While he worked, he thought about Curt and Steve's disturbing visit.
He was taken aback by their anger, particularly their anger about his stopping by the firehouse. The explanation that he was a security risk because he was a foreigner with a Russian accent didn't ring true.
New York was much too cosmopolitan a city. Every other person had an accent.
Yuri thought there had to be another reason why they didn't want him seen there. Although he couldn't think of what it might have been, it made him feel uncomfortable. For the first time Yuri began to question where he stood with Curt and Steve. He knew they were strong on prejudice, so the thought passed through his mind they might be prejudiced against him, and if that was the case they certainly weren't the friends he zmagmea.
The other source of their angerthat Connie was black was equally mysterious. It wasn't so much the prejudice itself that surprised yuri. He was well aware of Curt and Steve's racial bigotry. What got him was the amount of anger involved. It was so out of proportion, and the pseudo-religious explanation Steve had given seemed contrived. Neither Curt nor Steve had ever said anything to suggest they were at all religious.
And finally, there was the issue of the pest control truck and aerosolizer. Yuri couldn't understand why they'd not obtained it yet.
That was an important part of the agreement. Without it, Yuri would not be able to carry out his part of the operation. He needed a sprayer, and he needed it to be mobile. A point source was not anywhere near as effective.
In order to fix the inner door, Yuri suited up in the hazmat suit and opened the valve on the compressed air cylinder. The regulator wasn't the demand variety used for scuba diving. Instead it kept a constant flow of air into the suit as a means of keeping any particles from the environment from gaining entry.
It was much harder to work in the suit and it was very hot, but Yuri didn't mind. He knew the risk he'd be taking if he didn't wear it.
But it did slow him down.
After the door was fixed, Yuri turned his attention to the fermenter with the Clostridium botulinum. He tested the bacterial concentration and was again disappointed. He could not figure out why the culture continued to grow so slowly. As far as he knew he'd followed the culture conditions carefully that had been used so successfully in the Soviet Union when he'd worked with the organism a decade previously.
The conditions had been determined to produce maximum culture growth and maximum toxin production.
The only thing Yuri could imagine was that air was getting into the fermenter. Clostridium botulinum was a bacteria that grew without oxygen. Consequently, Yuri had used carbon dioxide gas instead of air over the culture. Perhaps there was something wrong with the cylinder of carbon dioxide Curt's troops had obtained for him. Unfortunately, Yuri didn't have any way to analyze it, and requesting a new cylinder would take too long.
Yuri stood up from where he'd been bending down to check the internal fermenter temperature. It was a few degrees cooler than optimum, so he adjusted his jury-rigged waterbath thermostat. Having the temperature off certainly didn't help, but it was not an adequate explanation for the slow growth.
He thought about Curt's suggestion to switch production in the Clostridium fermenter to anthrax so that both units would be producing the anthrax spores. There was a lot to be said for that idea. It was the only way he'd be able to produce enough material for both laydowns within the time frame they'd discussed. The trouble was that breaking down the fermenter was a big job and at the moment he had another worry, Conn
Yuri went over to his hood and turned on the fan. Putting his already gloved hands into another pair of heavy rubber gloves secured to the edges of two holes in the hood's glass front, Yuri carefully picked up the beaker containing his most recently produced botulinum toxin. He poured some of it into a small glass vial.
Yuri had been using the acid precipitation technique in concentrating and purifying his toxin. After resuspending the toxin in an aqueous buffer, he'd reprecipitated it with ammonium sulfate to form a crystalline amalgam of pure toxin combined with a stabilizing protein.
This form he'd dried into a powder.
Yuri wasn't as concerned about his safety when he worked with the botulinum toxin as he was with the anthrax powder. Although he'd been vaccinated against both agents back in the Soviet Union, he was more confident of his immunity to the toxin than he was to anthrax spores.
After sealing the small vial, Yuri washed its exterior before bringing it out from inside the hood. Then he went through the first phase of disinfecting and decontaminating himself with an overhead shower and a plastic container of bleach.
Leaving the lab, Yuri went through a second decon phase with more bleach and another shower. Only then did he slip out of his hazmat suit, turn off the compressed-air tank, and hang them up on their respective pegs. Then he carefully carried the vial up to the'lvirhen and hid it behind the overcounter dish cabinet.
Steeling himself against the inevitable abuse, Yuri went to Connie's door and opened it. As usual, his wife was propped up on the bed watching the television even though the mattress and box spring were now sitting on the floor.
'What do you want? ' Connie grumbled. She was holding an ice pack to her swollen left eye.
'I'm going to get some pizza, ' Yuri said. 'I thought maybe you might be hungry.' Connie lifted the ice pack away from her face and regarded her husband curiously. 'What's the matter with you? ' she questioned sarcastically.
'You've never cared if I was hungry before.'
'I was feeling guilty about hitting you, ' Yuri said, trying to sound sincere. 'I'm sorry.'
'Sorry, my ass, ' Connie shot back. 'If you're saying this to get your TV back, it's not going to work.'
'I don't want my TV back, ' Yuri said. 'And I'm sorry I broke yours.
I was out of my mind.'
'So what else is new? '
'You don't understand, ' Yuri said, trying to sound contrite as well as sincere. 'That lab downstairs is important to me.'
'As if I couldn't guess with the amount of time you spend down there.'
'It's my ticket out of this mess, ' Yuri said. 'I mean our ticket.'
Connie turned the sound down on the television and pushed herself up on one elbow. 'What are you saying to me? '
'I'm trying to get back into microbiology, ' Yuri explained. 'I need to practice and to prove I know what I'm doing. Then maybe I can get a decent job. I don't want to drive a cab the rest of my life.'
'What kind of job are you talking about? '
'Anything in microbiology, ' Yuri said. 'Those men who were here i tonight have been helping me, but they're worried. It's against the law to have a lab like that in a private house, and if I get into trouble, they'll get into trouble.'
'I thought you had to go back to school if you wanted to work with bacteria.'
'Not if I can do something that proves I'm qualified, ' Yuri said.
'And if I do, and I get a good job, then we can start a new life. You know, go out like we used to do.'
'Yeah sure, when hell freezes over.'
'It'll happen, ' Yuri-promised. 'But for now, you want some pizza? '
'Okay, why not, ' Connie said. 'Pepperoni and anchovy. And have them bring over a pint of butter pecan ice cream.'
'Right, ' Yuri said.
He forced a smile and then closed the door. One thing was certain, nothing seemed to spoil that woman's appetite. But he wasn't complaining about the addition of the ice cream. As far as he was concerned, he thought it would be a better medium for the botulinum toxin, especially since he'd be sure she'd eat the whole tub.
Yuri used the wall phone in the kitchen to call the local pizza place.
He ordered for Connie, then, for himself, he ordered a regular pizza with mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil. Just before he hung up he added a small tossed salad and a coffee to the order. He realized it might be a long night.
Yuri paced the apartment. As time passed he became progressively nervous. Although he'd acted sure of himself when he'd been talking with Curt, he didn't know for certain what was going to happen after Connie
