The Barrier

by Shankari Chandran

  Chapter 21

  Noah collapsed on the back seat of the car. Crawford threw him a bottle of water. Garner pulled out her blade and cut the shirt from his body, the strips heavy with blood. She moved his arms and torso around, feeling him methodically for more injuries.

  ‘Gently,’ he choked. He took a gulp of water and emptied the bottle on the main wound, crying out, then gritting his teeth.

  ‘All clear,’ she said tersely. Noah thought he could hear a slight tremor in her voice. Crawford opened the medi-kit for her. She ignored Noah’s pain and began cleaning. ‘No entry or exit wound. Flesh tear only. Three strikes.’

  ‘And you’re out,’ he whispered, drinking heavily from a second bottle.

  ‘A lot of whining for a flesh wound,’ Crawford noted. The corner of Garner’s mouth twitched as she strapped a dressing to Noah’s left side.

  ‘Getting old.’ Noah tried to turn back to see if they were being followed. He gasped loudly at the stabbing pain in his lower chest.

  ‘Getting soft. I’ll need to tape that,’ Garner replied. ‘Bruised ribs, maybe one broken.’ Her fingers expertly felt the ridges of his chest. ‘Most likely bruised. Stop crying.’

  He nodded. ‘Where were you?’ he asked Vijay.

  ‘Washing the car.’

  ‘Washing the car?’

  ‘He was, sir. We found him whistling and washing by the aqueduct,’ Crawford said.

  Noah stared out the window. One more strike and Vijay was out, if not already.

  They drove back in silence, all three of them with hands on weapons, breathing hard, bodies rigid with tension.

  Vijay kept to the back roads. He constantly checked his mirrors; his hands tight around the steering wheel. He didn’t ask any questions and Noah wasn’t sure he had any answers.

  One thing was certain: he and his team had seen too much at Anuradhapura.

  At the hotel, the front desk was unusually empty. Anything out of the ordinary made Garner reach for her weapon.

  Most things made Crawford reach for his. ‘I’ll go first.’ He stepped forward, gun out.

  Vijay threw his coat over Noah’s bloodstained body. Garner wedged herself under his shoulder and helped him up the stairs. He tried to push her away but she caught him each time he stumbled. They heard a bedroom door open. He felt her tense beside him.

  The hotel manager emerged from a room, flushed and sweaty. He rolled his sleeve down but not before they saw the bruised puncture mark on his forearm. He hid his Rapture addiction well.

  When he saw Noah, he nodded and kept walking, his glazed eyes averted. He knew better than to stop.

  Inside Noah’s room, they dragged him to the bed. Crawford threw him a fresh shirt. Garner swept the room.

  ‘It’s all clear,’ she said.

  ‘Sweep it again – we’re missing something,’ Noah said.

  Garner looked back at him. ‘Sure.’

  ‘I’m not criticising – I just want to be sure. I need to talk to London.’

  ‘Sure,’ Garner repeated. She and Crawford walked the room in a grid, doubling over each other’s steps, checking and checking again.

  ‘It’s clear – sir,’ Garner said.

  ‘She means, still, sir.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Crawford. I can read her pauses too. Okay, let me do this call and then we’ll meet in Garner’s room in twenty minutes. Sweep that twice too. Be ready – we should expect trouble.’

  ‘Are we staying, Chief?’

  ‘I don’t know – I’m not done yet. Twenty minutes,’ he repeated.

  They left the room.

  Noah inserted the battery into his satellite phone and called Hackman.

  ‘What the fuck just happened?’ Hackman yelled. ‘Drone footage shows gunfire. Gunfire! First you jump into a civilian protest and now you start a fire fight. You’re supposed to be with the WHO. What the hell is going through your head?’

  ‘The WHO hasn’t been fired on in two decades,’ Noah replied. ‘Thanks for your concern.’

  ‘Are you okay?’ Hackman asked.

  ‘No major injuries. The team is secure. Any thoughts on who that was?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

  ‘My guess is Rajasuriya – we’re being watched everywhere we go. Today we saw something he might want to keep quiet.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mass graves.’ Noah paused. He didn’t say anything about the general.

  ‘We all have those, Noah – burial of the Ebola dead wasn’t always done the way people would have liked. But we did it the best we could at the time. We chose containment and hygiene over culturally acceptable last rites.’

  ‘I know that.’ Noah’s father was taken away in a truck. ‘This wasn’t Ebola. There were fresh graves – fresh and large. Rajasuriya sure does like his privacy on this side of the Information Shield.’

  ‘We don’t interfere with another sovereign nation.’

  ‘Since when?’ His head ached. Every part of him ached. Since when had they courted monsters? Since when had they not?

  ‘Sri Lanka is peaceful – that’s what matters.’

  ‘It’s called negative peace, Hack.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Negative peace – where conflict has ended but structural violence still exists, leading to unequal power relations –’

  ‘Institutional abuses, unequal life opportunities and conflict once again. I know the definition of negative peace. You’re a spy not a poli-sci professor. Institutional abuse is our modus operandi too – just because you don’t like the way he does it, doesn’t give you the right to shoot your mouth or your gun off. Rajasuriya’s been on the phone for the last hour. He wants you out. Frankly, so would I if I were him. This is a colossal cock-up. He says the hospital outbreak has been contained, the WHO can go home and there’s certainly no need for Bio to be there shooting at people.’

  ‘They fired first. We just stopped for some sightseeing.’

  ‘After you visited Khan’s outreach clinic in Anuradhapura!’

  ‘You asked me to get close to him – that’s what I was doing.’

  ‘Then give me something – before Rajasuriya’s soldiers storm in to your hotel and march you to the airport, or worse. Do you have his new vaccine?’

  ‘We’re colleagues, not blood donors.’

  ‘Get a sample, Noah.’

  ‘I need more time.’ Noah fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. ‘I’m getting closer to him. I think he wants to share it with me . . .’

  ‘Because you’re not blood donors but you are friends?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Noah replied. ‘He talks to me about . . . things, but I don’t know if it’s because he trusts me or . . .’

  ‘Or what? Maybe he’s manipulating you. Can we at least conclude he’s responsible for the Immunity Shield breaches? Do we know which other population sets he’s breached?’ Hackman asked.

  ‘I don’t know – he’s just not what I was expecting. We’ve been looking for the usual suspects – a bioterrorist, or an anti-vaxxer who thought the Global Vaccination Programme was either detrimental to public health, a violation of personal choice or part of a terrible pharma conspiracy. He’s not any of those. Sometimes I think he’s trying to tell me something – like he’s been expecting me. Sometimes I think he’s just talking to himself, unaware that I’m there, assessing him.’

  ‘Has he suggested a philosophy as yet? I know how you like to understand a man’s philosophy before you –’

  ‘Before I kill him? Yes. That’s my preferred approach although it hasn’t always worked out that way.’

  ‘You need to let go of the past, Noah – it’s holding your career back. Anyway – Khan’s philosophy – what does he say?’

  ‘He suggested the virus is an evolutionary culling mechanism – that its existence is normal and from time to time it performs a vital service. An act of evolution.’

  ‘An act of evolution or an act of God?’

  ‘He
didn’t say God,’ Noah replied. It was almost the truth.

  He wasn’t ready to tell Hackman about the patients at Khan’s clinic either. Or the poem. He recognised it immediately – it was from Chapter IV of the Bhagavad Gita. His father quoted the Hindu scripture all the time. It was beautiful in Sanskrit and terrifying in English.

  ‘He’s not the first person to suggest there is a cycle to life that’s sometimes expedited by Nature. There’s a certain logic to it,’ said Hackman.

  ‘There’s no scientific basis for it. And only organisms with a consciousness have logic. Nature has no logic at its disposal. Hence the phrase “random acts of Nature”.’

  ‘God has logic,’ Hackman replied. ‘If Khan was a God-fearing or a God-loving man, he might see Ebola as a divine plague sent to cull the wicked.’

  Khan had been clear. The words of the Bhagavad Gita were clear. God manifested himself on Earth from time to time to destroy the wicked and restore righteousness.

  ‘God is dead, deaf or indifferent,’ Noah covered for the old man.

  ‘So you say. Khan might think differently. Does he remember God or a God-like power?’

  ‘Asked and answered, Hackman – he hasn’t mentioned anything godly.’ Noah wanted more time before he decided what to do.

  ‘Is he developing a virus to perform this evolutionary cull? That would be the obvious path for a man of his skills.’

  ‘No – he’s not a killer.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ Because I’m a killer, Noah thought. I can always recognise them.

  ‘He wants to save lives through science – that is very clear. We’re scanning his hard drive daily. So far the science is all about developing multi-strain vaccines and cures. And before you ask, every life is important to him. He’s not one of those “sacrifice one to save the rest” kind of guys.’

  ‘You mean like me. Do you think he’s the ghost?’

  ‘I – no. He’s building up to something but I don’t know what it is. I don’t think he’s good for the decoy vaccine.’

  ‘But he’s good for something else – find out what it is and then make the call. You either turn him over to Rajasuriya so he can deal with him in his usual way, or if you think he’s undermining herd immunity, then you know what to do with him. Are we clear?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Are you sure, Noah, because you don’t seem yourself. You know I trust you. You’ve always been solid, despite everything you’ve been through.’

  ‘I’m solid. I’ll turn him over or I’ll take care of it myself. What about the president?’

  ‘I think I can buy you forty-eight hours,’ Hackman replied. ‘I still have some currency with him.’

  Hackman disconnected the phone.

  Noah put the phone back in its hiding place. He thought better of it and shoved the phone in his belt under his shirt. He unlocked the bathroom window – not that a lock would stop her. Nor did he want it to. He found himself looking for her often – wanting her to be there.

  ‘Sahara, if you’re listening, the men who attacked us at Anuradhapura. Can you access the surveillance footage on the green sedan? It will take my guys time to hack the Sri Lankan Government’s facial re-cog programme. I want to know who they are and who they’re working for. I’m going next door – see you there, if you can make it.’

  He spoke to an empty room.

  *

  Noah paced the dark floorboards and then sat down abruptly on Garner’s bed, breathing deeply.

  ‘Let me change the dressing sir, it needs to be kept clean.’ Garner pulled away from her computer. Crawford sat at the table next to her, scanning through data on two screens.

  ‘Keep working, I’m fine.’ He went to the window that looked over an alley behind their hotel. That would be Sahara’s most discreet entry point. She was good at not leaving surveillance footprints unless she wanted to.

  ‘Expecting someone?’ Crawford asked.

  ‘Sort of – let’s narrow the search.’

  They were researching Sri Bodhi, the company that had funded Khan’s laboratory. ‘I want to know who owns Sri Bodhi and who runs it – they are reaching into disease control centres in the region for a reason.

  ‘Crawford – look at everyone from mid-level execs and scientists to the CEO. Crosscheck their names and any comms with Khan and all of the vaxxers who were involved in the breaches. Check emails, phone records and funding applications. What are the degrees of separation between these people? Find out where they might have met, even casually. Start with conferences or meetings that were held in the four cities where the Immunity Shield was breached – and Colombo.’

  He paced back. ‘Garner – pull Sri Bodhi apart. Who’s higher up that food chain? Who owns it and who does it own? I want to see the family tree.’

  Crawford sifted through hours of surveillance footage of WHO and biotech conferences. He identified interactions between the vaxxers who were involved in the shield breaches – they all knew each other and they all worked at hospitals that were heavily funded by Sri Bodhi. However, none of them had any connection with Khan.

  Garner mapped out Sri Bodhi’s corporate family tree but Sri Bodhi was its highest point in the Eastern Alliance. It had thirteen subsidiaries which, like Sri Bodhi, had made financial contributions to Eastern governments, hospitals and labs. The focus of their funding was disease control and epidemiology.

  She shook her head. ‘We still don’t know who owns Sri Bodhi. There is a mother company somewhere – but not on this side of the shield. It looks like it’s the subsidiary of a Western Alliance company. Look at its financials – only four percent of its budget is spent on research and development. Most of its budget is operations and manufacturing – on actually making the equipment.’

  ‘You’re saying this is a shell company for the technology. They make and distribute it – they’re not developing it on this side?’ Noah asked.

  ‘Not unless some other unrelated Eastern Alliance company is developing it for them and they’re buying it whole. But their acquisitions are factories, land and equipment to make more equipment. When you probe into who they do business with in the East, it looks like the transaction history of a supplier, not a developer. Their business partners are just smaller suppliers. They provide the small parts to Sri Bodhi or they are distributors for Sri Bodhi.’

  ‘That can’t be right.’ Noah started pacing again. ‘We’re right back at the original problem. If this technology is coming from the West to Sri Bodhi and then to Khan, it has to pass through the Bio approvals process.’

  Bio.

  Noah stopped pacing. He pulled out his satellite phone, punched in his access code and dialled the number he called more often than Maggie or his mother.

  ‘Patrice, how goes it?’

  ‘Noah, this is a surprise. Shall I connect you to him?’

  ‘No, I was calling you.’

  ‘Me?’ He could hear the surprise in her voice. The worried pause. He waited, listening for the telltale sounds of other people coming on the line. The call would be recorded as a matter of standard protocol.

  ‘Yes, you – I think I’m almost done here. Can you look something up for me, please? It’s always the way, isn’t it – when I’m on our side I want info I can only get from the other side.’

  She laughed. ‘What do you need?’ Her voice relaxed a little.

  ‘Sri Bodhi.’ He could hear her fingers moving on the keyboard, searching as he spoke. ‘It’s a biotechnology company here. Got its roots tangled up in every hospital and lab. Best friends with all the people at disease control too. I want to know who owns it. Can you run a check – simple one really, I could do it myself if I was there. I can’t even get the New York Stock Exchange directory from here and that’s probably all I need.’

  He waited.

  ‘If you’ve got time – I’d also like to see every application the parent company has made to Bio for technology they want to export to the East.’

  ‘Unfortun
ately it’s a little more complicated, Noah – can I work on it and call you back? I have access to your line.’

  ‘Sure. I understand, corporate veils and all. I owe you. Is there anything you’d like me to bring back? More tropical fruit perhaps?’

  ‘Raw turmeric, actually. It’s supposed to stave off Alzheimer’s. Good for your immunity too. We only get the processed powder on this side but, ideally, you’re supposed to steep the raw root in water and drink it.’

  ‘Like tea?’

  ‘Exactly like tea. When you get back, let’s have a cup of tea together,’ she said. ‘There’s never enough time these days, don’t you find?’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more. Turmeric and tea it is, thank you, Patrice. Tell Hack I’ll call him later, I don’t want to be late for work.’ He disconnected the phone.

  He wasn’t sure what disappointed him more – Patrice’s deflection or Sahara’s failure to show up.

  ‘Sir, take a look at this.’ Garner turned one of her screens towards him. ‘The staff lists for Sri Bodhi and two of its subsidiaries. This is their Visiting Fellow, seven tours of duty over the last fifteen years, some more than just a brief visit.’

  The face on the screen was Neese – Dr Jack Neeson, Head of Immunology at Bio.

  ‘Check the location of his fellowships,’ Noah replied, too sharply. He swallowed hard.

  ‘He was at the four Ground Zeroes, six to twelve months before the gaps in herd immunity were detected there.’

  ‘Look for points of connection between Neese – Neeson and the vaxxers.’

  Garner searched again. ‘Nothing obvious between them, sir – wait . . . here: they’ve attended some of the same conferences and select focus groups, but no recorded interactions or meetings. That’s odd – it’s like one or both of them have made an effort not to leave a contact trail behind.’

  ‘What about Khan and Neeson?’

  She looked again. ‘Numerous points of contact – a joint fellowship, research papers together . . . I’ll collate this for you.’

  ‘This is all wrong,’ Noah murmured to himself. He remembered the Bodhi tree at Anuradhapura: its thick, muscular trunk with roots that crawled up its body and fanned out in a wide radius, gripping and strangling the branches as they reached for the sun. Roots tangled everywhere. The tree of liberty.