revelations,because he hadn't realized before how much he did care about…perhaps even loved, Gwen Patterson.
Tully sat back, watching the two of them. Neither one appeared to remember he was in the same room, let alone at the same table. Harvey came over and laid his chin on Tully's knee. He patted the big dog's head, the two of them bonding after being ousted by their women. Except that Harvey really just wanted Tully's pizza crust.
Emma's cell phone interrupted and she grabbed for it, but stopped. 'It's Andrea. We've got that project for lit.'
Tully immediately knew it was really Emma's safety net. She and Andrea had probably planned for the interruption or rather what Emma might consider an escape. But she was waiting for Tully to say it was okay. And she looked…apologetic, maybe even a bit regretful. His daughter had surprised herself and was enjoying Gwen Patterson.
'Go ahead.' He waved her away from the table.
'This won't take long,' Emma told Gwen.
Tully waited until his daughter disappeared into her bedroom.
'She likes you.' He knew he sounded like he was about twelve.
'Does it matter?'
That wasn't at all what he expected her to say. Of course, it mattered but he stopped himself. That obviously wasn't what she wanted to hear.
'Is it wrong for me to want the two most important women in my life to like each other?'
'And if we didn't?'
It was a good question. A legitimate question. One he hadn't bothered to ask himself.
'I'm sorry,' she said before he had a chance to respond. She set her elbows on the table and placed her chin in her hands, looking suddenly exhausted. 'They're saying Maggie and Cunningham were exposed to a virus.'
'So it's not anthrax or ricin?' He thought that should be a relief. Gwen looked anything but relieved.
'It's Ebola.'
'Jesus! How is that possible? Where would he have gotten his hands on it? Ebola doesn't just happen here in the States.'
Gwen shrugged. 'There was an incident right here in Reston. Back in the eighties. The government kept it quiet. A private lab had gotten a shipment of monkeys. The monkeys started getting sick. Then they started dying. But that was 1989. Almost twenty years ago.'
Tully raised an eyebrow, wondering how she knew all this.
'I checked it out after I left Maggie,' Gwen said. 'The virus was Ebola, but it didn't jump to humans. Ebola Reston. That's what they called it. They name the different strains by the region where it was first found.'
'Maggie and Cunningham. Is it Ebola Reston?'
'Ebola Zaire.'
'That's a bad one?'
'It's called the ‘slate wiper.''
Tully winced. Gwen noticed and looked away. It was too late. He saw the fear in her eyes. He shoved around some pizza crumbs on his paper plate.
'That might help narrow down who this guy is. Unless he's traveled to Africa in the last six months he'd have to get the virus from a research lab, maybe a government facility or a university. He couldn't just special order it.'
Tully drummed the tabletop. This was worse than he thought. The guy was much more dangerous. He didn't just have opportunity and motive. He had access.
'The anthrax killings in 2001,' Tully said and waited for Gwen's eyes, for her attention. 'Do you remember them?'
'Not in detail. I remember the letters looked quite ordinary and they were sent through the mail. One ended up in To m Brokaw's office. A couple of others were sent to congressmen. Right? It happened after 9/11. I remember being too numb to pay much attention.'
'Twenty-two incidents. Five dead. No one was charged or convicted.' This time Gwen raised her eyebrow.'George Sloane,' Tully explained. 'The documents guy. He brought it up this morning. So I did some research.' He stopped drumming, scratched at his jaw and realized it was clenched.
'One of the few suspects was a scientist,' he continued. 'A scientist who previously worked for USAMRIID. They accused him of sneaking out samples of anthrax from the lab at Fort Detrick.' Tully didn't like what he was thinking.'I imagine USAMRIID has samples of Ebola, too.'
CHAPTER
53
Dr. Claire Antonelli hated that she had let Vera Schroder down. The woman's face had become a mirror image of her husband's, an expressionless zombie, void of emotion. But for Vera it was shock, not pain, that caused the conversion.
She escorted Vera from the surgery waiting room to a suite on the same floor that was reserved for families. She wanted Vera to rest until they could tell her more, though Claire didn't have a clue as to what she could tell her. They had stabilized Markus for now, but after what Claire had just seen, she didn't expect him to make it through the night. And the worst of it was that they were no closer to finding out what was wrong with him.
Claire stopped herself long enough to call her son. She asked what he had planned for his Saturday night. He could have said anything at that moment and it wouldn't have mattered. She simply wanted to hear his voice, know that he was okay, remind herself how very lucky she was.
He asked if he could go over to a friend's and watch college football. They were ordering footlongs from Chicago Dog.No beer,he promised. An empty promise, but she knew she didn't have to worry about him. They agreed on a time he'd be home. He wanted to know when she'd be home. How did her day go? Did she want him to get an extra footlong for her?
Yes, very lucky, indeed.
Then Claire joined Dr. Miles back in his small office down the hall from the surgery suites. He was sitting quietly behind his desk, his hands folded together. He didn't say anything when Claire first entered. There was just a nod. She took the chair on the other side of the desk and they sat for what seemed a long time to Claire.
He leaned back and his chair groaned. He scratched at his five o'clock shadow then folded his arms over his chest. Still, he didn't say anything.
Claire glanced at her wristwatch and Miles noticed. Everything she thought of to say seemed too obvious or unnecessary. It had been several hours since they'd closed up Markus Schroder's abdomen and sent a piece of his tissue downstairs to the lab. All that was left now was to wait.
The phone on Dr. Miles's desk rang and both doctors jumped. Miles's bear paw grabbed it immediately.
'This is Dr. Miles.'
Claire watched, looking for any clues in Miles's eyes. They darted from the door to her face and down to his desk as he listened. They wouldn't stay still long enough for her to detect calm or panic or confusion. His shoulders hunched forward and the lines in his forehead deepened.
'What kind of confirmation?' he asked and this time his eyes stayed on Claire's. The man she had always counted on for strength suddenly looked afraid.
He listened for several more minutes then said, 'Okay,' and hung up the phone.
'They need to send a sample to the CDC for confirmation,' he told Claire.
'Is it MRSA?' she asked.
Staph infections were not uncommon in health-care facilities. But MRSA (pronounced 'merca') was the worst of the bunch. It was highly resistant to antibiotics. Recently a case had been found in a Virginia school. An entire district had to be closed while administrators and health-care workers scrubbed down facilities.
'It's worse,' Miles told her.
'What do you mean? Worse than MRSA?'
'They believe it's a virus.'
Claire stared at him, waiting for more of an explanation. If they were sending it to the CDC they must be
