A Heartbeat Away - Michael Palmer [65]
“You really care about him, don’t you.”
“I trust him, if that’s what you mean. He’s genuinely concerned about people. I suppose you’ve already picked up on the fact that sometimes I have trouble … um … getting along with others. He and I have never had one disagreement.” Forbush considered his words for a moment, then added quite seriously, “Even though I’m smarter.”
Angie waited on the other side of the door for the man, then headed down the corridor toward the cool zone of offices, and beyond that, the Kitchen. Data transferred wirelessly to a computer chip automatically unlocked the next secure metal door with a loud click.
“Do you know the Staghorn folks, Melvin?”
“I’ve done some work with them. Nice people. Smart. Anxious to please.”
“I would imagine that sometimes you’re not so pleaseable.”
“You imagine correctly.”
As they approached the hot zone changing area, Angie sensed an increase in the tightness in her chest. In spite of herself, she was beginning to panic. They were two hundred feet underground approaching the area where, less than a year ago, dreadfully powerful microbes were being developed, including a virtually invisible germ that would soon begin killing scores of people in the Capitol.
“Is there any living virus left down here?”
“You mean in the Kitchen? I suppose it’s possible. We don’t take any chances. Besides, Griff has those blood samples from Washington. He’s suited up, working on them now to reestablish tissue culture lines.”
The band around Angie’s chest grew stronger. Her breathing felt strained.
“I need a minute, Melvin,” she said.
“Don’t be embarrassed. We all feel claustrophobic and endangered from time to time down here, especially when we stop to think about how few particles of WRX3883 it would take to kill us.”
“That makes me feel much better.”
“Good,” Forbush said, clearly missing her sarcasm. “You said you wanted to start with Dr. Chen’s lab office. You’re going to have to suit up.”
“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