Cold Plague

by Daniel Kalla

  Noah studied the screen intently. “Have you found any discrepancies between the previous vCJD cases and the ones in Limousin?”

  Gellier turned from the computer to look at Noah. “One, and only one. In the tissue of the 1990s victims we saw much higher levels of phosphorylated tau protein than in the Limousin outbreak.”

  Noah’s stomach tightened, but he said nothing.

  “That’s a mouthful,” Duncan said. “Is it a significant difference?”

  Gellier shook her head. “I think there is a very good explanation. In previous cases, the disease progressed over a period of a year to eighteen months, while in Limousin it happened over a matter of weeks. I do not think there was enough time for the phosphorylated tau protein to accumulate in the tissue like it had in earlier vCJD outbreaks.”

  Noah pointed to the screen. “That’s the point, Dr. Gellier. What we have seen in Limousin has a completely different time course from all known prion outbreaks. Doesn’t that make you think it could be a different disease?”

  “I only know what I see, Dr. Haldane,” she said with a smile. She hopped back to her feet, gaining little height, and hurried over to the wall of brains. She pulled one of the specimen containers down from the shelf and laid it on the counter nearby, and then scuttled back for a second brain.

  The others gathered around the countertop. Gellier reached for a box of gloves, extracted a pair, and slid her small hands into them. She lifted the lids on both jars. The formaldehyde smell wafted up to Noah, and he had a queasy flashback to his first day in the dissecting lab of medical school.

  Gellier plunged her left hand into a jar and pulled out the first brain. She grabbed the second brain with her right. Palms upward, she held them out to show to the others. They had the typical gray cauliflower appearance of the brain, but these particular cauliflowers looked as if they had been left out to rot. Certain areas had blackened while other sections had collapsed. Throughout, large holes penetrated the surface as if a small animal had burrowed through the tissue.

  “Christ,” Duncan said. “There’s not much left of them, is there?”

  Elise blanched slightly but her eyes never deviated from the brain. “Whose are they?” she asked.

  Gellier raised her right hand. “This is a 1997 BSE victim.” Then she lifted her left. “And this is Benoît Gagnon. But without the labels, I would not be able to tell one from the other.”

  “May I?” Noah asked, pointing to the brains.

  Gellier nodded.

  Noah grabbed a pair of large gloves from the far box and slipped his hands into them. Gellier carefully passed him the two brains. He could not believe how light they were in his hands. A long time had passed since he’d last held a brain, and he had forgotten that a person’s nerve center—his essence—could weigh only a few pounds.

  He seesawed them up and down, comparing weights. They felt the same. And when he held them up closer, so that the formaldehyde filled his nostrils, he realized that the two brains were indeed interchangeable.

  Noah trusted Dr. Gellier. He knew that what she was implying—that only the same infection could produce the identical final pathology—made perfect sense.

  However, for reasons he could not put into words, he found no reassurance in her clinical findings.

  14

  Limoges, France. January 17

  Clarice was going to be furious. Of that, Dr. Louis Charron had no doubt. The neurologist had promised his wife he would be home by eight P.M. for dinner—she was insisting on celebrating a missed anniversary—but by 10:05 P.M., Charron had yet to leave his office. Clarice would understand, though. She always did in the end. “If you want someone home for dinner every night, go find yourself a banker,” he had once said with less than sentimental frankness.

  “If I had only hung on to my figure after the children, I would be down at the bank right now,” she had shot back.

  Actually, Charron liked his wife on the fuller side. Though he wasn’t foolish enough to tell her, he had thought she was too skinny when they first married. And besides, after forty-four years together, they both knew only death would separate them now.

  Today’s schedule had been hectic. In addition to his own unofficial investigation, Charron had to contend with hospital rounds, a full caseload in the clinic, and the monthly neuroscience faculty meeting. The entire meeting was devoted to the three cases of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob—or, as he thought to himself, the apparent cases—that had made such a splash within the entire medical community of Limousin.

  Charron reached again for the business card on his desk and twirled it in his hand. Indifferent to the hour, he decided to try the number once more before leaving. It rang through to a voicemail greeting. Always mistrustful of technology, Charron had no voicemail on his own line, and he had no intention now of leaving sensitive information on an answering machine. He hung up, resolving to try again in the morning.

  Slipping out of his lab coat, he traded it for the suit jacket behind his door. He withdrew a package of cigarettes from the pocket, slid one out, and lit it as he headed for the staircase. Reaching the parking lot, he saw that his fourteen-year-old Jaguar was one of the few cars left in the lot. He unlocked the door and plunked down in the leather seat, enjoying the nicotine-scented smell of the car’s interior as he finished his first smoke.

  Charron removed and lit another cigarette before turning the ignition. As he pulled out of the lot, he again reflected on the three known prion victims. Originally, he had been proud of his diagnosis; he enjoyed reminding the younger department members that his clinical acumen was still as sharp as ever. As the novelty wore off, niggling doubt had crept into its place. Especially after he watched the third patient, Philippe Manet, wither away by the hour before his eyes. The visit from Drs. Haldane and McLeod of the WHO solidified his suspicions. Charron saw that they shared his skepticism about the disease’s abnormally rapid progression. Why else would they have come? he wondered, resolving again to try Haldane’s number in the morning.

  These growing concerns, more than his official schedule, had kept him at work so late. He had stolen hours to dig deeper into the cluster of apparent vCJD cases. Forty years of experience as a neurologist told him that something was not quite right. And after visiting that farm and meeting Benoît Gagnon’s partner, his suspicions had gelled. He was determined to find out what was at play in Limoges.

  The xenon blue headlights in his rearview mirror drew his attention. They had grown steadily brighter since he had first noticed them a few kilometers back. Irritably, Charron crushed his second cigarette in the ashtray and glanced over his shoulder. The car was too close now. He pressed the button to roll down the window of his sedan. He stuck an arm out the gap and waved the other driver past.

  “Merde! If you want to pass, then go already!” Charron yelled into the streaming wind.

  But the driver did not pull out to pass. Instead, the interior of the Jaguar flooded with the blue light of the trailing car’s high beams.

  Charron’s chest pounded with fury. He hit his horn hard, and eased his foot down on the brake so as not to be rear-ended. “What the hell are you doing, you fool?” He shook his fist out the window. “You are driving like a maniac! Are you trying—?”

  Charron’s diatribe was cut off in midsentence when he involuntarily lurched forward and his car shook from the impact against its bumper.

  Anger suddenly gave way to fear. In an instant, Charron understood the car did not intend to pass.

  It had come for him.

  He thought of his two girls: both married and raising three of his grandchildren between them. Then his thoughts turned to Clarice. He pictured her laughing gray eyes. And he wished with his all heart that he had gone home earlier to dine with her.

  15

  Paris, France. January 17

  With meetings in Paris planned for the morning, Noah, Duncan, and Elise opted to stay at a hotel in the historic Montparnasse district. Their dinner together was
particularly subdued. Elise had been withdrawn since the interview with Dr. Gellier. And Duncan verged on mute, not even responding when Noah tried to goad him by reciting tour guide facts about Montparnasse and how it was the cultural heart of Paris in the early twentieth century.

  So Noah was surprised when, upon returning to the room, he found a note under his door in Duncan’s chicken-scratch: HALDANE, I’LL BE IN THE BAR. IF YOU CAN’T JOIN ME, SEND AN AMBULANCE IN TWO HOURS. MCLEOD.

  Before heading down, Noah changed shirts and tried to call Chloe and Anna, but only reached Anna’s father. After a pleasant but slightly forced conversation, in which Noah learned that his daughter had suffered her first bee sting, he hung up and headed to the lobby.

  Stepping into the smoky and sterile lounge, Noah discovered that his friend had started without him. An empty highball glass sat on the bar in front of Duncan, and the one he was drinking from looked half full. Noah walked up to the bar beside him and slid onto the empty bar stool, but Duncan didn’t acknowledge him.

  “Last time I saw you drink like this was China,” Noah said. “And we were facing a potential pandemic then.”

  “Desperate times, weren’t they? But at least there are no French in China,” Duncan grunted, drawing a sneer from an older man in a gray suit who sat alone halfway down the bar. “Shite, Haldane, we accomplished something over there.”

  “You don’t think we will here?”

  Duncan buried his nose in his drink. He slammed the empty glass down on the table and pointed from Noah to himself. “Three more vodka tonics!” he yelled to the bartender at the other end.

  “Two more,” Noah corrected. “I’ll have a Fischer.”

  “Can’t speak for you, Haldane,” Duncan grunted, “but I know for sure that I won’t accomplish anything here.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m going home,” he said quietly.

  “Duncan, I know this has been frustrating for you. Must feel like déjà vu, but—”

  The Scot raised his hand and silenced Noah in midsentence. The bartender arrived to deposit their drinks in front of them. “It’s got nothing to do with the mad cows,” Duncan said, reaching for his drink.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s Maggie.”

  “Maggie? What has your wife got to do with it?”

  Duncan took a long sip of his drink. “I think she might be dying,” he said quietly.

  Noah felt winded. “What?”

  Duncan turned to him, his face creased in a sadness Noah had never seen from him before. His eyes misted over, but his voice held firm. “She was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was advanced when they found the lump.”

  Noah reached out and put a hand on Duncan’s shoulder. “Oh, no. When?”

  “Three months ago.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Shite, Haldane, I would have. I would have told anyone who’d listen to me. But Maggie—” He stopped for a long sip, almost finishing the first of his refills. “She didn’t want a soul to know. She told me nothing would be worse than having to face ‘all that pity.’”

  Noah leaned closer, put his arm around his friend, and squeezed his shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Duncan.”

  “Haldane, I might be a bit drunk and maybe even a tad vulnerable.” Duncan viewed him with a half-smile. “But it still doesn’t mean I’m willing to sleep with the likes of you.”

  Smiling, Noah freed Duncan from his grip. “Why did you even come to France?” he asked.

  Duncan shook his head. “Wasn’t my idea.” He downed the last of the glass. “Maggie thought it would be good for both of us if I got away for a while.”

  Noah nodded and sipped his beer with little enthusiasm.

  “She had just finished the chemo and we were feeling a bit more optimistic….” Duncan rubbed his beard roughly. His eyes drifted past Noah. “I got a call this afternoon from her doctor. Maggie broke her arm putting on her shirt. Turns out the cancer is all through her bones.”

  “Shit.”

  “It’s ‘shite,’ Haldane. When are you going to learn to say the fucking word properly?” Duncan reached for his second refill.

  “But she’s still going to get more treatment?” Noah asked. “Chemo and radiation?”

  “Of course she is,” he said irritably. “And she’s still full of hope. I’d never let anyone take that from her.” He reached for his drink and then changed his mind. “Problem is, Haldane, I’m a doctor. I know better.”

  Noah could not find the right words, so he sipped his beer. They sat beside each other drinking in silence for a minute or two. “It’s funny, you know,” Noah finally said. “I’ve always liked Maggie so much better than you.”

  Duncan said nothing for a long moment, but then he broke into a deep laugh. “Thank you, Haldane. I needed that.”

  “You’re leaving in the morning?” Noah asked.

  Duncan nodded.

  “How are the boys taking it?” Noah asked.

  “They’re teenage boys. Beyond the football matches and the music videos with the girls wearing only tissue paper, nothing else much matters to them.” He drained the last of the other glass. “Still, it’s not easy for them to see their ma go through this. She is their rock, you know?”

  “Look, Duncan, if you need—”

  Duncan gripped Noah’s wrist briefly. “I already counted on that, Noah.”

  They lapsed into silence again, interrupted by the ring of Noah’s cell phone. He pulled it out of his pocket and brought it to his ear. “Noah Haldane.”

  “Noah, it’s Elise. Where are you?” she asked stiffly.

  “The hotel bar.”

  “Oh.”

  Duncan glanced at Noah inquisitively. Noah shrugged and then said into the phone, “What’s up, Elise?”

  “The lab called me,” she said. “We have the preliminary results on the cattle feed we seized from Ferme d’Allaire.”

  “And?”

  “They’ve found significant traces of bovine and other ruminants’ protein.”

  Noah felt numb at the news. “So they were putting animal by-products back into the feed.”

  “It would seem so.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” Noah said good-bye and hung up.

  Duncan stretched in his chair. “It’s all beginning to fall into place, isn’t it?”

  Noah took another sip.

  “One of their cows develops a spontaneous mutation in her prions, and presto, you’ve got a mad cow,” Duncan said, slurring his words slightly. “They butcher that cow, run it through the grinder, toss it back into the feed stock, and voilà, a few months later you have multiple cases of a new and wonderful mad cow disease that kills everyone in a couple hours, give or take.”

  Noah nodded. “We have a world-class neuropathologist telling us that the victims died from garden variety vCJD, if there is such a thing. And now we have an explanation for its spread.” He sighed. “It’s so straightforward.”

  “Very.”

  Noah put his drink down and turned to his friend. “You really think it’s that simple, Duncan?”

  He shook his head. “Not for a minute.”

  “Me, neither.”

  “Might be time for me to go home, after all.” Duncan uttered a heavy sigh. “My cynicism is finally rubbing off on you.”

  “I’ve learned a lot from you,” Noah said. “Thanks.”

  Duncan shrugged in Scottish embarrassment and turned his attention back to his glass. He waved his arm in a dramatic gesture toward the bartender. “We’ve got a drought down this end of the bar!” he yelled.

  Noah viewed his friend fondly. “Listen, Duncan, you tell Maggie she has to beat this thing, because—”

  “I know, Haldane,” he said with a soft laugh. “Because no one else can put up with me.”

  16

  Vishnov, Antarctica. January 4

  The glaring sun beat down on and reflected off the endless sheet of ice surrounding Claude Fontaine without provi
ding any warmth. The wind, which changed direction so often that he felt encircled, penetrated his coat and chilled him to the bone. Ignoring the ice and snow swirling around his head, he glanced over to Martine deGroot, who stood a few feet away, offering no more warmth than the air around her. She stared out past the horizon. Her expression tranquil, she looked as though she were at home. And why not? Fontaine muttered to himself. After all, she’s made of ice.

  The remoteness of the land coupled with the claustrophobic lodgings of their aluminum hut had strained their relationship. Back in civilization, they used to have sex every day, often in public places such as theaters, restrooms, and parks. Martine’s arousal from the risk of exposure bordered on fetish, but Fontaine was excited by it, too. Despite years of experience, Fontaine had never known a lover as vocal or as kinky as Martine. Nothing was taboo for her. She particularly loved to use physical restraints, to be tied with scarves or even handcuffs. But a week had passed since their last physical contact. Why do I stay with her? he wondered, but one glimpse of her—all white in a down coat, gloves, hat, and boots—set off the stirrings again. He wanted her as much as ever. And the helpless need disgusted him.

  A choppy buzz from above pulled him out of his mood of self-recrimination. Shielding his eyes, Fontaine looked up in the sky to see a glint of silver. He was reminded of the anticipation that accompanied his frequent waits for planes carrying in the chunks of the Igloo. This time all he experienced was a mix of impatience and anxiety. He had tried to dissuade the woman, explaining that she had nothing to gain by visiting, but Yulia Radvogin did not change her mind easily, if at all. Radvogin’s expectations grew with each discussion, and her threats were no longer veiled; she now made the consequences of failure deathly clear.

  The whirr grew louder as the plane steadily descended. Fontaine watched the skis of the Twin Otter kiss the glass surface of the ice, hop once, and then skid only slightly as it roared nearer. The Otter came to a stop thirty feet away.