Sleight of Hand (Outbreak Task Force)

by Julie Rowe

  “Let me know if I seem too agreeable. A thump on the head ought to do it.”

  They pulled up ten minutes later near another large house, though not as big as the first one. The police had cordoned off a larger section of the street, providing enough space for the two ambulances, a coroner’s van, three police cars, and their CDC van.

  The police opened a gap in the caution tape for them to drive through, and Gunner parked the vehicle. He and Joy put on their protective gear. She grabbed the sample collection equipment while he brought a digital voice recorder.

  As soon as they left the van in their gear, a policeman was there.

  They followed the cop past the vehicles and up the sidewalk to the front door. Most of the police and EMS were huddled close to it and were wearing surgical masks and gloves.

  There was a staircase going up to the second floor about eight feet inside the entrance. Two young men were sitting on the stairs with bowls on their laps talking to a uniformed policeman, who was taking notes, and another man in a suit who was asking questions.

  As he and Joy came through the door, all four of them stopped what they were doing to look at his partner and him. “This is the president and VP of Kappa House.” The man in the suit angled his head toward the two kids.

  Joy walked up to the group and glanced into the bowls. “I’ll need your full names and birth dates.” She set the collection box on the floor and opened it.

  “Could you gentlemen catch me up to speed?” Gunner asked. He turned on his recorder and held it up so the detective could see it. “A concise summary, please.”

  “911 call came in about three hours ago. Sounded like a drunk kid, but he started raving about someone being dead, so a unit was dispatched to check it out.” He nodded at the uniformed officer. “MacDougall was the first in the door.”

  The officer took up the story from there. “There were six people in the main living area, three of them were unconscious, two were awake but throwing up, and one was dead.” The officer paused for a moment to glance toward the living room and a covered lump on the couch. “The dead kid looked like he’d passed away in his sleep. He was all curled up, but he stank like an outhouse, so I called it in.”

  “You checked the entire house, right? Just the one body?”

  “Yes, sir.” The cop blinked and lowered his voice. “Are there more bodies somewhere else?”

  “I can’t answer that directly, but this guy”—he thumbed over his shoulder at the coroner—“isn’t the only one from his office getting calls today for similar situations.”

  Gunner talked to the CSI who’d performed the field test for possible pathogens, and then he interviewed the president and VP of the house while Joy collected more samples from the deceased and other house residents.

  “How many people attended your party?” he asked the two boys.

  “I don’t know, forty, fifty people maybe?” The kid on the right looked at his friend.

  “Any chance you could give me a list of names?”

  “You’re joking, right?” the kid said.

  “It wasn’t like we had a guestbook or something,” the other one said with a grimace. “People came and went.” The two young men listed off a half dozen Greek houses. MacDougall took note of them as well.

  The dead kid turned out to be the one who’d picked up the alcohol for the party. He’d brought the keg to the house a few hours before the party started.

  “What killed him?” the first kid asked the whites of his eyes a little too prominent. “Is it something we’re all going to get? A virus that’s going to turn us all into zombies?”

  “No one is going to turn into a zombie,” Gunner said. He looked at MacDougall. “Someone is going to need to keep an eye on them. We haven’t got a definitive identification on the pathogen, but assume it’s easily transferred by contact with contaminated hands. It could be in food or drink.”

  Paramedics came in with a rolling, collapsible gurney and cases of medical equipment slung over their shoulders.

  Joy said, “Sir, do you have time for me to show you a couple of things? Then we should be finished here.” She led the way into the kitchen, where she nodded at the familiar-looking metal beer keg sitting perched on a table.

  Same brand of beer.

  “I did a second field test,” Joy said. “It confirmed CSI’s positive result. All the open beer I could find have tested positive. Eleven samples.”

  The CSI and detective both froze.

  “You found eleven more positive tests?” the detective asked, horror coloring every word. He looked around the kitchen at all the mess and the size of the keg. “That means…”

  “There are more victims who’ve gone who knows where,” Gunner said. “Spreading the bacteria around to who knows how many other people.”

  9:00 p.m.

  Joy nodded, studying the men and seeing the same dread on their faces as she felt. “Anyone who drank that beer will need to be monitored.”

  “How many ambulances are out there?” Gunner asked.

  “One, now,” the detective said. “The coroner just left with the body.”

  “Does the hospital have the capacity to keep an eye on that many people?” the CSI asked. “I mean, with all the other cases from the other house?”

  She winced. These guys didn’t even have all the information.

  “Houses,” Gunner corrected. “There are three other incidences reported to the CDC today. All student housing in the city, but at different colleges.”

  “You’re shitting me,” the detective said flatly.

  “I shit you not,” Gunner said. He looked at the CSI. “Your concern regarding the hospital’s capacity is valid.”

  Gunner glanced at her, the question open on his face.

  She nodded. The guy had asked a smart question, was thinking of the big picture even though he didn’t have all the information. The detective was sharp, too.

  Yes, tell them.

  Joy explained, “This is a fecal coliform. It’s not airborne contagious. You have to consume it like these kids have been doing.”

  The detective narrowed his eyes. “Poison?”

  “We don’t know how it happened, but it’s been in two kegs of the same brand of beer.”

  “Jesus,” the detective breathed out. “Spring Break is in a few days.”

  “If it’s all the same brand of beer, can’t you just order a recall?” the CSI asked.

  “Sure, but we don’t know if the contamination occurred at the brewery. If it happened at some other point in the process or after they left the brewery…” Gunner shrugged. “That’s why we’re still investigating, and we’ll keep investigating until we figure this out.”

  They left after promising to keep the detective and CSI in their information loop.

  Once they were on the way back to CDC to drop off the samples, she spoke with Henry and Dr. Rodrigues, who wanted the brewery inspected in the morning.

  “We need to investigate the entire production chain of the beer kegs from the manufacturer until we figure out how the E. coli got into the beer,” Gunner said.

  “Can we recall any kegs that have been sold?” Joy asked.

  “I imagine that’s what Rodrigues is going to want to do first, but until we know how and when the bacteria were introduced to the kegs, we won’t know if we’ve gotten this bug out of the hands of the public.”

  “It has to be an accident, doesn’t it?”

  He gave her a look that communicated all too well what he thought of that.

  “You’re going to lecture me on the number of assholes in Atlanta, aren’t you?”

  “Anyone who did this deliberately is far beyond an asshole. They’re now a mass murderer.”

  Nausea churned her stomach, and she thought she’d have to ask him to pull over. She managed to keep everything where it belonged by breathing through her mouth for several seconds.

  Why was this hitting her so hard? Was it the age of the victims? Or how quic
kly they were adding up?

  “Joy?” Gunner asked, giving her several worried glances as he drove.

  “This has gotten me off kilter, but I don’t know why. I’ve seen much worse scenes, been involved in a few combat rescue missions that were pretty awful, but none of it made me this sick.”

  Gunner didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes. Finally, he asked, “You didn’t just join the CDC two years ago, you left the Army at the same time, right?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So…this is happening at home.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “We don’t yet know if this is an intentional poisoning or if it’s accidental, but you didn’t have any trouble until it became clear it could be a deliberate act. At home, in the USA, where we’re supposed to be safe from terrorists.”

  A cold wave rolled over her and settled in her gut, beginning an ice age that crept across her body.

  Was he right? Was that why she couldn’t seem to find her bearings? “How do you know this?”

  “I went through something similar during my first break between assignments with Doctors Without Borders. For a while, the nausea was so bad I wasn’t sure I could practice medicine anymore.”

  “What did you do to get over it?”

  “I kept on working anyway.” He shrugged. “I still have bad days, and it’s another reason why I’m so damn grumpy. It’s hard to have patience with stupid questions or asshole behavior when you’re trying not to have a panic attack.”

  Okay, so maybe she was feeling the cumulative psychological effects of her work overseas in the Army and the threat she was feeling in her gut to her safe place. Home.

  Fuck.

  She wasn’t going to let this shit win, wasn’t going to let it stop her from doing what she loved and living her life.

  “What coping strategies do you use besides being cranky?”

  “I spend a lot of time at the gym. Physical exercise helps me vent the negative shit running around loose in my head.” His voice deepened, he gave her a heated look and waggled his eyebrows. “I imagine any kind of physical exercise would accomplish it.”

  She smacked his shoulder. “Stop that.”

  “Just trying to put a smile on your face.” His smile was light and teasing; he was trying to make her laugh.

  “Jerk,” she said, but it came out sounding like an endearment.

  “Ah, yes,” he said in a smug tone that did more than just melt the ice in her gut. “I need a pet name for you.”

  “A pet name?”

  “Fine, nickname, whatever. You need one.”

  Laughter bubbled up inside her, and she had to hold herself back from letting it out. “I do not.”

  “Sure you do.” He glanced at her, and she could see the wicked gleam of humor in his eyes. “Nurse pansy-ass?”

  She shook her head so hard she got dizzy. Not funny. Not going to laugh.

  “How about Joy Ashiro, badass nurse?”

  She went to shake her head automatically but stopped herself. Badass nurse?

  He glanced at her and said triumphantly, “Ah ha! Badass nurse it is.” He hummed for a moment. “Maybe badass for short.”

  Gunner stopped the vehicle, and Joy realized they’d reached the CDC’s main gate. He rolled down the window and flashed his ID. The gate guard let them in.

  He parked the van, and she opened her door and got out, energized and ready to work.

  Holy shit. It worked. She felt…normal. Good.

  Chapter Eight

  Sunday 10:20 p.m.

  Gunner grabbed two of the sample collection cases, leaving the last one for Joy to carry. He was grinning, though he tried to hide it. Badly.

  They arrived at the lab, where Henry waited. He took the three cases of samples and checked the paperwork. Joy went into detail about how she collected a couple of the samples and which ones had positive field tests for E. coli. As soon as she was done, Henry told them Rodrigues wanted to see them.

  “Do you think we’re going to be sent somewhere else?” Joy asked. It took more effort to do everything, walking, lifting, talking, than it should, but since getting out of the van, determination to finish the job had given her an adrenaline boost.

  “It’s after ten o’clock,” Gunner replied after a quick consult of his watch. “We’ve been working for more than thirteen hours.”

  Joy winced. “We’re not in outbreak conditions.”

  “No,” he agreed.

  Dr. Rodrigues’s office door was open, and she was on her feet talking on the phone with someone. She handed Joy a tablet and mouthed, read.

  Gunner leaned close to read along with her. His breath heated and teased her nape, sending a spear of lightning through her. Would he kiss her neck soft and slow or nip and nibble?

  Focus.

  The document on the screen was one of a series of microbiology reports. They all had the same result: Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) O157:H7.

  Joy glanced at Gunner. This result wasn’t a surprise. This strain was the commonest cause of E.coli illness in the country. He nudged her shoulder with his and nodded at the tablet.

  She scrolled down to show further results. A second strain of E.coli had been isolated from several of the samples: STEC O121.

  “Two strains?” she breathed. The news was as good as a cold shower. She’d never heard of such a thing. “Is that why people are getting so sick so fast and dying?”

  “It might explain how virulent the resulting illness is,” he said slowly. “But two pathogenic bacteria in the same samples?” He shook his head. “That doesn’t spell accident to me.”

  Dr. Rodrigues ended her call and faced them. “I agree with you, Dr. Anderson. I was speaking with Homeland Security just now, and they don’t like it, either. The CDC has been asked to find the source of the bacterial contamination and prove that the contamination was either an accident or a deliberate act.”

  Gunner cocked his head. “That sounds like business as usual for us, but your tone says something else.”

  “Since the El Paso case, the threat from biological weapons is perceived as high by the Justice Department. We almost lost control of that situation, and Homeland Security doesn’t want a repeat.”

  “Ma’am,” Joy said, interrupting her. “We’d like to continue with this investigation.”

  Rodrigues held up a hand. “You are. Your roles in the task force are changing. You’re joining the ranks of my first to last responders. First ones in, last ones to leave—maintaining a better level of continuity for the entire investigation. It means more responsibility, but the two of you have worked well together.” She pointed at Gunner. “But be warned, it means more scrutiny from outside sources, so don’t pick any fights with anyone.”

  Joy glanced at him. Today hadn’t been a good day, not for her. Maybe he wouldn’t want to continue as her partner. Their new jobs were higher profile and higher stress than their current positions.

  He met her gaze and nodded ever so slightly in a show of support and encouragement.

  “Unless this new role isn’t a position you’re interested in?” Rodrigues asked, glancing from one to the other.

  “I’m good with it,” Gunner said.

  Joy sucked in a breath. She could do this. She would do this. “So am I.”

  “Excellent. The lab is continuing to test the samples from all the locations. That’s going to take the rest of the night and into tomorrow. Now’s your chance to sleep, because I can guarantee that once you’re on the hunt, things can go sideways, and you might not have many chances for rest.” She checked her watch. “Be here by zero seven hundred.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Joy said, coming to attention. She almost saluted but managed to stop herself from doing so at the last moment.

  Gunner led the way out of the room and to their shared office. He began adding stuff to one of his go bags.

  “Sleep?” she asked.

  “I figure I have more time now to
gather up a few extra items than I will in the morning.”

  He was remarkably organized for a man who’d never been in the military. Organized and strategic in what he chose to pack. She followed his example, ensuring she’d have everything she’d need for at least two days—clothing, food, and even water.

  “Let’s go,” he said with a shoulder roll indicating she should follow him.

  She hesitated. It had been a day of emotional upheaval, leaving her feeling as if she were standing on the only solid stone in the middle of a sea of quicksand. Any step could result in her sinking into a dark, deep, dangerous place, but staying where she was wasn’t an option.

  “Okay, okay. I’m right behind you.”

  He didn’t reply, didn’t even grunt, just strode down the hall with more energy and purpose than was polite.

  Joy followed and managed to not get left behind.

  His jeep looked old and dirty, but the engine rumbled to a start and purred.

  “Do you leave it looking like you just crossed the Sahara on purpose so no one steals it?” she asked.

  “Just haven’t gotten around to doing the body work yet,” he said. “Brains before beauty.”

  “How long have you had it?”

  “Ten years.”

  She chuckled. “You’re going to have to start over at this rate.”

  He flashed a smile at her. “It’s always good to have long-term goals. Even if it’s just fixing up a car.”

  Purpose was important. She’d had plenty of purpose right up to the moment she left the Army. After her discharge, for the first time in more than eight years, she got to make all the decisions. Not only could she make them, she had to make them.

  And didn’t that just suck.

  She’d gotten lazy.

  That was part of the problem, the rest was…what, adjusting to civilian life? After two years, she should be completely integrated back into the everyday, average reality most Americans lived in. But now that she had a regular job, with regular hours, she didn’t know what to do with herself when she wasn’t working.

  Wow, lazy and a coward. She’d gotten too used to relying on her work to keep her brain busy.