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THEY DROVE TO THE AIRPORT aimed into a vivid orange sunset. The FBI jet was small and rather spartan. There was no flight attendant, no hot meals being served, just a refrigerator stocked with basics and a microwave.
Nydia was reading emails as soon as the plane climbed to cruising altitude. She said, “Uh-oh.”
“What?”
“The Vice President has it. That’s not something you should repeat to anyone else.”
Glenn had more faith in the VP than the President, so he believed it really was a tragedy for the nation. “He’ll get the best treatment possible, at least. Is he at Walter Reed?”
“It doesn’t say, but possibly. Though I know he’s been out west, so maybe he’s someplace out there instead.”
Glenn flashed on the burden a security risk like the Vice President would be for a non-military hospital trying to treat hundreds of flu victims. They’d have to have a private room for him. Secret Service presence would disrupt routines. Probably metal detectors and who knew what else would be set up at the hospital. Even in a military hospital, it would be disruptive. Other people with the flu would suffer for it.
“What are you thinking?”
“Nothing.”
“Looked like more doom and gloom. Are you having second thoughts about the vaccine facility?”
“No, not at all. I still can’t think of anything else Phase II might be, except for another respiratory disease release, and that isn’t as precise a target. I mean, it could be released anywhere, or in several places over a month starting the 15th, and I don’t see how we could anticipate where.”
“So we’re headed to the right place. Good.”
“I can’t promise you that. If it is something else, somewhere else, no doubt when it—whatever it is—happens, I’ll feel like an idiot for not seeing it in advance.”
“Glenn,” she said in a sharp tone. “Did you get the extra rest I mentioned?”
“Yeah, I did. Some.”
“You aren’t by nature a pessimistic man. I can tell you’re tired when you sound this way.”
“You can?”
“Yes. I want you to push the seat back and sleep. At least close your eyes. We have three more hours in the air and it’s almost bedtime. There’s not much you can do in that time. Use it to rest.”
“I have more emails to read.”
“Leave them. I want you sharp when we arrive at the vaccine facility. Right?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“It’s true.”
“What’s true?” he said without looking up.
“Doctors really do make lousy patients.”
“Yep,” he said. But he put aside his computer. “I’ll sleep.”
“Need a blanket?”
“Pillow, maybe.”
She stood and rooted around in an overhead cabinet until she found one. She also pulled down a folded blanket and set it on the seat next to him. “I’ll turn off the lights and move away from you while I finish this.”
“No, please. I like having you near. The light won’t keep me awake.”
“Sleep, Glenn.”
He closed his eyes and did fall asleep again.
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THE CELL CULTURE LAB took up half a block in an industrial area of very clean streets. The sun had technically risen, but there was fog overhead, which a local FBI man, driving them to the lab, assured them was normal for the Bay Area in July. “People make a mint selling sweatshirts to hapless tourists on the city streets in June and July. September is our warmest month.”
Glenn was less interested in a climate report on coastal California than in getting started investigating this place. They’d landed at 2:30 a.m. local time but had been hung up at the FBI for hours waiting to organize the operation, hours that he resented wasting. The fellow pulled in to a nearly-empty parking lot and said, “Here we are.” The parking lot had fencing around it, with two open gates to drive in and out. An SUV with four other local FBI people pulled up alongside them.
It was all the people Nydia had been able to talk her bosses into assigning for now. “If we come up with more definitive evidence this is the target, we’ll get more. So it’s up to us to figure that out one way or the other.”
Two men from the SUV were carrying a bunch of equipment Glenn couldn’t identify. Two other agents seemed to be in charge of one dog each.
Outside the vehicles, Nydia organized the team. “We’re going to be getting acclimated and setting up interviews. You guys will be sweeping for explosives, right?”
“They seem cooperative here?” one agent asked.
“The director was, very much so, on the phone,” Nydia said. “They don’t want anything to go wrong any more than we do. They have a government contract, and their cooperation is mandated in that contract in any case, but I didn’t even need to mention that. They just said whatever we needed, we could have. So let’s go.”
The assistant director of the facility, Del Rogers, was there to greet them. He talked to the other FBI guys about the layout of the facility and gave them all key cards to get into secure areas while begging them not to disrupt the work if they could help it. “We need to get those vaccines delivered on time,” he said.
Then he turned to Nydia and Glenn and beckoned them to follow him down a hallway. “So you’re the guy that nailed the flu so quickly back in Jersey.”
Glenn was growing a little weary of this conversation, which he’d had at least a dozen times over the past weeks. “I had a team. They were great. And a park guy from New York helped.”
“Still, I hear you did great work there. We’re in production damned fast.”
“That credit goes to Chanchal Mian and the lab people at Atlanta. And at Fort Detrick too. I had nothing to do with that end.”
“We’re working mostly with the Atlanta lab,” Rogers said. “Anyway. How do you want to do this? Top down? Bottom up? Beginning of the process to the end?”
Nydia said, “Do you have shifts here?”
“We do now. Not normally. But the majority work on the day shift and will be arriving within an hour.”
“Good,” said Nydia. “Where should we set up for interviews?”
“Right here,” he said, opening a door to show them a conference room. There was a long table, a credenza, and on the walls, a projection screen, a flat-screen monitor mounted high, and white boards. “Who will you start with? Management or staff?”
“Staff,” she said. “Ignore support and custodial staff for now, so technical or professional staff.”
“Okay. We moved a Keurig in here for you for coffee. And there are Cokes and Calistoga and so on down the hall in the fridge. Take a left turn at the exit sign, and about a dozen feet on down that hall is the break room. There’s a refrigerator, microwave, toaster oven. Water dispenser with hot water spigot. The sodas we provide to staff gratis, so take whatever you want. Here’s a printout of the staff list and phone extensions. I sorted it by department for you. If you need it re-sorted any other way, I can do that in less than a minute.”
“You can do me a favor right now.”
“Sure, what?”
“Close off one of the gates to the parking lot. And pull the other gate half-shut, so that if it needs to be closed, it will only take a second to do that. Funnel everyone through that one opening.”
He frowned, perhaps thinking about the traffic jam it would create twice a day, but then he must have thought it through, and he nodded his agreement.
Glenn held his hand out for the list. He asked a few questions of Rogers until he understood what he was looking at. “Okay. We just call them to come in?”
“Yeah. Four supervisors all know what’s going on. The workers don’t yet. That’s what you asked for, right?” he asked Nydia.
“Yes, thank you. Will some of them legitimately not be able to come? Be in the middle of something?”
“A few. But within a half-hour anyone should be able to get themselves free. You might just call the supervisors and have them send people as available, one by one.”
“Sounds good,” she said. “Thanks for your help.”
“Thank you,” the man said. “Tell me whatever you need, and I’ll get it for you.”
“Just the gates,” she said, and Rogers left.
And so they were back to interviewing, but with a difference, as Glenn soon found out. Nydia seemed harsher than she’d been before. She had a no-nonsense attitude that Glenn was sure came from the sense the clock was ticking down. Monday, the day that Phase II was to happen, was only a week away.
A few people balked at answering their questions, but Nydia reminded them sharply that they had signed a contract with a firm that had signed a contract with the government. “You don’t have a choice. You need to answer our questions.”
Glenn played good cop again. “I know you want this vaccine out there. People are counting on you. Your country is counting on you. We all want to get this done, right?”
Between the two of them, her glowering, him cajoling, they convinced everyone to talk. At the end of every interview, Nydia cautioned everyone to not speak with their coworkers about the details of the interview.
As the day wore on, the interviews grew shorter. “You’re not asking people as many personal questions,” he said, right after one woman had left the room.
“For one thing, back in Washington, they’re being investigated on paper—or on computer. For another thing, I would like to meet every single person here within sixteen hours, if possible. Maybe I’ll know quickly.”
“You hope your sixth sense will tell you?”
She shook her head. “I have the experience. I hope I’ll know that quickly. I wouldn’t call it a sixth sense though. Just the normal five, but they’ve been trained.”
“I hope when you think you know that you’re right.” Glenn had visions of some poor schmuck whose only crime was having poor social skills getting hauled off to a Gitmo-type prison. “It might not be someone here. It might be someone who works at any job but is going to come here and do something. Or I might have guessed wrong.”
“I won’t accuse anyone of anything today. I just want to know where we should focus. We’re going to re-interview starting tomorrow, and if no one jumps out today, I want to at least develop a priority list, to know who to start with tomorrow.”
“Okay. You’re the pro.” And they went on, quickly getting through as many as they could before the day shift ended. Only one person, a woman, remained uncooperative. She answered some questions, but she was angry and rude.
Nydia let her go after twenty frustrating minutes. “Don’t have time to mess with her right now.”
The FBI guys with the dogs were done by then. They’d found nothing and the lead agent of the team told Nydia that the security to the labs seemed good, that they’d made recommendations for improving that, and that they hadn’t picked up any trace of explosives.
The evening shift at the lab was much smaller, and those people and the managers still on site were interviewed by 7:30.
“We’re down to only needing three supervisors from the day shift,” Glenn said, checking the staff list. He had been checking off names as they interviewed. “And the night shift of seven plus one supervisor. No one called in sick today.”
“We’ll get in here before six tomorrow morning and interview the night shift people before they leave.”
“Short rest period for us. And I bet you won’t let us rest much until we’re done.”
“See, I knew what I was talking about when I made you nap on the plane.” She gave him the only smile he’d seen from her all day.
The FBI guy who had driven them had been looking through personnel records all day while seated in his car, making sure no one left in the middle of the day. The company had sprung for lunch, for those who might have otherwise gone out to eat, and Nydia and Glenn had been given lunch as well.
Back in the car, the FBI guy told Nydia what he’d found while he drove them to their hotel. “A couple of absenteeism problems. One sexual harassment complaint against a coworker. Not much in the way of disciplinary action, but I sent a list of names of the three problem employees to your email.”
“Thanks. Can you drive through for some food on the way to the hotel? We won’t have time to go out.”
“Sure. Any preference?”
“Food. Edible.”
“Have you guys had In-N-Out Burgers?”
“Burgers are fine.”
“These are really great,” he said.
Glenn said, “Sounds like you have a second job with the chamber of commerce.”
He chuckled. “Side-effect of living in San Francisco. Every relative comes to visit you, every old friend, even ones you haven’t seen in a decade. I can’t count the number of times I’ve driven down Lombard Street on a Sunday morning. It’s like a disease of its own, Doctor, tourguidism, a result of living here.”
“Strange to see people on the streets in such numbers, still,” Glenn said. “And all this traffic.”
“Is it different out east?” the driver asked.
“Depressingly,” Glenn said. “Even New York City seemed empty when I was there last.” Had it been only a week since the disastrous interview? Or two? Three? He was losing track of time. He had been shocked to see July pop up on his phone screen in the date a week ago. And there must have been a July 4 celebration, but he had worked right through it without noticing.
“There’s an In-N-Out.” The driver swung through, and when he asked what they wanted, Nydia said, “Order burger meals for us. Glenn hates mustard.”
He was surprised she knew that. That she’d been paying that close attention to his tastes left him with a warm glow. Silly of him.
They were dropped off at the hotel and the FBI guy handed over the car keys to Nydia and called on his phone for a Lyft ride home. Who knew the FBI did Lyft? Strange days indeed.
Bags of burgers in hand, they checked in, and by the time they got up to their rooms, the burgers were lukewarm. It didn’t matter. He was starved. They had eaten prepackaged sandwiches and peanut-butter crackers on the FBI jet just before they landed. Nydia was eating with him. “Probably would be good if they were hotter.”
“Plenty good enough.”
“Aren’t you going to lecture about food poisoning with lukewarm meat?”
“Nope. Just going to finish the burger.”
She held up a bent-over fry. “I do like how the fries get limp when they’re lukewarm.”
He managed to keep himself from making a crass joke. Something about her was throwing him back into high-school giddiness. Or maybe that was only his exhaustion and stress doing that.
“Let’s get some rest,” she said. “And wake up at four tomorrow to get the night shift interviewed before they leave.” She left his room, tossing her food trash on the way out.
For the first time since the crisis started, Glenn didn’t look at emails, not even the urgent ones. He took a hot shower, hung his uniforms to steam, and set his phone’s alarm. Then he fell asleep as quickly as he could.
