Page 82 of Lethal Game

She didn’t know what the hell Con had told them, but it had worked like a charm.

As soon as the bird was in the air, Con kept dropping off into sleep. Every time she moved though, he woke up, so she was concentrating on keeping still. That, of course, made it harder and harder to do.

They were flying over Syria now and that didn’t help Sophia’s restlessness. They’d been shot at when they crossed the border, so now any time the aircraft shuddered, she tensed up, expecting the whole machine to blow up.

She normally didn’t mind flying, but this trip might give her a phobia.

To keep her overactive brain busy, she went over the list of things she had to do once they arrived.

Set up the tent for her lab.

Ensure there was a safe water supply, using purification tablets and the water filters they’d crammed into the helicopter, if necessary.

Examine the sick.

Examine the dead.

Test samples from the living and the dead to determine the pathogen causing illness and death.

Create a treatment plan and carry it out.

And somewhere in there she might have to add maintaining the peace in a camp full of hundreds of people likely to be in a state of panic.

Oh yeah, and sleep. Maybe. Hopefully.

At least they knew they weren’t dealing with anthrax. The symptoms did not match anthrax in any way.

She’d read the report of the symptoms so many times it was engraved on the inside of her eyelids.

Fever, headache, and confusion lasting six to ten hours. Progressing to generalized pain throughout the body, continued high fever accompanied by increased agitation and hallucinations, swelling of the oral mucosa with many people choking to death on their tongues. Death occurring within twenty-four hours of onset of symptoms.

The most likely cause, as far as Sophia was concerned, was viral meningitis. To confirm that diagnosis, she’d need to test cerebral spinal fluid from a recent corpse and from a living patient showing the symptoms of the illness.

Max wondered if it was meningococcal disease, caused by theNeisseria meningitidisbacteria. The symptoms certainly fit, and the situation in the refugee camp was a perfect place for meningococcal disease to run rampant, but the tests of the few samples that had been sent ahead had been negative.

That didn’t mean much though. The samples had taken too long to get to a lab and hadn’t been stored correctly.

If she was right, there was little they could do besides support the patient’s health with an IV to keep them hydrated and proper sanitation so they didn’t get sick with a secondary virus or bacteria.

If it turned out that Max was right after all, they would need massive amounts of antibiotics and the meningococcal vaccine to give everyone in the camp, sick or not. They’d still lose a lot of people, but there was a treatment.

Treatment. Something not available for her.

Now was her moment. She was finally going to be in the right place to put her skills to the best use possible. She might not be able to save herself, but she was going to save everyone else she could.

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