by Thomas Hopp
A chill ran through me despite the heat and, for a moment, I stood speechless with my skin crawling, mesmerized by the animal’s intense stare. Then I called to my companions, “Hey, look over there!”
Before McKean and Tanner could turn and look, the animal bolted away among the boulders on the cliff top.
“What’d you see?” Tanner asked, following my gaze to the now-deserted cliff.
“It was a coyote. A big one, and a weird-looking one. White faced. There was something really creepy about the way it stared at me.”
“Easy, buddy,” Tanner said. “Maybe the heat’s getting to ya.”
I described its markings.
“Odd lookin’ coyote,” Tanner remarked without much concern. “Coydog, maybe. Ain’t unheard of. Sometimes dogs and coyotes get together and the result is coydog pups. Could explain some of those DNA results.”
“Not the human component,” McKean replied.
We turned and finished our hot trudge back to the game reserve’s graveled parking lot and within minutes McKean and I were heading for Seattle in my Mustang with the air conditioner and the XM radio blasting.
Cog27
In his lab at Immune Corporation the next day, McKean ran a dozen DNA tests on his sample, working from morning until late into the night. He confirmed the presence of dog and coyote DNA, but the human component remained problematic. Just past midnight I was about to go home when McKean held up a sheet of computer printout and exclaimed, “It’s Cog27!”
“What’s Cog27?”
“The human DNA, Fin! There is just one piece of human DNA present, and within it I’ve identified a specific chromosome segment named Cognition Element Number 27, a key determinant of human intelligence.”
A tingle crept up the back of my neck. “You’re saying a piece of human intelligence DNA somehow got mixed in with coydog blood and turned up in that bloodstain? How?”
“How indeed,” McKean murmured thoughtfully. “I just might know the answer, and it’s a disturbing one. You see, Fin, I sometimes participate in grant application review committees for the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. I recall that we received a grant application a few years ago, in which a researcher proposed to splice exactly that portion of human DNA into dogs and carry out intelligence tests on them.”
“God!” I cried. “What an awful experiment!”
“We thought so too, Fin, and the committee unanimously declined to fund the project.”
“Who would propose such a thing?”
“I know who, and where, the author of that proposal is.”
By prearrangement I came to McKean’s office early the next morning. He put his desk phone on speaker and called the Braintree Institute, near the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Eastern Washington. He asked for and got Richard Selkirk, President of the Institute. Briefly explaining the murder and his DNA results, McKean requested that Selkirk receive us in his office later that day. “Under the circumstances, how can I refuse?” Selkirk replied.
We left immediately and once more I drove Highway 90 across the Cascade Mountains, emerging from the cloud cover at Snoqualmie Pass and heading down into the sun-baked desert landscape of Eastern Washington. Within two hours we arrived at the Braintree Institute, a modern laboratory building just outside the main entrance gates of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Sitting in the air-conditioned comfort of Selkirk’s spacious office, the windows of which faced out on a nuclear cooling tower not too far off across the arid landscape, McKean confronted him, face to face, with his findings regarding Cog27.
Selkirk, a slight, short, stubby man dressed in a gray suit and white shirt, sat for a long moment before speaking. “Cog27,” he began slowly and apprehensive, his eyes distant as if recalling events of some time ago. “We were looking for ways to study how radiation exposure affects an individual’s ability to perform complex tasks. We wanted an animal test as a model for situations that might occur in a nuclear waste repository spill here at Hanford. We’d already found that if we ran Border collies through mazes before and after exposing them to large radiation doses, we could measure a dose-dependent decline in their performance.”
“A cruel thing to do to dogs,” I murmured.
Selkirk looked at me unapologetically. “Would you like it better if we tested humans? Perhaps you’d like to volunteer?”
“No thanks.”
“You see,” he went on, “Border collies are awfully good at mazes and we could precisely measure decreases in their performance. When you, Peyton, and your NIH colleagues rejected our grant application, we didn’t give up on the idea. We took our proposal to the Department of Energy where such research was of great interest. DOE bought it, literally, and gave us a grant to set up mazes with different levels of complexity, all the way up to ones that baffled people sometimes, which we ran dogs through to see how their performance declined with increased radiation exposure.”
“But what of the experiments in question?” McKean insisted. “What about Cog 27?”
“Yes,” Selkirk said with the light of enthusiasm that had grown in his eyes suddenly dimming. “As good as our results were, they still gave no measure of how well an individual could perform tasks more complex than maze-running. We believed Border collies with human Cog27 in them could be subjected to tests of a more sophisticated nature, like recognizing symbols, moving and rearranging objects within a room, or carrying out multi-stepped tasks that required planning. These tests would be more like the sorts of things employees at Hanford might need to do under emergency circumstances. Cog 27 has been associated by scientists with such functions in humans, as you probably know.”
“Answer: yes,” McKean said. “Although I also know the wisdom of placing a crucial human intelligence gene in animals might be seriously questioned.”
“More than that!” I exclaimed. “It’s downright horrifying!”
“You’re entitled to your opinion,” Selkirk replied. “Would you rather we waited until a nuclear accident happened and then monitor people?”
McKean asked, “How did you get the Cog27 DNA into the animals?”
“Standard transgenics procedures,” Selkirk replied. “Microinject human DNA into the nuclei of fertilized dog eggs, then implant them back in the bitches. We had an excellent postdoctoral fellow here, Derek Curman, a genius at manipulating DNA and embryos.”
McKean was quiet for a moment, thinking deeply. Then he asked, “Did Curman inject simply the Cog27 gene, or was it part of a larger DNA construct?”
“Astute, as always, Dr. McKean,” Selkirk replied. Then his expression clouded further. “It was a much larger piece of human DNA. We were on an extremely limited budget without NIH funding, and DOE had us on a tight timeline, so Curman did things fast and cheap. We couldn’t afford the time and effort to isolate the Cog27 gene so we put a whole section of a human chromosome into the animals. Are you familiar with Yac 222?”
McKean’s own expression turned darker. “The acronym Y-A-C of course refers to yeast-artificial-chromosomes, which may carry sizeable fragments of human DNA and can be grown in yeast cells and kept in culture dishes indefinitely. Yacs were developed as standard way-stations for large chunks of human DNA during the human-genome-project years.”
“Large chunks?” I asked. “How large?”
“As I recall,” McKean murmured, staring momentarily at the ceiling as he scoured the tremendous databanks of his memory, “Yac 222 contains nearly a quarter of chromosome two. Quite a big segment of human DNA, with quite a few genes in it.”
“How many?”
“Several hundred, I’d guess. Some of unknown function.”
“Unknown!” I gasped.
We both turned to Selkirk, waiting for more explanations. He shrugged. “Maybe we didn’t think that one through as thoroughly as we should have. But none of our transgenic pups showed any signs of increased cognition, anyway. There was no improvement in maze solving, not even a measurable improvement in learning simp
le commands like ‘sit’ and ‘stay.’ The whole project never really worked.”
McKean folded his hands, steepled his long index fingers, touched them to his thin lips thoughtfully and then asked, “Where are these animals now?”
“They were useless to us, so we destroyed them all.”
McKean shook his head. “Given my findings regarding the Swanson case, that statement must not be fully true despite the sincerity with which you speak it.”
Selkirk shrugged. “I get what you’re saying, but I can assure you the animals were all euthanized.”
“May I talk to the people in charge of that task?” McKean asked.
“Of course.”
Selkirk led us into the laboratories, past rows of lab benches cluttered with vials, reagent bottles, centrifuges, and other scientific apparatus. In one of the bays between benches, he introduced us to a woman and man whom he indicated had destroyed the animals. He then abruptly left us, apologizing that he had other pressing business to attend.
The woman, Zoe Peterson, was a pleasant, middle-aged redhead in a white lab coat, who’d been busy with a benchtop experiment involving several racks of test tubes when we came in. Resuming her seat after having risen to greet us, she explained in melancholy tones, “It’s a sad business, euthanasia. You get to know the animals a little, almost like they’re pets. But orders are orders and I filled out the euthanasia forms and gave them to Jaime, here.” She indicated by gesture a dark Hispanic man in blue jeans and chambray shirt who’d stood by, looking uncomfortable and out of place, and who now nodded an acknowledgement of what she’d said.
“I work in the animal facility where the kennels are,” he explained in heavily accented English. “The day after I got the orders from Zoe, I injected all the dogs with overdoses of pentobarbital. Very painless. They don’ feel nothing. They just go to sleep.”
“A standard laboratory procedure,” McKean acknowledged. “And you’re sure you killed them all?”
Jaime looked away momentarily, his discomfort now greatly amplified. A visible sweat broke out on his forehead.
“What is it, Jaime?” Zoe asked with a note of surprise. “I signed euthanasia orders on every one.”
With eyes downcast, Jaime began, “One was missing. I didn’t want to tell you. I thought maybe I lose my job.”
“No, Jaime,” Zoe protested. “I would never do that!”
McKean grew impatient of their reassurances. “Do you know who took it?”
Jaime kept guiltily silent.
McKean, a head taller than Jaime, loomed over him threateningly. “Listen,” he hissed. “I’m betting that there will be murder or manslaughter charges filed in this case. If you know anything and don’t tell us, you could be considered an accessory. You’d better tell all, and do so right now.”
“It was Derek Curman!” Jaime blurted. “I don’ know it for sure, because I don’ see him take the dog. But he was always playing around with it. It was his favorite.”
“Selkirk mentioned Curman,” McKean responded. “I’d like to speak with him.”
“Wouldn’t we all?” Zoe remarked. “But he’s disappeared without a trace. He was a very moody and temperamental guy. Didn’t get along with people very well. But he was really excited about the project. When Selkirk decided to cancel the program, he was heartbroken. When the group discussed euthanasia, he threatened to resign. He argued with me when I signed the papers. Then he just didn’t show up at all the next day. He left his notebooks, his personal stuff in his desk, everything. Just disappeared. Nobody ever saw him again.”
“The next morning,” Jaime added, “dog 106, she was missing.”
“Curman must have taken her in the night,” McKean suggested.
“That sounds about right,” Jaime agreed.
Minutes later, McKean and I were back in Selkirk’s office. Selkirk interrupted a conference call to speak with us. When told the news of dog 106’s disappearance he grew red-faced and tugged at his necktie knot to loosen it.
“Derek Curman,” Selkirk said, slowly shaking his head. “He did some impressive work. Really quite brilliant. Very organized. But emotionally volatile. Still, I never would have guessed he’d taken an animal.”
“Where’s Curman now?” McKean asked.
“We haven’t seen him for four years,” Selkirk replied. “He just vanished. I tried to find him on Google and Facebook recently but no luck. Just old stuff. No one knows where he went.”
“We’ll have trouble tracking him down, no doubt,” McKean muttered. And then his expression brightened. “Do you have some of dog 106’s DNA?”
“We should have a sample frozen under liquid nitrogen.”
“Excellent!” McKean exclaimed. “At least we can get a definitive answer as to whether dog 106 was the source of the coydog DNA.”
“You think Curman turned her loose and she bred with coyotes?” I asked, my mind reeling at the thought. “Why would he ever do such a thing?”
“The DNA will answer your first question beyond a shadow of a doubt, Fin,” McKean replied. “As to your second question, we may never know.”
Selkirk made a lab bench available where McKean carried out a series of DNA experiments before noon. Using samples of Border collie 106’s blood and a sample from the desert bloodstain he’d brought for comparison, he quickly demonstrated exact matches to the bloodstain’s genetic markers.
“The bloodstain’s DNA includes every bit of the human DNA dog 106 carried, and nothing else of human origins. So I think we can safely conclude that dog 106 was adopted into a coyote pack and produced at least one litter.”
“Safely conclude?” I remarked. “That conclusion doesn’t make me feel safe at all.”
“Nevertheless,” McKean replied, “the tests leave no doubt in my mind that the bloodstain came from an animal that was a cross between a coyote and dog 106, an F1 hybrid.”
“F1?” I puzzled.
“The genetic term for the first filial generation obtained by breeding two dissimilar organisms, an exact half-and-half hybrid of its two parents’ chromosomes. As near as I can determine on short notice, the genes in the bloodstain appear to be exactly half Border collie and half coyote - with a measure of human DNA thrown in on the Border collie side.”
Multiplying Threats
McKean’s cell phone rang. “Sheriff Tanner, hello!” he began, and then his dark eyebrows knit. “Another murder? Where?”
Within minutes I was driving us eastbound through farmlands surrounding the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge, on a straight gravel road that rose and fell over low hills of golden wheat and grape-laden vineyards. We stopped at an old yellow two-story farmhouse ringed by tall cottonwoods and surrounded by wide, furrowed, brown-dirt fields of newly sewn winter wheat. Half a dozen vehicles were pulled up in front of the house, including the sheriff’s car and a square white medical examiner’s van. Tanner met us on the front porch and showed us inside.
“Arnie Ingersol and his wife Velma,” Tanner explained. “Old farm people. Knew ‘em well.’
He led us through a living room with flowered wallpaper, an old piano and neat furniture, and then into a big bright yellow kitchen where a shocking sight stopped me in my tracks. Everywhere, human bones lay scattered on the patterned linoleum floor. Blood was everywhere too, dried and blackened after having been tracked around by -
“Coyotes,” Tanner muttered. “Caught Velma at the sink washing breakfast dishes. Water was still running according to her son, who stopped by and found her. He’s upstairs with one of our counselors and an FBI agent.”
McKean moved around the kitchen quickly sizing up the lay of the bones. “Is this scatter reminiscent of the bones of Nate and Tad Swanson?” he asked Tanner.
“Yes, I suppose so. That’s what we figure, if you’re thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’. Same critters here as was at the scene with the Swanson killings. No doubt any more that it’s coyoties gone bad. We’ve decided to get the Feds into this. Something real
freaky’s going on.” He led us through the house’s big pantry and along a hall and into an office with a desk, bookshelves, and more bones strewn on its Persian carpet. We had to squeeze in because the medical examiner’s team was still at work, one young woman photographing bones before a man wearing a white coat and blue rubber gloves picked them up and put them into numbered clear plastic evidence bags while a second, older woman in white clothing moved around collecting hair and fibers and flecks of the blood that had pooled and hardened on the carpet, putting them into screw-capped test tubes of the sort McKean had used.
Tanner said, quietly, so as not to disturb the ongoing work, “There’s a pistol in the top desk drawer. Drawer’s open like Arnie went for it but they got him before he could take it out.”
The room stank of blood and animal smells. My stomach began to churn violently, the way it used to do in Iraq. I was glad to follow my companions when they moved out onto the house’s wide front porch.
“Front door was ajar,” Tanner continued. “Not all that unusual for farm folks - “
“But some of the smarter breeds of dogs,” McKean interjected, “can turn doorknobs.”
“Yeah,” Tanner agreed thoughtfully, as if McKean had added a new dimension to his thinking.
“Peyton McKean!” a friendly voice called from inside the living room.
