“Well, we are.”
“How am I supposed to finish my work? Who’ll feed the cats? Who’s going to transfer the cell cultures. They’ll die out if they’re not transferred and fed.”
“Gary, relax. This will pass. You can continue to work on your thesis. In fact, you’ve gotten a little behind in your writing, and this is a good opportunity to get caught up. As for the cats, I’m sure they will let us in to take care of them. I’ll discuss it with Dr. Stanaland.”
As if on cue, the head of the institute showed up at that moment. “Have you two seen the morning paper?” he asked. He tossed a printed copy of The Star onto Noah’s desk. He and Gary stared at the paper blankly. “Kohut’s grinding his axe today, and we’ve provided the whetstone.”
Noah read the bold headline aloud: “CSUCI lab source of Camarillo cat epidemic.” He looked up at Dr. Stanaland and exclaimed, “This can’t be happening!” Noah read the body of the article in silence while Gary read over his shoulder. He quickly realized that the article was filled with misinformation and innuendo as well as opinion, which properly belonged on the op-ed page. Noah looked up. “This is outrageous!” he exclaimed. “It borders on slander.”
“Libel,” Stanaland corrected, “and I believe Kohut has crossed way over that border. I’ve got the university’s legal department looking into it.” He regarded the scientist and the graduate student somberly. “Noah, Gary, I want you two to keep level heads during this crisis. Most of your colleagues, myself included, think it unlikely that this feline leukemia started in your lab. We’re simply the victims of a bizarre coincidence. On the other hand, we can’t entirely rule out the possibility that the disease did originate here. Noah, go on with your teaching and use any extra time to catch up on your technical reading. And, Gary, you could work on your thesis. I understand you’ve fallen a bit behind.”
Gary exchanged a glance with Noah and smiled wanly. He then said, “Dr. Stanaland, we’ve got to go into the lab to take care of the cats, and, if we don’t keep up the cell cultures, they will all die out.”
Stanaland nodded. “I don’t think the IBC would object if you maintained the lab. Just don’t do any cloning experiments.” Without waiting for Noah to respond, he turned and strode out of the office.
“Let’s take a look at the cats,” Noah suggested.
A foul odor greeted them as they entered the cat room. Four more cats had died during the night. “If this keeps up, we can forget about doing any research, even if the ban is lifted,” observed Gary.
“Bastette died yesterday,” Noah blurted.
“What?”
“My cat Bastette died.”
“Oh, uh, I’m sorry. I guess it’s the same disease that’s getting our cats.”
“What if they’re right?” Noah said dubiously. “Maybe we did start the epidemic, but I can’t think how.”
When Noah left for the day, he encountered a crowd of people milling about the entrance to the institute. He recognized some of them as animal-welfare supporters who had been present at the meetings of last year when he had been forced to suspend his research. He spied several T-shirts bearing slogans: “Stop research on sentient creatures,” and “Vivisection is the work of the devil.” The Star was also represented, and, when the photographer spotted Noah, flashes went off, one after the other.
When the demonstrators recognized Noah, they began yelling obscenities. Soon they were chanting in unison. “Cat-killer! Cat-killer!” A reporter from The Star pushed through to Noah. “Dr. Chamberlin, do you have any comments about what you’ve done?”
Noah glared at the young man and replied, “What have I done?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned back into the building and exited through a small service door at the rear, unseen. He asked himself, What have I done? He turned Vera’s theory over and over in his mind. The more he thought about it, the more he became obsessed with the possibility that the cat sickness had actually started in his lab.
For what seemed to her the hundredth time that week, Vera drove out to the Knowland house. She did so, not because she thought she could be of any help to the remaining cats there—she fully expected all of them to die—but out of compassion for a dear friend. When she arrived at Dottie’s, Vera sensed that her friend’s mood had changed since yesterday—no crying this time. Rather, Dottie’s inner strength had surfaced. Determination showed on her face; she was ready to brave the worst. Vera placed three more dead cats in a large plastic bag—for disposal, not examination. There was neither time nor need for performing necropsies on every dead cat. She did, however, make a cursory examination of some of the still-living felines. There were no surprises. “There is nothing I can do, Dorothy. I’m sorry.”
“I know. It’s not your fault. The newspaper says that it all got started up at the university. They think your Dr. Chamberlin had something to do with it.”
“That’s a possibility,” said Vera. She was suddenly aware of how serious an effect this disease was going to have on Noah’s career. “I’ve got to go now. I’ll check back with you tomorrow.”
Vera hastened out the door, fumbling with the sack of corpses, which impeded her retrieving the car keys. She wanted to cry. Damn it! This is just horrible. The bag slipped from her grip. A feline head protruded from the fallen plastic. Vera herself sank to the ground. “Oohhh … fuck.” The tears came. She managed to get the door unlocked and sat in the Porsche, unable to turn the key, unable to think clearly. She sat quietly for a long time, her sorrow metamorphosing into anger and resolve.
At Vera’s urging, Mayor Yoshino called an emergency meeting of the city council. It was a chilly Thursday evening, and the five council members sipped hot coffee in Vera’s living quarters. “I’m sorry to call you here on such short notice,” said the mayor, “but Dr. Barnett considers this an extreme emergency.”
“You realize,” noted Councilman Amend, “that this meeting violates the Brown Act.”
“I know it does,” responded the mayor, “but Dr. Barnett believes that time is of the essence. As soon as we’re finished here, I’ll post a summary of the meeting on our TV channel and our website. In any case, the Brown Act has a provision for emergency meetings in the public interest. Mrs. Schubert, would you mind serving as recording secretary?”
“Not at all. I have a recorder here somewhere.” She fumbled in her bag.
“Dr. Barnett,” said Yoshino, indicating that the floor was hers.
Vera had no need to explain the situation. By now, almost everyone in the city knew about the illness sweeping so rapidly through the feline population. “I think we have a moral obligation to do what we can to keep the disease from spreading. I’d like to ask the council to impose a quarantine on the cats in Camarillo. Perhaps we could order all cat owners to keep their pets indoors.”
“I don’t think we have that authority,” Councilman Amend pointed out. “Besides, how could we enforce such a decree?”
Yoshino countered, “We do have the authority to protect the health and safety of the citizenry, but I don’t know about animals. It’s a gray area. Much of the affected area doesn’t lie within the city limits.”
“We are dealing with an unprecedented situation,” Vera said passionately. “Do we want Camarillo to be remembered as the place where began the Great Feline Epidemic of the Twenty-first Century? This disease, which I believe is a form of leukemia, has incredible destructive potential.”
“We could probably pass a resolution,” offered Councilwoman Schubert, “and have the mayor make a statement. Cat owners are usually nice people. I think they would voluntarily comply with the decree.”
“I suppose we have nothing to lose,” said the mayor. “Do I hear a motion?”
The motion to place the city’s cats under quarantine passed unanimously. The next day, Mayor Yoshino appeared on television to urge compliance. As far as Vera knew, there was 100 percent coop
eration by cat owners. But, when she read that a number of feline deaths had been reported in nearby Oxnard, Vera realized at once it was a futile effort. On Saturday, Vera came upon an article in The Star from the Associated Press reporting a highly contagious illness advancing rapidly through cats in Seattle, Washington. Oh shit. Vera stood up so suddenly, her chair fell over. Seattle is more than a thousand miles away. This can’t be.
Ed Mason of Chattanooga, Tennessee, had loved wild birds since childhood. He enjoyed watching them eat the seeds he put out each morning. “Now there’s a new one,” he said to himself, leaning closer to the window. “What could it be?” It looked to Ed like a female house finch, but with a large, rounded crest—more like a cluster of small feathers. The bird’s rumpled, maybe molting. That’s odd, she’s picking up seeds with the side of her beak instead of the tip. When the bird came closer, Ed saw that the “crest” was an injury. The poor little thing must have crashed into a window, he thought. I bet she damaged her beak too and that’s why she’s eating that way.
Just then the bossy Jays returned and the smaller birds scattered. I hope the wee finch will be able to recover. At least she can still fly. If only she can get enough to eat with that damaged beak.
The other birds came and went, but the lumpy injured bird lingered as she struggled to eat the seeds. He’d read that injured and sick birds were often worse off than they acted and looked. Their lives depended on their appearing normal to predators. Ed had rescued some wild birds over the years. I hope this one’s not worse than she looks. I could have helped her, but I wasn’t there to pick her up when she crashed.
The next morning, Ed watched Lumpy, as he’d begun to call her, struggle with the seeds. She’s not going to last long enough to get better if she can’t eat, he thought. He put out sunflower bits and bread crumbs and went back inside to watch. She arrived with the other small birds, and he was happy to see she had no trouble eating the new offering.
The following morning, Lumpy was eating, but looked more unkempt. Can she groom her feathers with a damaged beak? Ed knew that feather grooming was essential for flight. Days went by, and he worried that she wasn’t getting any better, but she didn’t appear to be getting worse. Was it healing under the lump? It looked the same.
In a day or two, he saw that poor little Lumpy was moving more slowly and ate and sat with her feathers puffed up. Damn! She might not make it after all. The next morning, the bird flew in slowly, low to the ground. As if that had taken the last of her strength, she sat where she landed, feathers puffed, and didn’t move. She walked slowly forward, ate a few sunflower bits, and sat again for several minutes. This doesn’t look good at all, he thought. I hate this. That bird has suffered so long and tried so hard. She’d put up a fight but it didn’t look like she was going to win this one.
Ed didn’t see her the next day. I could have missed her, he told himself. She might still be alive. She wasn’t out there the following day either. Well, it looks like she didn’t make it, he thought. He’d felt close to this little bird as he’d become involved in her daily struggle, watching her small victories and the stoic acceptance of her limitations. He sighed. Well, at least she’s not suffering any more.
On the morning of the third day, a rumpled bird in the group caught his eye. It looked like Lumpy, but was fairly energetic and didn’t have any bumps. He wasn’t sure. Could it be? Surely not, she’d been so bad the last time he saw her. As he watched, the bird tipped her head and picked up a seed with the side of her beak. Ed sprang from his chair excitedly. It is her! She’s alive. How can that be? How did she do it? She had not only survived, she seemed almost normal. Like other wild creatures she had the gift of a simple, innate resourcefulness. She never gave up. Ed Mason smiled to see little Lumpy recovering, looking neater, bright-eyed, and alert. And it pleased him to think that in some small way, he had helped her pull it off.
9
May 2020
1,087,000,000
Few people are neutral when it comes to cats. Most of us are either ailurophiles or ailurophobes; Angelo Nils Kraakmo was, unquestionably, one of the phobes. That is why he was indignant when his boss at the Centers for Disease Control told him to put aside his investigation of Legionnaire’s Disease in northern Minnesota to look into a problem with cats on the West Coast.
Angelo removed his horn-rimmed glasses and rubbed his brow. “But Warren,” he protested, “I’ve narrowed down the focus of this Legionaire’s to hot tubs in a couple of hotels in the lakeside town where the epidemic began. I just have to take scum samples from the hot-water pipes.” He was proud of his detective work and was miffed when Warren Bronkowski, head of epidemiology at the CDC, wanted to remove him from the case.
“Sorry, Angelo,” Bronkowski answered. “I’m reassigning the Legionnaire’s case to Carlson. All that remains is dotting a few i’s and crossing a few t’s.” Angelo recognized “dotting i’s and crossing t’s” as one of Bronkowski’s favorite expressions.
One of Angelo Kraakmo’s favorite expressions was “Scandaloose!” That is what he exclaimed on learning he was to be taken off the Legionnaire’s study to investigate a cat disease. He tried to persuade Bronkowski that he was above this investigation. “I don’t like cats,” he uttered with his peculiar Norwegian-Italian accent, “and I suspect they do not like me. Besides, I am needed on the Legionnaire job.”
“Actually, you aren’t,” retorted Bronkowski. “Carlson can finish it up. This feline disease is pretty serious. I want you on it, because you are one of the best people I’ve got.” He played easily on Angelo’s ego. “I’ve already arranged for your ticket to Los Angeles; it’s a six thirty flight tomorrow morning. Here’s all the information we’ve got.” He handed a two-inch-thick manila folder to the perplexed epidemiologist. “You will be at the airport, won’t you.” It was not a question.
“Since when does the CDC investigate animal diseases?” Angelo demanded defiantly. “That’s for the USDA.”
“Ordinarily, we don’t. However, there are some good reasons why we have to get involved with this thing. First, the disease may be a form of feline leukemia, but it seems to occur even in cats that have been immunized against FeLV.
“Normal cats carry provirus FeLV genes on their chromosomes,” he continued, “and there are chromosomal genes in baboons that are quite similar to FeLV. Baboon DNA has lengthy regions with the same base sequence. Besides, the feline genome has more in common with the human genome than any other animal group except primates. You see where I’m going with this? There exists the potential for its transfer to humans.
“Second, it is universally fatal for cats that get it. This thing has a rapid onset and is fatal within days or even hours.
“Third, I recall that another cat virus, FIV, has been transferred to human cells in culture.” Bronkowski paused while Angelo scribbled notes on his e-tablet. “Finally, it appears to have a hemorrhagic aspect; FeLV doesn’t display such symptoms. What if it’s some sort of feline Ebola?”
Angelo pondered all this while Bronkowski remained silent. “I will be at the airport,” he finally grumbled. “I will be on the plane. I will do my job. I will solve the case. But I will not be happy working with cats instead of people.” He turned and rapidly exited Bronkowski’s office, muttering, “Scandaloose!” under his breath.
His coworkers might have thought it odd for Angelo to show such an interest in people; he was not a gregarious guy. Although he got along well enough with his colleagues, when off the job, he preferred his own company. Occasionally, he spent time socially with his coworkers, and, when he did, curiously, he was often the center of attention. None of his associates understood his preference for being alone. They would discuss Angelo behind his back.
Vince Carlson, Nickerson Brown, and other techs often lunched together at an outdoor table in the patio. “Did you know that Kraakmo invented the calculus?�
� asked Carlson.
Brown laughed. “Yeah, mon, right.”
“I’m serious. Angelo told me that when he was nine, the idea came on him while he was completing an arithmetic homework assignment. He wrote it down over several days, then showed it to his father.”
Brown shrugged. “So …”
“Mr. Kraakmo looked over the math. It was the real deal. Angelo’s old man had to tell his son that Newton and Leibniz had beaten him to it.” Carlson took a bite of his sandwich. After a moment, he remarked, “I think Angelo’s eccentricity stems from his upbringing by a strict Lutheran father. I understand the old guy was a successful Norwegian businessman in his day.”
“On de other hand,” replied Brown, a BSL-4 lab technician who, many a time, had processed samples sent in by Angelo, “his mother is a warm, outgoin’ Italian lady. I met her a few years ago when she visit here.”
“Perhaps that unusual pairing accounts for Angelo’s idiosyncrasies,” offered Carlson. “You know, he’s in his mid-fifties and has never married. It looks to me like he’s going to be a loner forever. Of course, he’s not a very good-looking guy … puffy face with those pockmarks. And where did he get those scars, anyway?” Nobody knew. Nor did they know how Angelo acquired his slight limp.
Brown was pensive. “Say what you will, mon, I tink the Epidemic Intelligence Service is fortunate to have him. We put up with him because, not only is he the Sherlock Holmes of epidemiology, he’s a patient and effective teacher.”
As Angelo repacked his travel case, he reflected on the agency he was so proud to serve. Originally called the Communicable Disease Center, the CDC had been established in 1946 as a subsidiary of the US Public Health Service. In those days, its mission was the study of malaria, typhus, and a few other infectious diseases.
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