The Judas Strain - James Rollins [79]
It was a pretty good song.
1:02 P.M.
LISA STARED DOWN at her patient. The woman was dressed in a blue hospital gown, wired and tubed to all manner of monitoring equipment. A pair of orderlies waited in the other room.
Lisa had asked for a moment of privacy.
She stood beside the bed, fighting a thread of guilt.
Lisa knew the patient’s statistics by heart: Caucasian female, five-foot-four, 110 pounds, blond hair, blue eyes, an appendectomy scar on her left side. Radiographs had revealed an old healed break to her left forearm. The Guild’s biographical background check even revealed the cause of the break: from a youthful accident between a skateboard and a broken curb.
Lisa had memorized the woman’s blood-test results: liver enzymes, BUN, creatinine, bile acids, cell blood counts. She knew her latest urinalysis and fecal culture results.
To one side stood an instrument tray neatly arranged with examination tools: otoscope, ophthalmoscope, stethoscope, endoscope. She had used them all this morning. On a neighboring nightstand, the previous night’s EKG and EEG printouts lay accordion-folded. She had examined every inch of strip. Over the past day, she had read through all the medical history of the patient and much of the findings by the Guild’s virologists and bacteriologists.
The patient was not in a coma. The more accurate status of the patient was catatonic stupor. She displayed marked cerea flexibilitis, or waxy flexibility. Move a limb and it would stay in that position, like a mannequin. Even painful positions…as Lisa had tested these herself.
By this time Lisa knew everything about the woman’s body.
Exhausted, she took a moment to better examine the patient.
Not with tools, not with tests, but with empathy.
To see the woman behind the test results.
Dr. Susan Tunis had been a well-regarded researcher, on her way to a successful career. She had even found the man of her dreams. And except for being married for five years, the woman’s life paralleled Lisa’s. Her fate now was a reminder of the fragility of our lives, our expectations, our hopes and dreams.
Lisa reached out with gloved fingers and squeezed the woman’s hand as it lay atop the thin bedsheet.
No reaction.
Out in the other room, the orderlies stirred as the suite’s cabin door opened. Lisa heard Dr. Devesh Patanjali’s voice. The head of the Guild’s science team pushed into the room.
Lisa released Susan’s hand.
She turned as Devesh entered the room. His ever-present shadow, Surina, slipped to a chair in the outer room and sat, hands neatly folded on her lap. The perfect companion…perfectly deadly.
Devesh leaned his cane beside the door and joined her. “I see you’ve been getting well acquainted with our Patient Zero this morning.”
Lisa simply folded her arms. This was the first time Devesh had spoken to her in any significant regard, leaving her to her study. He had been spending more time with Henri in the toxicology lab and Miller in the infectious-disease lab. Lisa had even been taking her meals alone in her room or here in the suite.
“Now that you’ve gained a complete picture of my prize patient, what can you tell me about her?”
Though the man smiled, Lisa sensed the threat behind his words.
She remembered Lindholm’s cold murder. All to teach a lesson: be useful. Devesh expected results from her, insights that had escaped all the other researchers. She also sensed that the time left alone with the patient was intended to isolate her from any preconceived bias.
Devesh wanted her unique take on the situation.
Still, she remembered his early words about the virus, what it was doing inside the woman. It’s incubating.
Lisa crossed to the patient and exposed the length of her forearm. From the medical reports, boils and bloody rashes had once coated her limbs. But presently, her skin was clear of any blemish. It seemed the virus was more than incubating inside her.
“The Judas Strain is healing her,” Lisa said, knowing it was a test. “Or more precisely, the virus suddenly