The Perfect Pathogen (23 page)

CHAPTER 39

Ben arrived back at
Natalya’s office shortly before quitting time. He checked his emails and then
checked with Natalya to see what time they were leaving.

Half an-hour later they both got into Natalya’s
car and she started the thirty minute commute to her house. Ben was a little
apprehensive, but he reassured himself that everything was going to be alright.
When they arrived they were greeted excitedly by the girls. Hugs and kisses for
everyone, even Ben. He was liking this more and more.

The table was already set and Anna was getting
ready to serve dinner. Natalya tried to keep the girls to a schedule, eating at
6 p.m. so that after dinner the girls could play awhile. After that, Natasha
did her homework and Nadya was encouraged to play some computer skill games.
Natalya believed that exercising their brains in the evenings was important,
while Anna took care of the physical exercise during the day.

After dinner, the girls played charades with Natalya
and Ben. The girls had been playing this with their mom for as long as they
could remember, and Ben picked it up quickly. Both girls were fluent in Russian
and English, so it made conversation easier for Ben. He was relieved: he did
speak some Russian, but nowhere near the fluency of his children.

After an hour, Anna herded the children away to
their respective rooms for their evening study session. They complained a
little, but they knew resistance was futile. Their mother ruled with an iron
fist when it came to education.

When they had gone, Natalya opened a bottle of red
wine and poured two glasses. They talked about the epidemic, where they thought
it would lead and what the future might hold if generations of people were
suddenly lost. Ben estimated that the equivalent of one generation would be
lost every two months if the epidemic continued unabated. Already, almost one
entire generation had been lost in just a few days. He had a way of putting the
problem in perspective that unnerved Natalya.

About an hour later the girls appeared, all ready
for bed. They gave both Natalya and Ben good night kisses then left for their
rooms with Anna.

“Anna really makes taking care of the girls
doable, doesn’t she?” said Ben.

“Particularly on work nights,” said Natalya. “She
works Monday through Friday from morning to bedtime. I have the weekends,
unless I have to work, and then Anna will work overtime. I try not to let that
happen too often because I want the girls to know me as their mother, not just
someone who comes home in the evening and has dinner with them.”

They talked a bit longer and drank more wine as
they reminisced about mutual friends, and Natalya filled Ben in on the
children’s lives. As they talked, Ben thought he could see a twinkle in
Natalya’s eyes, but he didn’t want to make any assumptions.

“If you show me where my room is I’ll put my bags
in there.”

The guest room was right next to the master
bedroom, on the opposite end of the house from the children’s and Anna’s room.
Ben pulled his luggage into the room and sat down on the bed. “This should be
really comfortable,” he said.

“You know, you don’t have to sleep in here by
yourself,” said Natalya. “We can share my bed like old times, if you like.”

Ben had not expected this on the first night, but
he certainly wasn’t going to turn down the offer. He was trying not to look to
eager, but he couldn’t stop a big smile spreading across his face.

“Ok, that would be nice,” said Ben.

Natalya walked over to him, took his hand and led
him to her room, locking the door behind her. She unzipped her dress and let it
drop to the floor. Ben took her hand and led her to her bed.

“You know, I haven’t been with man since you left
five years ago,” said Natalya.

Ben smiled, pulled her body close to his and
kissed her. In that instant, they both knew that their relationship had changed
and that by being together like this, Natalya was agreeing to let Ben be a part
of her life again, and that he was agreeing to be a partner to her and a real
father to his children.

The next morning, they left for work together and
he held her hand as they walked from the car to the front door to the Ministry
of Health. As they entered the halls, Natalya released him.

“They have a strict rule against public displays
of affection in government buildings in Russia, my darling,” she grinned. He
didn’t mind. From now on he would be able to hold her hand all night, every
night if he wanted to.

Later that morning Ben checked his email and was
excited to see the test results from the baby mammoth’s blood were in. He just
needed Katie’s analysis to determine whether the mammoth was a carrier of SDX.

He forwarded the email to her, with the bold
subject line that read
“MAMMOTH BLOOD TEST RESULTS!!!”
He knew Katie
would be all over this, but he wasn’t going to take any chances.

Ben went down the hall to Natalya’s office to let
her know about the arrival of the information. She looked at Ben in all his
excitement and said, “Honey, you look like a kid in a candy shop. You must have
gotten the blood work back on the mammoth.”

“How did you know?” said Ben.

“Maybe it was the way you ran straight in and are
now jumping from one foot to the other and have a silly grin on your face,’ she
teased.

“Well, I hope you don’t mind, I still get excited
about my work.”

“Not at all, so do I. So, when do you think you
will know if there is a correlation with SDX?”

“With the time difference I expect I’ll have the
answer in about ten hours. Maybe sooner, depending on when Katie makes it into
work today.”

“Isn’t it Katie that has the daughter who is
negative for SDX?” asked Natalya.

“Yes.”

“What do you know about her daughter, anything?”
Natalya asked.

“No, not really. I know she is about twenty years
old and is in school at a community college. That is about it. I have only
known Katie since the start of the epidemic, so I guess that is less than two
weeks now, even though it seems much longer,” said Ben.

“From a clinical standpoint, don’t you think it
would be a good idea to know more about her daughter to determine if there is
something special about her that has given her an immunity?”

“I’ve been so close to the problem that I figured
Sarah or Katie would have brought it up already, that is, if she had some
distinguishing characteristic. I will have to ask Katie later today, after we
get the results from the mammoth blood test,” said Ben. “My bet though is that
Katie may want to protect her child until she has more proof.”

“I can understand that. But ask the question. It
may offer another avenue to explore. I know you’ve been looking for another
negative, but maybe knowing more about her daughter’s physiology and past would
be helpful,” said Natalya.

“I agree totally. I will make that a priority
today. Thanks for the suggestion,” said Ben.

“You know the old saying, two heads are better
than one.”

Ben was kicking himself for not thinking of this
simple common sense approach sooner. He wondered why Katie had not offered up
the idea. He knew Katie wanted to keep her daughter out of the limelight, but
he knew she would understand that having her examined might be beneficial in
the search for a cure. He would make a point of calling her later.

CHAPTER 40

Katie made it into work at
the normal time and was surprised the mammoth blood test results were back
already. And she also knew that having to wait for her to run the analysis
would be driving Ben crazy.

She entered the data into her computer program and
scanned her emails for more blood bank test results while she waited. There
were three more emails, and an additional 9,000 results to analyze. She entered
the data into her algorithm and set the process running. Another 9,000
positives she thought. This would give her a total sample base of 24,000 live
samples. “Why weren’t’ there any negatives?” she wondered to herself.

About thirty minutes later the results for the
mammoth were ready for review. She looked at the data carefully to make sure
all of her assumptions were accurate. Then she looked at the analysis compared
to a normal elephant. It was uncanny how close the elephant’s and the mammoth’s
blood tests were. The only difference was the six tests for SDX. The mammoth’s
sample was abnormal for all six and the elephant was normal for all ten. The
only logical conclusion was that the mammoth had been infected with SDX and had
died early in its life from the disease. It is a shame that there were no
internal organs to analyze for signs of advance aging, she thought.

She immediately drafted an email to Ben.

Hi Ben,

Baby Mammoth has been identified as positive for SDX,
based on an analysis of the results you forwarded. What next? Call me if you
want to discuss.

Katie

The email arrived in Ben’s inbox, 5,000 miles
away, within seconds. He read it and for the second time today was dancing
around the office. Again he ran down the hall and passed on the news to
Natalya.

“Now what are you going to do?” ask Natalya.

“I think we need to analyze the mammoth carcass
that is currently in Washington, to see if we can glean any evidence from it.
It might also be good to take a trip to where the mammoth was found. Are you up
for a cross country excursion?” Ben asked.

How romantic, thought Natalya. “If you think we
will find something that could help us cure this disease, of course.”

“I’m thinking we should take soil samples in the
area to see if there are any contaminants or foreign substances we don’t
normally come in to contact with. I wonder if the area has been preserved?”

“I will make some calls and see what I can find
out. Did you find anything out about Katie’s daughter yet?”

“No, I’m going to call her shortly to discuss the next
steps. I’ll let you know what I find out,” said Ben.

Back in D.C., Katie was analyzing the latest batch
of blood bank samples, expecting the usual stream of positives. But as she
scanned the results, she was astonished to find there was something different
about this batch: one negative sample. Just one. But it was important.

She ran a protocol to sort the samples to find out
exactly which one was negative. It would take a few more minutes, and she held
her breath waiting to see which one of the 9,000 would emerge.

Five minutes later she had isolated the data from
the negative sample. She did a quick visual analysis and it was confirmed
negative. The batch number was 2014740916ATX. She wasn’t sure what that meant,
but someone who was producing the data would surely know.

She picked up the phone and called Sarah. “Hi
Sarah, we have our first negative from the blood bank samples. Do you know who
is coordinating the data collection?”

“I don’t know, Katie. Ben has been handling all of
that. If you email him, I am sure he can get you to the right person. Sounds
like this is a day for progress. First the mammoth news, and now another
negative. Awesome!  Keep up the good work, Katie,” said Sarah.

Katie was drafting an email when the phone rang.
“Dr. McMann, can I help you?”

“Hey Katie, it’s me, Ben. I was calling about the
next steps with the mammoth. We need to get one of our medical forensic teams
to examine the mammoth’s carcass to determine if there is anything we can tie
to SDX, now that we know the mammoth was a carrier or even was possibly killed
by SDX or something similar. Will you let Sarah know?  I think she will want to
coordinate that,” said Ben.

“Sure, I will take care of that, but I was just
writing you an email. We got our first negative on a blood bank sample. I have
isolated the sample number, but now I need to know who to contact to track down
the donor,” said Katie.

“Give me the sample number and I will tell you
where it’s from,” said Ben.

“The number is 2014740916ATX.”

“Okay, that means the sample was taken in 2014 in
Austin, Texas. There are probably a dozen donation centers in Austin, so you’ll
need to contact Mary Jones at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta and she can
figure this out for you. She is supervising all the blood testing operations.”

“Thanks for the information. I will email her with
a copy to you. Will she understand that it is urgent?” Katie asked.

“Just mention the fact that you are working on SDX
data with me and she will give it the highest priority. We need to find the
person and have him or her examined by a doctor who can give us a full report.
I hope the person is cooperative,” said Ben. “That reminds me, I never asked
you about your daughter. Your daughter is negative too. Have we had a doctor
evaluate her to determine if there is a lead we can follow?”

“The subject never came up and I guess as a mother
I didn’t think about having my daughter subjected to that type of scrutiny
yet,” said Katie.

“Well, can you tell me a little bit about her for
our comparison?  Is she in good health?”

“She is in relatively good health considering her
disability,” said Katie.

“What kind of disability does she have?” asked
Ben.

“She has Down syndrome. However, she is very
healthy and does well in her classes at the community college, and she is
working as an intern at the County Government Offices.”

Alarm bells were going off now in Ben’s head. “I
wonder if Down syndrome, which is a genetic disorder, could be responsible for
her immunity,” Ben replied. “It is possible, but not certain. It will be
interesting to compare the health of the other negative to make a determination
if Downs or any kind of genetic disorder, plays a role at all.”

“Initially I wondered the same thing, but then I
discounted it based on…” Katie paused for a moment. “You know, I don’t know
what I based it on. It just didn’t seem to make any sense to me at the time.”

“I would have to agree with you Katie, but we have
to investigate every avenue if we are going to have a chance at finding a
cure,” said Ben.

“Well, let me get working on finding out who this
negative is so we can make the comparison,” said Katie.

“Good idea. Also, I am going to do a few blood
samples here and send them to you for analysis. There are some specific people
we want to know about. I should have that data to you by tomorrow afternoon.
You’re doing great work Katie, keep it up,” Ben exclaimed.

“Well, you too Ben!”  Katie replied as she said
good-bye.

They hung up and Katie emailed Mary Jones. She
responded almost immediately and the search was underway. Mary would coordinate
tracking down the individual donor and she would facilitate the physical exam.
She would send the results to Katie as soon as she had them.

After hanging up the phone, Ben went down the hall
to talk to Natalya.

“Natalya, I think we should have you and the girls
tested,” said Ben.

“I thought you said that everyone who has been
tested has been positive with the exception of Katie’s daughter?” said Natalya.

“I just got off the phone with Katie and they
found a second negative case. They are trying to locate the person so they can
give them a physical exam,” said Ben.

“That is great news. What about Katie’s daughter?”

“That is why I want to test you and the girls.
Katie’s daughter has Down syndrome. That might be why she is immune. I think we
should test you, Natasha and Nadya to determine if you are all positive. I have
a hunch that Nadya might be negative,” said Ben.

“Are you saying that you think the disease is
attacking the genetic structure of its host and that those with the genetic
structure of Down syndrome are protected from this particular pathogen?” asked
Natalya.

“Maybe. Do you have a better theory?”

“No, but the DNA/genetic testing we are doing
might provide a window into how this disease works if you are correct,” said
Natalya.

“I agree. Do you think we can get the girls’ blood
drawn today and send their samples to a lab for immediate testing?” Ben asked.

“Sure, we can do it all right here. I will go pick
up the girls and bring them in this afternoon. We should have the results by
tomorrow morning. Ben, I hope you are right. I hate to put them through this
for nothing,” said Natalya.

“At this point, I think it’s worth knowing,” said
Ben.

Katie received an email from Mary Jones four hours
later.

Hi Katie,

We have identified the individual donor. We are
attempting to make contact. We have also contracted with a doctor to be ready
to perform a physical exam. We are hoping to have the report by 6:00 p.m.
Austin time today. That would be 7:00 p.m. Washington, D.C. time. I will keep
you posted.

Mary

Katie knew she would be in for a late night, but
it was well worth it. Finally, they could compare two people who are not
showing symptoms of SDX. She was beating herself up with the thought that she
should have pursued the Down syndrome angle sooner. She decided to ask Sarah
for permission to test the staff and students at Rob’s Center to see if there
was any correlation.