Chapter Six
Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia
"Hey Riley! Wait up!"
Dennis Riley hissed impatiently, but stopped short of entering the conference room. He turned slowly, not bothering to hide his impatience beneath a veneer of civility. When Dennis got annoyed, he made sure everyone knew about it.
"How could you possibly be late for this meeting?" Dennis demanded the taller blonde man, pushing his large glasses up the bridge of his nose and tapping the folder he held against an open palm. "This is the opportunity we've been waiting for almost four months. What were you doing that could be more important?"
Paul Turner gave Dennis a lazy smile and stretched his arms as he entered the conference room, his loud yawn interrupting the heated discussion at the table. Six men and a woman stopped and watched the two enter with obviously animated gazes. A nervous Samuel Price was bent over the table, a memo held in one clutched hand, an accusing finger held in the nonplussed face of Edgar Gibbons, a noted biochemist and new addition to the team. Amy Glasson watched on with a cold expression, but Turner knew from past experience that her nervous fear was betrayed by the way she sat ramrod straight, hands kept hidden under the table.
Bet she's counting again, Turner thought, smirking. Amy had OCD-obsessive compulsive disorder-and although she'd overcome much of it, her response to stress was always predictable-she'd count, divide, multiply, anything mathematical to quash her apprehension.
At least she's stopped doing it whenever I enter the room. It was getting to be a pain in the ass. Since Turner had broken off their relationship, Amy had lost any nervousness around him. She detested him-clear and simple.
Heavy-set Kieth Wyatt was going over the files they'd all been sent hours earlier, his lips moving as he silently read aloud. Having been otherwise engaged, Turner had failed to read the files himself. He approached the table and read a few sentences over Amy's shoulder.
Attention: EIS, Centres for Disease Control, Atlanta USA
RE: Suspected "Tyrant Virus"
From: Grace Lake Hospital, Manitoba CANADA
Turner raised his eyebrows at Amy, who gave a disgusted snort and deliberately turned away, lifting her nose snobbily.
"I was entertaining Oliver's new lab tech, the blonde. Two of you owe me fifty bucks. Payable immediately," he said loudly with the grin of a Cheshire Cat, making certain everyone in earshot overheard. When no one made the usual sarcastic comments, he made a face. "What's got the old man and the others all worked up?" he asked Amy.
She deliberately ignored him.
One of the men at the table-a small, balding fellow wearing a white lab coat with a nametag that read VAUGHN-threw Turner a filthy look and opened one of the folders in front of him. "Shut up Turner and take your seat. We don't have time for your usual bull."
Turner raised his eyebrows and held up his hands in a peace gesture. "Shit Owen, you wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning or somethin'?"
Owen Vaughn scowled, but didn't look up from the file.
Dennis took a seat beside Amy and opened his folder. Turner sat beside Wyatt, an overweight virologist who specialised in off-colour jokes and Hershey bars.
"Hows it going Keith?" he asked Wyatt, yawning again and flopping onto the table with a dramatic sigh. "Your wife still missin' me?"
Wyatt laughed good-naturedly and shook his head, glancing up from his reading. "Be serious, Paul. This is important."
"So everyone keeps telling me," Turner replied with obvious boredom, tilting his chair back so he dangled precariously. "I'd probably take this business with serious consideration if Morrow wasn't in charge." He frowned, slightly puzzled. "Why are we here anyway?"
Wyatt opened his mouth to speak, but shut it with an audible click when his eyes fell on the door.
An older man entered the conference room, followed closely by a slender redheaded woman carrying a hefty armload of files and folders. The room immediately fell into respectful silence, the researchers sitting upright in their chairs. The only one who didn't was Turner.
"Good morning people," Dr. Douglas Morrow greeted his staff, standing at the head of the table. His assistant stood stoically behind him, deliberately ignoring Turner's teasing winks and blown kisses.
There shouldn't have been a response-by common consensus, it was agreed that Morrow never expected a reply to his greetings or even answers to his questions-but Turner couldn't help himself.
"Good morning Dr. Morrow," he replied in a sing-song voice best recognised by elementary school teachers.
Morrow scowled over the table at Turner.
"Nice to see you condescended to join us this morning, Dr. Turner," he replied in a terse voice. "I trust I'll have your undivided attention for the duration of this meeting?"
Turner gave the redhead an obvious wink. He was rewarded when the corner of her mouth flickered in a suppressed smile.
Morrow glanced over his shoulder at his assistant and nodded curtly. She turned off the lights and walked over to where a slide-projector was set up on a low table.
Morrow pulled down a grey screen. A large photograph of a man strapped to a hospital cot loomed above the table like a ghostly mirage.
"This is James Gilbert of Grace Lake, Canada. Age, 39. Husband, father of three. Relatively little health problems until recently. Worked at the Westley Open Mines until they went out of business last year. A recreational hunter in his spare time." He nodded at his assistant.
The next photo was much closer, showing the unmistakable milkiness of cataracts, the pale and greying hue of the patient's skin.
"Is this "Tyrant Virus" Raccoon Syndrome?" Gibbons inquired.
Morrow nodded and the next slide came to view. It was a blood sample, revealing a cellular structure allten researchers were familiar with.
"This is Raccoon Syndrome."
Another slide clicked, and another blood sample filled the overhead screen.
"This is what was sent to us. I've already determined that the virus is the same one we investigated last year."
No one spoke.
Morrow nodded. The slide clicked again, this time an aerial photograph of a small town surrounded by forest and an expanse of frozen lake.
"How did it get there?" Pitel asked. "That town is hundreds of miles from the original hot zone. How can we assume that this is indeed Raccoon Syndrome?"
"He got injured hunting," Price read from the file. "After what little we discovered and the Raccoon survivor's testimonies, its clear Raccoon Syndrome. Could he have caught it naturally?"
"How can you catch an engineered virus 'naturally'?" Gibbons asked with clear disdain.
"Nothing was ever found to prove that Raccoon Syndrome wasn't a naturally occurring organism," Price snapped back.
"Idiot," Gibbons commented. "Could it be any clearer this originated in a lab?"
Turner ignored their bickering and took Wyatt's file to read, although he smiled smugly and occasionally glancing up to meet the assistant's eyes knowingly.
"The results sent from the local hospital confirm that this disease is in fact what we refer to as 'Raccoon Syndrome'. The blood cell count fits, and the corresponding hormone and enzyme levels do as well. The description of degenerating motor skills, necrotising affects and increased violence and aggression echoes what our Raccoon City researchers uncovered before the cleansing. The attending doctor insisted we get these results, as well as sending the original patient file."
"Lucky that," Amy commented sincerely.
Turner snorted. "More likely wanting to cover his hide. Probably had no idea what was wrong with the guy and palmed responsibility off on us."
"I disagree," Dennis insisted, pulling out a sheaf of paper from his folder and handed them to the woman next to him, and they were passed down the table to Morrow. "From what I understand, this Dr. Cooper was the second to attend to Gilbert. The first doctor suspected rabies and sent the results to the Vancouver centre. This Cooper disputed the diagnosis and sent the results directly to us."
"What are you getting at?" Turner crossed his beefy arms across his chest. "You think this Cooper knew about Raccoon Syndrome?"
"I don't think he just 'suspected' this infection was Raccoon Syndrome." When Morrow looked up abruptly from the papers in his hand, Dennis fixed a cold little smile to his thin face.
"He knew it was Raccoon Syndrome. He's worked on it."
"You can't venture that," the grey-haired Frank Roberts argued, little lines deepening in between his brows. "Where's your proof?"
"The fact Umbrella has been sniffing through the Canadian health records and database supports my theory. All inquiries were limited to four names-Joseph, Lindsay, Benedict and Cooper. They got two hits." Dennis took out two patient files, recognisable from their grey sleeves, and passed them on.
"How did you get this?" Amy asked, furrowing her pencil-thin eyebrows. Turner pitied Amy-she had no appreciation of a good time from his experience. She was all about cold facts and data.
Dennis swallowed before continuing, visibly nervous under Morrow's withering stare.
"I have a friend in the Canadian Health Department," he admitted. "And if you must know, I've got another in our Health Department as well. After the aborted investigation last year, I asked them to keep me informed of any strange activities in patient files-you know, being accessed in places that could be construed as unusual, or doctors who reported odd symptoms and behaviour in patients, weird treatments or requests.
"My Canadian friend contacted me immediately, sent me these files and told me that he'd noticed this strange activity for over six years, and that last October, the database stealing stopped after these two files were called up. I didn't think much of it at first-what would a multi-national corporation like Umbrella want with a small-town doctor and his daughter? I was looking at more important people, more suspicious activity, like drug trials, illegal experiments, unethical treatmentand disappearances. But when Dr. Morrow sent out the Grace Lake files this morning, I knew this had to be connected."
"This can't be correct," Amy interrupted, holding up a record chart.
"It's all correct, I verified and checked through the proper channels," Dennis replied evenly.
"But the daughter-" Amy shook her head. "These records indicate she'd never been into a hospital or medical clinic until she was fourteen."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Turner asked irritably.
"I mean there's nothing until this car accident. No measles, no flu, no accidental bone breaks or fractures. Nothing." She shook her head, as if believing that by expressing her disdain of such a claim would make it disappear. "No child is that charmed. Even I fell off my bike and broke my leg at six."
Wyatt grumbled his laughter, and Turner echoed it-he couldn't imagine arrogant Dr. Glasson ever being frivolous enough to ride a pushbike. "I fell off the roof at ten, damn near broke my neck," the big man added.
"I got measles, mumps and chicken pox in the one year," Gibbons added with a thin smile.
"Rough trot," Price sneered unsympathetically. Gibbons just smiled back.
"That's what I mean. Until she was fourteen years old, nothing happened to this child. No appendicitis, no bad cuts. Nothing." Amy read on, and made another face. "There's not even a record of her even having been inoculated as a baby, which is ludicrous. There isn't even a Rubella vaccination here, and the Canadian authorities ensure every female student gets that."
"Probably off sick that day," Turner offered with an unconcerned shrug.
"Maybe she has a great fairy godmother," Pitel joked across the table.
"Mustbe a damned good one too," Wyatt added. "Wish they'd drop in on my family once in a while."
"An interesting sidenote, but how exactly does this prove a connection between Cooper and Umbrella?" Price asked, tapping a biro against his mug of cold black coffee.
"The names accessed through the database over the past six years. At first there was three- Joseph. Lindsay. Benedict. But my buddies' research proved that after October, the search expanded to include another name-Cooper. I did a little researching of my own this morning and found something that might be of interest." Dennis leaned forward. Turner visualised Dennis like a fox that's caught the hen and has slunk back out of the hen house without rousing the farm dog, laughing silently at its own cleverness. With his narrow, angular face and reddish beard and sly tawny eyes, Dennis even resembled a fox.
"Three form true names, real people. One is on those files-Lindsay Cooper, the doctor's daughter. The other I found in the Canadian Medical Association's records. Joseph Lindsay. A surgeon reported missing in 1992 after the deaths of his family in a horrendous car accident in Winnipeg-wife, son…" A slow grin spread across Dennis' face. "… and daughter."
"So the man killed his family and gotaway with it," Turner dismissed. "That still doesn't prove a direct link to Umbrella."
"Joseph Lindsay was a surgeon-apparently an excellent one too. His surgical ratio was remarkably high, seemed to rarely lose a patient. In '82, he left his comfortable position at St. Mary's hospital in Montreal after being headhunted by an influential pharmaceutical company. One we've all had the unfortunate necessity to encounter."
"Umbrella," Morrow stated with a twinge of admiration in his tone. "So you believe that this Norman Cooper and Joseph Lindsay are one and the same?"
Dennis nodded. "And this child of his can't be his true daughter-she's dead, buried in Winnipeg. This 'Lindsay Cooper' must be another Umbrella employee-"
"Or test subject," Turner hazarded with a wave of his hand.
"It's obviously an alias," Pitel dismissed, stroking his thick moustache. "That would explain the lack of activity in her medical records."
"If the identity didn't exist until the accident-which wasn't until late '92-then it would explain why there are no records of earlier health problems," Amy added, her pale blue eyes relieved behind the thick lenses she wore.
"I suspect that Joseph Lindsay must have left his employers at some point-possibly in '92. And to secure his and his accomplices' safety, he took insurance with him when he left."
"You believe he infected this man deliberately?" Price demanded, his voice cracking and failing to hold his accusing tone.
"He wouldn't conduct his own experiments." Vaughn's reedy voice cracked as he met the collectively dread-filled expressions of the rest of the EIS team. "Would he?"
Dennis shrugged. "Perhaps. Or maybe someone else found whatever vial he had hidden and let loose." Unlike Vaughn, he didn't shrink from the sombre looks he received from the other researchers at the table.
"Possible," Morrow said. "That conjecture was brought up at our discussions on the Raccoon City outbreak, but the company admitted fault, if not publicly, then to the involved authorities. There's been no official response from the Canadian government as of yet and Umbrella has made no move to quarantine the area. We can't definitively claim they have any involvement."
"Unlike our trustworthy government did back in Raccoon," Calhoun added with a sarcastic laugh. When Morrow glared at him yet again, he gave the older man a playful salute with one finger.
"That doesn't mean they won't," Wyatt said. "That's why we've been given a day, isn't it? They're going to quarantine this town."
"Who, Umbrella, the US army or the Canadian army?" Turner asked with an exaggerated shrug. "So many takers-"
"Enough, have some respect for the situation you insensitive shit. This town could end up like Raccoon City did. Dead, blown to shit and left for the infected. You want that in your native country? Huh?" Prices' face was flushed red, his cheeks puffed out in a comical gesture that reminded Turner of a pig.
"Not my problem anymore. I'm a US citizen now, remember?" Turner replied, the grin leaving his face. "Someone else'll take care of it."
"What if they don't?" Price argued, slamming a palm on the table and knocking over a stacked pile of folders. "What if it gets out? Shit, don't you remember what it was like there? The survivors, their reports? Damn it Paul, there's an incident file bigger than your apartment! Every single one of them said the same thing- a cannibal virus, unnatural mutations and everything left within that city dead and killing anything with a real pulse and clean blood."
"Enough," Morrow interrupted. All eyes turned to him, Turner's unwillingly.
"A six-man team will be sent to Canada to retrieve the infected patient and assess the virus first-hand," Morrow announced grandly, as if he was Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. The other CDC researchers glanced apprehensively at each other. Turner met Dennis' eyes and was a little surprised to see the eager anticipation on the epidemiologist's narrow face. "The Canadian government has given us a day to study the Raccoon Syndrome and retrieve a live patient for further research into a possible vaccine."
Someone to Turner's right muttered, "That's not long enough!"
"It will be long enough to achieve our objectives," Morrow added.
"Are we going to be escorted?" Pitel asked.
It was a fair enough question, Turner mused. Most at the table had been on hand during the Raccoon City outbreak, surrounded by US Army and private security men armed to the teeth ostensibly to guard them. Turner chuckled under his breath, remembering how the very presence of armed guards had only served to undermine their work. None of those narrow-eyed soldiers had been willing to answer questions and the way they'd held those assault rifles had convinced the CDC team that they'd be more than willing to shoot them too should any fall prey to Raccoon Syndrome-or their own curiosity.
Never let us get too close to their own emergency centre, Turner recalled, thinking of the odd collection of tents and mobile labs Umbrella had set up just outside the quarantine zone. Probably didn't want any of us to find anything incriminating on them. Too bad a payload of their virus got out and wiped the population. He returned to a thought he'd dwelled on often since last October. We'd have never of known if it hadn't gotten out, not until it was too late.
"There will be a two-man escort sent in with you. We intend to have you out before the end of the day."
Turner tried to catch Dennis' eye, but the epidemiologist was ignoring him, focused entirely on their superior. Disappointed but not surprised, Turner raised a hand and asked the question the others at the table had suppressed asking outright.
"Is it true that Raccoon Syndrome is an Umbrella product?" Turner's chair creaked as he leaned forward, arms folded on the table. "Is it a biological weapon?"
The silence was palpable. Dennis and the others all turned to face Turner with scrutinising expressions touched by disbelief at the tone he'd taken with their superior. No one addressed Morrow in that kind of tone-the last researcher to try that had been sent packing before the next shift.
Screw them, Turner thought sullenly. If I'm the only one at this table with the balls to ask-
"That is no concern of yours, Turner," Morrow answered, his tone cutting across the table like an invisible whip as his expression settled into a lined and stern mask. "All we want you to do is study it. Leave the big questions for us."
Sure, Turner thought rebelliously. Like we left Raccoon City to you and the higher ups-and the majority of the American public still doesn't know the truth of it all.
He met Dennis' gleaming eyes. Was it his imagination, or was there a touch of greed lurking there?
A/N- I know it's taken me ages to update. Sorry! But I've got this tendency to keep tinkering with plots and characters, even after I should have it all settled, so this story stalled a bit. But it's been figured out (until I change it again that is) so I should be updating more regularly. Thanks to Squirrel54 and foxdude33 for the reviews, and yes, Lindsay's supposed to be depressed, but it isn't pointless angst. It does a have a point in the end-the next chapter should explain why she's such a sook.
Next up-Cooper makes an unpleasant discovery, Lindsay has a bad morning at work and Jake discovers there may be more to his mission than either he or his employers first assumed .
Sounds like some bad soapie when I read that back. Been watching too much Arrested Development and Scrubs lately : ) The whole voice-over/internal monologuething's started to sink into my brain and seep into my writing.