help.”
Thirteen
2000 Dead in Bangkok
Mystery Disease Baffles Health Authorities
Stephen Itagaki read the headline of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper that covered half of the front page, and then sat at his desk, motionless, holding a cup of cappuccino in his right hand. The sip he had meant to take a moment ago was forgotten. He was no longer even aware of his upraised arm. He was completely immersed in the lead story:
A strange and extremely virulent form of dengue hemorrhagic fever is striking terror throughout Thailand. The victims, young and old, male and female, have all died extremely gruesome, bloody, and rapid, deaths. So far no one has survived the disease…
Stephen was utterly transfixed as he read the article, but it was only when he reached the end of the story that he began to feel a certain sense of terror himself and his heart began to race:
Villages are being quarantined throughout Thailand under new emergency measures. Reports of the disease are now coming from even the most remote parts of the country, and now most ominously, there have been reported over one hundred deaths due to the disease in nearby Malaysia and Singapore.
The Thai health authorities have mounted a full-scale investigation concerning the origin of this new strain of dengue, and there is some encouraging news. According to a spokesman for the health authorities in Bangkok they have determined that the very first person to die from the disease was a young man from Tokyo who had come to Bangkok on an organized sex tour. He has been identified as Sam Tanigawa . The health authorities are now aggressively pursuing this lead to try to find out how and where the disease originated.
“Sam!” Stephen said aloud as he read his employee’s name . “That’s why he never came back…”
Stephen hadn’t given a thought to Sam after the baby mammoth died. He had simply concluded that Sam was like a lot of the young men these days – undependable. Besides that, with the baby mammoth dead, he didn’t need Sam anyway.
He let the newspaper fall to the desktop. His hand shook as he put the still full coffee cup down on his desk, and some of the hot, black liquid spilled onto the desk. He didn’t bother to wipe it up.
Those people, he thought , it says they’re all dying in blood, pools of blood. That’s like the mammoth! Sam must have died like that too…but they’re wrong; it can’t be dengue hemorrhagic fever. This has to be something very different – this must be what killed the mammoth too!
He quickly stood up and looked out the window towards the front entrance and parking lot of the building. Everything seemed normal outside. He turned back toward his laboratory and saw, at the far end of the room, the gleaming stainless steel doors of the walk-in refrigerated storage area and pictured the baby mammoth that now lay there on a cold examination table, perfectly preserved at minus thirty degrees Fahrenheit.
They’ll be coming soon, he thought and looked back to the window. A flood of thoughts cascaded through his brain. Don’t panic, he told himself. We just need a plan. But we need it now!
He picked up the paper and reread the story. The article didn’t say that Sam had worked for Stephen. That was good. The reporter hadn’t found out that piece of information yet, but Stephen knew that the Thai authorities would be asking for help from the Japanese police. It wouldn’t take long before they would be sending someone over to the institute. The police would certainly have a lot of questions, but the reporters would probably have more. Many of them had come to the zoo when he had tantalizingly promised them the “story of the year”.
Then the mammoth had unexpectedly died and he had decided to keep all the information secret until he could understand what had happened. He
Thirteen
2000 Dead in Bangkok
Mystery Disease Baffles Health Authorities
Stephen Itagaki read the headline of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper that covered half of the front page, and then sat at his desk, motionless, holding a cup of cappuccino in his right hand. The sip he had meant to take a moment ago was forgotten. He was no longer even aware of his upraised arm. He was completely immersed in the lead story:
A strange and extremely virulent form of dengue hemorrhagic fever is striking terror throughout Thailand. The victims, young and old, male and female, have all died extremely gruesome, bloody, and rapid, deaths. So far no one has survived the disease…
Stephen was utterly transfixed as he read the article, but it was only when he reached the end of the story that he began to feel a certain sense of terror himself and his heart began to race:
Villages are being quarantined throughout Thailand under new emergency measures. Reports of the disease are now coming from even the most remote parts of the country, and now most ominously, there have been reported over one hundred deaths due to the disease in nearby Malaysia and Singapore.
The Thai health authorities have mounted a full-scale investigation concerning the origin of this new strain of dengue, and there is some encouraging news. According to a spokesman for the health authorities in Bangkok they have determined that the very first person to die from the disease was a young man from Tokyo who had come to Bangkok on an organized sex tour. He has been identified as Sam Tanigawa . The health authorities are now aggressively pursuing this lead to try to find out how and where the disease originated.
“Sam!” Stephen said aloud as he read his employee’s name . “That’s why he never came back…”
Stephen hadn’t given a thought to Sam after the baby mammoth died. He had simply concluded that Sam was like a lot of the young men these days – undependable. Besides that, with the baby mammoth dead, he didn’t need Sam anyway.
He let the newspaper fall to the desktop. His hand shook as he put the still full coffee cup down on his desk, and some of the hot, black liquid spilled onto the desk. He didn’t bother to wipe it up.
Those people, he thought , it says they’re all dying in blood, pools of blood. That’s like the mammoth! Sam must have died like that too…but they’re wrong; it can’t be dengue hemorrhagic fever. This has to be something very different – this must be what killed the mammoth too!
He quickly stood up and looked out the window towards the front entrance and parking lot of the building. Everything seemed normal outside. He turned back toward his laboratory and saw, at the far end of the room, the gleaming stainless steel doors of the walk-in refrigerated storage area and pictured the baby mammoth that now lay there on a cold examination table, perfectly preserved at minus thirty degrees Fahrenheit.
They’ll be coming soon, he thought and looked back to the window. A flood of thoughts cascaded through his brain. Don’t panic, he told himself. We just need a plan. But we need it now!
He picked up the paper and reread the story. The article didn’t say that Sam had worked for Stephen. That was good. The reporter hadn’t found out that piece of information yet, but Stephen knew that the Thai authorities would be asking for help from the Japanese police. It wouldn’t take long before they would be sending someone over to the institute. The police would certainly have a lot of questions, but the reporters would probably have more. Many of them had come to the zoo when he had tantalizingly promised them the “story of the year”.
Then the mammoth had unexpectedly died and he had decided to keep all the information secret until he could understand what had happened. He
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