Containment Read online

  "That's what I don't know," said Gordon. But Jennifer had told him that Pradeep had once threatened to sabotage her cell cultures if her technicians did not keep to their side of the hood. If he'd actually said something like that, Gordon was certain that it had been spoken in the heat of the moment. And Jennifer had an occasional temper too—who knows what she might have said. Gordon didn't believe that either scientist would consider for even a moment actually doing anything so childish and spiteful, but if their technicians and lab workers had taken any of those statements too seriously, then it was something that had to be looked into.

  "All I can tell you," said Pradeep, "is that to the best of my knowledge there has been absolutely no misconduct in my laboratory. Or, as far as I know, in Jennifer's laboratory either."

  Gordon patted Pradeep's back. "I'm sure you're right."

  Leaving the cell transfer room, Gordon walked down the hallway. There was nothing he could do, short of interviewing the lab technicians—and he didn't want to do that without the express permission of the scientists. He believed Pradeep's denial, and he didn't want to stir up any more trouble than necessary.

  But there was a niggling worry—Jennifer. It wasn't like her to be absent without leaving word. She was as hard-working as the rest of the staff.

  When Gordon reached his office a voice came over the speaker phone: "Hiya, Dad."

  Gordon stepped inside and closed the door. His teen-aged son's voice was deepening. Gordon smiled, thinking back to the time when he was his son's age. A wonderful, exciting time; when Gordon was a teenager he never felt the angst of growing up, he had been too focused on the many things in this world to do and see and think about.

  But sometimes when he noticed his son was growing up, Gordon became sad. He wasn't sad for his son, but for himself—Gordon realized he was getting old. Every once in a while he felt like his life was slipping away.

  "Hello, Jeff," said Gordon into the microphone.

  "I set the phone on automatic callback so it would switch on the minute you got into the office."

  "So I noticed." Gordon sat on the edge of his desk.

  "Catch you at a bad time?"

  "No, not particularly."

  "You sure? You sound like you're facing a firing squad or something."

  "No," said Gordon. His gut tightened but he tried to pay no attention to it. "No firing squad. And no more crises than usual."

  "That's good, cause Mom wants to know if you can drop by this weekend. We need you to operate the grill."

  "Pretty early in the year for a cook-out, isn't it, Brad? It's not even Memorial Day."

  "Yeah, but come on, Dad. It's been a long winter."

  Gordon nodded. "True enough." Could be a long spring, too, he thought idly. Then he perked up. Why was he so worried? It's not like anything bad had happened. Yet.

  "You know Mom can't operate the grill. Too many buttons." Brad laughed. Needling his mother about her lack of technical sophistication was one of his favorite pastimes.

  "Why can't you do it?"

  "Because I'm gonna be tired from practice!"

  Baseball season was coming up. Gordon recalled that he'd promised Brad's coach to help out this year.

  "What do you say, Dad?"

  "I don't know," said Gordon, frowning.

  "Aw, come on, you work too much."

  That, Gordon knew. Knew and realized a long time ago, and was the reason why he was going home this evening to an empty condominium instead of a comfortable suburban home. "We'll see. I'll call you later. Bye, Jeff. Say hi to Einstein for me."

  Brad laughed at hearing his mother's nickname.

  Sitting down in his chair, Gordon wrestled with the urge to call Jennifer at home. Finally he gave in.

  A man answered the phone. "Hello?"

  Gordon recognized Jennifer's husband, whom he'd met a few times at the company's Christmas parties. "Hi. Sorry to bother you. Can I speak to Jennifer?"

  "I'm afraid she's under the weather."

  Gordon felt a chill run down his spine.

  "She's just fallen asleep," said her husband, "and I don't want to wake her. It's not anything important, is it?"

  "She's...not too ill, is she?"

  "Oh no, nothing like that. Probably just a cold."

  "Call me back if the symptoms worsen," said Gordon quickly.

  The man paused. "Anything wrong?"

  "No, no," said Gordon. "Just worried about one of our best scientists, that's all."

  "I don't think there's any need to worry," said the man cheerfully.

  Gordon couldn't think of anything else to say, so he awkwardly mumbled goodbye.

  He rested his head in his hands. Twice he thought about making another call. Once he almost started to punch in the number, but he didn't. He just sat in his office, feeling torn and miserable.

  Medburg, Pennsylvania / 4:45 p.m.

  The sun was low and Moshatowie Creek was in shadow. Cecily Sunday, mouth and nose covered with an ultrafine mask and filter, stepped up to the running water. The creek was shallow here, a foot and a half deep, ten feet across. With nitrile gloves she dipped a thirty milliliter vial into the creek, let it fill, then took it out and quickly capped and labeled it. She opened her sample bag. The vial joined a dozen others, clanking gently as it dropped in.

  Somewhere in the trees an owl cried, "Whooooo."

  "That's what we'd all like to know," muttered Cecily through the mask. Gingerly she stepped along the creek bank and periodically scanned the ground, sometimes while bending over, sometimes squatting down. Finally she found what she was looking for and extracted a thin plastic envelope from her bag. With forceps she carefully scooped up a small dried pellet, brownish black in color and the size of a rice grain. After inserting it into the envelope she dropped it, too, in the sample bag—which was getting full.

  Cecily stood up and glanced toward the trees. "Either you and your friends are voracious," she said to the owl, "or we've got a definite problem around here."

  Walking out of the woods—a narrow strip of vegetation in an otherwise urban jungle—Cecily's cell phone beeped. She uttered a curse.

  "Cessal," said a voice from the speaker, muffled by Cecily's dark slacks.

  She stripped off the mask, bagged it, and stuffed it in the sample bag. "Yes, Kraig," she said, crossing the last patch of weeds and reaching the sidewalk. Traffic along the street was picking up, the beginning of rush hour. She got in the car and started the engine.

  "Mmmf onna profress?"

  Cecily sighed and pulled out her cell. "I'd make more progress if you didn't keep interrupting me."

  "What have we got?"

  "A lot of creek water, a few mouse turds, some rat turds, some insects, and swabs of public telephones, door handles, and water fountains around the city."

  "I don't have to tell you, I know, to be extra careful with those samples."

  There was a moment of silence. Cecily clamped the cell onto a dashboard clip and pulled the car out into the street. Then she said: "You mean I should have washed my hands before eating?"

  Kraig didn't rise to the bait. "How's Lisa doing?"

  "She's making the rounds at the local hospital and clinics." Cecily didn't say anything about seeing Lisa putting on lipstick just after they swabbed the site where one of the victims expired. Lisa had even lifted her fingers almost up to her lips before Cecily warned her. Sure, she's green, thought Cecily, that's to be expected; but all it takes is one mistake and you're the next victim.

  "What have you learned about the victims?"

  "One was a homeless man, aged 54. Apparently he'd been hanging around the neighborhood for a few months, doing odd jobs. Probably as a lookout for one of the dope dealers, and other, more mundane jobs, like sweeping up, stocking shelves, that sort of thing. Witnesses said they'd seen him recently, but he didn't look sick. Seemed harmless, didn't bother anybody. The other victim was 42, current address the same as his girlfriend. Except one of their neighbors told me th
ey had had a fight and she threw him out a few days ago. Seems he went on a bender every once in a while and could get pretty rowdy."

  "What did she say? The girlfriend?"

  "Can't find her yet. No one answers the door."

  "You know where she works?"

  "Yes, but she's not there right now. Or at least that's what they tell me. I gather she's not very communicative."

  Kraig paused. "He do any hard stuff? Supplementing the alcohol?"

  Cecily pulled the car to the curb and came to a stop. She looked around the neighborhood. "If it's needles you're thinking about, there's plenty enough in these parts. It's a possibility. Other stuff comes to mind too. Lots of drugs in this neighborhood."

  "He have anywhere to go after he got kicked out?"

  "I'm still checking. I don't think so. According to one person I talked to he wasn't too friendly and didn't have a lot of pals. At least none that would let him crash at their place for a while."

  "So, in effect, he was also homeless."

  "Looks that way." Cecily got her bearings. She saw the glimmering yellow police tape and realized she was near the site of one of the victims.

  "Anything else?" asked Kraig.

  "One more thing." Cecily sighed. "I don't like this. I don't like any of this."

  Another pause—as if Kraig was afraid to ask. Finally he said, "What?"

  "There are too few rodents. Plenty of old turds, not so many fresh ones."

  "Seen any bodies?"

  "Not a one. Nothing unusual about that. Except for road kills and predation, small animals die in their holes."

  She paused, letting the silence stretch out for a few seconds. Kraig didn't interrupt.

  "And this neighborhood," she continued. "You know, I bet hundreds of people walked right past those victims lying on the street and never gave them a second thought."

  "That doesn't mean much." Kraig's voice grew defensive. "Happens in a lot of cities with a big homeless problem. You get used to seeing people lying on benches or the sidewalk. In the winter they huddle around steam vents in the bigger cities. People don't give them a second glance. Some people not even a first one. Sidewalk squatters can die and stay around for a day or more until someone notices they haven't moved in a while."

  "I'm not judging anyone. I'll leave that up to the guys in the pulpits. All I'm saying is, I don't like this."

  "So what you're thinking is that something's killing the wildlife. And if there's a crisis, the people probably aren't going to be cooperative."

  Cecily said, "What's Sherlock think?"

  "Can't reach him."

  Cecily smirked. "Because he's currently the musician?"

  "It takes time—"

  "We might not have much time, Kraig. Can't you do something?"

  "Like what? He'll only change when he wants to. He's on break and there's not much we can do about it. You ever met the musician?"

  "No, but I know Sherlock," said Cecily, frowning. "That's bad enough. So, what's Chet think?" Cecily waited a few seconds—she could swear that she heard Kraig grimace.

  "Chet's optimistic. A few of the CDC people have been making cooing noises. It's some type of inorganic food poisoning, they say. Nothing to fret about."

  "What do you think, Kraig?"

  Another long pause. "Would I have sent you out if I didn't think I had to?"

  * * *

  A tired and irritated Lisa Murdoch walked out of the hospital on Brixton Road. She carried a stack of papers. The nurses and physicians she'd talked to had given her plenty of information—too much information—but no one would give her access to the hospital's electronic records without explicit authorization. Patient confidentiality issue, they'd said. She'd gathered the data the old-fashioned way: graphite tool on toothed paper. Her handwriting, she noticed, was scarcely better than a physician's. She was out of practice.

  Reaching the car, Lisa punched the remote to unlock the rental car. She tossed the papers onto the passenger seat and threw herself across to the driver's seat. "Ouch," she cried, sitting up and rubbing her right wrist.

  Damn that cranky old bitch!

  She wrestled her cell phone out of her purse and punched Kraig Drennan's number at Bethesda.

  "Dr. Kraig Drennan is presently occupied," intoned the synthesized voice of the multi-million dollar communication system. "You have been placed on the waiting list. Priority callers may enter the access code—"

  Lisa tuned the rest of it out. She clipped the phone and sat back, trying to relax into the soft, comfortable seat. Got to hand it to Chet, she thought; as a director he might be dead wood, but at least he didn't skimp on expense accounts. Good cars, fine hotels, and the best restaurants, courtesy of a government credit card. He knew how to take care of his people. She doubted Kraig Drennan would be that generous.

  But she didn't enjoy it as much as she would have thought. Maybe it was because of Cecily. Lisa palpated the sore wrist with the fingers of her other hand.

  "I've got to give you credit," she muttered, picturing in her mind's eye the auburn-haired fiend—dressed in black, as usual. "Those bony fingers of yours have a fierce grip." Strong fingers and sharp fingernails. A claw. No, Lisa thought, giggling. Talon.

  Lisa recalled what the bird of prey had squawked at her. "You're too young for a coffin, don't you think?" And then she'd grabbed Lisa's wrist with that talon of hers. Lisa's face grew red just thinking about it. Then she'd had to listen to her harangue, five long minutes of it. All because Lisa had the temerity to touch up her lipstick. And, God forbid, she had absently stretched a finger toward her lips! Not that she would have touched them. Besides, she'd been wearing nitriles the whole time they'd taken those samples.

  How many people were walking around this area doing the same thing? You didn't see them falling over dead. People were everywhere, all over the streets, and none of them cared in the slightest about those bodies. They were eating, drinking, smoking, licking their fingers, picking their noses. Christ, that old bird had just wanted to get to her, just wanted to mess with her head. Lisa knew the type. They hated newly minted Ph.D.'s. They didn't have the terminal degree on their résumé and so they resented those who did. It was all political, it was envy and spite.

  Sighing, Lisa shifted the papers to her lap. Probably all of this data was worthless too.

  "Lisa?" Kraig's voice came over the cell.

  "Here."

  "What've you got?"

  "I've visited several clinics and the hospital." Lisa recited the list, ending with the hospital on Brixton. "I talked with health-care providers and statisticians about unusual cases."

  "Don't tell me, I already know. There are plenty of them."

  Lisa let out a big sigh. "I've got more than four dozen."

  "Naturally. Don't let it get you down, it's par for the course. You go into a hospital and start asking about anything out of the ordinary and suddenly physicians, especially the young ones, start bringing you stacks and stacks of cases. Medicine has never been an exact science and doctors see patients all the time who don't present textbook symptoms. So there's going to be a lot of data, and many false alarms. It means a lot of work but we'll just have to plow through it."

  Unusual cases, thought Lisa. And misdiagnoses. Hypochondria. She leafed through the papers.

  "The present circumstances have made our situation a lot worse," added Kraig, "because we have no idea what sort of symptoms we're looking for. So they gave you everything."

  Lisa frowned. "Want symptoms? There's a ton of symptoms here. I bet there isn't a symptom in Merck's that's not buried in this data somewhere. Scratchy throats, upset stomachs, runny noses, prickly rashes...."

  "I expect a copy of that data to be transmitted here pronto. All of it."

  "Be my guest."

  "Lisa." Kraig's voice took on a dangerous tone. "If you don't have any enthusiasm for the job then I'll find someone who does."

  She paused. This was her first big break. And already the boss was g
iving her a hard time. "It'd be better," she complained, "if you'd replace Cecily Sunday."

  "There's one problem with that. She knows what she's doing and you don't, at least not yet. You got that?"

  Through clenched teeth Lisa said, "Yes, sir."

  * * *

  Cecily pulled onto Glaser Avenue, one of the main streets that ran through the city. Rush hour traffic had built up in the last thirty minutes so she pulled into an empty parking spot along the street. She inserted the Micro-Investigation Unit's card into the parking meter but the expiration flag remained lit. She had to reinsert the card several times before the meter turned green. The city probably hadn't worked out the kinks; the meters appeared to be newly installed, possibly on a grant from the state or some federal agency and trumpeted by the district's representatives, who were anxious to show voters that they were looking after the folks, getting those fancy parking meters—see how much progress we're making? Or maybe the meters weren't new, perhaps they were just like almost everything else in Medburg—too tired and depressed to care much about anything.

  The sidewalks on both side of the street were busy. Teenagers: swaggering walks and expressive clothes, glittering, raunchy, loud. Clerks wearing hunted looks. The elderly, hobbling along on canes, one even riding a motorized cart. Just the one; Cecily hadn't seen any other carts. Not enough well-to-do elderly around here. Probably for the best, she thought, glancing at the cracked and aging pavement—quite an obstacle course.

  Out of the corner of her eye Cecily saw two men giving her a long look. Calmly she glanced their way. They were standing on the street corner.

  Dealers. There were some at every intersection. And when night falls they'd be joined, Cecily knew, by other people, with other kinds of products and services to sell.

  Decaying neighborhood. No; it was past decaying, it'd been sliding for a generation or two. Once, long ago, it'd been vibrant and optimistic, but not now. It was already decayed, it was well into its postmortem stage. A poverty-stricken, drug-infested, rodent haven; a violent, dreary, hell hole. A paradise for addicts, felons on the run, weapon merchants, four-legged mammals, and fecal bacteria.

  It's my kind of neighborhood, thought Cecily. She closed her eyes and soaked up the misery, despair, neglect, frustration, and all those ruined dreams.