ST VINCENT’S UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL – 2.22 P.M.
In her busy laboratory, Maria Cabrini was analysing organisms identified in the first batch of stool samples. They had known for a while that they were dealing with an e-coli O157:h7 and now she was looking at it more closely. She popped another two Tylenol and fought her tiredness. No room for mistakes.
A few days earlier, she had started growing bugs from the stool samples on culture plates, which take a day or two to develop. Then she had begun identifying the infections using a Maldi-Tof mass spectrometer. She had also been loading blood samples from patients into a Bacti-Alert machine, which would help to identify infections. At the bottom of each tube was a nutrient ‘culture media’ to accelerate the growth of any organisms in the samples. Maria Cabrini had inserted fifty glass tubes into fifty slots in the machine.
The numbers of bugs must be low, she’d thought, as the days had passed and the Bacti-Alert machine hummed away peacefully, without alerting her to any developing organisms. It was after she returned from her lunch break that day, that she got her first surprise. All fifty orange lights were flashing their rhythmic alert.
Fifty out of fifty! She tapped her colleague on the shoulder.
‘Hey, Chris, take a look at this!’
Chris Davison swivelled around on his chair and paused to take it in. ‘Wahey! We could save a few dollars on a Christmas tree with that!’
Since then, Maria had been carefully analysing the cultures. She shook her head and frowned at the fifty printouts on her desk.
‘E-coli O157:h7, resistant to cephalosporin.’
‘E-coli O157:h7, resistant to cephalosporin.’
‘E-coli O157:h7, resistant to cephalosporin . . .’
Stated all fifty.
She put her hands over her face. Full-on antibiotic resistance, on a large scale. Jesus, this is gonna be bad. Better double check those tests. And I’d better check and see if there are any other antibiotics this damn bug is resistant to.
*
It was 2.30 p.m. and Wyse and Cabrini had resumed their drive back to the station from the visit to Maria. They had just turned left into 155th Street when John Wyse, who had been deep in thought, suddenly shouted again.
‘Here, stop!’
‘Jeez, John, what’s with all the shouting?’ said Cabrini, putting his hand over his right ear. ‘Can’t you give me a little more notice?’
‘Quick, over there, pull up.’
Cabrini manoeuvred into a space outside the BurgerFantastic at 232, 155th Street. He had barely killed the engine when John jumped out and disappeared into the restaurant.
‘Jeez, don’t mind if I do,’ said Cabrini, chucking the ‘Police on Duty’ badge into the windscreen and hurrying after his buddy. Wyse was at the end of a line of about ten people waiting to be served.
‘Christ, John, I’m starving too, but can’t we calm down a little?’
‘Sorry, Mike, just a bit distracted. I’m buying.’
‘Won’t argue with that, bud, I’m going for a cigarette,’ said Cabrini, heading back outside. Wyse reached the top of the line. ‘Two BurgerFantastics, two large fries, two coffees to go, please.’
‘Sure thing, sir,’ said the young server. ‘That’ll be six dollars please.’
Six dollars? thought Wyse. How the hell? Then he remembered that the burgers were just ninety-nine cents each. He put the money on the counter and watched as the restaurant worker took two freshly cooked burgers off the grill and placed them on two bread buns. Then she added some lettuce, gherkin, onion and tomato. Lastly, she picked up a large white plastic container and squirted a creamy sauce on top of the salad, before topping off with another bread bun. She boxed the burgers, added them to John Wyse’s cardboard carryout tray and slid them across the counter.
‘Have a nice day.’
‘Thanks. You too.’
Wyse left the restaurant. Cabrini was flicking his cigarette butt into the gutter and was pleased to see him returning with the food.
‘Thanks, John, good choice.’
Wyse put the tray on the hood of the car and handed a coffee and a packet of fries to Cabrini.
‘Thanks, bud.’
Wyse put a coffee and a bag of fries for himself on the hood. Cabrini put his hand out to take a burger but Wyse spun around without giving it to him. ‘Come on, Mike, gotta go.’
Cabrini was standing, open-mouthed, with a fry in mid-air, halfway to his mouth.
‘Aw, John, for fuck’s sake, what’s going on?’
‘Quick, Mike. Can you drop me back to the station, and then take these burgers to Maria?’
‘Sure, but they’re gonna go cold.’
‘Not to eat. Ask her to check the sauce for e-coli. Urgent. I’m thinking these BurgerFantastics might be the cause of all this.’
Cabrini gaped at him. ‘Sure, no problem.’
‘And, for God’s sake, don’t eat them.’
*
2.52 P.M.
Cabrini had driven just half a block east on 155th when he had to stop at a red light at the junction with Broadway. It was a pleasantly bright Manhattan afternoon. Wyse marvelled at how the streetscape could look so relatively normal, in the midst of the disaster enveloping the city. The famous New York fighting spirit was on display. Just as the city had refused to yield after 9/11, it would be ‘business as usual’ for most New Yorkers, no matter what. But the traffic seemed to be getting lighter, as some businesses on the island began to shut down and office workers stayed at home. Two teenage kids in Giants T-shirts and caps came walking past, carrying large red and yellow BurgerFantastic bags. Wyse lowered his window and, flashing his badge, called the kids over.
‘Hey guys, Police. I strongly advise you not to eat those burgers.’
The lights turned green and Cabrini hit the gas, shaking his head. The two dumbfounded teenagers were left staring.
‘What the hell? Thought this was supposed to be a free country?’ said one.
*
3 P.M.
Cabrini pulled in tight against the kerb outside the police station on Elizabeth Street. The rest of the drive back from the University Hospital had been uneventful – Wyse deep in thought and Cabrini beginning to worry about his colleague’s stability. As soon as the car stopped, Wyse jumped out and ran up the steps to the front door of the building.
‘Christ, here we go again!’ said Cabrini watching him. He found a couple of fries, which had dropped down beside the gearshift, and crunched them, enjoying the salty taste. Could do with a beer now, he thought as he pulled out and headed back to his sister. The uneaten BurgerFantastics were on a cardboard tray on the seat beside him.
Back at his desk, Wyse nudged his mouse and his screen flickered into life. Yamoura Pharmaceuticals, he entered. Search.
‘World leader in pharmaceutical manufacturing, multinational, Tokyo based, 55,000 employees, share price rises, Tsan Yohoto, charismatic leader of . . .’
Blah blah.
He went back and entered Tsan Yohoto. He hit enter.
‘Tsan Yohoto, charismatic leader of Yamoura Pharmaceuticals, nominated for a Nobel Prize for humanitarian aid . . . free cephalosporin . . . Darfur . . .’
Wyse clicked on Biography.
‘Tsan Yohoto, born 1940, Hiroshima, Japan, Chief Executive of . . .’
John Wyse sat back in his chair and whistled a long low note.
Hiroshima, 1940. So, he’d have been five.
Wyse thought for a moment, then picked up his phone and punched in 1-1-8-0 for directory enquiries. ‘Hi, you got a number please for BurgerFantastic, like a head office or a depot or something?’
A delay. ‘Sir, I got two, maybe three hundred different addresses, all classified as fast food restaurants. Nothing else.’
‘Thanks,’ said Wyse, hanging up.
He thought for a moment and then called out into the busy open plan office. ‘Hey, what was BurgerFantastic called, like a year or two ago?’ There was no response from the roomful of busy detectives.
‘Bad time to start a quiz, John,’ said Sergeant Jim Connolly, as he walked past.
‘No, wait, I remember,’ said Hanson, looking over a partition. ‘Quick ’n’ Tasty, that was it. Always thought the food tasted better then. And why the hell did they change the name?’
John Wyse gave him a thumbs-up and redialled directory enquiries. This time he got an answer.
‘Quick ’n’ Tasty, Head Office and Production Facility, Basin Street, Airport Business Park, Newark.’
John scribbled the address on his pad, then got back on his computer and googled BurgerFantastic. He opened the top story, which was an article from The New York Times.
BurgerFantastic, the New York restaurant chain, has eclipsed McDonald’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut and all the other fast food outlets in the Greater New York Metropolitan area, with the mother of all marketing campaigns. Over the past eighteen months, BurgerFantastic has maintained an unprecedented campaign of promotional offers and TV and radio advertising, which have sent sales into the stratosphere. BurgerFantastic founders and main shareholders are husband and wife team Takar and Tasha el Sayden. The couple arrived in New York from Tripoli, Libya in 1992.
Libya, thought John Wyse. Isn’t that where the Pan-Am bombers came from? He leaned back on his chair, closed his eyes and concentrated for several minutes. He was oblivious to the hum of conversation and ringing phones around him. He sifted carefully through the mountain of new information in his brain. Jesus, were they really trying to flood New York with antibiotics? He challenged his intuition, again and again, until he could think of no new angles. This medical stuff wasn’t his area. He could make a complete fool of himself and waste valuable time. Tens of thousands of lives could depend on what he did next. Would he act, based on a hunch, or play it safe and keep his head down? He thought about Cindy, and all the other people who were dead or dying. Then he remembered what Tsan Yohoto had said to Anna. ‘I’m glad you’re a vegetarian.’ Now it made sense! He thought back all those months ago, to the conversation in the car with Paul Carter, the police profiler. What’s the right thing to do? He let his chair fall forward and he opened his eyes, his mind made up. Okay, John, time to show some leadership. He got up and strode towards the door.
‘Come on, Mike,’ he said, spinning Cabrini around, just as the weary detective was about to come in the door. ‘We’re going out again.’
‘Where now?’ said Cabrini, turning and jogging after him.
‘BurgerFantastic,’ called Wyse back down the corridor.
‘I thought you didn’t like them?’ shouted Cabrini.
‘I’ll tell you all about it in the car.’