The Anthrax Protocol

by James Thompson

  Lionel Johnson picked up the tubes of blood samples. “I’ll run these through the blood analyzer and see if any unusual antibody formations show up. Those that look different or strange I’ll flag for further, more in-depth analysis.”

  Mason nodded. “Good. While you guys are getting started on that, I think I’ll go have a talk with Suzanne and see if I can’t find out more about why she decided to betray us and everything that we stand for.”

  Lauren asked, “Is there anything a professor of archaeology who knows next to nothing about chemistry or medicine can do to help?”

  Shirley took her arm. “Come with me dear, and I’ll show you how to grind up plants like an expert.”

  * * *

  When Mason got to the ICU cubicle, he saw that Suzanne had recovered from her faint and was busily pacing back and forth in the small room.

  He unlocked the door and entered the room, holding out a cup of Shirley’s steaming coffee. “Here,” he said. “It looks like you could use this.”

  She glanced at him with a bleak expression and sat on the hospital bed in the center of the room. He handed her the coffee and she took a sip, and then her eyes watered.

  “Cream with two sugars, just like I like it. You remembered.”

  He sat on a stool in the corner of the room. “Of course I remember, Suzanne. We’ve been teammates for almost five years.” He hesitated, and then he added, “And I thought friends for at least that long.”

  She stared at him with a strange expression on her face. “Friends . . . yeah, I guess you could say that.” She had no intention of further humiliating herself by letting on how much and for how long she had loved him over the years.

  He pursed his lips. “Suzanne, the team and I are having a hard time understanding why you did what you did. Would you care to tell me about it?”

  She took a long swig of the coffee and then let out a sigh. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  She glanced down at the wedding ring on the third finger of her right hand. “You never asked me why I wear this ring.”

  “I figured you’d tell me when you were ready.”

  “It belongs to my brother.” She looked up at him. “His wife left him when he came home from the Gulf War suffering from Gulf War syndrome. He threw it in the trash the day she left, but I saved it so that I would never forget.”

  “Forget what?” he asked, puzzled.

  She took a deep breath. “Okay, I guess you deserve the full story. I’m an army brat, Mason. My father was a distinguished army physician who served in the Vietnam War. When he came home several cancers ate the flesh right off his bones. The army blamed it on Agent Orange, but I never believed that.”

  She paused to finish her coffee. “I read up on it and found that Agent Orange was studied up one side and down the other and there was never any sign that it would be carcinogenic.”

  She shook her head. “Hell no, it wasn’t Agent Orange that killed my dad. I believe the Vietcong must have used some sort of chemical or biologic agent against our troops over there. One that we never found out about . . . or at least, one that we were never told about.”

  He stared at her, beginning to see where her obsession with biological and chemical warfare must have come from.

  She glanced at him and gave a sad smile. “And that’s not all. The army brass has always tried to say that Gulf War syndrome is due to the pollutants in the air from the burning oil wells of Kuwait.”

  She wagged her head. “I don’t believe it for a minute.”

  He took a deep breath, realizing she was on the verge of being a paranoid psychotic. “So, it is your contention that your brother’s illness was also caused by biologic or chemical weapons unleashed by Saddam Hussein?”

  “Of course. Don’t you see, Mason. If all the other countries arrayed against the United States have already or will in the future unleash these weapons, then we must stay in the game ourselves and develop our own biologic and chemical weapons to combat theirs.”

  “So, you were willing to let a third of the world’s population die, almost a billion and a half people, just so Colonel Blackman could get a cure and a vaccine against this anthrax so he could use it as a weapon?”

  Her eyes widened and she looked like he had slapped her in the face. “Of course not! He promised me that once we had the formula for the vaccine and the cure he would make all of it the world needed and would stop the plague in its tracks.”

  “And you believed him? An evil megalomaniac who thought nothing of having anyone who stood in his way murdered?”

  She paled. “He . . . he gave me his word.”

  He stood up and took the coffee cup from her limp hands. “Oh, Suzanne, you are so naive and so, so misguided.”

  Without looking back, he exited the room and locked the door behind him.

  He took out his sat-phone and called the CDC. When he was connected with Dr. Battersee, he said, “Have the samples and specimens arrived yet?”

  “Yes, they just got here. I’ve already put them in the pipeline for full analysis.”

  “Grant, I need you to call your contacts at the army and tell them that Colonel Woodrow Blackman has installed a spy onto our team and has been working against us to delay us from finding a cure or vaccine for the plague.”

  “I know, Mason,” Battersee said, surprising Mason. “Congressman O’Donnell called me while you were on your jaunt down the Mexican river and filled me in. He got his information from the spy, Janus, who evidently feared for her own life from Blackman.” He chuckled, “In fact, it was O’Donnell who managed to get the Navy to come to your rescue, not me.”

  “So, you probably also know he was responsible for the black-ops team sent into the Mexican jungle to kill us and steal our specimens before we could get back to civilization.”

  “Yes, O’Donnell filled me in on that, too, and he has instituted a full congressional investigation into both Blackman and General McGuire.” He hesitated, and then he added, “But Mason, I guess you haven’t heard. Colonel Blackman was just found dead in his office. Preliminary indications are he took his own life.”

  Mason smiled and shook his head. Bear, he thought. The man certainly didn’t let any grass grow beneath his feet.

  “Well, Blackman certainly didn’t do this on his own, and it sounds like this McGuire might have been in on it, too. If you don’t mind, Grant, keep me informed of what O’Donnell finds out. I don’t want to have to keep looking over my shoulders until this is finished.”

  “Okay, Mason, if you think it’s necessary.”

  “And Grant, be extremely careful who you talk to from now on. We have no idea how far up the chain of command the rot extends—McGuire might not be the end of it and whomever else is involved might try to cover his tracks by getting rid of those of us directly involved in searching for the cure to the plague.”

  Baltimore

  At that moment, General Mac McGuire was in his armored staff car on the way to check out Colonel Blackman’s office. He’d ordered the entire office sealed off as a possible crime scene so that he would have time to get there and sterilize anything in the office that might implicate him in the plot to steal the cure for the plague. He had no idea Janus had already given his name to Congressman O’Donnell, or that the congressman had already launched an investigation in which his name figured prominently.

  About two miles from the army base, they rounded a corner and his driver slammed on the brakes to avoid a car that was crosswise blocking the road.

  When they’d come to a full stop, General McGuire leaned over the seat and told his driver to get out and see what the problem was.

  Alone in the car he heard a roaring like an approaching freight train.

  He whirled in his seat and looked out the rear window of the staff car and saw a driverless eighteen-wheeler bearing down on him at forty miles an hour. He just had time to scream before the gasoline tanker plowed into his car, exploding and engulfing both t
he auto and General McGuire in a horrendous wall of flames.

  His driver was blown off his feet and knocked unconscious by the blast but was otherwise unharmed.

  Bear and his team shielded their faces from the heat as they emerged from the forest alongside the road and got into the car blocking the highway and pulled away, another job completed.

  Jinx leaned his head out of the driver’s side window and whistled softly. “Good thing this is a stolen car, boss. All the paint on this side has been melted plumb off.”

  “You didn’t hurt yourself when you jumped out of that eighteen-wheeler, did you, Babe?” Bear asked over his shoulder.

  Babe answered from the rear seat. “Naw, boss. Piece of cake.”

  Bear leaned back in the front seat, pulled out a cigar, and lit it, thinking that by this time next week he’d be on a beach drinking mai tais with his money earning ten percent.

  He grinned around the cigar, realizing his nephew Victor could now go to any college he wished since cost was no object. Hell, maybe Patricia would even let him come visit them once in a while now that he was a retired man of leisure.

  Chapter 43

  Tlateloco

  For the next several hours, Mason moved from one member of his team to another, checking on their progress and in some cases offering suggestions on additional steps to take to find a cure.

  Finally, he took a break and went in search of Lauren. He had some unfinished business with her that needed clearing up; the thought of her and their time in the jungle river kept intruding on his mind and screwing up his concentration.

  He stood in the doorway to Shirley’s lab and watched as the two women worked quietly and efficiently side by side. Lauren was busily grinding up plants while Shirley was examining the slurry under her various microscopes.

  Lauren’s hair was bound up in a ponytail, and as she turned her face to wipe off a drop of sweat, she noticed him standing there staring at her.

  “Uh-oh,” she said in a stage whisper to Shirley, “watch it girlfriend, the boss is checking up on us.”

  Shirley turned around and shook her hair out of her eyes and glared at Mason. “So, if you don’t have anything better to do than to skulk around and check up on the worker bees, I’ve got some samples that need staining.”

  Mason blushed and stammered, “Uh . . . I need . . . that is . . . I’d like . . .”

  Shirley glanced at Lauren and then back at Mason, a slow grin curling up the corners of her mouth. “Oh . . . I see. Well,” she said, taking off her lab apron, “I think I’ll go brew up some fresh coffee for the troops.”

  She grinned again and glanced at her wristwatch. “I’ll probably also make some chocolate chip cookies so it’ll probably take me a good fifteen or twenty minutes, if you’d like to keep Lauren company until I get back.”

  Mason nodded, returning the smile. “I think I can spare a few minutes for such an agreeable task.”

  As Shirley squeezed by him in the doorway, she whispered, “Go get ’em, tiger.”

  Lauren crossed her arms across her chest and leaned back against the counter, looking at him from under raised eyebrows. “Did you need to see me about something, Dr. Williams?”

  He walked over to her and put his hands on her shoulders, moving into her personal space. “Yeah, I need to remind you of something.”

  “What?” she asked quizzically.

  “This,” he said, and he bent his head down and covered her lips with his.

  Hesitantly at first, and then with more vigor, she put her arms around him and pulled him to her, feeling the hardness between them as she pressed against him.

  After a moment, she broke free and leaned back, staring into his eyes. “Oh, that,” she said, smiling. “And you thought you needed to remind me because . . . what . . . you thought I’d forgotten?”

  “No,” he said, bending to kiss the side of her neck, “because I wanted more of the same.”

  She shuddered at his touch and then she took a deep breath and pushed him away. “Mason, as much as I’d like to keep doing this for the rest of the day, this is neither the time nor the place for kissy-face. We’ve got serious, lifesaving work to do.”

  His face reddened and he nodded. “Yes, of course you’re right.” He turned to go, but he stopped in the doorway and pointed at her, “But as soon as we’ve gotten the cure, you and I are going to have a long, serious talk.”

  “What about?” she asked coquettishly.

  “About the future,” he said, and then he was gone.

  Ten minutes later, when Shirley returned, Lauren was still flushed.

  Shirley grinned. “The man does have quite an impact, doesn’t he?”

  “Man, you can say that again.”

  Shirley sighed. “Yeah, I’ve worked with him since he was a pup, and frankly, if I was a dozen years younger, I’d be giving you a run for your money for him.”

  “Wow, does everyone love him?”

  “I wouldn’t say that, but he’s the kinda guy that men want to be his friend, and women want to either mother him or bed him, depending on their ages.”

  Lauren laughed. “Can you guess which one it is with me?”

  Shirley joined in. “The answer to that, my dear, is perfectly obvious.”

  * * *

  It took the team the better part of two weeks to come up with an answer to the anthrax plague. Shirley Cole had noticed some anomalies in the electron microscope images of the roots of a particular plant with a yellow flower, species unknown. She took the images to Lionel Johnson, the team specialist in fungi and mycobacteria, and asked his opinion.

  After some digging and some complex chemical analysis, Lionel came up with the answer. “Shirley, I’m damned if this chemical structure doesn’t resemble tigecycline.”

  “Tigecycline? You mean the latest generation of tetracycline?”

  He nodded, still examining the complex chemical structure they’d mapped out.

  “But that doesn’t occur naturally,” Shirley said. “It’s made by tweaking the original tetracycline molecules.”

  He sighed. “I didn’t say it was exactly the same, Shirley. I merely said it was similar.”

  She shook her head. “Well, no matter. Tigecycline only works on cutaneous anthrax, so even if this is similar, it probably won’t do us any good.”

  He shrugged. “Hey, you never know until you try. Remember, this plague isn’t being caused by typical anthrax but a mutated form. Just maybe a mutated form of tigecycline will work on it.”

  “You’re dreaming, pal, but what the hell. I’ll throw some of it on the cultures in the lab and see what happens.”

  What happened was the drug distilled from the yellow-flowered plant killed the anthrax bacterial colonies at an amazing rate.

  When they showed Mason the results, he got on the sat-phone and discussed the discovery with Dr. Battersee. Less than four days later the drug was being manufactured in quantity and within two weeks was being shipped to every country in the world.

  Additional good news came less than a month later when the scientists at the CDC were able to concoct a preventative vaccine from the blood samples of the villagers that Mason and Lauren had brought out of the jungle.

  With the twin discoveries, the worst plague in the history of the world was essentially over.

  Their work accomplished, the team was in the process of dismantling the Bio-Lab when Mason was finally able to break away from his administrative duties long enough to find Lauren and hustle her outside for a private conversation.

  As they strolled through the jungle adjacent to the lab, he took her hand in his.

  “So,” he began, “about that talk we need to have about our future . . .”

  Lauren took a deep breath and glanced over at him. “I’m afraid a future for us is going to be problematic.”

  He stopped walking and turned to her. “What do you mean . . . problematic?”

  She stepped to the side of the path and sat on a boulder. “Well, yo
u have your work in Atlanta—work that takes you all over the world for weeks at a time—and I have my work in Austin, Texas, that frequently takes me to remote areas of the world for weeks at a time.”

  She smiled sadly and spread her arms. “Just how do you propose we reconcile those two disparate lifestyles?”

  He frowned. “I don’t know, but there’s got to be a way. Maybe you could move to Atlanta. Emory University has a great archaeology department.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Yeah, and maybe you could move to Austin. The University of Texas has a great communicable disease department.”

  “But . . . that’s different.”

  She wagged her head. “No, Mason, no it isn’t.”

  “Well, then we can take turns flying back and forth for visits.”

  She shrugged. “We could, but we both know long-distance relationships never work. Not that I would mind a few lust-filled weekend encounters, but we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking it could ever be anything more.”

  “Dammit, Lauren. You’re just being too damned logical.”

  She smiled. “Sorry, it’s just the scientist in me, I’m afraid.”

  He grabbed her and pulled her to her feet, kissing her as if he’d never get another chance. As he pulled back he looked into her eyes and said, “Believe me when I tell you that I’m going to find some way for us to be together.”

  She leaned her head on his shoulder. “Believe me when I tell you that I hope you do.”

  Chapter 44

  Two months later, Lauren was busy overseeing a team of twenty undergraduate and graduate students as they pored over the hundreds of specimens in Montezuma’s tomb and the surrounding area.

  Guatemotzi, whom Lauren had hired as a native guide and all-around assistant, came up to her holding out a small, jewel-encrusted dagger.