Unnatural Exposure (29 page)

'I'm calling this terrorism.'

'The point of it being what?'

'We don't know that yet,' Wesley told him.

'But this is far worse than any Tylenol killer or Unabomber,' I said. 'The destruction they cause is limited to whoever takes the capsules or opens the package. With a virus, it's going to spread far beyond the primary victim.'

'Dr Martin, what can you tell us about this particular virus?' Miles said.

'We have four traditional methods for testing for smallpox.' He stared stiffly at us from his screen. 'Electron microscopy, with which we have observed a direct visualization of variola.'

'Smallpox?' Miles almost shouted. 'You're sure about that?'

'Hold on,' Martin interrupted him. 'Let me finish. We also got a verification of antigenic identity using agar gel. Now, chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane culture, other tissue cultures are going to take two, three days. So we don't have those results now, but we do have PCR. It verified a pox. We just don't know which one. It's very odd, nothing currently known, not monkeypox, whitepox. Not classic variola major or minor, although it seems to be related.'

'Dr Scarpetta,' Fujitsubo spoke. 'Can you tell me what's in this facial spray, as best you know?'

'Distilled water and a fragrance. There were no ingredients listed, but generally that's what sprays like this are,' I said.

He was making notes. 'Sterile?' He looked back at us from the monitor.

'I would hope so, since the directions encourage you to spray it over your face and contact lenses,' I replied.

'Then my question,' Fujitsubo went on via satellite, 'is what kind of shelf life might we expect these contaminated sprays to have? Variola isn't all that stable in moist conditions.'

'A good point,' Martin said, adjusting his ear piece. 'It does very well when dried, and at room temperature can survive months to a year. It is sensitive to sunlight, but inside the atomizers, that wouldn't be a problem. Doesn't like heat, which, unfortunately, makes this an ideal time of year.'

'Then depending on what people do when they have these delivered,' I said, 'there could be a lot of duds out there.'

'Could be,' Martin hoped.

Wesley said, 'Clearly, the offender we're looking for is knowledgeable of infectious diseases.'

'Has to be,' Fujitsubo said. 'The virus had to be cultured, propagated, and if this is, in fact, terrorism, then the perpetrator is very familiar with basic laboratory techniques. He knew how to handle something like this and keep himself protected. We're assuming only one person is involved?'

'My theory, but the answer is, we don't know,' Wesley said.

'He calls himself deadoc,' I said.

'As in Doctor Death?' Fujitsubo frowned. 'He's telling us he's a doctor?'

Again, it was hard to say, but the question that was most troublesome was also the hardest to ask.

'Dr Martin,' I said as Martinez silently leaned back in his chair, listening. 'Allegedly, your facility and a laboratory in Russia are the only two sources of the viral isolates. Any thoughts on how someone got hold of this?'

'Exactly,' Wesley said. 'Unpleasant thought that it may be, we need to check your list of employees. Any recent firings, layoffs? Anybody quit during recent months and years?'

'Our source supply of variola virus is as meticulously monitored and inventoried as plutonium.' Martin answered with confidence. 'I personally have already checked into this and can tell you with certainty that nothing has been tampered with. Nothing is missing. And it is not possible to get into one of the locked freezers without authorization and knowledge of alarm codes.'

No one spoke right away.

Then Wesley said, 'I think it would be a good idea for us to have a list of those people who have had such authorization over the past five years. Initially, based on experience, I am profiling this individual as a white male, possibly in his early forties. Most likely he lives alone, but if he doesn't or he dates, he has a part of his residence that is off limits, his lab . . .'

'So we're probably talking about a former lab worker,' the S. A. C. said.

'Or someone like that,' Wesley said. 'Someone educated, trained. This person is introverted, and I base this on a number of things, not the least of which is his tendency to write in the lower case. His refusal to use punctuation indicates his belief that he is not like other people and the same rules do not apply to him. He is not talkative and may be considered aloof or shy by associates. He has time on his hands, and most important, feels he has been mistreated by the system. He feels he is due an apology by the highest office in the land, by our government, and I believe this is key to this perpetrator's motivation.'

'Then this is revenge,' I said. 'Plain and simple.'

'It's never plain or simple. I wish it were,' Wesley said. 'But I do think revenge is key, which is why it is important that all government agencies that deal with infectious diseases get us the records of any employees reprimanded, fired, laid off, furloughed or whatever, in recent months and years.'

Fujitsubo cleared his throat. 'Well, let's talk logistics, then.'

It was the Coast Guard's turn to present a plan. Martinez got up from his chair and fastened large maps to flip charts, as camera angles were adjusted so our remote guests could see.

'Can you get these in?' Martinez asked the agent at the console.

'Got them,' she said. 'How about you?' She looked up at the monitors.

'Fine.'

'I don't know. Maybe if you could zoom in more.'

She moved the camera in closer as Martinez got out a laser pointer. He directed its intense pink dot at the Maryland-Virginia line in the Chesapeake Bay that cut through Smith Island, just north of Tangier.

'We got a number of islands going up this way toward Fishing Bay and the Nanticoke River, in Maryland. There's Smith Island. South Marsh Island. Bloodsworth Island.' The pink dot hopped to each one. 'Then we're on the mainland. And you got Crisfield down here, which is only fifteen nautical miles from Tangier.' He looked at us. 'Crisfield's where a lot of watermen bring in their crabs. And a lot of Tangier folks have relatives in Crisfield. I'm real worried about that.'

'And I'm worried that the Tangiermen are not going to cooperate,' Miles said. 'A quarantine is going to cut off their only source of income.'

'Yes, sir,' Martinez said, looking at his watch. 'And we're cutting it off even as we speak. We got boats, cutters coming in from as far away as Elizabeth City to help us circle the island.'

'So as of now, no one's leaving,' Fujitsubo said as his face continued to reign over us from the video screen.

'That's right.'

'Good.'

'What if people resist?' I asked the obvious question. 'What are you going to do with them? You can't take them into custody and risk exposure.'

Martinez hesitated. He looked up at Fujitsubo on the video screen. 'Commander, would you like to field this one, sir?' he asked.

'We've actually already discussed this at great length,' Fujitsubo said to us. 'I have spoken to the secretary of the Department of Transportation, to Vice Admiral Perry, and of course, the Secretary of Defense. Basically, this thing is speeding its way up to the White House for authorization.'

'Authorization for what?' It was Miles who asked.

'To use deadly force, if all else fails,' Martinez said to all of us.

'Christ,' Wesley muttered.

I listened in disbelief, staring up at doomsday gods.

'We have no choice,' Fujitsubo spoke calmly. 'If people panic and start fleeing the island and do not heed Coast Guard warnings, they will -- not if -- but will bring smallpox onto the mainland. And we're talking about a population which either has not been vaccinated in thirty years. Or an immunization done so long ago it's no longer effective. Or a disease that has mutated to the extent that our present vaccine is not protective. There isn't a good scenario, in other words.'

I didn't know if I felt sick to my stomach because I wasn't well or because of what I'd just heard. I thought of that weather-beaten fishing village with its leaning headstones and wild, quiet people who just wanted to be left alone. They weren't the sort to obey anyone, for they answered to a higher power of God and storms.

'There must be another way,' I said.

But there wasn't.

'By reputation, smallpox is a highly contagious infectious disease. This outbreak must be contained,' Fujitsubo exclaimed the obvious. 'We've got to worry about houseflies hovering around patients, and crabs headed for the mainland. How do we know we don't have to worry about the possibility of mosquito transmission, as in Tanapox, for God's sake? We don't even know what all we've got to worry about since we can't fully identify the disease yet.'

Martin looked at me. 'We've already got teams out there, nurses, doctors, bed isolators so we can keep these people out of hospitals and leave them in their homes.'

'What about dead bodies, contamination?' I asked him.

'In terms of United States law, this constitutes a Class One public health emergency.'

'I realize that,' I said, impatiently, for he was getting bureaucratic on me. 'Cut to the chase.'

'Burn all but the patient. Bodies will be cremated. The Pruitt house will be torched.'

Fujitsubo tried to reassure us. 'USAMRIID's got a team heading out. We'll be talking to citizens, trying to make them understand.'

I thought of Davy Crockett and his son, of people and their panic when space-suited scientists took over their island and started burning their homes.

'And we know for a fact that the smallpox vaccine isn't going to work?' Wesley said.

'We don't know that for a fact yet.' Martin answered. 'Tests on laboratory animals will take days to weeks. And even if vaccination is protective in an animal model, this may not translate into protection for humans.'

'Since the DNA of the virus has been altered,' Fujitsubo warned, 'I am not hopeful that vaccinia virus will be effective.'

'I'm not a doctor or anything,' Martinez said, 'but I'm just wondering if you could vaccinate everyone anyway, just in case it might work.'

'Too risky,' Martin said. 'If it's not smallpox, why deliberately expose people to smallpox, thereby possibly causing some people to get the disease? And when we develop the new vaccine, we're not going to want to come back several weeks later and vaccinate people again, this time with a different pox.'

'In other words,' Fujitsubo said, 'we can't use the people of Tangier like laboratory animals. If we keep them on that island and then get a vaccine out to them as soon as possible, we should be able to contain this thing. The good news about smallpox is it's a stupid virus, kills its hosts so fast it will burn itself out if you can keep it restricted to one area.'

'Right. So an entire island gets destroyed while we sit back and watch it burn,' Miles angrily said to me. 'I can't believe this. Goddamn it.' He pounded his fist on the table. 'This can't be happening in Virginia!'

He got out of his chair. 'Gentlemen. I would like to know what we should do if we start getting patients in other parts of this state. The health of Virginia, after all, is what the governor appointed me to take care of.' His face was dark red and he was sweating. 'Are we supposed to just do like the Yankees and start burning down our cities and towns?'

'Should this spread,' Fujitsubo said, 'clearly we'll have to utilize our hospitals, have wards, just as we did during earlier times. CDC and my people are already alerting local medical personnel, and will work with them closely.'

'We realize that hospital personnel are at the greatest risk,' Martin added. 'Sure would be nice if Congress would end this goddamn furlough so I don't have one hand and both legs tied behind my back.'

'Believe me, the president, Congress, knows.'

'Senator Nagle assures me it will end by tomorrow morning.'

'They're always certain, say the same thing every time.'

The swelling and itching of the revaccination site on my arm was a constant reminder that I had been inoculated with a virus probably for nothing. I complained to Wesley all the way out to the parking lot.

'I've been reexposed, and I'm sick with something, meaning I'm probably immunosuppressed, on top of it all.'

'How do you know you don't have it?' he carefully asked.

'I don't know.'

'Then you could be infectious.'

'No, I couldn't be. A rash is the first sign of that, and I check myself daily. At the slightest hint of such a thing, I would go back into isolation. I would not come within one hundred feet of you or anybody else, Benton,' I said, my anger unreasonably spiking at his suggestion that I might risk infecting anyone with even a mundane cold.

He glanced over at me as he unlocked doors, and I knew that he was far more upset than he would let on. 'What do you want me to do, Kay?'

'Take me home so I can get my car,' I said.

Daylight was fading fast as I followed miles of woods thick with pines. Fields were fallow with tufts of cotton still clinging to dead stalks, and the sky was moist and cold like thawing cake. When I had gotten home from the meeting, there had been a message from Rose. At two P. M., Keith Pleasants had called from jail, desperately requesting that I come see him, and Wingo had gone home with the flu.