Zoo 2 by James Patterson Read Free Book Online Page B

says with a wry smirk, “is a little different from Bali, wouldn’t you agree?”
    As if on cue, a vervet monkey drops down onto our windshield and starts frantically scratching at the glass.
    Sarah recoils, but I’m transfixed. For a brief moment, I see a slight resemblance in him to Attila, a lovable chimpanzee I rescued from a medical testing lab years ago and kept as a pet when I lived in New York City. I cared for that little guy deeply…until he turned to the animal dark side, like all the rest.
    “Get off of there, you damn stupid ape!” barks Kabelo, our local driver and guide. I can’t help but snicker at what I assume is an accidental similarity to Charlton Heston’s famous line in Planet of the Apes . Kabelo turns the windshield wipers on high and swerves back and forth a few times until the primate is thrown from the car.
    “Yeah,” I respond now to Freitas. “Ain’t exactly another tropical paradise, that’s for sure.”
    Sarah, sitting next to me, folds her arms. “I don’t know how in the world you expect us to collect any specimens here,” she says, an unusual level of agitation in her voice.
    Not that I blame her. If this is what the city core looks like, I don’t want to imagine what’s happening in the nature preserve on the outskirts, which is where we’re headed.
    “The doctor makes a good point,” I say. “There are just too many animals running around. Trying to capture and autopsy even one of them—that’s suicide.”
    “Kabelo, be careful!” Freitas shouts as our SUV narrowly avoids getting T-boned by a charging stampede of big-horned Cape buffalo.
    Our fearless leader takes a deep breath, then turns around to face Sarah and me and the other scientists in our vehicle. I can tell there’s something on his mind, something he’s debating whether or not to share.
    “You’re right. Trying to trap one of these animals? That is suicide. Thankfully, that’s not why we’ve come to South Africa.”
    My told-you-so internal celebration is brief. I start to get nervous. Why are we here?
    “There have been rumors,” Freitas continues, “that the…‘affliction’…has started spreading. To humans .”
    Huh? I glance around the vehicle at Sarah and the others. This is clearly the first time any of us are hearing that rumor.
    “There have been unconfirmed sightings,” Freitas says, “matching similar classified reports from elsewhere around the world—which I’ve convinced Washington to suppress—of a group of rabid individuals living in the Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve. Locals now consider them to be the most dangerous creatures in the area.”
    Freitas pauses solemnly. Then adds: “We’re here to capture one. And prevent this global epidemic from entering an even more devastating phase.”
    My jaw is literally hanging open. Sarah and the others are stammering.
    What the hell is this guy talking about?
    For the past umpteen years, the planet has been battling HAC, Human- Animal Conflict. It’s animals whose behavior has been going haywire, thanks to the abundance of petroleum-derived hydrocarbons in the environment being chemically altered by cellphone radiation waves. It’s animals who have been rising up and attacking innocent people because human scents have been chemically altered, too, and are now perceived as attack pheromones. And it’s animals—and only animals—who are susceptible to this because Homo sapiens lacks the highly sensitive vomeronasal organ almost all other creatures possess that detects airborne pheromones in the first place.
    This isn’t just some personal hunch of mine. It’s the accepted theory about the animal crisis within the mainstream scientific community—and it has been for quite some time. It’s been tested and duplicated in labs around the world.
    Now we’re talking about Human- Human Conflict? No. No way. It’s anatomically impossible. Absurd. The fact that we’re even chasing after this urban legend at all is a ridiculous