Sector C (20 page)

She gave him a weak, conspiratorial smile.

The little thrill that shivered in his stomach surprised him. He didn’t know sharing secrets with someone could tap into that reaction so easily — and he wondered if she would feel the same when he shared his bit of news. “The president is going to give a speech this morning.”

“So soon?”

“Washington is moving fast on this. No one wants to look unprepared, especially given what happened after the earthquake in Prince William Sound, so they’re moving pre-emptively. President Del Campo already has one big strike against him this
term,
they don’t want this to be another.” He took a deep breath. “They’re calling out the National Guard.”

Donna’s blank look told him the full ramification was lost on her. No reason, of course, that she should know which containment plan had been launched or what the phases in the plan were. But it would have been easier on him if she somehow just knew because now he would have to explain it to her — and he would have to watch her reactions to his every word.

“It’ll be the Guard’s responsibility to carry out the president’s orders. Based on the information at hand, the infectious disease and zoonosis centers of the CDC, along with the Department of Agriculture, recommended to Del Campo that all the livestock in Montana and the Dakotas be slaughtered.”

Donna staggered back a step, the edge of her desk catching the back of her thighs and bracing her. “All? Do you know how many millions of animals that is?”

“I’m afraid I do.
Roughly ten million.
The order will include cows, pigs, sheep and goats. It won’t include horses or exotics. The food supply will be contained first; if necessary, the rest of the farm animals will be targeted, but I wouldn’t suspect that to happen for another ten to fourteen days.”

Donna tried to absorb the enormity of what was being proposed. “When will it start?”

“The Guardsmen were put on alert last night and should all be reporting in by now. There’s a lot of gridding out and strategy for coordinating the Armories in the other states that’ll need to be done, but local Armories — like the one in Williston — should be heading out to the ranches by this afternoon.”

“I want to talk to my clients, then, before the Guard comes.”

“We were going to head to Triple E this morning.”

“I have a responsibility to the people I’ve worked with for the past six years. I can’t just ignore them now. Whatever’s going on with Triple E has already affected our area. If we’re just going out there to collect more evidence to shut them down, taking another day to do it won’t hurt anything. Or you could go yourself. I’ve got to see my clients.”

“Why? I told you last night, it’s out of our hands now. What can you do at this point?”

“Probably nothing!”
The retort rang sharp and loud in the small room. “But by God it’s the decent thing to do, don’t you think?”

The reminder stung Mike. These people weren’t just Donna’s clients, but people in her community she interacted with on a regular basis. In a service job like hers, it was relationships that counted; what affected them impacted her. And it was highly likely some of these clients had become friends. Whether her own business survived this or not wasn’t nearly as important to her as to whether the community at large survived. Mike knew that, so what was he doing? Protecting her by trying to keep her out of the thick of things? She had a right to choose where she wanted to be. It was his to respect that right, no matter how
much his instincts
— or was it testosterone — persuaded him otherwise.

“You’re right. It is the decent thing to do. We’ll talk to the ranchers today and hit Triple E tomorrow. What did you find with the tiger?”

Mike’s quick agreement gave Donna pause. Did he truly understand she had a responsibility to her clients, or was he merely humoring her? Maybe, she conceded, at another time he could afford to simply humor her, but not now. He was actually going to spend critical time to accompany her on her final rounds. She had to admire him for doing that. And she felt a little flattered by it, too.

What was most disconcerting was the thought that today would be the last time she would see some of these men and women. Which of them might rebuild and which might simply abandon ranching for good, she didn’t know, but there would be a few at least who wouldn’t be able to weather the loss of their herds even if the government came through with some sort of subsidy.

There was, she knew, the national crisis that was about to unfold. But thinking in terms larger than her single county right now was just too overwhelming. She had to keep focused on what she could affect and the things that could affect her here and now. Otherwise, she knew how easily she could be lost to despair.

So she focused on Mike’s question and tried to keep at bay the visions of a crumbling world with millions of animals dying and a vast economical depression sucking the hope out of every person across the globe.  

“I got some sedimentation from the BSE test.
Nothing conclusive, unfortunately.
But it’s the same reaction I was getting with the other inconclusive samples that the lab’s finding the new prions in now. So it’s maybe a positive by inference. I put in a rush request for the lab to process, but who knows when they’ll get to it after today? I did, however, find this.” She reached out to touch an icon on her Pad-L screen to expand it, but found her hand was shaking too badly for her forefinger to connect.
Events catching up with me
, she thought, as she wrapped her fingers around the screen and pressed her thumb to the icon instead.

Mike looked over her shoulder at the image that appeared, but couldn’t make heads or tails of it. “What is it?”

“Some of the brain tissue I was looking at under the microscope. The right side of the screen shows fairly healthy tissue. On the left though, there’s some evidence of the patterning you see with prionic disease. In typical BSE or scrapie, the whole slide would look like the area on the left, except even worse. But the lab indicated that this disease causes localized degeneration, which would be consistent with what we’re seeing here. So, again, nothing I can point to conclusively to say the tiger was infected, but based on the lab results we got yesterday, the evidence is strong that it was. I don’t know how positive we need to be before we approach Triple E with our results, though.”

“After the president’s speech — which should be starting in just a couple of minutes — I would say suspicion alone would be enough to get us back in the door.”

Donna nodded, satisfied, then clicked on a CNN newsfeed. An anchorman was speculating on what the president would be talking about, filling time as Del Campo made his way to the podium centered in the camera’s field of view. That the media seemed to have only been told there would be a press conference and not what it would be about was significant, Donna knew. She just wasn’t sure what the significance was. Were the president’s advisors simply trying to position the president as being ahead of the crisis in an effort to gain back the popularity votes he’d lost during the earthquake response in Anchorage? Or was the CDC in effect making the president the spokesperson for their agency to give the crisis the extra weight of authority? Or was what the president was about to say so grave that only the highest authority in the land could deliver the message? Donna remembered the last time a president had made such an announcement — eight years ago it had been left to President Van Allen to announce that America had gone to war with Iran. Now, perhaps, it was being left to President Del Campo to inform the American people that the U.S. was going to war with the prions.

Onscreen, the president had reached the podium and was carefully arranging the papers in front of him. No doubt his speech had been written in haste and he’d had little — if any — time to rehearse it. The camera zoomed to a closeup of his face: grim, composed, properly concerned, setting the mood of the news conference. Donna approved.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we wake up today to a global crisis with its roots deep in American soil. You are bound to hear many theories and much speculation in the coming days. What I am here to discuss today are the facts.
Facts that will impact your lives no matter where in this great country you live.
Facts that will impact your businesses, your commerce and your trade both domestically and internationally.
I want to be very clear that your government recognizes the magnitude of the repercussions of the actions we are taking now and will no doubt take in the future to handle and contain this crisis. And I know personally what sacrifices each of us will need to make in order that we emerge strong and healthy, both individually and as a nation.

“Yesterday, the Centers for Disease Control working alongside researchers, doctors and laboratories identified a new disease. They have named it
Variant Trans-species Spongiform
Encephalopathy
,
or VTSE for short. This disease is aggressive and highly contagious. It affects the nervous system, causing memory loss, muscle spasms and seizures. In the past week, VTSE has contributed to the deaths of 343 people across three states.

“Today, the CDC issued a pandemic alert. Pandemic, meaning they believe this disease will spread beyond our borders, and that it will spread rapidly.

“Here is what we know about VTSE. One, it is prionic in nature. That means it is not caused by a virus or a bacterium or any other living organism. It is caused by the same kind of protein particle that is responsible for diseases such as scrapie in sheep and goats, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in people, and probably its most notoriously known form, BSE — what many of you know as “mad cow” disease. Like its counterparts, there is yet no effective cure or preventive. That means there is no vaccine available nor is there a vaccine in production.

“Secondly, we know that VTSE can be transmitted between species. You can catch VTSE by eating the meat or drinking the milk of an infected animal. Coming in contact with the blood, saliva or urine of an infected animal puts you at risk. VTSE has been positively identified in cows, and positive identification is expected soon in pigs, sheep, goats and other livestock animals. As of this morning, chickens, turkeys and other poultry are not suspect in the transmission of this disease. Nor is any type of fish or seafood.

“The steps — and there are six of them — the government is mandating to contain this outbreak are hard and drastic. The lives and businesses of many Americans will be directly affected, and the lives and businesses of all Americans will be touched by them.

“Step One: All meat and dairy products produced in the last 90 days in the affected tri-state area, which includes Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota, are ordered to be removed from the shelves of all food establishments. This includes fresh, canned and processed products, as well as all animal feeds and pet foods that contain meat by-products. Meat is defined here to mean any product originating from any livestock source, including but not limited to cows, pigs, sheep, goats, horses, bison and oxen.

“Step Two: All livestock in the tri-state area are hereby ordered to be slaughtered and the carcasses buried in permanent landfills. They are not to be burned or otherwise disposed of. Ranches and businesses will provide the land and the equipment to perform the burials. Compensation means and methods will be determined by Congress at a later date, but this order must be executed within the next 72 hours. No exceptions. To ensure this process is carried out in the
most timely
and humane manner, I have ordered the National Guard in these states to visit livestock operations in their area and offer their assistance in the slaughter. Animal burial must be completed by the ranch or business owner within 48 hours of the animals’ deaths.

“This order extends to all livestock, any parts of which are intended for animal or human consumption at any time in its lifecycle. In general, this order does not extend to horses, mules, burros, llamas, alpacas, or sheep or goats
raised
solely for wool production. However, this order may be amended at any time.

“Step Three: Shipping of any and all livestock in any of the 48 contiguous states is hereby halted. This is a zero-tolerance order and includes all ground, air and water transport of any livestock animal, extending even to those that are excluded from the slaughter order. Animals currently in transit to slaughterhouses, rodeos, fairs, racecourses, shows or other destinations must be delivered back to their point of origin within 24 hours. Those animals already at events have 24 hours to return to their point of origin. After this time tomorrow, any livestock animal found on the road, in railroad cars or in any other transport will be confiscated by local authorities and disposed of.

“This order excludes animals originating from within the affected tri-state area. If these animals would have been subject to the slaughter
order, that
order must still be carried out no matter where in the country they are now. Animals not subject to the slaughter order will not be allowed re-entry into the affected states. Owners will need to find other accommodations for them, and it is my personal request that event coordinators work compassionately with these owners to find alternative solutions for these owners and animals until this crisis has passed.