Contagion (46 page)

     Down in the seedy lobby Jack was able to purchase a disposable razor and a miniature tube of toothpaste with a toothbrush attached. As he waited for the elevator to return to his room he caught sight of a bound stack of the Daily News outside of an unopened newsstand. Above the lurid headlines was: “Morgue Doc Nearly Winds Up on the Slab in Trendy Restaurant Shoot-out! See page three.”

     Jack set down his purchases and tried to tease out a copy of the paper, but he couldn’t. The securing band was too tough to snap.

     Returning to the front desk, he managed to convince the morose night receptionist to come out from behind his desk and cut the band with a razor blade. Jack paid for the paper and saw the receptionist pocket the money.

     On the way up in the elevator Jack was shocked to see a picture of himself on page three coming out of the Positano restaurant with Shawn Magoginal holding his upper arm. Jack couldn’t remember a picture being taken. The caption read: “Dr. Jack Stapleton, a NYC medical examiner, being led by plainclothes detective Shawn Magoginal from the scene of the doctor’s attempted assassination. A NYC gang member was killed in the incident.”

     Jack read the article. It wasn’t long; he was finished before he got back to his room. Somehow the writer had learned that Jack had had run-ins with the same gang in the past. There was an unmistakably scandalous implication. He tossed the paper aside. He was disgusted at the unexpected exposure and was concerned it could hinder his cause. He expected to have a busy day, and he didn’t want interference resulting from this unwanted notoriety.

     Jack showered, shaved, and brushed his teeth. He felt a world of difference from when he’d awakened, but he did not feel up to par. He still had a headache and the muscles of his legs were sore. So was his lower back. He couldn’t help but worry that he was having early symptoms of the flu. He didn’t have to remind himself to take his rimantadine.

     When Jack arrived at the medical examiner’s office, he had the taxi drop him off at the morgue receiving bay to avoid any members of the press who might be lying in wait.

     Jack headed directly upstairs to scheduling. He was worried about what had come in during the night. As he stepped into the room, Vinnie lowered his newspaper.

     “Hey, Doc,” Vinnie said, “Guess what? You’re in the morning paper.”

     Jack ignored him and went over to where George was working.

     “Aren’t you interested?” Vinnie called out. “There’s even picture!”

     “I’ve seen it,” Jack said. “It’s not my best side.”

     “Tell me what happened,” Vinnie demanded. “Heck, this is like a movie or something. Why’d this guy want to shoot you?”

     “It was a case of mistaken identity,” Jack said.

     “Aw, no!” Vinnie said. He was disappointed. “You mean he thought you were someone else?”

     “Something like that,” Jack said. Then, addressing George, he asked if there had been any more influenza deaths.

     “Did someone actually fire a gun at you?” George asked, ignoring Jack’s question. He was as interested as Vinnie. Other people’s disasters hold universal appeal.

     “Forty or fifty times,” Jack said. “But luckily it was one of those guns that shoots Ping-Pong balls. Those I wasn’t able to duck bounced off harmlessly.”

     “I guess you don’t want to talk about it.” George said.

     “That’s perceptive of you, George,” Jack said. “Now, have any influenza deaths come in?”

     “Four,” George said.

     Jack’s pulse quickened.

     “Where are they?” Jack asked.

     George tapped one of his stacks. “I’d assign a couple of them to you, but Calvin already called to tell me he wants you to have another paper day. I think he saw the newspaper too. In fact, he didn’t even know if you’d be coming in to work today.”

     Jack didn’t respond. With as much as he had to do that day, having another paper day was probably a godsend. Jack opened the charts quickly to read the names. Although he could have guessed their identities, it was still a shock. Kim Spensor, George Haselton, Gloria Hernandez, and a William Pearson, the evening lab tech, had all passed away during the night with acute respiratory distress syndrome. The worry that the influenza strain was virulent was no longer a question; it was now a fact.

     These victims had all been healthy, young adults who’d died within twenty-four-plus hours of exposure.

     All of Jack’s anxiety came back in a rush. His fear of a major epidemic soared. His only hope was that if he was right about the humidifier being the source, all of these cases represented index cases in that all had been exposed to the infected humidifier. Hence, none of these deaths represented person-to-person transfer, the key element for the kind of epidemic he feared.

     Jack rushed from the room, ignoring more questions from Vinnie. Jack didn’t know what he should do first. From what had happened with the plague episode, he thought he should wait to talk to Bingham and have Bingham call the city and state authorities. Yet now that Jack’s worry about a potential epidemic had increased, he hated to let any time pass.

     “Dr. Stapleton, you’ve had a lot of calls,” Marjorie Zankowski said.

     Marjorie was the night communications operator. “Some left messages on your voice mail, but here’s a list. I was going to take them up to your office, but since you are here...” She pushed a stack of pink phone messages toward Jack. Jack snatched them up and continued on.

     He scanned the list as he went up in the elevator. Terese had called several times, the last time being four o’clock in the morning. The fact that she’d called so many times gave Jack a stab of guilt. He should have called her from the hotel, but in truth he hadn’t felt like talking with anyone.

     To his surprise there were also messages from Clint Abelard and Mary Zimmerman. His first thought was that Kathy McBane might have told them everything he’d said. If she had, then Clint’s and Mary’s messages might be of the unpleasant sort. They had called one after the other just after six A.M.

     Most intriguing and worrisome of all the calls were two from Nicole Marquette from the CDC. One was around midnight, the other at five forty-five.

     Rushing into his office, Jack stripped off his coat, plopped himself at his desk, and returned Nicole’s call. When he got her on the line, she sounded exhausted.

     “It’s been a long night,” she admitted. “I tried to call you many times both at work and at home.”

     “I apologize,” Jack said. “I should have called to give you an alternate number.”

     “One of the times I called your apartment the phone was answered by an individual called Warren,” Nicole said. “I hope he’s an acquaintance. He didn’t sound all that friendly.”

     “He’s a friend,” Jack said, but the news disturbed him. Facing Warren was not going to be easy.

     “Well, I don’t know quite where to begin,” Nicole said. “One thing I can assure you is that you’ve caused a lot of people to lose a night’s sleep.

     The sample of influenza you sent has ignited a fire down here. We ran it against our battery of antisera to all known reference strains. It didn’t react with any one of them to any significant degree. In other words, it had to be a strain that was either entirely new or had not been seen for as many years as we’ve been keeping antisera.”

     “That’s not good news, is it?” Jack said.

     “Hardly,” Nicole said. “It was very scary news, particularly in light of the strain’s pathogenicity. We understand there now have been five deaths.”

     “How did you know?” Jack asked. “I just found out myself there’d been four more victims last night.”

     “We’ve already been in contact with the state and local authorities during the night,” Nicole said. “That was one of the reasons I tried so hard to get ahold of you. We consider this to be an epidemiological emergency; I didn’t want you to feel you were out of the loop. You see, we did finally find something that reacted with the virus. It was a sample of frozen sera we have that we suspect contains antisera to the influenza strain that caused the great epidemic in 1918 and 1919!”

     “Good God!” Jack exclaimed.

     “As soon as I discovered this, I called my immediate boss, Dr. Hirose Nakano,” Nicole said. “He, in turn, called the director of the CDC. He’s been on the phone with everyone from the Surgeon General on down.

     We’re mobilizing to fight a war here. We need a vaccine, and we need it fast. This is the swine-flu scare of seventy-six all over again.”

     “Is there anything I can do?” Jack asked even though he already knew the answer.

     “Not at this time,” Nicole said. “We owe you a debt of gratitude for alerting us to the problem as soon as you did. I told as much to the director. I wouldn’t be surprised if he gave you a call himself.”

     “So the hospital has been notified?” Jack asked.

     “Most definitely,” Nicole said. “A CDC team will be coming up there today to assist in any way it can, including helping the local epidemiologist. Needless to say, we’d love to find out where this virus came from. One of the mysteries of influenza is where the dormant reservoirs are. Birds, particularly ducks, and pigs are suspected, but no one knows for sure. It’s astonishing, to say the least, that a strain that hasn’t been seen for some seventy-five years comes back to haunt us.”

     A few minutes later, Jack hung up the phone. He was stunned, yet also relieved to a degree. At least his warnings of a possible epidemic had been heeded, and the proper authorities mobilized. If an epidemic was to be averted, the only people who could make that happen were now involved.

     But there was still the question of where these infectious agents had come from. Jack certainly did not think it was a natural source like another animal or a bird for the influenza. He thought it was either a person or an organization, and now he could concentrate on that issue.

     Before Jack did anything else, he called Terese. He found her at home. She was extremely relieved to hear his voice.

     “What happened to you?” she asked. “I’ve been worried sick.”

     “I stayed the night in a hotel,” Jack said.

     “Why didn’t you call like you said you would?” Terese asked. “I’ve called your apartment a dozen times.”

     “I’m sorry,” Jack said. “I should have called. But by the time I left the police headquarters and found a hotel, I wasn’t feeling much like talking to anyone. I can’t tell you how stressful the last twenty-four hours has been. I’m afraid I’m not myself.”

     “I suppose I understand,” Terese said. “After that horrid incident last night I’m amazed you are functioning at all today. Didn’t you consider just staying home? I think that’s what I would have done.”

     “I’m too caught up in everything that is happening,” Jack said.

     “That’s just what I was afraid of,” Terese said. “Jack, listen to me. You’ve been beat up and now almost killed. Isn’t it time to let other people take over, and you get back to your normal job?”

     “It’s already happening to an extent,” Jack said. “Officials from the Centers for Disease Control are on their way up here in force to contain this influenza outbreak. All I have to do is make it through today.”

     “What is that supposed to mean?” Terese asked.

     “If I don’t solve this mystery of mine by tonight I’m giving up on it,” Jack said. “I had to promise as much to the police.”

     “That’s music to my ears,” Terese said. “When can I see you? I have some exciting news to tell.”

     “After last night I would have thought you’d consider me dangerous to be around,” Jack said.

     “I’m assuming that once you stop this crusade of yours people will leave you alone.”

     “I’ll have to call you,” Jack said. “I’m not sure how the day is going to play out.”

     “You’d promised to call last night and didn’t,” Terese said. “How can I trust you?”

     “You’ll just have to give me another chance,” Jack said. “And now I have to get to work.”

     “Aren’t you going to ask me about my exciting news?” Terese asked.

     “I thought you’d tell me if you wanted to,” Jack said.

     “National Health canceled the internal review,” Terese said.

     “Is that good?” Jack asked.

     “Absolutely,” Terese said. “The reason they canceled it is because they are so sure they’ll like our ‘no waiting’ campaign that I leaked yesterday. So instead of having to throw the presentation together haphazardly we have a month to do it properly.”

     “That’s wonderful,” Jack said. “I’m pleased for you.”

     “And that’s not all,” Terese said. Taylor Heath called me in to congratulate me. He also told me he’d learned what Robert Barker had tried to do, so Barker is out and I’m in. Taylor all but assured me I’ll be the next president of Willow and Heath.”

     “That calls for a celebration,” Jack said.

     “Exactly,” Terese said. “A good way to do it would be to have lunch today at the Four Seasons.”

     “You certainly are persistent,” Jack said.

     “As a career woman I have to be,” Terese said.

     “I can’t have lunch, but maybe dinner,” Jack said. “That is, unless I’m in jail.”

     “Now what does that mean?” Terese asked.

     “It would take too long to explain,” Jack said. “I’ll call you later. Bye, Terese.” Jack hung up before Terese could get in another word. As tenacious as she was, Jack had the idea she’d keep him on the phone until she got her way.

     Jack was about to head up to the DNA lab when Laurie appeared in his doorway.

     “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you,” Laurie said.

     “And I have you to thank for my being here,” Jack said. “A few days ago I might have thought of you as having interfered. But not now. I appreciate whatever you said to Lieutenant Soldano, because it saved my life.”

     “He called me last night and told me what happened,” Laurie said. “I tried to call you at your apartment a number of times.”

     “You and everyone else,” Jack said. “To tell you the truth, I was scared to go home.”