Pandemic

Gwen moved down one microscope and looked into the eyepieces. The color was gone. Only the dark kidney cells floated in the field. She glanced up at Moskor. "What happened?"

"That blood came from the same monkey forty-eight hours later. Difference was he had been treated with our new drug," he said with a hint of pride. "A36112."

She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Moskor again, catching him off guard. He stumbled back a step before regaining his balance. He laughed. "I'm not willing to take a hug even from a beautiful girl like you if it's going to cost me a broken hip."

Gwen released her grip. She gaped at him with a huge smile. "That's amazing, Isaac! No trace of infection at forty-eight hours."

"Not all of the subject cases turn out this well," he said. "But this is fairly typical of what we've been seeing with A36112."

"Do you know what this means, Isaac?"

"Yeah." He shrugged. "It means we've got a decent treatment for the flu in lab monkeys."

"C'mon, Isaac," she pressed. "It means a lot more than that."

"Don't get ahead of yourself, kid," Moskor said. "I'm as excited as a boy who just got the complete set of Yankees' ball cards, too. But I've learned better than to assume you can take this" — he pointed at the microscopes—"and replicate it in the real world."

"There's no reason to think you can't," Savard said.

"We're only in phase one testing on humans," Moskor pointed out.

"And?"

"So far the side effects have been mild, like with the monkeys. A bit of diarrhea. Not much else."

Savard nodded. "See."

"Gwen, even if everything goes off without a hitch," Moskor sighed. "You know how it works. We're minimum five years away from commercial production."

"Unless you're talking about compassionate release," she said, referring to the Food and Drug Administration clause that allows drugs to be released before finishing clinical trials in cases where the prognosis is otherwise hopeless.

"Compassionate release for the flu?" Moskor's face crumpled into a grimace. Then his eyes went wide with realization. He shook a finger at her. "You've come about that Gansu strain of influenza! That's why you're here, isn't it?"

"It's spreading, Isaac. London and Hong Kong."

"And I'm genuinely sorry about that," Moskor said. "But you're not seriously thinking about treating real patients with A36112."

"Why not?"

"Gwen, have you lost your mind?" he said. "This is a research lab drug. Nothing more as of yet."

"Isaac, we don't know of any currently available drugs to treat this infection."

He shook his head so vehemently that strands of his white hair fluttered above his head. "No. No. No."

Gwen put a hand on her hip. "Isaac, do you know what this Gansu strain is capable of? It's an indiscriminate killer."

Moskor sighed. "I don't doubt it, but that doesn't change anything."

"Twenty-five percent of its victims die," Gwen continued. "Most are under fifty. So far, sixty children in a remote area of China died in one month, Isaac. Imagine what will happen if it sweeps the States?" She paused. "And we would have no treatment to offer."

"So you're willing to throw some untested drug at everyone and just hope for the best?" Moskor glared at her. "What of the seventy-five percent people who recover without treatment?"

"What of them?"

"What if my drug kills some of them?" he demanded. Then he added in a hushed tone, "That would be a fine legacy for my life's work."

"You said yourself that the side effects were mild in phase one testing," she countered.

"In a hundred healthy volunteers!" Moskor said. "We have no idea what it would do to thousands of already sick patients."

Gwen reached up and rested a hand on one of Moskor's thick, slumping shoulders. "Isaac, what if your drug saved thousands of lives instead? That would be a very fitting legacy for your life's work."

He shook his head, but with less vehemence. "It's too early, Gwen."

CHAPTER 18

PEACE ARCH U.S.-CANADA BORDER CROSSING, WHITE ROCK, CANADA

Twenty miles south of Vancouver, Canada, Glenda and Marvin Zindler sat in their pickup truck in one of the six lanes at the Peace Arch Border Crossing, waiting to cross into the States. The dark gray skies threatened to erupt in rain at any moment. Only a white sedan stood between them and the customs agent, but it had been idling at the booth for over ten minutes while the agent leaned through the open window and interrogated the car's occupants.

"This would have been the fastest lane for sure!" Marvin growled, his round face flushing and his jowls shaking as he tapped the steering wheel like a bongo.

"What's the hurry, Marv?" Glenda asked, recognizing the familiar signs of escalation in her husband. "Seattle is less than three hours south of here, and the wedding isn't until tonight. We'll cross the border when we cross."

"That's not the point, Glen!" Marvin snapped.