LITMIR.BIZ

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Not you. We’ve already established you don’t work for the DPA any more and I do. You know how things work. You know the procedures and protocols. You might not have followed them but I do. To the letter.” She put her hand on the door. “Now, do your job, Dr. Sawyer. Take me in there and introduce me to the parents.”

      Callie leaned back against the wall in the sluice room. She’d just pulled off her disposable clothing and mask and dispensed with them in line with all the infection control protocols.

      She let the temperature of the cool concrete seep through her thin scrub top. Thank goodness. With the air-conditioning turned off this place was getting warm. Too warm. Why couldn’t this outbreak have happened in the middle of the winter, when Chicago was knee deep in snow, instead of when it was the height of summer? It could have made things a whole lot simpler for them. It could also have made the E.R. a whole lot quieter.

      Those kids were sick. Sawyer hadn’t been kidding. They were really sick. She’d really prefer it if they could be in a pediatric intensive care unit, but right now that was out of the question.

      And even though it seemed like madness, in a few minutes’ time she was going to have to inoculate them and their parents with the smallpox vaccine.

      Then she was going to have to deal with the staff, herself included.

      There wasn’t time to waste. The laboratory samples were just away. It could be anything up to forty-eight hours before they had even a partial diagnosis and seven days before a definitive diagnosis. She didn’t want to wait that long.

      She knew that would cause problems with Sawyer. He would want to wait—to be sure before they inflicted a vaccine with known side-effects on people who might not be at risk. But she’d already had that conversation with her boss, Evan Hunter. He’d told her to make the decision on the best information available. And she had.

      She wrinkled her nose, trying to picture the relationship between the man she’d just met and Callum Ferguson, a doctor for whom she had the utmost respect. How on earth had these two ever gotten along? It just didn’t seem feasible.

      She knew that Sawyer had lost his pregnant wife on a mission. That must have been devastating. But to walk away from his life and his career? Why would anyone do that? Had he been grief stricken? Had he been depressed?

      And more to the point, how was he now? Was he reliable enough to trust his judgment on how best to proceed? Because right now what she really needed was partner in crime, not an outright enemy.

      If only Callum were here. He knew how to handle Sawyer. She wouldn’t have needed to have dealt with any of this.

      Her fingers fell to her leg—to her scar. It had started to itch. Just as it always did when she was under stress. She took a deep breath.

      She’d made a decision. Now it was time to face the fallout.

      “Are you crazy?”

      “No. I’m not crazy. I’ve already spoke to my boss at the DPA. Funnily enough, he didn’t want you sitting in on that conference call. It seems your reputation has preceded you.”

      “I don’t care about my reputation—”

      “Obviously.”

      “I care about these staff.”

      He spun around as the crates were wheeled into the treatment room and the vaccine started to be unloaded. One of the contact tracers came up and mumbled in her ear, “We’re going to start with a limited number of people affected. The kids, their parents, Dr. Sawyer, yourself and these other four members of staff who’ve had limited contact.”

      “What about Alison?”

      The contact tracer hesitated, looking from one to the other. “That’s not my decision,” he said as he spun away.

      Callie swallowed. She could do with something cool to drink, her throat was dry and scratchy. “Alison will have to make her own decision on the vaccine. There isn’t enough data for us to give her reliable information.”

      She saw the look on his face. He looked haunted. As if he’d just seen a ghost from the past. Was this what had happened to his wife? Had she been exposed to something that couldn’t be treated because of her pregnancy? This might all be too close to home for Matt Sawyer.

      “Okay.” He ran his fingers through his hair. It hadn’t got any better now it had been released from the cap. In fact, it seemed to have grown even longer. “Do me a favor?”

      She lifted her head from the clipboard she was scribbling on. “What?”

      “Let me be the one to talk to Alison about it. If there hasn’t been any more research in the last six years, then I’m as up to date as you are.”

      She took a deep breath. She didn’t know this guy well enough to know how he would handle this. He was obviously worried about his colleague. But was that all? And would his past experience affect his professional judgment?

      “You can’t recommend it one way or the other, you understand that, don’t you?”

      She could tell he wanted to snap at her. To tell her where to go. But something made him bite his tongue. “I can be impartial. I’ll give her all the facts and let her make her own decision. It will come better from someone she knows.”

      Callie nodded. He was right. The smallpox vaccine came with a whole host of issues. She was already questioning some of the decisions that she’d made.

      Alison was at the end of the corridor in a room on her own, partly for her own protection and partly for the protection of others. She’d been in direct contact with the disease—without any mask to limit the spread of the infection. In theory, because she hadn’t had prolonged exposure in a confined space, she should be at low risk. But she’d also been exposed to—and had touched—the erupting spots. The most infectious element of the disease. Pregnant or not, she had to be assessed as being at risk. “You know I have to do this, right?”

      He was glaring at her, his head shaking almost imperceptibly—as if it was an involuntary act.

      “We have the three major diagnostic criteria for smallpox. This is a high-risk category. Those parents look sick already. They’re probably in the prodromal stage of the disease.”

      The implication in the air was there, hanging between them. If they waited, it could result in more casualties and the DPA being slaughtered by the media for wasting time. That was the last thing anyone wanted.

      “Callie? We have a problem.”

      Both heads turned to the DPA contact tracer standing at the door. “What is it, Hugo?”

      She stepped forward and took the clipboard from his hand.

      “It’s the parents. They can’t say for sure if the rash came out during or after the plane trip home.”

      “You’re joking, right?” Callie felt the hackles rise on the back of her neck. This was one of the most crucial pieces of information they needed. Once the rash was out, the person was infectious. This was the difference between three hundred passengers on a plane being at risk or not.

      Hugo looked pale. “Mrs. Keating is sure they didn’t have a rash before they got on the plane. And she’s almost sure they didn’t have it on the plane, because the kids slept most of the journey. They went straight home and put the kids to bed—she didn’t even get them changed. It wasn’t until the next day she noticed the rash, but it could have been there on the plane.”

      Callie cringed, as Sawyer read her mind. “Prodromal stage. Did they sleep because they were developing the disease or did they sleep because it was a long flight?” He put a hand on Hugo’s shoulder. “You have to establish if she noticed either of the kids having a fever during the journey.” He paused, then added, “And make sure they didn’t change planes anywhere.” Sawyer rolled his eyes to the ceiling, “Or our contact tracing will become a nightmare.”

      Hugo

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