Scorpion's Advance (5 page)

Ann looked at it briefly and said, 'Karen will know more about this than I do.' She called over one of the other technicians. It was the girl from the stairwell. Anderson noted the name, Karen Davies, on her plastic lapel badge and asked about his missing report.

'Sorry. We're a bit behind at the moment.' The girl led the way to where Allan had kept his animal post-mortem reports, a large green metal filing cabinet which defied the diminutive Karen's attempts to pull open the bottom drawer. Anderson squatted down and did it for her then stood up and waited while she thumbed through the files and extracted a blue folder.

'Here we are. Report three-one-two . . . guinea pig . . . requested N. Anderson, Bacteriology. Result, negative. No abnormalities.'

Anderson copied down details of dates and reference numbers for his own file and handed the card back. He was about to leave when Ann
Veitch came into the room looking very angry. She was holding a small brown bottle.

'You did it again!' she said to Karen Davies. 'The prep-room this time!'

Anderson looked on as a spectator as the junior apologized and looked at her feet. 'What was all that about?' he asked as the older girl left.

Karen looked sheepish. ‘I’
m a volunteer on the Galomycin trial,' she said. 'I keep leaving my capsules all over the place. I left them in here last week and Mr Allan took one in mistake for his own. If you think Miss Veitch was angry you should have heard him!'

'He had a point,' said
Anderson.

'I know.'

'Why was Mr Allan taking capsules?' asked Anderson, remembering that the pathologist's report had made no mention of any medical condition requiring treatment.

'As a precaution. He cut himself while he was examining one of the animals. He had to get an anti-tetanus shot and ..
.an antibiotic umbrella, I think he called it.'

Anderson nodded. 'Do you know what the animal had been infected with?'

'No, but Mr Allan didn't seem too concerned. It'll be in the accident book.' Karen brought down a rather tattered hardback notebook from the shelf above the desk and flicked through the pages. Three-inch cut between thumb and forefinger of left hand sustained from scalpel during post-mortem examination of guinea pig, ref. three-one-two . . . animal disease-free ... no known hazard. What a coincidence, Dr Anderson . . . That was your one.'

The colour drained from Anderson's face as he sat down slowly in the swivel chair that had been Allan's and rested his elbows on the desk. He rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers as he came to terms with an awful truth that swirled before his eyes like wet fog.

'Are you all right, Dr Anderson?'

Anderson did not reply for his mind was reeling with the implications of what he had just heard. Allan had been examining the PZ9-infected guinea pig when he had cut himself. He could have introduced the plasmid into his body - not that that would have done him any harm, but he had subsequently taken
Galomycin and that was what had killed him! The combination of PZ9 and Galomycin! In Martin Klein's case he already had the plasmid in his gut when he took Galomycin as a volunteer on the trial. The combination of PZ9 and Galomycin was lethal!

Anderson became aware that Karen Davies was looking at him strangely.

'Karen, I want you to come into hospital for a few days.'

Karen's eyes filled with questions. 'But why? There's nothing wrong with me.'

'It's just ... a precaution,' said Anderson, trying desperately to delete urgency from his voice. 'A few days' observation, that's all.'

He failed to convince Karen whose face now showed fear. She backed away slightly. There's something wrong, isn't there? I'm in some kind of danger . . . Tell me. I want to know ... I have a right . . .'

Anderson put his hands on her shoulders. 'It's probably nothing to worry about,' he said gently, 'but there may be some kind of problem with Galomycin. If there is, I want you in the best place to deal with it and that's here in the hospital. That makes sense, doesn't it?'

The girl nodded and attempted a small smile.

'Good,' said Anderson. 'Now, telephone your mum and then go up and see Sister Vane. I'll tell her to expect you.'

'Yes, Doctor.' Karen turned to go.

'Oh, Karen?'

'Yes?'

'Give me your capsules.' The girl handed over the bottle.

Anderson called the senior technician into the office. 'Miss
Veitch, I'll explain all this later but right now do three things. One, close the animal house when I leave; no one, but no one, is to come in. Two, trace the cultures used to inject animals for test three-one-two. Three, find out exactly what happened to the three guinea pigs used in that test. Understood?'

'Understood,' said Ann
Veitch coolly.

Anderson ran back along the basement corridor and heard the door being locked behind him. He burst into Kerr's room but found it empty. 'Shit!' Snatching the receiver from its cradle, he asked the operator for Lennox-Adams.

'Dr Lennox-Adams is out at the moment,' said his secretary. 'Can I take a message?'

Anderson put the phone down without speaking. He lifted it again and called
Linda Vane. ' . . . For observation please, Sister. A side room ... on her own.'

A striking match announced the return of John Kerr. He was surprised to find Anderson in his office and let the match go out before it reached his pipe.

'The plasmid did kill Klein and Allan,' said Anderson. 'It's the combination of Galomycin and PZ9 that's lethal.'

Kerr listened while Anderson told him what he had discovered. 'What have you done so far?'

Anderson told him.

'Good. I'll get the trial stopped and telex the company.

Contact Pharmacy and get them to impound all stocks of Galomycin.'

Three hours later, with all sources of
Galomycin collected and under lock and key, the Galomycin group met to hear from Anderson in person.

'My God!' said Lennox-Adams. 'Have you any idea what's happening?'

Anderson said that he had not.

'Perhaps the drug is altered in some way by the plasmid,' suggested Mary
Ryle.

'Good point, Miss
Ryle,' said Lennox-Adams. 'Has the company been informed?'

Kerr said that it had.

'And Professor Strauss?'

'Not yet,' said Anderson, 'but we are the only group with access to
Galomycin. There is no immediate danger to the Israelis.'

Kerr knocked out the spent contents of his pipe into the ashtray that Lennox-Adams pushed towards him and said, 'It seems to me that we can't be sure if it's the plasmid that makes the drug lethal or vice versa. It is in everyone's interest to find out quickly. I suggest that we arrange for the drug company to send some
Galomycin to Professor Strauss and ask him, as originator of the plasmid, to find out what is going on.' The meeting broke up with everyone agreeing to Kerr's suggestion.

Anderson called Ann
Veitch at the animal house as soon as he got back.

'I thought that you had forgotten about me,' she said. She had the information that Anderson had requested. One of the three guinea pigs had been killed and examined - the one that had infected Allan. The other two were still alive. The cultures used to inject the animals had been sterilized by autoclaving.

'Good,' said Anderson. 'See you in ten minutes.'

Anderson called in on Kerr and told him that two of the test animals were still alive. He suggested that they could prove the combination theory by injecting them with
Galomycin. Kerr agreed and said that he would come with him to the animal house. Anderson explained to Ann Veitch what was going on and asked her to prepare isolation cages for the new experiment.

'This means that Karen is in danger,' said Ann
Veitch. 'She has been working with plasmid-infected animals and taking Galomycin.'

'Yes,' said Kerr, 'she's in danger.'

'How long ... I mean, when will you know?'

'After thirty-six hours the
Galomycin will have cleared from her system and she will be safe,' said Kerr. 'It really all depends on how careful she has been around here and whether she has picked up the plasmid.'

Anderson remembered Karen's carelessness in looking after her capsules and saw that the same thought had been going through Ann
Veitch's head. They exchanged an uncomfortable glance. He noticed that Kerr seemed very morose when they returned to the department. 'Something bothering you?' he asked.

'That junior technician, Karen Davies,' said Kerr.

Anderson could think of nothing reassuring to say.

The flat was cold and quiet when Anderson got in and he found a note from
Fearman saying that he was going home for a couple of days. He lit the gas fire and shivered involuntarily as he poured himself a drink, causing a little whisky to slop over the side of the glass. It was six-thirty; Karen Davies had taken her last Galomycin capsule at three in the afternoon. Anderson started to read the evening paper but found that he could not concentrate and flung it across the floor. He tried television and had the same problem; his eyes kept straying to the mute telephone as if it were about to ring. He had asked the hospital to phone him immediately if Karen Davies should become ill, but in the end he could not accept the silence as assurance that all was well and called to ask. Karen was watching television and eating peanuts; did he want to speak to her?

Anderson called again as soon as he woke in the morning. Karen was fine. She remained very much on his mind throughout the morning but by five in the afternoon he had become confident enough to broach the subject with John Kerr. 'Looks like she got away with it,' he said.

Kerr nodded. 'She's a lucky girl.'

Anderson had been asleep for a little over an hour when the phone rang. It was Staff Nurse Donovan, the night nurse in charge of Linda Vane's ward.
Karen Davies was complaining of a stiff neck and her temperature was rising; Doctors Kerr and Lennox-Adams had been informed.

At three in the morning, tears of winter rain ran down the windows of Karen Davies's room as her life came to an end. Her body arched in uncontrolled spasm as unimagined terrors filled her mind in response to the brain damage wrought by the toxin. Although warned of what might happen, the nurses were still badly shaken by the sight of their patient's agony. For the first time in their career the young ones found themselves praying for death to stop the suffering. Anderson left the room and gripped the handles of a trolley outside till the whites of his knuckles showed through.

'What luck . . . what rotten, fucking luck.'

Kerr put a hand on his shoulder as he passed but did not say anything.

At two on the same afternoon, Anderson received a telexed reply from Tel Aviv. In it, Strauss expressed astonishment that plasmid PZ9 could be lethal under any circumstances. It was his considered opinion that the antibiotic, Galomycin, must have been responsible for the deaths after some chemical change had occurred. Naturally, he would carry out experiments as soon as he received a supply of Galomycin and let them know his findings.

'I hope to God he's right,' said Kerr when he read the telex.

'Why so?’ asked Anderson.

'If
Galomycin is at fault we can all take a course of treatment with another drug, just in case we may have infected ourselves with the Klein plasmid. But if it's the plasmid that's lethal we can't be sure that another antibiotic won't trigger it off.'

'What a thought. Do you want me to screen the staff to find out if anyone's carrying it?'

Kerr stayed silent for a long moment. He finished scraping out the bowl of his pipe with slow deliberation before looking up at Anderson and saying, 'I think not. If it
is
the plasmid that kills, and some of us are contaminated, there's not a damn thing we can do about it . . .'

Anderson was suddenly aware of the tick of the large,
Roman numeral clock on Kerr's wall. 'It's like having an unexploded bomb inside you,' he said.

'Crudely put, but accurate.'

'So you think it's better we don't know?'

'Don't you?'

Anderson sighed and nodded. 'But we'll have to warn everyone about taking medication.'

Kerr nodded. 'No antibiotics for any of us unless it's life or death.'

'And if it is?'

'Then you can screen the person involved.'

Anderson left Kerr and went down to the animal house. He chose not to take the shortcut through the basement, opting instead for the longer walk along the top corridor and down the main stairs with its busts of past medical deans on every landing. As he reached the front door he looked up at the great, wooden war memorial board to those who had fallen in two world wars. The first name on it was 'Anderson'. 'Christ,' he muttered as he walked out on to the wet cobblestones of the quadrangle.

Ann
Veitch looked pale and drawn but was running the lab with the cool efficiency that Anderson had come to expect of her. They spoke briefly about Karen's death but both knew that there was little to be said that helped.