Chapter 11
Day 14
The alarm doesn’t have a chance to sound before I slam the lever down. Derrick and I are very eager to get going this morning. We walk into the kitchen and see Dane and Monti already plotting out the first dingo on the handheld GPS. Three of the dingoes have separated from the pack and appear to be heading south.
“Hey, good morning! Here is the first target. It is about 30 kilometers from my place, right here close to Tortilla Flats.” Dane says.
Derrick and I pull up a chair and grab a Jakfruit muffin from a plate in the middle of the table.
“How long will it take us to get there?” I ask with a mouth full of muffin.
“The terrain is pretty flat, so it should only take us about 30 to 40 minutes.” Dane says. “Kobi, I want you to navigate, so let me make sure that you know how to use the GPS.”
He shows me how to input the information and isolate certain frequencies which will help us find the dingoes. Easy enough.
“Hey, what time is the CDC guy, Cole, supposed to meet us here?” Monti asks.
“I told him to be here at 8:00 a.m. What time is it now?” Dane asks.
“It’s 7:50 a.m.,” Derrick answers.
“He still has some time. Monti, let’s make sure we have everything we need in the car. Here Kobi, you take the GPS,” Dane says as he hands me the device.
Dane and Monti pick up their gear off the table and go out to the car. Derrick and I are finishing our breakfast and orange juice. I look at him and ask him if he is ready for this. He nods his head yes. Just as we stand up, Dane walks in with Cole.
Cole is a tall, husky man, probably measuring about 6 feet 3 inches, and 220 pounds. His hair is so blonde, it’s almost white, and his eyes are a light grey steel color. I would guess his age to be 37 years old.
You ready to go?” Dane asks.
“Yep, all ready. Let’s go,” Derrick answers as he grabs his backpack and heads to the car.
“Derrick, you drive, and Kobi will navigate. Monti and I will be looking through the binoculars most of the time, searching for the dingo. All you need to do with the GPS is hit this button when we get within one kilometer. It will zoom in on the dot and give a more accurate range. I have set the range rings at 100 meters each. When we get within 200 meters of the dingo, let us all know. Derrick, I want you to slow down at that point. At 150 meters, stop the car. Monti and I will get out and walk toward the target after we have a good visual.”
Slowly we approach the first red dot on the GPS. We are within one kilometer of the first dingo. I have to admit I am getting a little nervous, but excited at the same time. Derrick and I have never done anything like this before, and it is a little nerve wracking, to say the least. After all, we are just tourists, here on our honeymoon, caught up in the middle of a possible infectious, biological outbreak--that’s all. There’s no place I’d rather be.
“Dane, I am showing one kilometer on the GPS. The red dot is northeast of our current position, and appears to be stationary.”
“It is stationary because the dingo is probably resting in the heat of the day. They prefer to hunt at night, and usually hunt alone or in very small packs,” Dane responds.
“How far away are we now Kobi?” Monti asks.
“Still about a half kilometer and it remains stationary.” We slowly continue northeast until we get within 200 meters. “Dane, we are at 200 meters.”
“OK. Derrick, slow down to a snail’s pace, please. Monti, do you see anything yet? Kobi--position please,” Dane whispers.
“We are just over 150 meters away Dane. Derrick, stop the car.” I whisper softly.
Monti has spotted the dingo, and it is alone, in the shade, under a big tree. Monti and Dane exit the car, put on the protective gear, and grab the tranquilizer guns. Slowly and very deliberately, they walk toward the dingo, trying to be especially quiet so it doesn’t hear them. But something startles the dingo, because in a blink of an eye, it jumps to its feet and is growling at Monti and Dane. Right now it appears to be a standoff, but suddenly, the dingo charges toward Monti with a ferocious snarl.
Dane aims the gun, shoots the dart, and lands a perfect shot right in the left
buttock. Within a few minutes, the dingo is down for the count. Monti approaches the dingo with extreme caution and takes a pistol out of his pocket and puts a bullet right into the dingo’s brain causing a painless, instant death--a very humane way to destroy the animal. Dane signals for us to drive the car over to their location making sure that we are not downwind of the animal.
“Quick, Kobi, hand me that big bottle of bleach, please,” Dane quickly asks. “I need to pour this all over the dingo while he is bleeding to kill the parasite.”
Monti is gathering wood to build a fire so the dingo can be burned. Gasoline can’t be used to set the fire because bleach is being used. The combination of the two is very dangerous, so a wood fire is the safest option. Monti has the wood stacked and uses kindling and a match to start the fire. After a few minutes, the fire is blazing.
Meanwhile, Dane is pouring the bleach all over the dingo’s body. As soon as the fur is soaked, Dane and Monti pick up the dingo using their gloves, of course, and throw it on the fire. Initially, there is a lot of smoke, so we move farther away from the fire. The dingo begins to burn; the fur slowly melts onto the body, and then the flesh starts burning. At this point, I turn away because I really don’t want to watch it anymore. I hate the fact that these animals are being
Destroyed, but I understand.
The four of us go back to the car and wait at least an hour for the fire to burn out so Cole can investigate the remains and be assured the animal has been disposed of in accordance with procedure. He grabs the shovel and starts putting dirt on the fire to make sure it is out. The one thing we don’t want is a wild fire out here in the Northern Territory. Cole calls Geoff and reports that the first dingo was alone and has been eliminated.
Cole comes back to the car and relays a message from Geoff. “Outstanding job! Those were his exact words,” Cole says.
We look at each other and smile. So it’s time to find the next dingo. Monti pulls out the map and Dane inputs the signals into the GPS. Again, like magic, five red dots appear on the screen. They are spread out a little farther then they were last time we plotted them, but still relatively close together. Two red dots are within 10 kilometers of each other, and the other three dots are closer together, but moving south.
The closest dingo to our current position is approximately 20 kilometers away. On these back roads, it will take us about 45 minutes to get there. Derrick puts the car in gear and we are off. Dane reaches for the ice chest behind the back seat and pulls out some water for us. I didn’t realize I was so thirsty. Before I can take a breath, my container of water is empty. Dane hands me another water and jokingly says, “Try to enjoy this one.”
“Thanks Dane, I will.”
Monti hands Derrick and me a sandwich--ham and cheese, I think. We got so caught up and absorbed by the hunt that we forgot to eat. Monti made them earlier today and they are delicious. I look down at the GPS to check the coordinates and see we are on course. The dot is at our one o’clock position, 15 kilometers.
“Derrick, turn just slightly to the right…perfect. Now the dot is at our 12 o’clock, 14 kilometers.”
“So, tell me about yourselves,” Cole says as he scans the horizon.
I am assuming he is talking to Derrick and me, so I reply, “Well, I am a Lab Technician in the Medical Examiner’s Office, and Derrick is a Zoologist. We are from St. Louis, MO and we’re here on our honeymoon.”
“On your honeymoon…are you serious?” Cole questions.
“Yeah, on our honeymoon. This is not exactly what we had planned, but it is definitely an adventure. That’s for sure!”
I tell Cole the entire story of how we ended up here, in this car, at this moment. He is very surprise
d and seems genuinely pleased to make our acquaintance.
“Kobi, where are we with respect to the dingo?” Derrick inquires.
I got so busy talking to Cole, I forgot to keep my focus on the dingo dot. “Dingo, 12 o’clock, 2 kilometers.”
“Straight ahead is a very large outcrop with a small bush on one side. That’s probably where it is resting,” Monti says.
“I see it. Kobi, how far?” Dane asks.
“One kilometer.”
“Monti, do you see that? Look, there are three dingoes on the shade side of those rocks. See them?” Dane asks quietly.
“Yep. Got ‘em,” Monti responds. “I didn’t expect three.”
“Me either!” Dane replies.
Dane tells Derrick to stop the car. Dane and Monti need to discuss what
their intentions are now that there are three dingoes. It is impossible to know which one is the infected dingo, so they have to assume that all of the dingoes are carriers. The problem is they only have two tranquilizer guns. Monti has a pistol that can be used, so Dane asks Cole if he can handle a gun. He says he is an expert marksman, so that’s good.
“Monti and I will tranquilize the two dingoes on the right while they are sleeping. If the third one gets up before we have loaded another dart, Cole, you shoot it! Dane explains. “So are you guys ready?”
Everyone is ready, so Derrick puts the car in gear and starts to pull forward. Once we get to 200 meters, I tell Derrick to slow down. Now we are at 150 meters. Derrick stops. Dane, Monti, and Cole exit the car and put on their protective gear. Monti and Dane grab the tranquilizer guns and Cole gets the pistol. They start walking toward the three dingoes.
Dane and Monti very quietly lift their guns and fire a tranquilizer into two of the three dingoes. Before they have a chance to reload, the third dingo is charging. Cole lifts the pistol and fires off a shot. He misses. The dingo is running straight towards Cole now. He fires off a second shot and hits it in the leg. The dingo leaps forward and lands on Cole knocking him to the ground. Cole shoots again, point blank, and kills the dingo.
Cole is on his back with a dead dingo on top of him. He tosses the dingo off and lies on his back a minute to catch his breath. It’s a good thing he was wearing protective gear, because his chest is covered with dingo blood. Monti takes the gun from Cole and goes to the other two dingoes and fires off a shot into each of the heads. Done!
“That was a tense moment!” Cole comments as he sits up and puts his arms on his knees. “For a minute there, I thought I was lunch.”
Dane offers his hand to Cole and helps him to his feet. The two of them grab the dingo’s legs and drag it over to where the other two are. Cole comes running back to the car and asks us to follow him, so we do. We pull up and Cole reaches inside the car and pulls out his backpack. Inside are some vials and a needle. He wants to draw a blood sample from all of the dingoes, since we don’t know which one is infected. The lab wants to check the characteristics and the progression of the parasite to see if it has changed.
He walks over to the first dingo and inserts the needle into the forearm and collects the sample. He sees something on the belly and calls Dane over to have a closer look.
“Dane, look at this dingo’s belly. It is almost entirely purple but not swollen too much. It looks like it is bleeding internally. What do you think?”
“That’s what it looks like. That’s weird. Do you think it is the parasite?”
“I don’t know. Let me call Geoff and see what he wants to do. I bet he will want to collect the corpse and bring it in for an autopsy.”
Cole comes back to the car and calls Geoff. He relays the information and then nods his head and says, “Okay, we will wait for the truck.” Cole hangs up the phone and tells us that Geoff is sending a truck with a hazardous container to collect the dingo and bring it back to the lab to investigate.
Cole says, “This parasite might be a little nastier then we anticipated. It appears to be consuming the dingo from the inside out, but I’m not sure. That’s why we want to have a closer look. Let me get a plastic sheet out of the car so we can wrap up the dingo and prevent further bleeding in the soil.”
Monti is busy gathering wood for the fire, and Dane grabs the bleach and starts pouring it over the two dingoes to be burned. After about 15 minutes, the dingoes are placed in the fire and burned. The third dingo, wrapped in plastic, is in front the car. Dane, Monti, and Cole return to the vehicle and take off their protective gear.
“Whew! That was exhausting,” Cole says as he lifts a water bottle up to his lips for a drink. I notice something on Cole’s hand.
“Cole, what is that on your hand? Is that blood?” I ask with a sick feeling in my stomach.
Cole looks at his hand, gets a paper towel out of the car, and wipes the blood off. It is his blood. Dane gets Cole’s right hand glove and investigates it closely.
“Cole, it looks like the dingo’s canine pierced your glove and left that scratch on your hand. What else could have left the mark? What hand did you have the gun in?” Dane inquires.
“The gun was in my left hand, and my right arm was in front of my face blocking the dingo’s mouth…damn!” Cole says, defeated.
I put my hand in front of my mouth and take a deep breath. Tears are consuming my eyes and streaming down my cheeks. Cole has been infected. I know it. What else could have scratched him? Cole is sitting on the ground with his head between his knees in total disbelief. He is whispering, “I was so careful, how could this happen?”
Within the hour the truck arrives and Geoff jumps out of the back of the truck and walks over toward us. He sees Cole sitting on the ground staring off into space and asks us, “What’s happened?”
Dane answers, “Cole was scratched by the infected dingo. He put his arm up in a defensive posture and the dingo scratched him with his canine, we think.”
Geoff takes a long, deep breath and goes over to where Cole is sitting.
“Come on man, you are coming back to the lab with me. We will need to
quarantine you, draw some blood, and figure out what is going on.”
Cole gets up and walks over to the truck and steps into the back. He has such a defeated look on his face. I wish there was something we could do, but there isn’t. Dane and Monti load the wrapped dingo in the cage sitting on the side of the truck.
“That’s enough for today. Why don’t the four of you finish up here and meet us back at the lab,” Geoff asks. “We need to talk.”
Dane replies, “Okay Geoff, let us clean up the mess here, and we will meet you at the lab. It shouldn’t be long.”