by Hank Parker
He could see dozens of bats hanging upside down on nearby branches, wings wrapped around their bodies. He reached for a fine-mesh net that was secured to a telescoping aluminum pole, extended it to a nearby bat, and gently dislodged the animal into the net. He didn’t want to risk a bite from one of these creatures—bats carried some pretty nasty diseases, even beyond rabies, which was what most people associated with them, so he wore heavy-duty leather gloves that extended above his wrists. There was no rabies in the Marianas, but if Kennedy’s hunch was correct, these bats might be harboring something far more dangerous, something for which no vaccine existed, something that could lead to an agonizing, painful death.
He eased the captured bat into a burlap sack and extended the net to a second, but instead of nudging the sleeping bat into the net, he bumped its side—too soon and too hard. With a shrill cry, the bat exploded from its roost and flew at Kennedy’s face, wings stretched out in a three-foot span, mouth open, revealing sharp teeth. Kennedy ducked, swiped at the bat with a gloved hand, and lost his perch on the branch.
The harness and rope held. The bat returned to its roost. Swaying from the rope, Kennedy took several seconds to catch his breath, and then slowly pulled himself back to his branch. He willed himself to be more patient.
Kennedy figured that most people would have considered this kind of work to be tedious, lonely, and potentially dangerous, but he couldn’t imagine doing anything else. That his work might benefit humanity was a bonus, but he loved the intellectual task of trying to solve a vexing medical mystery and the physical and mental challenge of tackling a difficult job.
He’d soon bagged a half-dozen bats without further incident. He tightly secured the drawstring around the sack and lowered himself and his equipment to the ground.
He carried the bats to a nearby van and carefully shooed them into a steel-mesh cage on the floor. As he snapped the cage shut, one of the more alert bats shot toward the door and nearly caught Kennedy’s finger in his teeth. Kennedy yanked his hand back and slammed his elbow into one of the doors. Gloves, he reminded himself, rubbing the elbow, his heart pounding. You have gloves on, you idiot.
* * *
The next day, Kennedy was driving along Kalakaua Avenue in Honolulu in a rented Jeep Wrangler. This was only a short layover, but he had enough time before his next flight to Philadelphia for a quick meeting with a colleague. He passed by Waikiki Beach and saw tanned bodies frolicking in the waves. Someday, he thought. Someday he’d finally clear his schedule enough to spend some time here. And not just for the sand and the surf.
He pressed a buzzer below a large, flat panel on a nondescript building next to a strip mall.
“Pacific Enterprises,” said a voice at the other end.
“Kennedy here.”
“Look straight into the panel.”
The retinal scan panel above the buzzer confirmed his identity and the door clicked softly. Kennedy pushed it open. He pressed another buzzer on a door at the end of the hall. The door opened and a tall, skinny African American man extended his hand to Kennedy.
“Welcome to paradise,” said Bill Cothran, grinning.
“Good to see you, Bill,” Kennedy said, gripping Cothran’s hand and returning the grin. Kennedy was always happy to see his old friend and colleague, who was not a businessman, as the name Pacific Enterprises suggested, but rather an undercover agent with the CIA who specialized in detecting and tracking terrorist threats emanating from Southeast Asia and the western Pacific. Kennedy knew Cothran to be intelligent and resourceful, two traits that Kennedy held in the highest regard, but he’d also gotten to know the man behind the professional mask. They’d met in early 2003 in Iraq when they were part of a survey group, tasked to find caches of biological weapons reputedly hidden by Saddam Hussein before the U.S. invasion. As they were approaching a suspicious building just outside of Tikrit, a squad of Iraqi Republican Guard troops had ambushed their lightly armored vehicle. The driver and the Marine guard were killed instantly and Kennedy took a bullet in his thigh.
Cothran had retrieved the dead soldier’s assault rifle, and managed to take out the insurgents single-handedly and carry the wounded Kennedy to the pickup zone two miles away. Kennedy would always owe the man his life and considered him a trusted colleague and a friend, something he couldn’t say about anyone else he knew.
Cothran led Kennedy into a small office and motioned toward a young man slouched in a chair. “Meet my new intern, Angus. Angus, this is Curt Kennedy.”
To Kennedy’s surprise Angus leaped out of his chair in what seemed to be shock.
The young man didn’t quite fall over, but seemed pretty shaken all the same. “Hello, sir, I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,” he managed to sputter.
Kennedy gave Cothran a questioning look. Cothran just shrugged. Kennedy took in Angus’s appearance: dark, curly hair spilling over his ears. Jeans, sneakers, and a ridiculous Hawaiian shirt with pens stuffed into the pocket. Kennedy wondered who’d told him he was appropriately dressed to leave his house, let alone spend the day at a high-level internship. But the boy did look bright. If Cothran had hired him, he must be. And there was something else, something familiar that Kennedy felt oddly compelled to look closer at. But he was always doing this, thinking he recognized someone he didn’t know from Adam, so he simply nodded again and turned away from Angus.
Cothran motioned to a small conference table and they all sat down. “Angus has been assigned to this office for a few months,” said Cothran. “Kind of a training assignment and he’ll give us some technical support. MIT graduate, but he’s at home here—grew up in Hawaii.”
Angus nodded, his eyes never straying from Kennedy. It was obvious to Kennedy that the young man was dying to say something. Practically bursting, but whatever it was he was keeping it to himself. At least for now.
“Curt,” Cothran said, “what did you learn in Saipan?”
Kennedy glanced at Angus, who was making him a little uneasy, then back to Cothran, and said nothing.
“Don’t worry,” Cothran said. “Angus is cleared, and he needs to be brought up to speed.”
Kennedy stiffened but tried to dispel his discomfort at Angus’s strange behavior, which didn’t seem in keeping with an agent. Angus must have sensed it.
He looked at Kennedy and smiled. “Hey, we’re good, okay?” he said, in what sounded to Kennedy like a forced attempt at normalcy. “I understand you’re with something called the Biological Investigative Service. Never heard of that one.”
“It’s a pretty obscure outfit,” Kennedy said, relaxing slightly. “Our job is to track biothreats.”
“But you work for Agriculture?”
Kennedy smiled. Angus didn’t have to know everything. “USDA pays my salary and gives me lab space.”
Angus frowned and looked like he was going to ask another question, but Kennedy cut him off. “So, Saipan,” he said to Cothran. “I confirmed Nipah virus in the bats. The strain matches that of the ’99 Malaysia outbreak in swine that killed over a hundred people. So far—”
“What’s the Nipah virus?” Angus asked.
Kennedy raised an eyebrow in thinly veiled annoyance. Angus met his gaze but Kennedy thought he saw a bit of deference in the intern’s eyes. Kennedy couldn’t guess what was going on with the strange kid, and decided to cut him some slack.
“It’s a rare disease that we haven’t seen in a while,” Kennedy said, “but that, it turns out, is carried by these bats and transmitted to pigs—and humans.”
“So, zoonotic,” Angus said. “Transmitted from animals to humans, with bats as the vector. Like rabies.”
“Not really like rabies,” Kennedy said. “Rabies affects humans and animals pretty much in the same way, but a zoonotic disease like this Nipah virus might be dormant in animals, like it seems to be in these bats, but still be harmful to humans.”
Angus nodded. He reminded Kennedy of a computer downloading a large file.
“So in Saipan,” Kennedy began again, turning back to Cothran. “We have three dead and six hospital cases—all pig farmers or family members. First time the disease has ever cropped up outside Southeast Asia. Saipan’s got about a dozen small pig operations, and based on what I told the local vets and hospitals about Nipah, they’ve quarantined the swine facilities and contained the animals. USDA’s on its way.”
“To Saipan?” Angus asked. “To do what?”
“Sacrifice any animals that have been infected or exposed,” Kennedy said. Have to give the kid credit, he thought, and found himself warming to the young man. He’s not shy about asking questions. Kind of like me.
“I assume you got with our guy there,” said Cothran.
“Monahan,” said Kennedy, nodding. “He’s been keeping an eye on the Marianas offshoot of the Animal Rights League. No confirmation yet that they had anything to do with the outbreak, but it’s the working assumption.”
“But why would animal lovers want to harm pigs?” Angus asked.
“Actually, it’s about protecting the bats,” Kennedy said. “They’re endangered because of overharvesting for food. If I had to guess, I’d say the Animal Rights League is trying to stop the bat harvest by sickening bat hunters. And pig farmers as a side benefit.”
“So basically bioterrorism?” Angus asked. “We’ve been chasing terrorists all over the world since 9/11 and it turns out we need to focus on home-grown crazies? Have these animal rights groups ever used biological weapons?”
“Not yet,” said Kennedy. “At least not on a large scale.” He had the vague sense that Angus was showing off for him, but he was mildly impressed nonetheless. He wished the kid would just come out with whatever it was that he seemed to be suppressing, but it would have to wait for another day. He had a plane to catch.
On his way out the door, with the young man still staring at Kennedy, Cothran gave Kennedy a hearty handshake and said, “Glad you and Angus were able to meet. Maybe next time we can all take some time and catch up a little more.”
Very curious, Kennedy thought. Cothran seemed to be in on whatever it was that Angus was bottling up. Not like Cothran at all to keep secrets from him.
He still couldn’t shake the feeling that, somehow, Angus seemed familiar, like someone he’d known before, or seen somewhere. TV, movies, a public person? Kennedy racked his brains. He prided himself on his memory, on never forgetting a name or a face, but he was coming up blank with Angus.
CHAPTER FOUR
AUGUST 14
KENNETT SQUARE, PENNSYLVANIA
Jennifer Kelly stood beside a stainless-steel table in a veterinarian’s office in suburban Philadelphia and gazed at the inert form of her golden retriever. The vet, Dr. Fernando Ferreira, knew the woman was worried and tried to project his own calm onto her. She brushed back a lock of auburn hair. “He’s so still,” she said shakily.
Dr. Ferreira slowly withdrew a rectal thermometer. “Asleep,” he told Mrs. Kelly. “Sedative’s working.” He’d administered twenty milligrams of acepromazine when the dog had first come in, which had made a full exam much easier, especially with a dog this size. Calvert was his name. Ferreira had treated him before, throughout the four years he’d been the Kelly family’s vet. He held the thermometer to the light in a gloved hand. “A hundred six. Above normal. I’ll get a blood sample.”
As Mrs. Kelly looked on, Ferreira shaved the dog’s left forelimb, swabbed the area with alcohol, and drew two tubes of blood. He pressed a piece of gauze against the needle stick area, retrieved a notepad, and jotted down the symptoms: lethargy, recent weight loss, swollen glands, clear, watery discharge from nose and eyes, and painful joints. Bare patches on the torso where the dog’s fur had come off in clumps exposing reddish, bruiselike splotches on the bare skin. Minor hemorrhaging around the gums. “I need to do a full blood workup,” he told Mrs. Kelly. “But I’m thinking canine ehrlichiosis—canine hemorrhagic fever. Not too common around here but I’ve seen a few cases. Looks like we caught it early enough to treat it. I’ll write a prescription.”
She looked closely at him, her brow deeply furrowed. “How did he get it?”
“Tick, probably.” The vet probed with his fingers under the retriever’s thick coat and waited for Mrs. Kelly’s next question. There was never just one.
“Could people get this thing?” she asked.
“Maybe from a tick. Not likely from a dog.” Now she’d start asking him about ticks, he thought. Ferreira sympathized with her concern, but he didn’t have time for a long Q&A. “Ticks carry all kinds of nasty bugs,” he said. “They’re all over the place and feed on blood. When they bite an animal or human they can transmit bacteria or virus. You want to always check after a walk, get in the habit of using a repellent.” Ferreira’s fingers paused on the nape of Calvert’s neck. Bingo. He parted the straw-colored fur, exposed a tiny insect, and scrutinized it through a magnifying glass.
He picked up a pair of fine-tipped tweezers, swabbed them with alcohol, and firmly clasped the tick at the point where its mouth was attached to the dog’s skin. He pulled steadily, taking care not to crush the insect’s body, detached it, dropped it into an alcohol-filled vial, and capped and labeled the vial. He cleaned the spot on the dog’s skin with a disinfectant and swabbed on antibiotic ointment. “Okay, big boy,” he said. “Ready to go?”
As Ferreira slid his arms under Calvert and started to lift, the dog awoke, looked up at him with bloodshot eyes, and issued a low, menacing growl. Mrs. Kelly gasped.
Slowly, very slowly, Ferreira laid the dog back on the table and edged away. His mind raced. Pretty early for the anesthetic to wear off, he thought. And why would the dog be coming out of it so hostile, especially considering how gentle and loving Calvert had always been? He turned to Mrs. Kelly and asked her to wait outside. Dogs sometimes became protective of their owners in a vet’s office.
When she’d left, Ferreira approached the dog again, carefully, with reassuring words and sounds. Calvert continued to growl and his eyes tracked Ferreira’s movements. His lips drew back over his teeth. As the vet watched, foamy, reddish saliva began to bubble from the dog’s mouth and then his eyes rolled back in his head. Calvert continued to growl, like, Ferreira thought, a creature possessed. No way this is ehrlichiosis, he concluded. Rabies? Impossible. Calvert’s shots were up-to-date. Ferreira needed backup.
He edged toward the door as the dog continued to growl and snarl and, now, to stir. Blood had begun to drip from his mouth. Ferreira groped for the door handle.
The dog struggled to his feet, stood on the steel table, and crouched.
Ferreira’s hand found the handle, but he didn’t want to move for fear of making the big dog lunge. He gave the door a tiny push, and immediately it squeaked on its hinges.
With a snarl the dog sprang forward, covering the distance to Ferreira in the air, knocking him back against the door, and sinking his teeth deep into Ferreira’s left wrist.
Ferreira screamed, not in pain—he couldn’t yet feel the wound—but in fear. Would the dog stop at his wrist, or move in on his throat? Just what kind of disease was this animal carrying? Was it transmissible to humans? This is how I’m going to die, he thought.
CHAPTER FIVE
AUGUST 17
NEAR PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
Mariah Rossi fired up her five-year-old Subaru Outback and asked herself, as she did every morning, what had possessed her to buy such a car. The roughest road it had seen so far was the Schuylkill Expressway during pothole season. Her main incentive, she knew, had been those ads that had been everywhere just when she’d been looking to trade in her old Honda Civic. The open spaces stretching toward snowcapped peaks, the kayak riding the car-top carrier, the hiking and camping gear filling the trunk—she’d been unable to resist, but now here
she was driving the same paved highway to and from her office every day, when the Outback was probably longing for a major road trip.
In the parking lot at her office building, she smoothed a few strands of hair into her ponytail and glanced at herself in her rearview mirror. She spotted the dark circles under her eyes and—what was that? Had she had that wrinkle last night? Oh, stop it, she scolded herself, grabbing her briefcase from the passenger seat and heading into work.
At her desk, she powered up her clunky computer and opened the file she’d been working on the night before. She checked her notes, punched in a number, and watched an animated diagram of a regional map on the monitor. A small blue dot near Wichita, Kansas, represented a hypothetical case of an animal disease, and it was slowly but steadily ballooning into a large blob that stretched toward the north and west. A digital readout at the bottom of the screen ticked off the cumulative time.
T + 12 hours: The blob had engulfed the entire state of Kansas and was oozing toward Colorado and western Nebraska.
T + 24: Wyoming and parts of South Dakota were turning blue. It was just a matter of time before the stain spread over Montana and Idaho, and then Canada.
As a veterinary epidemiologist working in a government lab operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, she specialized in modeling the spread of livestock diseases. The model on her monitor was of foot-and-mouth disease, a highly contagious and economically devastating viral affliction that sickened cloven-hoofed animals like cattle, sheep, and pigs, but didn’t harm people. Her expertise was widely recognized and she’d proved invaluable in helping stop a number of potential epidemics of various animal diseases, but in reality hers was a desk job. She had once found comfort within the safe, sterile confines of the lab, but lately it had started to depress her. This morning she was plugging meteorological data into her model to determine how weather conditions would affect the direction and spread of the disease.
