“The shoes Elise wore in the lake. She hopes they might yield something.”
“Good idea. By the way, how did you know the scientist’s address?”
Pitt reached into his pocket and pulled out the two FedEx forms he’d grabbed from Nakamura’s desk. The top form was addressed to Dr. Susan Montgomery. He passed them to Gunn. “Nakamura was sending the water samples to two other scientists, one at the CDC and one at a lab in the UK.”
“There are phone numbers on the forms.” Gunn glanced at a ship’s chronometer on the wall. “It’s too late in the UK. Atlanta might be home.”
Pitt dialed the number, and Dr. Montgomery answered on the second ring. Pitt spoke with her a few minutes, then hung up.
“She knows nothing about the samples Nakamura was sending. They apparently exchange samples all the time for independent testing. Most are viral cases. She was shocked to hear he died.”
“It’s unfortunate they hadn’t spoken.” Gunn looked at the second FedEx form, and his brow wrinkled. “Dr. Miles Perkins of Inverness Research Laboratory,” he read aloud.
“You know of him?”
“Not him, but the Inverness Research Lab. I ran across the name earlier today. They’re involved with biotechnology research.”
“Anything intriguing in that?”
“Not in and of itself. It’s just the coincidence of their ownership.” Gunn’s eyes narrowed as he handed the slip back to Pitt.
“Let me guess . . .” Pitt said. “An affiliate of a certain Scottish company of renown?”
Gunn nodded. “You got it. They’re a wholly owned subsidiary of one BioRem Global Limited.”
PART II
AMARNA
18
Manjeet Dhatt heard his sobbing wife even before he opened the door to their house. Entering the one-room tenement in the Dharavi slums of Mumbai, he found her seated on the floor, rocking a young child in her arms.
“What is the matter, Pratima?”
The woman looked up, tears on her cheeks. “It is the baby. He has been violently ill all day.”
Dhatt examined the child. Just under the age of two, the boy was hot and limp in his mother’s arms. His bulging eyes were dull and listless. Dhatt touched his son’s head and then pinched his arm, noting the skin felt hard and rubbery.
“We must take him to the clinic.”
The weary man, who made his living driving a tuk-tuk on the streets of Mumbai, helped his wife to her feet, taking the child in his arms. They exited their tin-roofed house and trudged down a muddy lane littered with trash and reeking of assorted foul odors. Six blocks across the dirty streets of Dharavi, they reached a small clinic. Passing through its glass doors, they were aghast to find the entrance crammed with people.
Dhatt recognized a neighbor among the throng, nearly all clutching a baby or toddler. He made his way to the small admissions counter.
“My son . . .”
“You’ll have to wait.” An elderly woman behind the counter cut him off. She waved a hand toward the waiting room. “They are all sick.”
Dhatt signed an admittance sheet, then shuffled back to his wife, who had found a spot on the floor to sit down. They waited nearly an hour before a young woman in a white coat appeared from behind the counter and began examining the patients in the waiting area. “There is no more space in the examination room,” she announced. “Just stay where you are, and I’ll come to you.”
The room had swelled to overflowing by the time she reached the Dhatts. The doctor took their son’s pulse, then called to an assistant. An intravenous solution bag was brought over, and the doctor injected a peripheral line into the boy’s arm. “Hold this up,” she instructed, passing the bag to Dhatt.
“The boy . . . Will he be all right?” Dhatt asked.
“Yes, I think so. You are lucky you brought him when you did. We will run out of medical supplies before long.”
“Is it cholera? We are careful with the water.”
The doctor nodded. “Careful does not matter in this instance. The entire city seems to be infected, even Bandra. And more lethally than usual.” She motioned her eyes toward a woman behind her in a green shawl, then quickly moved on to the next patient.
Dhatt sat with his wife on the floor, keeping the IV bag elevated. As he waited to see signs of improvement in his son, he glanced at the woman in the shawl.
She was sitting on the floor across the room, mumbling to herself, while rocking an infant in her arms. Dhatt caught a brief glimpse of the