Pandemic (25 page)
Authors: Daniel Kalla
Lost in his rage, he walked through the hotel lobby with his eyes cast to the ground. At first, he didn't register that it was his name being called out. "Noah?" the voice called again.
He looked up to see a woman striding rapidly toward him despite her slight limp. It took him a moment to place her. "Gwen?"
Gwen Savard shot out her hand. "I've come from Washington to see you."
He met her firm handshake. "Gwen, I am not sure I've ever needed a drink as badly as I do tonight."
"You too, huh?" She turned and headed for the lobby bar.
They chose a comer table by the crackling flames in the huge stone fireplace. They could have picked any seat in the bar. With widespread news of the virus's grip in London, it looked to Haldane as if the city had emptied overnight. While the traffic had seemed light to him yesterday, today the streets were largely deserted on what normally would have been a hectic workday. Of the few people he had spotted on the streets, several wore medical masks and most darted and dodged past as if air raid sirens had blown.
The waiter was at their side before they touched their seats. Haldane was tempted to invoke McLeod's twohighballs-at-once policy, but he refrained, ordering a bottle of Heineken instead. Savard asked for a double gin and tonic.
Once their drinks arrived, Haldane took a long sip of his beer. Placebo or not, the relief was immediate. With the bottle still on his lips he viewed Gwen, appreciating her striking features for the first time. With shoulder-length sandy blond hair, full lips, and the most aqua-green eyes he had ever seen, she was prettier than he remembered. But the steely resolve behind those eyes reminded him of what had struck him the only other time they had met in person: her serene confidence. Considering the circumstances, he found her self-assuredness soothing.
Haldane had little doubt that she had been sizing him up, too, but her placid expression was undecipherable to him. "How are things in London?" she asked.
Haldane exhaled. "Sixty more suspect cases of ARCS were reported today."
"Where?"
"There are three distinct clusters, so far." Haldane described the geographical dissemination of the virus, which followed the oil company executive's tour of the Tower of London. "Most of the infected are tourists."
Savard drained the last of her drink. "Which will make it very difficult to contain the virus to London."
He shrugged. "That's probably a moot point."
Savard spun the glass in her hand, staring at the swirling ice cubes at the bottom. "Oh?"
"ARCS didn't get to London on its own."
She stopped swirling. "No?"
"Someone meant to bring it." He studied her face waiting for a reaction but saw none.
"What makes you so sure?" she asked.
"I don't think you would be here if that weren't the case," Haldane said. "Besides, I've seen enough to know that infections don't just pop up on the other side of the world without leaving a trail." He paused. "And then there's the highly suspicious index case who by all accounts went out of her way to spread her germs." He described what he knew of the mysterious woman from the Park Tower Plaza's elevator.
Savard put her glass down. She stared at Haldane with a look of calm concern. "I agree, Noah. Someone has weaponized the Gansu Flu."
"Who?"
She shook her head.
He pointed the neck of his bottle at her. "No theories?"
"There's always the usual suspects, though we have nothing linking it to them." Her bone-straight shoulders sagged a few inches. "Some sophisticated lab equipment disappeared in Africa, but we don't know if it's related."
"Africa?" Haldane grimaced. "How does ARCS get from China to Africa?"
"It's just conjecture," she said. "The bigger question is where will it go next?"
"Depends on who has their hands on it, right?" he said.
Savard leaned over the table and locked her eyes on his. "Noah, how difficult is it to grow this virus in a lab?"
"You're not asking about WHO or CDC or any other legitimate lab, are you?"
"No."
Haldane nodded. "It would be dead easy. It's a type of influenza. Once you had a sample, you could incubate it in eggs, chickens, primates, or ..."
"Humans!" Gwen jumped in.
"No lab required." He nodded. "Just people crazy enough to deliberately infect themselves with the Gansu Flu."
Gwen's eyes narrowed. She spoke quietly but with a noticeable edge. "There are people willing to strap bombs to their chests and walk into theaters, malls, and daycares. How different is this?"
Haldane rubbed his eyes. "Viral suicide bombers, huh?"
"Carrying a load more dangerous than any conventional explosive."
"Much," Haldane agreed. He pointed at her empty glass. "Another?"
"I'm okay, but you go ahead."
Haldane waved the waiter over and ordered a second beer. Then he turned back to Gwen. "I don't know if I can be of much more help."
Her smooth brow creased into a skeptical frown.
"Gwen, I deal with emerging pathogens of the natural kind. I have no expertise ..." He sighed and then grunted a laugh. "Expertise! Christ, I don't have the first clue in dealing with man-made spread. That's your department."
"Man-made or not, we're facing a potential pandemic here." Then she added firmly, "And for that, we need your help."
The waiter arrived with Haldane's second beer. It felt like ice in his hand, but this time the long sip brought no relief. "I'll do whatever I can," he said. "I'm just saying this is virgin territory for me."
"For all of us." The crow's-feet deepened at the comers of her large green eyes. Her lips parted into a wide smile. "But thank you."
Haldane laid the beer on the table. "So what's the next step?" he asked.
"We deal with each outbreak while we track down the source."
"Or sources," he said.
"Yeah."
"How?" he asked.
She swept her hand over the table. "A coordinated international police and intelligence effort."
"The CIA?"
She shrugged. "And Interpol, MI5, FBI, NSC, CDC, WHO, DHS ..."
Haldane forced a grin. "Maybe the AAA?"
"If necessary." She laughed. "Whoever it takes." She bit her lower lip and eyed him intently. "Do you have any ideas?"
Haldane hunched his shoulders and grimaced. "For catching bioterrorists?"
"For dealing with this."
"A vaccine should be a top priority," he said.
"Which could take months, if not years."
"But if this virus is going to be used as a weapon, it will always be a threat until everyone is immunized... or has already been infected."
"Okay. Fair enough," she said. "Any more immediate suggestions?"
"The single best defense in outbreak control is communication. Especially in this case since the Gansu Flu could hit anywhere next. We need to put the world on notice."
"I think they already are." Gwen bit down harder on her lip.
"They might be aware, but now they need to act," Haldane said. "Every fever or cough on the planet must be assumed to be ARCS until proven otherwise."
Savard whistled.
"Can you imagine if we don't?" Haldane asked. "This bug has ground one of Europe's biggest centers to a halt. And we've just seen the beginnings of it. Wait until it comes to the States." He sighed. "And, Gwen, we both know it will."
His cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and glanced at the call display, which read "Switzerland." Haldane brought the phone to his ear. "Hello."
"Ah, Noah, it's Jean," Nantal said as warmly as if he were calling to wish him a happy birthday.
"Can I call you back later, Jean?" Haldane said. "I'm in the middle of a debriefing with Gwen Savard."
"No, Noah, I wish I didn't have to interrupt you and the beautiful Dr. Savard, but my news is terribly important," Nantal said. "For both of you."
"What news?" Haldane asked.
"Two people have tested positive for the Gansu Flu in Vancouver," Nantal said.
"Vancouver, Canada?" Haldane said, more for the benefit of Gwen who watched him intently.
"Yes," Nantal said.
"New cases?" Savard mouthed the question at Haldane.
He held up two fingers for her. Then he spoke into the receiver. "Look, Jean, we believe somebody is deliberately spreading this virus."
"So it would seem," Nantal said without a trace of surprise.
"I imagine it will crop up all over the place soon. We need to meet with Gwen's team and set up a pandemic ARCS task force, sooner--"
"Excuse me, Noah," Nantal cut in. "There is something most peculiar about the latest Vancouver case."
"
Everything
about this is beyond peculiar," Haldane said.
Everything
about this is beyond peculiar," Haldane said.
"Yes, of course," Nantal agreed. "But aside from the nineteen-year-old girl who died in hospital, the other Vancouver victim was pulled out of a river." He paused. "And she had a bullet hole between her eyes."
CHAPTER 22
CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIARan Delorme had worked for the Agency for six months, but the twenty-four-year-old doubted he would be able to handle one more day at Langley. He had never expected (though he secretly hoped) to walk off the street and into James Bond's life, but neither had he expected to spend twelve hours a day in front of a computer reading mindnumbingly boring e-mails, which Carnivore had plucked out from the high-tech sewer of global chatter. Words like "terrorist," "bomb," and "hijacking" found their way into the most mundane of e-mails, but Carnivore did not know any better so the piles of "suspicious" e-mails accumulated daily to be reviewed by human eyes; in other words, Delorme and his hapless colleagues.
Delorme glanced at the clock: 11:50 A.M. He figured he could trash twenty more e-mails before lunch. He breezed through the first eighteen. He had scanned two paragraphs of the nineteenth before the red flags went up.
He read the e-mail again, and then printed it out. His hand trembling slightly, he highlighted the last sentence in yellow: "I cannot exclude the possibility of terrorism or the use of the virus as a weapon." He glanced from the name at the bottom of the e-mail to the electronic source. They both read: "Dr. Ping Wu."
Delorme's eyes darted around in search of a date stamp. They locked on to a date in the screen's bottom comer, which proved the e-mail was sent over a week earlier from somewhere in China. He tapped a few keys and the computer spat out a more specific location for the e-mail's source: Jiayuguan City, Gansu Province.
Gansu! He felt butterflies in his stomach. He had just read an article in the morning's paper on how the Gansu Flu was sweeping London.
Forgetting about lunch, his hand shot out in search of the phone.
HARGEYSA, SOMALIAHazzir Kabaal, Major Abdul Sabri, and Dr. Anwar Aziz sat in Kabaal's office staring at the tape recorder on the desk.
Kabaal hit the play button. There was a hissing sound, before a voice spoke up in Arabic. At thirty, the spokesman was one of oldest fighters in the compound. Physically nondescript, he had been chosen because of his anonymity and his deep raspy voice. "I am a representative of The Brotherhood of One Nation," the man said. "In the name of God and Jihad, we have struck at the hearts of our enemy. We have unleashed a new weapon in our holy war!" His voice quavered. "We have brought the outbreaks of the Gansu Flu to London, Hong Kong, Vancouver, and Chicago. More cities will follow soon if the fools and infidels do not heed our demands."
A pause was filled by the sound of a page turning. "All American and Coalition soldiers must immediately withdraw from the holy soil of Iraq, Afghanistan, the Arabian Peninsula, and all other observant nations," the spokesman said. "These same aggressors must desist in their threats to Syria and Iran, and withdraw their military and financial support for the Israeli oppressors." He paused again, this time for effect. "There will be no negotiation. If withdrawals have not begun within four days of today, an army of martyrs will be unleashed upon the cities of the West." His tone dropped an octave. "Let the blood be on the hands of that criminal, the American President." He paused one last time. "It is God's way. Allah be praised."
The tape hissed again before Kabaal reached over and hit the stop button.
Sitting stiffly in his lab coat, Aziz did not comment, but he appeared acutely uncomfortable; a scientist who had inadvertently strayed into a foreign world of politics.
Sabri looked at Kabaal inexpressively. "Where will you send this tape?" he asked.
Kabaal leaned calmly back in his chair. "We will courier it to Al Jazeera Network and Abu Dabi TV. We will also e-mail a translation to the Western news outlets."
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