Is it an airborne contagion?
Yes.
Incubation period?
One day to two weeks, depending on the strain.
Time between first symptoms and mortality?
Impossible to predict with any certainty. Several minutes to several hours.
Several minutes? Dear God. Mode of lethality?
I’ve answered enough questions. Get off. Mode of lethality?
Massive increase in CSF, causing edema and hemorrhaging of the brain tissue.
That sure sounds like a doomsday virus to me. What’s its name?
That’s it, Levine. No more questions. Get the hell off the system and don’t call again.
Back at the little house on the corner of Church and Sycamore, the arm gently pressed a few keys. One CRT screen showed the daemon program cutting communications and sneaking back out of the GeneDyne net. The other screen showed Levine’s frantic message:
Damn! We were cut off. Mime, I need more time!
The finger pressed out a response:
Chill, professor. Your zeal will do you in. Now, on to other business. Ready your computer, I’m going to be sending you an interesting little file. As you’ll see, I was able to obtain the information you requested. Naturally. It posed a rather unique challenge, and you’d be astonished at the phone charges I rang up in the process. A certain Mrs. Harriet Smythe of Northfield, Minnesota, is going to be rather upset when she gets her long-distance bill next month, I’m afraid.
The finger pressed a few more keys and waited while the file was downloaded. Then both screens zapped to black. For a moment, the only sound in the room was the soft whine of the CPU fans, and, through the open window, a single cricket chirruping in the warm night. And then there came a low laugh, a rising wheeze of mirth that racked and rattled the wasted, shrunken body in the wheelchair.
The chef at Mount Dragon—an Italian named Ricciolini— always served the main course himself, in order to bask in the expected compliments, and as a result dinner service was execrably slow. Carson sat at a center table with Harper and Vanderwagon, battling a stubborn headache without success. Despite the pressure from Scopes, he’d been able to accomplish almost nothing that day, his mind full of Levine’s message. He wondered how in hell Levine was able to get inside the GeneDyne net, and why Levine had picked him to contact. At least, he thought, nobody noticed. As far as he could tell.
The little chef laid the plates with a flourish at Carson’s table and stepped back expectantly. Carson looked suspiciously at his serving. The menu called them sweetbreads but what arrived did not look like bread at all, but the mysterious inner part of some animal.
“Wonderful!” cried Harper, taking the cue. “A masterpiece!”
The Italian gave a quick half bow, his face a mask of delight.
Vanderwagon sat silently, polishing his silverware with a napkin.
“What is it, exactly?” inquired Carson.
“Animella con marsala e funghi!” the chef cried. “Sweetbreads with wine and mushrooms.”
“Sweet bread?” Carson asked.
A puzzled expression came over the man’s face. “Is not English? Sweetbreads?”
“What I mean is, exactly what part of the cow—?”
Harper clapped him on the back. “ ’Tis better not to inquire too closely into some things, my friend.”
The Italian gave a puzzled smile and returned to the kitchen.
“They should clean these dishes better,” Vanderwagon muttered, wiping his wineglass, holding it up to the light, and wiping again.
Harper shot a look across the room, where Teece was eating at a table by himself. His fastidious manners were almost a caricature of perfection.
“Has he talked to you yet?” Harper whispered to Carson.
“No. You?”
“He buttonholed me this morning.”
Vanderwagon turned. “What did he ask?”
“Just a lot of sly questions about the accident. Don’t be deceived by his looks. That guy is no fool.”
“Sly questions,” Vanderwagon repeated, picking up his knife a second time and wiping it carefully. Then he laid it down and carefully squared it with his fork.
“Why the hell can’t we have a nice steak once in a while?” Carson complained. “I never know what I’m eating.”
“Think of it as experiencing international cuisine,” said Harper, slicing open the sweetbreads and stuffing a jiggling piece into his mouth. “Excellent,” he said, his mouth full.
Carson took a tentative bite. “Hey, these aren’t bad,” he said. “Not very sweet, though. So much for truth in advertising.”
“Pancreas,” said Harper.
Carson laid down his fork with a clatter. “Thanks a lot.”
“What kind of sly questions?” Vanderwagon asked.
“I’m not supposed to say.” Harper winked at Carson.
Vanderwagon turned sideways and gave Harper a penetrating stare. “About me.”
“No, not about you, Andrew. Well, maybe a few, you know. You were, shall we say, in the thick of things.”
Vanderwagon slid his uneaten plate away and said nothing.
Carson leaned over. “This is from the pancreas of a cow?”
Harper shoveled another mouthful in. “Who cares? That Ricciolini can cook anything. Anyway, Guy, you grew up eating Rocky Mountain oysters, right?”
“Never touched ’em,” Carson said. “That was just something we served to the dudes as a joke.”
“If thy right eye offends thee,” Vanderwagon said.
The others turned to look at him.
“Getting religion?” Harper asked.
“Yes. Pluck it out,” Vanderwagon said.
There was an uneasy silence.
“You all right, Andrew?” Carson asked.
“Oh, yes,” said Vanderwagon.
“Remember Biology 101?” Harper asked. “The Islets of Langerhans?“
“Shut up,” Carson warned.
“Islets of Langerhans,“ Harper continued. “Those clusters of cells in the pancreas that secrete hormones. I wonder if you can see them with the naked eye?”
Vanderwagon stared at his plate, then slowly brought his knife up and sliced neatly through the sweetbreads. He picked up the piece of organ with his fingers, looked carefully at the incision he’d made, then dropped the morsel again, sending sauce and pieces of mushroom flying onto the white tablecloth. He poured some water into his napkin, folded it, and carefully wiped his hands. “No,” he said.
“No what?”
“They’re not visible.”
Harper snickered. “If Ricciolini saw us playing with our food like this, he’d poison us.”
“What?” Vanderwagon said loudly.
“I was just kidding. Calm down.”
“Not you,” Vanderwagon said. “I was talking to him.”
There was another silence.
“Yes sir, I will!” Vanderwagon shouted. He came to attention suddenly, knocking his chair over as he stood up. His hands were straight at his sides, fork in one and knife in the other. Slowly, he raised the fork, then swiveled it toward his face. Each movement was calculated, almost reverent. He looked as if he was about to take a bite from the empty fork.
“Andrew, what are you up to now?” Harper said, chuckling nervously. “Look at this guy, will you?”
Vanderwagon raised the fork several inches.
“For Chrissakes, sit down,” Harper said.
The fork inched closer, the tines trembling slightly in Vanderwagon’s hand.
Carson realized what the scientist was about to do the instant before it happened. Vanderwagon never blinked as he placed the tines of the fork against the cornea of one eye. Then he pressed his fist forward with slow, deliberate pressure. For a second, Carson could see, with horrifying clarity, the ocular membrane yielding under the tines of the fork; then there was the sound of a grape being stepped on and clear liquid sprayed across the table in a viscous jet. Carson
lunged for the arm, jerking it back. The fork came out of the eye and clattered to the floor as Vanderwagon began to make a high, keening noise.
Harper leaped forward to help but Vanderwagon slashed with his knife and the scientist fell backward into his chair. Harper looked down in disbelief at the red stripe spreading across his chest. Vanderwagon lunged again and Carson moved in, bringing a fist up toward his gut. Vanderwagon anticipated the blow, jerked sideways, and Carson’s hand glanced harmlessly off Vanderwagon’s hipbone. A moment later, Carson felt a stunning blow to the side of his skull. He stumbled backward, shaking his head, cursing himself for underestimating the man. As his vision cleared he saw Vanderwagon bearing down on him and he swung with his right, connecting with the scientist’s temple. Vanderwagon’s head snapped sideways and he crashed to the floor. Grabbing the wrist that held the knife, Carson slammed it to the floor until the knife came free. Vanderwagon arched forward, screaming incoherently, fluid streaming from his ruined eye. Carson gave him a short, measured blow to the chin and he rolled sideways and lay still, his flanks heaving.
Carson eased back carefully, hearing for the first time the tremendous hubbub of voices around him. His hand began to throb in time with the beat of his heart. The rest of the diners had come forward, forming a circle around the table. “Medical’s on the way,” a voice said. Carson looked up at Harper, who nodded back. “I’m okay,” he gasped, pressing a bloodied napkin against his chest.
Then there was a hand on Carson’s shoulder and Teece’s thin, peeling face passed his field of vision. The inspector knelt beside Vanderwagon.
“Andrew?”
Vanderwagon’s good eye slid around and located Teece.
“Why did you do that?” Teece asked sympathetically.
“Do what?”
Teece pursed his lips. “Never mind,” he said quietly.
“Always talking ...”
“I understand,” Teece said.
“Pluck out ...”
“Who told you to pluck it out?”
“Get me out of here!” Vanderwagon suddenly screamed.
“We’re going to do just that,” said Mike Marr as he made his way through the circle of diners, pushing Teece aside. Two medical workers lifted Vanderwagon onto a stretcher. The investigator followed the group toward the door, leaning over the stretcher, crooning: “Who? Tell me who?”
But the medic had already sunk a needle in Vanderwagon’s arm and the scientist’s one good eye rolled up into his head as the powerful narcotic took effect.
The studio’s Green Room wasn’t green at all, but a pale yellow. A sofa and several overstuffed chairs were lined up against the walls, and in the center a scratched Bauhaus coffee table was piled high with copies of People, Newsweek, and The Economist. On a table in the far corner sat a pot of well-cooked coffee, a pile of Styrofoam cups, some elderly looking cream, and an untidy heap of sweetener packages.
Levine decided not to chance the coffee. He shifted on the sofa, glancing around again. Besides himself and Toni Wheeler, the foundation’s media consultant, there was only one other person in the room, a sallow-faced man in a glen plaid suit. Feeling Levine’s eyes on him, the man glanced up, then looked away, dabbing his sweaty forehead with a silk handkerchief. He was clutching a book: The Courage to Be Different, by Barrold Leighton.
Toni Wheeler was whispering into his ear, and Levine made an effort to listen.
“—a mistake,” she was saying. “We shouldn’t be here, and you know it. This isn’t the kind of forum you should be seen in.”
Levine sighed. “We’ve already been through this,” he whispered back. “Mr. Sanchez is interested in our cause.”
“Sanchez is only interested in one thing: controversy. Look, what’s the point of paying me if you never take my advice? We need to be shoring up your image, making you look dignified, patrician. A statesman in the crusade against dangerous science. This show is exactly what you don’t need.”
“What I need is more exposure,” Levine replied. “People know I speak the truth. And I’ve been making real progress in recent weeks. When they hear about this”—he patted his breast pocket—“they’ll learn what ‘dangerous science’ really is.”
Ms. Wheeler shook her head. “Our focus group research shows you’re beginning to be perceived as eccentric. The recent lawsuits, and especially this thing with GeneDyne, are throwing your credibility into question.”
“My credibility? Impossible.” The perspiring man caught his eye again. “I’ll bet that’s Barrold Leighton himself,” Levine whispered. “Here to promote his book, no doubt. Must be his first time on television. The Courage to Be Different, indeed. He’s a poor choice to be hawking courage to the world.”
“Don’t change the subject. Your credibility is compromised. The Harvard chair, your work with the Holocaust Fund, just isn’t enough anymore. We need to regroup, do damage control, alter your public perception. Charles, I’m asking you again. Don’t do this.”
A woman poked her head in the door. “Levine, please,” she said in a flat voice.
Levine stood up, smiled and waved at his publicist, then followed the woman through the door and into Makeup. Damage control, indeed, Levine thought as a cosmetician placed him in a barber chair and began working his jawline with a crayon. Toni Wheeler sounded more like a submarine captain than a media consultant. She was clever and savvy, but she was a spin doctor at heart. She still didn’t understand that it wasn’t his nature to back down in the face of a struggle. Besides, he’d decided he needed a vehicle like this. The press had barely touched his account of the Novo-Druzhina accident. They thought it was too long ago and far away. “Sammy Sanchez at Seven” was based in Boston, but its broadcast feed was picked up by a string of independent stations across the country. Not “Geraldo,” perhaps, but good enough. He felt inside his suit jacket for the two envelopes. He was confident, even buoyant. This was going to be very, very good.
Studio C was typical: a faux Victorian oasis of dark wallpaper and mahogany chairs surrounded by dangling lights, television cameras, and a hundred snaking cables. Levine knew the other two panelists well: Finley Squires, the pit-bull-in-a-suit of the pharmaceutical industry, and consumer activist Theresa Court. They’d already had the first segment of the show to themselves, but Levine relished the disadvantage. He stepped across the concrete floor, picking his way carefully over the cables. Sammy Sanchez himself sat in a swivel chair at the far side of the round table, his lean predatory face gazing at Levine. He motioned him to a seat as the countdown to the second segment began.
As the live feed started, Sanchez briefly introduced Levine to the other panelists and the estimated two million viewers, then turned the discussion over to Squires. From the monitor in the makeup room, Levine had seen Squires holding forth on the benefits of genetic engineering. Levine couldn’t wait: he felt like a boxer in top shape, advancing into the ring.
“Do you have a baby with Tay-Sachs disease?” Squires was saying, “Or sickle-cell anemia? Or hemophilia?”
He gazed into the camera, his face full of concern. Then he gestured at Levine without looking at him. “Dr. Levine here would deny you the legal right to cure your child. If he has his way, millions of sick people, who could be cured of these genetic diseases, will be forced to suffer.”
He paused, voice dropping.
“Dr. Levine calls his organization the Foundation for Genetic Policy. Don’t be fooled. This is no foundation. This is a lobbying organization, which is trying to keep the miraculous cures offered by genetic engineering from you. Denying your right to choose. Making your children suffer.”
Sammy Sanchez swiveled in his chair, raising one eyebrow in Levine’s direction. “Dr. Levine? Is it true? Would you deny my child the right to such a cure?”
“Absolutely not,” Levine said, smiling calmly. “I’m a geneticist by training. After all, as I recently made public, I was one of the developers of the X-RUST variety of corn, though I have refrained from pr
ofiting by it. Dr. Squires is grossly distorting my position.”
“A geneticist by training, perhaps, but not by practice,” Squires continued. “Genetic engineering offers hope. Dr. Levine offers despair. What he terms a ‘cautious, conservative approach’ is really nothing more than a suspicion of modern science so deep it’s practically medieval.”
Theresa Court began to say something, then stopped. Levine glanced at her without concern; he knew she’d side with the winner whichever way things shook out.
“I think that what Dr. Levine is advocating is greater responsibility on the part of the companies engaged in genetic research,” Sanchez said. “Am I right, Doctor?”
“That’s part of the solution,” Levine replied, content for the time being to press his usual message home. “But we also need greater governmental oversight. Currently, corporations are seemingly free to tinker with human genes, animal and plant genes, viral genes, with little or no supervision. Pathogens of unimaginable virulence are being created in labs today. All it takes is one accident to cause a catastrophe with potentially worldwide implications.”
At last, Squires turned his scornful gaze toward Levine. “More government oversight. More regulation. More bureaucracy. More stifling of free enterprise. That is precisely what this country does not need. Dr. Levine is a scientist. He should know better. Yet he persists in fostering these untruths, frightening people with lies about genetic engineering.”
It was time. “Dr. Squires is attempting to portray me as deceitful,” Levine said. He reached a hand inside his jacket, feeling for the inner pocket. “Let me show you something.”
He slipped out a bright red envelope, holding it up to the cameras. “As a professor of microbiology, Dr. Squires is beholden to no one. He’s only interested in the truth.”
Levine shook the sealed envelope slightly, hoping that Toni Wheeler was watching from the Green Room. The red color had been a stroke of genius. He knew the cameras had focused on the envelope, and that countless viewers were now waiting for it to be opened.
“And yet, what if I told you that, in this envelope, I have proof that Dr. Squires has been paid a quarter of a million dollars by the GeneDyne Corporation? One of the world’s leading genetic engineering firms? And that he has kept this employment secret, even from his own university? Would that, perhaps, call his motives into question?”
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