"What do you mean?" I said.
"The carbon chains are strange. Very strange. The substance has an extremely high molecular weight. Unlike dodecyl acetate, this stuff seems to dissolve quite slowly, which might help explain its unusually strong effect on larger animals. But that ain't all, it turns out. The animals aren't the only ones who seem to be secreting a pheromone. So are we."
"What are you talking about?"
"Long story short, a human being's scent is very complex," Dr. Valery said. "We secrete materials from several different types of glands. There's regular sweat, secreted by the eccrine glands, and then there's sweat from the apocrine glands, in the hairier parts of our bodies. Then there's sebum."
"The substance that contains our smell," I said.
"Right. Sebum is the stuff that bloodhounds home in on when tracking an individual person. Our olfactory fingerprint. The fragrance industry has been doing sebum experiments for years. I used to help run some of them. The thing about sebum is, like pheromones, it's chock-full of hydrocarbons. That's why, after hearing about your breakthrough, I decided to test some skin swabs from humans. I used myself and some of the other lab workers as subjects."</ol>
"What did you find?" I said.
"It turns out that our sebum is chemically different from some samples I found in a similar study that was done back in 1994. I don't know if it's the air, our diet, seepage from plastics, or what, but initial tests seem to indicate that our sebum has a new compound in it. With pentanol and methyl butanoate. Not only that, but this new compound's chemical structure seems to resemble several insect attack pheromones."
I stared at the floor of the plane, trying to piece together what I was being told.
"So you're saying the animals are attacking because of our smell?" I said. "It's not just them. It's us."
"Think about it, Mr. Oz," said Valery. "The olfactory system of most mammals is incredibly strong. A dog's sense of smell is about a hundred thousand times more powerful than a human's. The power of olfaction is primal. And it seems the critters don't like what they're smelling."
Chapter 74
WITH THESE NEW and even more troubling implications playing a polka in my head, I exited the plane and was guided by a couple of soldiers toward a shiny black-and-chrome government motorcade thrumming by the hangar.
If our innate human odor was helping to cause this chaos, how were we supposed to fix that? How could we humans have changed what we smell like on a molecular level? How could it have happened so quickly? And why?
I approached the vehicles: a marked D.C. police car, a black Suburban, and another military Humvee.
A stocky marine in full camo shook my hand. He was Hispanic and his spiky high-and-tight made him look like he was wearing a hedgehog as a yarmulke.
"Mr. Oz?" he said with a slightly cockeyed grin. "You're that animal scientist guy, right? I saw you on Oprah, man. Welcome to the war zone formerly known as Washington, D.C. I'm Sergeant Alvarez. But call me Mark. Do you have any bags or some beakers or something I can grab for you?"
"No beakers this time," I said distractedly as he opened the door of the SUV for me.
"So what are you down here for?" he said, getting behind the wheel. "Lemme guess. Tour the cherry trees, a Nats game?"
We were rolling now. I was trying to think. I wished he'd shut up.
"Actually, I'm starting up a brand-new drug testing program for Marine Corps personnel," I said. "In fact, when we get to the White House, I'm going to need a urine sample."
A long silent minute dragged past.
"That was a joke." I said. "Sorry, I have a lot on my mind."
"No problemo, Doc. I talk too much. Ask anyone," Alvarez said. "You sit there and solve the disaster. I'll just button my lip and drive. This is me, shutting up. Zip."
A few minutes later we were near the Pentagon, approaching the I-395 ramp before the bridge, when I heard what at first I thought were honking geese.
Then a mass of animals burst from the roadside trees. Body after furry body spilled out from between the tree trunks. Dogs. Dutch shepherds, caramel-colored mastiffs, foxhounds, bloodhounds, greyhounds, mutts of every conceivable coat and color and size. The dogs snarled and barked-a din of barking. Fur flew, spit sprayed up from the horde in frothy flecks.
Most of the animals were filthy, crazed-looking. They looked sick, starved, haunted. Many of them had hides that were mottled with that same white fungus stuff I'd seen under Bryant Park. It was horrific. I felt sorry for them.
The mass of dogs didn't so much as hesitate as it approached our motorcade. The charging herd spilled right out into the road like lemmings off a cliff, right under the lead patrol car's front wheels. Sergeant Alvarez came close to rear-ending the police car as it hit its brakes.
"The fuck are you assclowns doing?" Sergeant Alvarez yelled into his hands-free headset at the driver of the cop car. "Now's not the time to be braking for animals, cockwaffle! Go! Go!"
There was a series of yelps and whines, and then sickening thumps under the wheels, as we ran over the dogs. Our car bucked and rocked over them like a rubber dinghy in a storm at sea. We thought it was almost over when an Irish wolfhound that looked like Lon Chaney Jr. in heavy makeup hurled itself onto the hood.
Sergeant Alvarez stomped on the gas, and the monster sailed over the windshield and tumbled over the roof. I turned in time to see it get run over by the Humvee behind us.
"Damn! Thing wanted to eat us for breakfast, huh?" Alvarez said, wiping sweat off his hedgehog. "You can take that urine sample from my pants now, Professor X."
We glanced at each other for a beat, then exchanged a trickle of nervous laughter.</ol>
"Now I understand why the politicians are so concerned," I said.
The marine nodded as he took his .45 out of his holster and put it in the beverage holder.
"Typical Washington, right?" he said. "A problem ain't a problem until it happens in D.C."
Chapter 75
D.C. LOOKED DESERTED. We passed an army checkpoint on the other side of the Potomac. There were dead dogs scattered pell-mell across the usually pristine National Mall, floating in the reflecting pool. The water was cloudy and dark.
I saw that there was a newly erected high electric fence surrounding the White House as we approached it. At each corner of the complex I noticed four Humvees kitted out with what looked like satellite dishes attached to their roofs.
"What are those?" I asked.
"ADS," Sergeant Alvarez said. "Active Denial System. It's a kind of microwave transmitter that heats up your skin. Hurts like a motherfucker. Supposed to be effective for crowd control. Fortunately, it works on man's best frenemy, too."
We got in line behind two other convoys waiting beside the White House complex on East Executive Avenue. Even when it was our turn, we had to wait for twenty minutes while the operation of ID checking and rechecking was conducted by the Orwellian assembly of security agents at the gate.
I spotted Mr. Leahy as a baby-faced army officer was at long last escorting me into the West Wing. At the end of a hallway, Leahy seemed locked in a heated argument with a staffer in front of a set of closed double doors.
A lot of military types kept coming in and out of the boardroom behind them. A lot of metal flashed on jackets. The staffer shook his head at Leahy emphatically and departed as I stepped up.
"Something heavy-duty is going on, Oz," Leahy said, buttonholing me by the secretary's desk.
"What's the problem?" I said.
"They won't listen," the silver-haired NSA officer said, more to himself than to me. "I can't believe this. They won't even listen to me."
"Who won't listen?" I said.
Leahy tilted his head toward a nearby door. "Step outside?"
On the White House colonnade, Leahy shook out a pack of Marlboros.
"I haven't smoked in ten years," he said. He popped a match to life and held it to the tip of his cigarette.
I wanted to shake him by the lapels. "You wanted me here. Now I'm here. What's the problem?"
He didn't answer. He took another drag, held the smoke in for a beat, and leisurely exhaled it from his nose in twin gray streamers of smoke.
Back in New York, my family was in jeopardy while this jackass pulled my chain. As Leahy put the cigarette to his lips again I smacked it out of his hand.
"Stop fucking around with me!" I said. "What. Is. The. Problem."
"The military managed to convince the president that this thing can be taken care of with conventional weapons. They have satellite imagery of some animal nesting sites, and they want to use napalm on them. Imagine. They think they can bomb all the critters to kingdom come. They don't want to listen to reason anymore, Oz. They just want to trot out their toys."
He shook out another cigarette. "To a hammer, everything is a nail," he said, and lit the cigarette.
"But that's nuts, Leahy. Isn't President Hardinson known for being a moderate? A pragmatist? Mrs. Reasonable?"
Leahy looked around the colonnade.
"We're probably bugged. I should know, shouldn't I? But screw it. Who's around to listen? This is top secret, Oz. Mum's the word, understand? The president's daughter is dead."
Huh? I did a double take.