A Heartbeat Away - Michael Palmer [31]
“But why?”
“Apparently no one else wanted to stay. There were just a couple of dozen in the whole lab installation to begin with. Now, with their only project shut down, it’s just Forbush. We keep the place ready because we don’t have that many Level Four containment facilities, and you never know when we might need one.”
“What a mess. We throw one guy into prison for bioterrorism, and we leave his assistant in charge of the lab.”
“It’s just a shell of a lab, sir.”
“I don’t care. I don’t trust Rhodes, and if this Forbush worked for him, I don’t trust him either.”
“That’s understandable.”
“But Rhodes is our best hope for finding a treatment, or … or a cure.”
“I believe that’s true, Jim.”
“Our best chance to survive this nightmare.”
“I understand.”
Salitas paused and pursed his lips.
“Jim, if you believe he might in some way be responsible for the attack, may I ask why you think he’s cooperating?”
The president glanced over at Townsend and Lamar, then back at Salitas.
“I don’t know that he is cooperating,” he said. “Before I brought you in on all this, Gary, I met in secret with Dr. Sylvia Chen.”
“The Dragon Lady. I know. Smart woman. WRX3883 was her baby.”
“Well, in one of our first meetings she told me about Griffin Rhodes, who was working in her lab developing a vaccine or an antiviral drug that would counter infection with the WRX virus.”
“Go on.”
“Some years before that, he had been working in Africa—Kenya to be exact. From what she told me, he was a cowboy back then when it came to tracking down the sources of outbreaks of the deadliest viruses known to man. Fearless. Like the guys who ride bulls for a living. He was also a computer whiz, who frustrated people around him by refusing to use animals in his research—only computer models.
“Well, according to Chen, back in his Africa days, he was after the source of an expanding outbreak of Ebola infection, which was moving down a mountainside toward a densely populated village. Rhodes found a cave loaded with bat guano that tested strongly positive for the virus. He brought up a crew and sealed several side openings to the cave. Then he dynamited the main entrance closed.
“On the way down the mountain, he came across a hut. Blood was everywhere inside it. The whole family was dead from hemorrhagic fever. Everyone, that is, except one child—a small girl cringing out back beneath a pile of refuse. She was just beginning to show signs of the disease. Rhodes sent all the workers down to the village to avoid them being exposed. Then he carried the child five miles down to the hospital. Seven days later, the girl died and Rhodes developed full-blown symptoms of Ebola.”
“I hadn’t heard any of that,” Salitas said.
“My fault for neglecting to tell you. The proof against him in the theft of WRX3883 was overwhelming. He stole that virus, purely and simply. We had videos of him doing it plus the pile of corroborating evidence you know about. But in the back of my head, I couldn’t get rid of that story Sylvia Chen had told me.”
“Is that why you opted against any kind of torture to find out who he was working with?”
The president shrugged.
“I don’t know. Maybe. From what I knew of the man, and I had never met him face-to-face, I decided the only logical explanation for his actions was that he had gone crazy. I couldn’t bring myself to torture him for that. Remember, that was before Genesis surfaced. I wouldn’t have connected Rhodes and them anyhow.”
“Unless he is Genesis. So, do you trust him now?”
“No, I don’t trust him. How could I? But we’re in real trouble, Gary. Hours? Days? Maybe a couple of weeks at the most. People are going to start dying soon. You know how contagious that damn germ is. But I also know Griffin Rhodes is the only card we have to play.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, I want a team on the man at all times, and I want you to organize it. Top secret, small numbers. The best we have. From the moment he sets foot off that plane, I want your people to be on him. Can’t be anybody from inside though. Because we’ve all been exposed, we can’t count on anybody