“How has she been doing?” Dale asked, indicating the rowing machine.
“Fine,” Simeon said.
“She looked good,” Jeff agreed.
“And the other? What about that?” Dale looked scared for the first time. “Is she still . . . doing that?”
“I don’t know about today,” Simeon answered. “But we have the tapes from yesterday, and she certainly was doing it then.” He tried to give Dale the same sort of unspoken warning he had given Jeff, but Dale was not paying enough attention.
“How could something like that happen? Can you tell me that? How could she get that kind of . . . talent from surviving TS?” He was becoming nervous and he would not meet Simeon’s eyes.
“We don’t know.” Simeon folded his hands and looked toward the clerestory windows. “I think we ought to discuss this later, Dale. You don’t want to upset Missus Channing, do you?”
“No,” said Dale at once, looking quickly over his shoulder to where Narmada was draping Irene with light blankets while she prepared to begin her massage. “She’s lost a lot of weight,” he remarked inconsequently.
“That’s to be expected.” Jeff wondered if Dale knew there were listening devices in the room. He certainly did not act that way.
“I think she’s gained a little of it back. She needs it.” He folded his arms. “Doctor Taji”—the formality shocked both Jeff and Simeon—“I’d like to have access to all the TS records you have for this region. I might be able to spot something you’ve overlooked. I want to do something. You can understand that, can’t you?”
This abrupt petition was so unexpected that it took Jeff a little while to frame his answer. “Let’s discuss it later. I have to make a few phone calls to find out what we’re permitted to release, and to whom.” He was aware that he could shift the response from positive to negative, depending upon whom he called: Susannah Ling would certainly permit the information being released; Patrick Drucker would just as certainly refuse.
“Fine. That’s fine.” He looked from one man to the other. “I want her to be better. I want her to be well, to be over this.”
“So do we,” said Jeff. He took a step toward the door. “Where are the records? I want to go over her entries for the last two days.”
“I’ll show you,” Simeon offered at once. “Dale?”
“I want to stay with Irene a little while. I’ll catch up with you.” He moved away from them, toward the massage table.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Simeon said, “I don’t know what to make of Dale these days. He was staunch as a pioneer through the worst of it, and now he looks as if he’s about to cave in.”
“Maybe he’s the sort who goes to pieces after an emergency. I’m a little like that myself.” They went quickly down the hall, neither man paying much attention to others around them.
“It’s more than that. He said something the other day that worried me then. He said he thought TS had changed Irene, had turned her into someone he didn’t know any more. Mind you, that was after a third brass monkey, so who knows how much of that was booze and how much was his real thoughts.” He indicated a door on the right. “That’s medical records. There should be two techs and two transcriptionists on duty.”
“Okay,” Jeff said, recognizing the note of circumspection in the information.
There were three techs in the room, one of them wearing a badge that said Kiley.
“Doctor Simeon,” said Kiley, coming to greet him with the kind of stiff-legged walk a guard dog might have.
“This is Doctor Taji from Atlanta. He’s with me.” Simeon could not quite sustain the faint air of superiority that he most often used to put staff members in their place.
“Doctor Taji,” said Kiley in a way that made it obvious that he knew precisely who Jeff was.
“Which monitor may I use?” Jeff inquired in a manner that Susannah had once described as his preoccupied mode. “I need to review some material.”
“I’ll be happy to get it for you,” said Kiley, his eyes, as Simeon had said, like stones.
“No, I won’t trouble you. Since I don’t know yet how much of her records I’ll have to access, it’s hardly fair for me to take up your time. Thanks, anyway.” With that, he went and selected one of the monitor stations and sat down, seemingly oblivious to the anger he had inspired in Kiley.
By the time they left the records room, some forty minutes later, Jeff had discovered that almost a third of Irene Channing’s test results had been put under seal. He told Dale about it as they drove back into Dallas.
“They’re being cautious,” said Dale.
“Come on,” Jeff chided him gently. “You know better than that. They’re trying to put a lid on her. And they’re doing a pretty good job of it.”
“Well, they don’t know what’s going on,” Dale said weakly.
“Dale, what’s wrong?” Jeff demanded. “What’s bothering you?”
Dale stared out the window of the Comet; when he spoke, he said, “I think you ought to check her kids yourself. I think you could find out something that way.”
“Her kids? Why?”
“Because she got it and survived it, and her teenaged son hasn’t got it at all. Steven doesn’t have a trace of it. Who knows about Brice—he’s still too young, in any case.” He checked the crease in his trousers. “She got through the disease and ended up with a power and her kids don’t have it. It’s not like any other case I’ve ever seen.”
“TS hasn’t been around long enough for that to be necessarily significant,” Jeff reminded Dale as he honked at a speeding cyclist.
“Yeah.”
Jeff thought for a couple of miles. “All right; I’ll check the kids out myself.”
For the first time since they left the hospital, Dale’s expression lightened. “Thanks.”
—Weyman Muggridge and Edgar Haliburton—
Propped up against the pillows in an isolation tent, Edgar Haliburton looked dreadfully thin and pale. He tried to raise his arm in greeting as Weyman came through the door of his room, but he was not able to. “Doctor Muggridge.”
“Doctor Haliburton.” Weyman came and stood beside the bed. “They tell me you’ve signed a Public Benefit contract.”
“They’re trying a new combination of antibiotics on me right now. I don’t think it’s doing much good, but it has reduced the secondary infection risks.” He indicated the chair near his bed. “Sit down. I appreciate your coming.”
“Well, your request came the same day the names of some of your patients cropped up. I thought it was worth seeing you.” Weyman straddled the chair, his arms laid over the back and his chin resting on them.
“Patients?”
“The Grey family.”
“Oh, Yes. Marilee and then Jared. A terrible thing. It was the first time I saw TS. I didn’t know what to make of it.” His old eyes, once flinty, were now distant and ill-focused. “I couldn’t have anticipated the danger, the potential, could I?”
“None of the rest of us did,” Weyman pointed out.
“Not that that’s an excuse. There were plenty of warnings, but we weren’t seeing them.” He levered himself a little higher on the pillows.
“Twenty-twenty hindsight,” Weyman agreed. “About the Greys?”
“A terrible thing for that family. There was trouble not long ago with her former husband, and they were starting to put their lives in order from that. When the daughter died, they were able to get through it, but then when the boy came down with TS as well, the strain was almost too much. For a while I wasn’t sure they’d be able to stay together. I thought it would be too demanding, and have too many tragic memories.” He stopped, breathing hard.
“Take your time, Doctor Haliburton.” Weyman hoped that his tape recorder was picking up all
of his remarks. He did not want to rush Haliburton, for he was sure that that way some minuscule but vital piece of information might be overlooked.
“I don’t have a lot of that to spare,” said Haliburton. “And I’d feel better if you’d call me Edgar.”
“Anything you like,” said Weyman, softening to the other man. “In your letter, you say that you think that there were not one but two separate outbreaks of TS in Southern California. You believe that the outbreak in the San Fernando Valley was not the same as the one in San Diego. Can you tell me why you think this?”
“Well, hell,” said Haliburton. “Geography, for one thing. It’s not like San Diego’s Covina. Or even Ventura, for that matter. They are over a hundred miles apart. What confused everything was the outbreak in the Immigration Compound. It was assumed that there were Illegals carrying TS coming into Southern California and spreading the disease. And I think that’s bullshit.”
“For an environmental disease, I’d have to agree.”
“I also think that the environmental disease notion is at least half bullshit.” Haliburton folded his hands. “I want to go on record saying that I am convinced that the San Diego outbreak and the San Fernando Valley outbreak are two different sites with two different triggers.” He stopped to cough. “I think you have to—” This time he could not make himself continue.
“Edgar?” Weyman ventured when Haliburton stopped coughing.
“Look,” he said when he had adjusted himself on the pillow, “this Illegals notion is ridiculous. I’ve outlined this in my report. The assumption that Illegals were carrying some kind of triggering infection is absurd: if it was right, then half of Laurie Grey’s Girl Scout troop ought to have come down with it before anyone.”
“What do you mean?” Weyman demanded, suddenly tense.
“Last September, Laurie Grey’s troop did volunteer work at the Immigration compound—you know the sort of thing, making sure the food boxes get distributed, holding children while parents are being examined by the docs, helping out with the ones who are upset—and they were okay. If the lllegals were carrying it, all the girls should have come down with it. As it was, Laurie’s family had it, but not Laurie, and she was the one who was exposed. And for a while TS was confined to one neighborhood. That’s why I say the San Fernando Valley site isn’t related. If it really is toxins, that’s another matter, but you’ll pardon me if I say that it doesn’t look that way.” His voice had been growing fainter and fainter so that at the last it was barely more than a whisper.
“Doctor Haliburton?” Weyman said, starting to get up.
“Not yet; I’m still here,” said Haliburton. “I’ve been thinking about this. I haven’t had anything much else to do except the two-hour check. I can’t reconcile what I’ve learned with what’s been assumed.” He stopped, closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath. “I go along with the environmental trigger. I read what your office released last week. That makes sense. But the rest of it doesn’t jibe with what I’ve found out.”
“Go on,” said Weyman, now very much interested in what he had to say. “Tell me as much as you can.”
This time Haliburton took a little while to prepare himself. “From what I’ve read, this stuff is starting to spread, and that certainly eliminates the contamination theory, unless you have something so powerful that it can be carried in some way, such as on clothes. But if that’s the case, it doesn’t make sense that no kids under twelve get it.” He looked over at the clock on the wall. “They’re going to be in shortly; can we wait until they finish with me?”
“If you like; sure.” Weyman stood up. “I’m grateful, Edgar. I want you to know that.”
“Kind of you,” said Haliburton, shifting again, trying to make the pillows more comfortable. “I wish I could have one of those fancy water beds they have in the physical therapy department. My skin’s becoming supersensitive and I can’t find a position that’s comfortable for very long.”
“I’ll be back in half an hour—is that—”
“Just about right,” said Haliburton. “I’m looking forward to it, Doctor Muggridge.”
As Weyman stepped out of the room, he saw three nurses coming toward the room. On impulse, he stopped them. “How’s he doing? Not what it says on his chart; what you know as his nurse.”
“I don’t know,” said the oldest nurse. “I only got his case yesterday. We’ve got nine nurses on this floor alone out with TS. You know what that means. We’re trying to get help from areas where they don’t have much TS, but not many nurses are willing to come.” She made a point of looking at her watch. “We’re on a tight schedule, Doctor Muggridge.”
“I’ll let you get on with it,” he said, taking the unsubtle hint.
The nurses were almost through the door when the oldest turned back to Weyman. “I’ll let you know what I think when we’re through. Stop by the station before you go; I’ll talk to you then. It might not be very reliable.”
“Thank you,” Weyman said sincerely, surprised at her change of heart. He went down the hall toward the floor monitor station, and on impulse, asked to borrow the phone.
On the third try, he found Sylvia at the hospital at the Naval Air Station. “What’s wrong?” she asked when she heard Weyman’s voice.
“Nothing as bad as you’re thinking,” Weyman answered. “But I’ve been talking to Edgar Haliburton, and he’s got me to asking a few new questions. I think he’s on to something. He thinks we’ve got TS back to front. I want to go over the records again, the way Jeff suggested we do, looking at the first cases. I might have a lead on this TS stuff and I want to check it out.”
“What is it?” she asked, calmer and more curious. “Damned if I know yet. There’s something I’m not seeing, but it’s there. It’s as if I’m an out-of-focus lens.” He slapped his thigh with aggravation. “I hate getting like this.”
“But you’re okay?” She made no attempt to hide her anxiety. “Weyman?”
“Sure. What about you?” He was gently teasing.
“It’s this place, all the military. You know me and uniforms. Half the time I want to jump out of my skin. And Tolliver is being so damned polite and soft-spoken that I keep thinking he has thumbscrews in his pocket.”
“He doesn’t,” said Weyman, wondering for the first time if Commander Maurice Tolliver might be concealing something worse.
“That’s what you think. It’s always a bad sign when they’re nice to you,” she countered. “Does this mean you want to cancel dinner tonight?”
“It means I think we better pick up something to eat and get back to the PHES complex. I want to get on the Atlanta records and that’s the best place to do it. Probably the best time, as well.” He could feel the frustration building in him and he began to hope that Edgar Haliburton would provide the key to this deadly puzzle.
“Weyman, I’ve got to get back. I don’t like to—” She sounded embarrassed and he immediately felt sympathy for her.
“No problem. Do you mind keeping me company tonight?”
“Fine. I’d like that.” She hesitated. “You sound a little tense.”
“That’s good—I’m a lot tense,” he answered, going on quickly, “It hasn’t anything to do with you. I’ll see you later. Good luck with the brass.”
“I’ll need it,” she said uncertainly.
“You’ll do fine.” He smiled at the receiver, hoping she could sense it.
“Thanks. See you later.” “Later,” he agreed, and hung up.
It was forty-five minutes later when he was allowed back in Edgar Haliburton’s room. There was some new equipment beside his bed and his isolation tent had been changed so that now he appeared to be wrapped in an enormous cocoon.
“How are you feeling?” Weyman asked. He could see that Haliburton’s face was ashen and drawn, but he did not want to give a
ny indication of alarm.
“Like the hind end of a bear,” said Haliburton. “Don’t worry about it; it’ll change soon enough. They’ve given me something, one of those stabilizers they used to give AIDS patients. I’ll cope.”
“If you’d rather postpone this?” Weyman said, praying that Haliburton would not.
“Chances are I’ll be worse tomorrow. Let’s get on with it,” he said testily. “Ask away.”
“You were telling me about the Greys. That’s the name, isn’t it?” Weyman came back to the chair and sat down.
“Yeah. Jonathon and Catherine Grey, four kids, three from his first marriage, and Laurie between them. She’s a dancer.” He stared at the ceiling. “You know, when the quake struck, I was in a clinic and the lighting fixture fell. It hit my shoulder. Hurt like hell. But if it had hit my head it probably would have killed me.”
Weyman kept silent. He adjusted the volume on his tape recorder and watched Haliburton, part of his attention still wrestling with the questions that were half-formed in his mind.
“I think the hardest thing about dying is having to give up so much. Not life, not life. But things like my two cats and the neighbor’s kids and Hunan food and my favorite loafers and letters from my cousins and walks on the beach and sleeping close together after sex. I’m not through with any of those things yet.” He botched a chuckle. “So tell me. What can I do for you while I’m still here?”
“What you were saying about Laurie Grey and her Girl Scout troop. You said they did community service work with Immigration last September.” He sensed that this was the right place to begin.
“They did. And TS started showing up a little later, mostly among those with other health problems, things like poor nutrition and intestinal parasites. You know the kind of things Immigration handles.” He rubbed his chin. “They gave me a lousy shave this morning. They won’t let me do it myself. Stupid precaution, if you ask me.”
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