Robin Cook - Vector

Yuri went over to his hood and turned on the fan. Putting his already gloved hands into another pair of heavy rubber gloves secured to the edges of two holes in the hood’s glass front, Yuri carefully picked up the beaker containing his most recently produced botulinum toxin. He poured some of it into a small glass vial.

Yuri had been using the acid precipitation technique in concentrating and purifying his toxin. After resuspending the toxin in an aqueous buffer, he’d reprecipitated it with ammonium sulfate to form a crystalline amalgam of pure toxin combined with a stabilizing protein. This form he’d dried into a powder.

Yuri wasn’t as concerned about his safety when he worked with the botulinum toxin as he was with the anthrax powder. Although he’d been vaccinated against both agents back in the Soviet Union, he was more confident of his immunity to the toxin than he was to anthrax spores.

After sealing the small vial, Yuri washed its exterior before bringing it out from inside the hood. Then he went through the first phase of disinfecting and decontaminating himself with an overhead shower and a plastic container of bleach.

Leaving the lab, Yuri went through a second decon phase with more bleach and another shower. Only then did he slip out of his hazmat suit, turn off the compressed-air tank, and hang them up on their respective pegs. Then he carefully carried the vial up to the kitchen and hid it behind the overcounter dish cabinet.

Steeling himself against the inevitable abuse, Yuri went to Connie’s door and opened it. As usual, his wife was propped up on the bed watching the television even though the mattress and box spring were now sitting on the floor.

“What do you want?” Connie grumbled. She was holding an ice pack to her swollen left eye.

“I’m going to get some pizza,” Yuri said. “I thought maybe you might be hungry.”

Connie lifted the ice pack away from her face and regarded her husband curiously. “What’s the matter with you?” she questioned sarcastically. “You’ve never cared if I was hungry before.”

“I was feeling guilty about hitting you,” Yuri said, trying to sound sincere. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry, my ass,” Connie shot back. “If you’re saying this to get your TV back, it’s not going to work.”

“I don’t want my TV back,” Yuri said. “And I’m sorry I broke yours. I was out of my mind.”

“So what else is new?”

“You don’t understand,” Yuri said, trying to sound contrite as well as sincere. “That lab downstairs is important to me.”

“As if I couldn’t guess with the amount of time you spend down there.”

“It’s my ticket out of this mess,” Yuri said. “I mean our ticket.” Connie turned the sound down on the television and pushed herself up on one elbow. “What are you saying to me?”

“I’m trying to get back into microbiology,” Yuri explained. “I need to practice and to prove I know what I’m doing. Then maybe I can get a decent job. I don’t want to drive a cab the rest of my life.”

“What kind of job are you talking about?”

“Anything in microbiology,” Yuri said. “Those men who were here tonight have been helping me, but they’re worried. It’s against the law to have a lab like that in a private house, and if I get into trouble, they’ll get into trouble.”

“I thought you had to go back to school if you wanted to work with bacteria.”

“Not if I can do something that proves I’m qualified,” Yuri said. “And if I do, and I get a good job, then we can start a new life. You know, go out like we used to do.”

“Yeah sure, when hell freezes over.”

“It’ll happen,” Yuri promised. “But for now, you want some pizza?”

“Okay, why not,” Connie said. “Pepperoni and anchovy. And have them bring over a pint of butter pecan ice cream.”

“Right,” Yuri said. He forced a smile and then closed the door. One thing was certain: nothing seemed to spoil that woman’s appetite. But he wasn’t complaining about the addition of the ice cream. As far as he was concerned, he thought it would be a better medium for the botulinum toxin, especially since he’d be sure she’d eat the whole tub.

Yuri used the wall phone in the kitchen to call the local pizza place. He ordered for Connie, then, for himself, he ordered a regular pizza with mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil. Just before he hung up he added a small tossed salad and a coffee to the order. He realized it might be a long night.

Yuri paced the apartment. As time passed he became progressively nervous. Although he’d acted sure of himself when he’d been talking with Curt, he didn’t know for certain what was going to happen after Connie ingested the toxin. One of the problems was that Yuri had no way of intelligently guessing how much to use. He would just have to sprinkle some into the ice cream and hope for the best. All he knew was that he had to err on the side of using too much. If Connie just got sick, and botulism was suspected, he’d be caught red-handed with the lab in his basement.

The sound of knocking on the door made Yuri jump. Half expecting trouble, he glanced out through the venetian blinds and was relieved to see the pizza delivery boy. Yuri opened the door, paid the kid, and took the packages. The two pizzas had been in an insulated carrier and were still hot to the touch.

Yuri pushed away the fast-food wrappings Connie had left earlier on the table, and put down the pizza boxes and the bag with the salad, coffee, and ice cream. He was most interested in the ice cream. He took it out of the bag and put it on the counter. The container was slightly soft. Unlike the pizzas, it hadn’t been put in an insulated bag.

Quietly stepping out of the kitchen, Yuri moved over to Connie’s door. He pressed his ear against it. He could hear the television clearly. He assumed Connie was still lying on the bed.

Returning to the kitchen, he struggled to open the ice cream container without ripping it. Once he had it open, he debated how to add the toxin. He was afraid to add it in one bolus, thinking Connie might taste it and then spit it out. After considering his options, he took out a bowl and emptied most of the ice cream into it. Then he took out the vial from the dish cabinet. Holding his breath, he sprinkled some of the material onto the ice cream.

“Oh what the hell,” he whispered. He poured the rest into the ice cream. In total, it was no more than a pinch. But if the toxin was as lethal as he expected, it was a huge dose. Probably enough to knock off everybody in Brighton Beach.

Yuri rinsed out the vial in the sink and let the water run. With a fork, he mixed the ice cream as well as he could. Then with a spoon he ladled it back into the pint container. That turned out to be more difficult than he expected, since it seemed that he had more ice cream than he’d started with. It took a bit of force to get it all in. When he was finished he resealed the container as best as he could.

Yuri washed out the bowl. Even so, he vowed never to use it again. In fact after the evening was over he intended to throw it and the fork away.

After washing his hands carefully, Yuri got out a spoon. Then he picked up both the ice cream container and the pepperoni pizza box and headed for Connie’s room.

“It took long enough,” Connie commented when Yuri opened her door.

“Where do you want it?” Yuri asked.

“Over here on the floor,” Connie said without taking her eyes off the TV.

Yuri bent down and put the food on the rug. He placed the spoon on top of the ice cream container and straightened up. That was when Connie glanced over to see what he’d done.

“Hey, I don’t want the ice cream,” she said.

“What do you mean?” Yuri said with consternation.