Cooper walked into the research lab and looked at Eddie. ‘I’m not even going to ask.’
‘It’s a theme party. The kid likes dinosaurs. What can I say?’
‘But do you have to wear it at work?’
Eddie grinned. ‘What do you take me for, Coop? I haven’t worn it all day. Just thought I’d get ready whilst I was waiting for you.’
Cooper gave him a nudge. ‘Hey, if that’s the story you want to stick to, that’s fine by me. What have you got anyway?’
Eddie flicked on a projector, which threw a huge black and white image onto the far wall.
‘This is an X-ray of a flea. Your flea, actually.’
‘I thought it was some kind of bug.’
‘Nope. It’s a Xenopsylla Cheopis flea, commonly known as an Oriental or tropical flea. It’s mainly a parasite of rodents, but it can live off other animals as well. And see that dark part on the X-ray, right there? Well, that’s a mass of bacteria in the insect’s digestive system. If it were alive what would happen is that the mass would work like a blockage, stopping the flea ingesting a meal, which will make it real hungry. You see once they’ve swallowed the bacteria from the infected animal – say, a rat – the bacteria will multiply inside it. The hunger will make the flea go looking for a host to feed off, but because of the blockage, it can’t eat properly, so it tries to regurgitate the bacteria back up, and this comes out in its bite, infecting the host with the flea’s pathogen.’
‘So what kind of disease are we talking about?’
‘Primarily this sort of flea is a vector for Yersinia Pestis.’
Cooper looked at him as blankly as he could.
‘The common name being the plague.’
‘As in the bubonic plague?’
‘That or the septicemic plague or the pneumonic plague.’
‘Jesus. And that’s the bacteria in my flea?’
Eddie shook his head, flipping off the projector. ‘No, I thought at first it was, but although the initial tests show a lot of clinical similarities to the bacteria, it isn’t it. Thing is, bacteria and disease do mutate, either naturally or from human intervention, but unless there’s a lot of research done, it’s hard to tell exactly what it is. But I have no doubt it’s probably pretty nasty if you get bitten by it. You may even get similar symptoms to the plague. Say like swollen lymph glands, fever, bleeding, large boils, coughing up blood, black spots. But again, these are all on a maybe.’
‘Do you think it’s contagious?’
‘I don’t know, you’d have to do a lot more tests and observations before you could know how this bacteria works.’
Cooper tried to push him on it. ‘What about giving me an educated guess?’
‘I think it’d be wrong to do that because although the actual plague is an extremely virulent pathogen that’s likely to cause severe illness and probably death if it isn’t treated, it doesn’t mean this pathogen does the same thing.’
‘So what would you do to find out?’
‘Sometimes the best thing to do is to go back to the source, as in the area it was found. In your case, if someone were to want to research this bacteria more, they’d go back to the area of the DRC where your flea came from. See if people there have been bitten by these fleas. Maybe they’ve fallen ill from the bites, maybe they haven’t. If they have, then it’s a question of finding out how it affects the individual. You also need to test the rats in the area, to see if they’re carrying it, and, if not, why not. For all we know the people who live there may already know of the bacteria’s existence in that area. If it’s a remote place, there’s no reason why we should know about it here in Washington, especially if it’s never been reported or broken out into a massive epidemic like Ebola. It could just be isolated to that particular area.’
‘Is that likely?’
‘Well, the bacteria might’ve mutated in response to the area, like the environmental conditions. It could be a common problem there and it’s been around for years. The local medics might not worry about it or call the World Health Authority in because they know that simple antibiotics will make it better. After all, it’s simple antibiotics which cure the actual plague. So before you can even try to make an educated guess, you have a hell of a lot of questions to ask. You alright, Coop?’
‘Yeah, just thinking.’
‘You sure? You don’t look so good… But this might put a smile on your face. Even though I can’t tell you exactly what the bacteria is, I can tell you I’ve seen it once before. Here in DC in fact. Just recently.’
‘What?’
Cooper leant on the side of the table.
‘About a month ago, one of my colleagues was off sick from work, though in actual fact turns out he’d gone to Vegas and got busted by the cops with three joints of marijuana. Anyway, his work needed covering so I thought I might as well do it, even though it wasn’t strictly my department. There were some clothes to analyze. Really general stuff. The police weren’t looking at anything in particular but there was a question mark around the circumstances. Anyway, I didn’t find anything – apart from on the jacket, where I found a couple of fleas. It’s not that unusual to find fleas. On the contrary, I often find them concealed in clothing fibers. It’s quite common, really, people just don’t know they’re there. When I did some tests, the fleas were Xenopsylla Cheopis, tropical fleas, same as yours. And what I found that was really unusual was the bacteria inside them, which I hadn’t come across before. Until now that is. That’s crazy right?’
‘Who was the person?’
‘I can find out, hold on.’ Eddie walked over to some files by the window. ‘I do remember in the end they ruled it as a suicide. Here you go, his name was…’
‘Foster. Dr. Foster.’
Eddie looked surprised. ‘Yeah, Tim Foster. How did you know?’
‘It’s a long story, I’ll tell you over a beer when I catch up with you properly. In the meantime, could you do me one other thing? Can you test some blood for me? I’d like you to test it for the same bacteria.’
‘You want me to see if the blood has the same bacteria which is in the fleas?’
‘Yeah, though I have a feeling I already know the answer.’
Cooper handed Eddie the test tube of blood. ‘Thanks, I appreciate this, Ed.’
Eddie nodded, reading the label out loud.
‘Emmanuel Mutombo… Listen, it’s no problem. My pleasure. Give me a few hours to turn it round. I’ll call you when I know.’