Dr. Robin Arthur looked tired when she trudged into Don's office the next morning. She had a right to be tired; she'd been up all night caring for patients. Another ten had come down with symptoms, and of those, only one had a mere influenza. That one had been sent home with instructions to call back every few hours in case the initial diagnosis was either wrong or superceded by something more serious.
The others in Don's office were equally as tired. They too had spent the night at headquarters, entering data into Charlie's program as fast as they could find it. That meant waiting for each patient to wake up and answer questions about their whereabouts, about their eating habits, about things that each victim would really rather not be discussing while heaving or worse. Robin pushed medications in as fast as she dared, trying to keep the victims as comfortable as she could, but there was a limit to what she could do. The FBI basement had already taken on the aspects of an army hospital of the forties, the walls a gray painted cinder block and cheerless, the victims moaning on their cots. The wafting odors had taken on that vicious combination of human effluvium mixed with a variety antiseptics. That in itself was enough to make a healthy man gag.
Don had talked to Colby himself, sometime just after midnight. The man was listless and almost as gray as the cinder blocks, barely able to keep his eyes open. But the spirit was still inside, and he answered everything he could with a grim determination. "Walked in yesterday morning through the front door. Saw Marcy, waved hello as usual. Grabbed a cup of coffee, met Charlie. He came in right after me. Went to the stupid meeting, listened to Marker spout off. Listened to Marker make a fool of himself in front of Charlie." Colby even managed a limp grin. "I get to say that, don't I, Don? Not much point in keeping it inside. No one gonna reprimand me. Not now."
"I'd be careful if I were you. You're getting the best medical care there is. CDC is here, and Charlie's working on discovering how they got the bug in the door. We've got people trying to track all the known terrorists in the area, trying to see if we can link them to this building." Don was scared. Colby looked worse than he'd ever seen him. "You'll be walking out of here before you know it."
Colby's eyes went dull. "Don't kid yourself, Don. I'm not getting out of here." He snorted, the sound a pallid imitation of his usual vigor. "Made it through Afghanistan, gonna get killed in good ole L.A. by a little bacteria bug. Gives life real perspective, doesn't it?"
"You're not going to die. I did some reading, some surfing the net. Cholera can be mild. It can be treated. Most people get better, especially when they've got all this medical treatment."
Small smile. "Sorry, Don. You've got the Internet, but I've been listening to the experts all around me. They think we're sleeping, that we're drugged, but we're listening just the same. This isn't your garden variety bug. It's mutated. It's what they call more 'virulent'. Means it kills you faster and more efficiently. Makes you feel like shit." He closed his eyes, unable to spare the energy to keep them open any longer. "Listen, Don; you'll make sure my stuff gets back to my family? Make sure they get what's coming? I've got a life insurance policy with the Bureau. They could use the money."
Don squeezed the man's arm, alarmed at how shriveled it felt. This was not the usual one man tank that he could trust to cover his back. "Then they're going to have to keep hustling, because you're not going to die. You're still needed around here. Hear me?"
"Sure, Don." The words were whispered, and barely audible. Don couldn't help but look up at the monitor above Colby's head, seeking reassurance that there were still little green beeps marching across.
A shadow fell across the bed, and Robin put a comforting hand on Don's shoulder, the other hand checking for a fever in her patient. "We're doing our best, Don," she said.
"I know. He's scared."
"They all are." Straightening up, she motioned for one of the nurses to come over. "Put a couple liters of oxygen on this one, would you, Jen? And get me a potassium level. Has Atlanta gotten back to us with the results of the gentamycin trials?"
"Not yet."
"Figures." Robin looked at Colby, not liking what she saw. Don didn't like it either, and he didn't know what he was looking for. He just knew that he didn't like seeing Colby lying there, listless and weak.
"Start the gentamycin IV. We have nothing to lose at this point." Robin came to a decision.
"Robin?" That didn't sound good.
"Prayer wouldn't be a bad thing, either." She kept her voice low, but Don was certain that Colby heard her anyway.
That had been several hours ago. It was now morning, the sun barely waking up itself. They looked up when Dr. Arthur entered Don's office, searching her face for news they didn't want to hear.
"Colby's holding his own," she greeted them, flopping into a chair, knowing that that would be their first question. "He's not better, but he's not worse. I got the word from Atlanta, and we're trying some different antibiotics that are better at knocking this little bugger off. We're making some educated guesses."
"The others?"
"We've lost four people." Robin kept her voice steady. "Six more have come down with it."
"Four people." That was horrifying. Four FBI personnel, killed by a terrorist plot just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. "They just got sick yesterday. It's moving that fast?"
Robin nodded. "This is a mutated variety, designed to be as lethal as possible as quickly as possible." She grimaced. "If Charlie needs more data, we'll talk to the new ones."
"Speaking of which." Don hit the speed dial. "Charlie? You there?"
"Morning, Don. Turn on your computer, and I'll hook in from here." Tap, tap, as fingers searched for control of a computer a hundred miles away. "What's the word on your end?"
"Bad, and getting worse. Twenty two people are down with it."
"You've onlyput insixteen victims."
"That's all we knew about last night. Six new cases as of an hour ago. We have to find the source, Charlie; find it and stop it. What do you have for us?"
"Not enough data," was the unhappy response after several long moments of tapping and shifting screens. Don still got spooked out by how his computer behaved with the expert at the other end of the phone line. "No correlation with a high enough degree. Wait a minute." Tap, tap. "No, that's not helping. I pulled off the fact that they all work for the FBI, hoping to clear the way for better correlations. No luck." Sigh of frustration. "Listen, Don, I'm coming home. I'll pay some kid to go up and retrieve the stuff for Larry. You need me there."
"No!" Don felt a momentary flash of alarm. Charlie hadn't been stricken yet, and wouldn't be if he didn't come into the FBI building. Don felt as though he was stuck on a plague ship, knew the others did too. He wasn't about to let Charlie walk up the gangplank. "Charlie, stay where you are. We'll input more data from these new patients. That'll help your correlations. Right?"
Robin was nodding her head in agreement. "'More data, more accuracy'," she called out over the speaker phone.
"Fritz Walker, right?"
"First year differential equations at Westerfield. Aced Dr. Walker's course."
"Good man. Knows his stuff. Put in those additional patients' data, and…" Charlie's voice trailed off.
"Charlie?"
"Wait a minute." The computer screen changed, changed again. Numbers flashed by too fast for normal eyes to comprehend. "Hah."
"That was a good 'hah'."
"Yes, Don, it was." There was satisfaction in Charlie's voice, and victory.
"You found the answer?"
"Not quite, but we're close. The problem was," and even over the phone Charlie still sounded as though he was lecturing to students, "that at first, some of the data was overshadowing the smaller correlations. Things like everyone 'working in this building'. That was a given, and we need smaller correlations. Everyone goes to the bathroom periodically. Everyone eats lunch. Everyone breathes air. Those we can toss out; they don't differentiate the two populations, healthy versus infected."
"So what are we looking at?" Megan called out.
"Smaller subsets of those populations," Charlie responded. "Everyone goes to the bathroom, but only a smaller subset of those people use the ones on the third floor. Everyone eats, yet none of our victims brought food from home. That in itself suggests that the contamination was brought in through the food chain, through food that somehow entered the FBI building through regular channels."
"It can't be," Robin disputed. "That was our first thought. We tested all the food that was brought in over the last three days. It's clean. We targeted the food vendors outside, and they passed inspection as well. That was the first thing we thought of, after Rochester."
"There has to be some part of the food chain," Charlie insisted. "You've told me that the cholera organism is transmitted via contaminated foods and through human waste. You've already isolated the human waste factor. That leaves food. What food didn't you check?"
The light bulb went off: "Soda machines," Megan piped up suddenly.
"Candy vending machines," David added, picking up on her cue. He sat up straighter.
"The coffee machine on the first floor," Don added. "Didn't Colby say something about getting coffee the day before?"
Satisfaction oozed over the phone lines. "Hah. Right now the data is beginning to cluster. It's giving us several different loci of concentration, and that would be consistent with a source such as vending machines. They're located in different parts of the building, easily accessible to different subsets of the population which would account for the clustering that's popping up. I'm adding in a couple more data points," Charlie said, his voice drifting off as he concentrated on his own keyboard. "See how many more data points you can put in on both the people who have come down with C-NO4 and the new victims. We'll see what correlation squirts out, although I'm hoping that it will just confirm what we've just come up with. You'll probably need to sequester most of the vending machines."
"I can do better than that," Robin said grimly. "I won't wait forconfirmation from your correlation. I'll be getting samples from each and every one of those machines, and testing them. That will be proof positive. We can't allow this to go on any longer than we have to." She stood back up. "Thank you, Charlie. People, please excuse me. I have a job to do."
Charlie turned back to his roommate, still huddled under the covers. "Are you sure you don't want me to get you a doctor? Maybe go straight home?"
"Without my data? Perish the thought." Exuberant was clearly not the word for how Dr. Fleinhardt was feeling. "Go and fetch the equipment on the mountain while I complete the task of expiration. Revive me when you return with the data. I believe I noted an automated external defibrillator in the main lobby."
"I don't think you defibrillate the flu, Larry."
"If you stand between me and the facilities, Dr. Eppes, I will not be responsible for the consequences." Larry made a mad dash for the bathroom, slamming the door shut. There was the sound of retching, and flushing. Charlie winced. Then Larry's voice floated out one more time, querulous and unhappy. "I would greatly appreciate it, Charles, if you would retrieve my data as expeditiously as possible so that I can return home to finish my recuperation in as comfortable surroundings as poss—"
Flush.
All right, hiking up the mountain under these circumstances lacked the joy of the first expedition. Charlie found that he missed the companionship of his friend and mentor, even more so now that Larry was sick in a motel room with the flu. At least it wasn't that terrorist bacteria that Don was battling. He wondered who the victims were, if he knew any of them. Don wasn't; his older brother had been on the phone with him every time. So had Megan and David. So had Colby—or had he? Charlie was so accustomed to the younger agent's presence on Don's cases that he just automatically assumed that the man was there.
But had he heard Colby's voice? Don had carefully not mentioned who the victims were. There were a lot of people at the FBI building, and Charlie knew several by face though not by name. There was the motherly woman behind the receptionist desk who Don told him could rip Charlie's head off if he managed to take down the guards at the metal detectors. Charlie never quite knew if Don was teasing him. She didn't look the type, but this was, after all, the FBI…
His thoughts danced back onto the search program he'd set up, marching in time with his steps up the slope to where he and Larry had left Larry's experimental equipment. Foodstuffs, Robin had said. Fecal-oral contamination. In areas with poor sanitation, the bacteria was excreted from victims and got into the drinking water, even mixing with fresh fruits and vegetables. The vending machines sounded like a strong possibility as the site of contamination, and if it was, Robin and her people would discover it quickly. The bacteria could be identified under a microscope, and they'd brought plenty along for just this occasion.
What about poor Larry? Charlie's thoughts drifted back to his fellow professor. Could Larry have somehow become infected? No, that would mean that Charlie had transmitted the disease to him, for Larry hadn't been to the FBI building for several days if not weeks, and Charlie himself had had no symptoms whatsoever. No, whatever ailment Larry had, it wasn't from the terrorists. There was a flu epidemic currently making the rounds. Larry simply had the flu: miserably, thoroughly sick. Couldn't blame that on the terrorists. Charlie would be lucky not to get it himself after spending all of yesterday with Larry.
What if it wasn't the vending machines? Charlie avoided a long crevice lined with rocks, continuing upward on the mountainside at an approximately thirty degree incline. He was getting up above the tree line, an area that was blessed with a multitude of rocks and boulders to join with short cliffs that he'd best avoid falling over. Despite the air getting a trifle thin and his breath correspondingly short, he hustled. Larry would appreciate alacrity. A small rodent scurried away into the scrub.
If the vector was the vending machines, all of the victims would report some sort of purchase. Perhaps it would only be one of the machines. Finding out who refilled those machines might lead Don and the others to the culprit, take out a terrorist cell. Charlie felt a quiet thrill of pride that his work could help to apprehend people with so little respect for life that they would attack innocents. The receptionist, for example. Charlie was certain that the woman would have a family, perhaps a few young grandchildren. She was such a sweet, grandmotherly type of person.
The vending machines were a strong possibility, but what if there were other routes? Robin had said that they checked the incoming foods, and they were free of contamination. What else would there be? The answer had to be there, had to be in the clustering sequences. Looking at those subsets, looking at what linked the victims would tell them what the vector was. If only he could program in a few more parameters into the computer…
This time, not a problem. This time Charlie had remembered his cell phone, had made doubly certain to tuck it into his backpack. Hiking in a pair was safe, hiking alone one needed some way to call for help. Despite Don's disparaging comments about absent-minded professors, Charlie was not foolish. He flipped open the device.
"Eppes."
"Don?"
"Charlie? You okay, buddy?" Trace of budding alarm. Why are you calling me now?
"I'm fine, but listen: has Robin come up with anything yet with the vending machines?"
"No. She says it'll take a few hours to check everything. Some new super fast test for this bacteria, normally takes a couple of days. Why?"
"Because I just had another thought. Turn on the program I put into your computer."
"Why?"
"Because I think I know what the vector might be. I have an idea on how to better pinpoint it." Charlie tried not to be impatient. "I need to know where everyone was throughout the day. That will be the key to the problem."
"And you can't take over my computer? You want me to call IT? Get them to interface?"
"I don't have my computer here," Charlie said. "I'm hiking up the mountain. I need you to input the command sequences."
"The what?"
"You're going to program the computer, Don."
"Me? Programming? Are you kidding?"
"Just do what I tell you, and we may pop out the answer in three minutes. That worth trying?"
Heavy sigh. "What I do for my country. Okay, the computer is ready. What do I do?"
Charlie talked him through the work, pausing periodically to have Don read back the numbers and letters. "Now hit 'enter'."
"That's it?"
"What, you wanted a banana split along with it? Hit the enter key, Don."
Don hit. Numbers flashed too quickly to be seen, then settled into a static pattern. "Now what?"
"Read it to me."
Don read. He could picture Charlie on the mountainside, sitting on a rock, the numbers etched in his mind's eye as though the mathematician had the computer screen in front of him. New sort of virtual reality, hardware not needed. "Charlie?"
"Got it, Don." Sort of a hushed voice. "The data is clustering. Seventy five percent of the victims attended the first early morning meeting in the first floor auditorium. Another subset: forty percent have rapid access to the first floor men's room. Another subset, but one that goes in the opposite direction: none of the computer techs have come down with it."
"Which makes sense," Don said grimly, "because, being computer types, none of them got in early enough for the first meeting, and they all routinely call out for pizza if they need food. They don't eat in the cafeteria, they don't use the regular vending machines, they don't even come in during normal working hours if they can help it. We stash them in the far wing, away from sane people. They wouldn't have access to the normal things that the rest of us use. Charlie, I think you've solved this. It was transmitted during that early morning meeting."
"Not quite, Don. I've narrowed it down, but what was the actual vector? There had to be something physical that spread this disease, something that people touched or ate from. It has to be something that was available to the people who came in early and would use the first floor men's rooms. Another cluster: they're all coffee-drinkers, although no correlations as to whether they use sugar or artificial sweeteners. They all went to the earliest meeting. What links all of those people, and has something to do with food?"
"Utensils." Don's voice took on a hush. "Plastic utensils, paper cups and plates. The stuff it gets served in. Stuff that nobody looks at, because we throw it away when we're finished. To entice people to go to the earliest meeting, they served coffee and Danish. They served it on paper plates, with plastic cups."
"Don?"
"You're right, buddy." Don's voice took on that flat edge that spoke volumes. "You solved it. I'll get this to Robin. She'll check it out."
"Don, we can add it to the search parameters, make certain—"
"You do it when you get back to civilization. We can hook you back up to my computer long distance again. Call me again tonight, okay, buddy? Hopefully by then we won't need any more search parameters. We'll have identified the source."
But Charlie had another concern. "Don?"
"What?"
Charlie took a deep breath. "Don, I haven't heard Colby on any of these calls, have I? He's okay, isn't he?"
More silence.
"Don?"
The stone face came through the phone. "He's holding his own. That's all Robin will say."
"Oh." That said it all.
Don took pity on his younger brother. "You keep doing your part, Charlie. You're already doing it, even from up there on the mountain top."
"I can come back. I can start back right now—"
"No." That came out sharp and clear. "Believe me, buddy, I'm happier that you're not here. We still haven't identified who took a hand in dropping this little plague bomb on us, and until we do I don't want you anywhere near here. Do you think I want to be responsible for losing the greatest mind since Einstein to a disease that hasn't been a problem in this country for the last hundred years?" It was meant as a joke, but Don couldn't quite persuade his voice to cooperate. He gave up the struggle and returned to serious. "I still want you to check in later tonight. We may need you. Okay, buddy?"
"Got it." And, "tell Colby I'm thinking of him, Don."
"We all are, buddy. We all are." Don hung up. Thinking of Colby. An hour ago the man was out of his head, calling on people he knew a few years ago. It had been more than scary. Robin had said it was because his internal chemistries were all screwed up by the bacteria and the dehydration that they couldn't keep up with, but it was still frightening to watch. Then Colby had lapsed back into a restless sleep, muttering to himself.
That could have been any one of us.
It still might.