No Immunity by Susan Dunlap Read Free Book Online

be a different man each time she met him.
    The bulky mask hung from his hand, but he made no move to put it on. He nodded toward the body. “It’s overwhelming.” He paused before turning his gaze toward her. “I knew you would understand.”
    Understand his fear? “Any doctor who’s seen the effects of arenavirus would get it. You didn’t have to drag me here.”
    “I had to know before I reported it. I needed a second opinion. If this is akin to Lassa fever, or Bolivian Junin, or Machupo from Panama , I need to know.”
    “No,” she snapped, “you need to be on the horn to the health department and CDC in Atlanta . You should have done that before you called me. What’s stopping you?”
    “Look at her. What do you see? Not the effects of disease, but the person. She looks Hispanic. Maybe she’s an immigrant, maybe illegal. Doesn’t matter, though, does it? If word gets out that there’s a threat of epidemic, from her, the government’s going to be breathing down the neck of every immigrant, legal or not. You’re from California , Kiernan, you should know’ that.”
    “I do know, Jeff,” she said, just short of snapping at him. How could she have forgotten the righteous little whine to this voice? She’d heard it long enough on the plane to Bombay . “I’ve seen the results. When going to the clinic means you may be deported, people don’t go. We—the government—are asking for disease to go untreated. The state is turning the barrios into petri dishes.” She looked back at the swollen corpse. “Nevertheless, Jeff, I am not about to open up a body when I have no idea what’s inside.”
    He grabbed her shoulder. “We have to know! If I could do the autopsy, I would. I need you.”
    She detached his hand. It was shaking. “If you could? We all did postmortems in Africa . You were there way longer than I. Surely you’ve done—”
    “Not since Hope. Not on a body like this. I... couldn’t.” He turned to the sink and shoved the faucet full on. Water sprayed onto the wall, the floor, and she could see the fabric of his sleeves darkening with it.
    “Okay,” she said softly. “Let’s do a visual. We’ve both seen enough cases of Lassa.” She covered over the tray of clamps and scalpels, picked up the microphone, and handed it to him. “You start. And use your mask and gloves, unless you know something I don’t.”
    Her gaze dropped to his hand, and it was clear from his startled expression he had forgotten he was holding the mask.
    She watched as he settled the mask in place and fumbled with the gloves as if he hadn’t pulled their like on and off a thousand times. Was it just nerves?
    He said, “Well-nourished female adult, looks to be in her Twenties. Olive skin, black hair, eyes—”
    Kiernan leaned over the woman’s face. Her mask was old and meant to be worn with a breathing tube. Already the visor was beginning to fog. She wouldn’t have much time. Squinting into the face of the dead woman, she said, “Petechia evident in the eyes. There’s so much blood, it’s hard to see the color of the iris. The sclera is almost totally covered; barely a bit of white visible.” She held a magnifying glass nearer to the skin. “Evidence of petechia in the skin too. Some cyanosis evident at the mouth.”
    She could hear Tremaine interspersing her observations with his own—“One hundred twenty pounds. Evidence of extreme edema in the face and neck. Facial features distorted by edema”—but his voice began to blend with the rumble of the ancient fan. She lifted the woman’s arm. Stiff. The jaw7, too, was locked. “Rigor sdll in effect. Jeff, when did you discover her?”
    “Just before I called you.”
    “Here? In the morgue?”
    “Yeah.”
    She braced her hands on the edge of the gurney and looked directly at Tremaine. “Are you telling me someone walked in off the street and dumped this corpse here and no one in town noticed?”
    “Not off the street.”
    “What, then,