Michael Crichton - The Andromeda Strain

Hall had been draping the patient, placing green sterile cloths over every part of the body except for the abdomen. He looked up with surprise. "Hello, Peter," he said.

"Sorry to disturb you," Leavitt said. "But this is an emergency."

"Have to wait," Hall said. "I'm starting a procedure."

He finished draping and called for the skin knife. He palpated the abdomen, feeling for the landmarks to begin his incision.

"It can't wait," Leavitt said.

Hall paused. He set down the scalpel and looked up. There was a long silence.

"What the hell do you mean, it can't wait?"

Leavitt remained calm. "You'll have to break scrub. This is an emergency."

"Look, Peter, I've got a patient here. Anesthetized. Ready to go. I can't just walk-"

"Kelly will take over for you."

Kelly was one of the staff surgeons.

"Kelly?"

"He's scrubbing now," Leavitt said. "It's all arranged. I'll expect to meet you in the surgeon's change room. In about thirty seconds."

And then he was gone.

Hall glared at everyone in the room. No one moved, or spoke. After a moment, he stripped off his gloves and stomped out of the room, swearing once, very loudly.

Hall viewed his own association with Wildfire as tenuous at best. In 1966 he had been approached by Leavitt, the chief of bacteriology of the hospital, who had explained in a sketchy way the purpose of the project. Hall found it all rather amusing and had agreed to join the team, if his services ever became necessary; privately, he was confident that nothing would ever come of Wildfire.

Leavitt had offered to give Hall the files on Wildfire and to keep him up to date on the project. At first, Hall politely took the files, but it soon became clear that he was not bothering to read them, and so Leavitt stopped giving them to him. If anything, this pleased Hall, who preferred not to have his desk cluttered.

A year before, Leavitt had asked him whether he wasn't curious about something that he had agreed to join and that might at some future time prove dangerous.

Hall had said, "No."

Now, in the doctors' room, Hall regretted those words. The doctors' room was a small place, lined on all four walls with lockers; there were no windows. A large coffeemaker sat in the center of the room, with a stack of paper cups alongside. Leavitt was pouring himself a cup, his solemn, basset-hound face looking mournful.

"This is going to be awful coffee," he said. "You can't get a decent cup anywhere in a hospital. Hurry and change.

Hall said, "Do you mind telling me first why-"

"I mind, I mind," Leavitt said. "Change: there's a car waiting outside and we're already late. Perhaps too late."

He had a gruffly melodramatic way of speaking that had always annoyed Hall.

There was a loud slurp as Leavitt sipped the coffee. "Just as I suspected, " he said. "How can you tolerate it? Hurry, please."

Hall unlocked his locker and kicked it open. He leaned against the door and stripped away the black plastic shoe covers that were worn in the operating room to prevent buildup of static charges. "Next, I suppose you're going to tell me this has to do with that damned project."

"Exactly," Leavitt said. "Now try to hurry. The car is waiting to take us to the airport, and the morning traffic is bad."

Hall changed quickly, not thinking, his mind momentarily stunned. Somehow he had never thought it possible. He dressed and walked out with Leavitt toward the hospital entrance. Outside, in the sunshine, he could see the olive U.S. Army sedan pulled up to the curb, its light flashing. And he had a sudden, horrible realization that Leavitt was not kidding, that nobody was kidding, and that some kind of awful nightmare was coming true.

For his own part, Peter Leavitt was irritated with Hall. In general, Leavitt had little patience with practicing physicians. Though he had an M.D. degree, Leavitt had never practiced, preferring to devote his time research. His field was clinical microbiology and epidemiology, and his specialty was parasitology. He had done parasitic research all over the world; his work had led to the discovery of the Brazilian tapeworm, Taenia renzi, which he had characterized in a paper in 1953.

As he grew older, however, Leavitt had stopped traveling. Public health, he was fond of saying, was a young man's game; when you got your fifth case of intestinal amebiasis, it was time to quit. Leavitt got his fifth case in Rhodesia in 1955. He was dreadfully sick for three months and lost forty pounds. Afterward, he resigned his job in the public health service. He was offered the post of chief of microbiology at the hospital, and he had taken it, with the understanding that he would be able to devote a good portion of his time to research.

Within the hospital he was known as a superb clinical bacteriologist, but his real interest remained parasites. In the period from 1955 to 1964 he published a series of elegant metabolic studies on Ascaris and Necator that were highly regarded by other workers in the field.

Leavitt's reputation had made him a natural choice for Wildfire, and it was through Leavitt that Hall had been asked to join. Leavitt knew the reasons behind Hall's selection, though Hall did not.

When Leavitt had asked him to join, Hall had demanded to know why. "I'm just a surgeon," he had said.

"Yes," Leavitt said. "But you know electrolytes."

"So?"

"That may be important. Blood chemistries, pH, acidity and alkalinity, the whole thing. That may be vital, when the time comes."

"But there are a lot of electrolyte people," Hall had pointed out. "Many of them better than me."

"Yes," Leavitt had said. "But they're all married."

"So what?"

"We need a single man."

"Why?"

"It's necessary that one member of the team be unmarried."

"That's crazy," Hall had said.

"Maybe," Leavitt had said. "Maybe not."

They left the hospital and walked up to the Army sedan. A young officer was waiting stiffly, and saluted as they came up.

"Dr. Hall?"

"Yes."

"May I see your card, please?"

Hall gave him the little plastic card with his picture on it. He had been carrying the card in his wallet for more than a year; it was a rather strange card- with just a name, a picture, and a thumbprint, nothing more. Nothing to indicate that it was an official card.

The officer glanced at it, then at Hall, and back to the card. He handed it back.

"Very good, sir."

He opened the rear door of the sedan. Hall got in and Leavitt followed, shielding his eyes from the flashing red light on the car top. Hall noticed it.

"Something wrong?"

"No. Just never liked flashing lights. Reminds me of my days as an ambulance driver, during the war." Leavitt settled back and the car started off. "Now then," he said. "When we reach the airfield, you will be given a file to read during the trip."

"What trip?"

"You'll be taking an F-104," Leavitt said.

"Where?"

"Nevada. Try to read the file on the way. Once we arrive, things will be very busy."

"And the others in the team?"

Leavitt glanced at his watch." Kirke has appendicitis and is in the hospital. The others have already begun work. Right now, they are in a helicopter, over Piedmont, Arizona.

"Never heard of it," Hall said.

"Nobody has," Leavitt said, "until now."

AT 9:59 A.M. ON THE SAME MORNING, A K-4 JET helicopter lifted off the concrete of Vandenberg's maximum-security hangar MSH-9 and headed east, toward Arizona.

The decision to lift off from an MSH was made by Major Manchek, who was concerned about the attention the suits might draw. Because inside the helicopter were three men, a pilot and two scientists, and all three wore clear plastic inflatable suits, making them look like obese men from Mars, or, as one of the hangar maintenance men put it, "like balloons from the Macy's parade."