Climate change, human stupidity, and an ancient virus threaten to set off a deadly epidemic.
Grant Farnsworth, a virologist and post-doctoral student at the University of Minnesota, and Dr. Sybil Erypet of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) struggle to save the country from a deadly epidemic as eccentrics in a snowbound Wisconsin hamlet clash with the CDC and the drug dealers who unwittingly unleashed the threat. Lydia, an octogenarian widow, is not going to miss her Wednesday night Bible Study group because a bureaucrat says she’s quarantined. And the threat of a virus doesn't slow the copulatory hijinks of the younger set, either.
Excerpt
Zurich, 5:00 p.m. local time, January 8
Professor Louis Antoine brushed a piece of lint from his silk tie. He paid too much attention to his clothing, but it was better than being like some US academics he’d met. Why brilliant and well-educated men, especially from agriculture states, would deliberately project the appearance of “good old boys” mystified him. He’d once sat in on a lecture for microbiology graduate students at a major US medical school. The lecturer wore a T-shirt and sweatpants.
It was, he’d been told, because American universities couldn’t afford to hire lab techs to work in their research labs. The grad students and professors did the work themselves, and nobody wanted to wear good clothes in a lab. Scientists aren’t judged by their clothes, anyway, an American professor said.
His phone rang. It was the shipping office at the Technical Institute.
“Professor Antoine, I’ve searched our stocks, and we don’t have the US Department of Transportation’s approved packaging for shipping biological samples. I can order them tonight, but they may take ten days to get here. We have similar packages, but they won’t have the required information printed on the outside.”
Rats. His plane tickets and speaking engagement at the University of Minnesota were for early next week. Louis wanted to be there when the samples arrived in Minnesota. There were points he wanted to clarify with Ron about this collaboration, points best handled in a face-to-face discussion. Time for plan B.
“Don’t bother,” Louis told the clerk. “Thanks for checking for me.”
The samples destined for Ron Schmidt’s lab were small: three five-milliliter sealed test tubes. Together they contained almost a half-ounce of the Iceman’s remains. Louis had gotten away with carrying one-milliliter samples of rabbit serum to the US in a coat pocket two years ago. It hadn’t been a problem to sneak them past the relaxed boarding exam at the Zurich airport, although the search going through Customs in the US had given him a scare.
These samples were only marginally larger than those. If he rolled them up in the underwear and socks when he packed, they’d be difficult to detect by x-ray or casual exam.
On his way to the airport three days later, Louis received a phone call from Paul Wolfe, a member of the team that had collected “Freddy,” so nicknamed by the team that had extracted the corpse from the glacier. At the end of a technical conversation, Paul mentioned that Jose Bonderas, a team member and grad student from Spain, was hospitalized. He’d gone to the emergency room that morning with a cough, fever, and headache.
Louis briefly considered an infection connected with Freddy, but that wasn’t realistic. The team had used reasonable biosafety procedures when working with Freddy. True, they weren’t as exacting as the Médecins Sans Frontières protocols for Ebola, but diseases that required those were extraordinarily rare and none involved 1,200-year-old corpses. “Sorry to hear that. Give Jose my regards. Is he coming down with the flu?”
“Probably. Darn fool forgot to get vaccinated this year.”
***
Eleven hours later over the eastern United States, the pilot announced a blizzard was raging through the Midwest. The Minneapolis airport was closed, and all flights were diverted to Chicago’s O’Hare airport. The attendants would assist passengers in arranging connecting flights if they wished, or they could make other arrangements when they arrived at O’Hare.
Louis rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Damn it. Nothing about this trip is going right. He hadn’t slept well on the flight, and he was dog tired, but he wasn’t the sort to dwell on the inconvenience. The Minnesota conference was already underway. Most attendees would already have arrived, so it was unlikely they’d postpone the scheduled talks. He had to get to Minneapolis by noon tomorrow.
A map in an airline magazine indicated there were flights from O’Hare to the La Crosse, Eau Claire, and Wausau airports in Wisconsin, but the storm would soon engulf all of them. Flying to Madison, Wisconsin, would save two hours of driving, but it would take him longer than that to get tickets and wait for the flight. Passenger train service in the US wasn’t worth considering. It sucked. He’d have to rent a car.
It was snowing in Chicago when his plane landed. Louis counted himself fortunate O’Hare wasn’t closed—yet. He picked up his suitcase at the baggage claim in Terminal 5, the international terminal, and stood in line to go through Customs. Lord, he hated lines. Every international airport on the planet bragged about its terminals. All were airy structures of steel and glass, all were crowded when he got there, and all were a pain in the ass when you had to stand in long lines.
Flights from Europe to several states had been diverted to O’Hare. The Customs people were swamped, lines were backed up almost out the building, and luggage exams were cursory. That, at least, could help him.
Louis kept his eyes on his suitcase. After two hours standing in line, the suitcase and samples it carried skated through with a minimal search. He was glad that was over. Between exhaustion and the crowds, he’d had a hard time keeping track of his bag.
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