The Perfect Pathogen (6 page)

CHAPTER 9

“
I need you to be at the headquarters for a
secure DVC by 9 a.m. Can you make it?” asked Sarah, Washington Director of the
CDC when Katie answered the ringing phone that had jolted her from sleep.

Rob rolled over in the bed to face his wife.

 “Who was that?  Don’t they know it is only half
past five in the morning?”

“It was the Director. She wanted to catch me
before I left for the office. I have to be downtown by 9 a.m. I was planning on
going by the conference. I can still do that, I just need to get there by 8:00
so I have a few minutes with Beth and the participants.”

“Well, you can catch another thirty minutes of
sleep and still make it.”

With a longing look in her eyes, Katie said,
“Well, since we are awake, why don’t we…?”

Before she could finish her sentence Rob had
pulled her towards him

“I thought you would never ask.”

A little after 7 a.m., Katie was on her way to the
University of Maryland conference Center. Her head was full of questions. Why
was she attending the DVC?  She was only a statistician. How many people would
still be at the Aging Conference?  Would they be panicked by the illness that
was going around and the President’s speech?  What was causing the illness? 
She knew that shortly she would have the answers to all of these questions save
one:  What was killing the elderly and the infirm?  This had to be stopped
soon. She knew that if the disease was communicable the number of sick people
could multiply fast as it spread throughout the world. Then again, maybe it
wasn’t contagious. Maybe something else was causing people to get sick. But it
was already worldwide, she thought. This just didn’t make any sense at this
point.

A little before 8 a.m. she arrived in the
conference hall and found Beth arranging tables and making sure everything was
set for the last day to start.

“Hi Katie. I am so glad you could come today.
Everyone has been asking about you,” said Beth.

“Well, I am just glad you have been here taking
care of things. This conference couldn’t have happened without your care and
feeding. Thank you so much for holding down the fort in my absence. How is
everything?”

“Well, yesterday about twenty five people felt ill
and left,” replied Beth. “I am not sure if it was sympathetic illness or if they
were actually sick. I do sense some fear in this older crowd. It doesn’t make
sense to any of them that several people would die over the course of just a
few days.”

“To be honest with you, I think they do have
something to worry about,” said Katie. Whatever the illness is, it seems to
have a catastrophic effect on the elderly. Has anyone who left because they
were sick returned?  Did they end up in the hospital?”

“I don’t know,” said Beth. “Maybe there will be
some news today when they start arriving in about ten minutes. They will have
to be pretty sick to stay away from the famous breakfast buffet here. It seems
to be their favorite meal,” Beth laughed.

“Well, I hope everyone is ok. I can only stay
until about 8:30 a.m. I have a 9:30 meeting with the CDC Director and I need to
check my email and messages before then.”

“Do you think Herb might stop by for part of the
conference?” asked Beth.

“Oh, I am so sorry, Beth, I forgot to tell you,
Herb is in the hospital. I am not sure of how he is this morning, but I think
it is pretty bad. His wife called late yesterday crying, but didn’t leave a
message. I couldn’t reach her to find out the status, so I don’t have a good
feeling.”

Immediately Katie could see the shock and fear in
her eyes as they welled up with tears. The three of them had developed a close
friendship having worked together for the last eight years.

Finally, Beth let out a gasp and asked the one
question that was on everyone’s mind. “Do you think he has the same illness
that is killing the elderly?”

“Yes,” Katie whispered. “And we don’t know what it
is or if it is contagious. I hope to find out more at the meeting I am
attending at headquarters shortly. I know that isn’t very comforting, since we
have both worked closely with Herb for such a long time.”

Beth composed herself and fell back into her role
as the Executive Assistant saying, “Well, let’s hope Herb has stabilized. I
will contact Melody and see if there is anything we can do to help.”

“That’s great Beth. I will call you when I get out
of the meeting and let you know what I can. I’ll try to stop back by the
conference for the closing this afternoon.”

As Katie left she was slightly panicked by the
evident lack of attendees at the conference. Didn’t Beth just tell her that the
breakfast buffet was their favorite? Perhaps they had been worried by the
President’s announcement last night and decided to leave early.  She hoped that
this wasn’t a taste of things to come.

As Katie entered the Headquarters building the
tension in the air was palpable. She took the elevator to the Director’s
office. As she entered Sarah’s assistant looked up and said, “I will let the
Director know you’re here. There is some coffee in the conference room and a
computer in the corner if you need it. She has Dr. Shah in her office right now
and she told me she wanted to see you at a quarter to nine, so you have about
fifteen minutes.”

“Thank you,” replied Katie, “I’ll check some email
while I wait.” 

As Katie opened her email she could tell there was
something different. Normally it took two or three seconds. Today it was taking
fifteen seconds. When her email screen came up she saw that she had six hundred
and eighty new unread emails. As she scrolled through and read each new subject
line, her horror grew. Every one of them was a report of death or illness. A
quick calculation told her that of the thirty-three hundred people she tracked
around the world, several hundred had perished overnight.

When Katie was eventually called into the
Director’s office, she was met with an upbeat tone. “Hi Katie, how are you?” 
But that tone contrasted dramatically with the strain on her face.

“Right now I’m OK, but I was just on my email and
it looks as though maybe upwards of five hundred of the people that we
routinely track in our aging studies have perished. This is quite a shocker,”
said Katie.

“Well, as far as shockers go, I don’t know if you
know, but I got a call from Melody and she said that Herb died yesterday
afternoon. She said she tried to call you, but she got only your answering
machine.”

Herb was an institution at the CDC and was beloved
by all, and although she had allowed herself to think the worst before this,
hearing the words out loud shocked her to the core

“I was afraid that was the case. Beth was going to
call Melody to find out how he was and see if they needed any help,” said
Katie. Then she asked, “But why Herb, he wasn’t elderly?  He was only 72.”

“Melody said he wasn’t in the best of health, but
the doctors certainly didn’t think he was going to die. I think that whatever
is killing the elderly somehow affected him at a younger age. We don’t know why
yet, but you are going to help us find out.”

Dr. Shah sat quietly as the Director continued.
“The first autopsies from the D.C area and Atlanta have been completed.
Whatever the cause, this disease seems to be attacking all internal organs of
the victims, as evidenced by the damage to their heart, brain, liver and
kidneys. There is no indication of a virus or bacteria at present, but we hope
to isolate something from our cultures. It is very baffling. We have all of the
preliminary data on the conditions and the lab work that was performed on the
deceased bodies. Katie, I want you to build a statistical model that will
predict what we would see in a healthy human versus the victims of this
epidemic. We have to figure out a way to detect the disease, whatever it is, so
we can see if it is isolated to a specific area. Do you think you can do that?”

Katie nodded cautiously. “I will have to see the
data and we’ll see where it leads us. I have been working on an algorithm for
the last several years that uses blood testing to predict the longevity of an
individual. With a few modifications, I should be able adapt this model to
predict who may be susceptible to this disease. The key to my research to date
is that I am using an array of blood tests that aren’t required during a
routine physical. Would it be possible to have an extensive battery of lab
tests run on the people who have died?  The more information you can provide,
the better. I could possibly predict what lab tests could be indicators for
this disease. I need data from all over the country too, if possible, so that I
can determine if there are any commonalities that can be isolated. I also need
the information on what is the normal range for all of the lab tests, for
comparison to our controls.”

Dr. Shah broke in. “We are already collecting that
information. I took the liberty of putting it into a format that would be easy
to look at. If there is anything missing, just let me know. We have also
started to expand our protocol to test for contaminants and items we don’t
normally do in day-to-day tests. It will take several days to get you all the
information, but we have teams working around the clock. We are continuing to
look for a bug that could be causing this, but right now the experts are
baffled. It appears this is something entirely new. You should be receiving a
file with the preliminary data before noon today and I promise we will provide
you with updates every three hours until we get this thing figured out.”

“The DVC should be starting in a few minutes,”
said the Director. “Let’s move into the conference room. I suspect the call
will probably be limited to the Secretary, the CDC Director and the National Security
Advisor, and they still want everything close hold at this point.”

Moments later they were all connected via secure
DVC.  The National Security Advisor, Jim Redman, asked, “So, what news do you
have this morning, Dr. Lin?”

Everyone listened intently as Sarah explained what
her team in DC had done overnight and what the immediate next plans were. Dr.
Shah went into detail on what was found during the autopsies. Katie then
explained her plan to analyze the data she would be given to try to determine a
common link.

Jennifer Milton, the Secretary of HHS, asked:

“Do you have any numbers or an estimate of the
number of deaths so far?  It wouldn’t surprise me if the press have a running
counter on every TV screen by this afternoon.”

The Director of CDC, Bob Gleeson, broke in.

“At this point the numbers are sketchy, but it
looks like close to 80,000 deaths in the U.S. in the last two to three days.
That would translate to 1.2 million deaths worldwide. That’s five times the
average, and the infrastructure is being stressed as the capacity of hospitals,
morgues, and mortuaries is stretched. To stay ahead of things, we have
contacted the State Health Departments and asked them to prepare for mass
casualties. We are monitoring this closely to see if the rate will increase,
with data calls every twelve hours right now. We will go to every eight hours
if we exceed the current death rate.”

“Who is going to be analyzing this data?” asked
Jim

“I have my top statistician here in Atlanta
looking at this. He understands the sensitivity of the work we are doing and I
can count on his confidentiality,” said Bob.

“Dr. McMann will be working on an algorithm to
determine if there is any common thread to the deaths, with the aim of
developing an architecture for prediction,” added Sarah. “Since we haven’t been
able to identify a particular virus or bacteria, we think this is the best
approach to developing a test we can use to gauge the spread of the disease.”

“Dr. McMann, how long do you think it will take
you to find the pattern and develop your prediction scheme?” asked Jennifer.

“I am hoping the data will show a pattern after
four to five days. The main source of data will be the lab tests run on the
victims of the disease. Of course, some of the data will take several days to obtain,”
said Katie.

“That is correct, and we will be feeding data to
Dr. McMann every three hours starting at noon today,” added Dr. Shah.

“I already have a program in mind, so once I start
receiving data, I will hopefully start to see some patterns. Based on what Dr.
Shah told me earlier, the data should be arriving in a format that can be
easily uploaded so I will just need to tweak my program to make it work,” said
Katie.

“Good,” replied Jim. “We would like to have
progress reports twice a day. Obviously, if you get any breakthroughs, feed
that to us as soon as possible, using secure communication means of course. I
want to remind everyone here, the data analysis and our conversations are
classified. Our military, Johns Hopkins, and the international teams, all
report much the same so far but, like you, they are just getting started too.
The White House will make a statement in writing for public release this
afternoon. Jennifer, please have something for us to use as background by 3
p.m.”

As the screen went blank, Sarah looked at Katie
and Ben. “Okay, we’ve got our work cut out for us. Ben, we are relying on you
for the data. Call in all of your favors, pull rank, whatever you need to do to
get the data expedited.
We can’t have
Neanderthals working on this.
Katie, I know this may seem daunting, but
I also know you can do it. If Herb were alive today, I know he would have asked
to put you on the project. You are the best at what you do. Let’s get to work.”

Dóchas

It is 25,000 years ago. The place:
the Rhone River valley, in what would later become the border between the
Gallic and Germanic speaking peoples of Europe. Early modern humans are
beginning to take root in this fertile land full of game and a scattered few of
the last of the giants, the woolly mammoth. Neanderthal humanoids have long
since died off, displaced by others, including Cro-Magnon humans now scattered
in small hunter-gatherer groups across an ever colder European landscape.

The small group of short, hairy, round-faced,
but very muscular humans moved frequently, never staying in one location for
more than a couple of weeks or so. Their leader, Pater, had guided this group
of thirty or so souls for many seasons. Of the nearly twenty children, ranging
in age from newborn to late adolescence, many were his. Their skin was rough
and dark, their eyes deep-set with prominent foreheads, their hair black and
thick, and their tongues larger than that of latter Homo sapiens. One of their most
distinguishing features was their quiet demeanor, the behavior of successful
hunters. They were a people of few words, who always spoke softly, if at all,
using no written language, communicating with one-word commands, grunts,
gestures and facial expressions.

Theirs was a simple existence,
moving from place to place in search of food, warmth, water, and shelter. Their
preferred food was game - boar, deer, elk, bison, and especially the harder to
find woolly mammoth. They ate well as long as they kept moving, but taking down
a mammoth was a cause for celebration, and this rare event allowed them to stay
put for a longer period, especially if there was a cave or rocky outcropping
nearby. The windfall arrangement of abundant food and good shelter was an
opportunity the females of the band especially appreciated, and they had an
ancient way of making the males do what they wanted should the opportunity
arise.

They all hunted as coordinated
group; the four adult males were armed with spears and knives with flint stone
tips and blades. These men, led by Pater, would set up ambushes, generally near
a river, while the women and children, moving spread out in an arched line,
drove game of whatever variety downwind through the thick forests and small
clearings into cleverly laid traps where the adult males lay hidden, ready to
spring upon the unsuspecting game.

Pater would lead the band north
with each season of warmth, for in the north lay the best hunting for game,
especially the greatest prize of them all - the giant wooly mammoth. They would
continue north until they reached an area near a wide, deep, swift, river they
called the Falz. The band followed a wide valley to the great river, a fertile
valley rich in nuts and seeds too.

The small group carried everything
they owned with them in hides hanging from their shoulders or dangling from the
ends of their spears or leather belts. The most precious thing they carried were
the sacred stones. The stones that made fire.

Each year the going to the Falz
became more difficult despite their warm clothing of animal fur and shoes of
leathered skin, for the land was becoming colder and colder, and the once
ubiquitous rains now turned to snow and ice much sooner than before. These
journeys were especially hard on the females with child. Indeed, the existence
the females lived was doubly hard, with frequent pregnancies and harsh living.
Their lives often ended much too soon, frequently from the complications of
birthing children. As a result, Pater and the other three men were now older than
the remaining six adult females, for in those rare instances when they came
upon others of their kind, Pater would sometimes trade sacred stones for other
young females to become part of his band, especially when dealing with roaming
bands fewer in number and using mostly sticks and regular stones to hunt with.

Pater had noticed changes in the
world around him, brought on by the increasing cold. He also noticed the
available game in the Falz was now fewer in number, and a great mammoth kill
was rarer still. Indeed, it had been a very long time since they had last
brought down a giant, as they called these beasts. And because of the cold, the
amount of time the band could spend in the Falz area was shortened with each
passing season, forcing them to turn south, following the wide valley until
they reached the great expanse of salty water where it was warmer and the
sacred stones were.

The final mammoth kill came one
late autumn, just days before Pater was about to turn the group back towards
the south. After the old beast had been brought down, a great party ensued in
the forest with a giant fire, plenty of roasting meat, with the large hides
harvested from the carcass drying by the bonfire. And to honor the great beast,
after much effort, they raised a great two-meter high stone nearby, upright on
its end, in order to commemorate the place where the giant of the land had
fallen.

During this pause of several days
to celebrate, one of the new wives of the previous year had a baby. A boy. But
this baby was different from all others. He was smaller, fairer skinned, with lite
thin hair, a smooth forehead, a longer face, and a smaller tongue. He also
cried a great deal, much more than any previous normal babies. They named the
child the Falz boy, for he was as noisy as the great river’s waterfalls.

After the great feast, the group
made ready for the journey south, for the deep cold was upon them. As usual,
they followed the great flocks of birds also heading towards the south, but now
also a bit earlier in the season. With each passing day of the return journey,
all noticed something very strange about this newborn child in their midst. Something
no one had ever seen before.  Although eating well, and without any of the
other familiar signs of sickness, the child’s skin gradually became tighter, his
hair began to fall out, and his eyes became sunken and glazed. The crying grew
weaker and he was always fussy. He grew weaker and weaker. After only a few
days, like a very old person, the child suddenly died. It was as if he had
contracted some strange disease.

Pater would remember how strange
this death was. More ominously though, Pater would also remember that this was
the last time they ever saw a woolly mammoth.

In time, Pater lived out his years
and another generation came along. From within this generation another strange
looking, smaller baby was born, just like the Falz boy. She was also fair
skinned, with light colored, thin hair, a smooth forehead, and a long face, and
a smaller tongue. Again, she was very different from the rest, like a mutation
they had rarely seen in some animals. The little girl also cried more than the
others, but this one wasn’t sick, like the Falz boy; she was simply smaller and
smiled a great deal. She too was noisier than the other “normal” babies, but
that was no matter now to them, for she was very pretty and they were happy she
lived. They called her Dóchas.

Eventually Dóchas grew to become a
talkative young thing quite different from her people. She constantly observed
the world around her, giving names to things the people had no name for yet.
She also learned to hum, quite on her own, and in time she began to whistle,
and eventually she learned to sing. All marveled at this, for Dóchas was indeed
very different from them all.

As Dóchas grew older, she developed
a keen interest in plants, especially the ones the group liked to eat. Like all
the others, she worked hard at gathering plants. But instead of eating them
all, she would keep some of the plants with her, carrying them long distances
to new places. One day she happened upon the idea of burying the plants and
seeds, mimicking what she had seen some small animals doing. Later, when she
returned to the previous location with each season’s wandering by the clan, she
discovered the seeds had grown in other places. She showed the other women
this, for the men rarely showed any interest in plants, other than as a
ready-to-eat food. For the men it was all about hunting...and mating.

It was not long before everyone in
the group gradually learned that when they returned from their wanderings, the
things that had been planted before would be there in the old places in
abundance waiting for them, especially near the warm salty ocean where they
also had fish. They began to linger more and move less from the warm place by
the salty water. The difficult trips to the cold country near the wide, deep
and swift Falz would be fewer and fewer until they simply did not go anymore.
Why bother, for they had never seen the woolly giants again. And there was ice
there all the time now anyhow.

More food year-round in one place and
less moving meant fewer women died and more babies lived, including the many
offspring of Dóchas, who especially flourished in their noisy way, quite like
their modern descendants who live to this very day on the Côte D’Azur.