Medusa

CHAPTER 32

AS THE CITATION X STREAKED WEST OVER THE NORTH American continent at six hundred miles an hour, all was quiet in the cabin, where the passengers slept soundly with forty-three thousand feet of air beneath their pillows.

Song Lee had been the first to turn in, followed by Joe Zavala, who was stretched out on a thickly padded chair. Kurt Austin had read for a short while, then he had set Casey’s file aside and glanced at Song, who was sleeping on the sofa. Her bare legs stuck out from under her blanket. Austin adjusted the blanket, then went up to the cockpit and radioed the ground-crew manager at the Los Angeles Airport. He came back, settled into another chair, and within minutes had slipped into a deep slumber.

When the passengers got off at LAX to stretch their legs, the ground-crew manager was waiting to hand Lee a plastic bag. At Austin’s request, the manager had contacted his wife, and she had put together a change of clothes to replace the smoky T-shirt and shorts Lee had been wearing since Bonefish Key.

When she opened the bag, she let out a cry of delight, and dashed into the hangar to try them on. She squeezed in a quick shower beforehand, and a brief phone call after dressing, and then the jet leaped into the sky again and set a course for Honolulu. With the California coastline fading behind in the distance, Lee came over and sat next to Austin, who was discussing the maps and charts in Lieutenant Casey’s packet with Zavala. She was wearing a pair of conservative black cotton slacks and a sleeveless white cotton blouse that looked stylish on her slim figure.

“I understand you arranged for the delivery of my new wardrobe,” she said. “Thank you very much, Kurt. The clothes fit me perfectly.”

“Sailors are good at taking measurements with their eyes,” Austin said.

He saw Zavala mouthing the word Smooth, and realized that he had compared Song Lee’s lithe body to a boat keel. Quickly changing the subject, he said, “These are the blueprints for Dr. Kane’s undersea lab. From this layout, can you say what was going on there?”

“In general, perhaps.” She examined the diagrams. “These spheres labeled LIVING QUARTERS and ADMINISTRATION are self-evident. Those labeled LAB and RESOURCE CULTIVATION tell only part of the story.”

“We have lots of time. I’d be interested in hearing the whole story, Song.”

She pinched her chin in thought, then said, “Imagine the medusa project as a three-act play. Act 1 was the basic research on the jellyfish toxin at Bonefish Key. Act 2 is the practical application of that research toward synthesizing a vaccine, which was done at Davy Jones’s Locker. Act 3 would have been the actual production at centers set up to manufacture the vaccine in large volumes. We were at the second intermission.”

“Why were you more successful than other labs working in the area of ocean biotechnology?” Austin asked.

“Because Dr. Kane is a genius,” Lee declared. “He assembled the foremost experts in a brand-new field known as systems biology. The research was a blend of protein study, genomics, and mathematics. The lab used advanced computer technology to pull the research together.”

“How did that approach differ from conventional research?” Austin asked.

“It’s the difference between squinting through a telescope and taking in a scene with both eyes. The lab had hundreds of eyes, absorbing information that was fed into one computer brain for analysis. Even so, it took all our efforts to decipher the medusa toxin’s molecular makeup and assay the immune response it provoked in a living organism.”

“Dr. Kane mentioned the development of a larger and more poisonous genetically modified version of the medusa,” Austin said.

Lee nodded.

“He wanted to produce more toxin and a brighter organism,” she said.

“I understand that the bigger the jellyfish, the more toxin to work with,” he said. “What about the bioluminescence?”

“The creature’s brightness indicates what is happening with its molecular processes. It acts like a biological thermometer. The goal was to produce the vaccine in volume. We transferred the genes that produced the essential compounds to a bacterium that could be quickly cultivated for the vaccine.”

“Dr. Kane said that the medusa toxin doesn’t kill outright but paralyzes the prey and keeps it healthy and fresh.”

“An antiviral has to kill the pathogens without hurting the host. The medusa toxin went beyond that, actually protecting its host organism’s health . . . for a while, anyway. The process is called hormesis. In small doses, a toxin can trigger repair mechanisms in the body, maybe even retard aging. It works in the same way exercise does, by stressing the body so that it changes the metabolism for the better.”

“That which does not kill us makes us strong,” Austin said.

“That’s an accurate description,” Lee said.

“Could hormesis have anything to do with the New Bedford anomaly?”

“It could have everything to do with it. Administered in the proper amount, the medusa toxin could have improved subjects’ health and prolonged their lives.” Lee cocked her head. “Now let me ask you a question.”

“Be my guest.”

“You and Joe and the Trouts have obviously worked together in the past. Who are you?”

Austin answered Lee in a way that would satisfy her curiosity without revealing too much about his team’s inner workings.

“We’re all members of a special NUMA team that investigates ocean mysteries that are out of the normal range of possibility,” he said.

“This mystery certainly fits that category,” she said. “Thank you for being forthright.”

“And thanks for enlightening me about the lab’s research. Let’s talk about the new flu virus. How bad would it be if the epidemic goes beyond China’s borders?”

“Very bad. SARS hit around eight thousand people, and fewer than a thousand died. If this virus hits your country, it would kill a minimum of more than two hundred thousand people.”

“And the maximum?”

“Possibly in the millions. But even in the hundreds of thousands, the epidemic would overwhelm the health system of any country it hits. Many of the people who will die are health providers, widening the disaster even more. The total impact on the industrialized world would be nearly seven hundred thousand deaths and more than two million people hospitalized . . . minimum. Developing countries would fare much worse. The total cost could be as much as a trillion dollars.”

Austin had been working his jaw muscle as he listened to the grim statistics.

“You’ve just described a global catastrophe, Song.”

“To say the least. The medical community has worried about a mutant flu virus for years. Even without help, the virus can reinvent itself, changing its genetic makeup, hitting people who have no immunity against it.”

“Medicine has evolved far beyond what was available in past epidemics,” he said.

“So has transportation,” she said. “A carrier infected in the U.S. or China can spread the disease anywhere around the world in a matter of hours. Existing vaccines are useless, which is why it was so important to develop the medusa vaccine.”

“How does the new virus spread?”

“The old virus spread by contact. The mutant strain may spread that way, but, even more disturbing, it may spread through the water.”

“Are you saying that it could seep into the water table?”

“There is that possibility, yes.”

“Which means that the virus could be introduced into drinking water.”

“That would make its spread even more difficult to control. Everyone drinks water, while personal contact is a hit-or-miss thing. It is extremely contagious either way. It’s possible that the whole human race could become infected.”

Lee felt emotionally drained by the implications of her dry recitation and expected Austin to share her pessimism. But, to her surprise, he said, “Thank you for your analysis, Dr. Lee, but we can’t let that happen.”

“What do you mean to do?”

“Once we find the lab, we’ll make sure that the staff is safe. Then we’ll retrieve the research and allow vaccine production to move ahead. And then we’ll proceed to sink the Triad. How’s that sound to you, Joe?”

“Sounds like we’ll need some chow to keep us going. I’ll see what I can rustle up in the galley.”

Austin had summed up his strategy as casually as if he were talking about making a soccer play. Instead of panicking, Zavala was throwing breakfast together. Lee saw no sign of madness or misplaced humor in the face of either man, only calm determination and steely resolve.

For the first time since she had learned that Davy Jones’s Locker had vanished, she began to hope.