The Judas Virus Page 4

  A few minutes later, the door opened, and Michael Boyer swept in. “Hello, Chris. You’re looking great as usual.”

  “And you’re as full of baloney as always,” Chris said, trying not to look pleased at his compliment.

  Boyer gave her a 350-watt grin. He was blond and stocky, and even in his scrubs looked more like a professional wrestler than a surgeon. “And this must be Wayne.”

  Boyer offered his hand, and they exchanged a brisk handshake.

  “Wayne, has Chris explained the situation here?”

  “You’ve developed a strain of pigs whose livers are as compatible for transplantation as human livers, and you’re looking for a suitable recipient.”

  “And how do you feel about going through life with a pig organ in your abdomen?”

  “You said the magic word. Life. If that’s what it takes for me to live—and right now, that appears to be the case—bring it on.”

  “As I understand it, your own liver was damaged by alcoholism. Are you still drinking?”

  “No. I’ve been clean for over three months. I joined AA in Kansas City. You can call them, and they’ll tell you I haven’t had a drink since I started with them.”

  “Do you do drugs?”

  “Never.”

  “Would you mind taking off your jacket? I’d like to check your blood pressure and a few other things.”

  Boyer gave Wayne a short physical, then said, “Wayne, I want you to fully understand what you’d be getting into if you should be chosen for our program. First, there can be no guarantees that this will save your life. I strongly believe it will. But that doesn’t change the reality that you will be the first person ever to undergo this procedure. And first attempts at dramatic new treatments often do not end well.

  “Second, there is a very small risk that you might acquire a hitherto unknown disease from the transplant. This possibility arises because pig cells are known to carry a certain type of virus that cannot be eliminated from the transplant. It causes no harm to the pigs, and the best evidence says that there is some barrier in the human body that prevents this virus from establishing itself in human tissues.”

  “Even in people who are taking drugs to keep their immune system from rejecting a transplant?” Wayne asked.

  “Even there. So most scientists believe this virus poses no threat to recipients of pig tissues. There have in fact been hundreds of people whose blood has been exposed to pig cells, and no one has acquired any disease from this experience. But the possibility is one the medical and scientific community feel must be acknowledged to the point that you would have to agree to certain requirements should you be chosen.”

  “Like what?”

  “Of course, you must never drink again. You must agree to practice safe sex with any future partner and inform them of your situation. You must inform us of any serious or unexplained illness that you acquire at any time during the rest of your life. You must always keep us informed of your current address and phone number. You will have to return to this center annually for the rest of your life for a routine physical and blood work. You will have to allow a complete autopsy upon your death for any reason. And finally, you must agree to never donate tissue, organs, or any other bodily fluid for use in humans. In return for all this, we will underwrite the total cost of the transplant and the cost of all immunosuppressive drugs, which you will have to take for the rest of your life, and which currently would cost approximately a thousand dollars a month. We will also pay all travel expenses incurred when you return for your annual physical.

  “One further note on the drugs you’ll be taking to prevent transplant rejection. You should understand that these drugs would be necessary even if you were receiving a human liver. Because of the special nature of our donor animals, the amount of immune suppression you will need will be no different than for a human liver. In either case, these drugs can make you susceptible to opportunistic infections. This shouldn’t be a major problem, but it’s something to consider. So, what do you think? Have I frightened you off?”

  “I never thought this would be risk free. It still sounds preferable to my current situation.”

  “Good. Now I need for you to step into the waiting room and fill out a medical history. Ask Teri at the reception desk for the form.”

  When Wayne was gone, Michael looked at Chris, who was now standing. “I was under the impression your father left you and your mother when you were a kid. So this surprises me.”

  “Me, too. He just showed up in my office yesterday and informed me he was dying.” At this point, she almost told him that Wayne had asked for part of her liver, but not wanting Michael to think badly of her for refusing, she left it alone.

  “That form he’s working on is pretty extensive,” Michael said. “Let’s go down to the cafeteria for some coffee.”

  It was long past lunchtime, and the staff at the cafeteria had brought out a lovely display of pastries for those with no willpower. Chris admired them briefly, then caught up to Michael at the cashier, where he paid for both coffees.

  When they were seated, he said, “Do you think he’s still drinking?”

  “I’ve only seen him twice, yesterday afternoon and later that evening, and I didn’t smell anything on his breath either time. What do you think? Is he a viable candidate?”

  “He could be. It depends . . .”

  “On?”

  “The complete physical I’m scheduling for him tomorrow, for one thing, and what AA in Kansas City tells me about him for another. There’s also the issue of how the vote will go if I decide to present him to the rest of the group, which brings me to the question I asked you yesterday. Will you join us?”

  “It doesn’t make any sense. The infectious disease member should be Monteagle’s director of infection control. Otherwise, if something happens, the two of us would be butting heads over territory.”

  “Just now we don’t have a director. Want the job? I’ll bet we can offer you more money than you’re making now.”

  The thought of working in the same hospital with Michael was tempting, but that would just make it all the harder to keep their mutual attraction for each other under control. That was also a major reason why she didn’t want to be part of the transplant team. If only she wasn’t so drawn to him. To her female friends, it was crazy: Date guys you like as buddies, avoid those who make your hormones surge. But her friends hadn’t attended the Wayne Collins school of pack and run.

  “Thanks for the offer,” Chris said. “But I’m happy where I am.”

  “So join the team until we find a director. We’ve got to have infectious disease expertise on board before we proceed. And as I mentioned yesterday, that would give you a vote as to whether your father is our man.”

  “How many on the team?”

  “Six.”

  “What if there’s a tie vote?”

  “I get to decide.”

  “What if I say yes, and the vote goes against him?”

  “You stay on the team until we get a new director.”

  Chris sat quietly, thinking.

  “Even if the team wanted to proceed with your father, we can’t do it without you.”

  “Are you that worried about the danger? You think the studies showing no viral infection in people exposed to pig cells could be wrong?”

  “No. Why would I want to proceed if I thought that? The FDA requires someone with your skills on the team. Frankly, I don’t understand your reluctance here.”

  “Because of my father?”

  Michael shrugged in agreement.

  Damn it. She didn’t want to join. Why did it have to come to this? “Tell me again. What are the chances for my father if he’s accepted?”

  “I honestly believe it’s going to work. And soon, no one will ever have to die of liv
er failure because no organ could be found in time.”

  Of course, he would put that extra spin on it.

  “All right,” she said, throwing up her hands. “I’m in.”

  Chapter 4

  FRENCH LAUNCH DEEP Space Infrared Telescope

  TR’s gut lurched at the first word of the article’s headline. It had been twelve years since the two Frenchmen had been assassinated beside him in Kazakhstan, but he still couldn’t bear to see or hear anything that reminded him of them. His story had always been that the last time he saw them was when they’d dropped him and his equipment off at the warehouse in Tselinograd. In truth, he’d really been taken there by the Russian hijackers.

  Though he had never been questioned in person by anyone about the French team’s disappearance, and had only spoken by phone once and sent one letter to Kazakhstan authorities about it, for months after he’d returned to the States, he’d lived in fear that one day there would be a knock at the door, and he’d be arrested for his role in their murders. Five months after his return, he’d had a nervous breakdown and spent eight weeks in a mental hospital, a fact he’d been able to keep from his present employers. With the help of the drug BuSpar, he had now largely put the Kazakhstan affair behind him, until a headline in a paper or a story on TV would overwhelm the drug, and it would all come flooding back.

  In TR’s view, the Frenchmen were responsible for their own deaths. If they hadn’t treated him with such disdain and tried to take all the blood samples, he never would have had to hire the Russians. So put the blame where it belongs. But of course, the police would never see it his way.

  Set off by the headline, TR continued to muse over the situation. Twelve years with no knock on the door, and a few days ago, a mutual acquaintance had told him that Bill Lansden, the other guy with him in Kazakhstan, had recently had a stroke that left him with an aphasia, so his brain could no longer handle language. Apparently, he was now unable to make much sense when he spoke or wrote anything.

  Nice guy, Lansden. Too bad about that stroke. But it did mean that the one man in this country with personal knowledge that TR was the other member of the US team in Kazakhstan couldn’t tell anybody. From that perspective, it’d be great if Lansden never recovered. Probably should go over to the hospital and see just how bad he is. Uh-oh. Time for that transplant team meeting.

  “MR. COLLINS WOULD like to make a statement to you all before we vote,” Michael Boyer said. “Wayne, the floor is yours.”

  Boyer took his seat at the head of the long conference table as Wayne rose from his chair on Boyer’s immediate right. Like most people with a failing liver, Wayne had experienced a reversal of his sleep cycle, so he was always wide awake at night and drowsy during the day. Usually by now, he needed a nap. But not this morning. He was too nervous, and adrenaline was churning all his motors. He looked at Chris, who was seated across from him, for a little sign of encouragement, but her expression remained neutral. Nothing he could do now but plunge in.

  “I’m sure at least a few of you have reservations about accepting me into the program.” The almost imperceptible nod of agreement he saw on the face of Sidney Knox, the immunologist member of the team, made Wayne’s heart drop into his shoes, but he was determined not to let it show.

  “I’m an alcoholic. I can’t take a drink and stop there. I know what I am. But I can successfully fight the urge to take that first drink. I’ve done it for three months. I hope you can appreciate what that means. It’s not like someone giving up french fries or ice cream. Alcohol beckons me every minute of every day. But I have resisted. That has to mean something. And I will continue to resist, because I don’t want to be remembered as just another drunk.

  “You all have accomplished lives. You can point to patients who are alive now because of you, or you can count the papers you’ve written that brought new knowledge into the world. You have people who love you, lives you’ve enriched. I had one novel published many years ago that sold so poorly my editor wouldn’t even read anything else from me. I’ve done nothing to earn love or even grudging respect. If I died tomorrow, it would be an event of total inconsequence. And that hurts, and frightens me.

  “I wish I could bargain with you and show you why it would make sense to save me, why the world would be better off with me in it. But I can produce no evidence to support that position. All I can say is if you give me this chance, I will find some way to be worthy of it. I simply must. Thank you all for listening.”

  “Does anyone have questions for Mr. Collins?” Boyer asked, rising. He scanned the gathering. “No?” He looked at Wayne. “Would you wait outside, please?”

  When Wayne was safely on the other side of the door, Boyer turned to Chris. “Is there anything you’d like to add to what your father said?”

  “I think he presented the situation pretty clearly.”

  “Then the matter is open for discussion.”

  Sidney Knox was the first to reply. He was a slightly built man like Wayne, but with an effeminate face. “Dr. Collins, please don’t take this personally, but I find this whole situation extremely inappropriate. How can we have an open exchange of views when the candidate’s daughter is sitting right here?”

  Chris had to think fast for a reply. Despite the circumstances, she wanted her father to have this chance, and if her presence on the team shaded the votes of any of the other members in his favor, good. “I assure you, Dr. Knox, I won’t take any of what’s said in this room personally. I want you all to feel free to say exactly what’s on your mind. And when we’re finished, I’ll leave it all right here.”

  “Very well. What assurance do we have that Mr. Collins won’t destroy the transplant the same way he ruined his own liver?”

  Boyer looked at Robin Victor, one of the best psychiatric guys in the city. “Robin, can you respond to that?”

  Victor had an egg-shaped head topped by a comb-over. Chris had only seen him a few times before, but on each occasion, as today, there was a ruddy glow on his high cheekbones, and his full lips looked as though he’d just been eating fresh cherries.

  “We generally consider three factors to predict whether a man or woman will be able to remain sober once they decide to do so,” Victor said. Tapping the extended index finger of one hand with that on the other, he began listing the factors. “Are they employed? Do they have an address? And is there a supportive family?

  “Though Mr. Collins is a freelance writer and is not on the regular payroll of any company, he has supported himself for years in this manner. So I give him a yes on that one. He has lived at the same address in Kansas City for two and a half years, giving him another yes there. As for family support . . .” He looked at Chris. “It’s my understanding that you’ve been estranged from your father for many years.”

  “That’s true,” Chris said.

  “And has your relationship changed any in the last few days?”

  Chris hesitated. It hadn’t, but she was concerned that if she simply said that, it might hurt her father’s chances with the team. Better to leave it open-ended. “I’d have to say that’s an issue still unresolved.”

  “It sounds as if there’s hope there,” Victor said. “But regardless of what happens in the future in that regard, Mr. Collins has two of the three predictors of sobriety.

  “I spent two hours talking with him yesterday, and I was impressed with his motivation and sincerity to stay sober and make up for the behavior he’s exhibited most of his life. In my opinion, what he said to the committee was not an act, and I believe he can be trusted.”

  “I agree,” Eric Ash said. Ash, the PhD virologist on the team, had run the Monteagle virology lab for nearly five years. He held a doctorate in molecular biology from Cal Tech and looked the part: hair tumbling down one side of his high forehead, wire-rimmed glasses with little lenses, a self-conscious smile that nervously waxed
and waned when you spoke to him in casual conversation.

  “He seemed quite sincere,” Ash continued. “And I’d be very surprised if he let us down.”

  “Consider what’s at stake here,” Knox countered. “We’re going to look very foolish if you’re both wrong. And I just don’t feel this is a risk we should take. Let’s wait for a better candidate. There’s no hurry.”

  “If I may, I’d like to change the subject.” The speaker was William Hessman, the vet responsible for maintaining the program’s genetically modified animals. He was a big bald fellow who reminded Chris of Daddy Warbucks from the Little Orphan Annie comics. He tapped the file folder in front of him that contained Wayne’s medical history. “I notice that Mr. Collins was seriously ill about ten years ago when he lived in New Mexico. Do we know exactly what that was?”

  “I checked with the hospital there this morning,” Boyer said, “and no diagnosis was ever made. It was some kind of respiratory problem. But as you can see from the report of his chest film, it didn’t produce any lasting visible lung damage. And his respiratory function is normal. The thing apparently responded to penicillin, so it was probably pneumonia.

  “Aside from his failing liver and the resulting varicose veins in his esophagus, he’s in very good shape. No heart problems, kidney function good. From a physical standpoint, he’d be an excellent choice.

  “Any further discussion?” No one spoke. “Then I guess we’re ready to vote.”

  Boyer distributed pencils and ballots with yes and no boxes on them.

  Everyone marked a ballot, folded it, and handed it back. When he had all of them, Boyer began the tally.

  “Accept.”

  “Reject.”

  “Accept.”

  “Accept.”

  “Accept.”

  “Accept.”

  “Gee, who do you think the negative vote might have been,” Knox said glumly.

  Chris had mixed reactions to the result. Her vote hadn’t been needed. It hadn’t been necessary for her to join the team at all. Of course, maybe her presence had influenced the other members. No way to know. But whatever alternate scenario might have occurred, this was the one she had to deal with.