The Judas Strain (Sigma Force 4)

He groaned.

The radio at his side chirped. Monk freed it and brought it to his lips. "What is it?" he said.

"Meet me in the room," Jessie said. "I'm heading down there now."

The two of them had found an empty cabin to share and made it their base of operations.

"What's up?"

"I just heard. The ship's captain expects to reach some port today. They're spiking the engines to reach it before nightfall. Word from the weather band is that a storm cell, moving through the Indonesian islands, is escalating toward typhoon status. So they have to go to port."

"Meet you down at the room," Monk said, signing off.

Hooking the radio to his belt, Monk closed his eyes. Maybe this was their first bit of luck. He calculated in his head, while reflexively mouthing the words to "Take a Chance on Me" by ABBA.

It was a pretty good song.

1:02 p.m.

Lisa stared down at her patient. The woman was dressed in a blue hospital gown, wired and tubed to all manner of monitoring equipment. A pair of orderlies waited in the other room.

Lisa had asked for a moment of privacy.

She stood beside the bed, fighting a thread of guilt.

Lisa knew the patient's statistics by heart: Caucasian female, five-foot-four, no pounds, blond hair, blue eyes, an appendectomy scar on her left side. Radiographs had revealed an old healed break to her left forearm. The Guild's biographical background check even revealed the cause of the break: from a youthful accident between a skateboard and a broken curb.

Lisa had memorized the woman's blood-test results: liver enzymes, BUN, creatinine, bile acids, cell blood counts. She knew her latest urinalysis and fecal culture results.

To one side stood an instrument tray neatly arranged with examination tools: otoscope, ophthalmoscope, stethoscope, endoscope. She had used them all this morning. On a neighboring nightstand, the previous night's EKG and EEG printouts lay accordion-folded. She had examined every inch of strip. Over the past day, she had read through all the medical history of the patient and much of the findings by the Guild's virologists and bacteriologists.

The patient was not in a coma. The more accurate status of the patient was catatonic stupor. She displayed marked cerea flexibilitis, or waxy flexibility. Move a limb and it would stay in that position, like a mannequin. Even painful positions ... as Lisa had tested there herself.

By this time Lisa knew everything about the woman's body.

Exhausted, she took a moment to better examine the patient.

Not with tools, not with tests, but with empathy.

To see the woman behind the test results.

Dr. Susan Tunis had been a well-regarded researcher, on her way to a successful career. She had even found the man of her dreams. And except for being married for five years, the woman's life paralleled Lisa's. Her fate now was a reminder of the fragility of our lives, our expectations, our hopes and dreams.

Lisa reached out with gloved fingers and squeezed the woman's hand as it lay atop the thin bedsheet.

No reaction.

Out in the other room, the orderlies stirred as the suite's cabin door opened. Lisa heard Dr. Devesh Patanjali's voice. The head of the Guild's science team pushed into the room.

Lisa released Susan's hand.

She turned as Devesh entered the room. His ever-present shadow, Surina, slipped to a chair in the outer room and sat, hands neatly folded on her lap. The perfect companion . . . perfectly deadly.

Devesh leaned his cane beside the door and joined her. "I see you've been getting well acquainted with our Patient Zero this morning."

Lisa simply folded her arms. This was the first time Devesh had spoken to her in any significant regard, leaving her to her study. He had been spending more time with Henri in the toxicology lab and Miller in the infectious-disease lab. Lisa had even been taking her meals alone in her room or here in the suite.

"Now that you've gained a complete picture of my prize patient, what can you tell me about her?"

Though the man smiled, Lisa sensed the threat behind his words.

She remembered Lindholm's cold murder. All to teach a lesson: be useful. Devesh expected results from her, insights that had escaped all the other researchers. She also sensed that the time left alone with the patient was intended to isolate her from any preconceived bias.

Devesh wanted her unique take on the situation.

Still, she remembered his early words about the virus, what it was doing inside the woman. It's incubating.

Lisa crossed to the patient and exposed the length of her forearm. From the medical reports, boils and bloody rashes had once coated her limbs. But presently, her skin was clear of any blemish. It seemed the virus was more than incubating inside her.

"The Judas Strain is healing her," Lisa said, knowing it was a test. "Or more precisely, the virus suddenly decided to reverse what it had started doing to her bacteria. For some unknown reason, it has begun reverting the deadly bacteria in her body back to their original benign state."

He nodded. "It's flushing out the very plasmids it had once put into the bacteria. But why?"

Lisa shook her head. She didn't know. Not for sure.

Devesh smiled, a strangely warm and companionable expression. "It's stumped us, too."

"But I have a hypothesis," Lisa said.

"Truly?" His voice rang with a note of surprise.

Lisa faced him. "She's healing bodily, but it made me wonder why she remains in a catatonic state. Such stupor only arises from head trauma, cerebrovascular disease, metabolic disease, drug reactions, or encephalitis."

She stressed the last cause.

Encephalitis.

Inflammation of the brain.

"I noted one test conspicuously absent from all the reports," she said. "A spinal tap along with a test of cerebrospinal fluid. It was missing. I'm assuming it was performed, to examine the fluids around her brain."

Navir nodded. "Bahut sahi. Very good. It was tested."

"And you found the Judas Strain in the fluid."

Another nod.

"You said the virus only infects bacteria, turning each into a new nasty bug, and that the virus cannot invade human cells directly. But that doesn't mean the virus can't float around in the brain's fluid. That's what you meant by incubation. The virus is inside her head."

He sighed his agreement. "That does seem to be where it wants to get."

"So it's not just this one patient."

"No, eventually it's all of the victims ... at least those that survive the initial bacterial attack."

He waved her to a corner of the room, where a computer station had been set up. He began clicking through various computer screens.