“Mr. President, the British Prime Minister is on a secure line. Will you take the call?” said his secretary.
“Of course, put her through.” After a brief pause, the President heard the distinctive transfer click, “Hi Constance, how are you doing today?”
“Not very good, Rod. People are dying in the hospitals and in their homes and we don’t have enough cemeteries or people to bury them. But that is not why I am calling. We are not even getting close to finding out what is causing this disease. Have you made any progress?”
“I just had a briefing and we have nothing new. We are doing some DNA testing that might yield some information, but all in all we don’t have a clue,” he said, lying through his teeth.
“Well, the other reason I was calling is we have heard rumors that you do have a test that will tell whether someone is positive for the disease. You are calling it SDX, correct?”
“That is correct, SDX, but I am afraid we don’t have a test yet. We are looking at some promising data, but at this point it would be irresponsible of us to say we knew how to test if someone had SDX or not.”
“You’re not holding out on me now are you Rod? We have been friends and partners for years. I need to know the moment you have anything confirmed. Is that clear?” said Constance half-jokingly.
“And the same goes for you” chuckled the President. “I have been on the phone with you three times in the last week. I even have you on speed dial,” he quipped.
“Okay, well, keep me posted. Good bye Rod.”
The President hung up. Lying to one of his closest partners didn’t sit well, and he questioned who exactly it was he was protecting if he couldn’t even trust the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The President said to himself out loud: “There has to be a better plan, but what is it?”
CHAPTER 26
They all sat quietly in the car as it approached the CDC headquarters. The driver dropped them in the parking garage and they took the elevator to the fifth floor.
Sarah spoke first.
“Let’s do a quick debrief before you guys get back to business. So, how do you think it went?”
“From my perspective I think it went pretty well,” said Ben. “I think we convinced them that the problem is immense and that we are on a path that may reap some rewards.”
“How about you Katie, how do you think it went?”
“Well, except for the attack by Jim Redman, I think it went well. He is such an asshole,” said Katie.
“He may be an ass, but he has the President’s ear,” said Sarah. “We are going to have to watch out for him. I have no idea what he is capable of, but I fear he is up to no good. I will be talking with the Secretary later this afternoon and I will let you know if anything comes out of that discussion.”
“I am going to head back to my office and try to finish up my initial analysis of the other regions,” said Katie. “I will be out of town tomorrow visiting my parents in western Maryland, but I will have my Blackberry and cell phone with me if anything big comes up.”
“Enjoy your time off. You deserve it,” said Sarah. “Will you be out of pocket too, Ben?”
“I will be out part of the day, but I plan on spending some time looking at the data I am receiving from Katie. I have some ideas about what I am looking for now and I hope to have some success soon.”
“When you get in tomorrow, give me a call so I can catch you up on any developments,” said Sarah.
“Will do,” replied Ben.
“Katie, you will be reporting to the office here on Monday too, correct?” asked Sarah.
“Yes, that is correct. I will stop by my other office to gather my files and then I should be over here by mid-morning.”
“It will be good to have you within arm’s reach. I am at the point where I don’t like to talk about our progress on the phone and I am even skeptical about the email even though I know it is encrypted,” said Sarah.
Katie and Ben got up and headed out into the hallway.
“I will see you on Monday then,” said Ben. “I think the office they are setting up for you is just down the hall from me. This should make our collaboration simpler.”
“I agree, but in the meantime I will be sending you the rest of the data this afternoon and evening,” said Katie.
“Great,” said Ben. “Oh yeah, I forgot to ask you, but did you get the results of the retest done for you daughter’s sample?”
“Not yet. I should receive the data on Sunday afternoon, but then I will be in western Maryland enjoying the company of my parents and family.”
“Well I am really interested to see her blood test. Could you send me the data on her initial test? I want to look at it to see if there were any obvious data inconsistencies that could indicate why the tests were within normal range,” said Ben.
“I have it sitting on my desk. I will scan the information and send it to you as soon as I get back. The other thing I didn’t do, which I probably should do, is run it through my algorithm to see if it picks up any inconsistencies. I should have done that initially, but I was so discombobulated I didn’t think of it,” said Katie.
“Yes, that would be a good idea,” replied Ben. “I will be waiting for the data. Safe journey.”
Katie turned and walked down the hall toward the elevator. Ben watched her as she walked away and thought: “Too bad she is married. Smart and beautiful, what a combination.”
Later in her car, Katie kept looking in her rear view mirror for any signs of the white Malibu she had seen following her earlier today, and was relieved it wasn’t there. She would have to remember to ask Sarah if anything came back from Security on the license plate from that car she reported.
When she arrived back at her office she was surprised to see Beth working in her office.
“Hi Beth, what are you doing here, it’s Saturday?”
“I know, but I remembered that you said you are temporarily moving downtown starting on Monday, so I wanted to get your files organized and boxed up, all ready to go for Monday morning,” said Beth.
“You are always one step ahead of me Beth. Thank you very much,” Katie said with a big smile.
“Let me get out of your way. I know you have a lot of work to do. Anything I can help with?” Beth asked.
“No, I am just going over the old longevity project data by regions,” said Katie.
“Well, if you need the hard copy files, they are in the boxes over there against the wall and they are labeled by year and region. Should be fairly simple to find the particular item you are looking for.”
“That’s great,” said Katie gratefully.
“One other thing,” Beth added, “You received a call from a Mr. Hughes. He said he knew you. His message was that he got the same information from the Secretary’s office that you gave him. He left his number in the event you change your mind and would like to talk. Friend of yours?” asked Beth.
“Not exactly. Washington Post reporter. I don’t plan on talking to him until after this crisis has passed. Orders from above.”
“Oh,” said Beth. “I’m glad I don’t know any secrets! He did ask me what you were working on and I told him you were doing some research on the longevity project you have been working on for the last seven years. That should have been safe, since everyone knows about your project.”
“That’s perfect. Thanks for letting me know. Now get out of here and enjoy your weekend,” said Katie jokingly.
Katie still had five more regions to analyze - western Russia and the Middle East, Europe, South America and Southeast Asia/Australia. Her bet was that she would find data consistent with a focal point in the Siberia region.
As she looked at western Russia she found exactly what she expected. The increase in the four blood test levels started to rise about fifty-four to fifty-seven months ago.
Next, she looked at Europe and found that the increase in the four test levels started about fifty-one to fifty-four months ago. In South America she fou
nd the increases occurred about forty-five to forty-eight months ago. If her hypothesis was correct, she expected that her southeast Asia/Australian population would have started to see their test levels rise out of range about fifty-one to fifty-four months ago. As she looked at the data, she was spot on.
She thought she would be happy with her conclusion, but it still bothered her that people were dying everywhere right now. What did that say about the gestation period of the disease? She would have to ask Ben to look at this specifically as he went through the data.
She packaged up all of this information in a zipped email and sent it to Ben for his further analysis, and promptly received a reply back within a few minutes.
Katie,
Thanks for the data. I will try to make sense of why people are dying everywhere and not in sequence, based on when they were first infected. Also, you forgot to send me your daughter’s blood test. You are doing great work.
Ben
“Shit,” said Katie out loud. “I knew I would forget something with all these things going on in my head.” She found the email with Hope’s blood test results and sent it to Ben, adding that she was now running the algorithm on Hope’s data to see if any inconsistencies came up and that she would also send those results to him in short order.
After entering the data into her algorithm, Katie decided to start analyzing the specific locations of the data in Siberia to see if there were any obvious patterns. The people in her study were located in eight cities across the region. She quickly sliced and diced the data so that the tests for each city were grouped together. Then she ran a short program to determine the first date of increase in one of the four blood tests in all of the subjects in each city. Next, she took the average of the dates of infection so that she could compare each city’s date to the other.
The data was clear, the first increases seemed to come from the city of Ust’Nera, followed closely by Susuman. The data showed that these two cities started to see increases in the blood test levels about sixty-three months ago. The other cities varied from sixty to sixty-two months ago. Even though her calculations were seat of the pants, and didn’t take into account other changes in the subject’s blood tests, Katie was convinced that whatever was causing SDX came from the vicinity of Ust’Nera and Susuman in eastern Siberia.
She quickly drafted an email to Sarah and Ben.
Ben/Sarah,
Just as I thought, my data points to the fact that the infection started in eastern Siberia. My initial analysis of the data also points to an area in the vicinity of the cities of Ust’Nera and Susuman. I think we should start our search there as I continue to drill down on my data.
Making progress!
Katie
Katie hit the send button and then looked at the time. It was already about ten p.m. She needed to head home. It had been a long day and she felt like she had made some real progress. She would catch up on her sleep on the ride to the farm tomorrow. For the first time this week, she started to relax. She felt like they were finally on their way to solving this mystery.
She called Rob and then headed out the door. She got about halfway home before she realized she had forgotten her Blackberry. “Oh well,” she thought, “Tomorrow will be a day without interruption, and I have my cell phone anyway, if Sarah needs me.”
Ben’s email regarding Hope’s blood test would therefore sit unopened in her inbox until Katie returned to work on Monday.
Katie arrived home to find Rob sitting on the porch with a bottle of chilled wine waiting for her. As she approached the house Rob noticed a little skip in her step. Must have been a good day he thought.
“Hi honey. You look like you are in a pretty good mood. How was your day?” asked Rob.
“It was topsy-turvy, but in the end I made some great progress and I actually feel like we may be on our way to finding out where this infection started,” said Katie with a hint of excitement in her voice. “And that, my dear, is progress!”
“That’s great news. Anything else happen?”
“Not much. I just briefed the President and several cabinet officials and members of congress and I was followed by some guy in a car and I got in a pissing match with the National Security Advisor. Other than that, not much happened,” she said nonchalantly for added effect.
“Holy smokes,” said Rob. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to be briefing the President?”
“To be honest, in all of the work and confusion, I forgot it was to happen until I got to work this morning. That said, I think the briefing went well.”
“And you said that someone was following you. What is that all about?” asked Rob.
“I think it was probably the newspaper reporter. He was upset I wouldn’t talk to him. He was probably just trying to see where I was going.”
Just then a car drove by on the main road by their house. They couldn’t see it from the house, but it seemed to slow down as it passed and then it sped back up.
“So what have you been up to today, my love,” said Katie as she took a seat on the porch next to Rob and sipped her wine, and then started to caress Rob’s neck.
“I took Hope to her lesson at the Center,” Rob replied. “And I took a look at the construction project. They are making great progress. I also stopped by Walmart and the Grocery store to pick up some supplies and canned goods.”
“What in the world for?” asked Katie. “We just did our monthly grocery shopping last weekend. Where did you put it all?”
“I filled the shelves in the garage. You never know when we may need additional stores, so I decided to start stocking up now, just in case. It makes me feel like I am doing all I can to take care of the family,” Rob explained.
“I am glad you are thinking about us, but I hope it never gets to the point where we need to use those things,” said Katie.
They sat in the moonlight for about another half hour then Katie said, “I think we should turn in. We have to get up early in the morning and I have some plans for you right now, if you are up for it.”
Rob said, “Let me check. As he reached in his pocket he said, looks like I am.” And they both laughed as they headed to the bedroom hand-in-hand.
CHAPTER 27
Sunday morning came very early. Rob dragged everybody out of bed and got some breakfast going so that they wouldn’t have to stop on the road. He liked cooking breakfast -- his specialty was scrambled eggs, bacon and cinnamon pancakes. This combination never failed to please the McMann clan and it was indeed a hit again this morning.
When Katie emerged from the bathroom the kids were already eating. She could smell the cinnamon, bacon, and the fresh brewed coffee. These smells brought back so many favorite memories and made her feel like she was glad to be alive.
“So kids, is everybody raring to go?” she asked. “I know I am. I am looking forward to just sitting back and doing nothing today.”
Normally Katie would complain if Rob wanted to do all of the driving, which he always did, but today she welcomed the break. She would be glad to watch the inside of her eyelids while they drove the two-and-a-half hours to her parent’s farm. She relished the thought of the good home-style cooking that would be waiting for them. Rob’s parents would be at her parent’s house today when they arrived which was convenient. One-stop visiting, just the way she liked it. On the next visit they would switch and go to Rob’s parent’s farm.
As they turned off the main road onto the tree lined drive that led to the main house, the kids started to get excited. The farm was located northwest of Sharpsburg, Maryland near the Antietam National Battlefield, and the western border of the farm was defined by the Potomac River. The house was about a mile from the river and there was a small lake with a stream in the front yard that Katie’s dad kept well stocked with perch. The boys always liked to fish, especially when they knew they were going to catch something.
There was also a swing hanging from a large oak tree in the front yard, and Hope had fond memories of
swinging for hours on end there, listening to the wind rustle through the leaves and the birds singing to her. Hope thought nature had a purpose and that it was to provide all good things for us. She had a point that was well taken when put in perspective with all the other things in the world of late.
Rob saw his dad’s 1997 Ford F150 parked on the side of the house. It still looked like it was brand new. His dad sure did know how to take care of a car – a trait he unfortunately did not share. In the back he saw a canoe resting on its side, waiting to be taken out for a swim. The kids would enjoy paddling it across the lake and up the stream, just as they did when they had extended stays here in the summer.
The further west they had gone, the higher in elevation they were. Here, there was a slight chill in the air this morning, or more of a crispness, thought Rob. It reminded him of going to a football game in the fall when the leaves were turning and you needed a sweater. It was a beautiful day and he found himself reminiscing about all of the good things in life and wondering why he and Katie ever left the farm life behind. After a moment he chastised himself. That was then. We create our destiny. No regrets. Look forward. Learn from behind.
“Kids, we’re here,” said Katie
“No kidding mom. Is that why we have been bumping along this old road for the last minute and a half?”
Katie had a habit of announcing the obvious to the family. Rob was used to it and thought it to be quirky, but still cute. The kids, overloaded with information on a daily basis, were more amused and astounded that she would continue to set herself up for the laugh anytime they went anywhere. It was good fun all around and Katie took it in stride. That was the kind of mother she was.
Rob pulled up next to his dad’s Ford, being careful not to get too close because he didn’t want the kids to open the doors and whack the side of the truck. They all piled out of the Pacifica and the kids ran to the house. All four grandparents were waiting there on the front porch with open arms, ready to greet them.
The Perfect Pathogen Page 16