Читать книгу All Fall Down - Mark Edwards, Mark Edwards - Страница 16

There were six people already round the long refectory-style table when Kate and Junko came down for breakfast, including McCarthy, who proceeded to introduce Kate to everybody as though he’d been there for weeks. He seemed perfectly at ease in the situation, laughing and gesticulating – Kate would have assumed he was slightly drunk had it not been 6.30 a.m. It helped, though, having him there. He certainly broke the ice.

There was an epidemiologist, William, who was about her age with sandy thinning hair. His body was so slight that he looked as though a strong puff of mountain breeze would be enough to bear him away, but his features were strong, and he looked like a man on a mission. Then there were three lab technicians – two young men, one fat, and one very tall, whose names Kate instantly forgot, and one very pretty woman, small, busty and pouty, whose name was Annie. Kate and Junko were the only non-Americans.

The sixth person was the third virologist, Chip Oakley. He had the narrowest face Kate had ever seen, topped by an enormous pair of tortoiseshell-framed spectacles, and his welcome smile looked more like a frown. His eyes, magnified through the thick lenses of his glasses, seemed to pop out at her. He was wearing a knitted tanktop the likes of which Kate hadn’t seen since about 1978. No wonder we need the FBI and all this security, she thought; this lot wouldn’t have the strength to take the skin off a rice pudding. Although, even if they were all built like Marines, it wouldn’t be much good if someone set off another bomb.

‘He looks a bit weird,’ Kate whispered to Junko, trying to distract herself from thoughts of bombs and Isaac, as they took two seats at the end of the table furthest from Chip.

Junko grinned. ‘He’s all right, actually. Bit of an uber-geek, but knows his stuff. I worked with him on H1N1 at Berkeley a few years ago.’

‘Where’s Kolosine?’ She felt a slight flutter in her ribcage at the mere thought of the man.

Junko rolled her eyes. ‘He likes to make an entrance, if I remember rightly.’ She poured them both a glass of water from the jug on the table.

‘I’d kill for a cup of coffee,’ Kate said. ‘Is there any?’

Annie, who had been busily applying more lipgloss at the table, piped up: ‘Plenty of coffee, day and night. Nothing stronger, though, so don’t go expecting wine with your dinner tonight. This place is dry.’

‘Are you serious?’ Kate was aghast. Did they really expect her to be holed up here indefinitely, without even a relaxing glass of wine at the end of a long day? Outrageous!

‘’Fraid so. Prof. Kolosine’s orders. No alcohol on the premises for the duration of the project.’

‘That’s tantamount to cruelty,’ Kate said miserably, picking at a croissant from the basket on the table and suddenly missing Paul with a fierce longing.

‘You tell him that, honey,’ said Annie, snapping shut her compact. ‘No cellphone reception here, either, and no landline ’cept the one in Professor Kolosine’s locked office, which is for emergency use only, so we were told last night.’

‘What?’ Kate felt sick. How was she supposed to call Paul, or Jack?

‘More incentive for us to develop a vaccine as soon as possible, I guess,’ said Chip, in a surprisingly deep voice, completely at odds with his nerdy Junior High appearance. ‘They want us to be as isolated as possible so we can really focus.’

Adoncia pushed open the door of the dining room with her rump, dragging in behind her a trolley containing a big pot of coffee and a platter of scrambled eggs and sausage links, which she dumped wordlessly on the table. Kate’s stomach gurgled in anticipation.

There was silence for a few minutes while everyone helped themselves. ‘So, folks,’ McCarthy said. ‘Let’s hear it. What are we really up against here? And not too much of your scientific jargon, either – I am a simple man.’ He made a silly face, but no one except Annie laughed.

Junko pushed away her unfinished eggs and leaned her elbows on the table. ‘It appears to be an intense strain of Watoto, which is bad enough in its familiar state, but this one seems to kill people much more quickly – in four days, as opposed to the six or seven Watoto usually takes. The stats that William’s been receiving indicate that we’re dealing with a ninety-nine per cent mortality rate, which is one of the worst we’ve ever seen. It’s a filovirus – not a flu virus at all, despite the media calling it Indian flu. Its closest relatives are Ebola and Marburg – but this strain of Watoto is even more deadly than those.’

There was a roar from the corridor, and everyone’s heads jerked up. ‘Kolosine,’ mouthed Junko at Kate, and the door burst open. A huge, hirsute man stood framed in the doorway. He was wearing a checked plaid shirt, with a thatch of dark chest hair curling out of the top. He had longish brown hair, and the sort of beard that made Kate relieved that she hadn’t seen him eat soup. His eyes were bright green and very clear, and his voice seemed to boom out from the bottom of his sneakers. He completely ignored Kate.

‘Suits on, people – we’ve got a live one coming in any moment. The Aeromedical Isolation Team are bringing him in a VATI. Police sergeant in the LAPD, thirty-two years old, in advanced stages of the disease. This is our best shot: fresh tissue samples, a chance to observe the effects of the virus first hand – don’t fuck it up.’

‘What’s a VATI?’ asked McCarthy, helping himself to another croissant as, all around him, chairs were being pushed back and people were rising to their feet.

‘Vickers aircraft transport isolator – it’s a way of transporting very infectious patients,’ said Kate. ‘Looks like a gurney with a plastic tent over it.’

‘I knew that,’ McCarthy said, buttering the croissant.

Kolosine was still standing in the doorway, urging his team out. He looked more like a lumberjack than a world-renowned scientist, Kate thought. She walked up to him and held out her hand. ‘Hi, Professor Kolosine, I’m Kate Maddox. It’s an honour to meet you, and I’m—’

‘Yeah, yeah, hi, let’s get going,’ he said, ignoring her outstretched hand, and looking right over the top of her head. ‘We got work to do here. I’ll see you in the lab in twenty minutes.’ With that, he turned on his heel and strode out, leaving Kate standing with her mouth hanging open in disbelief. Junko came up behind her and squeezed her elbow.

‘Don’t take it personally,’ she said. ‘The great Professor Kolosine doesn’t have much time for mere mortals like us. Come on, I’ll show you where the lab is.’

Kate clenched her teeth together and shut her eyes tightly for a moment to try and contain her anger. Kolosine had better be as brilliant as everyone said he was.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Bring it on.’