Indispensable Party (Sasha McCandless Legal Thriller No. 4) by Melissa F Miller Read Free Book Online

and to block out her disastrous
foray into criminal defense work, she had taken on four complicated new cases
and had been working hours that were long, even by her standards. On top of
that, she’d been trying to fit everything into a four-day workweek so she could
spend long weekends at the lake with Connelly. On the weekends that they hadn’t
met up, she’d made it a point to get together with friends or spend time with
her extended family. All that activity, on top of her workout routine, had kept
her mind off Connelly’s absence and the outcome of her Lady Lawyer Killer case,
but it left her somewhat absentminded. Now she was going to have to explain she
had no idea what Connelly and Grace were talking about.
    “Let’s step back. The federal
government has decided the flu is a matter of national security?” she said.
    Another look passed between
Connelly and Grace.
    “It’s not just the flu, it’s the
Doomsday virus—the killer flu. I know I told you about this,” Connelly said.
    “You did,” Sasha agreed quickly. “I
just need a better understanding as your corporate attorney than I had as your
girlfriend. Tell me everything you know about the Doomsday virus, okay? Pretend
I don’t know anything.”
    “Okay,” he conceded. “After the
bird and swine flu scares, researchers realized that a flu pandemic would be,
for lack of a better word, devastating. The death toll would make historic
plagues look like a joke, and the quarantines and panic that would result could
cripple the global economy.”
    Sasha tried not to let her
skepticism show on her face. It sounded like Y2K hysteria all over again.
    But Connelly knew her too well. “It’s
a very real threat, Sasha. So real, in fact, that the government became
concerned about bioterrorism.”
    “We’re worried someone will use
the flu as a weapon?” she asked.
    “Right,” Grace confirmed. “So, we
decided to develop it first.”
    “What?” Sasha cocked her head.
    “The National Institutes of
Health funded a study to combine the three most severe naturally occurring flu
strains into a mutant superflu,” Grace said, her tone neutral.
    Sasha gasped despite herself. “We
made it? On purpose?”
    “We did. But, the resultant flu
wasn’t highly contagious. It was difficult to transmit,” Connelly explained.
    “Oh, that’s good,” Sasha said.
    Connelly continued, “So, the NIH
funded another study to see whether the new flu virus could be genetically
modified to make it more contagious.”
    “What? Why?”
    Connelly put down his coffee mug
and threw up his hands. “I don’t know why, Sasha. I guess it seemed like a good
idea at the time.”
    “Did it work?” Sasha asked. She
was almost numb with disbelief.
    “Oh, it worked all right. The new
strain, which is what the press is talking about when they refer to the killer
flu, is not only capable of airborne transmission, making it very easy to pass
among humans, it’s more virulent. Researchers have created an extremely
contagious, deadly flu virus,” Connelly said, reaching across the couch and
taking her free hand in his. “I guess I downplayed all this when I talked to
you about the vaccine, but it’s been all over the news.”
    Sasha had been avoiding the news
in the aftermath of her own infamy but was too stunned to form a response for a
moment. Then, she said, “But you guys have a vaccine that will work against it?”
    Grace smiled reassuringly at her.
“We do. It was quite a challenge, because after the researchers announced they’d
concocted the killer flu, the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity
forbid them from publishing their results, citing national security. That made
it virtually impossible to work on an effective vaccine until we hired away
some members of the research team. And, we had to take the unusual step of
using a small amount of a live virus that’s as close to the Doomsday virus as
we could manage instead of a killed virus to make the