Only Wrong Once

by Jenifer Ruff

  Shame flooded his senses, overwhelming him with a rush of heat and humiliation. There was a huge penalty in the afterlife for running away from a battle. Al-Bahil’s ISIS videos had driven that point sharply home over the past year. And yes, he wanted the guarantee of a lifetime in paradise with virgins who were actually willing, not terrified and sobbing like Al-Bahil’s farewell gift.

  He curled his hand into a fist and smashed it into the wall. Pain shot from his knuckles up his arm and into his neck. A middle-aged man stopped cleaning his glasses, looked at him and quickly turned away. A worried looking teenager rushed past, gazing straight ahead.

  Go ahead, stare at me. If you only knew…

  He held his bleeding knuckles under running water before wrapping them in paper towels. Reaching into his bag, he could feel the plastic travel bottles containing the antidote. He clutched one and held on to it, staring at his unwavering reflection, barely recognizing the man staring back at him. After a minute, he lifted his chin toward the ceiling and closed his eyes. He released his grip on the antidote and reached around in his bag again, moving aside the virus keychain from Amin, his phone, and a pack of gum, until he found his bottle of morphine. He removed the cap and swallowed a tablet.

  Give me the strength to continue.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Los Angeles

  November 4th

  While Rick and Ken were gathering evidence at Pivani’s house, Quinn drove to see Madeline. The CDC didn’t have offices in LA, so she had temporarily set herself up at the National Bioforensic Analysis Center, the closest maximum containment lab in the area. If Madeline had discovered anything to rule out his team’s immediate involvement, he wanted to know as soon as possible so they could all move on and get some sleep. That’s what he told himself as he merged into four lanes of slow moving traffic and headed to the lab.

  At the front desk, he presented his FBI identification, cleared security, and walked to the office Madeline had been assigned. Her door was slightly ajar, and he could see her staring intently at her laptop screen, fingers poised on either side of her mouse. Tiny wrinkles of concentration crossed her brow. She lifted her hand and rested her index finger against the center of her lower lip. Quinn knew that gesture well. His gaze lingered before he made his presence known by clearing his throat and knocking.

  Madeline looked up and her surprise was evident. “Quinn. Hi,” she said, her voice edged with anticipation. She tucked her hair behind her ear on one side and smiled.

  “Hey, Maddie. So, you’ll be working in LA for a while?”

  Madeline set her elbow on her desk, tilted her head to the side, and rested it in her hand. “Until we figure out what’s going on, yes.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “The CDC has a few leased apartments nearby.”

  “Good. Well, I’ve got two guys at Pivani’s house right now gathering intel. Have you discovered anything new about the virus?”

  “Nothing conclusive yet. But soon. I sent samples back to my office in Atlanta. They’ll do the same RNA tests I requested here. We’ll see who identifies the virus first. I’ve got a team of epidemiologists flying in to help track its origin and prevent its spread. And on your end?”

  “We’ll know more once we go through his cell and computer. Rashid has them now. You’ve met him, right?” Madeline nodded and Quinn continued. “We know Pivani left the country four weeks ago, and there is no record of his activity once he landed. Almost three weeks of unexplained absence abroad.”

  “Oh.” Madeline shook her head, her expression grave. “I knew he left the country, but no record of his travel on credit or debit cards?”

  “Nothing. He was on sick leave from his job. It’s possible he was receiving medical treatment somewhere. We don’t know anything for sure, yet.”

  “I’m glad you’re on this. When will you know where he’s been? We can’t assemble an epidemiological case and identify recent contacts unless we discover where he’s been for the past four weeks.”

  Quinn nodded. “I know. So, you think the disease is something new?”

  “Yes, I know it is. We’ve never seen this before or it would have registered in the DxH.” Madeline took a deep breath and clasped her hands together. Quinn noted there was no ring on her left hand. “While we’re waiting for the lab results, I’m going to examine the body. You can come with me if you’re interested. It beats waiting.”

  Quinn tilted his head toward the door and said, “I’m in.”

  “Good. Let’s get suited up.”

  In the changing room, Quinn had a heightened awareness of Madeline removing her clothes behind the partition. Their relationship was professional now. Most of their recent interactions had been over the phone and in crowded meetings. They hadn’t been alone together in years, but he still easily remembered how she looked naked—amazing, and the feel of her skin when she was in his arms. The remembrance awakened his senses like an electrical current, followed by a wave of guilt.

  When Madeline emerged, hidden underneath her biohazard suit, they helped each other hook up their air supplies and adjust straps.

  “Let me check the seal,” Madeline said, adjusting his respirator. She stood close enough to bring back distracting memories, like the wine tasting trip that ended with stripping and jumping into a hidden lake. Watching Madeline, graceful, indisputably brilliant, and capable, he couldn’t help wonder if he had made a mistake.

  Years ago, Madeline made her feelings for Quinn clear before she left to work on a CDC case in Africa. While she was gone, Quinn got serious with Holly. And soon after, he married her. He’d made his vows. For better or for worse. So, he should focus his energy on changing worse to better at home. But first, he had work to do. They needed to figure out the deal with Pivani. If Madeline had found a case of bioterrorism, he wouldn’t have time to worry about his marriage for a while.

  “So, how are you?” said Madeline, her hands on either side of his face mask.

  “I’m good, just, you know . . .” Quinn’s answer said nothing, but Madeline nodded as if she understood.

  “You look tired. Are you feeling okay?”

  “I am. My team had a few crazy busy days. Everything ended well, that’s what matters.”

  “Good. All right. Suits secured. This way.” She led him through two sets of sealed glass doors. The first required a scan of her retina to open; the second brought them to an isolation room with negative pressure to prevent pathogens from escaping. Another man in a biohazard suit passed them carrying test tube samples. Madeline exchanged a few words with him before he left.

  “An infectious disease expert,” she said to Quinn. “He’ll be back to join us in a few.”

  Bright light flooded the mostly white space. Atop a metal table lay Pivani’s bruised body, looking like the only thing that didn’t belong in the stark, sterile room. Quinn stood silently a few feet away from the table. A cooling mechanism inside his suit kept him comfortable as Madeline opened the body and conducted her examination. Quinn tried not to focus on the intermittent drip, drip, drip of bodily fluids dripping through a hole in the table and into collection containers below.

  Madeline dictated into a recorder while she worked. Quinn didn’t understand all the medical jargon, but he understood more than enough to be alarmed. In addition to the obvious jaundice, all indicators for blood clotting were inhibited. The pulmonary sack was filled with blood, the spleen was engorged, and the kidneys experienced complete necrosis. Quinn found it impossible to imagine that this man appeared healthy two days ago.

  The infectious disease expert returned and Madeline summarized some of her findings. “The lab rushed some preliminary results while working on isolating the viral proteins. His white blood cell and platelet counts were extremely low. His liver enzymes extremely elevated.”

  “I’m not surprised,” said the other physician. “Based on the internal examination, his body succumbed to an unusually accelerated breakdown. It’s fascinat
ing.”

  Madeline turned to Quinn. “Typically, with a hemorrhagic fever, death occurs six to sixteen days after symptoms appear. Raj’s neighbors reported seeing him looking and acting normal two days ago. Assuming their testimonies are accurate, the progression is faster than any known viral agent. It’s extremely aggressive and lethal.”

  “Just great,” said Quinn, clenching his teeth.

  After the exam, Quinn and Madeline waited to be disinfected and safely extricated from their suits, giving them more time to analyze the case.

  “He’s been back in the states for a week. Could he have caught the disease here?” Quinn asked.

  She shrugged. “That is the million dollar question. The disease shared some markers with Ebola. The Ebola incubation period, from infection to manifestation of symptoms, is two to twenty-one days. The infection can’t be spread until symptoms develop.”

  Madeline’s phone rang again. She looked at her screen and held up one finger for Quinn. “It’s the national lab,” she whispered.

  “Dr. Madeline Hamilton,” she said into the phone, “I’ve been waiting for your call.” She listened silently for several seconds before sounding incredulous, even angry. Her skin turned ashen and she pressed her hand against her cheek. She asked questions in rapid fire sequence, thanked the lab, and hung up. She stared at Quinn, her eyes wide.

  “What did they say? You’re scaring me with that look, Maddie.” He waited, but she did not respond. Something about her eyes, the worried look directed back at him, made him repeat his question. “Tell me, for Christ’s sake, what did they say?”

  Madeline exhaled slowly. “It’s bad, Quinn. They isolated the virus. Structurally it’s filovirus in origin, but there’s a reason it wasn’t recognized by the DxH device.” She lowered her voice. “Its molecular structure has been altered from a single-strand, negative-sense RNA. The viral RNA was crossed with a particularly aggressive common cold virus.”

  “Crossed, as in?”

  “Synthesized. Man-made.”

  Quinn’s jaw tensed and his legs felt weak. “The common cold? Does that mean—”

  “Yes.” Madeline clasped her hands together, her expression grim. “Not only is it highly contagious, but it’s airborne—”

  “A man-made airborne infectious agent,” Quinn said softly, lifting his gaze to the ceiling. Holy Shit. “Could this virus have accidentally escaped from a lab in Los Angeles? Was anyone working on something similar here?”

  “I don’t know, Quinn. That’s not information accessible to me. It would certainly be illegal, and it seems doubtful. Maybe, if Raj Pivani was a genetic engineer working in a biomedical lab somewhere…but he wasn’t. I think if he contracted the disease here it would have to have come from some underground military lab. Wouldn’t it?”

  Quinn and Madeline stood, eyes locked, without speaking. A list of protocol flew through Quinn’s mind. He shook his head to bring himself back to the present.

  “We’ll figure this out,” Madeline said in a reassuring tone. “One step at a time, right?”

  “We have to start the chain of communications on this. Can you type up something about what you said, those results, and send it to me? I’ll share them with the National Biological Threat Characterization Center, so they can get started on countermeasures. We’ll need detectors, drugs, vaccines, and decontamination technology.” Quinn walked backward, suddenly in a hurry to get back to his office.

  “Okay, or, you can just tell them to contact me.” Madeline lifted her phone and asked to speak with the head of the CDC as Quinn hurried away from her office, already on his phone as well.

  Quinn jogged to his car and called Jayla. “I’m headed back to the office. Please get the team together.”

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “We’re dealing with a deadly weaponized virus. The stakes have been raised. Big time.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Boston

  November 4th

  CDC Medical Officer Amanda Cooney looked up at the treetops to admire the last traces of fall’s grandeur. The trees still possessed some vibrant red, orange, and yellow foliage. Amazing how anything could collectively project such beauty before dying. Rarely did it happen with people. Not the ones she studied. With that thought, she stepped out of the glorious sunshine and into an apartment complex corridor. As a forensic physician and epidemiological expert on infectious disease, she and her assistant had flown from Atlanta to Boston at a moment’s notice to examine the late Mike Spitz. The circumstances of his death had been deemed “out of the ordinary” by the medical team who found him.

  She stopped herself from going directly to the victim’s apartment, deciding to follow proper protocol precisely, something she did most of the time. She would wait on her assistant, who had to make a quick bathroom stop. In the meantime, she would speak with the woman who discovered Spitz, a young mother who lived across the corridor. Gathering her unruly brown hair into a bunch before securing her mask, Amanda knocked on the door of apartment 33A.

  “Yes?” came a worried voice from behind the door.

  “Hello. Jennifer Perkins?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Dr. Amanda Cooney with the Center for Disease Control. You may have been told not to let anyone in, but you can open the door for me.”

  Jennifer Perkins opened her door and stepped back, holding a Kleenex between trembling hands. Her eyes were red rimmed, her face splotchy. Her voice shook when she said, “You’re wearing a mask.”

  “Just an extra precaution,” Amanda reassured her. She chose the simple face mask so she wouldn’t terrify Jennifer. Based on what she was told about Spitz’s body, she would wear a suit with a respirator when she checked on him. It may be overkill, but if she underestimated the situation and was wrong, it could prove her last opportunity to be right or wrong ever again.

  “I understand you found Mike Spitz?”

  “Yes. Am I going to catch what he has? I have two daughters.” Fresh tears sprang from Jennifer’s terrified eyes and she pulled at strands of her brass-colored hair.

  “I hope not, but that’s why we’ve asked you to stay inside your apartment, until we find out for sure. The medics who were dispatched have also been isolated while we run more tests. Do you have someone else who can take care of your daughters?”

  “My mother is picking them up from school. They don’t even have any of their things,” she sobbed.

  “And their father?”

  “He’s not in the picture.”

  “It’s going to be okay, if your priority remains keeping your children safe and monitoring your own health.”

  Jennifer sniffled and moved her head up and down in acknowledgement.

  “I know you’ve already told the police, but please tell me everything you can remember about your neighbor this week, leading up to finding him.”

  “Okay.” She took a deep breath that seemed to calm her. “I didn’t see much of Mike lately. We don’t talk or anything, but, you know, I see him going in and out during the week. I thought he moved out without telling me. Then I saw him again. Taking out his trash.”

  “What day would that have been?”

  “It was just…Wednesday. It was Wednesday because I went for a walk with my girls.”

  “Did Mike look sick to you on Wednesday? In any way?”

  “No. I don’t think he looked sick at all. He looked fine then. I think. He’s a big tough guy. I wasn’t really looking at him though.” She moaned and pressed her hand against her mouth.

  “So how did you learn he was sick? How did you know to check on him?” Amanda asked.

  “I didn’t. I didn’t know he was sick until I found him in his apartment. Dead.” She strangled the sob rising in her throat and seemed to hold her breath. Amanda waited patiently for her to continue.

  “I’m the building manager, I have to knock on doors and remind everyone to pay their rent if it doesn’t come on time. Well, I’m supposed to deliv
er letters but it’s easier to knock on their doors and anyway, my printer ran out of ink. Mike’s rent was overdue. He’s paid on time, mostly, for three years, so I thought something was up. I thought maybe he had gone out of town, or moved without giving notice, you know, because like I said, I had hardly seen him around lately.” She twisted her hair around her finger then dropped her arm, pressing her palms tight against her sides.

  “Do you know where he was?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. So, you went to his door?” Amanda prompted.

  “When he didn’t answer his door, I started keeping an eye out for him. Then today, when I knocked, I noticed a wicked bad smell. I knew something wasn’t right inside there. I have a key to all the apartments, so I let myself in to check on him.”

  Her eyes darted back and forth as if reliving her disturbing discovery. Amanda remained patient. She was anxious to examine Mike Spitz, but he wasn’t going anywhere.

  “I could tell something was wrong right away, before I even saw him. We had a dead possum under our house when I was a kid. His apartment smelled worse than the dead possum. I was going to walk through his living room and open a window to let in fresh air. Then I saw him on the couch. I didn’t touch him, but I moved close enough to see he wasn’t breathing. He was dead, and from something terrible. Wicked terrible. I can’t get it out of my head—the way he looked. Like something out of a nightmare.” She brought her hands to her mouth and shook her head. “I wish I had never gone in.”

  “Did you touch anything at all, besides the door knob when you were in there?”

  “No. I don’t think so.” Hysteria rose in her voice. “I came back to my apartment and I scrubbed my hands with hot water and lots of soap. Then I called 911.” A look of pure terror settled into her features. “You said the paramedics who came here have to be isolated too?”

  “Yes, as a safety precaution. Hopefully none of you have anything to worry about, but of course, we want to be sure so you and your families stay safe. Please do not leave your apartment until you hear from us. This card has my assistant’s number. Please call her if you think of anything else you want to tell me about Spitz.” Amanda removed a card from her coat pocket with her gloved hands and handed it over.