“My God.” Donna stared at Mike. “It’s happening to people?”
Mike nodded. “That’s how I felt when I saw your cows. I don’t know what I expected. Just not this.”
“Why here? These cows?” The cowboy’s confident air had left him. “We haven’t sold any of them in six months. Certainly not since this started.” He nodded toward the third pen where steers continued to stagger.
“We have reports that beef from this ranch may have been donated to a school party in Williston.”
“A school —?” That was weeks ago to celebrate the end of the school year. Yeah, we slaughtered a steer. A healthy one. What we didn’t donate we kept.”
“You kept it?” Mike tried to contain his excitement. “For your personal use?”
“Well, yeah —”
“Do you still have any of that meat?”
“Probably.”
“Mr. Taylor, we’ll have a lab team on the ground here tomorrow. You’ll need to turn over whatever you have left of the steer to them.”
“So you know what it is?” Donna held her breath in anticipation of the answer.
“What it —?” Mike looked a bit sheepish. “We don’t really know if there’s even a link. Or we didn’t know until today. Seeing these cows pretty well confirms it. Your truck says you run the McKenzie County Clinic — are you seeing any more animals like these in the area?”
“Why?” Donna was fiercely protective of her clients; she wasn’t going to implicate any of them prematurely.
“Because the kids at school aren’t the only ones affected. We think there may also be some dairy connections. Or possibly pigs or chickens. Like I said, we’re just following the dots right now. Some of the ideas, I hope, will turn out to be deadends. If we can at least narrow whatever it is to just one species, that’ll give us something solid to go on.”
“That’s a lot of dots, Mr. Shafer.” Donna forced herself to speak calmly even though she could feel a panic building in her chest. “How are the kids doing? I wouldn’t think the CDC would be out here if it wasn’t something serious.”
“We just sent an alert out for Montana and North and South Dakota. We’ve got 37 kids affected — three of them dead.”
The cowboy sagged back against a fence.
“None of your school kids, Mr. Taylor.” Not yet at least, Mike added mentally, but the guy was obviously shaken enough already. “We have some spikes in adults showing neurological symptoms, too, but it’s harder to separate out stroke victims and early-stage Parkinson’s and other adult-onset disorders. A lot of the patients, though, are toddlers, just going off the bottle and onto cow’s milk, so we want to look at the local milk supply.”
“You said there’d be a lab team here tomorrow?” Donna asked. “Then send them to the clinic. We’ve run just about every test imaginable on milk, blood, urine, muscle tissue, you name it. My colleagues and I have been trying to isolate this pathogen for the last two months. Whatever it is, it’s new. Or a form of something known that’s been so mutated our normal tests don’t recognize it. Beef cattle, dairy herds, goats, sheep, alpacas — I’ve seen individual animals and groups in all these species with it. I just put down a horse with it this morning.” Donna hadn’t had a chance to take anything more for her headache and it was getting harder to think and process through the pain. But, like Mike had said, there were connections that needed exploring, and one of them jumped out at her, prompted by the flow of the conversation. “Pigs, too, you said?”
“There’s a locally made hotdog brand — Dakota Dogs. Seems to be popular among the kids.”
Donna nodded. “Some of my clients supply them. Most of them are small piggeries that grow their own feed. Then they supplement that feed with whey and other surplus from the dairies. If this thing started with cows, that’s a possible transmission route.”
Mike cocked an eyebrow. “You obviously know a lot about a disease that seems to be running rampant out here, Doctor. Did you not think to inform anyone about what’s going on?”
“If you mean did I inform anyone beyond the State Board of Veterinarians, communicating with numerous colleagues in this region, sending hundreds of samples and detailed reports to state and national laboratories, and consulting with area universities, then no, I did not. This has all been one big coverup and now you’re here to expose the scandal and, oh, I’m running scared.” More than just the headache was making her touchy now.
“You’ll find we’re mostly honest business folk out here, Mr. Shafer. No one wants to sell diseased animals or tainted milk that’ll affect any downstream consumer, whether it’s a person or another animal. But most pathogens are very host specific. I need proof of the transmission route before I can even think of shutting down hundreds of businesses.
“Believe it or not, I welcome your lab teams, and my clients will welcome them as well. My sources have come up dry and we need to know what this is so we can stop it now before it gets worse, and then we can start over fresh if we have to. In fact, if the CDC gets involved, the ranchers may even get some government relief money to offset any losses. So don’t start making accusations, Mr. Shafer, before you know a few of the facts.”
Mike threw up his hands in mock surrender. “Just doing my job here, lady. Getting everything out in the open so we can get to the truth as fast as possible.”
“The truth, huh? The truth. Do you know why I’m out here today, Mr. Shafer? Do you know what those men are doing?” She pointed to the cowboys still culling cattle, but who were also obviously keeping an eye and ear on the conversation going on outside the cattle pens.
“Looks like they’re separating out the sick cattle?”
“That’s right. And do you know what’s going to happen to those sick cows?”
Mike’s forehead furrowed a bit. At gut level he knew, but how to put it into words?
“I’m going in there and, one by one, I’m going to kill them. There’s what — 30 or 40 in there now? Not so many when you think there’s a few thousand cows in this county and a few million in this state. But that’s 20 or 25 percent of Mr. Taylor’s herd. How much does a steer sell for on average, Mr. Taylor?”
“’Bout a dollar a pound, more or less.”
“So that’s something like 25 thousand dollars in that pen. Maybe 15 thousand of that is profit Mr. Taylor and his family expect to live on. Those cowboys? They’re neighbors come to help Mr. Taylor round up his cows. When they need help, Mr. Taylor will go out to their ranches same as they’ve come here. Because that’s what you do out here to keep costs down. No one in McKenzie County is a rich cattleman. Every cow is relied on to earn a living. Those cows I’m about to kill don’t just represent lost sales. They represent lost profit. He’s losing their overhead costs: vaccinations, parasite control, supplemental feed, fencing and just plain time.
“And because Mr. Taylor is an ethical businessman and we don’t know what we’re dealing with, he’s not going to sell those dead cows. Not even to a dog food plant. He’s going to burn their carcasses at the back of his property and every time he rides by that site, he’s going to see the charred remains of his son’s college fund or the ashes of the medical insurance he’s thinking he and his wife may be needing to look into now that they’re almost 60.
“No one, not one of these men and women out here wants to be the cause of anyone, let alone a child, becoming gravely ill or, heaven forbid, dying. But they’re also going to need rock-solid, signed-by-the-devil proof that it’s their healthy-looking cattle or milk they’re sending to market that’s caused it.”
The vet’s irate blast was not wholly unexpected. Bitterness, confusion and anger were common reactions, Mike knew, to any type of health news that could affect a person’s livelihood. But theoretic knowledge couldn’t hold a candle to standing there seeing the worry on a lined cowboy’s face and hearing the acrimony in an angered woman’s voice. A civil but uneasy interview — that he’d been prepared for, had steeled himself for. He’d even been
ready for someone putting a rifle in his face and running him off the ranch. But this kind of passion — the kind that wasn’t unreasonable, the kind that was rational, logical — wasn’t so easily countered or run away from. It was the kind that ground him up inside and spit him out in two directions.
He wasn’t here to counsel. Not yet anyway. Not until the CDC had the facts in hand and the proof these cowboys needed — deserved — to have. He was nothing more than an objective observer putting the pieces of a complex puzzle together. He didn’t know yet what the puzzle’s final picture would look like, but he did know that the picture was already determined and that the pieces fit only one way. No amount of denial or rhetoric or even insistence on anyone’s part was going to change the final result. Science — statistics, empirical evidence and hard facts — alone would be accountable in the end. For that, Mike was grateful.
“I only want to get at the truth, whatever that truth might be,” Mike said. “It would help if I had someone who knows this area and its people, and who can think clearly and logically, to help me connect the dots. Would you be willing to work with me for a few days?”
Only a slight widening of her green eyes betrayed Donna’s surprise at the question. The unexpectedness of this man’s visit and his theory that whatever she’d been dealing with for the past weeks was communicable to humans had shocked her to the bone. Not that she hadn’t considered the possibility, but she’d seen nothing to support it. Not that couldn’t be explained by other causes. So if the government was going to get involved, she wanted to be sure that any conclusions reached were fully backed by due diligence and proof, not conjecture and a need to pander to public opinion. She was being given the opportunity to ensure the facts, and to be one of the first to know what the outcome of the investigation would be and what the fallout would mean to the animals, her clients and the region itself.
If this thing did prove to be communicable, things would get ugly fast. Almost unconsciously she began to steel herself for such an eventuality.
“I have a man’s dreams to kill right now. Stay and help me with that and afterward I’ll be glad to help with your investigation, Mr. Shafer.”
“It’s Mike. Please, call me Mike.”
CHAPTER 22
WALT THURMAN WELCOMED Grigor Volkov into his den with a lavish wave of his hand. “I understand you have some good news. A little something that’s going to keep Triple E in business once we come out the other side of this thing.”
“The news is good so far,” Dr. Volkov agreed. “But what we are looking at is far from money potential right now.”
Walt frowned. “Your colleagues tell me differently. In any case, the marketability of your research is up to the board to decide and we’re moving forward with finding a buyer. There’s an office pool to guess how much the research ultimately goes for. Care to make a bet?”
The geneticist shook his head, once, sharply.
“Your loss. Talk to me about what we’re selling.”
Stalling wasn’t going to do anyone any good, Dr. Volkov realized. Walt would simply find his answers elsewhere. In fact, there were two or three on the team he was fairly certain were already feeding information out. Party liners. Dollar worshippers. Scientists not in it for the research but for the results and recognition. They would have been out long ago if their skills weren’t solid and their knowledge aces. But he’d always worried how they’d react when it came to a moral choice between what was right for the research and what was right for the wallet.
With a mental sigh, he settled into one of the leatherback chairs across the desk from Walt. “The disease is transmitted when a genetically altered prion — a mutant — is introduced into a healthy batch of prions. In a chain reaction, that mutant prion acts like a template, convincing the healthy, normal protein bits to fold, or mutate, the same way. The mutations occur in a consistent manner, so we can label these altered prions as a completely new strain. The bad news is that this strain doesn’t behave like any of the other nearly two dozen prion strains that have been catalogued. And what works for one of the other strains won’t necessarily work for this new one.
“We’ve found a peptide form that we can bind with copper sulfate and introduce into an infected host that convinces the altered prions to take on new, more desirable characteristics. So we’re forcing them to go through one more mutation, where they should stabilize.”
“Success rate?”
“Nearly 100 percent.” He held up his hand when Walt smiled and clapped the desktop with his palm. “What we don’t know and what we’re testing still is what effect these new mutations will have on either a healthy body or one already diseased. The new protein bit is not an exact match for the non-diseased prion — for some reason we can’t just reintroduce normal prions and have them begin the re-imaging process. But that’s been a problem since researchers first identified mutated prions as the cause of mad cow disease.
“We also don’t know if treatment results in a permanent or temporary cure. We still need to test whether re-exposure will overwhelm the prion factory of the host and the disease-prions will simply become infectious again. Or whether manipulating the prions so many times will cause them to break down and perhaps reconfigure in wholly unexpected ways.”
“You talk like we have the luxury of time on our side.”
“I am just cautioning that this may well be a case in which the cure really does prove worse than the disease. Only thorough testing will determine that.”
“How would it be administered?”
“In its current form, through vaccine. In this case, it would be preferable, I think, to vaccinate after the disease has been contracted.”
“Any species?”
“Mammals, yes. Though I would hesitate to use vaccinated animals in the human food supply. Perhaps further testing would dispel my doubts.”
“What about wild animals? Vermin? Carriers that can’t be vaccinated?”
“Authorities in south Texas used to set out bait laced with rabies vaccine for the stray dog and coyote populations. Was it effective? Probably with the animals that came in contact with the bait and took it. But is there any way to truly gauge which animals get enough viable vaccine to be protected? And how do you bait deer and mice and squirrels?”
“Are you saying once this gets loose it can’t be stopped?”
“Temperature seems to have an effect. A warmer climate does prompt faster, more aggressive mutation. If it gets loose, I would say we should all start praying for another Ice Age.”
“We’ve got to stay ahead on this one. I’m going to set up an emergency web conference next week with the major pharmaceutical manufacturers. I’ll see who wants to buy in to our research and partner with us to manufacture and distribute a vaccine for a theoretical epidemic that our computer models are predicting could be unlike anything we’ve ever seen. I want you on the call to explain the biochemistry.”
“You realize two weeks doesn’t even cover the first phase of testing?”
“Whether or not your vaccine actually works doesn’t matter right now. I’ve got to get a fire under these CEO butts and get contractual funding in place before this disease starts making news. I need a prototype, a calendar and quantity projections for domestic human and veterinary distribution as well as projections for taking it global. I need that yesterday. I’ll call on the board to ante up some willing guinea pigs to expedite your testing.
“Any questions? Then I suggest we get started.”
CHAPTER 23
“DAMN.”
Mike simply stared at the Pad-L as the latest trending results spiked nearly off the screen. The message texted to him this morning had been short and sweet: Areawide Red Alert.
From the TV in the corner of the hotel dining room, a broadcaster’s words wormed their way through the numbness that had clamped around his brain. He listened to the local report with growing alarm.
“… are sending patients to Bismarck hospitals for treatment.
If you have a need for emergency care that is not related to the current outbreak, expect long waits at area hospitals and clinics.
“Again, doctors are urging that if you notice poor motor control or confusion, especially in your children or older adults, get to a hospital immediately. We’ll have more details as to what you can do to prevent this debilitating disease as we know more. Stay tuned to this station for any breaking news …”
Local news feeds would quickly work their way to regional news then national. A Red Alert would mean CDC resources would be freed up and dispatched quickly to the area. They’d start with the hospitals, investigating the patients and interviewing the case doctors and administrators.
The lab team he’d thought would be here had already been reassigned. The CDC field teams would play catch-up over the next couple of days while better-trained personnel back in Atlanta and DC analyzed the facts and made their own connections.
Sector C Page 9
