The White Plague (20 page)

“MacIntyre? That asshole! That’s all I need!”

“He was a compromise, sir. My informants…”

“You know what they call MacIntyre in Philadelphia? The Baptist!”

“I’ve heard that, sir.”

“He’s a disaster! The Church may not survive him.” Prescott sighed. “Get out, Enos. On your way, tell Sam to wait two minutes before sending in the Chiefs.”

“Sir, someone has to bring you the bad news.”

“You’ve brought me enough for today, Enos. Get out! And two minutes, mind you.”

“Yes, sir.”

As the TAC chairman let himself out, Prescott opened the folder once more and looked at the first page.

“So fragile,” the President muttered.

Though you bring back the sons of Morna and the Seven Armies of the Fianna you will not lift this sadness.

– Father Michael Flannery

T
HE
DIC Team’s takeoff had been scheduled for 10:00
A.M.
Denver time, but there was a half-hour delay while the flamethrower tanks were redeployed because of a wind shift. Beckett and his three companions waited it out in the plane, conscious of the tanks rumbling as they moved around the airport’s perimeter. The plane smelled of jet fuel.

An Air Force colonel had set up the flight necessities, briefing Beckett by radio and telephone. “Expect some changes and ambiguities,” he had warned.

The colonel had pointedly referred to Beckett as “Major.” Lepikov, overhearing one of these conversations, had asked: “Tell me, Bill, how is it a doctor is also a pilot in your Air Force?”

Beckett’s answer: “I wanted a second career in case my knife ever slipped.”

This had aroused no smile from Lepikov, who said: “I think you are more than you appear.”

“Aren’t we all?”

The plane was a modified Lear with tip tanks and extra tanks inside, which made the cabin a cramped area bound in by new fiberglass walls behind which the extra fuel could be heard sloshing when the aircraft moved.

Choice of the Lear had been motivated by Beckett’s experience: he had twenty-one hours in Lears. His jet ratings also were current for three different fighters, including the old Phantoms, which he admired the way a teenager would admire a hot automobile. Beckett had also once flown an Egyptian Air Force Mirage and said he was looking forward to a proficiency demonstration by the French escort, which would be using relays of the Mirage III.

The extra half hour gave Beckett time to make a careful cockpit check. He went through it methodically, a pattern any of his nurses would have recognized from his operating-room behavior.

Sectional charts all in order.

Notams provided.

Weather information current.

He noted that the initial altitude would be 35,500 feet and muttered under his breath. He had asked for clearance to fifty.

The flight plan had been extended where possible to take them over less populated areas, but it swung past Cleveland and south of Buffalo, then out over Boston. From there it passed south of Greenland and Iceland, then down into the United Kingdom. Barrier Command escorts would take over at Iceland.

Beckett had been warned that escort instructions were to shoot down the Lear if it deviated from a five-mile-wide corridor.

The fuel-conserving flight time had been estimated at about thirteen hours, putting them at Manchester, England, about 6:30
A.M.
local. Barrier Command rockets were scheduled to smash into the Lear six minutes after Beckett parked it at the end of the Manchester strip. Before landing, Beckett’s instructions were to dump any excess fuel, using a switch system that automatically transmitted a confirmation signal to Barrier Command.

“Otherwise you will be strafed while ground personnel are still in and around the aircraft,” the briefing colonel had warned.

They were taking no chances that someone on the ground would attempt to hijack the Lear and leave England.

As Beckett was finishing the cockpit check, Hupp moved forward and slipped into the right-hand seat. “Do you mind, Bill?”

“Just don’t touch anything.”

Beckett scanned the instruments. He was glad to see the latest satellite-relay navigation screen on the panel. There was a note from the installers giving him a list of the critical deviations. There had been no time to fine-tune the thing.

As the booster truck moved into position, its operator wearing a spacesuit and breathing through tanks on the truck, Beckett went through the procedures automatically while his mind read him the flight numbers: four hours fifty-seven minutes Colorado Springs to Boston; thirteen hours thirty-three minutes elapsed time to Manchester – twenty-nine minutes behind the original schedule. Headwinds over the Atlantic. They should be over Boston about 5:30
P.M.
And they should have two pilots in this cockpit! He glanced speculatively at Hupp beside him and decided against delegating some of the takeoff routine. Hupp was obviously nervous.

Beckett turned back to his instruments and controls, reminding himself that this plane had to be flown Lear-fashion. This was a demanding aircraft susceptible to pilot-induced lateral oscillation. He had to be on his toes at every minute during takeoff and landing to avoid a Dutch roll, a half snap that could whip them into the ground. He had to fly it by the numbers.

His earphones told him: “Taxi to runway thirty-five, Mister Beckett. Your gross weight figures at 12,439 pounds.”

Beckett made a note of this and responded: “Goodbye, Peterson Field.”

“Good flight, Major.”

Beckett recognized the voice of the briefing colonel up there in the tower. Strange that the man had never provided a name. Lots of odd things in this new world.

“Activate your special transmitter,” the colonel ordered.

Beckett flipped a red switch on his panel.

“What’s that?” Hupp asked.

“Our leper’s bell.” Beckett glanced left and right. “Now, shut up until I get us straight and level topside.”

As the Lear gathered speed down the runway, Beckett saw the flamethrower tanks already speeding in to the parking position. Their car, which had been left at the taxi ramp, would get it first, then the entire area would be washed in flame. Fire carried a sense of cleansing finality, Beckett thought. Burned things tended not to reproduce.

The Mirage III escort, four aircraft, was with him before he reached the Thurman Intersection outside Denver. He waved at the flanking pilots rather than tip his wings. The pilots gave him a thumbs-up before dropping back. One took up station directly behind. Beckett nodded to himself. He had seen the armed rockets under the swept wings. Those rockets were an important reality on this flight. They required some tight navigation from Bill Beckett.

The radio interrupted his thoughts with a weather check. Headwinds eased back slightly over the Atlantic but nothing to cheer about.

Beckett heard it out, then thumbed his mike for intercom and said: “Keep your seatbelts fastened when you’re not in the toilet. No unnecessary moving around. We have uncertain weather off the coast and I’ll have to nurse this bird all the way. We need every ounce of fuel.”

At thirty-five thousand feet, he leveled off and trimmed, announced his position, then turned to Hupp. “We may not have a pisscup of fuel left when we get there.”

“I have confidence in you, Bill. Tell me, what is the leper’s bell?”

“We transmit a constant special ID. If it goes silent, whammo!” He glanced out at a Mirage III that had taken up position on the right. “Your buddies out there mean business.”

“I see the rockets. They would use them.”

“You better believe it, Joe.”

“You don’t mind if I ride up here with you?”

“Glad of the company when I’m not busy. Just keep your feet off those pedals and don’t touch the wheel.”

“I hear and obey, Mon Capitaine.”

“Very good,” Beckett said, grinning and relaxing for the first time since he had climbed into the plane. “Just keep the Foreign Legion in mind and remember how a capitaine punishes disobedience.”

“Stretched out in the hot sun for the Berbers,” Hupp said. “The vultures waiting. Yes, I have seen that movie.”

Beckett thumbed his microphone for a position check from ground stations, then: “Have you thought what this little trip is costing? This plane with modifications and all, I’d guess close to four million. One trip and bam! This may be the costliest trans-Atlantic flight in history.”

“But first class,” Hupp said. “Except in the back. You can hear the fuel moving in those tanks.”

“That bothers you?”

“I do not like fire.”

“You’d never feel it. Someone once said an airplane is one of the better ways to go. It may kill you but it won’t hurt you.”

Hupp shuddered. “I once steered the airplane of a friend near Lyon. I did not like the feeling.”

“Some do; some don’t. What were you and Sergei and Francois buzzing about back there before we took off?”

For answer, Hupp said: “You have children, Bill?”

“Huh? Yeah. Marge and I have two daughters.” He crossed his fingers. “And they’re still safe, thank God. What’s that have to do with…”

“I have two boys. They are with my family near Bergerac in the Dordogne.”

“Are you changing the subject, Joe?”

“Not at all. I like the Bergerac region.”

“Cyrano’s hometown,” Beckett said, deciding to go along with this strange turn in the conversation. “How come you don’t have a big nose?”

“I was never asked to hunt truffles as a child.”

Beckett emitted a barking laugh, feeling it relieve his tensions. Was that Hupp’s motive, ease things?

“We are a good team, Bill,” Hupp said.

“One helluva team! Even old Sergei back there.”

“Ahhh, poor Sergei. He has convinced himself that he and Ariane would have experienced the grand passion. Death has thwarted the great love story of the age.”

“Was that what you were talking about?”

“Only in passing. It is a strange thing about our group. We are fitted to each other in a most remarkable fashion – almost as though fate had designed us to work together on this thing.”

“We’re going to lick it, Joe.”

“I agree. Those two tragic deaths have motivated us in a very powerful way. And the information from the autopsies – my head is buzzing with it. If the liver…”

“What’s it like in the Dordogne?” Beckett interrupted.

Hupp glanced at him, remembering the other Beckett under the hot lights of the OR, the deft and certain movements of his scalpel. Yes, this Beckett here in the aircraft was the one who had cursed Francois.

“Every fall in the Dordogne, we hunt the
cèpe
mushroom, the
boletus edulis
,” Hupp said. He touched his fingertips to his lips and blew a kiss. “Bill, when we have triumphed over this plague, you must bring your family. We will have a party – cèpe and strawberries – the little
fraise des bois
.”

“That’s a deal.”

Beckett paused to make a course correction. The land below him was a patchwork of rectangular farms glimpsed through a partial cloud cover. The Lear felt smooth and steady.

“We are very old-fashioned in the Dordogne,” Hupp said. “In France we are thought of much the way your people think of the hillbillies. My marriage to Yvonne was arranged. We had known each other since childhood, of course.”

“No hanky-panky beforehand?”

“In spite of all the stories, we French do not kiss and tell. My lips are sealed.”

“An arranged marriage? I thought that went out with tin pants and matching jacket.”

Hupp looked puzzled. “Tin pants and… Oh, you mean armor.” He shrugged. “How old are your daughters, Bill?”

“Eight and eleven. Why? You thinking of arranging marriages for them?”

“My sons are fourteen and twelve. Not a bad difference in the ages.”

Beckett stared at him. “You serious?”

“Bill, have you thought of the kind of world we will enter when we have beaten this plague?”

“A little, yeah.”

“It is not good that our team must communicate with the other investigators through the political leaders of our nations.”

“They’re all looking for an advantage.”

“The very thing Sergei said. But things are changing. I am serious about our children, Bill. Why shouldn’t the intelligent marry their children to children of the intelligent?”

“You know it doesn’t work that way, Joe. The offspring wouldn’t necessarily…”

“I know the genetic rule, Bill. Deviation to the center. Our grandchildren would tend to be not quite as smart as their parents… perhaps.”

“What’s on your mind, Joe?”

“The very different world our children will inherit. The pattern is already making itself evident. Small local governments with strong borders. Switzerlands everywhere. Suspicion of strangers.”

“With good reason!”

“Granted, but consider the consequences if the big governments vanish.”

“You really think they’re on the way out?”

“It’s obvious. Of what use is a big government when a single individual can destroy it? Governments will have to be small enough that you know every one of your neighbors.”

“Good God!” Beckett took a deep, trembling breath.

“We may achieve a single worldwide currency,” Hupp said. “Perhaps an electronic currency. There will still be some trade, I think. But who would dare attack his neighbor when one survivor could exterminate the attackers?”

“Yes, but if we can cure…”

“The variations on this plague are infinite, Bill. That’s already plain.”

“There’ll still be armies,” Beckett said, his tone cynical.

“Who would dare maintain a military force when the possession of such a force is an invitation to disaster, keeping your populace in constant peril?”

“What do you mean?”

“Your military force cannot practice its arts upon its neighbors. The old weapons are outmoded.”

Beckett took his attention off the Lear’s course and stared at Hupp. “Jesus Christ!” he whispered.

“We have opened Pandora’s Box,” Hupp said. “This plague is just the first, I fear. Think about it a moment, Bill – the variations on this plague…”