Just Life

by Neil Abramson

  Beth was right. The VetMed facility was isolated. There was no one to complain about the noise unless you included the deer, raccoons, and opossums living in the forest. The chain link fencing would prevent those creatures from mixing with the dogs in any event.

  The middle of nowhere… isolated.

  Morgan stared at Sam with an “Is that the best you’ve got?” smugness. “Well, it was really lovely chatting with you girls,” Morgan said as she rose. “But I’ve got work to do and I know you want to get ready to speak to the police about… well… I guess about nothing, really, except your crime.” Morgan smiled at them, newly confident that Sam could do nothing to hurt her.

  Morgan opened the door to the room, ready to seal them again in their isolation.

  Sam thought back to the isolation room at the shelter and prayed that Nick and the dogs were still recovering. Hopefully, the sick dogs had not given the illness to the other dogs or Luke or Greg. Because cholera was zoonotic, there was the risk of…

  “Cross-species transference,” Sam said.

  Morgan turned back from the door. “What?”

  “I said, ‘Cross-species transference.’ That was why you were running tests on the dogs in the city. You needed dogs that were in circulation in an urban environment to prove you had solved the problem of the transference—the same problem my father has been trying to answer all these years. The dogs here were too isolated to provide an effective test group.”

  Sam heard sirens. She had to work fast. From the look on her face, Morgan heard them too.

  “That’s just silly, Samantha. No one would believe that I, of all people, would risk that.”

  Sam nodded. “Probably not without some proof.”

  “And that is?”

  “Records, of course.”

  “What records? There are no records of any of this in my possession or, as you say, at my office.”

  “True. But VetMed has records too.”

  “Oh, good point,” Beth added.

  Morgan laughed out loud. “And many, many lawyers. The chances of them offering anyone access to their files is precisely zero.”

  “Not if they think you are the source of their problems.” Sam listened to the sirens. They were very close now. “You hear that?”

  “Yes. The police are coming to take you away.”

  Sam shook her head. “Nope. That’s the sound of the VetMed bus about to back over you once I explain to them what you’ve done.”

  “Thump, thump goes the big bus,” Beth said, and winked at Morgan. “Isn’t that a song?”

  Morgan made a show of stretching her fingers. “If you’ll both excuse me now, I have some files to—”

  “Delete?” Sam offered. The sirens had reached their loudest, and stopped abruptly.

  “No,” Morgan said with a tight smile. “Don’t be so paranoid. The word is reorganize.” Morgan closed the door on them.

  Beth turned to Sam. “That stuff about VetMed actually sounded good. Do we have a prayer of making that happen?”

  Sam shook her head. “Not even a little.”

  “Thought so. Look, I will totally understand if you want to have separate trials.”

  15

  Andy’s progress out of the park was slow both because he was careful to avoid the numerous DEP work crews now taking over the area and because the one-eared dog fought against him the entire way. No amount of cajoling or begging moved her faster. Every time she pulled against her leash to go back—whether to the Lake or the cavern, he couldn’t say—Andy’s heart broke a little bit more. The old man’s words didn’t help his state of mind either.

  Andy’s sense of despair increased with every step and, because it was so familiar, it threatened to suck him back into the river of his past. If he gave in to that history, he knew he would never get the dog out of the park alive. The fight required all his concentration and it was exhausting.

  His phone rang and he jumped at the noise before he answered it.

  “You got her?” Luke asked.

  “Yeah. Where should I meet you?”

  “Well, we’ve got a little problem over at the shelter. Our truck is stuck here. The shelter is being watched.”

  “Watched how?”

  “Like ‘waiting for the invasion’ kind of watched. It appears they actually found a rabid dog in the park.”

  “I haven’t seen anything like that, and I’ve covered a lot of ground.”

  “True or not, that seems to be the justification they’re using. They know we brought your dogs in from the park.”

  “But how?”

  “Long story. But now they want those dogs for testing and they want all the other dogs in the shelter as well because of the risk of contagion.”

  “So Greg was right. I did bring this all down on us.”

  “Don’t give up yet. Nobody’s going to do anything right now. We’re trying to reach Sam.”

  “She didn’t come back yet?”

  “No.”

  Andy felt his heart begin to race. “What should I do? I’m trapped.” He thought of the image of the fox in the claw trap gnawing off its own foot and shuddered.

  “If you can get her out of the park, take her to your place or mine. We can reconnect after. But listen—all the park entrances are blocked off now. You’ll need to take her over the wall.”

  “Isn’t the Guard patrolling all the walls?”

  “I seriously doubt it. Remember, the Guard is looking for strays, not Stalag 17 escapes.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. You’re too young. Can you lift her?”

  “Yeah, but which direction?”

  “I’d try north first. You get her over the wall there and you’ll be above the perimeter. The dark will help cover you. Stay off the paths and keep moving.”

  Andy hung up, swallowed his panic, and started north.

  16

  Kendall looked upon the scene in front of the shelter and tried to hold on to a positive thought. It didn’t work.

  He had arrived at the shelter ten minutes after Lieutenant McGreary brought twenty more Guards and just before the reporters stationed at Riverside Hospital relocated their live feed satellite trucks. By that time the crowd outside the shelter had expanded to eighty.

  McGreary had called the NYPD for a truckload of blue-and-white barricades to keep the growing crowd away from the shelter entrance. The NYPD was being inexplicably slow to respond, so McGreary was forced to do it the old-fashioned way—with soldiers spaced every three feet facing the crowd. The crowd didn’t like that and began calling the soldiers names. The news outlets caught it all and the coverage was drawing even more people to the street.

  Kendall watched and listened as the reporters began interviewing people who knew Sam, or at least those who claimed they did. Some in the crowd told stories of how she’d saved their dog or cat or bird in the middle of the night, but others appeared quiet and afraid. Kendall guessed that many more spectators had grown distrustful or angry in the vacuum created by the CDC’s opaque reports and the governor’s condescending statements. If that confluence of forces wasn’t a perfect storm for conflict, Kendall knew it was pretty close.

  Kendall’s phone rang, and his wife’s name appeared on the screen. He answered.

  “Is it as bad as it looks on the television?” Ellen asked. Kendall could hear her worry through the phone and it made him feel guilty. He hadn’t had time to watch what the news was reporting, but if it was anything close to what he was looking at in real time, he could imagine.

  “I’m sure they’re making it seem worse than it is. It’s a fluid situation, honey. But people are going to be reasonable,” he said.

  “Reasonable?” she said skeptically. “CNN is now reporting that an anonymous source within the CDC is claiming the entire canine link is bullshit and that’s why the CDC still hasn’t made any statement to support or justify the quarantine.”

  “You know what I told you about anonymous sources.”


  “Except this time it makes perfect sense. Why hasn’t the CDC made any real statement? And where are all the sick dogs if it is true?”

  Kendall had no answer.

  “And the governor’s press conference was a joke,” Ellen continued. “Not one fact. You can call New Yorkers a lot of things and get away with it, but we aren’t stupid. Now he’s moving beyond a quarantine and trying to take these dogs. Have you ever seen a New Yorker give up anything they love without a fight? What on God’s green earth makes you think people are going to be reasonable when they haven’t been given reasons?”

  “Because we’ve been through so much worse.”

  “But then we were all on the same side. Did you know someone has already set up a ‘Free Dr. Sam’s Dogs’ Facebook page? I just checked and it had over thirty-five thousand followers. Some knucklehead blogged that this whole thing is a conspiracy, that the Riverside Virus is the result of the army’s chemical biological warfare program and that the army is now coming to destroy the evidence.”

  “There are always crazies, Ellen.”

  “The link to the blog post has already been re-tweeted over twenty-five thousand times. And he just uploaded it in the last hour. Sure, it is crazy talk, but it is only fighting against silence.”

  Kendall sighed. “It’s like a digital game of telephone. Rumor becomes news, news becomes truth.”

  “And you’re in the middle of the fallout. Have you spoken to Sam?” Ellen asked.

  “She’s still MIA, but the shelter just released a statement saying that because the dogs were entrusted to them by the mayor, only the mayor has the authority to force their surrender.”

  “She’s not going to do that, is she?”

  Kendall glanced around to make sure no one was near. “No,” he said quietly. “But I’ll be fine. I promise.”

  “You are still a terrible liar,” Ellen said.

  “Yeah, well…” Kendall caught sight of the expected NYPD truck carrying five of his cops and the familiar blue-and-white sawhorses. The truck drove slowly through the crowd and parked in front of the shelter. A tactical police van followed.

  “I know you’re worried. Maybe you shouldn’t watch it. Go for a run or something,” Kendall offered hopefully.

  “You’re joking, right?”

  He wasn’t, but even with only a second of retrospection, he realized it had been a stupid thing to say. Still, he decided it was probably better than explaining the truth about to unfold.

  “You know I love you, right?” Ellen said.

  “I do. I love you too.”

  “About what I said to you before I left…”

  “It’s OK. Forget it.”

  “I can’t. I just wanted you to know that if anyone is smart enough and brave enough to figure a way through this, I believe it is you. I guess that’s the way it is supposed to be… why you need to be there. I’m proud of my husband.”

  Kendall didn’t know what to say. Relief brought him close to tears. “I… I…”

  “Go do your job. Do it for us. We want to come home.”

  Ellen spared him further broken sentences and disconnected.

  Lifted by his wife’s confidence, Kendall walked to the NYPD truck and McGreary met him there. “About time those barricades got here,” McGreary said.

  Kendall shrugged. “Bureaucracy. You know how it is. Can you guys give us a hand off-loading these?”

  McGreary directed three Guards to join the five cops in the back of the truck and help remove the barricades. Kendall was relieved to see that Owens was not in the mix.

  The cops and the Guards quickly piled the barricades on the sidewalk in front of the shelter. “We got it from here, gents,” Kendall told the soldiers.

  Kendall and his men began setting up the barricades on the street, lining them up very close to the shelter. As a result, the barricades separated the Guard from the shelter.

  Kendall gave the police van a thumbs-up. The doors opened and a ten-officer tactical unit jumped out. This was the same type of unit that patrolled Grand Central, Penn Station, and the 9/11 Memorial. The officers were armored and armed with automatic assault rifles, and distinguishable from the Guard only by the color of their uniforms (all black) and the insignia on their jackets. The tactical unit quickly took positions behind the barricades.

  McGreary came over shaking his head. “We don’t need tactical,” he told Kendall, keeping his voice low because of the row of video cameras pointed at them. “And you’re not giving us enough room. We’re all gonna be wedged up against the shelter.”

  “Who’s we?” Kendall said.

  An angry red vein pulsed in McGreary’s neck. “What the hell is going on here, Sergeant?”

  “Actually, you can congratulate me. I just received a provisional promotion from the mayor herself about thirty minutes ago. It’s Captain Kendall now, which—no disrespect, Lieutenant—makes me the most senior command officer on site at the moment in this joint operation.”

  “Except my chain of command reports directly to the governor,” McGreary protested.

  “Yup.” Kendall pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “That reminds me. I’ve been authorized to give you this.”

  McGreary grabbed the paper and read it. “I don’t understand this,” he said. Owens took a position behind McGreary, using the opportunity to scowl at Kendall, but McGreary directed him back.

  “It’s a mayoral executive order,” Kendall said. “Number 107.”

  “No shit. I can read that part.”

  “By order of the mayor of the City of New York, the NYPD has been given authority to protect city property from all forms of trespass during the health emergency. I emphasize the phrase all forms.”

  “You’re telling me that we can’t go into the shelter?”

  “Um-hmm.”

  “And that you’re authorized to use force to prevent our entry?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “If I remember my history correctly, they call this treason, don’t they?”

  “You know, Lieutenant, I asked that very same question. But it turns out that the city acting through the mayor has the right to protect its property against trespass through its executive command—that’s me, by the way—absent a specific order from a higher level of government. You have a specific order from the governor or the president of the United States directing you to occupy this building?”

  “Nope. Sure don’t.”

  “Then I don’t think we have a conflict.”

  “And when I get my direct order?”

  “Until then, sir. Until then.”

  McGreary saluted Kendall and gave him a thin, almost amused smile. He stepped away to confer with his men by their Jeeps.

  Kendall knew that by the time they had finished their conversation, every news outlet had received a press release from the mayor about the executive order, explaining that the shelter was under the mayor’s protection until further notice. Although the press release didn’t say so expressly (because it didn’t need to), it certainly left the reader with the impression that the governor’s action in the face of the CDC’s silence might be politically motivated. The news outlets immediately ran with the story, and more people from the neighborhood and beyond came to support the shelter.

  For the moment the shelter and the dogs within it were safe.

  17

  Morgan was gone less than ten minutes before Crew Cut led two New York State police troopers into their room.

  “Is this them?” one of the troopers asked.

  “Yes,” Crew Cut answered.

  Crap, Sam almost said aloud. The appearance of the state police instead of the local cops was a bad sign that someone was taking this very seriously. Sam quickly ran through the story in her mind, how this was Morgan’s experiment gone wrong, and how she was trying to find evidence to save thousands of dogs. But it all sounded implausible, even to herself.

  The officer approached her. Sam waited for the order to p
resent her wrists for cuffs like in the movies. This would be a first for her. She stared at the officer, silently promising herself that she would not be intimidated.

  The officer tried to stare her down. Sam was about to cave when he winked at her. “Jim Kendall sends his regards.”

  “Kendall?”

  “Yeah. He mentioned something about having your back.”

  Beth laughed out loud.

  “I don’t understand,” Sam said. The swelling whoop of helicopter blades shut down the possibility of further discussion.

  “I sure hope those are the good guys,” Beth said.

  Moments later Daniel banged open the door and Tom stepped in behind him. “Are you OK?” Daniel asked his daughter.

  Sam struggled to process these developments. There was a perplexing “then she fell out of bed and woke up” feel to everything now. “Yeah, I guess so,” she said. “What are you doing here, Dad?”

  “You were right,” Daniel said. “There was a connection. I made a few calls to some old CDC contacts and, after a few threats, convinced them to recheck the necropsies. Both of the rabid dogs also had evidence of cholera in their stomach contents and the mucous linings of the intestines. They’re repeating the other necropsies now for any evidence of cholera.”

  “Wait a minute. So the rabies was related to the cholera vaccine? She was using rabies as an adjuvant too?”

  Daniel shook his head. “The rabies was the vaccine. The cholera toxin was being used as the adjuvant to allow the rabies vaccine to be administered orally—through some kind of special bait.”

  Tom broke in, but when he spoke he was looking directly at Crew Cut. “We were able to put some heat on Vet-Med. They became very cooperative once we started tossing around phrases like murder indictment.”

  “Slow down,” Sam said. “I don’t understand.”

  “We’re still filling in the pieces,” Daniel said. “We know that VetMed was developing a recombinant DNA vaccine for rabies. It was designed to be added to a bait with the adjuvant. Once consumed by an infected animal, the vaccine swaps a portion of the DNA of the rabies virus with something totally harmless.”