Marissa was startled when the phone rang, but when she picked up the receiver, she was pleased to hear Tad’s voice welcoming her home to Atlanta. “How about going out for a drink?” he asked. “I can pop over and pick you up.”
Marissa’s first response was to say that she was exhausted after her trip, but then she remembered on her last call from L.A. he’d told her he had finished his current AIDS project and was hard at work on what he called Marissa’s Ebola virus. Suddenly feeling less tired, she asked how those tests were going.
“Fine!” said Tad. “The stuff grows like wildfire in the Vero 98 tissue cultures. The morphology portion of the study is already complete, and I’ve started the protein analysis.”
“I’m really interested in seeing what you’re doing,” said Marissa.
“I’ll be happy to show you what I can,” said Tad. “Unfortunately, a majority of the work is done inside the maximum containment lab.”
“I’d assumed as much,” said Marissa. She knew that the only way such a deadly virus could be handled was in a facility that did just what its name suggested—contained the microorganisms. As far as Marissa knew, there were only four such facilities in the world—one at the CDC, one in England, one in Belgium and one in the Soviet Union. She didn’t know if the Pasteur Institute in Paris had one or not. For safety reasons entry was restricted to a few authorized individuals. At that time, Marissa was not one of them. Yet, having witnessed Ebola’s devastating potential, she told Tad that she was really eager to see his studies.
“You don’t have clearance,” said Tad, surprised by what seemed to him her naivete.
“I know,” said Marissa, “but what could be so terrible about showing me what you’re doing with the Ebola in the lab right now and then going out for a drink. After all, it’s late. No one will know if you take me now.”
There was a pause. “But entry is restricted,” said Tad plaintively.
Marissa was fully aware that she was being manipulative, but there was certainly no danger to anyone if she were to go in with Tad. “Who’s to know?” she asked coaxingly. “Besides, I
“I guess so,” Tad agreed reluctantly.
It was obvious that he was wavering. The fact that Marissa would only see him if he took her into the lab seemed to force his decision. He told her that he’d pick her up in half an hour and that she wasn’t to breathe a word to anyone else.
Marissa readily agreed.
“I’m not so sure about this,” admitted Tad, as he and Marissa drove toward the CDC.
“Relax,” said Marissa. “I’m an EIS officer assigned to Special Pathogens for goodness sakes.” Purposefully, Marissa pretended to be a little irritated.
“But we could ask for your clearance tomorrow,” suggested Tad.
Marissa turned toward her friend. “Are you chickening out?” she demanded. It was true that Dubchek was due back from a trip to Washington the next day and that a formal request could be made. But Marissa had her doubts about what his response would be. She felt that Dubchek had been unreasonably cold over the last few weeks, even if her own stupidity had been the cause. Why she hadn’t had the nerve to apologize or even say she’d like to see him one evening, she didn’t know. But with every day that passed, the coolness between them, particularly on his side, increased.
Tad pulled into the parking lot, and they walked in silence to the main entrance. Marissa mused about men’s egos and how much trouble they caused.
They signed in under the watchful eyes of the security guard and dutifully displayed their CDC identity cards. Under the heading “Destination,” Marissa wrote “office.” They waited for the elevator and went up three floors. After walking the length of the main building, they went through an outside door to a wire-enclosed catwalk that connected the main building to the virology labs. All the buildings of the Center were connected on most floors by similar walkways.
“Security is tight for the maximum containment lab,” said Tad as he opened the door to the virology building. “We store every pathological virus known to man.”
“All of them?” asked Marissa, obviously awed.
“Just about,” said Tad like a proud father.
“What about Ebola?” she asked.
“We have Ebola samples from every one of the previous outbreaks. We’ve got Marburg; smallpox, which otherwise is extinct; polio; yellow fever; dengue; AIDS. You name it; we’ve got it.”
“God!” exclaimed Marissa. “A menagerie of horrors.”
“I guess you could say that.”
“How are they stored?” she asked.
“Frozen with liquid nitrogen.”
“Are they infective?” asked Marissa.
“Just have to thaw them out.”
They were walking down an ordinary hall past a myriad of small, dark offices. Marissa had previously been in this portion of the building when she’d come to Dubchek’s office.
Tad stopped in front of a walk-in freezer like the kind seen in a butcher shop.
“You might find this interesting,” he said, as he pulled open the heavy door. A light was on inside.
Timidly Marissa stepped over the threshold into the cold, moist air. Tad was behind her. She felt a thrill of fear as the door swung shut and latched with a click.
The interior of the freezer was lined with shelves holding tiny vials, hundreds of thousands of them. “What is this?” asked Marissa.
“Frozen sera,” said Tad, picking up one of the vials, which had a number and a date written on it. “Samples from patients all over the world with every known viral disease and a lot of unknown ones. They’re here for immunological study and obviously are not infective.”
Marissa was still glad when they returned to the hallway.
About fifty feet beyond the walk-in freezer the hall turned sharply to the right, and as they rounded the corner, they were confronted by a massive steel door. Just above the doorknob was a grid of push buttons similar to Marissa’s alarm system. Below that was a slot like the opening for a credit card at an automatic bank teller. Tad showed Marissa a card that he had around his neck on a leather thong. He inserted it into the slot.
“The computer is recording the entry,” he said. Then he tapped out his code number on the push button plate: 43-23-39. “Good measurements,” he quipped.
“Thank you,” said Marissa, laughing. Tad joined in. Since the virology building had been deserted, he seemed more relaxed. After a short delay, there was a mechanical click as the bolt released. Tad pulled open the door. Marissa felt as if she had entered another world. Instead of the drab, cluttered hallway in the outer part of the building, she found herself surrounded by a recently constructed complex of color-coded pipes, gauges and other futuristic paraphernalia. The lighting was dim until Tad opened a cabinet door, exposing a row of circuit breakers. He threw them in order. The first turned on the lights in the room in which they were standing. It was almost two stories tall and was filled with all sorts of equipment. There was a slight odor of phenolic disinfectant, a smell that reminded Marissa of the autopsy room at her medical school.
The next circuit breaker lit up a row of portholelike windows that lined the sides of a ten-foot-high cylinder that protruded into the room. At the end of the cylinder was an oval door like the watertight hatch on a submarine.
The final circuit breaker caused a whirring noise as some kind of large electrical machinery went into gear. “Compressors,” said Tad in response to Marissa’s questioning look. He didn’t elaborate. Instead, with a sweep of his hand he said: “This is the control and staging area for the maximum containment lab. From here we can monitor all the fans and filters. Even the gamma-ray generators. Notice all the green lights. That means that everything is working as it is supposed to be. At least hopefully!”
“What do you mean, ‘hopefully’?” asked Marissa, somewhat alarmed. Then she saw Tad’s smile and knew he was teasing her. Still, she suddenly wasn’t one hundred percent sure she wanted to go through with the visit. It had seemed like such a good idea when she’d been in the safety of her home. Now, surrounded by all this alien equipment and knowing what kinds of viruses were inside, she wasn’t so certain. But Tad didn’t give her time to change her mind. He opened the airtight door and motioned for Marissa to go inside. Marissa had to duck her head slightly while stepping over the six-inch-high threshold. Tad followed her, then closed and bolted the door. A feeling
