No Immunity

project with government funding and he had to bring some of the specimens up here. He used to tell me about the park. It sounded so perfect for the boys.”
    “When was the last time you were there?”
    “Never. I just heard. Why?”
    “Because, Louisa, the park is downwind of the naval testing facility. They shoot viruses and bacteria into the air to see if they can identify them.”
    She gasped. “Microbes? In the air?” Her foot came off the gas pedal; the car coughed; she fumbled with the gearshift and barely downshifted before the engine stalled. “It used to be a park. That’s what my professor said. It was wonderful. And now it’s what—poison?” She was shaking her head. “Oh, God, you can’t be right.”
    “I am.“
    “Oh, no. Is that where the boys got infected?”
    Kiernan nodded.
    Louisa was still shaking her head. She turned to Kiernan, beseeching. “I thought... I thought it would be nice for them. I sent them there, and now they’re... dying.” As she swiped at her damp cheek, she scraped the scar beside her eye and gasped. “I was only trying to do something nice for them. You understand, don’t you?” Kiernan could have nodded and let her off the hook. She didn’t. She knew this type of woman who needed to be liked and who used her charm as means of entree. Without that acceptance she would be helpless, and desperate. Louisa Larson would have to work for approval this time. First off, she’d have to answer questions. “The woman who’s caring for the boys was sweating, feverish. Was that how it started with the boys?”
    “I think so. By the time the neighbors called me they were too weak to stand. They were having trouble swallowing. If they’d gotten to me earlier—”
    “That was the fourth or fifth day?”
    She hesitated. “Could be.”
    “How long have they been symptomatic by now?” Kiernan prodded. “A week, ten days?”
    “Maybe a week. I don’t know. Eight or nine days.”
    In eight or nine days Lassa patients were dead. Let her be right about her treatment.
    Louisa pulled the wheel hard, taking the BMW into a curve, and let the wheel slide back in the loop of her fingers and thumb. The familiar movements of driving seemed to pull her out of her shock.
    She had to keep Louisa on edge. “The woman is dead. The boys were exposed at the same time—”
    “No! Not necessarily. When Grady called that night— he wanted me to check on the boys—he told me he had car trouble. He found a sheltered spot, a sort of lean-to, he said. And for a couple of hours he fiddled with the engine before he finally gave up and limped the car to the gas station. He said the boys watched him, but he left them picnicking when he made the run to the mechanic.”
    “And the woman?”
    “Of course Grady didn’t mention her to me. But she could have been picnicking or exploring the whole time. How would I know?” She shot a glance at Kiernan. Checking for her reaction, Kiernan noted. Purposely she showed none.
    “A week ago it was still hot here,” Louisa hurried on. “In a desert like this it’s summer for a long, long time, and then one day you wake up and it’s winter. No fall, no warning.”
    Faye at the Doll’s House had said the woman was already annoyed. Not the state of mind to spend hours handing Grady a wench or a rag. Not when she could wander through southwest Nevada’s botanical wonder— and never guess she was breathing in toxic particles. Did the boys get a smaller dose? Did they have a natural immunity? Or were they the first victims of person-to-person transmission from the index case?
    It wasn’t my fault! Louisa had insisted with each answer. Trust me! Think well of me! But that Kiernan could not do.
    The only reason Louisa would have a specific drug would be because she knew what virus or viruses she was dealing with. And the only way Grady Hummacher could have gotten into the tropical park behind the guarded gate of the Naval Proving Grounds would have been if he’d had a pass.... If the woman who’d told him about the park had also given him her pass.
    She turned and looked out the back window, squinting into the distance. The narrow line of road marked the rise and fall of hills going back and back till it became indistinguishable from the high desert on either side. There was no car, no person in sight.
    Of course Fox wasn’t following so close. He didn’t have to. He could count on Louisa.

CHAPTER 50

    Kiernan sat with her feet braced against