The Games (Private #11)(52)

Tavia said, “For all we know, Doctor, she visited a favela and came in contact with someone carrying the virus.”

Dr. Cardoso said, “In that scenario, at least two people have been exposed to Hydra in Rio in the past few days.”

“Yes, if your victim contracted Hydra from another human,” Castro said as we reentered the pathology department. “But, you see, that’s been the mystery with the disease right from the start. Where did it originate? Some filthy backwater of the Amazon? From a tick on a rat or a monkey? Or in bird shit? And how does it travel now? Airborne? Blood to blood?”

“Level with me, Doc,” General da Silva said. “How contagious is it?”

“We don’t know,” Castro said. “The first outbreak in the jungle was controllable, occurring in a place where it could be surrounded and burned out. But the last time, do you remember? During the World Cup?”

“We were with Henri Dijon when he collapsed,” I said.

Dr. Castro seemed impressed, said, “You’re both lucky to be alive. Did you have symptoms?”

“No.”

“Interesting. Strong constitutions. Extraordinary immune systems.”

Tavia said, “I’m puzzled. Why weren’t you brought in to help us two years ago, Doctor? You’d diagnosed the earlier cases. You were the only one who’d ever seen it firsthand.”

The doctor’s face clouded. “This is what happens when politics control science, Ms. Reynaldo. Because I challenged an idiot who worked for the mayor, because I argued for a quarantine of the favela where the children were infected, I was persona non grata.

“This is Brazil; once I’d been pushed aside, there was no way for the politicians to let me back in without admitting they’d been wrong. That would have humiliated them. Your lives were put at risk so that would not happen.”

I thought back two years, seeing a dimension to the day of the World Cup final that I’d been blind to before. Rather than bringing in the expert, in order to save face, the politicians had left the decisions up to doctors with no experience of the disease. It worked out for Tavia and me, and I was grateful, but what had happened to Castro was unjust and reckless.

Cardoso turned on the screen again, showed the two different cells.

Cradling his elbow, tapping his lips, and transfixed by the images, Dr. Castro moved closer, whispered, “Nine heads.”

“What does that mean?” General da Silva asked.

Castro didn’t answer, but his face grew graver by the moment.

“Doctor?”

“I can’t be sure,” he said at last. “But I would think it means the virus that produces the nine heads, Hydra-9, if you will, is more deadly and contagious than Hydra-6, which was more deadly and contagious than Hydra-4.”

“Is that true?” I asked. “The more heads on the cells, the deadlier the virus?”

“Without further examination of someone who’s contracted this mutation of the disease, I can’t say for sure, Mr. Morgan,” Castro said. “But it follows, doesn’t it?”

General da Silva chewed on that before saying, “As a precaution, how do we treat something like this?”

The doctor’s cutting side returned. “You don’t, General. Why? Because my requests for grants to create a vaccine or an antiviral for it were denied repeatedly by the Cruz Institute and the government.”

There was silence in the pathology department until da Silva said, “Give me best-case and worst-case scenarios.”

Castro studied the images again, said, “You might have one or two victims and no more. Like the last time. That’s best-case. Worst-case, Hydra-9 is highly communicable and already spreading and you face a public-health crisis of monumental proportions.”





Chapter 60



“JESUS CHRIST,” DA SILVA said. “Riots and a deadly virus outbreak. It’s over. The Rio games are done.”

“Not yet,” I said. “Luna Santos died days ago and there hasn’t been another case since. Is that how it works, Dr. Castro? The outbreak, I mean? Hydra comes on in spates of activity and then, as mysteriously as it surfaces, it goes into hiding and mutates to more deadly strains?”

Castro pondered that. “The Amazon outbreak was swift, from the original case to more than thirty in less than four days. During the World Cup, there were two deaths within moments of each other and then a third the following day.”

“And after that nothing, in both cases,” da Silva said, perking up. “So, given the virus’s behavior before and the fact that it’s been days since we found Santos, could we already be beyond the life cycle of the virus? Catastrophe averted?”

Castro hesitated and then said, “I see where you’re going, but I can’t say the outbreak is over for certain. Although I would call the growing amount of time since the initial case a very positive sign.”

Da Silva beamed. “I can tell the president your opinion?”

“You can,” Castro said, bowing his head. “You’ll call me if there are other cases that flare up?”

“You’ll be the first person we call, Doc,” the general promised.

We all shook hands with the virologist and walked away with his phone number. Da Silva was on his cell already, returning his focus to favela pacification. In front of the hospital, a police officer on horseback was herding along a crowd of poor people seeking medical attention.