Coin Toss

Mac awoke suddenly to someone pounding on the door of his hotel room.

It took him less than a second to evaluate the room. It was still dark, light not even coming in from the small gap between the blackout curtains. The red numerals on the alarm clock read 3:42. There was just enough light to see the outline of his backpack sitting on a chair eight feet away. No movement that he could sense in the room.

He felt around the side table for his phone, realizing a second later that he'd used it to disable an electronic lock the day before. The now less-than-useful remains were tucked into the backpack. He hauled himself out of the bed and picked up the heavy lamp on the side table.

"Mac! You in there, buddy?" Jack. The words accompanied another round of knocking. Mac put the lamp back.

"Jeez, Jack- I'm coming." the words came out more irritated than he anticipated. The barrage of knocks stopped suddenly. Mac could see Jack's feet shuffling in the light coming in under the door.

Mack stumbled to the door and felt around on the wall for the light switch, squinting as the room lit up, and opened the door to the hallway.

Jack's face looked partially relieved, partially still very concerned.

"Jack, what're you-" Mac started.

"You okay, Mac?" He interrupted, slinging a small backpack off his back, his eyes wandering Mac's body, looking for something. "You haven't been answering your phone."

"Yeah, I mean… sorry?" Mac said sheepishly, still half asleep and confused at the situation. He'd checked in the night before by email on a hotel computer. Had told Phoenix his phone was broken. Wasn't even close to late for his next check-in unless he'd somehow slept over 24 hours, which he doubted. "My phone-"

"Actually, I really don't need to know, just-" He handed the pack to Mac, who took it gingerly. His voice dropped. "Listen, I got a call from Matty, right? Not the good kind. Said your life was at stake. Sounded real bad, Mac."

"What-?" Mac asked hesitantly, concerned.

"I'll explain more in the car." Jack said, looking back and forth down the quiet hallway. Despite the noise he'd made a few moments earlier, no one seemed to have come out to investigate. "That's a decon kit." He said, pointing to the backpack in Mac's arms. "Scrub yourself down, change into the clothes in the kit. Leave the rest of your stuff in the room- someone else is coming to get it. You've got ten minutes to meet me at the elevators, otherwise I'm coming in after you, cool?"

Mac nodded, seriously. "Yeah"

Jack took a breath and nodded back. "Good. I'll be out here. Yell if you need anything." Mac raised an eyebrow.

Mac had never been the type to be thrilled to be told what to do without a half-decent explanation, but the urgency in Jack's voice- and the nearly 4am wakeup- had been impetus enough to hold his demand for clarification.

A few seconds later he stood in front of the sink and dumped the contents of the kit onto the vanity. A folded list of instructions titled "BIOHAZARD DECONTAMINATION KIT- WATER AVAILABLE OPTION- NOT FOR USE WITH CHEMICAL CONTAMINATES", small bottle of yellow liquid soap, a washcloth, two packets of chlorhexidine body wipes, a few clear plastic biohazard bags, a pair of flip flops, a long-sleeved white tee shirt and underwear that looked a size or two too big, and a pair of baggy blue scrub pants.

Mac skimmed the single page of instructions, then started the shower and stripped quickly. He shoved his clothes into the biohazard bags. Naked, he rinsed under the water, stepped back, and scrubbed himself down with the harsh-smelling yellow soap. He counted out three long minutes with the soap in his skin and hair, then rinsed it off thoroughly.

The actual suds removed, he still smelled unsettlingly like the soap. Quickly, he dried himself off with a towel, left the towel on the floor, and wiped himself down with the body wipes. Once the shiny liquid from the wipes dried on his skin, he donned the provided clothes.

He checked the clock on the side table. He'd managed two minutes ahead of schedule.

Down the hall, Jack paced in the elevator lobby. Mac saw his eyes light up with relief as he saw Mac make his way down the hall, holding the scrub pants up around his waist with one hand. It felt weird to leave the room without any of his stuff, but whatever this was, he knew touching it all again would re-contaminate him and it was best to leave that to whoever the Phoenix contracted with for cleanup.

The hallway was still quiet. Jack had stopped pacing as soon as he saw Mac, and appeared to be putting everything he had into not rushing towards him.

"Okay Jack, what's going on?" Mac asked. Jack looked uncomfortable.

"I said I'd tell you in the car." Jack responded, looking back and forth down the hallway again. Then he lightened slightly. "And by that I mean Matty's gonna tell you in the car. I'm not sure I could get her tone right." Jack was trying to joke, but the look on his face told Mac he was covering something. Mac nodded in understanding.

In the end, they took the stairs to the side entrance out to Jack's waiting rental. There was an inch or so of snow on the ground that hadn't been there the day before, and Mac's breath was visible. Even though it was less than twenty feet to the vehicle, Jack took off his jacket and put it over Mac's shoulders.

They got inside the truck, which was still slightly warm from the last time the heat had been on. Mac pulled off the jacket. Jack almost immediately pulled out of the parking spot and headed for the highway.

Mac broke the silence. "Jack-"

"I told Matty she could say this, but just for some buy-in: It's anthrax, Mac."

"Oh."

"See, not the kind of phone call a guy likes to get at midnight." The roads were virtually devoid of other traffic, and at a solid 30mph over the speed limit, Jack was taking full advantage.

"Where are we going?" Mac asked. Phoenix was nearly a day away by car. If he knew anything about anthrax, that kind of lag time would have been unacceptable to Matty. And he knew flying was out of the question if there was any possibility he still had bacteria on him.

"There's an army base about an hour from here." Jack explained. "Matty said she would call ahead." He handed Mac his phone. "Just, call her, Mac- she's been talking my ear off the last 3 hours. Not nicely, by the way." Mac nodded. Matty was worried, meaning Jack couldn't possibly be working fast enough to appease her.

Mac dialed. The phone didn't even ring once before Matty's face filled the screen. Mac watched the look on her face go from disappointed to relieved. "Mac, it's good to see you, how are you feeling?" She asked. Mac felt a little guilty.

"I feel fine." He said confidently. "What's going-"

"As I'm sure Jack told you," Matty interrupted, calling his pretense. Jack shrugged next to him. "The videos you sent yesterday look like the smugglers you and Jack were tracking have branched out into biological weapons."

"That's where you lost me- the equipment looked like it could be used to culture and package a bioweapon, but I didn't see anything that pointed to anthrax." He shot an apologetic look to Jack. Matty didn't even bother raising an eyebrow.

"Hi, yeah-" A familiar voice cut in, and Matty was suddenly sharing the screen with a green-haired thirty-something. Gayle Sawyer, COHN. "So first, great to see you upright, Mac, as always." Gayle greeted him. "Second, it was me that aborted your mission. So sorry about that but I think you'll forgive me." She paused. "You remember the packing crates in the corner?"

Mac thought back to the makeshift lab. On one side, next to two large, unplugged fridges, wooden packing crates were stacked. Mac had opened one and felt around inside. It was lined with thick plastic, but where he had expected to find some not-yet-unpacked equipment to show off for the camera, instead there had been only fluffy packing material.

"They were full of wool. Main source of anthrax bacteria if you don't have a pristine specimen at your disposal. And based on the packaging, they probably knew it was infected." Gayle said, a slight grimace on her face.

"And I-" Mac started, realizing why everyone was so worried all of a sudden.

"Went and stuck your entire. Hand. In it." Matty finished. "Jesus, Mac." Mac went quiet, taking in the situation.

"What's done is done." Gayle said, emphasis leaned strongly towards Matty. "It can- and clearly does- happen to the best of us. What I'd like us to focus on now is keeping Mac alive and healthy."

"Wait- what do you mean, keeping Mac alive?" Jack asked. "We got him out of there, he's cleaned up, he's not even sick. You said anthrax was a bacteria- can't you give him an antibiotic or something?" Matty looked at Gayle to answer the question.

"Well, yes- and we will." Gayle assured her. "But it's not that simple." Gayle looked pointedly at Mac through the phone. "Are you comfortable with Jack and Matty hearing this, Mac? Or do you want to put in some headphones?"

"They can hear it." Mac affirmed.

"Okay, Mac" She took a breath before continuing. "Anthrax is bad, Jack- really bad. I can't really sugar coat this. If Mac is infected- which based on his exposure, is likely- the best-case scenario is that Mac touched some spores and develops skin-based, also called 'cutaneous', anthrax. It causes a wound infection that can spread to the bloodstream. Even with the best treatment, the risk of death is about 2%."

There was a pause. "You were scaring me there, Gayle." Jack said hesitantly, "My man survives 2%-chance-of-death situations turning on his computer in the morning." Matty glared at him through the phone screen.

"I wish that was also the worst-case scenario, Jack. Worst case, he breathed in spores. Inhalational anthrax, which infects the lungs, even with everything we're about to throw at him, the best possible outcome is about 50-50."

Mac sat back in the passenger's seat. 50-50. A coin toss whether he lived or died. It wasn't that he didn't have that kind of experience on the regular, but it wasn't usually laid out so cleanly for him. It was weird. And kind of horrifying just then. Shit.

Mac rubbed his hand on the scrub pants, as if trying to rub the feeling of the wool, now an acute memory, off his skin.

"That's a lot to hear, I know." Gayle continued she opened her mouth to say whatever she was going to say next, but Mac cut in.

He took a breath. "It's fine- what do I need to do?" He asked definitively.

"I'm glad you asked, Mac." Gayle said kindly. "If our GPS tracking is correct, you've been out of range and possibly infected for over 24 hours, and you've got another 43 minutes left to go before you get to the base. Symptoms start somewhere between a day and a week after infection, and once symptoms start, if you don't have medication already on board, your chance of survival drops significantly. Are you allergic to anything, Mac?"

"Nope."

"Okay- under your seat is a medical kit. It should have at least a few pill packs- look for the kind for pain. One of the medications in the pill packs is an antibiotic called moxifloxacin. It should be a oval-shaped peach or maroon-colored pill. I need you to open 2 pill packs, take the moxifloxacin out of each, and take both of them." Gayle instructed.

Mac pulled the white metal medical kit out from under the passenger seat and opened it. Inside were hundreds of different items and medications, packed tightly together in their own baggies. In one corner was a plastic baggie with blister packs in it that Mac recognized all too well. Mac opened the baggie and popped the antibiotic pills out of their blisters.

Jack kept his eyes on the road while he fished around in the center console for a half-drunk bottle of a sports drink that he shoved at Mac, and, seconds later, a packet of jerky. Mac forced down a couple of bites of the jerky, then the pills, and followed with the sports drink.

The conversation ended shortly after that. Gayle offered to stay on longer if he wanted to talk, but he declined. He didn't even really want to talk to Jack, who kept trying to come up with bits and pieces of conversation. He felt like information was still coming in, and he had to be ready, ears open, to catch it.

What that ended up meaning is that they drove the remaining half-hour in near-silence. Jack continued to nearly double the posted speed limit wherever possible, and Mac used his phone to google the symptoms of anthrax. So far, he figured, he had none. None, except maybe for a slight nausea that was easily explainable by the antibiotic-jerky-sports drink combo sloshing around in his otherwise empty stomach.