Michael Palmer - A Heartbeat Away

“I’ve done that before.”

“So you know that breathing in the suit takes some getting used to.”

“Yes.”

“The air can feel like molasses at first.”

“I understand.”

“And we’ll have to talk real loud to be heard over the air compressors.”

“Melvin, let’s go.”

“Change on the other side of the lockers, then go through the security door. I’ll meet you in the Kitchen. This is the door to the locker room. Once you pass into the first staging area, the light above the locker room door will turn green.”

Willing herself to calm down, Angie pulled on the door handle. It was difficult to open.

“Negative pressure,” Forbush said. “Helps keep any loose virus particles from—”

Before Forbush could finish the explanation, Angie clenched her teeth, yanked the heavy door open, and stepped inside.

“Don’t forget to remove all jewelry,” Forbush’s voice continued through a speaker on the wall. “And remember to tape your wrists and ankles.… This is a little like the lab in Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain, but not exactly.… Arthur Hill played Dr. Jeremy Stone in that one. One of my favorites. He’s Canadian. Not Dr. Stone, but Arthur Hill.”

Several years before, Angie had written a three-part story on the autism spectrum disorder called Asperger syndrome. Unless her research was way off base, Melvin Forbush was a poster child for the neurological condition. Delightful, but at times exasperating, she had written. Often brilliant, yet frequently unaware or out of step . Obsessed with details provided they are interested in the subject.

He and I have not had one disagreement, Forbush had said about Griff.

It was another tribute to the man already hard at work in the lab ahead of her—the man charged with saving the lives of the president of the United States and seven hundred others. Angie had never fallen in love with the same man twice. Now she found herself wondering.

Twenty minutes later, she was ready. Dressed in a biocontainment suit, she exited the locker room and entered the next staging area, which glowed purple from ultraviolet lights. Finally, she entered the airlock to await her guide. The rush of air after she connected her hose was initially like going ninety in a convertible with the top down.

“Are you doing okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine. This is what my brain feels like most of the time. I sort of like the rush.”

As Angie waited, once again her thoughts focused on Sylvia Chen. Griff had given her a capsule summary of the woman and her life. Born in China, and brought to the U.S. by her mother at a young age. Now speaks with minimal or no accent. No mention of her father. Graduated from Yale at twenty. Ph.D. from Columbia at twenty-six. Tenured by age thirty-eight. Briefly married. No children. Tireless researcher. Driven by ambition. Passed over for what would have made her the youngest department chief at Columbia, and so took her research on WRX3883 to the government. Author of literally hundreds of books, articles, and scientific papers. The anti-Griff in terms of her belief in the importance of using animals for her research—primarily chimpanzees or other smaller primates. Nevertheless, she had great belief and trust in Griff and his work. An opera buff and chess master. Meticulous, serious, intense. Owned a black Porsche, and in the wide, flat spaces of southwest Kansas, drove it extremely fast. Coveted a Nobel Prize, and had hitched her wagon in that regard to WRX3883, but believed it was bad luck to dwell on that desire.

The airlock door opened and closed, depositing Forbush behind her. Together, they entered the hot zone identified by a wall-mounted placard as the Kitchen.

“Do you want a tour?” Forbush offered.

“Later, maybe. I want to see Dr. Chen’s office and lab.”

“I tell you, it’s already been gone over several times.”

“Then this shouldn’t take too long.”

Next to the placard were detailed instructions on how to handle an exposure event. Beside the instructions was a sign reading simply BLACK ZONE, with an arrow pointing straight down.

“Explain,” she said.

“We never used it, but it’s a small bunker down below near the animal facility, with a couple of beds and a TV. If you get exposed to WRX, that’s where you would go to die.”

“Nice.”

“Sort of like the submarine in Das Boot. ”

“Chen’s office?”

“Down the hall.”

“Favor, Melvin. Can I do this myself?”

“I suppose. What do you think you’re looking for?”

“I have no idea. Something … anything. Ten minutes. Just give me ten minutes.”

“Miss Marple.”

“Pardon?”

“Agatha Christie’s detective— Murder at the Gallop ; Murder Most Foul. That’s who you remind—”

“Ten minutes, Melvin.”

She thanked him with a pat on the shoulder.

Sylvia Chen had gone to great lengths to insert some hominess into her windowless space. The walls were whitewashed plaster, with either Chinese artwork or bookshelves filled with scientific tomes. There was a wooden desk in the corner—perhaps walnut—and incandescent lamps designed to mimic natural sunlight. The largest painting, framed in black, was an appealing watercolor of Angel Falls in Venezuela, and across from it was a small table, featuring an inactive water fountain made of bronze. The floor was foot-square off-white tiles, largely covered by a circular oriental rug in rich blues and reds.

After a slow inspection of each wall and shelf, Angie stood in the center of the rug and closed her eyes. Sylvia Chen was there. This was a woman who cared desperately about her appearance and her surroundings—a woman who needed to be appreciated.

When Forbush returned, Angie was seated at Chen’s desk, gazing first at one wall, then at the next.

“Are you done, yet, Miss Marple?”

“Not yet. I’m just getting a sense of Sylvia.”

“Not much here, is there?”

“More than you might think,” Angie said over the rush of air in her helmet.

Griff appeared to Forbush’s right.

“Like what?” he asked.

“Oh, hi, there, Doctor. How’s it going?”

“Looks like we’re live. We’ve got virus and we’ve got cells to grow ’em in, and the two seem to be getting along.”

“So let the games begin,” Angie said. “Have you budgeted any time for sleep?”

“Do you think those people in the Capitol are sleeping?”

“Point made. I’ll pick you up some maximum-strength NoDoz at the commissary as soon as they build one.”

“You were saying there’s more to this room than one might think.”

“Like the way that table over there is turned at a forty-five-degree angle to the wall, and the reason Chen chose a circular rug and not one with corners.”

“I still don’t get it,” Forbush said.

“Melvin, how much do you know about feng shui?”

Griff made his own cursory exam of Sylvia Chen’s office, but saw nothing more unusual than a supremely organized, uncluttered workspace.

“You need to look with your mind, not your eyes,” Angie urged.

Griff stood with his faceplate nearly touching hers to hear above the constant rush of air flowing into his pressurized suit.

“Okay, educate me.”

“I would say that my life has been an endless series of phases. Some of them don’t stick, like racquetball and SCUBA and contra dancing, some of them do, like vegetarian cooking and pilates. My feng shui period only lasted until I realized I was far too scattered and disorganized to ever pull it off. But knowledge is never wasted, and by the time I stopped my adult extension classes and daily studies, I had learned a great deal.”