by Hank Parker
Mariah had a strong personal interest in—some coworkers called it an obsession with—foot-and-mouth disease. She’d been in England during the 2001 FMD outbreak there, as a second-year veterinary student who’d volunteered to help out. She’d thought it would be good training. The virus had spread quickly from the first diagnosed case in southeastern England. They’d made concerted efforts to contain the disease, including killing every susceptible animal, every cow, pig, and sheep, in a designated area around each new confirmed case. Nothing had worked. Within two weeks, the outbreak had become a nationwide epidemic, overwhelming the animal health system, shutting down the countryside. In the end, six million livestock were slaughtered.
The outbreak had continued to haunt her and was the main reason she had so willingly taken the desk job. She just couldn’t imagine experiencing something like that again: soldiers shooting heirloom cattle in front of their owners, holding the farmers back so that they couldn’t interfere. Some farmers committing suicide. Mounds of dead cattle in pits, heads, legs, hooves, horns jumbled together, the earth stained dark red-brown. Burning funeral pyres of animal carcasses, oily black smoke everywhere, the smell . . .
Mariah had wanted to be a vet since she was a teenager. After the UK experience she’d resolved to devote her life to fighting foot-and-mouth disease.
She forced her mind back to her current work, studying the results of her latest model simulation, entering data into a separate program on her computer, making additional notations in a green lab notebook she kept on her desk. Her colleagues occasionally teased her about the notebook. Old-fashioned, they called it, but the notes like the desk provided Mariah comfort and a sense of purpose.
She heard an awkward clearing of the throat behind her and swiveled in her chair to find her boss, Dr. Frank Hoffman, standing above her. Hoffman was the director of the National Laboratory for Foreign Animal Diseases—better known as the Barn. Mariah couldn’t remember him ever coming by her office before. He was a summoner; he summoned you to his office, and you showed up at the appointed time.
“Sorry to barge in,” Hoffman said hurriedly. “A couple of things have come up and I need you on them. Can you join me in my office?”
Hoffman bent toward the computer monitor. This was just like the man. Even though he had just asked her to his office, he was now going to get himself distracted by Mariah’s work. It would be funny, if it didn’t happen so often.
He was now scrutinizing the computer screen.
“So this is your FMD model,” he said. “Weather factors, right?”
Mariah nodded. “Wind speed and direction, precipitation, that sort of thing.”
“What about wildlife hosts?” asked Hoffman.
“That’ll be part of the model,” said Mariah, trying not to sound dismissive, or condescending. She was beginning to feel like she was undergoing some sort of interrogation. It was well known that some wildlife could be carriers of the virus.
“Insect vectors?” said Hoffman.
He’s asking about another obvious factor, thought Mariah. Her model would incorporate the role of vectors in transmitting the disease, but that would also come later. What was with this guy inserting himself into her work like this? She didn’t have a sense that he was genuinely interested. Was he just showing off? “Good thinking,” she said politely. “That’s another parameter that we’ll be including.”
Now, finally, Hoffman seemed to remember that he hadn’t come to her to ask about the model.
“Right,” he said. “As soon as you can break free, come on down to my office.”
* * *
Curt Kennedy leaned back in his chair and rubbed his temple in a futile attempt to clear out the cobwebs in his brain. After nearly two full days of exhausting travel, he’d arrived back in Philadelphia on Saturday morning hoping to have the weekend to catch up on some sleep, but he’d made the mistake of stopping by his office on the way back from the airport. Big mistake. The work had piled up in his absence and he still had a trip report to write. And now Hoffman was demanding a meeting, ASAP.
Kennedy figured Hoffman wanted a briefing on the Saipan work, but why couldn’t he wait a day or two? No immediate action was needed and Kennedy already knew what had to be done, and when. He didn’t take well to being managed by others. He preferred to work alone, at his own pace, making his own decisions. Thanks to his actions and Cothran’s help, the Nipah situation was under control and at this point all it required was close monitoring. But Hoffman was his nominal boss and Kennedy knew he could be volatile. He told himself to suck it up.
He pulled some notes from his briefcase and began to review them. No time for a formal write-up; he’d have to wing it, something he was normally good at, but right now his mind was pretty fuzzy. It was going to be a long day.
* * *
Mariah was always slightly caught off guard by her boss’s office. She could never dismiss the notion that the director of a national laboratory would, or should, have a larger space. Or maybe the office just looked small because of the crammed bookshelves and piles of papers on the desk and floor.
She eased into a chair on one side of a small, rectangular conference table, feeling cramped. Hoffman was on the phone, and he nodded as he met her eye, but she didn’t know whether he was acknowledging her or agreeing with whoever was on the other end of the call. A man sat across from Mariah, a guy she’d seen around the lab but had never actually spoken to. Kendrick? Keener? Something with a K. She pretended, awkwardly, not to notice him because he hadn’t made any move to introduce himself when she’d arrived. She looked intently at the framed pictures of the president and the secretary of agriculture on the wall behind him.
Hoffman finished his phone call and moved to the head of the conference table. Mariah tried to get a read on his mood. She noticed the fine lines around his eyes. Probably tension, she thought. He held himself erect, with a kind of military bearing that she assumed was the product of his decade as a research scientist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases—USAMRIID—at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Hoffman had always come across to Mariah as a consummate professional, totally dedicated to his work. And he was also extremely patriotic. At a conference he’d organized at the Barn a year before, he’d insisted that everyone recite the Pledge of Allegiance when the conference convened, even though several of the attendees were foreigners. It had been the equivalent of a corporate CEO opening a morning meeting with the national anthem, and people still joked about it behind his back.
Maria knew his feelings were tied to losing his wife, Karen, in the 2005 transit attacks in London. Karen had been a passenger on a double-decker bus that was bombed by Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qaeda. Everyone knew Hoffman still wore his wedding band. Mariah glanced at it now and thought about the fact that the couple never had children and that Hoffman now lived alone. A thought flashed in her mind: I bet he still has his wife’s clothes in his closet.
“Okay, let’s get started,” Hoffman said, startling Mariah back into the present. “Curt Kennedy, meet Mariah Rossi. Mariah, Curt.”
Mariah and Curt barely had time to nod at each other before Hoffman was barreling on. “Welcome back from Saipan, Curt. Gather you made some progress. Why don’t you brief Mariah. I’d like you two to work together on the project.”
Mariah made a point of maintaining her composure and watched for Kennedy’s reaction. She had seen him around the building off and on for a while, but they hadn’t met before now. From his fit and upright appearance, she’d already guessed that he was ex-military. Up close she could see his nose had likely been broken, at least once, and he had a small scar on his right cheek. Both injuries added character to his looks. And he had the most piercing blue-gray eyes she’d ever seen. They gave no impression that he cared that his introduction to his new coworker had been so offhand. Okay, Mariah thought. You want to play it cool? I’ll p
lay it cool. But now Kennedy was turning toward her, his eyes boring into hers as if daring her to look away.
Mariah listened to his report. He’d been in the Marianas researching some disease—Nipah virus. Mariah knew of it but only vaguely—and now he was explaining that it was infecting pigs and pig farmers and that an animal rights group was suspected of deliberately releasing the virus. He was terse and efficient and Mariah imagined that he wouldn’t take kindly to being asked to repeat something. She began a mental list of things she’d research in more depth when she got back to her office: Nipah, flying foxes, Animal Rights League . . . and Saipan. When Kennedy finished, he leaned toward her, his forearms resting on the table, his eyes fixed on hers. She wanted to look away, but forced herself not to. She began to twist a lock of her hair, then caught herself and stopped. Was he expecting questions? She had many but decided to ask only one, the one she didn’t think she could answer on her own time. “What’s my role in this?” she asked Hoffman.
“Pretty much standard epidemiology,” Hoffman said. “We need to nail down the origin of this particular Nipah strain and trace its spread to and within the Marianas. Hopefully the outbreak is confined to Saipan. It’ll require a little travel—to Saipan and Malaysia, for starters. The plan is for you two to head out to the western Pacific next week.”
Mariah sat back in her chair, trying to keep her mouth from dropping open. You two? Next week? She hadn’t been out of the country for several years. How could she get ready in only a few days? What about her FMD work? She’d need to make arrangements for her dog. What should she pack? She assumed a limited wardrobe for a working trip to a tropical climate. But what about scientific gear? Was her government passport even up-to-date? Did she need a visa?
Hoffman was speaking again, oblivious to her worries. “One other thing, Mariah. I have a small assignment before you leave. I know you’re a whiz at necropsies. Local vet called. Just treated a dog that had canine ehrlichiosis symptoms, but the dog started to hemorrhage and got aggressive. Bit the vet, then had a seizure and died.”
“Doesn’t sound like ehrlichiosis to me,” said Mariah, trying to put Saipan out of her mind.
“That’s why I’m bringing you in on this,” said Hoffman. “You’re a vet, you know the diseases. Plus your necropsy skills.”
Kennedy had leaned toward Hoffman, eyebrows raised in question. Mariah felt as if she were auditioning for something, and a wave of resentment swelled in her chest. This was just like Hoffman, she thought. He was a decidedly hands-off boss, and sometimes she’d go weeks without seeing him at the Barn. Brilliant as he might have been, he was also extremely eccentric, and though most of his subordinates would have said they were honored to work with and for him, everyone had a story about Frank Hoffman being off. It was just like him to call Mariah in here, toss her onto an assignment with someone she’d just met, and then grill her in front of this guy, who clearly had some kind of strong-silent-type complex. She pressed her lips together and willed the meeting to end.
“If the vet called the Barn, he must have suspected something dangerous,” Kennedy said. “Is he okay?”
“So far,” said Hoffman. “But I told him to get checked out by a doctor. We don’t know what we’re dealing with. Not rabies. Dog’s shots were up-to-date and the vet said the symptoms didn’t match.” He turned to Mariah. “I want you to work in Level Four,” he said. “Just to be on the safe side. The cadaver’s already in there. Double-bagged. Anyway, good practice for you.” He paused. “It’s been a while since you’ve worked in the MCL, right?”
Mariah knew he wasn’t implying that she was rusty. He was just careless sometimes with what he said. But Level 4—the maximum containment lab? Space suits and all. Must be suspecting a zoonotic disease, a hot one, she thought. Did he have an idea of what it might be? She looked at Kennedy. Still no expression on his face. She kept her mouth shut. If she asked too many questions, they might think she was nervous. She simply nodded to Hoffman: yes, it had been a while since she’d worked in maximum containment.
“You’ll need a partner, of course,” Hoffman said. “Curt, you work with her. Give you guys a chance to get to know each other a bit before you head out to the Pacific together.”
CHAPTER SIX
AUGUST 18
MIDDLE VALLEY, PENNSYLVANIA
Four days after her dog, Calvert, had died, Jennifer Kelly awoke from a deep sleep, opened her eyes, and looked at the clock radio: 7:00 a.m. Her husband had left well before six to judge livestock at the Chester County Fair over in Brandywine Heights.
The livestock pavilion always drew a large crowd, and Jenny had planned to take her kids this morning, but she wasn’t feeling well. She had a throbbing headache, her nose was running, and she felt exhausted. But she owed it to the kids. They’d be so disappointed to miss the fair, and it would help take their minds off the dog for a little while. They’d taken it so hard when she’d come home from Dr. Ferreira’s office and stammered through an explanation of why Calvert wasn’t going to live with them anymore and how he’d “gone to sleep forever.”
She sat up and started to lift herself off the mattress. God, her head hurt. Like someone had stuck a hot hypodermic needle into her brain. Surely this wasn’t the two glasses of wine last night, she thought. She must be getting a summer cold.
She stood and staggered to the bathroom sink. Waves of dizziness rolled over her. She looked in the mirror. Her eyes were bloodshot. She looked like she’d aged a decade overnight. Now the waves were pushing something up from deep in her abdomen. She gagged and lurched toward the toilet.
She retched, over and over, first vomiting partly digested food, tinged with red—old pizza and wine turned to vinegar—then a brownish liquid, and finally nothing, just dry heaves that seemed to have no end. She gripped the sides of the toilet as if to keep from being swept away into a maelstrom.
Then she noticed the mottled red rash on her forearms.
* * *
That same morning, at the Barn, Mariah sipped from a plastic cup of water. Her mouth was dry but she could feel her T-shirt dampening with a cold sweat. She was about to enter a Biosafety Level 4 maximum containment laboratory—MCL—a highly secure facility where well-trained scientists worked with the world’s most dangerous microbes. But anxiety isn’t a bad thing, she reminded herself. As a former professor once said to her, “Lose your fear, lose your life.”
Though she was a little out of practice, Mariah had extensive training and experience working in BSL-4 labs. She knew there was no vaccine or treatment for most of the diseases researched in these spaces, and that some of the agents presented significant risk for airborne infection, but access was strictly controlled and limited to highly qualified personnel, who all wore full protective gear and adhered to rigorous protocols. Still, you had to be psychologically up to it too, willing to work with some of the most dangerous human pathogens in existence, knowing that one mistake, one slip of a knife, one errant jab of a needle could sentence you to a horrific death. Mariah considered herself grimly fortunate that she was unmarried, no kids, no close family. Or at least she told herself she was grateful for those reasons.
She entered an outer change room, closed the door, and turned on the “Occupied” sign. She removed all of her clothing and placed it in a locker along with her watch and a pair of sterling hook earrings, each in the shape of a terrier. Shivering in the cool air, she passed through a shower room and entered another room just beyond. There she put on a set of baggy green surgical scrubs, cotton socks, and latex gloves.
After signing in on a register and placing her right palm on a scanner, she planted her feet and pulled hard on a self-closing door. It was heavy and slow moving because of the negative air pressure sucking it closed. This prevented pathogens from escaping the lab without passing through a secure ventilation system equipped with high-efficiency particulate air filters. Mariah stepped into another room—th
e suit room. Curt Kennedy was waiting for her, dressed in identical garb.
“Dr. Rossi, I presume,” Kennedy said. The quick joke surprised Mariah. “Ready for the operation?” he asked.
“Ready when you are. Have you done this before?”
“Not unless you count the frog I dissected in high school. I prefer to study microscopic things. Less blood and all.” Kennedy smiled—another surprise. So he’d just been tight-lipped because of Hoffman?
Mariah turned to a row of blue polyethylene one-piece biohazard suits hanging from ceiling hooks in the room and flicked through them until she found one she thought might fit—or at least that wouldn’t be baggy enough to get in her way: standard issue, blue Chemturion encapsulating biological/chemical protective gear—a.k.a. a moon suit or blue suit—that would serve as a self-contained environment in a surrounding sea of biohazards.
She selected a pair of thick rubber gloves and secured the gloves to the suit’s wrist cuffs, making a tight seal with the rubber wrist rings. She sealed all the exhaust valves with vinyl tape, closed the suit’s zipper, and retrieved an air line—called an umbilical—from an overhead holder. She attached the line to a brass fitting on the back of the suit, turned on the air, and inflated the suit. She glanced over at Kennedy and was satisfied to see that he was keeping up with her with his own suit. As soon as hers was full, she turned off the air and uncoupled the line. She leaned close to the suit and listened for any telltale hiss of escaping air and ran her bare hand around the suit. No leaks. Kennedy signaled that he was ready.
After donning headsets for two-way communication, Mariah and Kennedy helped each other into their suits, pulled on protective booties, and hooked up their umbilicals. For the thousandth time in her career, Mariah thanked God that she wasn’t susceptible to claustrophobia. She remembered the young trainee who’d accompanied her into the MCL on an earlier assignment. As soon as his suit was zipped up he’d panicked because of the confinement and started screaming. Coming from inside the sealed suit, his muffled shrieks had sounded far away. But the terror in his eyes had been unmistakable, and Mariah thought about it every time she suited up.