The White Plague (7 page)

“Oh, come on, Will! Do you have any idea of the political implications? He wants a quarantine! Then he wants us to send all Libyans in the U.S. back to Libya, all Irish back to Ireland, all English back to England – everyone, including their diplomats. We can’t just –”

“If we don’t, he threatens to bring the U.S. into…” Ruckerman paused, then read from the letter: “. . . the net of his revenge.”

“I read that and I don’t give one bit of credence to –”

“You aren’t
listening
, Jim!
I’m telling you it’s possible to do what this guy threatens
.”

“Are you serious?”

“I’m deadly serious.”

The line went silent and Ruckerman could hear faint crosstalk, the voices too low to make out the words. Saddler came back on: “Will, if it were anyone else telling me this… I mean, deadly new diseases for which there are no natural resistances and… How the hell could he spread them?”

“I can think of a dozen easy ways without even straining my imagination.”

“Dammit! You’re beginning to frighten me.”

“
Good
. This letter scares the
shit
out of me.”

“Will, I’ll have to see that postscript before –”

“You won’t act on my recommendation?”

“How can I be expected to go in to the –”

“Jim… time is important. The President should be briefed immediately. The affected diplomats should be alerted. The military, the police in major cities, health officials, Civil Defense…”

“That might cause a panic!”

“You have the main body of his letter. He says he’s already loosed this thing. That means quarantine. Damn it all, he says it plain enough: ‘
Let it run its course where I have loosed it. Remember that I can introduce malignancy wherever I choose. If you attempt to sterilize the infected areas by atomic means, I shall give my revenge the open run of every land on this globe
.’  Read that part again, Jim, and in the light of my warning, you tell me what you should be doing right now.”

“Will, if you’re wrong, do you have any idea what the repercussions –”

“And if
you’re
wrong?”

“You’re asking me to take a lot on faith.”

“Dammit, Jim, you’re a scientist! You should know by now that –”

“Then you tell me, Will, how a disease can be made sex-specific.”

“Okay. At the present stage of my own project, which I’m convinced is far behind this Madman… Well, I believe diseases can be tailored to many genetic variations – to white skin, for example; to the susceptibility to sickle-cell anemia…”

“But how could one person… I mean, the cost!”

“Peanuts. I’ve run a calculation on the required equipment – less than three hundred thousand dollars, including the computer. A basement lab somewhere…” Ruckerman fell silent.

Presently, Saddler said: “I’ll want that list of equipment. The suppliers should be able to…”

“I’ll read it off to you in a minute, but I think it’ll be too late even if we locate his lab.”

“You really think…”

“I think he’s done it. This letter… he lays out the essentials and there’s not a mistake in it. I think Ireland, Great Britain and Libya… and probably the rest of us are in for one terrible time. I don’t see how we can totally contain such a thing. But for openers, we’d better set about quarantining those areas… for our own safety if not for other reasons.”

“What other reasons?”

“This Madman is still running around loose. We don’t want him mad at us.”

“Will, he says not a human female will survive in those three nations. I mean, really! How can…”

“I’ll give you a more complete analysis later. Right now, I’m begging you to take the necessary first steps. The President should be on that hotline to Moscow and to the other major capitals. He should –”

“Will, I believe I’d better send a plane for you. I don’t want to take this to the President by myself. If we have to convince him, well, he knows your reputation and if you –”

“Louise already has packed my bag. And Jim, one of the first things to do is to get as many young women as possible into that Denver hideaway the military is so proud of. Women, got that? And only enough men to run the technical end of a survival plan.”

Ruckerman let this sink in – many women, few men, just the opposite of what might occur outside such a sanctuary. He continued:

“The Russians and the other world leaders ought to be advised to take similar action. That’ll go a long way toward convincing them of our sincerity. We don’t want the Russians thinking this is some diabolical capitalist plot. God knows they’re paranoid enough as it is.”

“I think we should leave high-level diplomatic decisions to the experts, Will. You just get your ass back here with enough evidence to convince me you’re right.”

Ruckerman replaced the phone in its cradle and looked across the bedroom at his wife.

“He’s going to wait for you,” she said.

Ruckerman slammed his fist against the dressertop, making the telephone bounce. “Louise, you take the car. Pack only necessities. Buy as much food as you can safely store and get up to our place at Glen Ellen. Take the guns. I’ll be in touch.”

I obey the Master of Death.

– Part of an Ulster secret society oath

A
CHILL
I
SLAND
, south of Blacksod Bay in County Mayo, stood out against a storm-blown Atlantic morning in which the Irish countryfolk already were active, preparing for the first flow of tourists, getting the hay planted, cutting sods and piling them to dry, generally going about the everyday activities of their lives.

The island was a play of many greens interspersed with spots of black rock and flecks of white where the residents had raised their buildings. Achill, split from the main body of Ireland by the retreat of the last glacier, held few trees. The steep slopes of its hills were lined with furze growing along the sod cutters’ furrows and the first marsh violets were beginning to show themselves, competing with stone brambles and saxifrage and the omnipresent heather. Here and there, pennywort had begun to poke its way out of the rocks.

A granite ruin lay crumbled into the weeds atop the hill where the road from Mulrany curved around before dropping down to the bridge across to the island. Its lancet arches and crenellated battlements had collapsed into low mounds covered by a few stunted ivy plants and lichen. The scabbed rock surfaces gave not a hint of the slitted windows where defenders had failed to repel Cromwell.

Two polite young soldiers with Irish Harp insignia at their shoulders stood at the barricade that blocked the bridge to the island. They already had turned back two tourist autos that had entered the road to the island before the barriers had been raised farther back at Mulrany. The soldiers had apologized for the inconvenience and suggested the tourists go instead to Balmullet, “a beautiful place where the old ways may still be seen.” To all questions, the soldiers responded: “We’re not at liberty to say, but it’s sure to be only temporary.”

Three goods lorries traveling tandem with supplies for the island’s stores were harder to placate.

“We’re very sorry, lads, but it’s none of our doing. I agree you should’ve been warned, but it’s no use complaining. Orders is orders. This road is closed.”

Four armored cars with a major in charge pulled up as the soldiers were arguing with the lorry drivers. The major and a sergeant jumped out, the sergeant with an automatic rifle held at the ready. The major, a thin, stony-eyed man with bush gray hair under a forage cap, accepted the salutes of the two soldiers, then turned to the lorry drivers.

“Back the way you came, lads. No more arguing.”

One of the drivers started to speak, but the major cut him short. “Turn those lorries around and get out of here or one of my men will drive them into the water and we’ll take you back under guard!”

Muttering, the drivers climbed into their cabs, backed the lorries into the car park beside the bridge and headed up the road to Mulrany. The major stepped over to his radioman in one of the armored cars and said: “Alert Mulrany to keep those lads moving out.”

Returning to the two soldiers at the bridge barricade, he swiveled slowly, studying his surroundings, taking in the high hill above Pullrany and the higher crown of Corraun beyond; there was Alice’s Harbour Inn beside the car park, the barricade, the white buildings across the bridge on the island, a group of men standing there, heads close together, talking intently. Presently, the major returned to his radioman and inquired:

“Have the patrol boats taken up position at the Bulls Mouth and Achillbeg?”

The radioman, a pimply young man with nervous manners, bent over his microphone and, in a moment, said: “They’re in place, sir, and one’s coming down from the Bulls Mouth to pick up the islanders’ small boats.”

“Good,” the major said. “We don’t want any boats left over there to tempt them into leaving.” He sighed. “Damned stupid mess.” He strolled back to the armored cars then and told a sergeant: “Better get the men deployed. No one enters or leaves, except the medics, of course, and they’ll be coming by helicopter.” The major went into Alice’s then and he could be heard inquiring if there was any coffee.

Some two kilometers back up the road toward Mulrany, three squads of soldiers under a lieutenant finished setting up a row of tents in the lee of the hill that commanded the narrow, salty moat separating Achill from Ireland proper. A sandbag emplacement with two machine guns had already been installed on the slope above the tents.

When the tents were up, the lieutenant instructed a corporal: “Take your squad and notify all the locals they’re to stay close to home; no wandering about and no going over to the island. Tell them it’s a quarantine and nothing more.”

On Corraun Hill’s 526-meter peak, about four kilometers south of this position, more soldiers had piled sandbags onto a section of an old castle ruin, forming a shelter for two twenty-millimeter cannon and four mortars. It began to rain while they were positioning the mortars. They spread shelter halves over the weapons, then huddled in their waterproofs while a colonel standing slightly below them peered through binoculars at Achill.

“A lot of moving around over there,” the colonel said. “I’ll be happier when we have their small boats and the water closed to them.”

One of the soldiers above him ventured: “Colonel, is it a bad sickness they have over there?”

“So I’ve been told,” the colonel said. He lowered his glasses, scanned the emplacement, fixing his gaze finally on a tall sergeant who stood somewhat apart. “Get some shelters up, Sergeant. And you’re to look sharp. Only the medics are to enter that place and no one’s to leave.” “We’ll not let so much as a fox through, sir.”

Turning away, the colonel took long-legged strides down the slope to a jeep waiting on the narrow track below the emplacement.

As one, the soldiers he had left behind looked across at Achill, the island of the eagles, which no longer were there. It was a brooding landscape in the rain, a speckling of white rocks and buildings against the greens. The few roads cut gray ledges around the hills and the ocean was a deeper gray below. Slievemore and Croaghaun thrust almost into the clouds toward Achill Head’s outer cliffs. It was a place turned in upon itself and the men looking across at the island could feel the simmering mood of the land. Generations of men and women had brooded passionately there on the wrongs done to Ireland. No Irishman could fail to sense that thing smoldering there, the sullen hopes of all those who had perished for “The Irish Dream.”

“It’ll be a scurrying-around time for the priests,” the sergeant said, then: “Now, men, you heard the colonel. Shouldn’t we be raising some shelters?”

Far below this position and at the Achill end of the bridge where the town street became the highroad to the island’s interior, Mulvaney’s Saloon Bar had begun to collect a crowd of local residents and a few tourists. They hunched against the rain, hurrying from cars and bicycles into the bar’s steamy interior with its thick smells of wet wool and beer. Mulvaney’s, a two-story whitewashed building with slate roof and three massive chimneys, was one of the island’s natural assembly points. It was soon crowded with men talking too loudly, their faces angry, their gestures abrupt and latent with violence.

A small Garda patrol car pulled up outside, bringing a lull in the conversations as the word of it was spread through the bar. Denis Flynn, the local Garda, emerged from the car. Flynn, a small blond man with light blue eyes and a boyish face, appeared pale and trembling. Way was made for him as he entered the bar, pressed through the crowd to the western end and climbed onto a chair.

In the expectant silence, Flynn’s voice was a thin tenor, which broke in unexpected places. “We’ve been quarantined,” he said. “They’re sending medical teams by helicopter. No one is to enter or leave the island except the medical people and officials.”

In the sudden babble of shouted questions, Flynn raised his voice to demand silence, then: “We’ll just have to be patient. Everything’s being done that can be done.”

Mulvaney, a soft giant of a man with a bald head as shiny as his polished bar, thrust his way through the crowd to stand below Flynn. Hooking a thumb over his shoulder, Mulvaney said: “It’s my Molly sick back there and only the one doctor. I want to know what it is.”

“I’m only the Garda,” Flynn said. “It’s the medical men will have to answer that.”

Mulvaney glanced out the windows beyond Flynn, looking toward Knockmore and the village of Droega, which lay hidden beyond the hills in the hollow that protected it from the worst of the Atlantic gales. His brother, Francis, had called from there not ten minutes ago to report another death, his voice full of the tears as he spoke.

Turning a hard stare up at Flynn, Mulvaney said: “Your womenfolk are living safe beyond Mulrany. You can take the official view. But it’s my sister-in-law, Shaneen, died this morning.”

A man back in the press of people shouted: “And my Katie has the sickness! We want answers, Flynn, and we want them now!”