“Volcy. The codex. Kiaqix and the Original Trio. He was the first one to point out that it’s all one hell of a coincidence.”
The last thing Victor believed was that any of this was coincidence. “Anything is possible,” he said carefully.
Chel waited for him to continue, and her expectant look gave Victor a feeling he hadn’t had in so long: being needed by someone he truly loved.
“What do you believe?” he asked her.
After a long silence, Chel said, “The obsession with the Long Count drove up the prices on antiquities, which is probably what sent Volcy into the jungle in the first place. Whatever else is happening right now, this started because of 2012 one way or another.”
Silently, Victor prayed once more that he might be able to convince Chel to come with him and his people. He’d always thought he might be able to get her to the mountains when the end came. Now he hoped that she was beginning to see that the predictions were coming true. Soon, perhaps, she would understand that escape was the only way forward.
“I think if we keep our minds open,” he said gently, “there’s no telling what we may come to understand about the world.”
She took a moment, then said, “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Do you believe in the Maya gods? The actual gods?”
“You don’t have to believe in the pantheon to see the wisdom of the design the ancients saw in the universe. Maybe it’s enough to know there’s a force that connects us all.”
Chel took a breath. “Yeah, maybe. Or maybe not. By the way, I wanted to say thank you for staying here with me and for all your help.”
“You’re very welcome, Chel.”
Victor watched her go back toward her office. She was the same young woman who’d shown up at his office door on the first day of her graduate program, telling him she’d read all of his work. Who years later gave him a place to go, when no one else would.
And as she disappeared from his sight, he fought back tears.
TWENTY-FIVE
IT HAD BEEN NEARLY SIX HOURS SINCE DAVIES HAD DROPPED Thane outside the hospital, and Stanton was anxious. He stared out the window, watching the sun creep over the horizon, waiting for his phone to break the silence. For anything to break it. The Venice boardwalk was also too quiet for his taste. He wanted to hear one of the vendors yelling at tourists not to take pictures of his “art,” or the bearded guitarist, the Walk’s honorary mayor, playing as he roller-skated back and forth. Or hear Monster knocking on his door.
“I’d suggest a nip.”
Davies held a lowball glass of Jack Daniel’s in Stanton’s direction, but Stanton waved him off. He could use something, though. Why hadn’t Thane called? The injections should be done. He’d tried her cell but had been unable to get through. Cell service in L.A., always spotty, was basically nonexistent now. Still, Thane should’ve found a landline.
Finally his phone rang. A local number he didn’t know. “Michaela?”
“It’s Emily.”
Cavanagh. Shit. “What’s up?” he asked, trying not to raise suspicion.
“You need to meet me at the command center immediately, Gabe.”
“I’ve got some denaturing experiments running here,” he lied, glancing over at Davies. “I could get over there in a few hours.”
“The director’s here in L.A., and he wants to talk to you,” Cavanagh said. “I don’t care what you’re doing. You need to come now.”
CDC DIRECTOR ADAM KANUTH had been in Washington and Atlanta since the outbreak began, and his absence in L.A. had been noted by nearly everyone, including the press. Advocates said he’d been deftly administrating cases popping up around the country and now the world. Detractors said he’d been avoiding L.A. because he didn’t want to risk infection.
Ash rained down on Stanton as he stepped out of the car at the CDC’s command center. Wildfire had erupted in the hills above the HOLLYWOOD sign and consumed a hundred acres, hanging smoke clouds from downtown to the ocean. Stanton did his best to gather himself before going in. He had never liked the CDC director. Kanuth had come from the Big Pharma world, and he talked about science as if it were economics—supply following demand. Rare diseases got rare grants. Now, Kanuth would want to talk exclusively about containment. He’d want to talk about how quarantines in other cities should be managed. And Stanton would have to do it with still no word from Thane.
Inside the old post office, CDC employees worked behind bullet-proof-glass windows that once protected against unhinged postal workers. Aging posters advertising Ronald Reagan
Cavanagh sat in a chair in front of the desk. Stanton noticed that she wouldn’t look him in the eye. Behind the desk sat Kanuth, a barrel-chested man in his mid-fifties with thinning silver hair and a beard.
“Mr. Director. Welcome to Los Angeles.”
There was no chair for Stanton to sit in. Kanuth nodded perfunctorily. “We have a problem, Gabe.”
“Okay.”
“Did you send a resident from Presbyterian Hospital in to give injections of murine-based antibodies to a group of patients? Despite our orders not to?”
Stanton froze. “Excuse me?”
Cavanagh stood. “We found two dozen syringes, and they were full of murine-based antibody solutions.”
Had they caught Thane trying to give the injections?
“Where is Dr. Thane now?” Stanton asked carefully.
Kanuth looked at Cavanagh. “She was found at the bottom of a stairwell with her neck broken. As far as we can tell, she died on impact.”
Stanton was in shock. “She fell down the stairs?”
Cavanagh stared him down. “She was killed by a patient.”
“Unless you want to tell me that she was carrying on a secret antibody trial on her own,” said Kanuth, “I assume that you are responsiblefor this.”
Stanton closed his eyes and saw Thane’s face as he arrived at Presbyterian for the first time, after she’d dragged him in to see a patient he might well have ignored. The look on her face when she saw the lab they’d built inside the condo; her quick willingness to help, with little concern for her own career. He heard the hope in her voice when she left to give the injections to her colleagues.
“I enlisted her to give the antibodies,” he whispered finally.
“You wanted permission to test them on a sample group,” Cavanagh said. “We’d already brought it to the FDA chief, and we were less than a day away from clearance. We could’ve done it under controlled conditions. Now a woman is dead because you decided to ignore direct orders.”
Kanuth said, “Not only that, but when people out there learn what happened—and they will—they’ll say we’re losing internal control. We have a whole fucking city looking for any reason to burst, and you’ve given them another one.”
“Turn in your ID, and don’t try to go back to the Prion Center or to any other CDC facility,” Cavanagh said. She sounded disgusted.
“You’re fired, Dr. Stanton,” said Kanuth.
