“I’ve seen this look before. Give him a few minutes, then he’ll be ready to share the plan with us,” Alik smiled proudly at his little brother and waited.
The more time Creed spent with the two Winter brothers, the more he liked them. It felt so good to know he was on the right team now, though it may only last a few more hours if Farrow has her way. There would be no reason for her to hesitate pulling the trigger the moment she saw his face. There was nothing Williams would want from a disobedient soldier who had betrayed his trust.
Well, he thought to himself, if I’m going to die, at least I’ll die with honor fighting beside honorable men.
47 From Illness to Antigen
“Malaria?” Theo asked, sure he had misheard Dr. St. Paul.
“Yes. Genus, Plasmodium. Species, still unknown.” Paulie was staring in to his high-powered microscope at the thin smear he made an hour before. There were definitely parasites there.
“He had her shot with malaria?” Margo was stunned.
“Evidently.” Paulie whispered.
“But Malaria takes weeks to incubate before the infected person shows symptoms. Meg was hit with this dart and dropped to the floor immediately.” Theo hurried to the computer to look up malaria’s signs, symptoms and treatments.
“Consider the source, Theo. Williams must have created an unbelievably potent strain of parasites. It’s also possible he had this dart tipped with a cocktail of toxins, one of which knocked her out immediately and/or weakened her immune system. ”
“Oh, dear God,” Margo moaned. “How did we not see the parasites before? We’ve been studying her blood for days now!”
“The parasites are most evident when the sample is taken during the infected patient’s highest fever.” Theo summarized from the article he was reading. “We studied the sample we took when she first fell ill. There must not have been enough parasites for us to detect yet, however super-mutated Williams made them to grow and spread. We didn’t see them because they weren’t there yet.” Theo was trying to maintain his cool, but he was angry.
“Yes, this smear I’m looking at was taken right before she crashed. Her fever was up then.” Paulie said.
“She has been sick for four days now. How effective will any known antigen for malaria be four days into the illness?” Margo asked.
“Ordinarily, I would say she was still within the window of successful treatment, but these aren’t ordinary parasites. I really don’t know how effective the standard treatments are going to be on her. We probably need to prepare ourselves for the very real possibility that we’re going to have to create a unique antigen to fight these unique parasites.” Paulie just said aloud what the others in the room were thinking. “To make matters worse, Meg doesn’t have a lot of time for us to play scientists with trial and error.”
“I know, I know…Paulie! You’re not saying anything I haven’t already thought of!” Margo was holding her head in her hands, so scared for her little girl.
Margo’s short-lived outburst didn’t faze the old scientist one bit. He didn’t even look away from the microscope as he added, “Not to beat a dead horse, but on a side note, we all need to be treated against this strain of malaria, too. It’s highly contagious, and we’ve all been working directly with Meg’s contaminated blood.”
Margo’s face was still buried in her hands as she sighed and said, “Now that I hadn’t thought of, Paulie. Crap.”
Having stayed quiet for as long as he could stomach, Theo couldn’t hold his tongue anymore. “I want to wring the life out of that wicked, depraved, immoral, poor excuse for a man! How dare he attack that innocent child! She’s done nothing to deserve his evil! I am a God-fearing man, but this is too much! I want his head on a platter!” Theo couldn’t contain his rage.
Margo looked up at her usually mild-mannered, sweet Theo and felt three things:
1) Pride in his protective nature for this little girl who wasn’t even his own blood.
2) Guilt for dragging him into her fight against Williams.
3) Love for his kindheartedness, loyalty, gentility, sense of right and wrong and unwavering determination to see good prevail against all odds.
In that instant, Margo decided she wanted to marry that sweet lug of a man, and she smiled to herself at the realization.
Not having been a part of Margo’s amorous thoughts or epiphany, Theo was still seething and muttering under his breath.
“Theo, would you please go to the kitchen and make a fresh pot of coffee for us? We’re going to need it.” She reached out and touched his arm affectionately.
“Coffee. Yeah, right,” Theo breathed through clenched teeth understanding Margo was trying to help him calm down by giving him a menial task outside the lab. The stress was getting to all of them.
Deep in thought, he didn’t even notice his son sitting at the kitchen table until Cole spoke. “What’s the latest?”