The Cobra Event

by Richard Preston

  “This whole situation is gonna blow sky high,” Littleberry said. “I did not expect to find a truck. We have to do this fast.”

  Hopkins stripped off his rubber gloves and put on a clean pair. Then he placed the Halliburton case on a sink. He crouched down until he was staring at the Halliburton, looking at a small optical lens near the handle. He brought his right eye close to the lens. The system recognized the pattern of blood vessels in his retina as that of “Hopkins, William, Jr., Reachdeep.” Any attempt to open the case without the eye-key would cause the self-destruct process to initiate.

  The locks inside the case slid open, and he lifted the lid. Meanwhile, Littleberry placed his Halliburton case on a sink, and it popped open.

  The two Halliburtons contained biosensors. They were used by the United States Navy for sensing and analyzing biological weapons. A normal laboratory that does this occupies several rooms full of machines.

  “I’m gonna do a hand-held Boink, real quick,” Littleberry said. From the suitcase, he lifted out an electronic device about the size of a paperback book. It was a palm-sized biosensor. People called it a Boink because it let off a pleasant chiming sound if it detected a biological weapon. The Boink had a screen and some buttons and a sample port—a little hole. The Boink could test for the presence of twenty-five different known biological weapons.

  Littleberry took the small tube that contained the truck sample from his pocket. He took out a disposable plastic pipette. It was a little droplet-sucker. He sucked up a droplet of the sample liquid and dropped it straight into the sample port in the Boink.

  Then he waited a moment. He stared at the readout screen. He was hoping to hear a chiming tone. There was silence.

  “Damn!” he said.

  “What, Mark?”

  He was staring at the readout screen. “No reading. It didn’t boink. I’ve got a blank screen here.”

  “All right, Commander. Should I run Felix?”

  “Yeah. Quick.”

  There was pounding on the door. “Is somebody ill in there?” It was Hussein Al-Sawiri, the security man.

  “It’s just taking a little time,” Hopkins replied. He took the truck sample tube over to his Halliburton case, which held a device called Felix, a black box the size of a big-city telephone book. It was a biosensor device known as a gene scanner. It was controlled by a laptop computer, and it could read the genetic code of an organism very fast.

  Hopkins lifted the laptop from the Halliburton and placed it on a window ledge. Working very, very quickly, his hands moving fast, he ran a data cable back to the Felix black box and started the computer. The computer’s screen turned on and glowed. It said:

  Felix Gene Scanner

  Beta 0.9

  Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  Enter Password:

  •••••••••

  Hopkins hammered in his password. “Come on, come on,” he said.

  Using a pipette, Hopkins dropped a bit of liquid from the sample tube into the sample port in the Felix black box. He tapped the keys of the laptop computer.

  “P.C.R. amplification has started, let’s hope,” he said to Littleberry.

  He stared at the screen.

  More pounding on the door.

  “Not finished!” Littleberry shouted.

  “Amplification of the DNA is completed,” Hopkins whispered. “The DNA’s moving onto the chip.”

  The door began to shake. “Open up!” Hussein Al-Sawiri shouted.

  “This is a United Nations toilet facility,” Littleberry yelled over his shoulder.

  Hopkins gestured wildly to Littleberry. “We’ve gotta start beaming,” he hissed.

  From his suitcase Littleberry removed a black panel about the size of a notebook. It was attached to a cable. It was a special satellite transmitting antenna. He plugged it into the laptop computer while Hopkins tapped the keys.

  “We’re getting sequences!” Hopkins said.

  Running cascades of letters appeared on Felix’s screen, combinations of A, T, C, and G. The combinations were sequences of raw genetic code from a life-form in the sample.

  “Beaming it up, Scotty!” Hopkins said.

  Felix was beaming chunks of DNA code into the sky through the transmitter panel. Overhead, a communications satellite operated by the U.S. National Security Agency was picking up the genetic code of the organism, whatever it was.

  “I think we’re going to get some matches here,” Hopkins said. “Hang on.”

  Felix was matching the DNA sequences with some sequences stored in its memory, trying to identify the organism. The names of viruses that it was supposedly “seeing” in the truck sample began to appear on the screen of the laptop.

  TENTATIVE SEQUENCE MATCHES:

  Goldfish virus group

  Porcine reproductive virus

  Hepatitis D woodchuck

  Bracovirus

  Spumavirus

  Microvirus

  Unclassified Thogoto-like agent

  viruslike particle Cak-1

  Humpty Doo virus

  “Humpty Doo virus? What is this?” Hopkins whispered.

  Then the screen said:

  Felix is unable to process this sample.

  The screen went blank. The system had crashed.

  “You jerk!” he said to Felix.

  “What happened?” Littleberry whispered.

  “I think it’s giving me gobbledygook.”

  The pounding on the door became very insistent.

  Will Hopkins reached down to his belt and pulled the Leatherman tool out of its case. He opened it to alligator pliers and a screwdriver. From his pocket protector he pulled out a Mini Maglite flashlight. He hunched over Felix and lifted off the smooth black top of the box. Inside was a mass of tiny threadlike tubes and wires. He started pulling out wires, shining the flashlight in, twirling the screwdiver.

  “Will—” Littleberry said.

  “The system isn’t going to work perfectly every time.”

  “Put that suitcase together, Will. We’ve got to call on the radio for help.”

  Hopkins held up a metal object the size of a peanut. “That’s a pump. I think it’s malfunctioning.”

  “Enough. Shut the case.”

  “Mark—that was a bioreactor in the truck. And there were some crystals. That’s what I took the swab from.”

  “Yeah? What do you mean, crystals?”

  “Well, they were kind of flat, sitting in trays, clear…”

  “Shit. That sounds like some kind of viral glass. Those bastards are making viral glass.”

  “Inside a truck?”

  “That’s the whole problem.”

  “Where was it going?”

  “Who knows? The U.N. will never see it again.”

  HUSSEIN AL-SAWIRI had been talking on a shortwave radio to the Iraqi National Monitoring Center in Baghdad. “There has been a decision. If they want to lock themselves in a toilet, they can stay there.” Several minders reached under their jackets and drew guns.

  Outside the Al Ghar facility, the UNSCOM convoy had arrived. The vehicles were lined up on the access road to the plant. In the lead vehicle, Dr. Pascal Arriet, the chief inspector, was talking on two radios at the same time. The Iraqi guards had closed the gate. They were pointing their guns at the UNSCOM convoy.

  “These people! They have not acted under my instructions. They have disobeyed my direct orders!” Arriet said to the radio.

  It turned into a standoff. The Iraqi security people wanted to break down the door and place the two United Nations inspectors under arrest. What held them back was the Iraqi government’s desire not to annoy the United Nations any more than it already was annoyed at Iraq, even though everyone agreed that the two inspectors had acted in a manner that was not acceptable by international standards of behavior. The day dragged on into evening, and the evening dragged on into night. The UNSCOM convoy of vehicles remained sitting on the road outside the plant. The inspecto
rs carried food and water with them in their vehicles, but they were angry and exhausted, and wanted, above all, to go home. The rules did not allow them to leave without Hopkins and Littleberry, and the Iraqis were determined not to let the inspectors go. They announced that all samples and all equipment belonging to the inspectors must be forfeited to Iraq.

  “QUIT FOOLING WITH YOUR MACHINE,” Littleberry said to Hopkins. “You need to get some sleep.” Littleberry was lying on the floor with his head on his Halliburton briefcase for a pillow, and every muscle in his back ached. Hopkins sat cross-legged with his back against the wall. Felix was spread out in pieces across the floor in front of him. He held the flashlight in his teeth. “I’m convinced the problem is in this pump,” Hopkins said.

  “Christ,” Littleberry said. He could not fall asleep. Late into the night, as the shortwave radio squawked and chattered, and Iraqi security agents continued to pound on the door of the bathroom at odd intervals, he stared at the ceiling and thought of his wife and the boat he had just bought in Florida. “This is the last time I am ever going to stick my head in a weapons plant,” he muttered.

  A few hours later, early on Friday morning, Littleberry was talking on the shortwave radio, which hadn’t worked very well ever since Hopkins had removed a part from it. “We’ve got a deal shaping; Will.” The terms had been worked out by teams of negotiators. The two American inspectors would be allowed to leave Iraq, but the United Nations would disown them. They would be stripped of their U.N. status. Pascal Arriet was pleased to do this. They would have to surrender all their biological samples and equipment—namely the suitcases—to Iraq. And all transactions would be videotaped.

  Littleberry and Hopkins agreed to the conditions of the deal, and by sunrise two helicopters had been dispatched from Kuwait City to pick them up. The disgraced inspectors emerged from the bathroom and were marched at gunpoint outdoors, in front of the plant. They stood within view of the U.N. convoy but were held inside the security fence. There, while they were videotaped by both the United Nations people and by Iraqi minders, they handed over both Halliburton cases and all their swabs and samples.

  There was a shuddering sound in the sky. Two aging white helicopters appeared, coming from the south. They were Hueys, bearing U.N. markings. They touched down beside the UNSCOM vehicles. Dust filled the air.

  “We made a mistake. We are very sorry,” Littleberry said to Hussein Al-Sawiri.

  The Kid was holding one of the sample tubes. “Is this a sample from the truck?” he asked.

  “Yes. The only one.”

  Fehdak’s face showed no expression, but in his mind he was heaving a terrible sigh of relief. This may save my life, he thought.

  The guards patted down Littleberry and Hopkins exceedingly thoroughly and in a very personal way. Eventually they were satisfied that the two U.N. inspectors no longer possessed any sample material. No swabs, no tubes, no evidence. The guards opened the gate. Littleberry and Hopkins walked through.

  Pascal Arriet leaped out of his car. He was shaking with rage. “Idiots! You are finished! You are fired by authority of the secretary general.”

  “I’m sorry, Pascal,” Littleberry said. “We failed. We found nothing.”

  “You Americans are demented!” Arriet said. “You threaten Iraq continualment. You are ruining everything. Get out of here. Leave now!”

  “We apologize,” Hopkins said. “We are very sorry.” He and Littleberry climbed into one of the waiting helicopters.

  Then they were in the air, leaving Al Ghar straight below.

  “Wow,” Littleberry said, and leaned back.

  Some of the Iraqi guards were pointing their guns at the helicopter, but nothing happened. Hopkins and Littleberry looked down on a long line of white cars in front of the plant, a gray roof studded with vent stacks, a wide brown land, stretches of green irrigated fields, and in the distance the brown arc of the Euphrates River.

  “Florida, here I come,” Littleberry muttered.

  Sitting in the Huey beside them was a man in khaki civilian clothing wearing a voice headset. He shook Hopkins’s hand. “Major David Saintsbury, United States Army. I’m from USAMRIID. Fort Detrick, Maryland.” He turned to Littleberry. “Well, Mark,” he shouted. “What happened?”

  “We came so damned close,” Littleberry said on his headset.

  “We got a very hot virus sample, we think,” Hopkins said. “We started decoding the DNA and beaming it up on the bird, but the Felix crashed on us.”

  “Too bad,” Major Saintsbury said. “Of course, you had Navy gear. What can I say?”

  The helicopter was shaking, the blades giving off the classic Huey thup, thup.

  “But we got some partial DNA sequences,” Hopkins said. “Man, these Iraqi biologists are doing scary things.”

  “They’re not the only biologists doing scary things,” Major Saintsbury said.

  ON THE GROUND at Al Ghar, Hussein Al-Sawiri and Dr. Azri Fehdak were holding the Halliburton suitcases, carrying them into the building. They were taking them to a secure place, where they could be retrieved by Iraqi intelligence. Fehdak was carrying Felix. Something was wrong. He placed the palm of his hand on the case. “Ah!” he said, jerking his hand away. He put the case on the floor. “It’s hot.”

  “Ay!” Al-Sawiri dropped his case to the floor.

  Smoke began to boil out of both cases.

  As they watched, the cases melted, and catalytic heaters destroyed them. The two Iraqis could feel the warmth on their faces.

  Invisible History (II.)

  DURING THE 1991 Gulf War, Iraq is said to have come close to using anthrax on its enemies, the allied coalition forces. Anthrax is a bacterium, a single-celled organism that feeds on meat. Anthrax grows explosively in warm meat broth or in living meat. Modern armies consist largely of steel and meat.

  Weaponized anthrax is made of anthrax spores. The spores are dried into a powder or made into a brown liquid concentrate. No one to this day (except the Iraqi government) knows what particular weapons-production strain of anthrax Iraq possessed at the time of the Gulf War. It is believed to have been the Vollum strain. The Vollum strain of anthrax was first isolated from a cow near Oxford, England, before the Second World War. Vollum anthrax is the strain that the U.S. Army used for its anthrax warheads during the 1960s, before the United States ended its offensive biological-weapons program in 1969.

  Iraq signed the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, but in conversations with U.N. weapons inspectors after the Gulf War, top Iraqi government officials said that they did not actually know if their country had signed the treaty. They said that it wasn’t important, not a matter for consideration.

  If Iraq had done a laydown of Vollum anthrax during the Gulf War, allied casualties might have been the largest in the shortest period of time sustained by any army in history. On the other hand, it might not have been too bad. No one knows what the Iraqi anthrax would have done. Some of the American troops were vaccinated against anthrax, with a vaccine that might or might not have worked. Most of the soldiers were taking antibiotics as a protective measure—antibiotics that might or might not have worked. Many were also equipped with breathing masks, which offer protection against biological agents—provided one knows that the agent is in the air. Vollum anthrax is susceptible to vaccines and antibiotics. Other strains of anthrax are hotter. An engineered strain of anthrax could be designed to elude vaccines and grow explosively even in the presence of antibiotics.

  Weaponized anthrax spores end up sitting on the largest wet membrane in the body, the lungs. The spores land on the lung surface and hatch, and the organism quickly enters the bloodstream. Humans infected with weaponized anthrax may cough up a thick yellow-and-red bubbly mess called anthrax sputum exudate. There is debate about what anthrax sputum exudate looks like if it’s caused by a weaponized form of anthrax. Experts stress that a disease caused by a biological weapon may look very different from a natural disease caused by the same organism. In anima
ls, anthrax sputum exudate is bloody and watery, rather golden yellow in color. It pours out of the animal’s mouth and nose. Many experts say that anthrax exudate in humans forms a thick, gobby, foamy, bloody paste that sticks inside the lungs like glue. Anthrax sputum is streaked and marbled with bright red blood, which is hemorrhage from the lungs. Someone hit with weaponized anthrax probably would feel a cold coming on at first. You get a sniffle and a cough. Your cough becomes worse. Then there follows a kind of pause, a lessening of the symptoms. This is the anthrax eclipse, a phase in which the symptoms seem to lift for a while. Then abruptly the victim crashes and dies with fatal pneumonia and a bloody sputum exudate.

  The experts call anthrax a “classical” weapon. Anthrax is powerful, but it is far less efficient than many bioweapons. It seems to take about ten thousand spores of anthrax trapped in the lungs to make a person die. That is a large number of spores. With other military biological agents, a single spore or as few as three virus particles trapped in the lungs can cause a fatal biological crash in the victim.

  In 1979, in the city of Yekaterinburg, Russia (then called Sverdlovsk), there was an accident at a Soviet biological-weapons-production facility known as Military Compound Number 19. The Soviets were making weaponized anthrax there by the ton. It was a full-speed military production, for the purpose of filling warheads and bombs, with shifts working around the clock. No one knows exactly what happened, but one credible story goes that the workers were drying anthrax and making it into a powder in grinding machines. A shift of day workers on the grinding machines discovered that the safety air filters (which prevented anthrax powder from going into the air) had become clogged. They removed the filters at the end of the shift and left a note for the night shift, telling the workers to install fresh filters. The nightshift workers came on duty but didn’t see the note. They ran the anthrax grinding machines all night without safety filters. During the night shift, up to a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of weapons-grade dry anthrax spores were released into the air in the city of Sverdlovsk. They formed a plume that went in a southeasterly direction across the city. Sixty-six people crashed and died of anthrax. Many of them did not break with anthrax until weeks after the accident. The zone of human fatalities extended for about four miles downwind. Most of the dead civilians worked or lived within half a mile of the plant.