You also saw an immediate spike in share price and investor confidence, Hackman thought.
‘Let’s talk about the Sixth Virus now,’ Sutherland said.
‘The eradication policy is going well. We see no resurgence of religion or faith in the Eastern Alliance,’ Hackman replied.
‘That’s not entirely true – the ghost has tapped into a network of vaxxers who . . .’ Sutherland flicked through the file in his hands again and quoted: ‘Who feel an energy inside them that’s guiding them to administer a decoy vaccine.’
‘There are two issues there – the ghost and –’
‘I want to deal with that first,’ Sutherland interrupted.
‘Of course,’ Hackman replied smoothly. ‘Our target, Khan, has the expertise and the equipment. He even told our agent the virus is Nature’s way of culling.’
Sutherland laughed genuinely for the first time. ‘Clever man. Has he published any papers on that? We couldn’t have asked for a better ghost. He’ll make a fine bioterrorist; or perhaps a disgruntled virologist turned anti-vaxxer. Either way he’ll be hated and remembered.’
‘Indeed. We’re very optimistic about him.’
‘What about this new vaccine he’s working on? I presume you’ll end that when you end him?’
‘Of course. Vaccine development is the purview of Bio and ADL – and no one else.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Sutherland said. ‘And the second issue – the unnamed energy. What the hell is that? A Rapture addiction gone too far? Those vaxxers all sounded like they’d been cooking their own chemical compounds, if you know what I mean.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Hackman laughed in spite of himself. ‘We have no idea what they’re talking about. There is a consistent philosophical motivation with all of the vaxxers who reached out to the ghost. They are driven by this same energy, it wants to be loved, it wants to be remembered –’
‘I read the transcripts too.’ Sutherland cut him off again. ‘I want to know what you think it is.’
‘I don’t know. We’re investigating. Our man is getting closer.’
‘Yes, your man. Is he investigating this Khan or is he trying to turn him? He’s meant to be laying breadcrumbs, not charging into ex-religious sites and teashops. You said he was sub-functional – this looks more like malfunctional. Call him off.’
‘What?’ Hackman and Neeson looked up sharply. Noah had never been called off a mission.
‘You heard me. Call him off.’
‘I can’t. He’ll know something’s wrong.’ Hackman knew Noah was already suspicious, but he kept that to himself. He and Noah went back a long way. Even Neeson and Noah. Perhaps they were getting sentimental in their old age. Perhaps they were just getting old.
‘So what if he gets suspicious? He’s paid to execute that job, not question it. Call him off or I will tell Rajasuriya to take care of it. I’m sure he’d be only too happy to.’
He stood up and cleared his throat. ‘Thank you for the update and the coffee, this has been helpful. I have another appointment but the rest of the team will take over now. Why don’t you walk me out, Hackman?’
‘Of course, sir.’ Hackman stood up quickly.
Sutherland nodded at his R&D director. ‘Adrian, show Dr Neeson our new fertility scanner. You’ll like this one, Doctor – it’s all about going forth and multiplying.’
Hackman led Sutherland out of the conference room towards the elevator. Inside, he pressed L and stepped back next to the older man.
‘A fertility scanner?’
‘Our data mining of the Haema Scans and other medical records indicates that reproduction rates have flatlined but our Fertility Booster vitamin range is still one of our best sellers.’
‘As good as your Deca-Vit injections or the Immunity Builders?’
‘No, of course not. And nothing surpasses EBL-47. My vaccine is still our number one.’
‘Of course,’ Hackman replied. Abre de Libre’s sales of Rapture in the Eastern Alliance were doing very well too – but they were strictly off the balance sheet. Sutherland found a way to profit from most health concerns.
‘People want more babies than they’re making,’ Sutherland said. ‘The fertility scanner aids the process. It takes human error out of the equation.’
‘I seem to remember that was part of the fun, sir. Should I call your driver?’
‘No, he’ll be waiting for me.’
At the lobby, Sutherland walked through the automatic glass doors first. His driver held the door to the limousine open for him.
‘Don’t let me down, Hackman – and don’t let your man down.’ Sutherland spoke to him through the window. ‘Lock in the ghost and then get your team out of there. We can’t be responsible for everyone. How was the movie?’
‘Sir?’ Hackman queried.
‘The Goonies. Did the kids like it?’
‘They loved it. It’s an American classic.’ Hackman hadn’t told Sutherland what movie his children were watching.
‘It sure is. I’ll see you next time.’ Sutherland knocked on the window and his driver started the car.
Hackman put his hands in his pockets and shuddered as a cold wind swept off the Thames.
Neeson joined him, more prepared with his winter coat, collar up. ‘He’s gone back to his five-star rectory?’ he asked, voice neutral, eyes ahead.
Hackman laughed. ‘He has. I had no idea you were so Bible-literate.’
‘You can talk. I’m literate in many religious scriptures, it’s not just the Bible for me anymore.’
‘Diversifying your faith portfolio?’
‘Hedging my bets?’ Neeson laughed. ‘There is a God and all religions, if followed properly and lovingly, will take you to Him eventually.’
‘I’m surprised. You used to be so . . . monogamous.’
‘The wisdom of age, I suppose. I like to read and quote scriptures . . . more promiscuously now. My favourite is the Bhagavad Gita; it’s a Hindu text.’
‘I know what it is. So you’re a scientist by day and a multi-faith scholar by night.’
‘Khan used to say religion and science are just different methodologies for deconstructing our shared reality, and understanding the same universal truths. I think he was right.’
‘Jesus, now you’re scaring me.’
Neeson laughed and then replied, ‘Here’s a quote for you, from the Gita. I want you to remember this one: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”’
‘You made that up – isn’t there some rule against making up religious doctrine?’
‘There ought to be, but I didn’t make that up. In 1945, Robert Oppenheimer said he thought about that verse when he watched the first testing of the atomic bomb he created. He saw the tremendous fireball rise into the sky and the words of the god Krishna came to his mind: Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’
Hackman shivered. ‘Anyway, thanks – back there. You didn’t have to step in. I’ve handled worse.’
‘I know. I wasn’t trying to help you. I just prefer science to the greedy, narcissistic ravings of a self-appointed messiah.’ Neeson kept his voice low.
‘Don’t talk about Jesus like that,’ Hackman teased.
‘Jesus loves you too, Michael.’
‘That’s what Sutherland tells me.’ He laughed as they headed back to the warmth of the Bio Building.
Chapter 24
Noah woke up, his wound dressed, his body bruised and still tired. Through the haze of the muslin net around the bed he could see Sahara. She had positioned the armchair next to him, facing the door, with a clear shot if she needed it.
‘The men who attacked you . . . they won’t come again, at least not today. You killed one and the other two are off the payroll indefinitely.’ She pulled the net back for him.
‘There was another shooter too. Whose payroll?’ he asked.
‘President Rajasuriya’s. He’s trying to encourage you to stick to your job. No more excursions. Just complete t
he investigation into Khan, confirm he’s the ghost and then get out.’
‘Are those instructions from the president or Hackman? Because they sound like Hackman’s and the last time I checked Bio wasn’t working for Rajasuriya.’ He pushed himself up from the bed and shifted his legs over the side to the floor.
‘It’s hard to say who’s working for who.’
‘Who are you working for?’ he demanded. He stretched his torso, getting a sense of his pain and range of movement.
‘I work for stability.’
‘Stability. I’ve been hearing that word a lot lately.’
‘It’s a good word – a good idea if you’ve seen the opposite.’
‘We’ve all seen some instability in our lives. I’m not sure the compromises we keep making to fend it off are worth it.’
‘You wouldn’t say that if you were here when it all started. Instability looked a lot like carnage.’
‘Explain it to me then, Sahara – help me understand why this is all worth it. I won’t judge.’
She looked at him sadly. ‘You should judge. It was such a long time ago but I see it . . . all the time.’
‘Tell me –’ He reached for her but she moved to the window, peering through a gap in the shutters.
‘Sri Lanka – the great Buddhist nation,’ she whispered.
‘The keeper of the faith?’ he asked.
‘Indeed,’ she said bitterly. ‘Man sensed God and yearned to love him. To understand him.’
‘I used to feel it too,’ Noah whispered.
‘The Buddhist monks had a power over the people that Rajasuriya couldn’t compete with. A deep and primal hold that was born hundreds of years before democracy.’
Noah nodded. ‘Men worshipped monks because God hadn’t shown himself for so many years.’
‘That’s right. God seems absent except when he rains down death on us, like a divine drone strike. But monks are no more than men who yearn for influence and power. Rajasuriya allowed them to translate their bigotry into laws.’
‘General Rajasuriya told me about the brandings . . .’
‘Yes, the brandings – even the Jews shuddered at that one. They remembered a different time, and a different tattoo on the forearms of their forefathers.
‘But the brandings came later – first the monks insisted that Muslim women must dress like all other citizens. The president conceded and Muslim women were required to remove their covering. When they failed to do so, they had it removed for them. Such a simple thing: a piece of cloth, the kind you’d buy at a fabric store anywhere.’ She paused, lost in thought.
‘What happened?’
She told the story she had lived and tried to forget:
‘A Muslim woman, a Sri Lankan citizen, entered the public hospital where she worked. She was completely covered by her traditional garb. She walked past the security guard and smiled, her eyes behind the gauzy veil were warm. And every day of the previous four years that she had worked there, this security guard had nodded his head happily and smiled back.
‘But on this particular day – 12 January 2020 – he was different. He had been briefed and then reprimanded and then warned. If he did not enforce the new hospital rule, a regulation mandated by national law, he would be fired alongside her.
‘When I interviewed him later, he asked me, what could he do? He had a family, he needed his job. He said he approached the nurse. He asked her once, twice and then a third time to remove her face covering. She refused. He called a female guard. He was careful not to touch the nurse himself, respectful as he was of what he understood to be her customs.
‘He looked at her. He said that her naked face was as beautiful as her eyes. Not a conventional beauty but an unassuming symmetry of pleasing, calm features.
‘He briefly thought it was a shame that such a peaceful face was not seen by the patients she served. He thought they would be comforted by it and there was so little comfort in the world.
‘The nurse left the building and returned home. She never worked in the hospital again although she was needed soon enough. Little is known about what happened to her afterwards.
‘Perhaps the city had been waiting for the right moment. Perhaps the world had been waiting for that moment whether it was right or not. A meeting was held at the main mosque in Colombo that night. Only the men gathered: old and young, the weak and the strong, all of them angry.
‘They decided that they would accompany their women to work and the next time one was asked to remove her covering and shame herself in front of others, they would defend her honour – with force.
‘And so it began. The Muslims pulled out sticks and the Buddhists pulled out knives. The army watched for a long time, letting the mobs do their killing until they could stand it no longer. They were desperate to kill too.
‘India watched across the narrow Palk Strait, wringing its hands. Its citizens were Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists. Its neighbours were Muslims. They lived side by side, uneasy and on guard. It stepped into the fray, backing the Hindus. Pakistan stepped in, backing the Muslims. Neither particularly cared about Sri Lanka, both simply wanted a naval base in the Indian Ocean.
‘Most of the world dismissed it as yet another conflict in Sri Lanka. But then Malaysia, Indonesia, the Middle East . . . the Middle East intervened to assist its Muslim brethren.’
She looked at Noah sadly.
The rest was history. The past that determined their present. The conflict had escalated across Asia and then the West faster than any biological pandemic could.
‘I was training at Rochester when it started. Westerners and US military bases attacked in the East. Then retaliatory attacks in the West against completely unrelated Islamic communities. You know that all Christians think that all bearded dark-skinned men are Muslims, don’t you?’
She almost smiled. ‘It’s not just the Christians. The beards confuse bigots generally.’
‘Why did you stay?’
‘I don’t know – a misguided sense of duty perhaps. Maybe trauma.’ She shrugged self-consciously. ‘I keep returning to the scene, reliving it, trying to redo it – trying to undo it. I don’t know. I keep seeing the women and the children . . .’
He knew. He saw them too.
‘Contagion.’ She shuddered. ‘Neighbours, friends, colleagues – Sri Lankans who had known each other their whole lives, grown up together, whose children played together – they hunted and slaughtered each other in the streets.’
‘Rage is infectious, particularly when the patient’s underlying immunity is weakened by the racism that’s inherent in us all.’
Sahara nodded.
‘How did you survive?’ he asked.
‘I copied the Hindus. I painted the Buddhist wheel of dharma on my door and waited. The Hindus joined the conflict eventually. They had an unsettled score . . .’
‘There are other ways to settle a score.’ Noah knew he was wrong as soon as he’d said it. In their world, there was only one way to settle a score.
‘I should have tried harder,’ she said.
‘To do what?’
‘Make the agency listen. I was young but I wasn’t naïve. I understood the politics of this region, the bloodlust that sits patiently underneath the veneer of peaceful religions. It was fermenting, a hidden cyst waiting to erupt and poison the bloodstream.’
‘Don’t tell me you feel responsible.’ He wanted to hold her shaking hands; her tense and weary body.
‘We are all responsible.’
‘No – this one is on the monks and Rajasuriya. Not you and not us – we are responsible for a lot of the world’s problems but not this one.’
‘No?’ she replied. ‘This one was predictable from the start. We protected Rajasuriya. He’d already slaughtered one ethnic group and he was simply moving onto the next, like any other methodical tyrant. We knew what was happening and we all ignored his savagery because we were so desperate to have an ally in this region. We needed him and he knew it.’
There was nothing Noah could say. He had heard it all before, straight from Rajasuriya’s own mouth. He’d read it all before in history books about other countries, with other dictators. The same outcome.
No, not the same outcome, he thought. WWR was so much worse.
‘I reported back – about the monks and the riots, the police. I kept telling the agency to intervene, to talk to Rajasuriya, to tie conditions to the aid they were pouring into the country, to impose sanctions – anything. Anything,’ she repeated.
‘What did they say?’ he asked, afraid of the answer.
‘My orders were to stay out of matters of territorial sovereignty.’ She laughed harshly.
‘I could have gone higher up the chain of command but I was afraid, unsure – you’re trained to follow that chain no matter what, to trust your superiors. To doubt them . . . well you just don’t, do you?’
He didn’t answer.
‘Western troops were eventually deployed in the East and it might have ended there. But something else happened to weaken us all.’
‘Ebola.’ Noah replied. It started with war but ended with Ebola.
She looked towards the door. A shadow passed under it but no one came.
‘I think maybe they wanted the Buddhists and the Muslims to slaughter each other. Or they wanted things to escalate here, to justify an intervention and settle things once and for all.’
‘Maybe they just underestimated how badly things would turn out,’ Noah said. ‘That religion and Ebola would feed each other’s rage and take all of us to the brink of annihilation.’
‘Maybe,’ she walked over and held his face in her hands. ‘Be careful, Noah. You’re Hackman’s man, but Rajasuriya belongs to Bio. They need him here. He maintains the status quo – the stability they’ve created – so they maintain him.’
She spoke one last time before she kissed him: ‘They protect him in a way they would never protect you – or me – even though one day we will both die for them.’
She pulled away.
The Barrier Page 19
