Part 24 (2/2)
Rather than attacking the problem aggressively, everyone was still pointing fingers and running for cover.
Marshall's goal tomorrow was to shake things up. A decisive planof action was needed. So far, the fifteen outbreak zones were being managed fifteen different ways. It was chaos.
Sighing, Lauren stared at the reamsof papers and printouts spread atop her table. Her team was still struggling with one simple question.What was causing the disease?
Testing and research were ongoing in labs across the country-from the CDC in Atlanta all the way to the Salk facility in San Diego. But the Instar Inst.i.tute had become scientific ground zero for the disease.
Lauren pushed away a report from a Dr. Shelby on utilizing monkey kidney cells as a culture medium.
He had failed.Negative response. Up to this point, the contagious agent continued to thwart all means of identifi-cation: aerobic and anaerobic cultures, fungal a.s.says, electron microscopy, dot hybridization, polymerase chain reaction. As of today, no progress had been made. Each study ended with similar tags: negative response, zero growth, indeterminate a.n.a.lysis. All fancy ways of saying failure.
Her beeper, resting beside her now-cold cup of coffee, began to buzz and dance across the Formica countertop. She s.n.a.t.c.hed it before it fell off the table.
”Who the heck is paging me at this hour?” she mumbled, glancing at the beeper's screen. The Caller ID feature listed the number asLarge Scale Biological Labs. She didn't know the facility, but the area code placed it somewhere in northern California. The call was probably just some tech-nician requesting their fax number or submission protocol. Still . . .
Lauren stood, pocketed her beeper, and headed over to the phone on the wall. As she picked up the receiver, she heard a door open behind her. Over her shoulder, she was surprised to see Jessie standing in her pajamas, rubbing at her eyes blearily.
”Grandma. . :”
Lauren replaced the receiver and crossed to the child. ”Honey, what are you doing up? You should be in bed:”
”I couldn't find you:”
She knelt before the girl. ”What's wrong? Did you have another scary dream?” The first few nights here,Jessie had awoken with nightmares, trig-gered by the quarantine and the strange environment. But the child had seemed to adjust rapidly, making friends with several of the other kids.
”My tummy hurts,” she said, her eyes sheening with threatening tears.
”Oh, honey, that's what you get for eating ice cream so late:” Lauren reached out and pulled the girl into a hug. ”Why don't I get you a gla.s.s of water, and we'll get you tucked back into-”
Lauren's voice died as she realized how warm the child was. She reached a palm to Jessie's forehead.
”Oh, G.o.d,” she mumbled under her breath.
The child was burning up.
2:31 A.M.
AMAZON JUNGLE.
Louis stood by his tent as Jacques strode up from the river. His lieutenant carried something wrapped in a sodden blanket under his arms. Whatever it was, it appeared no larger than a watermelon.
”Doctor;” the Maroon tribesman said stiffly.
”Jacques, what did you discover?” He had sent the man and two others to investigate the explosion that had occurred just after midnight. The noise had woken his own camp mere minutes after they had settled in for the night. Earlier, at sunset, Louis's had learned of the discovery of the Indianshabano and the fate of the villagers. Then hours later the ex-plosion . . .
What was going on over there?
”Sir, the village has been incinerated . . . as has much of the surround-ing forest. We could not get too close due to the remaining fires. Maybe by morning.
”And the other team?”
Jacques glanced to his toes. ”Gone, sir. I dropped Malachim and Toady ash.o.r.e to scout after them:”
Louis clenched a fist and cursed his overconfidence. After the success-ful abduction of one of their soldiers, he had grown complacent with his prey. But now this! One of his team's trackers must have been spotted. Now that the fox had been alerted to the hounds, Louis's mission was far morecomplicated. ”Gather the other men. If the Rangers are running from us, we don't want them to get too far away.”
”Yes, sir. But, Doctor, I'm not sure the others are fleeing from us:”
”What makes you think that?”
”As we paddled up to the fire zone, we saw a body float out from a side stream.”
”A body?” Louis feared it was his mole, dispatched and sent downriver as a message.
Jacques unrolled the sodden blanket in his arms and dropped its con-tent to the leafed floor of the jungle. It was a human head. ”We found it floating near the remains.”
Frowning, Louis knelt and examined the head, what little there was of it. The face had been all but chewed away, but from the shaved scalp, it was clearly one of the Rangers.
”The body was the same,” Jacques said, ”gnawed to the bone:”
Louis glanced up. ”What happened to him?”
”Piranhas, I'd say, from the bite wounds:”
”Are you sure?”
”Pretty d.a.m.n sure:” Jacques fingered the scarred half of his nose, reminding Louis that, as a boy, his lieutenant had had intimate experience with the voracious river predators.
”Did they feed on him after he was dead?”
Jacques shrugged. ”If he wasn't, I pity the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”
Louis climbed to his feet. He stared out toward the river. ”What the h.e.l.l is happening out there?”
CHAPTER TEN.
Escape.
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