by Scott Britz
“Emmy?” Hank leaned back and looked up at last through the companionway, shielding his eyes from the sun. His jaw hung open in astonishment.
Gifford saw that he had struck a nerve. “She was in my office, not more than ten minutes ago. Distraught, almost in tears. She begged me to keep her mother from taking her to Atlanta.”
“Why the hell did she do that? Why didn’t she come to me?”
“You tell me.”
“I’m her father, for chrissake.” Hank threw a screwdriver, which rattled in the dark cranny beneath the engine.
“Look—don’t get jealous. She sent me to you. You’re the one she wants to handle this.”
“Me? How?”
“Talk to her mother. Make Cricket see reason. I meant it when I offered her the institute. I want her to stay. It’ll keep Acadia Springs in the family, so to speak. It’s a win-win for everyone. But I can’t have her working against me. Not now. Not this week, of all weeks.”
“Fuck it.”
Words of refusal. But they sounded more like a sigh. “What does that mean?”
“It means fuck it.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“It’s a fuck, what the hell.”
Gifford realized he had won. “You’ll talk to her then?”
“Not for you. For Emmy.”
“Good, good. Talk to her now, Hank. She’s in the BSL-4 lab.”
“Sure, I’ll drop everything.” Hank threw a handful of tools and parts into his open toolbox and stood up. His head was down and his back was all Gifford could see. “Now, if that’s all you came for, please get off my goddamn boat.”
Gifford knew better than to press his luck. He felt spent anyway, and the hot sun seemed to be worsening his migraine. On the other side of campus, Yolanda was lying helpless, maybe even dying.
The greatest week of his life was turning into a nightmare.
Six
HANK CHUCKLED TO HIMSELF AS HE heard Gifford spring off the deck. News flash! Cricket’s making waves. Ebola, for God’s sake. Normally, he’d have just cheered her on, but this time, she was courting danger. The Methuselah Vector steamroller would run her over if she got in its way. She needed to be warned.
Hank quickly washed his hands in the tiny galley sink. Leaving the engine disassembled, he replaced the cover of the engine compartment, hooked the ladder into position, and climbed into the light. Standing on deck, he paused for a look at the Bay Dreamer’s mainsail, carefully furled and stored under its blue polymer cover. It was amazing how far you could go with just a few yards of canvas. How far and how free.
Maybe he had it all backward. Why not get rid of the damned condo and keep the boat? Then sail for the South Pacific and never come back.
He got into the pickup, with its smashed bumper and headlight, and drove across campus to the hillside cutout where the Center for Advanced Virology Research was nestled. With its tiny windows, it looked like a prison. What was inside was even less inviting. With all the air seals and protective glass and space suits, it wasn’t like any other lab he’d ever seen. It was more like an alien spaceship—a place for things that could kill you in ten seconds flat, and for which modern medicine had no cure. It scared the shit out of him.
Gifford had called ahead to give him a pass through security. Entering the main lobby, Hank looked through the windows and saw Cricket in Bay 1, closest to the front door. With Jean Litwack at her side, she was standing at the head of a plastic isolation tent, holding Yolanda’s head back and moving something around in her mouth.
Hank hit the intercom. For a moment he just stood there with his hand on the button, not sure how to begin. Gifford had told him what to say, but he wasn’t Gifford’s messenger boy. “How is she, Cricket?” he finally said.
Cricket was busy. She handed the end of a plastic tube to Jean, who attached it to a blue, football-shaped air bag. As Jean began to squeeze the air bag slowly in and out, Cricket unzipped a vent in the isolator and inserted a small metal disk—the transmitter for an electronic stethoscope. Over the intercom Hank could hear the signal from it—a roar from Yolanda’s lungs, rough as an Atlantic gale. It confirmed that the airway was correctly placed.
Cricket seemed satisfied with the sound, and only then did she acknowledge Hank’s question. “Yolanda was stable all morning, but it took a lot of pressor support and diuretics. We’ve just had to change her endotracheal airway. Her lungs are filling up with fluid. I don’t know if it’s from pneumonia, or heart failure, or from her kidneys shutting down. It’s all happening at once.”
“What in hell has she got?”
Cricket zipped the isolator vent shut. “I don’t know. I gave Wig Waggoner a blood sample for analysis, and shipped another to USAMRIID. No word yet. I’ve combed through every laboratory on campus. There’s no record of anyone here working with a virus that could have this effect.”
“Still a mystery, then?”
“No, it’s not a mystery. Mystery’s just a word for sloppy thinking. This disease has a cause as simple and definite as the common cold. I’m just too stupid to see what it is.”
“You—stupid?”
“Give me a break, Hank. I’m in over my head and I know it.”
Hank was taken aback. Self-doubt was so uncharacteristic of Cricket that he thought he must have heard wrong. “Well, I mean, you’re the expert, right?”
“Why do you all keep saying that? There’s no ‘expert’ for a thing like this. This is a lightning bolt out of nowhere.”
Cricket disconnected the tube from Jean’s air bag and reconnected it to the ventilator machine behind her. As she adjusted the controls for pressure and oxygen, the silence over the intercom was suddenly pierced by a barrage of electronic shrieks. Hank saw a red warning light flashing on the vital-signs monitor.
Cricket’s gaze bounced from the monitor to Jean. “Which alarm is that?”
“All of them!” said Jean, her mouth agape.
“What do you mean, all of them?”
“I mean . . . all of them.”
Even from where he stood, Hank could see that the numbers on the screen were in free fall. Blood pressure. Heart rate. Oxygen saturation. All were diving toward zero.
“One mg of epinephrine!” shouted Cricket. “Hurry!”
As Jean scrambled for the crash cart, Cricket unzipped the vent and applied the stethoscope. This time Hank heard no breath sounds over the intercom, only the muted, drumlike beats of Yolanda’s heart. Beating a dirge—not a march. And slowing.
“Something’s wrong with her airway.” Cricket deflated the little balloon that held the tube in place and tried to pull it out. But there was a hitch. The airway wouldn’t budge.
The tugging triggered something inside Yolanda. Her chest heaved, and an instant later an explosion of blood spattered the inside of the tent. From where Hank stood, it looked as if blood was gushing out of both sides of Yolanda’s mouth, staining her entire front.
With the epinephrine syringe in her hand, Jean stopped in her tracks and screamed, “Look! There! It’s . . . it’s underneath her, too.”
Hank saw it, too—a waterfall of blood dripping over the edge of the mattress. Cricket jammed her hands through the plastic sleeves of the tent and ripped off the sheet that covered Yolanda’s body. A massive pool had soaked through the undersheet, staining it bright, glistening red from Yolanda’s hips to her knees.
“It must be coming from her bowel.” Cricket pulled back from the isolation tent. Hank was shocked to see Cricket freeze, her hands in midair, as if in panic.
“What’ll we do, Doctor?” cried Jean.
“Hang another unit of blood!” Cricket shouted, but the pitch of her voice rose, almost like a question. “Open all fluid lines full bore. We’ve got to get her blood pressure up. Up! Up!” Jean ran to the IV rack and hastily connected a plastic bag contai
ning dark, wine-colored blood.
The beeping of the monitor became a solid tone—warning of a flat line on the heart monitor. Jean rushed the cardiac defibrillator cart to the bedside, but Cricket shook her head. “Defibrillation won’t work. Her heart’s failing from lack of oxygen.”
Shoving her arms back through the sleeves of the tent, Cricket began chest compressions, crossing her hands, thrusting with the fleshy parts of her palms. Hank could see blood squirt from Yolanda’s mouth with each push. Minutes went by. Minutes of futility. The flat line didn’t budge. As her arms and shoulders tired, Cricket had to hunch forward to use her body weight. The spikes of blood pressure that accompanied each thrust grew smaller and smaller, until . . .
“Time of death—one seventeen p.m.,” came Cricket’s voice over the intercom—wilting, defeated, drained of all expression. Letting her arms slide out of the plastic sleeves, she slumped against the frame of the isolation tent. She was shaking.
“Cricket, are you okay?” Hank called out.
Cricket gave no answer. Several times she knocked her helmet against the IV pole. Over the intercom, her breathing was rapid, forced, and rough. Suddenly, she doubled over as the plastic visor of her helmet went dark with an eruption of yellow vomit.
“Cricket! Cricket! What’s going on?” Hank’s own heart was pounding. Has she hurt herself? Has she caught the virus? “Jean, can you see the problem?” Hank shouted, when Cricket failed to answer. “What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know.” Jean moved forward and put her hand on Cricket’s shoulder. Instantly, Cricket jumped up, almost knocking Jean onto the ground. Cricket bounded toward the door. But her visor was clouded over. Veering off course, she collided with a sink and slipped to the floor with a thud, scrabbling in vain for a handhold on the faucet.
Muffled screams came through her helmet.
Hank was horrified as he saw Cricket reach for the Velcro tab behind her neck. “Jean, look out!” he shouted. “She’s trying to take her helmet off! Stop her!”
Jean ran and grabbed Cricket by the wrists. As the two women struggled, Hank called out. “Hold her! I’m coming!”
Hank rushed to the air lock and scanned himself in. Once through, he kicked off his street shoes, grabbed an extra-large biosafety suit in the changing room, and zipped himself up. He threw on a helmet and a portable respirator pack on the fly as he ran toward Bay 1. Cricket was huddled in the corner, rocking back and forth and sobbing as Jean held her in her arms. Her helmet, thank God, was still secure.
“Let’s get her out of here,” said Hank.
With Jean’s help, Hank lifted Cricket and carried her through the air lock to the decontamination shower. Propping her on her feet, he rinsed the outside of both their plastic suits with the Lysol jets. Then he led her into the inner changing room. Leaning her against the wall, he gently removed her helmet. Her face was white and spattered with straw-colored vomit. Her breathing came fast and shallow. “In the locker . . . my purse . . . pillbox,” she gasped.
Still in his biosafety suit, Hank rushed to the outer changing room, opened Cricket’s locker, and quickly found the pillbox. Flipping it open, he saw a dozen white pills inside.
He heard water running in the shower between the two changing rooms. Cricket had stripped down to a black bra and panties and stood under the spray. As Hank extended the pillbox, she groped for it without looking, took two pills, and tossed her head back, chewing them and swallowing them dry. Then she braced herself against the shower wall, letting the water spray against her face. The droplets that ricocheted against Hank’s forearm were icy cold.
Hank pulled the shower door shut, took off his helmet, and waited on the bench in the changing room. After a few minutes, the showerhead went silent. Cricket slid open the door and emerged, her hair dripping, a skimpy, white towel wrapped around her slim frame. She seemed sullen as she went to her locker and took out a pair of tan shorts.
“So that’s what a panic attack looks like,” Hank remarked.
“Aren’t you fucking smart.”
The Cricket he knew would have been the last person to have a panic attack. But something had changed. “Don’t blame yourself for Yolanda. I could see you did everything you could.”
“Like hell. I didn’t even know what I was fighting against.”
“What’s going to happen now?”
“We wait for the next case.”
“Shouldn’t you do an autopsy or something?”
“Not me. USAMRIID.”
“That’s in Maryland, isn’t it? You’re going to ship the body there? How long will that take?”
“A day or two. I don’t know. It’s not my problem anymore.”
“Could the virus spread before then?”
Cricket gave a sardonic laugh. “I’ll be on my way to Atlanta within the hour, and Emmy with me. My advice to you is to sail away on that boat of yours. Get out while you can.”
“Run away? Really?”
“You have a right to save yourself.”
“That doesn’t sound like the Cricket I know.”
“What do you want from me, Hank? You have no idea what I’ve been through.” Still holding her shorts bunched up in one hand, Cricket absentmindedly pulled a pair of shoes out of the locker. “I’m sorry. I can’t go on with this. I just can’t.”
“Let me help, Cricket.”
“You?” With her bare foot, Cricket kicked the door of the locker so hard that it slammed open and shut again. “What the fuck can you do? You don’t know the first thing about performing an autopsy.”
“I’ll follow directions. Whatever you say.”
“You think it’s easy? It’s dangerous, Hank. One scratch with a scalpel or a sharp piece of bone and you’re dead.”
“Noted.”
The door to the shower room slid open. Jean Litwack’s long-nosed, slope-chinned face poked through. “What do you want me to do with her, Doctor? The, uh, body, I mean.”
Cricket, wrenching her jaw from side to side, gave her a seething look. The last time Hank saw that look, a bottle of Scotch shattered against a wall, just inches from his head. “Why are you asking me? Ask Charles Gifford,” she snapped. Smacking her thighs with her shorts, she paced up and down the room, scowling alternately at Jean and at Hank. Hank could see that she was struggling with a decision. But he knew her well enough to know that the outcome was foreordained.
At last she threw her shorts and shoes back into the locker and slammed it shut. “Put her in Bay Five,” she ordered.
Jean’s pale eyes opened wide. “The autopsy suite?”
“Yes.” Cricket glared at Hank, as if to say, Here’s that triple-hot enchilada you ordered, Buster. Let me know how you like it. But her voice was businesslike. “My ex-husband and I will be there directly.”
Seven
HANK STOOD OUTSIDE THE SLIDING DOOR to Bay 5, holding up his arms while Cricket double-checked his biosafety suit and tested the Velcro fittings of his gloves and helmet.
“It’s going to be ghastly, isn’t it?” he asked with a nervous chuckle.
“Ghastly on a good day. This one will be off the charts.”
Back when they were married, Cricket had often talked about performing autopsies while on her field assignments, but Hank could never bring himself to actually visualize her doing one. It’s hard to share a bed with someone you know has been up to her elbows in blood that day. Having never seen an autopsy himself, all he could imagine was that it was something cruel, unhallowed, and nauseating in the extreme.
“Your suit’s okay,” Cricket said primly. “Now check mine.” She made the same 360-degree spin he had, like a ballerina in slow motion.
“Lookin’ good.”
“We’re going to work ve-rry carefully. This is no ordinary autopsy, where you take out each organ and dissect it. That’s too dangerous. We�
�re only going to scout around and take a few samples to study later. To minimize the chance of an accidental cut, we’ll be wearing double gloves, and using a fixed-blade scalpel, a little on the dull side. Scissors, too, will have rounded points. Above all else, stay alert and avoid accidents. Otherwise, the next autopsy could be on you.”
“Oops! I think I need to change my underwear.”
Hank chuckled at his own joke, and even Cricket couldn’t resist a smile. Hank was amazed at how calm Cricket seemed, how businesslike. It was hard to believe she had gone to pieces minutes before. Those pills of hers must have been magic.
The automatic sliding door of the air lock whooshed. Hank followed Cricket inside. The lab bay was bright from the glare of porcelain tiles and stainless-steel cabinets. In the center a heavy steel table, very much like an altar, was bolted to the floor. Hanging above it were spray nozzles for water and Lysol and a four-foot-wide surgical lamp that could be aimed in any direction.
Off to one side was the blood-spattered isolator that Jean had wheeled in from Bay 1.
“I failed her,” Cricket said.
“What else could you have done?”
“That’s the point. I never had a fucking clue.” With a fierce motion, Cricket unzipped the tent. Hank rolled the naked body onto one side while Cricket slid a plastic backboard under it. Then they lifted Yolanda onto the stainless-steel table. Gently and methodically, Cricket rinsed away the still-wet blood with water.
Hank went woozy as he viewed the corpse under the bright light of the surgical lamp. Yolanda’s face and chest were covered with purple splotches. Her arms and legs were swollen to such an extreme that the skin had split open in parallel lines like gills. Her purple lips were encrusted with blisters.