Death Is In The Air: Chapter 4

A/N: So there are a few things in this chapter that are harder to get across in text than on-air, so bear with me. If it seems like I'm spending an inordinate amount of time on minute details, that's why. Also, because I couldn't seem to find any material on what happens to the clothes of people exposed to hazardous material of this nature, I'm operating on the assumption that it gets incinerated. I don't know if that's actually true, and if anyone knows, feel free to PM me, but that's what I'm going with. And I finally got some variety of scene break to work for me. That was making me crazy.

Disclaimer: Not mine, never has been, never will be.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sally Donovan strode around the corner to the parking lot of the café. "Looks like the HPA are more or less done here. Everyone inside has been moved to quarantine at Saint Bart's." She pursed her lips together, trying and failing to hide the smirk on her face.

DI Lestrade, Anderson, John, Sherlock and Donny were all standing naked in the cool evening air, being showered and scrubbed in little tarp cubicles set up in the parking lot. Each person was blocked from view for the most part, but their head and shoulders were still visible above the obstructions. Their scrubbing was being assisted by people in Hazmat suits, standing behind them with hoses and large brushes that looked more like industrial brooms. None of the men looked happy, but Donny seemed used to the treatment at least, while Lestrade was particularly stroppy about the situation.

"You can wipe that smile of your face, Donovan. Don't forget that I'm still your superior!" Lestrade snapped irritably. "Is this really necessary? We didn't even go inside!"

"Oh, it's necessary," Donny replied, from the cubicle next to him. "Thornburg is particularly nasty, so the HPA doesn't want to take any chances with it."

Anderson and Lestrade both glanced at Donny, then back at Sherlock and John for explanation. "And just who the hell is this?" Anderson asked

"Oh, I'm Donny Lieberman." He extended his hand to the forensics expert for a shake "I'm the guy who let the virus get stolen, and let everything go pear-shaped." He smiled apologetically.

Anderson looked at his outstretched hand incredulously "Not big on bare-arsed handshakes, thanks." He turned to Lestrade, and sputtered as his already limp hair was hosed down and fell into his eyes. "He is right though, unfortunately. They're just being safe in case the pathogen was airborne."

Behind him, in two side by side cubicles, were the good doctor and the consulting detective having a small "domestic", as Mrs. Hudson would call it.

"This morning, we were looking at a dead prostitute, now I'm starkers in a parking lot, being scrubbed down by a stranger. I feel like this possibility should have been listed under your worst qualities as a flatmate, Sherlock. Violin at all hours, boredom tantrums, possibility of public humiliation via a deadly pathogen. Maybe you should include that for your next flatmate."

"It's for our own safety, John." Sherlock snapped, no happier about the public scrub-down than his friend. "Besides," he glanced at John's shoulder where the scar stood out in relief from the rest of his lightly muscled body. "It's not as if you have anything to hide." The words tumbled out before he realized what he was saying. Inwardly, he started to panic. This was not the ideal time to have a personal crisis regarding his slowly building attraction to the ex-army doctor.

If he was honest, he'd noticed it long ago. Never having had a friend before, he chalked it up to a normal reaction to close friendship. The little things that John did for him—the endless cups of tea which remained mostly untouched. The ongoing comments about needing to eat and sleep more that went ignored. While he didn't often act on them, these things made a strange warm glow spread in Sherlock's belly that made him smile, and his heart ache. Right now, the detective shook he thought out of his head, and the water from his hair. He was on a case, and one the was getting more interesting by the minute, at that. He did not have the time or energy to be examining these frankly alarming… sentiments. He mentally shuddered at the thought of what Mycroft would say if he knew his brother's soft spot for his flatmate was growing ever more distracting.

John, thankfully, didn't seem to notice Sherlock's internal struggle. "That doesn't mean I care to be on display for all of London!" he snapped. "This case had better get closed soon, before there's nothing left of my dignity."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

John pulled at the collar of the hospital scrubs that had been given to them to replace their clothes, which would now be incinerated, in case they were carrying traces of the virus. John was all prepared to gloat at how losing his precious coat would serve Sherlock right for all this, but the mad detective managed to sneak it and his scarf away with one of his irregulars. He was about to blow the whistle, citing that it was dangerous to wear something that could be infected, but Sherlock had given him the most woeful, pleading look he'd ever seen in his life. John's heart hadn't stood a chance. It was that same look that made him forgive the man for drugging his coffee in Baskerville, and for keeping human heads in the fridge. Besides, it wasn't his fault that some madman was hell-bent on infecting the city with a deadly virus, and that coat was part of what made Sherlock so maddeningly distinctive. So, John conceded in the end, reasonably certain that the coat was fine anyway, (he didn't want to consider the idea that his flatmate might make sure it was by irradiating it in their kitchen. The fewer questions asked there, the better.) and the garments were whisked away by one of the members of his homeless network.

When they had arrived at St. Bart's half an hour ago, Donny was taken into quarantine with the café patrons, since he was around the virus more than the others. After changing, they were advised to meet with a Thornburg specialist who had been flown in from the States to help assess the situation. In the temporary lab that had been set up outside the quarantine area, the found him handling petri dishes with exquisite care.

"Doctor, " Lestrade called, reaching to shake the man's hand as he introduced himself. "Detective-Inspector Greg Lestrade." The expert took a step back from his workspace, holding up his hands as if in surrender. He indicated the heavy rubber gloves he was wearing as an explanation for not shaking the DI's hand. He had dark smudges under his eyes, no doubt from the long flight he had taken before jumping directly into his work. He wore his chestnut hair in a short, conservative style, and sported a bottlebrush mustache and serious, no-nonsense eyes.

"Doctor Steven Raymond. Thornburg specialist, United States CDC."

Lestrade nodded understandingly at the gesture and dropped his hand. John's eyes went alight when he heard the name.

"Steven Raymond? You're the foremost authority on Thornburg, aren't you? I read the article you wrote on it a few months back."

Raymond nodded. "The foremost authority in all seven continents." He didn't seem particularly pleased with the assessment, just explained it matter-of-factly. Clearly he was not a man of undue pride. "I had this hospital prepared as soon as I heard the virus had been stolen. The good news is, between the café patrons in isolation, and the courier carrying the sample, only two patients are showing the early signs of Thornburg infection."

"Only two?" Lestrade replied, sounding relieved. "Thank God."

"I would hazard a guess," Raymond continued "that they touched the sample in some way, since the virus is not typically effective as an aerosol."

"So you mean we got stripped down in public for nothing?" snipped Anderson. All eyes turned to him with piercing glares, and he quieted instantly.

"As I was saying, normally one would have to come into direct contact with an infected person's secretions to become at risk. Furthermore, if any of these patients' conditions worsen, there is a lab less than two hours away that is working on an antiviral that has shown positive results in early testing."

"That would be Genutech." Sherlock interjected. "Our courier picked up the sample from them yesterday. When will the antiviral arrive?"

"En route as we speak. And since our culprit has already used his sample, I think it's safe to say that we have the situation pretty well bottled up. We were quite lucky, really. This could have been much worse if they had chosen a higher-traffic area in which to release the virus."

"We need to get an ID on whoever is responsible for this. Is it safe to interview the patients?" Lestrade asked.

"Yes. Just be sure to wear the Hazmat suits."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A few minutes later, Sherlock and John were speaking with the patients, trying to get an idea of what had gone on before they arrived on the scene. Sherlock, of course, had managed to insult six of them within two minutes of entering their rooms, including one particularly pretty woman that John had been keen to chat with. Unfortunately, Sherlock declared her "soiled by a series of particularly nasty STDs" and they were promptly asked to leave.

John and Sherlock were stripping off their Hazmat suits as they discussed the interviews. Sherlock was displeased that he had not been able to interview everyone, but seemed satisfied that nobody had seen anything overly suspicious. Not that it meant much to him.

"These imbeciles wouldn't notice anything suspicious if their neighbor was standing over them with a bloody knife in hand."

"Not everyone can be as observant as you, Sherlock." John replied, without conviction. He too was a little disappointed that they had no more information than they did an hour ago.

"I think we should pay a visit to the Genutech lab. Perhaps they had a disgruntled employee or something that might help us get a handle on this."

"Well, we've got nothing else to go on, might as well. But we're going by the flat, first. I wore scrubs for years in med school, I'm not anxious to be in them any longer."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sherlock, back in his sweeping coat, strode into the Genutech labs, approaching a young man at the workbench in the center of the room.

"Excuse me, "He said, flashing Lestrade's ID in the man's face. "We're with the Yard, working with the HPA on the Thornburg outbreak."

"Look, mate. I already told the man that we shipped all the antivirals we had in storage." He replied irritably.

"You shipped all your supplies for two sick patients?" John asked.

"Apparently they need everything we have to give. Doctor Raymond said that the first patient needed four times the dosage that we'd estimated. Plus, he wants to have it administered to everyone in quarantine, just to be safe."

"So are you getting more prepared, then?"

"Well, no. Not yet. We were shut down last week."

Sherlock and John shot a look between them. The detective was the first to speak again. "Shut down? Why?"

"Well, Thornburg wasn't considered a serious threat, since there had been no major outbreaks in first-world countries, so we lost our funding. But all these people getting sick is good news." The man smiled, and then abruptly backtracked when he saw the looks on their faces. "Er, good for the lab, I mean. And for Doctor Mallin, of course."

"Sorry, Doctor Mallin?" John asked, cocking his head.

"Oh, this is his lab. Curing Thornburg is his life's work, he even got the funding to open this place a few years ago. And if this thing gets worse," he smiled gleefully again "we might be able to get back to work."

"I see," Sherlock drawled, giving John a significant glance, and nodding to an unoccupied workstation behind them. "Excuse us a moment." He said to the lab tech they had been speaking with.

They turned their backs on the rest of the lab and spoke in hushed tones. "So this Doctor Mallin spends years working on a cure for Thornburg, then his lab gets shut down, loses its funding. Then, by some miracle, there's an outbreak in London a few days later."

"He took a sample of the virus, releases it to infect enough people to force the government to put his lab back in business." John frowned as he spoke, horrified that someone who had taken the Hippocratic Oath would deliberately hurt people for his own purposes.

The pair turned back to the lab tech who had been so helpful to them thus far. "Is it possible to speak with Doctor Mallin?" John asked politely.

"He's not here, I'm afraid. I'm not really sure where he is—he hasn't answered his mobile at all today. But, I think there's some paperwork with his address on it in that box." He indicated a white cardboard container on the shelf behind him. "It's all the things left over from his office when it was emptied."

They nodded their thanks, and took the box down to rifle through it. They pulled out a few papers that seemed to have come from the doctor's desk. Theatre programmes, address books, and a photo of the man who could only be Mallin in a fishing vest, in front of a country cabin. Sherlock snatched the framed photo from John's hand, and stared determinedly at it. The man in the photograph was the same weary-faced patron from the café earlier that day.

"John, look!" Sherlock hissed, pointing it out "This man was the one who rattled the doors at me in the café. He's already in quarantine at St. Barts." The detective dialed Lestrade, deciding he needed an answer faster than a text could give him. Lestrade's voice came on the other line strained, clearly in stress.

"We're a bit busy at the moment, Sherlock."

"What happened?"

"One of the patients who tested positive for the virus broke out of the hospital before he was treated."

"Let me guess, tall, thin, sallow-skinned. Badly in need of hair plugs?"

"Yeah, how did you know that?"

"Nevermind. I wouldn't worry about him being ill. He has his own supply of the antiviral."

"What makes you say that?"

"His name is Mallin. He developed the antiviral himself, and stole it to release when his lab went under."

"Bloody Hell…" The DI groaned.

"Could be worse, "John added to Sherlock. "At least he only had the one vial, and he's already used that."

"Excuse me?"

They turned around to see the lab tech they had been speaking with moments before. The young man cleared his throat again. "We gave the courier three vials of the sample, not one."

The color drained from John's face as he turned back to Sherlock, who spoke in calm tones into the phone.

"Lestrade, we may have more of a problem than we thought."