Brian O'Grady: Hybrid

He had taken an extra step by calling the Colorado Health Service and asking them to forward their report on this unusual blip in violence south of Denver. They had done a reasonably good, if somewhat bureaucratic, job of chasing this down to its logical dead end. He also asked if there had been any cases of hemorrhagic fever that had gone unreported to the CDC. Not surprisingly, there hadn’t been. An inordinate number of deaths from a particularly nasty flu, that was also giving them a little trouble in typing, he was told, but certainly nothing as exotic as hemorrhagic fever.

“Excellent, you’re already here,” said a voice, startling Martin. Adam Sabritas rushed into the room. Thirty-six, dark, and pudgy, Adam was constantly in motion. When he sat, one or both of his legs would bounce. When standing, he was constantly shifting his weight, giving everyone the impression of a six-year-old needing to pee. When he talked, it was in a torrent, a loud torrent. Martin had recognized the talent beneath the frenetic activity when Adam had taken three months off from his infectious disease fellowship at Johns Hopkins to intern at the CDC. That had been four years ago. Now Adam had his own research lab and a dozen journal articles to his credit and was fast becoming the world expert on the Hanta virus.

“We finished the sequencing of the R2 serotype last night and found eleven base-pair changes.”

“That’s good news. So we don’t expect R2 to ever become a significant player.” Martin had always expected that the Hanta virus would develop less virulent subtypes, and it was Adam’s job to prove it.

“Nope. Whatcha got there?” Adam seemed to vibrate.

“Oh, you wouldn’t be interested in a case of encephalitis in Colorado.” Nathan dangled the word “Colorado” before the bouncing Adam. Hanta was especially active in neighboring New Mexico.

“In March?” Adam’s bouncing increased in frequency.

“No, February. Dick Fernung took a look at the case.” Martin enjoyed winding Adam a little tighter; only, Adam stopped his incessant leg bouncing. “What’s wrong?”

“Dr. Martin, Dick Fernung is in Africa. He’s been there since January. Uganda, I think.”

“Damn, how did I forget that?” Martin said. He needed a break, or an assistant, probably both. He returned to his computer, but the report was unsigned. “Martha, can you get me file. .” He donned bifocals to read the case number from the computer. “434-w90?”

“No,” she shouted back.

Both men were surprised by her response. “And why the hell not?” asked Martin.

“Because I got you that very file yesterday, and you haven’t returned it. Did you look on your desk, O organized one?” She didn’t even bother to get out of her chair.

Nathan began rustling around his desk, and just before he was going to shout that it wasn’t there, Adam found it on a chair next to him.

“Found it,” he said, handing over the thin manila folder. “Dr. Fernung has a post-doc working for him. It’s, ah. . Larry Strickland,” he said sheepishly. His left leg began to bounce.

Martin sneered as he thumbed through the file, looking for the signature page.

“Great! Guess who signed it out?” he said sarcastically. Larry Strickland was a post-doc who would never rise above research assistant if Martin had anything to say about it. He was as much of a mistake as Adam had been a find. “He’s lazy, sloppy, and stupid.” The words slipped out, and immediately both were embarrassed, especially Adam, who was just two years older than Strickland. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Said what?” Adam popped to his feet. “Well, I’ve got some time on my hands. I’ll be happy to review it.”

“I don’t know. How are you with arbovirus? They can be tricky,” Martin said with mock concern, handing him the file.

“Well, I do know that they’re not nearly as sexy as the Sin Nombre virus. If I need to know anything else about them, I can always look it up in a book.” Adam was back in full motion as he thumbed through the file. “This shouldn’t. .” Adam stopped moving again.

“You were saying?” Nathan had turned back to his desk and waited for the younger man to finish his thought.

“Dr. Martin, I don’t think this is an arbovirus,” Adam said softly, staring at an electron micrograph. “This doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen. Definitely not an arbovirus. It’s too big and much too complex.” Sabritas awkwardly bent over Martin’s desk sharing the photograph.

“What? Just give me the file. I can’t see it from way over there.” Nathan was more annoyed than concerned. A six-sided wheel with what looked like arms at each corner stared back at him. It took about five seconds for his brain to process what he was seeing, but it took his stomach less than one. A wave of nausea hit him, and he dropped the file. It hit his knee and fell to the floor.

“Have you seen anything like. . Are you okay?”

Martin was light-headed, and his mind was racing. “This has got to be a mistake,” he mumbled as he felt the wheel of karma turn. He reached for the file, but Adam had already scooped it up.

“I take it you know what this is,” Adam said seriously.

“Let me see it again.” Martin’s heart was palpitating, but his mind was clearing.

Adam fumbled with the pages for a moment and handed his boss the electron micrograph. The picture hadn’t changed. There were four more pictures of the virus, and each showed the six-sided wheel with short arms. Martin checked the file numbers and found that they all matched. It was too much to hope that a clerical error had been made.

“Hold this for me,” said Martin, passing the file back to Adam. Martin retrieved the old EDH1 file, and after several minutes of rifling through its pages, he threw it back onto the desk. “No goddamn pictures,” he said, turning to his computer and pounding away at the keys.

Adam cautiously walked around the desk and watched with growing concern as his boss punished the keyboard.

Finally, Martin stopped; he had found another hexagon with six arms. A fist tightened in his chest, but the angina wasn’t what concerned him.

“They’re close, but not the same,” Adam said. Martin jumped a little, having for the moment forgotten his protégé. “Look, this Colorado virus has much smaller appendages.” Adam shoved the file in Martin’s face. “I’d guess that it has less nuclear material as well, but they’re definitely related. This one has to be a mutation of the one on the screen.” Adam made the obvious connection, but Martin had stopped listening. “We have a problem, don’t we?”

Martin didn’t answer. Instead, he picked up the phone. “Martha,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically controlled and business-like, “I need you to get me William Branch. He’s assistant director of the FBI in Washington. You should have his number. Tell him it’s an emergency.” Martin hung up the phone.

Adam was afraid to move or speak. He thought he had seen Nathan Martin in every conceivable mood, but never before had he seen him like this.

“She knew.” Martin said to himself.

* * *

Amanda slid off the high-back aluminum chair and into her parka. Out of habit, she had signed off, but it probably wasn’t necessary. She walked up to the counter of the Internet café and gave the night clerk a ten-dollar bill. She had worn gloves since she had come in, and the bill was clean. She had every expectation that within a very short period of time, it would be confiscated as evidence, and she didn’t want things to be too easy for the FBI. She had signed in using her real name. No sense in disguising that. Everything else, however, was artifice.

Kurt Campion, the night clerk for Missy’s All-Nite Internet, could only stare. Not many coeds used the café this late, and he’d never seen one that looked like Amanda Flynn.