“Dirk, it's good of you to come. There's a quiet Italian restaurant down the street where we can talk. The Pasta Alfredo is great, too,” Sarah suggested.
“Sure thing. Ladies first,” Dirk replied as he held the front door open for the two scientists.
After the threesome shoehorned into a red vinyl booth at the nearby neighborhood restaurant, Sarah explained their findings.
“An examination of the sea lion revealed the classic signs of respiratory seizure as the cause of death. An initial blood test failed to reveal any concentrated levels of toxicity, however.”
“Similar to the test results for you three in Anchorage,” Dirk added between bites of bread.
“Exactly. Our vitals showed fine, though we still experienced weakness, headaches, and signs of respiratory irritation by the time we reached Anchorage,” Sandy added.
“So we went back and carefully reexamined the animal's blood and tissue and finally detected trace elements of the toxin,” Sarah continued. “Though not one hundred percent certain, we are fairly confident the sea lion was killed by hydrogen cyanide poisoning.”
“Cyanide?” Dirk asked with an arched eyebrow.
“Yes,” Sandy replied. “It makes sense. Cyanide is actually expelled rapidly from the human body. In the case of Sarah, Irv, and me, our bodies had naturally purged most, if not all, of the cyanide toxins before we stepped in the door of the Anchorage hospital. Hence, no trace remained when our blood samples were taken.”
“I've contacted the Alaska State Coroner's Office and informed them of our findings. They have not completed the autopsy report on the two Coast Guardsmen yet, but they will know what to look for. I am convinced that is what killed them,” Sarah said with a tinge of sadness.
“I always thought cyanide had to be ingested in order to be lethal,” Dirk remarked.
“That's what's commonly known, but it's not the only deadly form of the poison. Everyone knows of cyanide tablets carried by wartime spies, the deadly Jim Jones cyanide-laced Kool-Aid that killed hundreds in Jonestown, Guyana, and the Tylenol poisonings, which used cyanide. But cyanide gas has also been used as a killing agent. The French tried variations of cyanide gas against the Germans in the trenches during World War One. And though the Germans never used it on the battlefield, they did use a form of cyanide in the concentration camp gas chambers during the Second World War.”
“The infamous Zyklon B,” Dirk recalled.
“Yes, a beefed-up fumigant originally developed to kill rodents,” Sarah continued. “And, more recently, Saddam Hussein was suspected of using a form of cyanide gas in attacks on Kurdish villages in his own country, although it was never verified.”
“Since we packed in our own food and water supplies,” Sandy piped in, “the airborne poisoning makes sense. It would also explain the deaths of the sea lions.”
“Is it possible for the cyanide to have originated from a natural source?” Dirk inquired.
“Cyanide is found in a variety of plants and edibles, from lima beans to choke cherries But it's as an industrial solvent where it is most prevalent,” Sarah explained. “Tons of the stuff are manufactured each year for electroplating, gold and silver extraction, and fumigants. Most people probably come in contact with some form of cyanide every day. But to answer your question, it's unlikely to exist in a gaseous state from a natural source sufficient to reach any sort of lethality. Sandy, what did you find in the historical profile of cyanide deaths in the U.S.?”
“There's been a slew of them, but most are individual accidents or suspected homicides or suicides resulting from ingestion of solid cyanides.” Sandy reached down and picked up a manila folder she had brought along and skimmed through one of the pages inside.
“The only significant mass death was related to the Tylenol poisonings, which killed seven people, again by ingestion. I found only two references for multiple deaths from suspected cyanide gas. A family of four died in the Oregon town of Warrenton back in 1942, and in 1964 three men were killed in Butte, Montana. The Montana case was listed as a mining accident due to extraction solvents. The Oregon case was listed as undetermined. And I found next to nothing for prior incidences in and around Alaska.”
“Then a natural-occurring release doesn't sound very likely,” Dirk remarked.
“So if it was a man-made airborne release, who did it and why?” Sandy asked while jabbing her fork into a bowl of angel-hair pasta.
“I think the 'who' was our friends on the fishing boat,” he said drily.
“They weren't picked up by the authorities?” Sarah asked.
Dirk shook his head in disgust. “No, the trawler disappeared. By the time the local authorities arrived in the area, they were long gone. The official assessment is that they were presumed to be foreign poachers.”
“I suppose it's possible. It sounds a little dangerous to me, but I guess they could release the gas from their boat upwind of a sea lion colony,” Sarah replied, shaking her head.
“A fast way to do a lot of killing,” Dirk added. “Though poachers armed with AK-47s does seem a little extreme. And I'm still wondering about the retail market for sea lions.”
“It is perplexing. I haven't heard of anything like it before.”
“I hope that you two don't suffer any ill effects from the exposure,” Dirk said, looking at Sarah with concern.
“Thanks,” Sarah replied. “It was a shock to our system, but we'll be fine. The long-term effect for minimal exposure has not been proven to be dangerous.”
Dirk pushed away a cleaned plate of Pasta Alfredo and rubbed his taut stomach with satisfaction.
“Excellent dining choice.”
“We eat here all the time,” Sarah said as she reached over and out-grabbed Dirk for the bill.
“I insist on returning the favor,” Dirk said, looking at Sarah with a serious smile.
“Sandy and I have to travel to the CDC research lab in Spokane for a few days, but I'd love to take you up when we return,” she replied, intentionally leaving Sandy out of the equation.
Dirk smiled in acknowledgment. “I can't wait.”
The landing wheels of the Gulfstream V jet dropped slowly from the fuselage as the sleek aircraft aligned its nose at the runway. Its wings cut through the moist, hazy air like a scalpel, as the nineteen-passenger luxury business jet dropped gracefully out of the sky until its rubber tires touched the tarmac with a screech and a wisp of blue smoke. The pilot guided the plane to the corporate jet terminal of Tokyo's modern Narita International Airport before shutting down the high-pitched turbines. As a ground crew chocked the wheels of the jet, a gleaming black Lincoln limousine glided up, stopping precisely at the base of the plane's passenger stairwell.
Chris Gavin squinted in the bright sun as he stepped down from the jet and climbed into the waiting limo, followed by a legion of assistants and assorted vice presidents. As chief executive officer of SemCon Industries, Gavin commanded the largest semiconductor manufacturing company in the world. The flamboyant and free- spending corporate chief, who inherited the company from a visionary father, had alienated many of his countrymen in the United States by closing profitable factories and brusquely laying off thousands of workers at home in order to move production to newer and cheaper facilities offshore. Profits would be higher, he promised his shareholders, while taking personal delight in broadening his elaborate lifestyle to a worldwide setting.
Exiting the airport grounds located some sixty-six kilometers northeast of Tokyo, the limo driver entered the Higashi Kanto Expressway and headed toward Japan's capital city with his cargo of high-salaried executives. Twenty minutes later, the driver turned south, exiting the highway some twenty kilometers short of Tokyo. The limo soon entered the industrial section of Chiba, a large port city on the eastern edge of Tokyo Bay. The driver wound past a number of large drab manufacturing buildings before pulling up in front of a sleek glass building overlooking the bay. The modern structure looked more like an executive office building than the industrial fabrication plant it contained, with its shimmering face of gold reflective windows rising four stories high. Mounted on the roof in huge block letters was a blue semcon neon sign, which could be seen for miles away. A large crowd of factory workers, all clad in pale blue lab coats, waited anxiously on the grounds for the arrival of their CEO to officially open the new facility.
The crowd cheered and cameras flashed as Gavin exited the limo and waved to the assembled employees and media, baring a wide, capped-tooth grin. After a pair of long-winded welcome speeches by the mayor of Chiba and the new plant manager, Gavin offered a few polished words of thanks and inspiration to the employees, then
