Cold Plague

by Daniel Kalla

  “No doubt. I’ve been here less than two days, and I’m desperate for some fresh fruit and vegetables,” Radvogin said with a sigh. “All this dried and canned food cannot be healthy. And it reminds me too much of my childhood in Kiev, living under the boots of those hopeless communists.” She snorted in disgust. “Fresh produce did not exist for my family. It was saved for the commissars and the other loyal party members. The scum.”

  DeGroot chuckled. “Fresh produce and corrupt communists, is that what you wanted to discuss?”

  Radvogin shot DeGroot a look that wiped the smile off the younger woman’s face, though when she spoke, her voice was pleasant and conversational. “You remember when we first met in St. Petersburg?” Radvogin asked.

  “Of course,” DeGroot said. “I was awed by your natural authority.”

  Radvogin was indifferent to the compliment. “That day, you and Claude first presented your scheme for saving my investment here in the Antarctic….” Her words drifted and her gaze fell on the horizon of ice.

  DeGroot waited in silence.

  “Claude is a competent enough scientist, I suppose,” Radvogin continued. “Ah, but once he had that first taste of fame, he began to imagine himself as something more. Some kind of tycoon, I think. But he is not and never will be much of a businessman. I would have buried his Antarctic lab—and him, too—last summer.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  Radvogin stopped and turned to DeGroot. “Because of you, Martine.”

  “Me?”

  “From that very first meeting, I recognized something in you.”

  “A little of yourself, maybe?”

  Radvogin laughed. “See, I wasn’t mistaken! You remind me so much of myself from when I was…how old are you?”

  “Thirty-two.”

  “Twenty years ago.” Radvogin exhaled a puff of mist like it was cigarette smoke. “I had not even met Pavel yet, but I was already blinded with ambition. Exactly as you are.” She turned to DeGroot, her pale eyes afire. “I didn’t need Pavel to reach the level I have. Just as you don’t need Claude.”

  DeGroot considered the comment. “Probably not, but they do make themselves useful from time to time.”

  Radvogin shook her head. “Only for a while. Trust me. And then you find a way to get rid of them.” Her voice dripped with implication.

  DeGroot nodded.

  “Listen carefully, Martine.” Radvogin’s eyes locked on DeGroot like a missile engaging its target. “Perhaps because you remind me of myself, I do not trust you at all.”

  DeGroot shrugged, as if to say that wasn’t her problem.

  Radvogin swept her gloved hand back in the direction of the settlement and the Igloo. “I am committed now. You understand? It’s not just the hundreds of millions that I have poured into the development of the infrastructure here in the Antarctic.”

  “No?”

  “I have committed to advertising, shipping, bottling, distribution, and on and on. None of it can be undone. And the costs of this venture make oil exploration look cheap in comparison. I may be the CEO and majority shareholder of Radvogin Industries, but I still have to answer to the board. And the board is worried.”

  DeGroot tapped the back of one glove against the palm of the other. “The board has seen only the costs and none of the results yet. I have seen the product, Yulia. It is spectacular! In a few weeks, the Lake will reach the shelves of the best stores around the world. Can you imagine how quickly demand will grow for such pure water that possesses built-in healing properties?”

  “I am banking on it.”

  “And so you should,” DeGroot cried. “You’ve seen the results. They are phenomenal.”

  “I have seen nothing,” Radvogin grunted. “I have only heard these stories from Claude and you.”

  “You don’t believe us?”

  “Belief is one thing, trust another.” The older woman’s eyes constricted. “For example, maybe you can explain what happened to the money.”

  “What money?”

  “I’ve had Ivan Petrovich review the books for me,” she said, using the traditional Russian name of her senior financial advisor. “According to him, there are millions of unaccounted dollars lost on this project.”

  DeGroot squared her shoulders to the woman. “What are you suggesting, Yulia?”

  Radvogin leaned closer. She exhaled heavily enough to share the faint smell of pickled herring on her breath. “I am suggesting”—she emphasized each syllable—“that someone is fucking around with my money. And believe me, Martine, that is a deadly undertaking.”

  DeGroot didn’t back off an inch. “We haven’t embezzled from you, Yulia.”

  “Then where did my money go?”

  “Research. Testing.” DeGroot paused a moment and stared deep into Radvogin’s eyes. “And persuasion. The kind of things you probably wouldn’t want to see on your books.”

  “Things that come without receipts?”

  DeGroot nodded.

  “I will let it go.” Radvogin pulled her face back from DeGroot’s. “For now.”

  “Thank you, Yulia.”

  Radvogin turned and strode in the direction of the Igloo. DeGroot waited a moment, and then hurried to catch up with her. Without looking over to her, Radvogin said, “Martine, even at thirty-two, if I were in your shoes I would recognize one thing about this whole venture.”

  “Which is?”

  Radvogin’s head swiveled and her eyes bored into DeGroot. “That I would not survive failure.”

  27

  Saint Junien, France. January 19

  As they pulled away from Annette Tremblay’s home, Noah was gripped by a sense of time bleeding away, especially now that they had unearthed a connection between the known victims. With all the unexplained occurrences, Noah realized Gwen was right: He had to go to the police. And he planned to, though he had yet to decide whether to let Elise in on his intent.

  Elise broke the chilled silence. “It’s surprising, non?”

  Noah turned slowly to look at her. “What’s that?”

  “That the Manet family is somehow the link to all three victims.”

  “We have to find Georges Manet. Urgently.”

  She nodded without looking at him. “And we need to visit the sister again.”

  “Yes.” He studied her profile with her lightly freckled skin and perfectly upturned nose. Even when she was brooding her attractiveness still shone through. “I don’t think Giselle Tremblay could have beaten the odds that badly.”

  “It would appear not.”

  “I mean,” Noah stressed, “for her to acquire vCJD from eating steak—and muscle is by far the lowest-risk tissue for prions—once a year…the odds are too small to imagine. Same for Benoît Gagnon.”

  Elise didn’t try to argue. “You think she was poisoned by Georges Manet?” she asked, her tone unreadable.

  Noah shrugged. “I would like to know more about that water he gave her, though. In the videotape I saw at the hospital, Georges’s brother Philippe talked about water, too.”

  Elise glanced at him. “But he was…psychotic, no?”

  “So I supposed,” he conceded. “Psychotic patients often share remarkably similar paranoid delusions—transmitters in their dental fillings, the Devil stalking them, loved ones trying to poison them, and so on. But this is yet another huge coincidence.”

  Elise showed a hint of a smile. “Another wrench, too. You think there is any room left in your hardware store?”

  Noah showed her a slight smile. “The shelves are pretty full.”

  Elise’s cell phone rang, and she pulled one hand off the wheel and dug it out of her coat pocket. “Allo?” She paused a moment. “Ah, Maurice. Ça va?”

  Noah listened, trying to translate Elise’s side of the conversation. They exchanged a few more pleasantries. Then Elise mentioned Noah’s name and asked Maurice whether he would mind if she put him on speakerphone. After a moment, Elise hit a button on her cell phone and the speaker
hummed with low static. “Professor Maurice Hébert with the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, allow me to introduce Dr. Noah Haldane with the World Health Organization,” she said and then glanced at Noah. “Maurice performed the autopsies on many of the involved animals.”

  “It is a pleasure, Dr. Haldane,” Hébert gushed. “I am a true admirer of yours.”

  “You might be the only one in France,” Noah said.

  “Nonsense, my friend! You must have been under enormous pressure with the ARCS virus. I thought you handled it beautifully.” Hébert’s smooth French accent reminded Noah of Jean Nantal, and he warmed to the veterinarian immediately.

  “Thank you.”

  “Elise tells me you are interested in the cows with bovine spongiform encephalitis, yes?”

  “That’s right.” Noah measured his words. “We are seeing some inconsistencies in the human vCJD cases in Limousin.”

  “I understand that people are dying very rapidly of their disease,” Hébert said. “Much quicker than anything seen before.”

  “Exactly,” Noah said. “Have you seen the same in the cows?”

  “Of course, my friend, it is a little different with animals. We destroy them at the first sign of illness.” Hébert chuckled. “You probably cannot get away with that in people.”

  “Probably not,” Noah said. “Still, what is your impression of the brains you have seen so far?”

  “My impression is that, without question, all the cases have been classic for BSE.”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary?” Noah asked.

  “Absolutely nothing.” Hébert paused. “Except possibly that compared to other cases I have dissected, the brains I have seen so far are in relatively early stages of the disease.”

  “Early?” Noah’s stomach knotted. “That is the opposite of the human cases.”

  “Ah, but it is apples and oranges, my friend,” Hébert said. “In the region, everyone is on the lookout for new bovine cases. As a result, we are more likely to catch the infected cows earlier. And, of course, the cows responsible for the human cases were butchered and went to market. We will never know what their brains would have looked like under a microscope.”

  “Good point,” Noah said, but his gut didn’t settle. “What do you make of the relatively few cases—seven so far—diagnosed among the region’s cattle?”

  “That is unusual,” Hébert admitted. “As you know, in the other outbreaks with human cross-infectivity we saw significantly higher rates of infection among the livestock.”

  “They are still early in the testing in Paris.” Elise spoke up. “It is possible they will find many more cases among the destroyed cows that we were not aware of.”

  “Vraiment, Elise,” Hébert agreed. “And we cannot forget the possibility that some farms might not have been so forthcoming.”

  “You mean, they might have hidden other infected cows?” Noah said.

  Hébert’s heavy breath whistled through the speaker. “People do stupid and reckless things when they are afraid.”

  “Very true,” Noah said, thinking of more than just desperate farmers. “Maurice, I assume you measured the standard chemical levels.”

  “Of course,” he said. “The fourteen-three-three protein and PrPres markers were both positive, as expected, in the bovine spinal fluid.”

  “And what about the levels of phosphorylated tau protein?” Noah asked.

  Hébert’s breath caught noisily in surprise. “We don’t normally test for that in animals.”

  “But you can?” Noah asked.

  “Of course,” Hébert said. “Though, I do not see the point. It is always elevated in BSE.”

  “I know.” Noah thought of how the molecule was not elevated in Limousin’s human cases. “But do you mind confirming that for me?”

  “For you, my friend?” He laughed again. “There is no test I would not run. Give me twenty-four hours. I will have your answer.”

  28

  Seoul, South Korea. January 19

  Han Soo Kim closed the shutters across her shop’s windows. Her husband, a businessman who had inherited his fortune, had leased the prime space for the boutique health store on Fashion Street in the ultrachic Cheongdam district. Kim knew that her husband viewed the venture as nothing more than a pricey distraction for her—his third, and much younger, wife. She was determined to show him otherwise. Kim desperately wanted to be free of the disdainful glances from the other wives in their social circle. She was not merely a trophy and she intended to prove it, pouring her heart and soul into her store.

  Kim turned from the window and hurried back to her laptop computer, her chest swelling with anticipation. For the first time, she had let herself dream about branching out with several more shops across Seoul and throughout the peninsula.

  She studied the online order form that filled the screen. Unlike Kim, most of her patrons had never known anything but prosperity. They would not blink at the one-hundred-thousand-won price tag she planned to charge per bottle of the Lake.

  Pure Antarctic water enriched with natural minerals was exactly the kind of product that would cause a stir among Kim’s clientele. And she knew that these women were nothing if not competitive. When one or two of them bought a few bottles, the rush would be unstoppable.

  Then no other wife would be able to accuse Kim of surviving on her youthful good looks alone.

  Her fingers trembled with excitement as she tapped on the keyboard, changing her order from one thousand to two thousand bottles.

  29

  Limoges, France. January 19

  By the time Noah and Elise reached the hotel, the sun had begun to set. When the slow elevator finally opened on the fifth floor, Noah nodded his good-bye to Elise and left without another word.

  Inside his room, he had a quick glance around but saw nothing out of place. The reassurance was hollow, though. He knew that his “shadow” would be unlikely to leave another calling card. The thought even occurred to him that the displaced bookmark might not have been an oversight. Did someone leave it for me as a warning? he wondered grimly.

  Exhausted from the emotional roller coaster of the day, he longed to climb under the covers, but he could not shake the sense of time sifting away. He reached into his jacket and extracted the notebook that he now carried with him everywhere. He scribbled pages of notes from the interview with Benoît Gagnon’s lover and Giselle Tremblay’s mother, including a description of Giselle’s and Philippe’s similar obsession with water.

  Satisfied, he closed the notebook and stuffed it back into his jacket. He glanced at his watch and calculated that it would be one o’clock in the afternoon in South Carolina. He picked up the phone and dialed Anna’s parents’ number from memory.

  “Hi,” the little voice chirped.

  “Chloe!”

  “Daddy-o!” she shrieked.

  Noah was flooded with affection. “Chlo, how’s my girl? I heard a bee stung you. You okay?”

  “A hornet, Daddy, and it was no biggie,” she said with a worldliness she must have absorbed from one of her favorite preteen, or tweenie, shows that she watched religiously. “The hornets won’t get me again, because I can swim underwater now.”

  “Cool.”

  “Mommy says we have to go home in two days, but I want to stay here.”

  “Don’t you miss home?”

  She hesitated. “Will you be home, Daddy?”

  The innocent words tore at his heart. “Not for a little while longer.”

  “Then I want to stay here. It’s too cold in Washington. Why does anyone live there?”

  “Good question.” Noah laughed.

  They discussed school and friends, and for fifteen minutes the vCJD crisis slipped out of mind and Noah relived the carefree happiness of their Mexican vacation. Then he asked, “Hon, can I speak to your mom now?”

  “Her and Julie went shopping with Granna. Gramps is here. Want to talk to him?”

  “That’s okay, Chlo,” N
oah said, brought down to the earth by the reminder that Julie had fully replaced him on this family vacation. “I love you. Can’t wait to see you again.”

  “Right back atcha, Daddy-o!” she said, stealing another line from one of her shows.

  Noah ordered a light dinner from room service. He decided that the WHO could splurge on a nice bottle of wine and chose a pinot noir from the Alsace region. While waiting for dinner, he opened his laptop and read his e-mail. He was pleased to see a brief message from Gwen sent from her BlackBerry that read: GOOD TO TALK TO YOU TODAY. MY OFFER STILL STANDS. REGARDLESS, COME HOME SAFE SOON. GWEN.

  He thought for a moment and then began his reply. RIGHT BACK ATCHA, he typed, recycling Chloe’s phrase. APPRECIATE THE OFFER, BUT IT’S NOT NECESSARY. FAR RATHER SEE YOU AT HOME. I MIGHT EVEN SPRING FOR DINNER.

  Then he composed a brief e-mail for Jean, which read: JEAN, WE NEED TO DISCUSS DEVELOPMENTS IN PERSON. HERE OR THERE?

  He exited his e-mail and launched the Internet browser. He searched for the Limoges police department and found an address and phone number for Gendarmerie Limoges. He decided there was no point in calling them until morning when he was more likely to reach a detective.

  Dinner arrived and Noah picked at it with little appetite. He had just filled his second glass of wine when the bedside phone rang. He reached for it. “Noah Haldane,” he said.

  “It has been a long day,” Elise said without a word of greeting. “I deserve a glass of wine. I think you do, too.”

  “I’m holding mine already.”

  “Wine is better shared,” she said. “Will you join me at the bar?”

  “As you said, it’s been a long one. I’m beat,” he said, thinking it might be best not to see Elise until he had spoken to the police.

  “Of course.” She cleared her throat. “I will see you in the morning, then.”

  The trace of vulnerability in her voice was enough to break his resolve. “You know what? How could another glass of wine hurt?”