Bix didn’t respond.
“Unfortunately it happens more often than we realize.” Platt’s second bite of cheeseburger didn’t taste as good as his first. It certainly did nothing to Bix’s appetite. For a guy who wanted “just coffee,” he worked his way through the slice of pie like he hadn’t eaten all day.
“What was it?” Platt asked when Bix didn’t immediately offer an answer. “E. coli? Salmonella?”
The CDC chief put his fork down, grabbed his mug, and slurped coffee.
“Don’t know.”
“Too early to tell?”
“No. I don’t know. I’ve tested for all six major strains of E. coli and three different strains of salmonella. I haven’t found it yet.”
Platt stared at him, waiting for Bix to stop looking around the diner as if suddenly he didn’t want to talk. Bacteria could be tricky. Oftentimes you found only what you tested for. It wasn’t as if you put a sample under the microscope and the various germs lit up in different neon colors. Platt knew there were more than two thousand species of salmonella alone. Most of those existed in animals and humans without causing damage. Some were serious pathogens that could cause a wide range of illnesses and infections from gastroenteritis to typhoid fever.
“Are you saying it might be something we’re not used to seeing?” Platt asked.
“Could be a mutated version. I just don’t know.”
Platt watched the CDC chief fidget with his silverware.
“Was it accidental or intentional?”
“You know some people say our nation’s food supply is an accident of epidemic proportions just waiting to happen. We have an administration that’s declared child obesity a matter of national security and they want all vending machines out of schools. They want McDonald’s to quit enticing kids with toys in Happy Meals. They call Cheerios on the carpet for claiming their cereal reduces cholesterol when Cheerios is not federally approved”—he shot quote marks in the air—“to make such claims. And in the meantime, we have a national food supply that is more vulnerable than ever to accidents, contamination, and tampering. The feds’ answer? They need more regulations and yet they don’t, won’t, and can’t inspect what they already have authority over. They’re shutting down egg suppliers for a salmonella outbreak but forty-eight hours before that salmonella outbreak, a USDA inspector reported the supplier ‘good to go.’ ”
He shoved the silverware away and pushed back against the vinyl booth. All the while Platt sat quietly, allowing him his rant.
Platt was a soldier. He didn’t have the luxury of publicly voicing his political views like Bix, who, despite being a government employee, was still a civilian. That didn’t mean that Platt didn’t agree with Bix, at least with some of what he said. But it was late. Platt had driven almost two hours to the diner. He had the same drive back waiting for him. He didn’t owe Bix any favors. They were even as of Platt’s last count.
“What’s going on, Roger?”
Bix, finished with the pie, put his elbows back on the table, intertwined his hands, making a steeple of index fingers.
“It’s obviously a food-borne illness. Obviously some sort of contamination that took place. All of them ate lunch that day in the cafeteria and within hours they displayed typical symptoms of food poisoning: nausea followed by vomiting, abdominal cramps followed by diarrhea, then fever. That’s the first day. I wish they would have called me then.
“The second day, some began passing blood and complained of light-headedness. The third day, several experienced extreme pain. Some hallucinations. There were two seizures.”
“When did they call you?”
“This morning. Day four.”
Platt only now realized he had shoved aside the plate with his half-eaten hamburger. Under the table his hands balled up into fists. It couldn’t be happening again. It wasn’t possible. Less than two months ago in Pensacola, Florida, dozens of soldiers who had returned from Iraq and Afghanistan had gotten ill—several fatally—after surgeries to repair or replace their injured limbs. The symptoms had been similar. It ended up being a tissue contamination that no one could have suspected or predicted. Realizing another massive contamination could be happening again, only now at a high school, sent a wave of nausea through Platt.
Bix continued. “Most food-borne illnesses hit those with compromised or weak immune systems—the elderly or little kids. But these are teenagers—their immune systems not yet fully developed but they’re not high risk. Whatever this is hits quicker, faster, and harder than anything I’ve ever encountered.”