other side the winner?
“Jane?”
She glanced over her shoulder at Meredith. There was something different in her boss and old friend’s eyes. Something Jane wasn’t sure she wanted to recognize.
“Be careful.”
Jane walked out the door. She planned to be more than careful. She planned to come back to Atlanta with a major success behind her.
“I will.”
Chapter 2
Jane sank deeper into her office chair and tried to organize her thoughts. If she was going to survive and save lives she needed a plan.
The images from the slides still flickered through her mind. Along with some nasty images from a death she’d viewed earlier in the year of a man who’d been infected with a similar virus. The man had been on an extreme vacation with his college buddies and had sustained a jagged cut on his hand while mountain climbing. He’d fallen while they’d been trekking down the mountain and wiped his hand on a leaf that had contained the microscopic bug. The bug had entered his bloodstream and seventy-two hours later he’d died.
In her mind’s eye, though, instead of the hiker, she saw her dad’s face. She shivered and forced the image from her head, focusing instead on what she knew. Her dad was infected with a lethal virus. This was her chance to save him. Her chance to do the one thing she’d always vowed she wouldn’t do—go after him.
He’d been leaving her most of her life. He’d left her with her mother when Mary Miller had still been alive. Then he’d left her with her grandparents—his parents—after her mom had died. Mary had died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. As a ten year old, Jane had blamed the Amazon for her mother’s death. She’d only cried once. When Rob Miller had warned her that crying solved nothing and was the weakest of the female traits, she’d worked hard never to cry again. And she’d vowed that, if he ever needed her, she wouldn’t be there.
Hell, she’d been a kid and a petty one at that. Her heart wouldn’t let her stick to that vow. Her dad needed her, and she was going.
She didn’t want to think about him being sick. He’d always been a big bear of a man. A huge guy who was unstoppable. Even the scandal with the CDC couldn’t keep him down. He’d dropped out of sight for a year, but then he’d shown up in South America, where he’d been living with the Yura tribe.
She rubbed the back of her neck. Peru. Damn. She really hated South America. She didn’t like the heat and it would be damned hot in April, and wet. The humidity would feel like a living blanket. She didn’t like the men, who were macho in the extreme and seemed to think that every woman who walked the street was in need of one of them to watch over her…to protect her.
She knew how to survive in the jungle. Had spent the first ten years of her life living with hunter-gatherer tribes. Her mother had been an anthropologist. And the truth of the matter was she was used to hot, humid weather. She lived in the South.
The real reason she didn’t like South America was it held too many memories of things that weren’t anymore. Things and people who’d left her life. She wasn’t ready to add her father’s name to the list.
For backup this trip, she’d contacted a group of independent virologists—Rebel Virology. Jane had worked with the group before. They were all well-respected but independent virologists who couldn’t stand bureaucracy and now worked for themselves. She opened an e-mail from them and scanned it quickly. Upon arriving in Peru, she should look for either Maria Cortez or Mac Coleman.
She hoped her partner would be Maria, whom she’d worked with years ago at the CDC. Maria was smart and funny and Jane got along well with her.
She hadn’t met Mac Coleman, but he had a reputation for being a maverick. In fact, he’d founded Rebel Virology. He’d worked with the World Health Organization and had been on his way to the top of his career, but had left for bureaucratic reasons. And scientists who were tired of working within the government structure had applauded him. But a few years later, in Southeast Asia, he’d had a fiasco that had led to the deaths of twenty-five people. She’d heard that he’d rushed to treatment and lost lives.
Jane rubbed the back of her neck. There were no details on the incident. She knew mistakes were made by both virologists and governments and she wasn’t judging him.
She checked the laminated maps she’d stopped at Kinkos to make on her way home. The jungle wasn’t kind to paper. She had a compass, a Blackberry phone with GPS unit that would work even in the depths of the jungle and two backups. She had a lethal hunting blade that her grandfather had given her. He’d been a Marine and had reinforced to Jane every summer when she saw him to always be prepared.
She packed rice, rice cakes and her favorite cereal bars. She brought the tea she loved so much in a metal canister that she knew might rust if she stayed too long in the jungle. She had medicine, as well, in a separate pack, treatments for a long list of diseases.
The phone rang. She glanced at the clock. She was waiting for a call from Angie, her assistant, who was making all of the arrangements for the trip. “Dr. Miller.”
“Jane, it’s Raul Veracruz.”
Jane held the phone away from her ear. Had she conjured him up by thinking about her father? “What can I do for you?” she asked. It had been a long time since she’d heard from him. Three years, in fact. The day her father had left the CDC.
“Meredith contacted me about some research you were doing,” he said.
Maybe Raul would be interested in helping her. “I found the information I needed here in the lab while working with the samples.”
“Who sent the samples to you?” he asked.
“A virologist living with the Yura.”
“Your dad?” he asked.
She hesitated. Raul had once been Rob’s assistant and the two men had been friends. For a brief time Jane had been involved with him. But that hadn’t lasted. Like most of her personal relationships, theirs had ended because she hadn’t found him as interesting as the specimens in her lab. “Yes.”
“Jane, I talked to him already. I personally analyzed the samples he had. They were clean. No sign of any virus.”
“The ones I received were infected, Raul.”
“Who are you going to trust?” he asked.
Jane doodled on her blotter and changed the topic. “What are you doing now? You’re not with the CDC anymore.”
“That’s right. I’m working for Thompson-Marks Pharmaceutical.”
“Research and development?”
“Yes. I like it. It’s challenging and it pays well. Why don’t you come and join me in their labs?”
“No, thanks. I like where I am.”
“There’s a lot more freedom to work on the projects that are important.”
“And the CDC doesn’t?”
“You know what I mean,”
