The Immortalist (40 page)

DETAINEE RENSSELAER-WRIGHT,
SANDRA LOUISE, WAS PACING
the length of her six-by-eight-foot cell when Patrolman E. O. Gissell, duty officer for the lockup wing of the Bar Harbor Police Station, wheeled up a cart bearing a telephone connected to a long white cord.

“That call you asked for's come through.” Gissell's graying black hair and casual demeanor marked him as a veteran on the force.

Cricket took the phone through the food slot between the bars and picked up the receiver. “Bob, I need your help. We have an urgent situation at Acadia Springs.”

On the other end was Bob Keyhoe, back at the CDC. “Where the hell are you, Cricket?”

“In jail.”

“So it's true.”
Keyhoe had a reputation for being unflappable, but his tone tonight was pretty near the red zone. “Director Riccardi's calling a meeting about you. Eden Pharmaceuticals is threatening to file a lawsuit against CDC for willful destruction of property. Twenty million dollars, Cricket. Are you out of your cotton-picking mind?”

“Forget the lawsuit, Bob. In a day or two Eden will be thanking us for saving their butt. The Methuselah Vector is a public danger. I've pulled the plug on tomorrow's Lottery, but we need to make sure that any further human testing stops immediately. And we need to have Acadia Springs quarantined. There's a new virus out here we're calling Nemesis. It's a hybrid between the Methuselah Vector and human herpesvirus, type 1. It's highly lethal, Bob.”

“Charles Gifford says you're nuts.”

“Gifford himself is the source of Nemesis. He secretly injected himself with the Methuselah Vector. He needs to be put in isolation and treated—by force, if necessary.”

“You can't do that to someone like him. He's got Washington, DC, buzzing like a hornet's nest. Half a dozen different agencies are ready to file charges against you.”

“Don't listen to him, Bob. He's destroyed data and tissue samples that could prove everything I'm saying. But it won't help him. It's just buying him time. Without treatment, Gifford himself will be dead in a few days.”

“Do you have any idea how crazy you sound?”

“You don't have to believe me. Send someone else out here to investigate. Come yourself, Bob. Check it out.”

“No thanks. There
will
be an investigation, Cricket—into your actions. This is what you get for disobeying my direct orders. My advice to you now would be to get yourself a good lawyer—and a psychiatrist.”

“It that all you have to say?”

“My hands are tied. I'm sorry.”

Cricket slammed down the phone. Hearing the sound, Officer Gissell nonchalantly walked over from his desk and motioned for her to pass the phone back.

“Was that your lawyer?”

“No. It was someone who should have known better.”

“You should have called a lawyer.”

“No lawyer ever did me any fucking good.”

She plopped down on the thin mattress of the steel bed, curled up her legs, and turned to the wall. She felt beaten. She hadn't done a thing to help Emmy—only prolonged her misery. She'd been a failure as a mother, and now she was a failure as a doctor, too. She was useless, useless. If only she could have traded her life for Emmy's.
Come on, Death,
she felt like shouting.
Come here! I've got a deal for you.

And then it seemed as though Death had heard her. She felt his cold hand upon her neck, brushing her gently, playing with her. Her face felt flushed. She got up, startled, and started pacing, as if to get away from some invisible pursuer. Her pulse was like a hammer stroke, pounding all the way down to her fingers.

Please, God, not now.

She thrust her face against the bars. “Guard! Guard!” she shouted. “I'm not feeling well. I need my pills.”

Gissell sighed and came back down the hall with his waddling, John Wayne walk. “What's this?” He eyed her suspiciously.

“They're in a white pillbox you took from me.”

“I can't give that to you. They're not in a prescription bottle.”

“But I need them.”

“Sorry, they could be anything. I can't let you have them without a doctor's prescription or a prescription bottle.”

“But I
am
a doctor.”

“Sorry, it's the rule.”

“What the fuck am I supposed to do?”

“You want a doctor?”

“No. Just let me fucking die.”

Gissell shrugged, and she waved him away impatiently. Faster and faster she paced the cell—two strides per turn, pivoting, pivoting, pivoting. A feeling of dread took hold of her. Dark thoughts: The smell of burning huts. The screams of a dying mother. Étienne crying tears of blood.

Her ribs felt as if they were caving in, tearing her breastbone in two. Her legs shook so badly she had to sit down.
Get hold of yourself
.
You know what this is. You know. You know.
And yet, she was powerless. Worse than powerless. She felt doomed. The walls of her tiny cell seemed to close in on her. Panting turned into gasping, gasping into choking. She tried to call for help, but couldn't get out a sound.

Her heart beat frantically—so hard and so fast that she knew it couldn't possibly go on like that without killing her.

Weak as a rag, she slid onto the floor. As she lay quivering, it seemed that a robe of ice enveloped her body, paralyzing her.

No, you can't give into it
.
If you give up now, Emmy is as good as dead. You've got to keep your mind clear.

She commanded herself to breathe. She forced herself to sit up and arch her back against the cold steel of the bed frame, spreading her chest wide.
In. Out. Hold
. . . . In. Out. Hold.
The suffocating pause between each breath was agony, but she held out as long as she could stand it. She had to win back control.

Don't grovel! Stand up!
She climbed shakily to her feet. The room spun around her. She tried to stop the spinning by the sheer force of her eyes.

Look around you,
she urged herself
. This is not the Congo.
She tried to name everything she could see.
Sink. Soap dish. Green wall. Crack in the wall. Bars. Pillow. Blanket. Metal toilet. Sink again. Stopper. Soap dish. Shelf.
Dead spider.
She counted the bars of her cell door, in groups of three with each turn of her pacing.
One, two, three . . . four, five, six . .
 . seven, eight, nine . . . ten, eleven, twelve . . .

Slowly, the cold mantle of Death pulled away. She stopped in the middle of the cell, closed her eyes, and lightly touched her fingertips to her body.
This is me. This is me,
she repeated, as she touched her hair, ears, eyelids, lips, chest, elbows . . .

And then she was alone. The worst was over. She could breathe—slowly. Her heart calmed.

For a while she went on standing, eyes still closed, listening to her own breathing. She had no idea how long she stood. She had lost all awareness of time. But she was brought to her senses by a rattling of her cell door.

She opened her eyes and saw Gissell in front of her, holding a ring of keys. The door was wide open.

“What's going on?”

“I'm taking you to the interrogation room, ma'am. Special request.”

“I'm to be interrogated?”

“No. A visitor.”

“Who?”

“I haven't the slightest idea, ma'am. Let's go on up and see.”

Nine

HANK HURRIED THROUGH
DECONTAMINATION, HAIR WET,
shirt untucked. Erich Freiberg had sounded upset. He had signaled through the lab bay window that he didn't want Jean to overhear what he had to say. So Hank left Emmy's bedside and rushed out to meet him.

“How is she?” said Freiberg, as Hank came through the air lock.

The question cut like a knife to the gut. “Her blood oxygen level has dropped to seventy-two percent,” Hank said morosely. “Jean says when it reaches seventy percent, that's the end. Maybe an hour from now.”

“I wish I had something to suggest.”

“We need Cricket.”

“We're working on it. That's why I came. The district court judge in Ellsworth denied her bail. I've got a lawyer down in Portland who's going up before Justice Grimes to seek an emergency order for release—but that won't be before nine a.m.”

“Too late!” Hank shouted. “By then, Emmy'll be—”

“I know, I know, Hank. We're trying. But the governor is coming down hard on Charles's side.”

Hank rammed his fists together. “Charles is to blame for this. All of it.”

“The police are out in force looking for him, everywhere from here to New York.”

“You heard what Cricket said. He could spread this disease if they don't lock him up fast.”

“He's not on campus. We've searched and searched again.”

“They ought to shoot him on sight.”

Freiberg was taken aback by Hank's savage tone. He lifted his hand to Hank's shoulder. “I know it's hard. Emmy . . . Emmy—such a beautiful and spirited girl.”

“It kills me that there's just . . . nothing I can do.” As Hank's eyes started to tear up, he buried his face in Freiberg's shoulder. He was embarrassed to find himself weeping out loud. Freiberg wrapped his arms around him, holding him up.

Both men were jarred when Freiberg's cell phone went off. Freiberg broke away to answer it. “Freiberg here. Yes? . . . No, I don't know who's in charge of the institute. Probably Jack Niedermann. . . . I'm sorry, I have no idea where he is. . . . What's that again? It looks like
what
? . . . Bring them at once to the BSL-4 lab. . . . Use strict biohazard precautions. . . . No contact. . . . Better yet, don't do anything until I get there.”

Freiberg clicked off the phone. “Well, it looks like you're about to get some company. Two of the houseboys from Weiszacker have taken sick. It's Nemesis, all right.”

“Here it comes. Just like Cricket predicted.”

“I've got to go, Hank. I'd better try to organize some kind of response. Niedermann's not answering his phone and no one knows where he is.”

“I'll walk you to your car.”

“No, no. I've kept you from Emmy as it is.”

“It's okay. I . . . I can't bear to go back in there just yet. Maybe some fresh air . . .”

It wasn't fresh air he needed and he knew it. The instant Freiberg drove off in his boxy old Mercedes, Hank went to his pickup and opened the passenger-side door. He reached under the papers in the glove compartment until his fingertips felt the smooth touch of glass—a half-pint of Jack Daniel's, kept for emergencies.

He was having an emergency now. He unscrewed the cap and smelled the oak and licorice smell as he touched the bottle to his lips. He had a right to a sip. Nothing beat losing a child. It was against nature. Emmy was the one who was supposed to go on living. It would have been easier—better—if he were the one dying.

Tears again filled his eyes as he thought about all the battles he and Emmy had fought over school grades, skimpy swimsuits, late parties, rude friends. It was all so trivial now. He'd give anything to have those problems again, instead of . . . instead of . . .
this
.

He held the bottle against his lips but did not drink. Not that he was afraid of being found out. No one would know. Certainly not Emmy or Jean. Not with those oxygen masks you had to wear in there. But . . . he wanted to be sure of what he was doing.

Jack and Johnnie and Jim Beam had always been there for him. Consolation—fast, simple, and effective. He wondered why everybody didn't reach for it. Was his need different from theirs? Or was it really consolation that he was looking for? He'd asked himself that a million times. There seemed to be no answer. He was born to drink—that was all he could figure.

Hell, he didn't even like the taste of liquor. It was like pouring Drano down your throat. Only after the fourth or fifth shot did it go down smoothly.

He got ready to take the first pump-priming swig, and for an instant in his mind he could already feel the burn running down his gullet. But the rim of the bottle didn't pass his lips. A thought stopped him.

He'd heard that sometimes the dying woke up just before the end. What if—even for just a moment—Emmy's mind was clear, and his wasn't? He risked losing something. Something he could never replace.

He lowered the bottle and slowly screwed the cap back on.
No, that's not enough. You've got to get rid of it.
He wound up his right arm and pitched the flask into the darkness. It fell with a crash against the rocky hillside.

Hank felt relief at the sound of shattering glass. It brought him to his senses. He looked at the light that came from the two small windows of the brick facade of the BSL-4 lab. A few drops of rain hit him in the face.
Better get back in there
.
It's time to see this through
.