“You heard what he said about the stroke? It fits. Ranchers in close contact with affected stock are turning up in the hospitals as stroke patients. There’s a correlation, I’m sure.”
“You don’t think it was a stroke?”
“I think it’s the same thing the kids have and what these cows have. Hospital personnel are just more likely to see it as a stroke because of the age and the symptoms. When your ER is packed with patients you don’t look for exotic diseases when a perfectly good explanation is staring you in the face.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“What’s next?”
“We could keep spreading joy at more dairy farms, or there’s a business around here that deals with wild animals of some kind. I’d like to see if they’re having the same problems. Triple E Enterprises — have you been out there?”
Donna laughed low. “I don’t know anyone who has. They won’t even return my calls. One of the ranchers found the remains of a white tiger a couple of weeks ago and I can’t find anyone to claim it. Thought it could be theirs, but if they have permits — and the sheriff told me they do — I don’t know why they wouldn’t just say it was one of theirs if it was. Unless they’re afraid of a lawsuit.”
“Meaning —?”
“We think it killed a few calves before it died. But the ranchers can write off the losses. I don’t think anyone around here would press charges. Triple E’s been there nearly ten years and no one’s had any trouble with them before. But really, all I know about them is that they have permits for holding exotics. Could be they’re ranching wildebeests as an alternative to beef and don’t have any predators out there at all. But I have been told there’s a lot of security around the place. I don’t know how much luck you’ll have getting in.”
“I can always try this.” He flipped his wallet open to his ID card and, in his best G-man imitation, intoned, “Shafer. CDC. We have a few questions for you.”
Donna laughed. Mike looked hurt. “Your ID’s upside down.”
“Damn. How do the real guys get it right all the time?” He motioned down the drive with exaggerated flair. “If you know the way, I’ll follow.”
CHAPTER 26
DONNA HAD NEVER TURNED west on 114A off of 68 before. The dark black asphalt road stood out among the many other side roads that were dirt or gravel. She suspected the road was privately maintained as the long run of it — nearly eight miles — up to where it forked off was whisper smooth and rut free. From the fork the road to the north turned into the more typical gravel-topped lane that could chew a new set of tires up in less than a year. Donna followed the fork to the southwest where the same smooth rubber-friendly asphalt ran through the hills and hollows. At one point, she caught a glimpse of a tall stockade fence, then shortly after that thick stands of bur oaks and junipers appeared, crowding along either side of the road and effectively limiting vision to the roadway ahead and behind.
At last, about three miles from the fork, the road widened into a lot with a gatehouse, a rolling gate that looked like it could stop a semi and enough turnaround space to encourage people who didn’t belong to do just that. As Donna slowed, the guard on duty emerged from the gatehouse, his phone in one hand, the other hand palm out in an authoritative yet not unfriendly suggestion to stop. Considering the option — ramming into the steel-barred gate ahead — the guard’s approach seemed overkill.
The guard, dressed in comfortable jeans and boots with an ID badge hanging from the pocket of a plaid shirt, touched the brim of his cowboy hat and tipped his head her way. “Ma’am, this is private property. Do you have an appointment?” Donna didn’t miss the guard’s gaze as it slid behind her to where Mike was pulling up at her bumper. The guard wasn’t armed that she could see but she suspected there was a camera on her and that, by the way he held the phone, reinforcements weren’t far away.
Donna leaned out the window and called back to Mike, “He wants to know if we have an appointment.”
Mike was already sliding out of the SUV and reaching into his pocket. The guard stiffened and his thumb covered a red button on the phone. When Mike’s wallet appeared, the guard relaxed but his thumb didn’t waver.
“We don’t have an appointment but we’d like one,” Mike said, flipping his wallet open in the guard’s direction. He cocked an eyebrow toward Donna. She squinted at his credentials to be sure they were right side up, then smiled and gave a quick nod behind the guard’s back.
“Do you have a warrant, sir?” the guard asked.
“No. Just some questions for your boss.”
“Wait here. I’ll see if there’s someone available.” The man stepped back into the small guard house with its black plate window.
Well aware there was likely surveillance equipment on them, they stayed where they were, Mike drumming his fingers along the back end of Donna’s truck while they waited.
After a couple of minutes, Donna heard the guttural strokes of a 4-wheeler approaching the other side of the gate as the gate itself started to slide open. The guard stepped back out. “If you’ll follow the escort, she’ll show you where to park and take you to the reception area. You’ll be meeting with Ms. Helen Marsh. She’s the director of marketing and press relations.”
Donna and Mike exchanged surprised glances. For all the buildup, being invited in on the merit of a CDC badge alone seemed too easy.
Past the gate a manicured lawn sprawled toward a group of single-story red brick buildings at the end of the drive. To either side, impressive stockade fences that reminded Donna of the forts she’d seen in movies rose a good twelve feet high. She thought she’d been kidding about the wildebeest theory, but after seeing the fences she decided she might actually be on to something.
She and Mike parked in front of the first of the buildings. Their escort, a young woman in khaki pants and navy shirt, simply said, “Follow me, please,” and led them to a walnut-appointed foyer where they were pointed to leather chairs. “Ms. Marsh will be just a moment.” The escort disappeared behind a pair of French doors.
A small camera hung discreetly in the corner of the room. Mike appreciated its visibility. Cameras in banks and retail stores were visible for a reason. The owners wanted you to know you were being watched. It was an unspoken warning for you to stay on your best behavior. Too, it was a promise to clients that their safety was being watched over. While hidden cameras had grown ubiquitous and the general populace knew there were few public or private areas not being electronically patrolled, a visible camera just felt more honest. In a subtle way, that made him feel better about whatever secrets Triple E was hiding. At least they were hiding them openly.
However, where there were cameras in a business there could also be microphones, and that made having any sort of open conversation awkward. So, after checking his phone for any updates on the alert, Mike took the time to study the woman who had taken a chair perpendicular to his. Unlike the Southern women in Atlanta he’d grown up with and the government agents in Maryland he was used to working with, she was feminine in a non-pretentious way. Tight jeans and a snug blouse showed off delicate curves. Her hair was pulled back from her forehead in a utilitarian ponytail, and her tanned face didn’t have a smudge of makeup that he could see. While she didn’t have the kind of stunning beauty that made married men consider new pickup lines, she had a comfortable, approachable look that men like — well, men like him — found easy to be close to. A totally superficial judgment, he knew, but all he could go by sitting silently in this comfortable yet somewhat sterile room.
He caught her catching him checking her out, though he didn’t think he was checking her out in that way, only in a “two strangers in the same room circumstantially working together” kind of way. Still, it embarrassed him and he opened his phone to study satellite maps of the area instead. If Triple E wasn’t affiliated with some secret government activity, they could conceal their operations from eyes on the ground but not from eyes in the sky. Which
was precisely why privacy laws these days dictated the resolution of public satellite images of private properties not be granular enough to allow identification of people or vehicles.
Mike could zero in on the property and could see the buildings and those huge stockade fences that not only surrounded the extensive property line but sectioned it off into at least a couple of dozen smaller lots. Shadowy shapes in some of those lots seemed to indicate either very large individual beasts or, more likely, two or more animals grazing together. What they were, he couldn’t tell. The images were tantalizing but ultimately frustrating. Even knowing he was at maximum magnification, he couldn’t help hitting the zoom button again and, sheepishly, again to try to resolve the shapes on the ground.
He passed the phone to Donna who panned around the property squinting at the screen and frowning her frustration back at him.
As the French doors opened she handed the phone back to him and they both stood.
A smiling, middle-aged woman with shoulder-length hair and deep sable skin introduced herself. “Hi, I’m Helen Marsh, marketing director for Triple E. Welcome to our facilities. I understand you’re with the CDC and have some questions for us?”
Mike extended his hand, immediately put at ease by the woman’s composure. “I’m Mike Shafer, Health Statistics.”
“Dr. Donna Bailey,” Donna introduced herself. “I’m a veterinarian here in McKenzie County.”
Helen’s smile faltered a little at mention of the word veterinarian. But she quickly recovered, saying, “Well, you’ll appreciate that we have a few company secrets we’re a little protective of. Otherwise, I’m more than happy to answer any questions you might have. But you’ll do me the courtesy, I’m sure, of answering one question for me first. Not that we’re not delighted to see you, but why exactly are you here?”
“You heard the news this morning?” Mike said.
“Since you’re with the CDC, I’ll assume you mean the reports of some type of disease that may be in the area and not last night’s traffic accident out on 85.”
“We’re simply doing our due diligence in investigating.”
“That still doesn’t tell me why you’re here rather than at County Gener al.”
“We’re following up a lead that the disease may have started with cows or other animals. We want to know if any of your stock are showing symptoms.”
“I can assure you, Mr. Shafer, we have no cows or other farm animals on our property.”
“What exactly do you have?”
“Exactly what our permits allow us to have.”
“Which is?” If the stakes weren’t so serious, Mike would have actually been enjoying sparring with Helen.
“We have breeding specimens of a number of exotic and endangered animals here. In fact, that’s where part of the Triple E company name comes from: Exotic and Endangered. We have geneticists on staff who are actively engaged in preserving a healthy pool of DNA to produce vigorous offspring. We have a patented in vitro process that produces 90 percent viable zygotes that are either implanted into suitable surrogate mothers or frozen for later implantation.”
“Ninety percent?” Donna said. “That’s fantastic.”
Helen smiled. “One of the reasons for all the corporate secrecy. Genetics is a hot, up-and-coming business and we want to be sure we stay a step or two ahead of the competition.”
“So,” Mike tried to keep up, “you clone endangered species —”
“Not clone,” Helen was quick to correct. “Cloning doesn’t give you the diversified gene pool really needed to produce strong, healthy offspring consistently. We do it the old-fashioned way by taking the genetic material from an egg and mixing it with the DNA from a sperm. Once that union takes, the resulting cell is called a zygote. We let it divide a few times in our own special nutrient broth, then take the developing zygote and implant it in the uterus of a surrogate mother.”
“Like a tiger?”
Helen looked sharply at Donna. “Into anything genetically similar to what the fetus will become. Using tigers as an example, you could implant a Bengal zygote into a Siberian surrogate and, 100 days later, have a healthy Bengal cub. Or, in our case, we encourage multiple births. That’s one reason we freeze most of the zygotes first — so we can implant the most vigorous specimens at the same time; get the most return for our investment resources. We can also implant multiple varieties of a species into one surrogate. Keeping with the tiger example, a Siberian surrogate could birth a Sumatran, Black, White and Bengal cub all in one litter.”
“What’s your game?” Helen cocked an eyebrow at Mike’s question. “R&D’s expensive. How do you guys make money?”
“That, Mr. Shafer, is quite literally our business. Suffice it to say we have the necessary permits to run that business, together with the necessary and qualified staff to look after the animals.”
“I don’t understand. You say it’s a business, that you have competitors. I get you may have advanced biology techniques, but what’s so secret about the operation that you can’t even say how you earn a living?”
“Two reasons, Mr. Shafer. The first, for your ears alone, is that there are some misguided organizations that would not approve of what we do. The second is that our clientele is very exclusive and our product limited. We simply don’t want to be badgered by those we don’t approach ourselves — and that especially includes the media. Our mystery and exclusivity is a big part of what we sell. As Marketing Director, my salary is based on how well I can maintain that brand.
“I’m happy to answer your questions on a need-to-know basis. That, however, is one piece of information you do not need to know.”
“If it’s related in any way to the investigation, then it’s our business to know.”
“I believe the burden of proof is on you to tell me how our isolated compound, as remote as we are, can possibly be a part of your investigation. Especially as we do not engage in any trade that leads to the consumption of our exotic animals.”
“One of my clients recently found the remains of a tiger on his land,” Donna said. “That was strange enough out here. What was stranger still was that it was a white tiger. A rarity. The kind you say Triple E breeds. Are you going to tell us it wasn’t your tiger?”
Helen sighed. “Unfortunately, we did have an escape. The first in nearly ten years. A purely accidental set of circumstances. I think I’ve laid out why we didn’t want the publicity associated. If it’s a legal matter, you’ll need to speak with our lawyers — we have two on retainer. Otherwise, we’ve taken the proper extra precautions — double lockdown, if you will. There will be no such escapes again.”
Something important about the tiger escaping niggled at the edge of Donna’s brain. Something that maybe could be a link if she could just dredge the idea up and shape it logically. She floundered, trying to keep the conversation going while her internal thought processes kept working on the seed of the idea that flickered, barely alive on the rim of her subconscious. “But it wasn’t out here isolated from everything else. It had traveled to the ranches and was killing livestock.”
“As I said,” Helen’s tone had turned from marketing-friendly to corporate-cool, “your clients will need to take that up privately with our lawyers. Otherwise, I don’t see how the incident is linked to your current investigation. So if you have no further questions …” She pressed a button on the reception desk.
“Can we see the animals?” Mike asked.
“With the sheriff and a warrant, yes. They’re classified as private corporate assets. Anything further I can help you with?”
“No, I suppose not. For now. Doctor, do you have anything?”
Donna shook her head, frustrated that her brain wasn’t working fast enough. If the idea — more hunch, really — even had any bearing on the issue at hand.
Their previous escort slipped in unobtrusively through the French doors.
“Then Ms. March,” Mike said, “thank you for your time. If the investig
ation does develop further, we may be back with additional questions. And the appropriate warrants.”
“My pleasure, Mr. Shafer. Cherie will see you out. Just follow the drive back the way you came. I’ll notify the guard so you won’t have to stop.”
“Please.” Cherie extended her hand, palm up, toward the exit, and Helen took the opportunity to politely disappear through the French doors.
“Think our conversation was taped?” Donna whispered as they walked back to their vehicles.
“Think it? Know it. I also think we’ll be back. She was just too … slick. And I so don’t like slick. Let’s regroup and get some late lunch. Any place to eat around here?”
CHAPTER 27
THE LITTLE DINER OFF OF 85 with the pig on its sign was a hospitable enough place. Only once they were inside and Mike was looking at the chalkboard menu did he realize he wasn’t prepared to order any of the entrees off of it. Not the open-faced burger or the barbecue ribs or the northern-fried steak that was just like its cousin only beefier. He settled for twice-baked mashed potatoes and black beans with jalapenos.
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