Biohazard

By the fifteenth day, the tiny bruises on Ustinov's body had turned dark blue, and his skin was as thin as parchment. The blood pooling underneath began oozing through. It streamed from his nose, mouth, and genitals. Through a mechanism that is still poorly understood, the virus prevents normal coagulation: the platelets responsible for clotting blood are destroyed. As the virus spreads, the body's internal organs literally begin to melt away.

Shuddering bouts of diarrhea left rivers of black liquid on his sheets. The scraps of paper on which he had been scribbling his symptoms and which the nurses had gingerly carried out to trailscribe each day no longer littered the floor. There was nothing more to write. Everything was unfolding before his doctors' eyes.

The filoviruses were already multiplying by the billions inside Ustinov's tissues, sucking out their nutrients in order to clone copies of themselves. Each viral particle, or virion, forms a brick that pushes against the cell walls until they burst. The cells then sprout wavering hair-like antennae that home in on their next target, where the process of foraging and destruction blindly repeats itself.

Ustinov lapsed into long periods of unconsciousness. When he was awake, some say he exhibited uncharacteristic signs of rage. According to some witnesses, he complained about his heavy workload. Others insist this never happened. While it is true that viruses can affect certain characteristics usually associated with personality, it is possible that Ustinov's behavior was magnified to send a message of protest to Moscow. How else could such a message be delivered without fear of retribution?

The doctors from the Ministry of Health arrived early in the first week with the antiserum. To no one's surprise, it proved useless. Antiviral drugs such as ribavirin and interferon were also tried. Hemorrhagic fevers can sometimes be treated with whole-body blood transfusions, but the medical team concluded that it would in this case be ineffective.

A long cryptogram arrived in my office on April 30, describing Ustinov's condition that day. As I read through it, I noticed that the symptoms appeared worse than usual. I sat up in my chair when I reached the final line: "The patient died. Request permission to conduct an autopsy."

Though I had been expecting it, the news came as a shock. I walked into Kalinin's office and told him the ordeal was over.

"They want to conduct an autopsy," I added.

Kalinin was expressionless.

"I'll inform everyone," he said, and turned back to the file he was reading. He didn't ask after Ustinov's widow or his colleagues at Vector. It was time to move on.

I don't know how the senior levels of our bureaucracy reacted to Ustinov's death, but no condolence letter was ever sent to his widow. Sandakchiev asked us for ten thousand rubles as special compensation for his family in addition to the normal pension survivors were entitled to. It was a princely sum in those days, and Kalinin balked at first, but he finally approved the request.

Even after death, Ustinov was imprisoned by the virus that had killed him. The risk of contagion made normal interment impossible, so his corpse was covered with chloramine disinfectant and wrapped in plastic sheeting. The remains were placed inside a metal box, welded shut, and fitted into a wooden coffin. Only then was it safe to lay him in the ground.

The funeral was over quickly. Sandakchiev delivered a brief eulogy beside a marble gravestone, which, in the Russian tradition, bore an engraved image of Ustinov and the dates of his birth and death. The small group of mourners included Ustinov's immediate family, his closest colleagues, and a cordon of KGB agents who had worked frantically to keep the circumstances of his illness secret. No one came from Moscow.

Regulations prohibited the circulation of any reports about accidents, fatal or otherwise, but news of the tragedy spread quickly through The System. An investigation by the Ministry of Health and the KGB concluded that the principal person at fault was the victim himself, who had not followed proper safety rules.

A flood of administrative decrees began to inundate Biopreparat facilities around the country with urgent safety warnings. Managers were ordered to upgrade biocontainment facilities and to report on their progress within ten days, just as they had been following the accident at Sverdlovsk. Like Sverdlovsk, no connection was made between the warnings and the incident that caused them.