She’d been very helpful and encouraging to Jane. The relationship had maintained that mentor-type balance until Jane had received her degree and taken a job at the CDC.
“What can I do for you, Jane?”
Honestly, she had no idea where to start. She took a deep breath. “I just had a breakthrough with the treatment I’ve been searching for on the virus my father sent. Did you get anywhere with the office in South America?”
Meredith pursed her lips. Then she swiveled her chair and stood.
“I’ve found a treatment that works in our initial testing. Tom is running a test on the treatment to see how long it is potent. The virus looks similar to Lassa fever, but it’s more dangerous and this new treatment is the only one that has worked on it.”
“Damn. Are you sure?”
Jane realized she was staking her reputation to her father’s, an action that had proven disastrous in the past for other virologists. “As positive as I can be in the lab.”
“If any other virologist sent it…”
“I know. But the fact that he did send it makes me want to take it seriously.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” Meredith asked.
If anyone else had asked, Jane would have kept her mouth shut. She would have never even mentioned Rob Miller’s name. But Meredith was the one person in the CDC, heck maybe in the world who’d understand the complications that surrounded her and her father. “One of the samples was Dad’s.”
Meredith flushed. “Is he infected?”
Jane clenched her hands in tight fists. Swallowing against her dry mouth, she said, “Yes.”
Meredith sank back down in her chair. She and Rob had been friends and maybe more ten years ago. Then when she’d been promoted, he’d left Atlanta and gone to Belgium to work on the AIDS-HIV project. Jane didn’t know what had happened between them, but watching Meredith now, she suspected there was still some connection.
“What do you want to do?” Meredith asked after a few minutes had passed.
“Call the office in South America and get them to move on this. I can send them my research and then they can…” Jane broke off. Meredith was shaking her head.
“What’s going on?”
“I’ve contacted them. They are sure that there is no danger of a hot-zone outbreak. In fact, they insisted we stop trying to tell them they had one.”
“Just ask them to visit the Yura.”
“A three-man team visited a village near the Yura—Puerto Maldonado—and conducted interviews and obtained samples. No one is infected.”
“The samples are definitely infected.”
“I know that you think they are.”
Jane looked at her boss with new eyes. “What are you saying?”
“That I can’t authorize you going down there.”
“Well, I’m going. Lives are at stake—my dad’s life is at stake. I know you have bosses and they aren’t going to like it, but I’m not sitting on this.”
Meredith closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. “I can give you a week. But you’ll need to be on a leave of absence.”
Jane had never felt so angry before, but she understood where Meredith was coming from. Discoveries like the one she’d made were worth a lot of money. Both the State Department and the Peruvian government worked very closely with each other. “I need at least ten days. It’s going to take me a few days to get everything in place.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll need equipment to take with me, and some backup.” Jane couldn’t do it on her own. It was stupid to go into the rain forest without someone at her side.
“I can’t give you anyone from the CDC. But I have some contacts in the private sector that might be able to help you.”
Meredith didn’t look happy, and Jane prayed she made it to her dad before her boss pulled the plug. There were times when working for the CDC really chafed.
Jane stood and walked to the door. Already her mind was busy with everything she needed to do. And knowing she’d have to do it alone gave her a new appreciation for her father and the work he’d done. How many times had her old man come up against this kind of corporate maneuvering and come out on the 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