a false alarm.”
“Did you see theDaily Newsthat started it all?”
“I haven’t,” Aretha said.
“You should take a peek at it. It’s classic irresponsible journalism,” Jack said. “How about your work? Have you made any progress on identifying the virus?”
“Not yet,” Aretha told him. “But now that the influenza panic is over, I’m preparing to run my first BLAST search this morning with the nucleotide sequences the MPS machine has produced. So, fingers crossed. Let’s think positively. I might have something interesting this afternoon. It’s a little bit of a crapshoot. As I’ve said, you’ll be the first to know.”
“I’ve got my fingers crossed,” Jack said. He held his hand up to prove it. He knew that the virus needed to be identified before a test could be created and a possible treatment decided on.
“I also spoke with Connie Moran at the CDC just a few minutes ago,” Aretha said. “She’s at the same point as I am but more experienced. So maybe she’ll have something before I do. She’s promised to call the moment she does, and I’ll let you know.”
“Terrific,” Jack said. “There’s one other thing I wanted to mention to you. I had a kind of revelation this morning. I’m thinking we are dealing with a retrovirus somewhat like HIV, but one that affects the immune system in an opposite fashion.”
“Then we’re on the same page,” Aretha said. “I, too, have been thinking of a retrovirus. And so has Connie Moran, who I shared the clinical information with, including the autopsy findings this morning. I hope you don’t mind. I thought it could help. The moment I did, she shared something amazing with me. She had been in contact with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in Solna, Sweden. Are you familiar with that organization?”
“I’m not,” Jack admitted.
“It’s the European Union’s equivalent of the CDC,” Aretha explained. “She said she had been talking with them this morning and was told that they have had two cases of respiratory death that sounded just like yours.Sudden onset and death within hours. One in London and one in Rome. They have an official alert out for any more.”
“Really?” Jack questioned. “When did these deaths occur?”
“Both were yesterday,” Aretha said. “I thought you might find it interesting, so I asked for the details. Both were Americans. The one in Rome was a twenty-six-year-old woman who died on a nonstop flight from New York, which caused the entire flight to be quarantined. A ghastly situation for those unlucky enough to be on the flight. The London case was a twenty-eight-year-old male New Yorker who had been in London for a week.”
“Holy crap,” Jack said. He was stunned.
“What the hell doesholy crapmean?” Aretha teased. “You generation X’s are too hung up on language. I think having two cases already showing up in Europe justifies at least aholy shit.”
“You’re right,” Jack said, and laughed. He knew he was old-fashioned when it came to strong language, which good old Carlos had challenged on Monday. “This problem is already threatening to turn into a pandemic before it’s even an epidemic. When you talk to Connie Moran again, see if she can get us the names and other details. The epidemic intelligence team that’s on its way from the CDC will need to know, if they don’t already.”
“Do you want to see the electron photomicrographs from the CDC that I mentioned?” Aretha asked.
“I think I’ll pass for now,” Jack said. “I should be getting back to find out how my wife is doing handling the fallout from this morning’s debacle.”
“I could email them to you,” Aretha said.
“Perfect,” Jack said. “Good luck with BLAST!” He now held up both of his hands with his fingers crossed.
