Pandemic (35 page)
Authors: Daniel Kalla
Gwen offered a quick grin, but she felt too pressed for time not to get down to business. "And your lab?"
"Amazing what can happen if the government takes an interest in your work" He shook his head. "I spent most of my academic life begging, borrowing, and stealing enough to set up a bare-bones lab. But I come down here and in twenty-four hours I got the Taj Mahal at my disposal."
"Nothing you don't deserve, Isaac," she said. "Have you begun to run experiments?"
Moskor nodded. "Yeah, we started with a group of fifty African green monkeys six days ago. Infected all of them with viral-loaded serum, then divided the monkeys in two groups. Twenty-five got twice-a-day doses of A36112. And the control just got standard antiviral drugs."
"And?" Gwen leaned forward in her chair.
But Moskor was immune to the urgency in her tone. "Can't get used to these videoconferences." He reached forward and adjusted his camera, making his image shake on Gwen's screen. "Always feel like I'm on the set of Star Trek. I half expect to see you disappear and Mr. Sulu and Scotty to pop up on the monitor." He adjusted his camera one more time. "You sure it's safe to discuss things over this line?"
"Totally." Gwen nodded impatiently. "Tell me."
"You weren't exaggerating about this Gansu Flu. Scary bug. Reminds me of what I saw when I toured that lab in Washington running the Ebola experiments."
"About the two groups?" Gwen tried to force him back on topic.
He offered a hint of a smile. "So far, the virus has killed nine of the twenty-five monkeys in the control group."
Gwen felt her heart speed up. She knew he was holding back promising news. "And the treated monkeys?"
He bit his lip, but his smile grew a touch wider. "So far--and I can't stress enough how early we're talking here--in the monkeys treated with A36112, only one has died."
Savard leaped out of her chair.
"Whoa! Where did you go?" Moskor said. "I'm talking to your belt now."
Savard sat back down. She felt giddy from the news. She had to clear her throat and fight back the tears. "Isaac, you've done it!"
Moskor blushed slightly and shook his large head. "We--don't forget Clara and the rest of the team--haven't done anything yet."
Gwen started to speak, but Moskor cut her off with a wave of his big hand. "Kid, I know how promising this looks, but let's not get way ahead of ourselves. We're talking about four days of treatment on twenty-five lab monkeys."
"But, Isaac, those results are astounding," Gwen squealed. "One-third dead compared to one in twenty-five. That's almost unfathomable."
"Way too early for that." Moskor shook his finger. "Some of the monkeys in the treatment group are still pretty damn sick! We don't know that more won't die today. We need far bigger numbers and more time before we go concluding anything."
Savard shrugged. "Look, Isaac, far as I'm concerned, you can have every African green monkey in the world. But what we don't have is more time. We might be facing a pandemic tomorrow. I mean, literally, tomorrow"
Moskor stared at her for several seconds without remarking. Finally, he said, "So you want to go straight to human trials?"
"No." Savard shook her head adamantly. "No more trials at all. We need to put this drug into mass production."
Moskor's face crumpled into a series of wrinkles. "Mass production?" he repeated.
"Today, Isaac," she said with authority. "If need be, we'll borrow every pharmaceutical plant in the country to mass-produce this drug."
Moskor's jaw dropped.
"How hard was it for you to manufacture the pills?" Gwen asked.
Still appearing stunned, he shrugged. "It's a simple organic compound. Easy to make a couple hundred pills. But what you're talking about?" He held his palms up.
"What I'm talking about is millions of doses," she said, already planning the logistics in her mind. "Isaac, have you got an intravenous preparation for this?"
"Yeah." He nodded. "We've had to use it on the sickest monkeys who aren't able to swallow tablets."
"Perfect," Gwen said. "We'll need to produce both."
Moskor cast his eyes down. "I knew this was a possibility when you sent me to Atlanta. And, kid, I know you are doing what you think you have to do," he said softly. "But to me this is still bad medicine. You don't jump from half-baked, half-finished studies to treating live sick people, no matter how tempting the results may seem. It's been done before." He paused. "And the literature is littered with stories of enough premature corpses to tell me that it's a very bad idea."
Gwen wished she could reach out and touch her troubled friend. Instead she just nodded. "Isaac, you have no idea how many premature corpses might be littered if we don't do anything. Of course, people might die. Even directly as a result of being treated with A36112," she acknowledged. "But what you've given me--what you've given the world--is more hope than we had yesterday. I know it's too early to know for sure, but you might have found a cure for the Killer Flu. And we don't have time to confirm that in a lab."
He leaned back in his seat, his expression somewhere between satisfaction and skepticism. "So the real world is going to be our lab, huh?"
"There is no other way," Gwen said.
CHAPTER 30
HARBOURVIEW HOTEL, VANCOUVER, CANADAFree of quarantine, Noah Haldane stepped out of the elevator into the lobby for the first time in five days. He wanted to drop his suitcase and run out into the December sunshine that streamed in through the hotel's huge windows, but Duncan McLeod, bearing a tray holding three coffees, beckoned him from the other side of the lobby.
"Christ!" McLeod bellowed when Noah had made it halfway across the floor. "Now that it's safe to hug you, I got no interest. Funny that."
"I've overcome bigger disappointments," Haldane said with a slight smile as he eased a cup out of the tray. "Thanks. Any sign of Gwen?"
"Not yet," McLeod said. "She's probably getting herself all gussied up for me."
Haldane chuckled as he inhaled the sweet aroma of the coffee. Since childhood he had always preferred the smell to the actual taste, but after an anticipatory night of restless sleep, he needed every drop of the cup in his hand to keep him going.
"You laugh, Haldane, but the McLeod charm is a mysterious and powerful force." He fluttered his eyelids, making his lazy eye even more noticeable. "That my heart has already been claimed only drives the ladies that much madder."
"One can only imagine," Haldane said.
McLeod gestured at Haldane with his chin. "I thought I sensed a little something between the likes of you two up in your room. No?" He raised an eyebrow. "You didn't succumb to a mutual case of quarantine fever, did you?"
Haldane shook his head. As he was about to advise McLeod to let it go, he glimpsed Gwen emerging from an elevator. Rolling her suitcase behind her, she half jogged toward them. And Noah noticed that she still had a slight limp in her step as she approached.
She wore a knee length green suit, which showed off her lithe calves. Her tawny blond hair was clipped back behind her ears. As she neared, Noah saw that her face was flushed and her eyes wide with excitement.
Catching Noah off guard, Gwen threw her arms around him, almost spilling his coffee. The pressure of her firm body against his stirred something inside, but realizing the hug had lasted a moment too long, he let go at the same moment she did. The embrace might have been innocent enough--nothing more than any two friends might share--but it was their first physical contact beyond a handshake, and it left him even more confused.
"You missed a spot," McLeod said to Gwen and pointed to himself with a thumb.
With a laugh, Gwen leaned forward and, avoiding the coffee tray in his hand, pecked McLeod on the cheek. McLeod reached down, pulled a coffee from his tray, and handed it to her.
She smiled her thanks.
"You seem awfully happy to be free of quarantine," Haldane said to her.
"It's not just that" She shook her head enthusiastically. "I've got news." She flashed an openmouthed smile, and Noah noticed how perfect her teeth were. "And for a change it's good news."
"What is it?" Haldane asked.
She raised her coffee cup, as if offering a toast. "My mentor, Dr. Isaac Moskor, had a huge breakthrough with an experimental antiviral he's developed."
"With the Gansu strain?" Haldane said, suddenly swept up in her excitement.
Savard nodded and told them about Moskor's early results with the experiments on the African green monkeys.
When she described the scientist's reticence in proceeding to production of the drug, McLeod nodded in full agreement "He's got a point. Those are some bloody shaky grounds for exposing millions of people to a completely untested drug."
"Under normal circumstances, no question," Haldane said. "But with what we're potentially facing?" He crumpled the empty cup in his hand. "We're grabbing at straws here, and this one is as good as or better than any we've seen so far."
UNITED FLIGHT 3614The three doctors spent most of the flight back to Dulles Airport lost in their own work. Savard had her laptop computer propped open on the tray in front of her, but she only seemed to hang up the air phone long enough to place another call. McLeod sat across the aisle from the other two, reading glasses on as he scanned through reams of journal articles. Though he went to great pains to imply otherwise, McLeod was among the brightest and most knowledgeable virologists Haldane had ever met. Aside from the levity he provided, McLeod was the stabilizing force on the WHO's emerging pathogens team.
Haldane focused his attention on Somalia, one of the few African countries where his WHO job had never taken him. Using his laptop's electronic encyclopedia, he scanned the sordid history of the former British and Italian colony while acquiring a rudimentary understanding of its arid climate, plainslike geography, and strife-ridden politics. He studied a detailed map. In a nation ruled by anarchy, it seemed to Noah that there was a vast amount of territory within which to hide a small terrorist base. Pin-pointing their lab might prove a daunting task even for the most powerful military and intelligence force on the planet.
While he worked, Haldane couldn't help overhearing snippets of Gwen's conversations from the seat beside. In the course of the flight, it sounded as if she had made strides in securing a pharmaceutical plant to mass-produce Moskor's new antiviral drug. Though he could only hear one side of the conversation, Haldane was impressed by her powers of persuasion, employing equal parts charm and intimidation to achieve her goal.
Catching her between phone calls, Haldane reached over and touched her on the sleeve of her jacket. "Gwen, if everything goes without a hitch, when is the soonest this drug would be ready?"
She shrugged. "They tell me three to four weeks."
"Hmmm," Haldane murmured.
"That's what they tell me," she said with a slight smile. "I've told them it has to be ready in one. Maximum."
Haldane nodded and pulled his hand from her arm.
She kept her eyes fixed on him. "You must be happy to be going home to her." Haldane didn't know whether Gwen meant his daughter or his wife, until she added, "You can finally celebrate her birthday in person."
He grinned. "Yeah, I'm pretty excited."
She cleared her throat and looked down at her notebook computer. "How will the rest of the reunion go?"
Haldane shrugged. "No idea," he said honestly. He had shared little with Gwen about his marital discord; and he never mentioned Anna's confused sexuality or infidelity. Gwen had inferred most of what she knew from how infrequently he spoke of his wife.
Gwen uttered a nervous laugh. "My situation is a bit more straightforward. I only have to settle up with my cat."
"And the media," Noah reminded her.
She closed the case on her laptop computer. "Yeah, them, too. I get the feeling I'm going to be on everyone's dance card once we get to D.C."
"Nervous?" he asked.
"A bit," she said. "It's only fair though. After all, I was supposed to protect the country from this kind of thing."
He shook his head in disbelief. "You don't blame yourself for what's happening?"
Gwen shrugged. When she met his stare, he recognized for the first time vulnerability in her green eyes. He wanted to stroke her cheek and hold her in his arms, but instead he said, "You were one of the few who predicted this scenario. What could you have possibly done differently?"
"I don't know," she said. "All I do know is that I'm the Director of Counter-Bioterrorism and the country is under virtual siege by bioterrorists. In my eyes that doesn't add up to good job performance."
Haldane chuckled sympathetically. "My job involves dealing with emerging pathogens, but I don't beat myself up every time some new virus or parasite pops up."
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