Authors: Dorian Paul
"Claire, the first attack appears to have been launched."
"Where?"
"Paris. A nursery school."
"Oh my God. How many kids? Has quarantine been set up?"
"Yes to quarantine. I do not know how many children, but all have been relocated to a first responder's hospital. Details remain sketchy." He paused. "There's always the possibility this isn't Tivaz TB.
"You don't believe that any more than I do," she snapped.
Only a fool would. "Prepare whatever vaccine material you've produced. My people are arranging at least two waves of transportation. Ian Barker will coordinate. I am leaving for Paris immediately."
"David, Elizabeth's in Paris."
Elizabeth? Impossible. "What is she doing there?"
"A business trip."
The last time a relative had been caught in harm's way with him, it was her brother Jeremy. He made himself concentrate on next steps after finishing his conversation with Claire. Otherwise he'd scream his anguish aloud. He took a deep breath and rang Elizabeth's mobile. He'd do whatever it took to keep her safe from Varat, even rip off her fancy clothes and put her in one of Claire's special suits to keep from sacrificing another member of his family to that bastard.
***
His French counterpart, Anton Brun, met him at the airport. The man never impressed him so he was relieved to learn the French were following the E.U. bioterror response rules. The prominent grammar and secondary schools attached to the nursery school went into immediate lockdown and quarantine after the outbreak. So far only the nursery school children had been infected, which was consistent with Claire's prediction that a Tivaz TB attack, even one employing a weaponized form, could be confined to the initial burst if proper precautions were followed. Still, he was pleased Elizabeth was now in his suite at the Grand Hotel under the supervision of his people. Even should Claire be correct that infection was likely to be limited, that didn't mean widespread panic wouldn't ensue. And that could be worst of all. No, worst of all would be more attacks before he could stop Varat or Claire could find an antidote.
"What leads have you?" he asked Brun.
The small, officious middle-aged man stiffened. "We are checking every possibility."
There wasn't time for being defensive. "Give me the details."
"The backgrounds of school employees, the parents and families of the students, deliveries for the last 24 hours, all are being investigated."
A start, but not nearly sufficient. "What about flight manifests, hotel records, suspicious movements or activities within known terror cells, inquiries among immigrant communities, hospital deaths of unknown origin?" Bodies floating down the Seine, for God's sake, and every other possibility neither of us can imagine.
"All my people are deployed. This is a French problem, and the French will solve it, Ruskin."
"Cut the crap," David replied, hearing Bobby's voice in his head. "This is an international problem and we shall work together. Bobby Keane is en route."
Brun sniffed. "As are my E.U. partners."
The man must be completely terrified to convene his own bickering pack. As well he should be. The person responsible for this plot had no scruples.
But why did Varat start with Paris?
He confirmed with Brun that the special suits had arrived, and requested a police escort to the school site. He wanted to accompany the technicians inside. Their single-minded focus on microbes might make them miss a valuable clue . . . about Varat.
***
"Mr. Ruskin is on his way to the school where the children were taken ill," Ian told Claire as a police van carved a path down wide avenues lined with
fin de siècle
facades. "He'll apprise you the moment he learns anything."
Mr. Ruskin. David. She'd survived her shame over what she'd asked of him the night Sandra died and if she spoke to him she'd tell him to be careful. But he knew what he was up against. The Parisians didn't. Yet their faces bore the stamp of the crisis flooding the news, and they understood the heinous attack on French children was their own 9/11. How would Paris, a city spared destruction through two world wars, handle a bioterrorism strike on its young?
Sirens wailed all the way to the stone and glass hospital whose polished exterior might well turn into a mausoleum for the preschoolers inside. She tried to stop thinking like that.
"Dr. Ashe, we are desperate," the hospital's chief of staff told her curbside. "The infection is proceeding so rapidly. I have seen Ebola in Africa, but –"
She held up one finger to her lips. Once the press broadcast news that Tivaz TB killed more quickly than Ebola, Paris would be gripped by fear. And rightly so. How could they possibly protect every child when the children's normal incomplete immunity made them a target? Close all pre-schools? Keep the kids indoors? Ban birthday parties? "Wait until we're inside to talk about that. You've established quarantine?"
"
Oui
. The children are isolated in our infectious disease unit, set up especially for a biological emergency. Our staff is trained as first responders. The finest equipment is at your disposal."
As it had been for Leila and Sandra. No, the fate of these young children resided inside the biomaterial cases Ian unpacked from the van's cargo area and the choices she'd make in administering the two vaccines.
"We've obtained the children's medical records. The nursery school is associated with Lycée Rue Barthel. You know of it, Madame?"
Not until this morning, but the entire world now shuddered at its name. "You gave Dr. Berger access to the records when she arrived?"
"
Certainement
." He struck the elevator button with the authority of the man ultimately responsible for every medical decision within these walls and she hoped she could rely on him should things deteriorate to a state of panic. "We must proceed through the control room to reach Dr. Berger. Prepare yourself, Dr. Ashe."
He placed his hand on a dull chrome lever and paused, as if to prepare himself more than her. The instant he opened the door she understood why and was grateful Ian stood behind her, a bulwark against the scene she confronted.
Parents wailed before a wall of video monitors that displayed the hospital ward where their children lay. Bed upon bed, and every one filled with a small body obscured by a containment bubble. Men cursed at the screens while holding frenzied women. One woman tore at her hair. Another struggled against her man's embrace to raise hands toward heaven.
Who among these parents would lose a child? She had to face the possibility all might, including that forty-something woman, whose fists pummeled her husband's chest. And the young mother, hardly more than a child herself, who wept alone in a corner as if mourning the death of her toddler already.
"Sir, is Dr. Berger through there?" Ian asked.
At the chief's nod, Ian wheeled his precious payload toward an unmarked door manned by two policemen. One mother screamed and pulled at Ian's jacket in an attempt to follow. Others surged, sensing this was the route to their children. Above their pain, a high keen rose from a wizened old woman in a blue cassock and matching scarf.
"That is Sister Cecilia," the chief explained. "She begs to be allowed to comfort the children."
If she were part of a religious order dedicated to tending the sick, perhaps she could help the nurses. "Explain to her she'll need to suit up."
"We have done so already. She refuses. She says these children need the touch of love, the laying on of hands."
She remembered how she had longed to stroke Leila's cheek but . . . "We can't allow anyone to enter the ID unit without a positive pressure suit."
As though the good sister understood her fate rested with Claire, she shook a twisted, aged finger at her and then at a monitor displaying a helmeted doctor assessing vital signs, while the chief translated the nun's impassioned outburst. "She says the children should not die surrounded by creatures in frightening costumes in an Infectious Disease unit. She is old. She understands this will be her final act of charity." The chief touched her arm. "Dr. Ashe, who are we to say she cannot act according to her conscience?"
Certainly she was in no position to. She'd stood aside while Sandra prescribed her own medicated death by morphine. Why should she revoke this nun's decision to end her life by being true to her calling? But when another torrent of colloquial French rose from the sister's lips, she knew if she allowed Sister Cecilia in the ward the parents would demand access too. "No. We can't let her go in. Otherwise we'll never maintain quarantine. Ask her to minister to the parents. They need comfort every bit as much as their children. Perhaps more."
"You are right," the chief allowed. "On both counts."
She bit her lips. All she knew was she was a researcher, and this man and his staff were far more experienced than she in managing grief-stricken families. The best use of her skill was to plan a counterattack against her microscopic enemy.
***
"We've isolated and cultured sputum samples," Francine reported with the same precision she'd used with Sandra. "It's TB, and we've identified the unique DNA strand Roscoe used in his vaccine."
Neither woman breathed the word Tivaz aloud. "I was told there are forty two infected patients."
"Yes, all children."
"No adults? Teachers? The nurse herself?" Claire asked.
"All have tested negative, but remain in quarantine."
Francine pointed at the neat stacks on the table. "I've reviewed the children's records for conditions that could affect the immune response, and stratified the patients. Age, last known weight, existing medical conditions, family history if relevant."
Exactly the analysis needed to establish treatment regimens.
"How much vaccine was Roscoe able to produce?"
"Six vials."
Francine eyed the two stainless steel boxes Ian guarded. "Six of the original DNA vaccine and six of the new protein antigen vaccine?"
Don't I wish.
"A total of six, three each."
Francine schooled her face, although she knew as well as Claire that this wasn't enough vaccine to treat forty-two patients. "Roscoe must have worked very hard to produce such a quantity."
"He did, and we hope to receive a similar amount in twenty-four hours. The entire lab is pitching in, with the exception of the theoretical team."
"Ah, the theoretical team."
Francine's murmured remark summoned the ghost of Sandra, that team's strongest advocate, and Claire asked Ian to leave the room.
As soon as the door shut behind him, Francine asked, "What in God's name will we do? We haven't nearly enough vaccine."
"We'll do what Sandra would. Design our own clinical trial."
Chapter 25
"Who?" David asked his assistant in London from the back seat of the French police vehicle.
"Geoffrey Hitchens."
"Am not acquainted with the name. Any other messages?"
"Mr. Hitchens says you had an appointment with him yesterday."
David gulped back scalding French coffee. Damn. Hitchens, his father's solicitor. Would his father allow for circumstances when he heard today's news . . . even though he'd neglected the appointment with the family solicitor yesterday?
"Ring Mr. Hitchens back with my apologies. Tell him I shall reschedule soon. Insist he bill me for the missed appointment." Not that the man would with all the estate business his father provided, but at least if his father spoke to Hitchens the man might put in a good word for him.
With lights flashing and sirens blaring, the police car penetrated the media circus surrounding Lycée Rue Barthel. They whisked him inside to a gymnasium locker room converted into a makeshift decontamination unit, and he dressed in one of the positive pressure suits Claire wore every day, and he'd practiced in once before. As a boy he'd played at being a lunar astronaut, but shuffling through the quarantine perimeter in this unwieldy suit was worlds removed from such sport.
The schoolyard where children usually shouted was soundless, except for the whoosh of filtered air through the purifier of his helmet. He plodded across loose cobblestones, aware how thankful he was that the first attack occurred here, and not in London where his sister's two youngsters were in play school. Only this morning, French parents rushed through the now deserted courtyard to drop off their toddlers before hurrying away to do the world's business – file a legal brief, fine-tune a promotional campaign, sell perfume in the Galleries Lafayette. At present they waited in hospital to see if Claire and her team could save their children, along with their own hopes and dreams for their offspring. Damn Varat. He should be drawn and quartered.
Something flickered in an upper window.
He sought the shelter of a portico, ten meters distant, but found it impossible to bend his knees enough to tuck and roll in the bulky suit, and scrambled as fast as he could, knowing he was an outright target. It seemed to take an eternity to reach the shadow of the doorway. Sweat streamed down his sides and he licked his salty lips while scanning the windows. Had it been sunlight reflecting off glass, or a face he'd seen?
Whatever caught his attention was gone now, but he contacted the operations coordinator. "I detected possible movement in the second story. Have you thoroughly searched that area?"
"We evacuated the building."
Without a room-to-room search? "Send an armed team in."
"We don't have enough suits for a full team."
"Then start by covering the stairwells and exits."
"We'll request permission from headquarters."
The damn French. "Do it. Now."
He'd do it himself if it wasn't more important he view the location of the Tivaz TB release as soon as possible. He followed the line of yellow tape down the hallway and into the nursery school rooms.