psychologically. He was making every effort, much of it subconsciously, to suppress any obvious reaction, but would be overly worried by the reaction of others towards him. She was unsure of the true depths of his feelings towards Rebecca Lang and believed Parnell felt, although he might be unable to identify the reason, a deep sense of guilt. There was a marked absence of the overconfidence that she had commented upon in her first report. She wanted another interview in the near future.
She might, thought Parnell. He didn’t.
Sixteen
There appeared to be no resentment at Parnell’s announcement that he was joining the expanded flu research team and it was automatically accepted that he would be its leader. From Tokyo there were frozen specimens of the current bird flu virus, as well as quite separate – and unexpected – samples of SARS from the masked palm civet cat, the wild animal species considered a culinary delicacy in China, and suspected of being the source of a renewed but so far limited outbreak of the disease that became an epidemic in the Far East in 2003. There were also cultures from two human victims of the new SARS outbreak in China’s Guangzhou city. The inconclusive research notes on both from Dubette’s Japanese subsidiary ran to forty pages and included warnings from the World Health Organization of a potential pandemic from both respiratory illnesses.
‘We didn’t know we were getting the additional severe acute respiratory syndrome material?’ queried Parnell.
Ted Lapidus shook his head. ‘Maybe Tokyo is treating them as allied conditions to examine in conjunction.’
Parnell said: ‘And if the viral composition is different, we could confuse ourselves.’
‘It could be something Russell Benn and his merry men want to work on at the same time,’ suggested Beverley Jackson.
‘I’ll find out,’ said Parnell. ‘And if it is, then let them. Here, for the moment, we’ll leave the WHO worrying about SARS pandemics. We’ll concentrate on avian flu and come back to SARS as a separate project.’ A part of his mind was still preoccupied, which he guessed it would be for a long time to come, but Parnell believed the majority of his concentration to be back upon the work at hand and it pleased him. It made him feel in charge of himself, which he’d always been supremely sure of but hadn’t felt for the last few days, needing to be reliant on – or at the mercy of – others. Which, he acknowledged, had been Barbara Spacey’s psychological assessment.
‘We could have a boost for our flu experiments,’ said Sean Sato. ‘Did a Web surf yesterday while I was waiting for the Tokyo stuff to arrive. The Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, working with the National Institute for Medical Research in England, have found how the 1918 influenza transferred from birds to humans. The importance of the discovery, from our point of view, is that it’s genetic.’
‘Take us through it,’ said Parnell.
‘They worked with genes from the 1918 virus recovered from an Inuit woman whose body was preserved in a frozen Alaskan tundra grave, and from kept samples from US soldiers who died in the pandemic,’ recounted Sato, enjoying the audience. ‘And isolated the bird-flu viral protein, haemagglutinin. It’s got spikes, like darts. It’s the darts that locked it on to human cells, like spears, and by which it gained entry to cause the infection…’
‘Which no one would have understood at the time, because the human flu virus wasn’t isolated until 1933,’ intruded Lapidus.
‘We know that of the fifteen different strains of bird influenza that have been identified, only three until now have ever mutated to infect humans, in 1918, 1957 and 1968,’ said Sato. ‘What they haven’t been able to discover is why, having made the species jump from bird to human, it becomes so pathogenic from human to human.’ He hesitated again, to make a point. ‘I’ve pieced together some other already published data. We’ve got Tokyo’s material to confirm the opinions, but one analysis suggests the current avian flu is similar to the human virus that caused the 1968 pandemic. There’s another theory that it possibly has a haemagglutinin-type protein like that of 1918.’
No one, not even Lapidus, spoke for several moments, digesting what the Japanese-American had just suggested. It was Parnell who said: ‘You just outlined a double-barrelled, global pandemic that would make a death toll of twenty million in 1918 little more than a starting figure.’
‘I know,’ said Sato, quietly. ‘It frightens the shit out of me.’
‘This information’s public?’ questioned Beverley.
‘On the Internet for everyone to read,’ said Sato, gesturing towards the dead-eyed computer at his station. ‘Who knows how many people have put it together?’
‘Why hasn’t there been some WHO warning?’ demanded Lapidus.
‘Against what?’ demanded Parnell, in return, surprised at the question. ‘There’s no vaccine or prevention – that’s what we’re supposed to be trying to find. To issue dire predictions and make the connections that Sean has just done would simply cause panic.’
‘Scripps – and London – synthesized haemagglutinin?’ queried Beverley.
‘That’s my understanding,’ agreed Sato. ‘I’ve downloaded individual copies of everything I’ve found for all of us.’
‘If it’s synthesized, we’ve got something positive to begin with,’ judged Beverley.
‘I’m frightened as shitless as Sean by his doomsday scenario,’ said Parnell. ‘Let’s start by making the most obvious comparison open to us, the synthesized haemagglutinin against what’s come in from Tokyo, looking for matching spikes… matching anything. And then against the 1968 Hong Kong flu, to see if there’s a possible fit.’
‘Which way are you thinking of going?’ asked Lapidus.
‘The only way,’ answered Parnell. ‘One step after the other. You got any thoughts?’
The Greek scientist shook his head. ‘Don’t like the idea we can’t culture in chicken eggs.’
‘At the moment that’s the least of our problems. Let’s get reading and get started.’
Despite Lapidus’s assurance Parnell crossed to Kathy Richardson’s office, forbidding her from going anywhere near the specialized laboratory in which the potentially virulent Asian samples were being stored, but asked her to prepare files in which they could record and cross-reference their experiments. The woman said she had already been told and appreciated the dangers, reminding him with a hint of stiffness that she had long experience as a medical secretary. Parnell also asked her to obtain a map of the flu-affected countries in Asia upon which the incidence of outbreaks could be charted. He dictated a lengthy email to Tokyo, asking why they had included the SARS material in their shipment, and requested daily reports on the increase or otherwise of flu outbreaks in the region, to update his intended map, and advised in advance that he might ask for more physical samples.
Parnell entered Russell Benn’s laboratory complex at the end of what had obviously been a similar conference to the one he’d just held, and was ushered at once into the man’s side office with the permanently percolating coffee and the Dubette-logo mugs. The black professor described what he’d just conducted as a jam session, as yet without any formulated approach apart from chemically reanalysing what Tokyo had already done. He didn’t know why the SARS stuff had been included either, and looked forward to Tokyo’s reply to Parnell’s query. He listened intently to an account of the geneticists’ discussion and, when Parnell finished, said: ‘Jesus H. Christ!’
‘It’s theory at this stage,’ cautioned Parnell.
‘With a basis,’ argued Benn. ‘You told Dwight?’
‘Nothing to tell him, until we’ve satisfied ourselves. We know the cause – it’s the way to the cure or prevention we’re looking for.’
‘I haven’t said how sorry I am, about Rebecca,’ declared the other man, suddenly. ‘Which I am, truly sorry. And for what it almost caused you, personally. With terrorism in the mix, it’s one big crock of shit.’
‘Let’s hope the FBI can sort it out.’ Parnell regretted Benn’s reminder. For a brief while it had actually gone out of his mind but now it was back.
‘They any idea what it’s all about?’
‘None.’
‘I guess they’ll be spending time here?’
‘I guess,’ said Parnell, guardedly. He didn’t want to say or do anything to anyone that might stop the exchange of information between himself and the FBI investigators.
