Lethal Savage

by Dave Edlund

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  No sooner had Darnell entered his office and closed the door when his phone rang. It was the receptionist announcing that Roger Corbett had just signed in and was on his way to Darnell’s office.

  “You said you wanted to speak with me,” Corbett said as he closed the door. He took a seat in front of the chrome and wood-veneer desk.

  “Yes. Now that we’ve successfully completed the test and it appears the CDC will be backing down, I wanted to ask about the progression of our plan. What is the timetable for moving forward?”

  “I’m certain Dr. Ming will bring you into his confidence at the appropriate time.”

  Darnell frowned. Until this meeting, he’d felt part of the team; that he and Simon Ming shared a common goal. Now, it sounded like he was being pushed aside.

  “Are you saying now is not the appropriate time? We’re all in this together.”

  “Let me discuss your request with Dr. Ming later today.”

  “Okay. And once you do please get back to me right away.”

  Corbett paused, taken aback by Darnell’s directness and sense of urgency. “Is there anything wrong? Any problem I should know about?”

  “Problem? Like what?” Dapples of perspiration appeared on Darnell’s forehead as he fidgeted with a pen.

  “That’s what I’m asking you, Mr. Price.”

  “No. Everything is fine.”

  “Are you sure? None of your employees are acting oddly or asking questions?”

  “No. Everyone is fine. Well, almost everyone. Ben, my VP of sales, is not happy with me donating all those cases to the Native Americans in Warm Springs. And he definitely disapproves of my planned donation to Nigeria,” Darnell explained. “He’s complaining that I’m cutting into his potential annual profit sharing. I’ve told him not to worry, that I’ll take care of him, but he doesn’t trust me. He stopped me only ten minutes ago and asked me to put it in writing.”

  “You need to keep him under control,” Corbett said. “We’ve come too far to have any snags now. We don’t need the media running a spotlight on your charitable habits, know what I mean?”

  “Relax. I told Ben to take the week off and gave him a nice bonus check.”

  “How did he respond?”

  “Are you kidding? He was thrilled! Said something about going to the coast tomorrow.”

  Corbett drew his lips into a tight line. “Did he say where he was going on the coast?”

  “He mentioned Three Rivers Casino in Florence. He wants to try his luck at blackjack.”

  “Good. Anything else I should know about?”

  “No,” Darnell said. “And Ben’s taken care of, just relax.”

  “You better be right,” Corbett said, as he stood to leave. “You don’t want me to have to take care of the problem.”

  Darnell walked from behind his desk to meet Corbett. He jabbed his index finger into Corbett’s shoulder. “This isn’t your concern.”

  Corbett’s reaction was a blur as he latched onto Darnell’s hand. His grip was unyielding, and he twisted the man’s hand, threatening to break his wrist. “Do that again, and I’ll snap your arm.”

  “Okay! Okay! Relax.”

  “Just do your job, got it?”

  s

  After leaving Cascade Aqua, Roger Corbett phoned his boss. “The meeting was short, sir. I have concerns.”

  “Does Mr. Price suspect anything?”

  “No sir. But we may have a problem.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “The VP of sales, a guy named Ben. I’ve never met him, but Price says he’s been asking a lot of questions about the charitable donation Cascade Aqua made to the reservation. He’s been complaining that it will hurt the year-end profit-sharing bonus.”

  “Maybe you should give this Ben person something else to worry about.”

  “Understood.”

  “I want daily reports. Use this number; it’s not traceable. Stay on this. It’s too important to delegate. In a few weeks, we’ll have enough product to make a statement.”

  “And after that?”

  “We watch and assess; tie up loose ends.”

  “What about the operation east of Bend?” Corbett asked.

  “Everyone knows that running an illegal meth factory is a hazardous business. Those labs burn up all the time.”

  Chapter 24

  Eugene, Oregon

  March 22

  With a background in private security, including a short stint as a private detective, Roger Corbett knew how to find missing persons. The treasure trove of information readily available over the Internet made the job of locating a person relatively easy, unless that person went to extraordinary lengths to hide. Only a tiny fraction of the population had any clue how to really remain hidden, so a few routine methods nearly always proved successful. With a phone number, address, photos—even DMV records—locating a person of interest was seldom challenging.

  Corbett had parked a few houses down the street from where Ben Jarvis lived. It was supposed to be the first day of his vacation, so Corbett didn’t expect him to be up too early. And he wasn’t.

  Just before noon, Jarvis placed an overnight suitcase on the back seat of his car and pulled away, presumably heading toward Florence.

  Corbett had close to a full tank of gas and followed at a discrete distance. Nearly an hour later, he followed Jarvis into the expansive parking lot at Three Rivers Casino. Being the middle of the day, the lot wasn’t even close to being full, and he parked only a couple slots away from Jarvis.

  He left the engine running, as he pulled on a ski mask and quickly exited his car. He swiftly approached Jarvis from behind. The sound of footsteps alerted Jarvis, who turned. A rock-hard fist slammed into his face, dropping him to the pavement. Corbett kicked him viciously in the head, again and again.

  Jarvis tried to protect his head and face with his arms, but that caused the blows to be directed at his midsection. He was overcome with pain and found it impossible to catch his breath from the kicks to his stomach and the repeated blows to his face and head. Blood ran freely from his nose and mouth, and both eyes were already swelling closed.

  The beating was over in less than a minute, leaving the battered man lying unconscious only feet away from his car. His face was smeared with blood and mucous. Both cheeks and his nose were turning lurid shades of yellow and purple.

  Corbett didn’t waste time. He ran back to his car, hopped in, and drove away. Just before he left the parking lot he slowed and looked back over his shoulder. He didn’t see anyone lending assistance, and no one at all in the parking lot.

  s

  That evening, the local news briefly mentioned that a Eugene resident had been found severely beaten in the parking lot at Three Rivers Casino. The news anchor identified him as Ben Jarvis and went on to say he was in critical but stable condition with head and internal injuries. He was under a medically-induced coma to help manage and reduce the swelling of his brain. Security cameras covering the parking lot showed a masked man approaching Jarvis from behind and then viciously beating him. The man drove away, but the license plate was obscured to the camera view. The Tribal Police Department was investigating but so far had no suspects.

  Corbett dialed the number he’d memorized.

  “Did you see the evening news?” he said.

  “Yes. Was that our problem? The sales executive you mentioned?”

  “Yes. He won’t be talking to anyone for some time. And when he does regain consciousness, I suspect he’ll have many more important concerns other than what his year-end bonus will be.”

  “I trust you were careful?”

  “I was careful. There were no witnesses, not even Jarvis saw my face or license plate. Nothing for the security cameras to pick up either, and no evidence was left behind.”

  “Excellent. Then we can return our focus to the business at hand.”

  “May I suggest that you send flowers to Mr. Jarvis tomorrow—anonymously, of course—and a note to Da
rnell Price expressing your sorrow and best wishes for his employee’s full recovery?”

  “Good idea. We should act suitably…” the voice paused, searching for the proper words, “sad, and supportive, I suppose. That is the proper behavior, is it not?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “What about the schedule? No delays, I hope.”

  “No, sir,” Corbett replied. “The lab is producing concentrated contagion at the expected pace. There hasn’t been any slip in the schedule.”

  “Good. Soon we will be ready for the next phase.”

  “Price is going to be asking more questions about the schedule. He may be suspicious that we are not having him produce more contaminated water.”

  “Let him think what he will. In due time I will inform him what the true plan is.”

  “What if he doesn’t go along?” Corbett asked. This had been a concern of his from the beginning.

  There was another pause, and then Ming answered. “Then, I’m afraid, Mr. Price will have a most unfortunate accident.”

  Chapter 25

  Bend, Oregon

  March 26

  It had been a full week since Lee Moses had last spoken with Peter to share the results from the preliminary analysis by the CDC investigation team. They were both equally discouraged that a source of the pathogen had not been identified even though they’d both been warned of that possibility.

  Stubbornly, Peter refused to accept that it was a natural mutation of the mumps virus. Although he was no expert on virology, based on his research, it didn’t seem plausible that the virus would burn out so quickly. But even if that was the case, there would still be a source. The virus had to come from somewhere; something that was either ingested, inhaled, or in some way allowed into the body of each patient.

  Another concern nagging at Peter was that mumps infected the lymphatic system in general and was therefore contracted by both male and female. Yet the mysterious viral outbreak at Warm Springs resulted in severe infection of males only, since the disease seemed to infect predominantly the testes. During the outbreak, the Warm Springs clinic had only a handful of cases involving female patients with symptoms of infected lymph nodes, and those cases were very mild.

  He kept coming back to water as the common link between all the patients. And yet mumps was not a water-borne virus. In fact, the few water-borne viruses known to infect humans primarily caused infections of the gastrointestinal tract and liver. These viruses were mostly associated with sewage, or water supplies contaminated by feces—whether from human or animal—and their occurrence was far more common in developing countries.

  So how could water be the source if the virus was a mutated form of mumps? He decided to call Julia Zhong and ask her opinion.

  “Hello Julia. It’s Peter Savage. Do you have a minute?”

  “Oh, hello Mr. Savage. Sure. I was just wrapping up before lunch.”

  “Lee Moses shared with me the essence of your conversation last week, and I understand that your team has not been able to identify the source of the virus.”

  “Yes. None of the samples we collected tested positive.”

  “That’s what bothers me the most. There has to be a source. Unless the virus somehow mutated once it was within the host body.”

  “We don’t think that’s the case at all. There would be absolutely no precedent for that occurring.”

  “But you agree that there has to be a source, right? If the virus is naturally occurring, and spontaneously mutated to this new form that is resistant to vaccination, it still has to be present in the environment. So why have all the lab tests turned up negative?”

  “I don’t fault your logic,” Julia said, “but that doesn’t change the results. Let’s face it. There are thousands of potential ways the patients could have come in contact with the virus. We collected samples for only two days, narrowing our search to those items that appeared to share commonality across the patient population. But there’s no guarantee we sampled everything we should have. In fact, given our negative findings, I’d say we missed something in our collection.”

  “Like the bottled water?” Peter asked.

  “I understand that’s your pet theory, but we did sample water from Cascade Aqua and all results were negative for any pathogens, bacterial or virus.”

  “We both know that’s inconclusive. We need to test all of the production lots that were delivered to Warm Springs over the past several weeks.”

  “Which appears to be impossible. Unless you know of some stash of bottles from the prior lots.”

  “Have you made that request of the management at Cascade Aqua?”

  “No. There is no scientific basis to believe a strain of mumps virus could remain viable in water. The source must be something else. In all likelihood, it was spread from one person to the next through sneezing or coughing, or from contaminated drinking glasses or cups.”

  “It still had to originate with someone.”

  “You’re referring to patient zero?” Julia said. “Yes. Answer that question and you’ve solved the puzzle.”

  “But if the virus has mutated, couldn’t the means of transmission also change? And the new strain is now stable in water? You keep referring to this as a strain of mumps virus, but why does it seem to infect males disproportionately to females?”

  “These all are good questions, but I’m afraid that without further study, they’ll remain unanswerable.”

  “What about a vaccine? I understand that the infected patients had all been previously vaccinated for mumps.”

  “Not all, but close to it,” she said. “Best guess is that they received a weak vaccine, or, more likely, simply outgrew their immunity. It happens—fairly often, actually. However, and this is important, it is premature to know how effective the standard mumps vaccine is against this new, mutated strain of virus.”

  “Can a specific vaccine be made to protect against this new disease?”

  “Maybe. But devising a vaccine against a virus is not as straightforward as it may seem, and sometimes efforts are unsuccessful. HIV in particular, but also Ebola and hepatitis C, have proven especially difficult. There is also the complication of conducting clinical trials on human patients.”

  “I don’t understand.” Peter said.

  “Well, think about it. To run clinical trials, real people must be vaccinated and then subjected to the live virus. At the outset, there is a very real chance that the patients may become infected, either from the vaccine or as a result of exposure to the virus. The ethical question of such trials cannot be ignored.”

  The call ended with no relief for Peter’s frustration. He wanted answers, and he wasn’t getting any. Even worse, he didn’t see a pathway to getting there. Like it or not, the bureaucracy at the CDC seemed to be getting the better of him. Just then, an idea came to mind.

  He opened the browser on his phone and found the webpage for Cascade Aqua. The phone number was displayed, and he dialed, asking for the manager. After a short wait he was placed in contact with the president, Darnell Price.

  Peter explained his involvement with the investigation into the cause of the illness at Warm Springs and asked if any bottles from prior product lots shipped to Warm Springs were still available for analysis.

  “This seems like an odd request,” Darnell said, “coming from a private citizen. Shouldn’t the Oregon Health Authority or CDC be making the request?”

  Peter explained the situation, that the CDC thought it was a naturally occurring virus that mutated, and that they had collected many samples already. “But they couldn’t find any bottles from prior production lots,” he said.

  “Probably all consumed by now. Store managers keep a close eye on inventory. They’d rather I keep it in my warehouse than have pallets of water sitting unsold for weeks in their own warehouses. It’s all about cash flow.”

  “Would it be possible to visit your bottling line and warehouse? I’d like to check for myself, and it seems like an imposition to ask you to condu
ct a thorough search for a few stray bottles.”

  “If this was an official request, I’d have to comply. But under the circumstances—”

  Peter cut him off before he said no. “If I appeal to the CDC, FDA, and Oregon Health Authority, it’s likely to be picked up by the media. That would be bad publicity, and totally unnecessary if, as you say, there’s no issue with your product.”

  “Your appeal sounds more like extortion.”

  “I’m sorry if that’s what you’re hearing. I assure you, I’m simply trying to help solve this mystery.”

  “Okay, Mr. Savage. It’s your time and gas. I can see you tomorrow, if that works for you.”

  Chapter 26

  Eugene, Oregon

  March 27

  Peter arrived five minutes ahead of schedule. He parked in a spot reserved for visitors and entered Cascade Aqua. There were many poster-sized photos of the production line hanging on the walls. A large metal and glass plaque with gold engraving caught his attention, and he moved closer.

  “That’s the Environmental Stewardship Award from the International Bottled Water Association. We are the first bottled water company to use plastic bottles made from 100 percent recycled PET,” Darnell Price said. He was standing behind Peter, his hands clasped behind his back.

  “That’s very impressive, and commendable,” Peter said as he shook Darnell’s hand. “Thank you for meeting with me, Mr. Price.”

  “Please, call me Darnell. As I told you over the phone, I don’t know how much help I can offer. I’m afraid your drive over the mountains may be wasted effort.”

  “I have to try. This is important. Besides, it’s a beautiful drive.”

  “So, what can I do to help you?” Darnell asked.

  “Actually, I was hoping we could check your warehouse stock one more time, just in case you still have a few bottles from the lot number I mentioned.”

  “Ahh. And you really believe there is some sort of contamination, limited to that single lot of bottled water?”

  “It’s a very real possibility.”

  “I assure you, Mr. Savage, my company takes the safety of our product very seriously. We have exceeded Oregon state regulations by installing high-efficiency filtration a year before it will be required. Plus, we distribute throughout the Pacific Northwest and Northern California. There have not been any complaints associated with our water. And, as far as I know, this mysterious illness in Warm Springs that you mentioned, there have not been any other cases reported. Anywhere.”