there are television cameras in every
She had not known this two hours ago, when she had phoned Stanley Oxenford, chairman and majority shareholder in Oxenford Medical.
She had been dreading the call. She had to give him the worst possible news, and take the blame. She steeled herself for his disappointment, indignation, or perhaps rage.
He had said, "Are you all right?"
She almost cried. She had not anticipated that his first thought would be for her welfare. She did not deserve such kindness. "I’m fine," she said. "We all put on bunny suits before we went into the house."
"But you must be exhausted."
"I snatched an hour’s sleep at around five."
"Good," Stanley said, and briskly moved on. "I know Michael Ross. Quiet chap, about thirty, been with us for a few years—an experienced technician. How the hell did this happen?"
"I found a dead rabbit in his garden shed. I think he brought home a laboratory animal and it bit him."
"I doubt it," Stanley said crisply. "More likely he cut himself with a contaminated knife. Even experienced people may get careless. The rabbit is probably a normal pet that starved after Michael fell ill."
Toni wished she could pretend to believe that, but she had to give her boss the facts. "The rabbit was in an improvised biosafety cabinet," she argued.
"I still doubt it. Michael can’t have been working alone, in BSL4. 1 ven if his buddy wasn’t looking, there are television cameras in every room—he couldn’t have stolen a rabbit without being seen on the monitors. I hen he had to pass several security guards on the way out—they would have noticed if he were carrying a rabbit. Finally, the scientists working in the lab the following morning would have realized immediately that an animal was missing. They might not be able to tell the difference between one rabbit and another, but they certainly know how many there are in the experiment."
Early though it was, his brain had fired up like the VI2 engine in his Ferrari, Toni thought. But he was wrong. "I put all those security barriers in place," she said. "And I’m telling you that no system is perfect."
"You’re right, of course." If you gave him good arguments, he could back down alarmingly fast. "I presume we have video footage of the last time Michael was in BSL4?"
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