Darwin's Radio d-1

by Greg Bear

  Dicken felt as if he were being whipsawed. He returned to his office and called Bethesda. Augustine had not arrived yet. Kaye Lang was visiting the Magnuson Clinical Center.

  Augustine’s secretary added that protesters were also on the NIH campus, several thousand of them. “Look on the TV,” she said. “They’re marching all over the country.”

  47

  The National Institutes of Health, Bethesda

  Augustine drove around the campus on the Old Georgetown Road to Lincoln Street and made his way to a temporary employee parking lot near the Taskforce Center. The Taskforce had been assigned a new building at the surgeon general’s request just two weeks before. The protesters apparently did not know of this change, and were marching on the old headquarters, and on Building 10.

  Augustine walked quickly in the warming sun to the ground floor entrance. NIH campus police and newly-hired private security guards stood outside the building, talking in low voices. They were eyeing knots of protesters a few hundred yards away.

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Augustine,” the building’s chief of security told him as he carded himself in through the main entrance. “We’ve got the National Guard coming in this afternoon.”

  “Oh, goodie.” Augustine drew in his chin and punched the elevator button. In the new office, three assistants and his personal secretary, Mrs. Florence Leighton, matronly and very efficient, were trying to reestablish a network link with the rest of the campus.

  “What’s wrong, sabotage?” Augustine asked, a little savagely.

  “No,” Mrs. Leighton said, handing him a sheaf of printouts. “Stupidity. The server decided not to recognize us.”

  Augustine slammed the door to his office, pulled out his rolling chair, slapped the brief on the desktop. The phone cheeped. He reached over to punch the button.

  “Five minutes uninterrupted, please, Florence, to put my thoughts in order?” he pleaded.

  “It’s Kennealy for the vice president, Mark,” Mrs. Leigh-ton said.

  “Double goodie. Put him on.”

  Tom Kennealy, the vice president’s chief of technical communications — another new position, established the week before — was first on the line, and asked Augustine if he had been told about the scale of the protests.

  “I’m seeing it through my window now,” he replied.

  “They’re at four hundred and seventy hospitals at last count,” Kennealy said.

  “God bless the Internet,” Augustine said.

  “Four demonstrations have gotten out of hand — not including the riot in San Diego. The vice president is very concerned, Mark.”

  “Tell him I’m more than concerned. It’s the worst news I could imagine — a dead full-term Herod’s baby.”

  “What about the herpes angle?”

  “Screw that. Herpes doesn’t infect an infant until it’s born. They must not have taken any precautions in Mexico City.”

  “That’s not what we’re hearing. Maybe we can offer some reassurance on this? If it is a diseased infant?”

  “Quite clearly it is diseased, Tom. It’s Herod’s we should be focusing on here.”

  “All right. I’ve briefed the vice president. He’s here now, Mark.”

  The vice president came on the line. Augustine composed his voice and greeted him calmly. The vice president told him that the NIH was being afforded military security, high-security protected status, as were the CDC and five Taskforce research centers around the country. Augustine could visualize the result now — razor wire, police dogs, concussion grenades, and tear gas. A fine atmosphere in which to conduct delicate research.

  “Mr. Vice President, don’t push them off campus,” Augustine said. “Please. Let them stay and let them protest.”

  “The president gave the order an hour ago. Why change it?”

  “Because it looks like they’re venting steam. It’s not like San Diego. I want to meet with the leaders here on campus.”

  “Mark, you aren’t a trained negotiator,” the VP argued.

  “No, but I’d be a hell of a lot better than a phalanx of troops in camouflage.”

  “That’s the jurisdiction of the director of NIH.”

  “Who is negotiating, sir?”

  “The director and chief of staff are meeting with the protest leaders. We shouldn’t divide our effort or our voice, Mark, so don’t even consider going out there to talk.”

  “What if we have another dead baby, sir? This one came at us out of nowhere — we only knew it was on its way six days ago. We tried to send a team down to help, but the hospital refused.”

  “They’ve sent you the body. That seems to show a spirit of cooperation. From what Tom tells me, nobody could have saved it.”

  “No, but we could have known ahead of time and coordinated our media release.”

  “No division on this, Mark.”

  “Sir, with all due respect, the international bureaucracy is killing us. That’s why these protests are so dangerous. We’ll be blamed whether we’re culpable or not — and frankly, I feel pretty sick to my stomach right now. I can’t be responsible where I don’t have input!”

  “We’re soliciting your input now, Mark.” The VP’s voice was measured.

  “Sorry. I know that, sir. Our involvement with Americol is causing all sorts of problems. Announcing the vaccine…prematurely, in my opinion—”

  “Tom shares that opinion, and so do I.”

  What about the president? he thought. “I appreciate that, but the cat is out of the bag. My people tell me there’s a fifty-fifty chance the preclinical trials will fail. The ribozyme is depressingly versatile. It seems to have an affinity for thirteen or fourteen different messenger RNAs. So we stop SHEVA, but we end up with myelin degradation…multiple sclerosis, for God’s sake!”

  “Ms. Cross reports that they’ve refined it and it’s more specific now. She personally assured me there was never any chance of MS. That was just a rumor.”

  “Which version is PDA going to let them test, sir? The paperwork has to be refiled—”

  “PDA is bending on this one.”

  “I’d like to set up a separate evaluation team. NIH has the people, we have the facilities.”

  “There’s no time, Mark.”

  Augustine closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. He could feel his face turning beet red. “I hope we draw a good hand,” he said quietly. His heart was hammering.

  “The president is announcing speedier trials tonight,” the vice president said. “If the preclinical trials are successful, we’ll go to human trials within a month.”

  “I wouldn’t approve that.”

  “Robert Jackson says they can do it. The decision’s been made. It’s done.”

  “Has the president talked to Frank about this? Or the surgeon general?”

  “They’re in constant touch.”

  “Please have the president call me, too, sir.” Augustine hated to be put in the position of having to ask, but a smarter president would not have needed the reminder.

  “I will, Mark. As for your response…follow what the NIH brass says, no division, no separation, understood?”

  “I’m not a rogue, Mr. Vice President,” Augustine said.

  “Talk with you soon, Mark,” the VP said.

  Kennealy came back on the line. He sounded miffed. “Troops are being trucked in now, Mark. Hold on a second.” His hand cupped over the receiver. “The VP is out of the room. Jesus, Mark, what did you do, chew him out?”

  “I asked him to have the president call me,” Augustine said.

  “That’s a hell of a note,” Kennealy said coldly.

  “Will someone please tell me if we learn about another baby, out of the country?” Augustine said. “Or in? Could the State Department please coordinate with my office on a daily basis? I hope I am not treading water here, Tom!”

  “Please don’t ever talk to the VP like that again, Mark,” Kennealy said, and hung up.

  Augustine pressed the call but
ton. “Florence, I need to write a cover letter and a memo. Is Dicken in town? Where’s Lang?”

  “Dr. Dicken is in Atlanta and Kaye Lang is on campus. At the clinic, I believe. You’re supposed to meet with her in ten minutes.”

  Augustine opened his desk drawer and took out a legal pad. On it he had sketched the thirty-one levels of command above him, thirty between him and the president — a bit of an obsession with him. He sharply slashed off five, then six, then worked his way up to ten names and offices, tearing the paper. If worst came to worst, he thought that with a little careful planning he could possibly eliminate ten of those levels, maybe twenty.

  But first he had to stick out his neck and send them his report and a coverage memo, and make sure it was on everybody’s desk before the shit was airborne.

  Not that he would be sticking his neck out very far. Before some White House lackey — maybe Kennealy, greasing for a promotion — whispered in the president’s ear that Augustine was not a team player, he strongly suspected there would be another incident.

  A very bad incident.

  48

  The National Institutes of Health, Bethesda

  Burying herself in work was the only thing Kaye could think of to do right now. Confusion blocked any other option. As she left the clinic, walking briskly past the outdoor tables full of Vietnamese and Korean vendors selling toiletries and knickknacks, she looked at the task list in her daybook and ticked off the meetings and calls — Augustine first, then ten minutes in Building 15 with Robert Jackson to ask about the ribozyme binding sites, a cross-check with two NIH researchers in Buildings 5 and 6 helping her in her search for additional SHEVA-like HERV; then to half a dozen other researchers in her backup list to solicit their opinions -

  She was halfway between the clinic and the Taskforce center when her cell phone rang. She pulled it out of her purse.

  “Kaye, this is Christopher.”

  “I don’t have any time and I feel like shit, Christopher,” she snapped. “Tell me something that will make me feel good.”

  “If it’s any consolation, I feel like shit, too. I got drunk last night and there are demonstrators out front.”

  “They’re here, too.”

  “But listen to this, Kaye. We have Infant C in pathology now. It was born at least a month premature.”

  “It? Ithad a sex, didn’t it?”

  “He. He’s riddled inside and out with herpes lesions. He had no protection against herpes in the womb — SHEVA induces some sort of opportunistic opening through the pla-cental barrier for herpes virus.”

  “So they’re in league — all out to cause death and destruction. That’s cheerful.”

  “No,” Dicken said. “I don’t want to talk about it on the phone. I’m coming up to NIH tomorrow.”

  “Give me something to go on, Christopher. I don’t want another night like the last two.”

  “Infant C might not have died if his mother hadn’t contracted herpes. They may be separate issues, Kaye.”

  Kaye closed her eyes, stood still on the sidewalk. She looked around for Farrah Tighe; in her distraction, she had apparently walked out without her, against instructions. No doubt Tighe was frantically searching for her right now. “Even if they are, who will listen to us now?”

  “None of the eight women at the clinic have any herpes or HIV I called Lipton and checked. They’re excellent test cases.”

  “They aren’t due for ten months,” Kaye said. “If they follow the one-month rule.”

  “I know. But I’m sure we’ll find others. We need to talk again — seriously.”

  “I’ll be in meetings all day, then at the Americol labs in Baltimore tomorrow.”

  “This evening, then. Or doesn’t the truth mean much now?”

  “Don’t lecture me about truth, damn it,” Kaye said. She could see National Guard trucks moving in along Center Drive. So far, the protesters had kept to the northern end; she could see their signs and banners from where she stood beside a low grassy hill. She missed Dicken’s next few words. She was fascinated by the distant crowds on the move.

  “ — I want to give your idea a fair chance,” Dicken said. “The LPC carries no possible benefit for a simple virus — why use it?”

  “Because SHEVA’s a messenger,” Kaye said, her voice soft, between dreamy and distracted. “It’s Darwin’s radio.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve seen the afterbirth from the Herod’s first-stage fetuses, Christopher. Specialized amniotic sacs…Very sophisticated. Not diseased.”

  “Like I said, I want to work on this more. Convince me, Kaye. God, if this Infant C is just a fluke!”

  Three blunt little popping sounds came from the north end of the campus, small, toylike. She heard the crowd let out a startled moan, then a distant, high scream.

  “I can’t talk, Christopher.” She shut the phone with a plastic clack and ran. The crowd was about a quarter of a mile away, breaking up, people pushing back and scattering along the roads, the parking lots, the brick buildings. No more pops. She slowed to a walk for several steps, considering the danger, then ran again. She had to know. Too much uncertainty in her life. Too much hanging back and inaction, with Saul, with everything and everybody.

  Fifty feet from her she saw a stocky man in a brown suit dash out of a building’s rear service door, arms and legs going like windmills. His coat flapped up over a bulging white shirt and he looked ridiculous, but he was quick as a bat out of hell and heading right for her.

  For a moment she was alarmed and veered to avoid him.

  “Damn it, Dr. Lang,” he shouted. “Hold on there! Stop!”

  She slowed to a grudging walk, out of breath. The man in the brown suit caught up with her and flashed a badge. He was from the Secret Service and his name was Benson and that was all she managed to catch before he closed the case and pocketed it again. “What in hell are you doing? Where’s Tighe?” he asked her, his face beefy red, sweat pouring down his pockmarked cheeks.

  “They need help,” she said. “She’s back at the—”

  “That’s gunfire. You will stay right here if I have to hold you down personally. Goddamn it, Tighe was not supposed to let you out alone!”

  At that moment, Tighe came running to catch up with them. She was red-faced with anger. She and Benson exchanged quick, harsh whispers, then Tighe positioned herself beside Kaye. Benson broke into a speedy trot toward the broken clumps of protesters. Kaye continued walking, but slower.

  “Stop right here, Ms. Lang,” Tighe said.

  “Somebody’s been shot!”

  “Benson will take care of it!” Tighe insisted, standing between her and the crowd.

  Kaye peered over Tighe’s shoulders. Men and women clutched their hands to their faces, crying. She saw dropped banners, drooping signs. The crowd swirled in complete confusion.

  National Guard soldiers in camouflage, automatic rifles held at ready, took positions between brick buildings along the closest road.

  A campus police car drove over the lawn and between two tall oak trees. She saw other men in suits, some talking on cell phones, walkie-talkies.

  Then she noticed the lone man in the middle, arms held straight out as if he wanted to fly. Beside him, a motionless woman sprawled on the grass. Benson and a campus security officer reached them simultaneously. Benson kicked a dark object across the grass: a pistol. The security officer pulled out his own pistol and aggressively pushed back the flying man.

  Benson knelt beside the woman, checked the pulse at her neck, looked up, around, his face saying it all. Then he glared at Kaye, mouthed emphatically, Get back .

  “It wasn’t my baby,” the flying man shouted. Skinny, white, short fuzzy blond hair, in his late twenties, he wore a black T-shirt and black jeans slung low on his hips. He tossed his head back and forth as if surrounded by flies. “She made me come here. She goddamn made me. It wasn’t my baby!”

  The flying man danced back from the guard, jerking like a mari
onette. “I can’t take this shit anymore. NO MORE SHIT!”

  Kaye stared at the injured woman. Even from twenty yards she could see the blood staining her blouse around her stomach, sightless eyes staring up with a blank kind of hope at the sky.

  Kaye ignored Tighe, Benson, the flying man, the troops, the security guards, the crowd.

  All she could see was the woman.

  49

  Baltimore

  Cross entered the Americol executive dining room on a pair of crutches. Her young male nurse pulled out a chair, and Cross sat with a relieved puff of breath.

  The room was empty but for Cross, Kaye, Laura Nilson, and Robert Jackson.

  “How’d it happen, Marge?” Jackson asked.

  “Nobody shot me,” she piped cheerfully. “I fell in the bathtub. I have always been my own worst enemy. I am a clumsy ox. What do we have, Laura?”

  Nilson, whom Kaye had not seen since the disastrous vaccine press conference, wore a stylish but severe blue three-piece suit. “The surprise of the week is RU-486,” she said. “Women are using it — a lot of it. The French have come forward with a solution. We’ve spoken to them, but they say they are tendering their offer directly to the WHO and to the Taskforce, that their effort is humanitarian, and they aren’t interested in any business liaisons.”

  Marge ordered wine from the steward and wiped her forehead with the napkin before spreading it on her lap. “How generous of them,” she mused. “They’ll supply all the world needs, and no new R D costs. Does it work, Robert?”

  Jackson took up a Palmbook and poked his way through his notes with a stylus. “Taskforce has unconfirmed reports that RU-486 aborts the second-stage implanted ovum. No word yet on first-stage. It’s all anecdotal. Street research.”

  Cross said, “Abortion drugs have never been to my taste.” To the steward, she said, “I’ll have the Cobb salad, side of vinaigrette, and a pot of coffee.”

  Kaye ordered a club sandwich, though she was not hungry in the least. She could feel thunderheads building — an unpleasant personal awareness that she was in a very dangerous mood. She was still numb from witnessing the shooting at NIH, two days before.