Cold Plague

by Daniel Kalla

  Noah put the sample back and pulled out another larger one with a similar alphanumeric tag. He studied the large blue chunk. “That must be a deep core sample,” Milton said. “At least a hundred meters, probably five hundred.”

  “How can you tell?” Elise asked.

  “The blue hue,” Milton said, slipping into a professorial tone. “Glaciers are made of layers of ice sheets laid down over tens of thousands of years. The deeper the ice, the older it is and the more pressure it has on it. The air bubbles are progressively squeezed tighter and the molecules are more and more compressed, making it less translucent. Thus the darker color.”

  Noah put the sample back on the shelf and reached for another. He read the label, but put it back when he saw that the alphanumeric characters were nearly identical to the previous ones. He randomly picked through several more samples until he reached for one from the bottom shelf. It had the same whitish-blue appearance of the others, but it was labeled ANTARCTIC, ÉCHANTILLON 1122H2147.

  “Antarctic?” Elise asked, reading the label in Noah’s hand.

  Milton took the sample from Noah. “Georges spent last winter near the South Pole. He came home with all kinds of exotic core samples from glaciers there.”

  “Exotic?” Noah said. “It looks just like the others.”

  Milton waved the bag in front of Noah and Elise. “Night and day,” he said. “For us geologists, that’s like saying that polar bears and penguins are indistinguishable.”

  “You can tell the ice apart with your naked eye?” Noah asked.

  “Most of the time, yes,” Milton said. “But with simple equipment like mass spectrometers or gas chromatography we can easily determine the gas content of the ice. The relative content of carbon dioxide, formaldehyde, nitrous oxide, helium, and chlorocarbons, among others, would tell me in minutes whether a sample was Arctic or Antarctic ice.”

  “So by looking at a piece of a glacier, you can tell me where it comes from?” Noah asked, intrigued.

  “Up to a point. I could easily tell if it came from an ice cap in, say, Greenland versus Alaska. And by looking at the relative isotope of hydrogen and carbon, I could date the sample to within a few years of when it was laid. However, I couldn’t pinpoint the precise sampling site, if that’s what you mean.” Milton sighed. “It’s not a treasure map.”

  Noah thought about the labels. “So Georges was in the Antarctic last winter, the Arctic last spring, and here for the summer.”

  “Yes, but don’t forget our winter is their summer in the Antarctic.” Milton’s brow creased. “Take it from me, Noah, you do not want to spend winter in the Antarctic.”

  Noah returned the sample to the freezer. He shut the door, ensuring the latch was secured. “Georges probably wouldn’t appreciate it if we melted his ice samples,” he said half jokingly.

  Milton clicked the padlock into place. “I don’t know,” he said. “Georges melts the ice all the time. The git likes to drink unprocessed glacier water.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s obsessed with the idea of water purity,” Milton said. “Remember that below about thirty or forty meters, most glaciers will consist of snow from a time before the industrial revolution.”

  Noah nodded. “Before air pollution.”

  “That’s the general idea,” Milton said. “I’m not convinced it makes any difference, but Georges sure is.”

  “You last saw him this past summer?” Elise asked.

  “Only a few times. I spent most of the summer in Greenland at a coring site. When I came back in late August, we went for a pint shortly before he left for the Arctic. He was utterly scatterbrained, even for Georges, but very excited. Told me it was all very hush-hush. He promised to fill me in later, but he never did.”

  “Are there any other colleagues who might be in contact with Georges?” Elise asked.

  Milton clicked his tongue, considering the question. “There’s a bloke he has done a lot of deep core sampling with. I’ve met him once. Adaire…Allen…Anou.” He snapped his fingers. “Pierre Anou. An engineer. Tall bugger. From around here somewhere, too, I think.”

  Noah nodded. “You haven’t seen Georges since you had that drink together?”

  “Didn’t even hear from him again until I e-mailed to let him know he had forgotten to arrange transport for some of his larger ice samples. By then, he was in the Arctic. He wrote back with arrangements for transporting them to Paris. As I said, he has been all business ever since.”

  Noah glanced back to the freezer in the corner. What kind of business?

  37

  Southampton, England. January 20

  Sitting in his twelfth-story corner office, Trevor Ayling stared at the menus until his eyes hurt, realizing again how deeply he regretted hiring the temperamental Italian executive chef for the cruise line. Originally, Ayling viewed it as a coup to have stolen Luca Rossi from one of Rome’s highest-profile restaurants, but the fiery Tuscan’s demands and pigheadedness grew by the day. They had hit a stalemate. And only four days before the Buckingham’s maiden transatlantic voyage. Much as Ayling would have liked to sack the chef, he knew it was impossible. The ship had been completed six months behind schedule and hundreds of millions over budget. The last thing the Buckingham needed was a crisis in her kitchen.

  “Trev, do you have a moment?” a voice asked.

  Ayling looked up to see Martin Downs, the prematurely gray-haired CFO, standing in his doorway. In his trademark blue suit and striped tie, the lanky accountant’s narrow shoulders sagged lower than usual. Ayling immediately knew Downs had another budgetary concern. The man was an insufferable micromanager. Stifling a sigh, Ayling put the menus down. “Of course, Marty. What can I do for you?”

  Downs cleared his throat. “It has come to my attention that you’ve placed a rather…er…expensive order for water.”

  Ayling nodded. “The Lake.”

  “I see, yes,” Downs said stiffly. “But surely the other brand waters—Evian and what have you—would be far cheaper.”

  “Marty, this isn’t some precious bottled French water.

  We’re talking about the Lake here,” Ayling said. “Haven’t you seen the adverts?”

  Downs shook his head as his shoulders slumped further.

  Ayling mustered his patience. “This water has been drawn up from miles under Antarctic ice. No man has ever tasted it until now. It’s all the rage among the spa and health store set.”

  “I see, Trev.” Downs cleared his throat again. “That’s all well and good, but we’re talking over half a million pounds for water…albeit exotic water.”

  Ayling rose slowly to his feet. “At one hundred sixty thousand tons and over twelve hundred feet, the Buckingham is the largest cruise ship ever built.”

  “I am quite aware of that.”

  “Marty, more than four thousand people, from royalty to movie stars—not to mention an entire classroom of handicapped children, as part of that Children’s Dreams foundation—will be aboard. The media is watching this one very closely. This is the biggest liner launch since—”

  “The Titanic?” Downs said with a rare trace of irony.

  “The Queen Mary II,” Ayling corrected. “Listen, Marty, if we serve them three-hundred-pound-a-bottle champagne no one will even notice! But imagine the PR windfall when word gets out that we lavished our guests—from rock stars to poor handicapped kids—with the most virgin water on the planet?”

  Downs hesitated, digesting the argument.

  “Pure Antarctic water.” Ayling touched his fingertips together. “Imagine the splash that will make with the press on board!”

  Downs shook his head. “From below the Antarctic ice, is it?” His lips broke into a humorless smile. “Wasn’t it ice that caused the Titanic a spot of trouble?”

  38

  Limoges, France. January 20

  Geneviève Allaire had asked to meet at a small café in the city center, suggesting that it might be less “disruptive” for her famil
y than if the investigators were to interview her at her home. Remembering the way she toyed with her wedding band, Noah wondered if Allaire had young children or, possibly, marital troubles, but she had not elaborated and he had not asked.

  Elise had darted expertly across town from the university to the chosen café, but they still arrived fifteen minutes late. Inside, the place was three-quarters empty. Geneviève Allaire sat alone at a table by the window wearing a long black down coat, despite the café’s warmth, and sipping from an espresso cup. As they reached her table, Allaire rose to shake hands. Nothing in her polite greeting indicated any remnant of the tension with which their previous meeting had ended.

  Noah and Elise sat down on either side of her at the round table. Neither ordered coffee. With her blue eyes and delicate facial features, Allaire was as pretty as Noah remembered, but she looked somehow different. Her blond hair was not pinned back and now fell loosely past her shoulders, but her cheekbones looked even more prominent and her face more drawn.

  “Thank you for seeing us on short notice,” Elise said.

  “My pleasure.” Allaire showed a trace of a rueful smile. “I am not so terribly busy with my work anymore.”

  Elise nodded. “Yes, of course—”

  “The farm is closed. It is to be demolished,” Allaire went on as if describing an old car that she had to junk. “I am not worried about my family. We will get some kind of settlement from the government. Besides, my husband owns a law firm in Limoges. It’s our employees that concern me.” She shook her head. “Some of them have been with the farm since my grandfather ran it. I am not sure how they will cope.”

  Noah shifted in his seat, disconcerted by her graciousness in light of the questions he was about to ask. “Mme. Allaire, we wanted to discuss the…um…contamination of your farm.”

  Allaire sipped her espresso. “I have no idea how that prion spread through my farm,” she said matter-of-factly. “Or how animal by-products ended up in our cattle feed.”

  Elise leaned forward in her chair. “There is only one way for it to happen.”

  Immune to the implicit accusation, Allaire shrugged. “Mlle. Renard, Ferme d’Allaire recorded over two million euros in profit last year alone,” she said. “Do you really think we would risk all that to save a few euros by recycling sick cows into our cattle feed?”

  Elise was unswayed. “You are the president of a large company,” she said. “I imagine you were not involved in the daily processing of your cattle feed. Is it not possible that some overzealous employee decided to save the farm some money?”

  Allaire shook her head. “I do not—did not—oversee those details, but our manager, Marcel Robichard, did. He would never allow that to happen.”

  Elise leaned back. “Then how do you explain what our lab found in your feed?”

  “That is your issue, not mine,” Allaire said, showing the first hint of an edge. “I have my own ideas, though.”

  Noah held out a palm. “Such as?”

  Allaire’s unfocused gaze drifted past Noah. “I cannot imagine a more effective way to get rid of our farm.”

  “You mean industrial sabotage?” Elise frowned at the other woman. “Are you suggesting one of your competitors might have set this up?”

  Allaire’s shoulders rose and fell again.

  “Why orchestrate an epidemic?” Noah asked. “Kind of self-destructive for any of your rivals, isn’t it? Wouldn’t it be easier to just burn down your farm?”

  “Depends on who the competition is.” Allaire’s blue eyes lit with intensity. “Cattle farming is a global industry. What if some person or group wanted to paralyze the Limousin trade? Or, perhaps, the entire French or even E.U. cattle industry?”

  Good point, Noah thought. As a motive, international industrial sabotage made sense, but only if the human cases traced back to the cows, which Noah knew that recent evidence argued against. “Mme. Allaire, we think someone went to great lengths to set up your farm.”

  “Great lengths,” Allaire echoed. “I agree.”

  “Last time we met, you hypothesized that someone might be using the BSE cases on your farm to divert our attention from something else.”

  “Yes, but from what?” Allaire asked.

  “What if the entire cattle outbreak was orchestrated to explain away the human cases?” Noah suggested.

  “Explain away….” Allaire’s mouth hung open a fraction. “You mean the human cases came first?”

  Noah glanced at Elise, who stared back poker-faced. “We think so,” he said to Allaire.

  “And someone made our beef cattle appear responsible?” she said, awestruck. “By contaminating the feed to make them sick?”

  Noah shook his head. “That would take far too long.”

  “So how were our animals infected?”

  “By injecting BSE directly into their nervous system.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Allaire said, snapping out of her astonishment. “How could anyone inject so many of our animals without our knowledge?”

  “That’s a good question,” Noah said.

  Allaire went very still. “Are you accusing us…me…Dr. Haldane?” she asked in a hushed tone.

  “We are trying to make sense of this mess.” He met her angry stare, refusing to back down. “And we have to look at every possibility.”

  Her expression softened. “It could not happen like that,” she said. “Not right under our noses. Too many people would have to be involved.”

  They fell into an abrupt silence, broken by Elise. “Mme. Allaire, do you know Georges Manet?”

  Allaire looked over to Elise slowly. “The geologist?” she asked warily. “I haven’t seen him in years.”

  Elise glanced at Noah, her wide eyes betraying her surprise.

  “How did you know him?” Noah demanded.

  “We met in Limoges, maybe ten years ago.” Allaire spun her wedding band with her thumb. “We dated for a while. We were very young. It would not have lasted. I had no interest in settling down with a researcher who spends most of his time at the most inhospitable points on the planet.” She stared down at her ring. “Besides, Georges met someone else.”

  “Oh?” Elise’s shoulders straightened. “Who?”

  “I don’t remember her name,” she said with a tinge of spite. “I heard she is a concert violinist who lives—or at least used to live—in one of the surrounding towns. Last I heard, they were engaged.”

  “And you have not seen him since?” Noah asked.

  She stopped toying with her ring. “I have run into him a few times in the city.”

  Noah’s temples drummed. “Did he ever give you any samples of water or ice?” he asked.

  “Water? Ice?” Her frown dampened Noah’s exhilaration. “No. We barely spoke, Dr. Haldane.”

  On the ride back to the hotel, Noah silently grappled with all the information they had uncovered in the past hours. He struggled to package it into one plausible explanation, but it wouldn’t fit.

  As soon as they arrived, Noah went straight to his room, anxious to call home. Opening the door, he headed for the phone. He dialed Anna’s parents in Hilton Head, but heard only their static-filled answering machine message. “Hi, it’s Noah. Hope the sun is out and the hornets gone,” he said, trying to sound upbeat. “Anna, please try me on my cell.”

  Noah put the receiver in the cradle. It had barely stilled when he grabbed for it again and dialed Gwen’s cell number. After five rings, he heard her familiar voicemail message. Frustrated, he hung up without leaving a message.

  He took off his jacket, hung it on the back of the chair, and then dug his notebook out of his pocket. As he glimpsed the happy-face clip-on bookmark, he was reminded how someone had broken into this same room, trying to decipher what he knew. Suspicions washed over him again. He wondered if the same person or people were involved in Dr. Charron’s accident, or related to Georges Manet’s mysterious ice and water. Why had anyone gone to such measures? What did they hope to
gain? The question gnawed at him like a sliver trapped under his nail.

  Suddenly dog-tired, Noah grabbed the pen from the desk and opened a new page in his book. He wanted to summarize what he had learned in the past few hours before sleep threatened to smudge the mental record. After filling in two pages, he was on the verge of nodding off when he heard shuffling outside his room. Suddenly alert, he gently laid his pen down and turned to the door.

  Three loud bangs on the door hurled him out of his seat.

  39

  Lac Noir, France. January 20

  Avril’s breath came in short staccato bursts. Her suddenly moist hands stuck to the steering wheel. Glancing in the rearview mirror, she could still see the black Mercedes behind her, but it had fallen farther back now. Right where she wanted it.

  The wind and icy rain had given way to a heavy wet snow that had begun to accumulate on the highway, making it slick and unpredictable.

  Avril’s hands tightened on the wheel as she gently depressed the accelerator. The speedometer’s needle increased from ninety to one hundred ten kilometers per hour. She eased her foot back. A bead of sweat ran by her eye as she visualized the road ahead. In her mind’s eye, she could see the short wooden bridge over the river followed by the slow gentle curve to the left. After a climb up a long tree-lined hill, the road would level and turn harder to the right. Then, a few hundred meters after the turn, she would reach the farm on the right side of the road. The row of pines on the roadside might be enough to conceal her car.

  Only if I give myself a good enough head start, she thought.

  She pressed her foot harder on the gas pedal. Her Peugeot 406 police sedan picked up speed, but it rattled and the tires skidded when it hit the always-icy bridge. Avril gripped the wheel harder, and held her breath. Another furtive check in the mirror confirmed that the Mercedes was well back now. Veering into the gentler curve, she lost sight of her tail altogether.

  She floored the accelerator, and the back tires fishtailed slightly. Hitting the hill, the front tires grabbed a bite of the snowy road. The car jolted forward and gained speed as it shot up the hill.