Cold Plague

by Daniel Kalla

  Noah pulled back the chair beside his. “Hungry?”

  She folded her arms across her chest and made no move to sit down. “I assumed from our meeting in Geneva that we would be working together.”

  Noah nodded, confused by her icy deportment. “That was the general idea.”

  “I hear that you have already seen the neurologist who tended the victims.”

  “Ah.” Noah suddenly understood. “I didn’t realize you’d want to be present for the medical interviews. I thought you were more concerned with the livestock involvement.”

  “The European Union’s concern lies with this entire outbreak,” she said sharply. “If this prion affected only cows and presented no risk to humans, then my commission wouldn’t need to be involved. But we are. And it is essential that I know exactly what we are facing.”

  “Fair enough. Sorry we started without you.” He offered her a conciliatory grin and pulled back the chair beside him. “Let me give you the rundown on what Dr. Charron had to say.”

  She wavered a moment before she uncrossed her arms and slipped into the chair. “Thank you,” she said, but the chill hadn’t thawed from her tone.

  Noah tried to pass her a menu, but she waved it away. “I’ve eaten.”

  He lifted his own menu. “Mind if I order?”

  She shook her head, and Noah flagged down the waiter. “Les crêpes, s’il vous plaît,” he said, self-conscious of his pronunciation.

  Elise fought back an inkling of a smile. “Spoken like a true local.”

  “That’s nothing.” Noah felt the warmth of a blush. “I speak Spanish like I was born and raised in Rio.”

  “But in Brazil, they speak Portuguese—” Elise stopped and grinned with understanding, but the smile didn’t last. “You were saying about Dr. Charron.”

  “He showed us video clips of two victims. It was…” He struggled for the right word. “Harrowing. The man who died in the fire. Philippe Manet. We saw footage of him on his first and last day of hospitalization. On day one, he looked psychotic. Very agitated. Terrified, actually. But you could see in his eyes that he still was ‘there,’ you know? Thirteen days later…he was a muttering imbecile who couldn’t move his own limbs. His body was still alive, but his brain was already dead.” Shaking off the memory, he went on to recap what Charron described of the other victims and the course of their illness.

  Elise toyed with a few strands of her short brown hair while she listened. After Noah finished, she asked, “Is there any evidence that the three patients knew one another?”

  “No, but all three lived in Limousin.”

  Elise frowned. “Not that many people live in Limousin.”

  “I suppose. But isn’t it more important to find out where they got their meat from?”

  “Unless, of course, they ate it from the same table.”

  “Good point.” Noah looked into her large eyes, sensing they were hiding more turmoil than her placid expression let on. “How are beef cattle tracked in France?”

  She touched her lip with her index finger; its nail was cut short and polished a subtle pink. “Extensively.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  She pulled her finger from her lip. “Since 1999, all cattle breeders and farmers in E.U. nations are required to maintain complete records of where and how they procured their cows. Calves are tattooed shortly after birth so that we can easily track their origins. And every farm keeps a form of passport on each of their animals with detailed birth and travel records.”

  “That might be useful to us. What do you know about the seven infected cows?”

  “Obviously, none were involved in human cases,” she said. “They were identified before reaching the food chain. They weren’t even diagnosed until after the first two human cases.”

  “Not until after,” Noah echoed softly, his wariness stirring. “Unusual.”

  “But not unprecedented,” Elise pointed out. “Considering the rapid progression we have seen, the diseased animals probably didn’t show symptoms at the time they were butchered.”

  Noah sighed. “In other words, there must be other infected cows that will go—or have already gone—to the slaughterhouse.”

  Elise nodded. “Which is why yesterday in Paris we decided to put a moratorium on the export and sale of all French beef until we know more.”

  She said it matter-of-factly, but Noah realized it must have been a contentious decision. She had to be facing immense pressure from interest groups of every stripe. Admiring her poise, he reached out and touched her arm. “It was the right decision.”

  “Time will tell.” She summoned a smile before pulling her arm away to check her watch.

  “Do all French slaughterhouses routinely sample for BSE?” Noah asked.

  “Legally, they have to.”

  “Do they keep the samples?”

  “Yes.” She pursed her lips and eyed him a moment, possibly even impressed. “Our labs are rechecking all samples from the past twelve months to see if we can find the source case or cases.”

  Noah whistled. “That’s a lot of testing.”

  “Close to a million samples.” She held up her slender hands. “What choice do we have?”

  “None,” he said. “Have you linked the seven involved cows to a common source?”

  “Not conclusively.” Elise looked over Noah’s shoulder and smiled politely.

  The waiter arrived and placed a plate of crêpes in front of Noah. He tried to pass a second fork to Elise, but she waved him away. “I hope you are a fast eater,” she said.

  His mouth watered as he eyed the flat pancakes dusted with icing sugar and garnished with strawberries. “Shouldn’t be a problem. Why?”

  “We have an appointment with a farmer.”

  By the time Noah, Elise, and Duncan—who had opted uncharacteristically to stay alone in his room for breakfast—left the hotel, the clouds had cleared and Noah saw the sun for the first time since leaving Mexico. Outside, the light was so bright he wished he’d brought his sunglasses, but the dazzling blue sky brought even colder temperatures. Bundling his jacket tighter around his neck, he headed toward Elise’s car, a green BMW 330xi sedan. Noah felt as though he had stepped out into a nor’easter back home in Washington.

  Elise drove east from Limoges along the narrow but scenic country roads. Though she was no match for the airport taxi driver, she drove faster and more assertively than Noah expected. He stared out the window, taking in the lush rolling countryside that was more similar to terrain he had seen in Ireland than other parts of France. They passed numerous farmhouses, all built from the same gray stone and topped with red tile roofs. After a while, the homogeneity of the architecture brought him a comfortable sense of familiarity.

  Passing through the quaint village of Terrebonne, Elise slowed to point out the square across from the church. An imposing bronze statue of three soldiers towered over the town’s center. “This is a well-known landmark,” she said.

  Noah had passed through enough French towns to know that the statue commemorated the village’s young men who died on the killing fields of World War I. Duncan, who had been grimly quiet for most of the ride, pointed out the window to the plaque below the statue. “Look at all the names,” he said. “Doubt there was a boy between fifteen and thirty left standing in this town at the war’s end.”

  “Tragic,” Noah agreed. “Still, if they erected a plaque listing all the victims of the Spanish Flu that followed in the wake of the war, I bet it would be even more crowded.”

  Elise flashed Noah a half-smile. “Of course, you have a professional bias.”

  “Maybe,” Noah said. “But Duncan and I have seen enough to know that manmade chaos can’t compete with nature’s version.”

  “I don’t buy that shite for a moment, Haldane,” Duncan grunted. “There’s no chaos in nature unless man is involved.”

  “You mean like the Spanish Flu?” Noah countered.

  “Exactly!” Duncan pounde
d Noah’s headrest from behind. “Crowded farms with nasty hygiene—humans and animals cross-contaminating each other’s food and water supplies—engendered the virus. And it took the end of a world war to spread it. Don’t blame nature for that.”

  “You have a point,” Noah conceded.

  Duncan sighed heavily. “Let’s just hope the current questionable local farming practices don’t cause us grief on that scale again.”

  Elise glanced over her shoulder at Duncan, as if she might challenge the remark, but she turned her gaze back to the road without comment and drove on.

  Less than a mile past town, she turned off into the driveway of another red-roofed farmhouse that stood out from the others only because of its larger size. She stopped the car and opened her door. Climbing out of the car, Noah didn’t spot anyone on the farm’s grounds. He wondered if it was the subzero temperature or something else that kept everyone inside.

  They hurried up the gravel pathway past the shuttered barn to the farm’s front door. Elise rang the bell. Fifteen seconds passed without a response. As she reached for the buzzer again, the door opened. “Bienvenue, mes amis,” the man on the other side said in a slightly slurred voice. Of average height and build, he wore a tattered blue cardigan and loose sweatpants. He had thick stubble, and his thick greasy black hair was matted and looked as though it had been slept on more than once since a comb or brush had last touched it.

  Elise held out her hand. “Bonjour, Monsieur Pereau. Je m’appelle Elise Renard avec la commissione agriculture de l’E.U.” She pointed to Noah and Duncan. “Voilà Docteurs Noah Haldane et Duncan McLeod avec—”

  The man waved his hand to interrupt. “I attended college in America—University of Wisconsin, agricultural sciences,” he said in impeccable English. He turned to Noah and Duncan and bowed exaggeratedly. “I am André Pereau. It’s an honor, doctors.”

  Breathing in the stench of stale wine, Noah shook Pereau’s hand and felt the man’s rough calluses slide over his palm. They followed Pereau into the common room. With the curtains drawn, the room was dark despite the sunshine. The smell of old food and cigarettes hung in the musty air. Dirty dishes cluttered the tabletop. Noah spotted at least five empty wine bottles scattered around the room.

  Pereau went to the attached kitchen and flung open cabinet doors, searching from one to the next. Finally, he emerged from a lower cabinet triumphantly, bearing an unlabeled bottle of red wine in his hand. He uncorked the bottle, spilling a few drops on the kitchen floor and wiping them up with his stockinged foot. “Can I offer you a drink?” he asked.

  Elise and Noah shook their heads. “Thanks, but I’m trying to cut back on my wine at breakfast time,” Duncan said.

  His colleagues both shot him a glance, but Pereau laughed and patted his chest. “Me? I’ve just started drinking at breakfast. Don’t know why I ever used to wait.” He waved a hand over to a particularly distressed pine kitchen table and matching chairs. “Sit, please.”

  Pereau carried the bottle and a glass over to the sitting area. He set the glass down on the end of the table, filled it nearly to the rim, and then plunked himself down in one worn chair. Noah and Duncan sat down on the chairs to one side of him, Elise on the other.

  “They’ve taken them all away,” he said pleasantly, sloshing his drink.

  “Your cows?” Noah asked.

  “I don’t really care. I didn’t even want to be a farmer, you know?” He grimaced. “I had little choice. The Pereaus have been farming this land for over two hundred years. I’m an only child. I was merely fulfilling my…destiny.” He hoisted his glass and toasted the air before taking a generous swig. “Now it’s done. Fini!”

  Elise leaned forward in her seat. “Your cows were sick,” she said pointedly.

  “I did what I could. I fed them well. They were clean. They had a good barn. I cared for them.” He looked down at the floor. “They took them all. The sheep. Even my horses. All gone.”

  Noah nodded sympathetically. “When did it start, M. Pereau?”

  Pereau scratched roughly at his cheek. “About four weeks ago.”

  Noah held open his hand. “How did you know?”

  “That morning I went into the barn to change the feed, and one of the cows didn’t get up.” Pereau stopped to drain his glass. “I thought nothing of it, until I tried to stand her up.” He exhaled slowly. “She couldn’t. She tried but her legs wouldn’t hold her. Every time I got her up, she just kept collapsing.”

  “And that was the first indication of trouble?” Noah asked.

  Pereau refilled his glass. “I suppose she had been off her feed the week before. She had not eaten well. Perhaps she was a little unsteady on her hooves. Or maybe, I’m imagining. Who knows?”

  Elise tapped her lip, thoughtfully. “How old was she?”

  “Eighteen months.”

  “When and where did you get her from?”

  “End of last spring from Ferme d’Allaire.” He shrugged. “A big cattle supplier near Lac Noir. All my cows come from them. Like most of the farms around here.”

  Elise nodded. “When did the second animal become ill?”

  “Three days later, I noticed another cow staggering on her way for water.” He shrugged. “Didn’t matter. It was over by then, anyway.”

  “And the cattle feed?” Elise asked, ignoring his self-pity. “Where did that come from? Or did you make your own?”

  Pereau slammed his glass down and laughed heartily. Noah and Duncan shared a confused glance. “I got it from Marceau Alimentation Animale, near Limoges.” The farmer leaned closer to Elise. “And no, Mlle. Renard, I do not supplement the food with animal by-products.”

  Noah suddenly understood the man’s reaction. Pereau had assumed Elise was accusing him of recycling animal meat in the cattle feed, which, despite the international ban on the risky practice, some farmers still did.

  Pereau lifted his glass but didn’t drink from it. “I was the maker of my own undoing. I reported my case right away. I hid nothing.”

  “What choice did you have?” Elise pressed. “Your cows would have been discovered on testing.”

  “Choice?” He laughed again, spilling more wine before putting it back on the table. “I could have buried them out in the field. You would have never known. But no, I followed protocol. And now everything is gone.”

  Noah’s throat went dry. He wondered if other farmers had already buried their infected animals. Maybe the outbreak was far more extensive than originally thought?

  “My livestock, my livelihood, and soon the Pereau family farm,” Pereau continued, brushing his hands together in the air. “All gone. Fini.” His voice cracked, and he reached for the glass and took another sip. “Even my wife has left.”

  “What happened?” Duncan spoke up.

  “There was a lot of stress. Yvette was very scared of what was happening.” He paused. “What might still happen.”

  Duncan nodded at the bottle on the table. “And the wine…”

  “Was not helping,” Pereau admitted.

  “Rarely does,” Duncan said kindly.

  The room fell into brief silence, broken by Pereau’s cracking voice. “We have been together since we were teenagers. We have been through a lot.” He spoke to his glass. “Last week, I came home from the market, and she was gone.”

  Duncan sat up straighter. “She didn’t tell you she was leaving?”

  “No note. No phone call. Rien. Nothing.” Pereau shook his head sadly. “After nineteen years, Yvette simply disappeared.”

  7

  Limoges, France. January 16

  Normally, Detective Avril Avars would have informed the caller that someone had to be missing for at least twenty-four hours before the police would investigate. Under normal circumstances, the overworked enquêteur for the Gendarmerie Limoges would not have taken the call at all. However, it had come from her hometown of Montmagnon, and not only did she know the missing person in question, but the man reporting it happened to be
her own doctor.

  The Limoges detectives conducted major crime investigations for many of the smaller surrounding towns like Montmagnon that, while not suburbs, were near enough to logistically allow a Limoges-based investigation. Avril’s colleagues grumbled endlessly about being overextended and clocking far too many kilometers on their department-issued Peugeot sedans. Even Avril, despite her workaholic tendencies, had trouble coping with the caseload.

  Since her husband’s death two years earlier, Avril put in a minimum of six days and sixty hours per week on the job. She knew some of her colleagues thought that, as Limoges’s only female detective and the department’s sole officer of African descent, Avril felt the need to prove herself. They were wrong. The forty-six-year-old never cared much what others thought. With her only son, Frédéric, in Paris studying architecture and Antoine dead, the job helped to dampen her relentless loneliness. Mainly, though, she was slave to an obsessive work ethic inherited from her father, a carpenter, who had emigrated to France from Morocco as a teenager and tirelessly worked his way out of poverty. An unfinished job of any kind gnawed at Avril; every unsolved case weighed on her back like a stone.

  Two inches shy of six feet, Avril had a full figure, but she wasn’t overweight. Light brown in complexion, her face had a smattering of darker freckles that ran across her narrow nose, but her large coffee-brown eyes were her dominant feature. As the epitome of a visible minority in a near homogeneously white province, she was accustomed to the glances from strangers that became even more pronounced when she used to walk arm in arm with her lean, fair-skinned husband. Inherently strong and quietly confident, Avril was indifferent to the impact of her exotic (by Limousin standards) appearance. Few people intimidated her. But Dr. Roger Tanier was an exception.

  Driving the thirty-five kilometers eastward to Montmagnon, she reflected on the unexpected phone call from the doctor. As soon as she heard his voice, her apprehension surfaced. He had never called her before, and she automatically assumed the worst—that her recent mammogram or blood test had unearthed something bad. But Tanier quickly established that he wasn’t calling about her. “I’m concerned about one of my patients,” he launched in, forgoing pleasantries.