Pandemic

HARBOURVIEW HOTEL, VANCOUVER CANADA

Gwen Savard double-checked her temperature. When both readings confirmed she still had not developed a fever, she swept up the small stack of used N95 masks off the desk in front of her and dumped them, with profound satisfaction, into the room's trashcan.

The quarantine was officially over.

Gwen only allowed herself a moment of celebration. The clock was ticking ever louder now. The terrorist's ultimatum was set to expire in less than twenty-four hours. And Gwen, like everyone else in the American Administration, had no idea how they would react to the President's televised promise to pull troops from the Arabian Peninsula. So far their only response had been silence.

Gwen hurried back into the bedroom and tossed the rest of her clothes into her suitcase. Once packed, she sat in front of her computer and scanned through her most recent e-mail, paying attention only to the messages that pertained to the immediate crisis. And only those few she deemed urgent.

She was about to power off her computer when the musical tone rang, indicating a request for a videoconference. She would have ignored it but for the name of the requestor, which appeared in the comer of the screen.

With a mouse click, a video window popped open framing most of Isaac Moskor's head and shoulders inside. He wore a rumpled white lab coat and his white hair stuck out in spears from his head. "Hey, kid, how you doing?" Moskor drawled in his deep Jersey tone.

She was comforted by the image of her mentor, the same way the sight of her favorite uncle used to buoy her spirits as a child. "Fine, Isaac." She smiled broadly and swept a hand down her body by way of proof. "Survived my quarantine intact. But you caught me just as I'm about to head back to Washington."

Moskor nodded.

"You all settled in at the CDC?" Gwen asked.

"Hmmm." He shrugged his huge shoulders. "I miss cold, dumpy little New Haven. Atlanta is too big for me." His expression broke into a crooked grin. "Guess I'm just a hick at heart."

Gwen offered a quick grin, but she felt too pressed for time not to get down to business. "And your lab?"

"Amazing what can happen if the government takes an interest in your work" He shook his head. "I spent most of my academic life begging, borrowing, and stealing enough to set up a bare-bones lab. But I come down here and in twenty-four hours I got the Taj Mahal at my disposal."

"Nothing you don't deserve, Isaac," she said. "Have you begun to run experiments?"

Moskor nodded. "Yeah, we started with a group of fifty African green monkeys six days ago. Infected all of them with viral-loaded serum, then divided the monkeys in two groups. Twenty-five got twice-a-day doses of A36112. And the control just got standard antiviral drugs."

"And?" Gwen leaned forward in her chair.

But Moskor was immune to the urgency in her tone. "Can't get used to these videoconferences." He reached forward and adjusted his camera, making his image shake on Gwen's screen. "Always feel like I'm on the set of Star Trek. I half expect to see you disappear and Mr. Sulu and Scotty to pop up on the monitor." He adjusted his camera one more time. "You sure it's safe to discuss things over this line?"

"Totally." Gwen nodded impatiently. "Tell me."

"You weren't exaggerating about this Gansu Flu. Scary bug. Reminds me of what I saw when I toured that lab in Washington running the Ebola experiments."

"About the two groups?" Gwen tried to force him back on topic.

He offered a hint of a smile. "So far, the virus has killed nine of the twenty-five monkeys in the control group."

Gwen felt her heart speed up. She knew he was holding back promising news. "And the treated monkeys?"

He bit his lip, but his smile grew a touch wider. "So far — and I can't stress enough how early we're talking here — in the monkeys treated with A36112, only one has died."

Savard leaped out of her chair.

"Whoa! Where did you go?" Moskor said. "I'm talking to your belt now."

Savard sat back down. She felt giddy from the news. She had to clear her throat and fight back the tears. "Isaac, you've done it!"

Moskor blushed slightly and shook his large head. "We — don't forget Clara and the rest of the team — haven't done anything yet."

Gwen started to speak, but Moskor cut her off with a wave of his big hand. "Kid, I know how promising this looks, but let's not get way ahead of ourselves. We're talking about four days of treatment on twenty-five lab monkeys."

"But, Isaac, those results are astounding," Gwen squealed. "One-third dead compared to one in twenty-five. That's almost unfathomable."

"Way too early for that." Moskor shook his finger. "Some of the monkeys in the treatment group are still pretty damn sick! We don't know that more won't die today. We need far bigger numbers and more time before we go concluding anything."