CHAPTER 30

Platt’s vision was blurred. He tried to keep focused. If the clock on the wall was correct, it was just after one o’clock in the morning.

“I’m not a scientist, Ben,” Captain Ganz said as he rubbed his eyes, stood, and stretched behind his desk. “You tell me this bacteria is causing an infection but you don’t know where the bacteria is coming from. I can assure you these soldiers did not contract it from pregnant women.”

“No, you’re missing my point.” Platt slowed himself down. They were both exhausted. He leaned against the wall, but he wanted to pace. “Clostridium sordellii is a rare bacterium. Most of the fatal cases that I know of have been associated with gynecologic infections following a live birth or an abortion. But I’ve checked. There have been other fatal cases that have nothing to do with childbirth.”

“Such as?”

Platt suppressed a yawn. He wouldn’t tell Ganz that he had talked to Bix at the CDC, but he could share Bix’s information. “There was a case in Minnesota. A routine knee surgery using donated tissue.”

Ganz shook his head. “Our donors are screened and so is the tissue.”

“You screen for HIV, hepatitis B and C, and probably other blood-borne viruses. But what about bacterial diseases?”

Ganz felt behind him for his chair and dropped into it. “Even so, only a handful of these patients have received donor tissue.”

“But all of them probably received some form of bone transplant.”

“No, that’s not true.”

“The bone paste? The cement?”

“Wait a minute. Just because you found this bacteria in one patient doesn’t mean it’s in the others.”

Platt pulled out of his shirt pocket a crumpled piece of paper where he had jotted down a few notes from his online search. “Does this sound familiar? Two to seven days after a surgical procedure or childbirth the patient complains of severe abdominal pain along with nausea and vomiting but no fever, no hypertension. When the symptoms finally show up, sepsis has already set in. The patient goes into toxic shock. About 70 to 80 percent of patients die within two to six days of developing the infection.”

Ganz continued to shake his head. “Does this infection spread from person to person?”

“It’s not quite known how or if it’s spread from person to person or from the environment to a person. But I’ll give you my best logical guess as to what might have happened in this case.”

Platt waited for the captain’s attention.

“Of course. Go ahead.”

Platt sat down so they would be at eye level. He kept from crossing his arms or legs. He restrained from fidgeting and folded his hands together so he wouldn’t be tapping his fingers on the table.

“Just suppose for a minute that a donor’s body—for whatever reason—wasn’t discovered and refrigerated or properly processed within twelve hours.”

“Eighteen hours.”

“Excuse me?”

“Eighteen hours is the time limit. Our regulations say over eighteen hours is not usable.”

“Okay, eighteen. Once the blood flow stops, you know as well as I do that decomposition starts. Depending on the conditions, it can start almost immediately. My guess is that this bacterium didn’t come from contaminated tools used to process the tissue or even during surgery. I believe the bacterium came from the donor’s body after death when the body started decomposing. And when that donor’s tissue and bone was used to make bone screws and anchors and paste, the bacteria simply got ground up and divided. As soon as it was placed back inside a warm human body, it did what bacteria loves to do—it grew and it spread by way of infection.”

Silence. Ganz stared at him. Platt realized it was a lot to sort through, but he never would have predicted what the captain said next.

“I appreciate your opinion and that you came all this way on such short notice. It’s obvious that you could use some rest.”

Ganz stood again, and this time Platt stared up at him. Was it possible the captain was dismissing him? Dismissing his theory?

“I’ll call my driver for you.”

And with that, Captain Ganz walked out of the room, leaving Platt dumbfounded. He wasn’t just dismissing his theory, he was sending Platt home.