The Devil on Chardonnay

by Ed Baldwin

  “Indeed I do, Mr. Jordan. Indeed I do.”

  Donn took a contemplative sip of his scotch.

  *******

  “Is that it?” Pamela exploded, after they were safely out on the street, walking the two blocks back to their hotel.

  “Pammie, Pammie. We just got into town this morning,” Donn exclaimed, huge jaunty smile on his face.

  “I don’t see how that’s going to justify, to my superiors, springing you from prison and financing an expensive trip down here. We have nothing.”

  “Pam, look up. Which window is Jordan’s?”

  Pam looked up, noting the executive suite five floors up.

  “We’ll drive back in two hours. The light will be on. It’s Friday night. He’ll be working. You’ll see.”

  “How can you be so sure? And, what if he is?”

  “He’s gonna call the Federal Reserve in Kansas City as soon as he can, because it’s still 3:30 there. They’ll tell him First Bank in Tulsa is solid as Fort Knox, which it is. They don’t know me from Adam, which they don’t.”

  Donn turned the corner toward their hotel, almost running down an older couple in his excitement.

  “Next, he’ll have his secretary call First Bank in Tulsa. He won’t use the number on the card I gave him. He’ll either use the ABA list he has, or have her call information. He’ll get the president’s office. When he mentions my name, or Cherokee Trust Funds, they’re agreed to profess knowledge but refer him to a vice president in charge of trust services. That’s the extra line we had installed there last week. It goes to your buddy at the regional FBI office. What’s his name?”

  “Thacker. Alvin Thacker, dullest bean counter since Bartleby,” Pamela said, beginning see how it all might fit together.

  “Right! And he’ll tell him about the $56 million we have to spend, and about how I’m a rising young fund manager and you’re our legal eagle, and Chailland is a stud who has all the female trust officers in Oklahoma beating the bushes for more money to put into the Cherokee Trust Funds.”

  **********

  “Mr. Wilde, ah hope ah didn’t wake you.”

  Donn was doing a Cooper Jordan imitation for Boyd in the coffee shop on Saturday morning, drawing out the vowels, dropping consonants from the ends of some words. He was gloating that his plan had worked exactly as he’d predicted so far.

  “This is Cooper Jordan,” Donn continued, perfecting the dialogue. “If you gentlemen, and Ms. Prescott, would be stayin’ in Charleston through the weekend, Mrs. Jordan and I would be honored to have you to our home for dinnah on Sunday evenin’.”

  Boyd chuckled, noting that the Charleston accent was not that different from the Oklahoma dialect Donn tried to suppress when he was in high-roller mode.

  “I told him we were so charmed, that’s the word I used, charmed, that we have delayed our flight back until next week.”

  “Looks like we’re on track, then,” Boyd commented, turning to look out into the lobby. “Any sign of Pam?”

  “She needs some more rest.”

  *********

  The air was heavy and sweet, scented with the fragrance of gardenia, Noisette and Bourbon roses lovingly selected and maintained by the wealthy owners of the restored Battery homes. Giant oaks, live and river varieties, crossed their branches over the street to shade it from the waning rays of an August sun. The two matched draft horses smelled of leather and sweat, an honest scent and not unpleasant.

  When Donn learned that Cooper Jordan lived in the Battery, he’d insisted they take a carriage to dinner. He and Pamela sat together facing the front and talking about bankers they knew in Oklahoma. Boyd faced the rear trying to block out the cars and telephone poles to see how the city might have looked in those heady days of 1860, when the residents thought they could actually defeat the Northern states in a war of secession.

  To the west, visible through occasional breaks in the trees, a dark cloud mass emitted an occasional rumble. As they drew up in front of the address they’d been given, a breeze blew through the uppermost limbs of a giant oak across the street.

  Jordan’s home was what the Charlestonians call a single house, built lengthwise on one side of the lot, leaving ample room for the sea breezes to blow through the neighborhood. He met them at the wrought iron gate as they were dismounting from the carriage.

  “Mr. Wilde, Ms Prescott, Mr. Chailland. Amalie and I are delighted you could join us for dinner. I hope your carriage ride was up to your expectations.”

  They climbed steps to a long porch that extended the full length of the house, and from which they could view the immaculately maintained garden, complete with a tinkling fountain. A stately woman with faintly African features and cinnamon skin met them at the door.

  “I’m Amalie Jordan. Cooper tells me you’re quite smitten with our city.”

  Though narrow, the rooms were spacious because of their high ceilings and length. The crystal, oriental carpets and early American antiques indicated their hosts were definitely the “heavy hitters” Donn so loved to talk about. With drinks in hand, they toured the garden and heard the history and lore of the area that had been home to Jordan’s family for 200 years. The temperature dropped noticeably as the breeze intensified.

  Dinner was served on a massive dining room table beneath a portrait of Cooper Jordan’s great-great-grandmother, a French countess. Boyd wondered whether some of Amalie’s ancestors might have been in the area that long also, though perhaps not as socially prominent in the early years.

  “Certainly, Mr. Jordan, your bank seems poised to profit from the coming boom in exports from this area. We would like to consider it in our quest for equities.”

  Donn stood by the fireplace, gazing up at the countess from two centuries ago, holding a brandy snifter in one hand and a lit cigar in the other.

  “Why, Mr. Wilde, we’d be delighted to have you as minority shareholders in our bank.”

  As Cooper Jordan’s resonant, syrupy, response floated through the cigar smoke, a bright flash was followed 3 seconds later by a sharp clap of thunder that reverberated back from clouds stacking up over the Battery and Charleston Harbor. The wind was stirring the largest of the trees in the yard.

  “I was wondering, sir,” Donn said, turning back to face Jordan. “If you had any leads on emerging companies in this area. In addition to the usual carefully researched purchases we plan to make for the long term, we have a need to, well, take a flyer. We need something in the technology sector, something that might have a prospect for some excitement in the near term.”

  “I could introduce you to some of our medium-to-large clients. These would be companies that have some growth potential. There are several technology companies here that we are proud of, very proud.” Jordan nodded, took a long puff off his cigar, and blew the smoke into the center of the room.

  The air was heavy, palpable through the blue haze of cigar smoke that had driven Pamela and Amalie to tour the library and Amalie’s collection of linen and lace. A deep rumble from north of town was followed by a flicker and dimming of the lights. The silence stretched for more than a minute as Donn and Cooper puffed on their cigars, eyes locked. Boyd chewed on his, letting the smoke curl up, smelling the rich tobacco scent of his own private cloud accumulating round his head. Another flash was followed instantly by a clap of thunder that rattled the windows.

  Cooper Jordan’s reverie seemed to break with the thunder, and he walked to the French doors separating the dining room from the foyer and closed them. He refilled his brandy snifter, held it up to the light and swirled it, deeply inhaled the fragrant fumes, and smiled at Donn, eyelids nearly closed, and asked, “Can we speak confidentially?”

  “Of course, Cooper,” Donn said, a look of pleasant anticipation on his face.

  “There is one company, thinly traded, hardly known outside of the region, with poor earnings for a decade.”

  Donn moved closer as Jordan’s words were barely a whisper. The rain was hard now, pounding th
e windows on the north side and gurgling down the drain from the roof.

  “An old friend has toiled in the fields of biomedical research for 20 years, always just behind the latest discovery. Now he’s found something.”

  Boyd could feel his heart pounding in his chest. It was more than the nicotine. The rain was a roar now, falling straight down, running off the roof in a cascade that hit the sidewalk with a crash and echoed off the stone walls of the nearby buildings.

  “What I’m about to tell you must remain in this room. Even if you decide not to participate, I must have your word never to speak of it.”

  Boyd and Donn nodded heads only a foot apart now. Another flash lit the room momentarily, followed by a clap of thunder, this time from the east over Charleston Harbor.

  “This company has found a new virus. They’ve used it to pioneer a breakthrough in vaccine technology.”

  The rain seemed to acquire a rhythm, like drums beating in the distance. Boyd saw the blotches and hemorrhages on the African farmers in his mind, and heard the cries of sick children. Drums were warning of spreading danger. He was certain now: Ebola was here, on the coast of South Carolina.

  “The company is BioVet Tech,” Jordan said in a whisper.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL, ATLANTA

  “Joe, what’s the Army been doing with this stuff?”

  Joe Smith was taken aback. The question came from an old friend, Dr. Dale Casperson, director of the Division of Preparedness and Emerging Infections at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Joe had just come from the airport with the final microscope slides from the autopsies done on the island to supplement the first batch of viral isolate he’d sent 10 days before. Although USAMRIID has extensive research capability, CDC is better equipped and better staffed and, on something this hot, they work together.

  “What do you mean?” Joe was annoyed. Dale had insisted on seeing him as soon as he got to town, and his carry-on bag was in the hall. Dale hadn’t even asked about his flight or shaken his hand. That was rude.

  “Steve, close the door,” Dale said to Dr. Steve Ng, another viral researcher who had picked Joe up at the airport.

  “Those samples you sent last week ...”

  “Yeah?” Joe was getting angry.

  “How’d you get those?”

  “I told you the whole story. They’re from the island.”

  “When you got back from the island, what did you do?”

  “Isolated the virus, grew it out, freeze dried it, and sent it to you.”

  “You didn’t infect any living animals?”

  “No, didn’t have time.”

  “Well, don’t,” Casperson was beginning to relax, but he was still tense.

  “We won’t, but what’s the big concern?”

  “Those two isolates, they’re different from the isolates from the Lulua River where Jacques collected his initial samples.”

  “You’ve got the RNA sequence already?”

  “This morning. Put it through our new Roche 454 sequencing platform. We compared the island isolates to the Lulua River isolates, and then both of them to the samples you brought back from the Kikwit outbreak in 1996. The Lulua River isolates show some random variance from Kikwit, about what you’d expect in a simple RNA virus in nearly 20 years. The samples from the island show all those same mutations, so that confirms they came from the Lulua River, but they’ve evolved just in the time they were on the island, about six months.”

  “Hmm,” Joe wrinkled his brow. “Evolved or altered?”

  “The changes look random, no long sequences different. It’s like there was acceleration in the natural mutation process. We think Jacques heated it up too hot when he freeze dried it and that caused a lot of random changes. We just wanted to make sure you guys didn’t mess with it.”

  Joe began to sweat. He well knew there were some deep-seated and rarely discussed suspicions held by some researchers at the CDC about the Army and their research efforts at USAMRIID. Armies of the world have tinkered with biologic warfare since the Plague of Justinian swept out of Central Asia and crippled the army of the Eastern Roman Empire in AD 541, leading to the collapse of the Byzantine civilization. Researchers today are unable to tell whether it was an early strain of Yersinia pestis, the same bubonic plague germ that swept through Europe in the 14th century, or something else. Whatever it was, it came out of the Arabian Desert.

  “Did I send you the equipment list from the island?” Joe reached into his briefcase for a folder. “They had some pretty basic stuff. They were equipped to do some simple splicing.”

  “I got the list. I agree. Jacques couldn’t have done that, not knowingly.”

  “We certainly didn’t. We’ve never had that capability.” Joe’s sweat began to be more noticeable, and he was embarrassed by it. This was a sensitive issue, not because the Army was trying to hide something, but because their actual capabilities had eroded so much over the past decade that they really couldn’t do much of anything. They had been able to replicate the virus, but that was about the limit of what they could do. The CDC is where the expertise is. Don’t tell that to Congress, though. The magnitude of USAMRIID’s appropriations indicates Congress thinks they’re funding two state-of-the-art facilities.

  “Tell me again, Joe. Where did the two samples come from?” Don was still in inquisitor mode.

  “The one marked R42A was from one of the monkeys already dead before the fire. It probably died two weeks before we got there. The R42B sample was from Jacques, the guy from the Pasteur Institute. We have other samples, from several more monkeys and from Franz.”

  “We want to have a look at every one. We may be able to pinpoint at which point the mutations occurred. It will take a year to work through what those changes might have done to Ebola, if anything. But, that’s not the big news. Read again that segment from Jacques’ note.”

  Joe retrieved a copy of the note Jacques had written before he died. He read the whole thing, ending with: “I saw it defeat the macaque’s immune system in two passes, become dormant to await a fresh group of monkeys, and then jump from macaques to humans before the illness was recognized. Mosby spent $2 million to secretly acquire viable virus, purified RNA, and a vaccine. He knows exactly what he has.”

  Casperson said, “First, it looks like Jacques did make an effective vaccine. Ironic in view of his careless technical style and his complete misunderstanding of what happened on that island.”

  He stood and went to the window.

  “Jacques must have been sick when he wrote that note. It doesn’t make sense: ‘defeating immune systems in two passes, laying dormant, jumping to people from Macaques.’ That’s just odd. But that’s a perfect scenario for something much worse – a vector.”

  “Oh, that’s right.” Joe Smith’s heart leaped to his throat; he should have seen that.

  “It could have been fleas. They could have fed on the monkeys that were sick but got well because the vaccine gave them a head start on Ebola. Then the fleas, bellies full of Ebola virus, jumped across the building to the new monkeys, and they got sick before they could be vaccinated.”

  “I don’t know of any hemorrhagic fever that uses fleas as a vector.”

  “There’s always a first.”

  “What flea?”

  “We’ll have to get some vet guys in here and start looking at fleas. Surely monkeys have fleas. Most warm blooded animals do.”

  “I don’t know of any virus that uses a flea as a vector,” Joe said, mind reeling with the consequences of the world’s most lethal virus suddenly becoming able to move from animal to animal with the help of a vector. Fleas may seem slow and plodding, but they’re very effective vectors. Typhus and bubonic plague are transmitted by fleas. Troubling as all this was about vectors, Joe felt something else. Something they’d missed.

  “Oh, shit.”

  “What?” Casperson turned from the window.

  “You didn�
��t see all the pictures we brought back. Boyd Chailland took a bunch of pictures just walking around. There’s water on that island, a marsh.”

  “Ooh. Mosquitos.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  Badges

  Cooper Jordan breezed into his office just after 8 on Monday morning, stopping suddenly when he encountered Pamela Prescott and Boyd Chailland standing by his secretary’s desk.

  “Why, Ms. Prescott and Mr. Chailland, I thought you were on your way back to Oklahoma. I hope there isn’t a problem.”

  “We have some new business.” Pam said, smiling.

  “Oh?” He looked toward his secretary, as if to question what the schedule looked like. He knew he had an appointment in 10 minutes and was weary of these Oklahoma people.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, perhaps, uh,” he looked down at his secretary’s desk at his schedule. A twinge of anxiety emerged, but Cooper wanted these two out of his office.

  “Now,” she said, smile frozen on her face.

  “Yes,” he said, allowing impatience to replace his usual Southern gentility. He entered his office and stood in the center of the room, hoping he could handle this quickly and not willing to sit and exchange small talk. There wasn’t any.

  “FBI,” Pam said, showing her badge.

  “Secret Service,” Boyd said, showing his.

  “What?” Cooper’s heart was suddenly in his throat.

  “Have a seat,” she said, and remained standing when he sat.

  “Donn Wilde was bait. Last night, you engaged in a conspiracy to commit securities fraud – insider trading. I’m pretty sure we can audit your accounts and find that you own securities in BioVet Tech that aren’t registered with the SEC. That’s a felony. You were offering Donn an opportunity to buy stocks on insider information, hoping the price would spike and you could get out of the hole you’re in. Mr. Chailland is investigating the electronic transfer of funds overseas for illegal purposes – money laundering, also a felony.”