Contagion

by Robin Cook

  Jack reintroduced himself.

  “I remember you,” Igor said. “Did you have any luck with the probes?”

  “I did,” Jack said. “Thank you again for sending them. But now I have a few more questions.”

  “I’ll try to answer them,” Igor said.

  “Does National Biologicals also sell influenza cultures?” Jack asked.

  “Indeed,” Igor said. “Viruses are a big part of our business, including influenza. We have many strains, particularly type A.”

  “Do you have the strain that caused the epidemic in 1918?” Jack asked. He just wanted to be one hundred percent certain.

  “We wish!” Igor said with a laugh. “I’m sure that strain would be popular with researchers. No, we don’t have it, but we have some that are probably similar, like the strain of the ‘76 swine-flu scare. It’s generally believed that the 1918 strain was a permutation of H1N1, but exactly what, no one knows.”

  “My next question concerns plague and tularemia,” Jack said.

  “We carry both,” Igor said.

  “I’m aware of that,” Jack said. “What I would like to know is who has ordered either of those two cultures in the last few months.”

  “I’m afraid we don’t usually give that information out,” Igor said.

  “I can understand that,” Jack said. For a moment Jack feared he would have to get Lou Soldano involved just to get the information he wanted. But then he thought he could possibly talk Igor into giving it to him. After all, Igor had been careful to say that such information wasn’t “usually” given out.

  “Perhaps you’d like to talk to our president,” Igor suggested.

  “Let me tell you why I want to know,” Jack said. “As a medical examiner I’ve seen a couple of deaths recently with these pathogens. We’d just like to know which labs we should warn. Our interest is preventing any more accidents.”

  “And the deaths were due to our cultures?” Igor asked.

  “That was why I wanted the probes,” Jack said. “We suspected as much but needed proof.”

  “Hmm,” Igor said. “I don’t know if that should make me feel more or less inclined to give out information.”

  “It’s just an issue of safety,” Jack said.

  “Well, that sounds reasonable,” Igor said. “It’s not as if it’s a secret. We share our customer lists with several equipment manufacturers. Let me see what I can find here at my workstation.”

  “To make it easier for you, narrow the field to labs in the New York metropolitan area,” Jack said.

  “Fair enough,” Igor said. Jack could hear the man typing on his keyboard. “We’ll try tularemia first. Here we go.”

  There was a pause.

  “Okay,” Igor said. “We have sent tularemia to the National Health hospital and to the Manhattan General Hospital. That’s it; at least for the last couple of months.”

  Jack sat more upright, especially knowing that National Health was the major competitor of AmeriCare. “Can you tell me when these cultures went out?”

  “I think so,” Igor said. Jack could hear more typing. “Okay, here we are. The National Health shipment went out on the twenty-second of this month, and the Manhattan General shipment went out on the fifteenth.”

  Jack’s enthusiasm waned slightly. By the twenty-second he’d already made the diagnosis of tularemia in Susanne Hard. That eliminated National Health for the time being. “Does it show who the receiver was on the Manhattan General shipment?” Jack asked. “Or was it just the lab itself?”

  “Hold on,” Igor said as he switched screens again. “It says that the consignee was a Dr. Martin Cheveau.”

  Jack’s pulse quickened. He was uncovering information that very few people would know could be discoverable. He doubted that even Martin Cheveau was aware that National Biologicals phage-typed their cultures.

  “What about plague?” Jack asked.

  “Just a moment,” Igor said while he made the proper entries.

  There was another pause. Jack could hear Igor’s breathing.

  “Okay, here it is,” Igor said. “Plague’s not a common item ordered on the East Coast outside of academic or reference labs. But there was one shipment that went out on the eighth. It went to Frazer Labs.”

  “I’ve never heard of them,” Jack said. “Do you have an address?”

  “Five-fifty Broome Street,” Igor said.

  “How about a consignee?” Jack asked as he wrote down the address.

  “Just the lab itself,” Igor said.

  “Do you do much business with them?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t know,” Igor said. He made another entry. “They send us orders now and then. It must be a small diagnostic lab. But there’s one thing strange.”

  “What’s that?” Jack asked.

  “They always pay with a cashier’s check,” Igor said. “I’ve never seen that before. It’s okay, of course, but customers usually have established credit.”

  “Is there a telephone number?” Jack asked.

  “Just the address,” Igor said, which he repeated.

  Jack thanked Igor for his help and hung up the phone. Taking out the phone directory, he looked up Frazer Labs. There was no listing. He tried information but had the same luck.

  Jack sat back. Once again he’d gotten information he didn’t expect. He now had two sources of the offending bacteria. Since he already knew something about the lab at the Manhattan General, he thought he’d better visit Frazer Labs. If there was some way he could establish an association with the two labs or with Martin Cheveau personally, he’d turn everything over to Lou Soldano.

  The first problem was the concern about being followed. The previous evening he’d thought he’d been so clever but had been humbled by Shawn Magoginal. Yet to give himself credit, he had to remember that Shawn was an expert. The Black Kings certainly weren’t. But to make up for their lack of expertise, the Black Kings were ruthless. Jack knew he’d have to lose a potential tail rapidly since they had clearly demonstrated a total lack of compunction about attacking him in public.

  There was also the collateral worry about Warren and his gang. Jack didn’t know what to think about them. He had no idea of Warren’s state of mind. It was something Jack would have to face in the near future.

  To lose any tail Jack wanted a crowded location with multiple entrances and exits. Immediately Grand Central Terminal and the Port Authority Bus Terminal came to mind. He decided on the former since it was closer.

  Jack wished there were some underground way of getting over to the NYU Medical Center to help him get away from the office, but there wasn’t. Instead he settled on a radio-dispatched taxi service. He directed the dispatcher to have the car pick him up at the receiving bay of the morgue.

  Everything seemed to work perfectly. The car came quickly. Jack slipped in from the bay. They managed to hit the light at First Avenue; at no time was Jack a sitting duck in a motionless car. Still, he hunched low in his seat, out of view, sparking the driver’s curiosity. The cabbie kept stealing looks at Jack in his rearview mirror.

  As they drove up First Avenue, Jack raised himself up and watched out the back. He saw nothing suspicious. No cars suddenly pulled into the traffic. No one ran out to flag a cab.

  They turned left on Forty-second Street. Jack had the driver pull up directly in front of Grand Central. The moment the car came to a stop, Jack was out and running. He dashed through the entrance and merged quickly with the crowd. To be absolutely sure he was not being followed, he descended into the subway and boarded the Forty-second Street shuttle.

  When the train was about to leave and the doors had started to close, Jack impeded their closing and jumped off the train. He ran up into the station proper and exited back onto Forty-second Street through a different entrance than he used when he arrived.

  Feeling confident, Jack hailed a taxi. At first he told the driver to take him to the World Trade Center. During the trip down Fifth Avenue he watched to s
ee if any cars, taxis, or trucks could have been following. When none seemed to be doing so, Jack told the driver to take him to 550 Broome Street.

  Jack finally began to relax. He sat back in the seat and put his hands to his temples. The headache he’d awakened with in the overheated hotel room had never completely gone away. He’d been ascribing the lingering throb to anxiety, but now there were new symptoms. He had a vague sore throat accompanied by mild coryza. There was still a chance it was all psychosomatic, but he was still worried.

  After rounding Washington Square, the taxi driver went south on Broadway before turning east on Houston Street. At Eldridge he made a right.

  Jack looked out at the scenery. He’d not had any idea where Broome Street was, although he’d assumed it was someplace downtown, south of Houston. That entire section of the city was one of the many parts of New York he had yet to explore, and there were many street names with which he was unfamiliar.

  The cab made a left-hand turn off Eldridge, and Jack caught a glimpse of the street sign. It was Broome Street. Jack looked out at the buildings. They were five and six stories tall. Many were abandoned and boarded up. It seemed an improbable place to have a medical lab.

  At the next corner the neighborhood improved slightly. There was a plumbing-supply store with thick metal grates covering its windows. Sprinkled down the rest of the block were other building-supply concerns. On the floors above the street-level stores were a few loft apartments. Otherwise, it seemed to be vacant commercial space.

  In the middle of the following block, the cabdriver pulled to the side of the street. Five-fifty Broome Street was not Frazer Labs. It was a combination check-cashing place, mailbox rental, and pawnshop stuck between a package store and a shoe repair shop.

  Jack hesitated. At first he thought he’d gotten the wrong address. But that seemed unlikely. Not only had he written it down, but Igor had mentioned it twice. Jack paid his fare and climbed from the cab.

  Like all the other stores in the area, this one had an iron grille that could be pulled across its front at night and locked. In the window was a miscellaneous mixture of objects that

  included an electric guitar, a handful of cameras, and a display of cheap jewelry. A large sign over the door said: “Personal Mailboxes.” Painted on the door glass were the words “Checks Cashed.”

  Jack stepped up to the window. By standing directly in front of the electric guitar, he could see beyond the display into the store itself. There was a glass-topped counter that ran down the right side. Behind the counter was a mustached man with a punk-rock hairstyle. He was dressed in military camouflage fatigues. In the rear of the shop was a Plexiglas-enclosed cubicle that looked like a bank teller’s window. On the left side of the store was a bank of mailboxes.

  Jack was intrigued. The fact that Frazer Labs might be using this tacky shop as a mail drop was certainly suspicious if it was true. At first he was tempted to walk in and ask. But he didn’t. He was afraid by doing so he might hinder other methods of finding out. He knew that such personal mailbox establishments were loath to give out any information. Privacy was the main reason people rented the boxes in the first place.

  What Jack truly wanted was not only to find out if Frazer Labs had a box there, but to entice a Frazer Labs representative to come to the shop. Slowly an elaborate plan began to form in Jack’s mind.

  Being careful not to be seen by the clerk within the store, Jack quickly walked away. The first thing he needed was a telephone directory. Since the area around the pawnshop was comparatively deserted, Jack walked south to Canal Street. There he found a drugstore.

  From the phone directory Jack copied down four addresses: a nearby uniform shop, a van rental agency, an office supply store, and a Federal Express office. Since the clothing shop was the closest, Jack went there first.

  Once in the store Jack realized that he couldn’t remember what Federal Express courier uniforms looked like. But he wasn’t terribly concerned. If he couldn’t remember, he didn’t think the clerk in the pawnshop would know either. Jack bought a pair of blue cotton twill pants and a white shirt with flap pockets and epaulets. He also bought a plain black belt and blue tie.

  “Would you mind if I put these on?” Jack asked the clerk.

  “Of course not,” the clerk said. He showed Jack to a makeshift dressing room.

  The pants were slightly too long, but Jack was satisfied. When he looked at himself in the mirror he thought he needed something else. He ended up adding a blue peaked cap to his outfit. After Jack paid for his purchases, the clerk was happy to wrap up Jack’s street clothes. Just before the package was sealed, Jack thought to rescue his rimantadine. With the symptoms he was feeling he didn’t want to miss a dose.

  The next stop was the office-supply store, where Jack selected wrapping paper, tape, a medium-sized box, string, and a packet of “rush” labels. To Jack’s surprise he even found “biohazard” labels, so he tossed a box of them into his shopping cart. In another part of the store he found a clipboard and a pad of printed receipt forms. Once he had everything he wanted he took them to the checkout register and paid.

  The next stop was the Federal Express office. From their supply stand Jack took several address labels with the clear plastic envelopes used to attach them to a parcel.

  The final destination was a car rental agency, where Jack rented a cargo van. That took the most time, since Jack had to wait while someone went to another location to bring the van to the agency. Jack used the opportunity to prepare the parcel. First he put together the box. Wanting to give it the feeling of having contents, Jack eyed a triangular piece of wood on the floor near the entrance. He assumed it was a doorstop.

  When no one at the rental counter was looking Jack picked up the object and slipped it into the box. He then crumpled up multiple sheets of a New York Post that he found in the waiting area. He hefted the box and gave it a shake. Satisfied, he taped it shut.

  After the wrapping paper and the string were applied, Jack plastered the outside with “rush” and “biohazard” labels.

  The final touch was the Federal Express label, which Jack carefully filled out, addressing it to Frazer Labs. For the return address Jack used National Biologicals’s. After throwing away the top copy, Jack inserted one of the carbons into the plastic envelope and secured it to the front of the box. He was pleased. The package appeared official indeed, and with all the “rush” labels, he hoped it would have the desired effect.

  When the van arrived, Jack went out and put the package, the remains of the wrapping material, and the parcel containing his clothes in the back. Climbing behind the wheel, he drove off.

  Before going back to the pawnshop Jack made two stops. He returned to the drugstore where he’d used the phone book and bought some throat lozenges for his irritated throat, which seemed to be getting worse. He also stopped at a deli for some takeout. He wasn’t hungry, but it was already afternoon, and he’d eaten nothing that day. Besides, after he delivered the package he had no idea how long he’d have to wait.

  While driving back to Broome Street Jack opened one of the orange-juice containers he’d bought and used the juice to take a second dose of rimantadine. In view of his progressive symptoms he wanted to keep the drug’s concentration high in his blood.

  Jack pulled up directly in front of the pawnshop, leaving the engine running and the emergency blinkers blinking. Clutching his clipboard, he got out and went around to the rear to get the package. Then he entered the store.

  The door had bells secured to the top edge, and Jack’s entrance was heralded by a raucous ringing. As had been the case earlier, there were no customers in the shop. The mustached man in the camouflage fatigues looked up from a magazine. With his hair standing on end he had the look of perpetual surprise.

  “I’ve got a rush delivery for Frazer Labs,” Jack said. He plopped the parcel down on the glass counter and shoved the clipboard under the man’s nose. “Sign there at the bottom,” he added while pro
ffering his pen to the man.

  The man took the pen but hesitated and eyed the box.

  “This is the right address, isn’t it?” Jack asked.

  “I reckon,” the man said. He stroked his mustache and looked up at Jack. “What’s the rush?”

  “I was told there was dry ice in there,” Jack said. Then he leaned forward as if to tell a secret. “My supervisor thinks it’s a shipment of live bacteria. You know, for research and all.”

  The man nodded.

  “I was surprised I wasn’t delivering this directly to the lab,” Jack said. “It can’t sit around. I mean, I don’t think it will leak out or anything; at least I don’t think so. But it might die and then it will be useless. I assume you have a way of getting in touch with your customers?”

  “I reckon,” the man repeated.

  “I’d advise you to do that,” Jack said. “Now sign and I’ll be on my way.”

  The man signed his name. Reading upside down, Jack made out “Tex Hartmann.” Tex pushed the clipboard back toward Jack, and Jack slipped it under his arm. “I’m sure glad to get that thing off my truck,” Jack said. “I’ve never been much of a fan of bacteria and viruses. Did you hear about those cases of plague that were here in New York last week? They scared me to death.”

  The man nodded again.

  “Take care,” Jack said with a wave. He walked out of the store and climbed into his truck. He wished that Tex had been a bit more talkative. Jack wasn’t sure if he would be calling Frazer Labs or not. But just as Jack was releasing the emergency brake he could see Tex through the window dialing his phone.

  Pleased with himself, Jack drove several blocks down Broome Street, then circled the block. He parked about a half block from the pawn shop and turned off the motor. After locking the doors, he broke out the deli food. Whether he was hungry or not, he was going to make himself eat something.

  “Are you sure we should be doing this?” BJ questioned.

  “Yeah, man, I’m sure,” Twin said. He was maneuvering his Cadillac around Washington Square Park looking for someplace to park. It wasn’t looking good. The park was crammed full of people entertaining themselves in a bewildering variety of ways. There was skateboarding, in-line skating, Frisbee throwing, break dancing, chess playing, and drug dealing. Baby carriages dotted the park. It was a carnival-like atmosphere, which was exactly why Twin had suggested the park for the upcoming meeting.