Seen a Rogue on the loose? Get in touch with our Roguemeister: JOHN SCHRAG jschrag@wweek.com (503) 243-2122 FAX: (503) 243-1115 Can't catch me 'cause the rabbit done died. --Aerosmith Over the past week a mysterious tale has unfolded in Eastern Oregon, and we at Rogue Central are at a loss. The question: Who killed the Umatilla bunny? The free-range cottontail rabbit was found dead the morning of Sept. 18, 1999, near the corner of one of the storage buildings at the Umatilla Chemical Depot near Hermiston, which contains 12 percent of the nation's nerve gas, including 2,635 tons of mustard gas and two million pounds of sarin--two of the deadliest neurotoxins known to science. Just three days before the mysterious bunny death, 34 Raytheon employees were overcome by toxic fumes in a building just a few hundred feet away. Their symptoms included skin rashes, tightness in the chest and a metallic taste in the mouth. The day the rabbit died, mustard gas was detected in the air around the carcass. That same day, another employee was overcome by some sort of toxic poisoning. Less rational minds than our own could jump to the conclusion that the bunny got gassed. According the Army, that's not what happened at all. After looking the rabbit over, the Army concluded that it probably died due to trauma, because of visibly broken bones, or of some sort of rodenticide. We can't confirm that, however, because the army won't release the pathology and toxicology tests done on the rabbit. That can only lead us to conclude that there is a Rogue Rabbit Killer running loose in Eastern Oregon, which is a shame because those folks have enough stress as it is. Some of the workers at the weapons depot are now suing to shut down construction of the $567 million incinerator that Raytheon is building to dispose of the nerve gas, saying they were exposed to mustard gas poisoning. Nah, say the Army and Raytheon. They're quite certain it isn't leaking nerve gas that attacked the workers, but after ruling out paint fumes, battery acid from a nearby storage area and alien attack, they have no idea what did. Frankly, we're stumped. But we're comforted by the fact that the U.S. Army, equipped with millions of dollars of monitoring equipment and the best scientific minds that money can buy, doesn't seem to have a clue either.