blood in the freezer over the right wing. c'mon! gut it! we're late. the private grunts and pushes the dolly slowly up the ramp. izzy lends a hand, and the two of them run it up the ramp. mike gillespie, dressed in a uniform, climbs down from the cockpit. now we see his rank: colonel.
his wife.  she's due tomorrow. i put him on leave.
i will.
he said he'd get a guy to fill in.
what does he want? the driver pulls two suitcases out of the jeep and follows ford into the plane.
the guy wouldn't know a virus from a barbie doll. i'm not lookin' after him. he's yours.
all of a sudden, playing golf and pushin' papers isn't good enough. damn, when i'm his age, that's all i'm gonna want to do. gillespie flips a coin, covers it over his wrist.
heads. no! tails.
fuck! gillespie grabs the phone to the cockpit.
wait! mike follows his eyes out to the --
you're not the football player from west point, that salt?
i thought you had the heisman sewed up 'til you hurt your knee.
don't call me sir. the only one who does that is the colonel here. everyone else calls me izzy.
my mother calls me isaac, but i hate it. i pitched for my high school team. my dad thought i was gonna be another dizzy dean. so he called me 'izzy.'
-- just say 'yes, sir,' captain. whatever the colonel asks, you just say 'yes, sir.' that's how we keep him under control.
he means chocolate pudding. salt smiles slowly. he likes izzy. the wheels come up with a thump. the giant jet shakes and rattles and soars into the air. shock cut to:
with a respirator. positive pressure's what you want. keep those buggers out. izzy flips the switch on ford's respirator, which sucks air out of the atmosphere, filters it, and pumps it into the suit. ford starts to swell up like the pillsbury doughboy.
how did he get it?
admit it, for chrissakes: the dogs will get better care with her than they got with you.
you think cause we're friends i should ignore reality.
you were gone so often that when you were home.  you spoiled 'em. robby keeps an even keel.
don't think i haven't thought about it.
two. i never married sherry. i liked her too much.  izzy pulls a red air hose down from the ceiling and in- flates his space suit before he puts it on; this is stan- dard safety procedure. mike steps right into his suit.
what are you doing?
you forgot to test your suit. look! it's torn. there is a small tear on the left leg of gillespie's suit.
if i let you die, who've i got to rag on? fade up the sound of furiously rushing air, then: cut to:
our research papers.
and you wouldn't have to worry about anybody publishing the same thing cause there ain't nobody else crazy enough to work with this dangerous a virus. salt hesitates, then beams.
like it? listen to the way it rolls off your tongue. mo-ta-ba. like a perfume.
one drop and you feel.  so different.  your lover will never recognize you again. have some, captain.
good hands.  that's important for working with level 4 viruses. salt, trembling, notes that the vial is made of plastic.
so far.
captain, sergeant owigatsuyama here not only looks after everything in this lab, but since he knows the birthday of every great tenor and soprano who ever lived, dr. gillespie looks to him for supreme guidance on all matters.
excellent. but nobody's asking you to work a hundred and fifty hours a week.
welcome aboard, captain. cut to:
every sample of motaba gone.  where the fuck did he put it? owi looks contrite.
there's our guy, mr. motaba.
hey, don't pressure the kid! it took the nih guys eight months to get the kinks outa the aids test.  and they didn't have to put up with your nagging. smash cut to:
this bug definitely ate its wheaties.
it survives in air for twelve hours, and it survives in water for two hours.
hey, this little bugger's so hardy it can read the whole sunday ny times and not die, it can run the hundred in nine flat, and it can kill fish faster than my cat. voila! a fish tank with a dozen dead fish floating on top.
no test species has survived, even when i've treated them with all antivirals, including every damn antiserum. what's even worse is there's a latency phase. iwabi didn't see this in zaire, i don't know why, but some of the animals i've tested had the infection a long time before they showed any symptoms. they even tested negative but had the disease. if this is true of humans.  why we could have it ourselves and not know it.
exactly.
c'mon, for chrissakes. salt shifts to another field, looks at it long and hard. pulls his head back: hopelessness in his eyes. cut to:
if the c.d.c. asked us to help, why did you have to call the defense secretary? why didn't general ford make the call? gillespie shifts uncomfortably. salt realizes he's in trouble.
you bet your ass, captain. colonel gillespie has taken it upon himself to circumvent the entire chain of command. the plane bounces in the turbulence. salt turns to gillespie.
that only means they'll hang you first.
hitler's girl friend used to say the same thing. ford stands in the back of the room, disinterested, as if he knows already the brown rhesus is going to lead nowhere. robby peers into the rhesus's cage.
not motaba. we tried it.
positive. he takes another tube of blood from a different patient. looks under the scope.
positive.
the whole fucking town's infected. a sense of despair.
double check it! triple check it. cut to:
how can this be? doctor mascelli can't be negative. i know he's got it. something's wrong. cut to:
no! robby grabs the cord and re-inserts it into izzy's suit; the rush of air quickly fills the suit, but --
i know. i'm fine. silence.
-- i'm fine.
then there's no hope.
it doesn't work on people. it shouldn't work on simians either.
it still shouldn't work. this korean filo4 doesn't cross-react with the motaba virus. we checked!
i need some air. he takes a step, then starts seizing, his whole body shaking in one convulsive wave after the next. gillespie, robby and wally rush over.
now i'm only as smart as you. gillespie grins. berman tries to smile. his lip twitches.  uncontrolla- bly. his whole body seizes.
it's okay, 'cause from now on you can call me hurricane.
good, 'cause i'm giving you a new name, too. guess what it is? izzy's lips go dusky, his breathing only short gasps.
guess. gillespie's voice breaks: