The White Plague

by Frank Herbert

  “They just haven’t had time to install microphones in this room,” Foss said. “It’ll be less obtrusive tomorrow. I’ll take coffee, black.”

  Beckett glanced around the table. The others demurred. He returned his attention to the bland face at the pass-through. “You heard?”

  “Right-O, Doc.”

  The covering panel slid closed.

  Beckett returned his attention to the table.

  Hupp lifted a briefcase from the floor beside his chair, wiped a piece of lettuce from it, and removed a small notepad and pen. “It will be something simple,” he said.

  The panel behind Beckett slid open. “One tea, one coffee, black.” It was Bland Face. He pushed two steaming cups onto the inner ledge, closed the panel.

  Without getting up, Beckett took the two cups from the ledge and slid them along the table. As Godelinsky took her cup, Beckett noted a patch of white on the back of her left hand. It was not prominent, but quite noticeable to his trained eye. Before he could comment on it, Lepikov said:

  “I think the plague was spread with some devilish American device. A spray can for the hair, possibly.”

  Hupp wrote on his notepad. “It’s on my list, but I doubt it. Again, it’s too obvious a thing for our Madman.”

  Godelinsky sipped noisily at her tea, then: “I agree with Joe. It is not O’Neill’s style.”

  “What is her style?” Foss asked.

  Hupp smiled at the cautionary change of gender. “As I said, I think it will be something remarkably simple. It will be a thing of which we will say: ‘Oh, my God! Of course!’”

  “Such as?” Beckett prompted.

  Hupp produced a high-shouldered shrug, palms thrust out and upward. “I address only the question of style, not the specific method.”

  “We don’t know the incubation period,” Godelinsky said. “This could’ve been sitting there for months.”

  “Contaminated gifts?” Foss asked.

  “That kind of thing,” Hupp said. “A toy that a mother would handle before passing it along to her child. We must not forget that O’Neill’s wife and children were slain. He speaks of appropriate revenge.”

  “Diabolical,” Danzas muttered.

  “Insane,” Lepikov said.

  “Indeed,” Hupp agreed. “It is the madness in his method that will open the door to him.”

  Godelinsky drained her teacup, put it down and stared down the table at Foss. “Tell me, Ari, if you are this Madwoman, how is it you do this thing?”

  “In some common food item, perhaps?” Foss said.

  “Potatoes?” Lepikov asked. “That is too droll.”

  Hupp raised a monitory finger. “Ahhh, but she has touched the essence. It must be a common thing. It must be something used in Ireland, Britain and Libya, and it must be a thing that exposes the maximum number of women to contamination.”

  “Why women?” Beckett asked. “Why can’t men be the carriers?”

  Danzas, following his usual pattern of not contributing to a Team exchange until it was well along, said: “There is another quality required by the limitations we can assume are imposed on our Madman.”

  Attention turned toward him.

  “How does he gain access to the distribution system?” Danzas asked. “I agree that it must be something simple and common to the three regions, but it also must be available to the Madman, and probably without elaborate preparation or a complicated conspiracy.”

  “He’s a loner,” Beckett said.

  “A devious intelligence,” Lepikov said. “The scientific abilities he demonstrates in the laboratory will, I’m sure, apply to his distribution method.”

  “Devious, yes,” Hupp said, “but not necessarily based in scientific complexity. His style… it is more likely to be a very common item he contaminates, perhaps something each of us carries on his person at this very moment.”

  Silence greeted Hupp’s suggestion.

  Beckett nodded, more to himself than to Hupp. There was the ring of truth about this suggestion. It was O’Neill’s style. Simplicity, that was the keynote.

  “Why could it not be a conspiracy?” Lepikov asked.

  Godelinsky shook her head.

  “Insects?” Foss asked.

  “An insect vector of the plague,” Lepikov said. “Would that not fit your description, Joe?”

  “But how would he distribute them?” Hupp asked.

  “The eggs or the larvae?” Foss asked.

  “Again, the distribution is the question,” Hupp said.

  “Air travel makes such a concept the nemesis of our world,” Lepikov said.

  “What about contamination of the water systems in the target regions?” Danzas asked.

  “Insects in the water?” Lepikov asked.

  “Or the disease itself,” Danzas said.

  Hupp pounded a fist gently on the table. “Distribution,” he said. “How?”

  “Just a minute,” Foss said. “Insects in the water – that’s not a bad idea. Whaling captains deliberately spread mosquito larvae all through the South Pacific as revenge against native societies that offended them in some way.”

  “Then perhaps an airline attendant or a pilot,” Lepikov said. “Is this O’Neill a pilot?”

  “Negative,” Beckett said.

  “But the involvement of air travel in this thing,” Lepikov said. “That idea has its appeal.”

  Beckett said: “Hawaii gets fifty new insects a year thanks to air travel.”

  “What is carried universally by such aircraft?” Lepikov asked.

  “Luggage, packages,” Beckett said. “The tourists themselves, but…” He shook his head. “This ignores the fact that he pinpoints his targets – Ireland, Britain and Libya.”

  “With no guarantee that others escape,” Foss said.

  Godelinsky rubbed at her forehead. “And we cannot be sure that he uses only one method. Incubation period – that is essential to our considerations.”

  “The mails,” Hupp said.

  “What are you suggesting?” Beckett asked.

  “I don’t know, really,” Hupp said. “I only try to play O’Neill through his performance. What do we know about him?”

  “He was in Ireland,” Beckett said.

  “Exactly!” Hupp said. “And in Ireland he suffers the great agony that drives him to do this terrible thing. But, at some point he has the other experiences of Ireland. What is it he can learn there?”

  “I do not follow this,” Lepikov said.

  “He learns how people spend their days in Ireland,” Hupp said.

  “And in Great Britain and Libya as well?” Lepikov asked.

  Hupp shook his head. “Perhaps, but let us concentrate first on Ireland and O’Neill there. If his performance there can be made to produce answers, perhaps we can adjust those answers to the other places as well.”

  “Go ahead,” Beckett said. And he experienced the odd feeling that Hupp was sniffing along a hot trail. Go with it! he thought.

  “O’Neill is not a resident of Ireland,” Hupp said. “Thus, he must stay someplace there. A hotel? Yes, we know this for a fact. What does he do at this hotel? He sleeps. He uses the various facilities of the hotel and the community.”

  “I do not see any answers,” Lepikov said. “Only more questions. So what if he calls room service?”

  “For this he uses a telephone,” Hupp said. “He has access to a telephone directory.”

  “And he has tourist guides,” Lepikov said. “So what?”

  “Let him go with it,” Beckett said.

  Lepikov shrugged and turned partly away from Beckett.

  “Tours and tourist guides, yes!” Hupp said. “That could be important. The colorful brochures, the stores and the restaurants, the drinking establishments, the public and private means of transportation. Does he rent a car or take taxis?”

  “He bought a car first thing,” Beckett said. “A cheap Fiat, secondhand. We’ve just had confirmation. It’s there in that sheet I d
istributed this morning.”

  “I have not yet read it,” Hupp apologized. “But now we know he was mobile.”

  “What happened to the car?” Lepikov asked.

  “It was sold for him by the people who sold it to him,” Beckett said.

  “But he is mobile,” Hupp repeated. “Where does he go? Does he attend a sporting event? A lecture? The theater? I direct your attention to common, everyday activities. He buys a book. He mails a letter. He has the concierge make a booking for him at a restaurant.”

  Danzas shuddered and muttered: “Irish restaurants.”

  “But O’Neill was beginning to be an active part of the Irish community before tragedy struck him,” Hupp said. “He is there and he thinks with a… with a thereness.”

  “How does this get us closer to his distribution methods?” Lepikov asked.

  “Before he could employ any distribution means,” Hupp said, “he had to know it would work in his target areas.”

  Lepikov heaved his shoulders. “So?”

  “What does he see around him that gives him this knowledge?” Hupp asked. “How does he assure himself his method or methods will work?”

  “What if he could contaminate paper?” Foss asked.

  Beckett moved his lips soundlessly, an unspoken word. He repeated it aloud: “Money!” He looked up to find himself the focus of five pairs of staring eyes.

  Hupp exhaled a long “Ahhhhhhhhhh.”

  “Through the mails?” Danzas asked.

  “Would that not contaminate everyone who handled such mail?” Lepikov asked.

  “Not if he sealed it in a sterile package within the envelope,” Beckett said.

  “In plastic,” Hupp said.

  “I have a device in my kitchen,” Foss said. “It’s called a heat-sealer. They sell plastic envelopes for it. You put leftover food in the envelopes, seal them hermetically and they can go in the freezer. Later, you bring them out, thaw and heat them – presto, instant dinner.”

  “Is this not too simple a thing?” Lepikov objected, but his tone said he was awed by the picture being built here.

  “It is precisely the level of simplicity we seek,” Hupp said. “It is this man’s style.”

  “He’d send it to charities,” Foss said excitedly.

  “Or to someone collecting for the IRA,” Hupp said. “A poetic madness that would appeal to our Madman.”

  “An Irish-American,” Godelinsky said. “Who better to know where in Ireland to send an IRA contribution?”

  “He could send money to almost anyone in Ireland,” Beckett said.

  They looked at him.

  “Well, face it,” Beckett said. “You’re a store owner. You get an order, money enclosed, to send merchandise to the U.S. Or you’re just a private citizen, a name taken at random out of a telephone directory. You get a letter from the States, money in it and a simple letter of explanation. Would you send it back? What if there’s no return address?”

  “But…” Lepikov shook his head. “The money in plastic within the envelope – does this not arouse the recipient’s suspicions?”

  “Why?” Hupp asked.

  “I do not understand how such a thing is explained to the random recipient,” Lepikov said.

  “Why bother with an explanation?” Foss asked. “Just send the money, local currency. The recipient thinks God has at last smiled upon him.”

  Lepikov merely stared at her.

  “There could be no need for the inner plastic envelope,” Godelinsky said. “A latency period for this plague and there would be no danger to intermediaries. We do not know the incubation period.”

  “If the opening of the outer envelope broke the seal of the inner package, that would do it,” Beckett said.

  Lepikov, still looking at Foss, cleared his throat. “Can anyone enter an American store and buy one of these devices to seal plastic envelopes?”

  “All you need’s money,” Foss said.

  “It is expensive?”

  “The one in my kitchen costs less than thirty dollars. You can get them even cheaper on sale.”

  “I think we have it,” Beckett said.

  “And it fits the requirements for the other targets,” Hupp said. “All he needs is the currency of the selected nation.”

  “He walks into any Deke Pereras office and says he needs five hundred dollars in British pounds,” Foss said.

  “But do they not require him to show a passport or other identification?” Lepikov asked.

  Foss merely shrugged.

  “I like it but we can’t be certain yet,” Beckett said.

  Danzas said: “We must send word to have this investigated immediately.”

  “I am not satisfied,” Lepikov said. “So he sends money to a charity. That I understand. But with others…”

  “I hear that Catholic charities in Ireland are never very rich,” Foss said. “It’d go into circulation quickly.”

  “He could send money to a sporting club,” Beckett said, his tone thoughtful. “A theater group. There’re small theater groups and athletic teams all over Ireland.”

  “Money, so diabolically simple,” Foss said.

  “How does he apply this scheme to Libya?” Lepikov asked. “We assume he does not speak the language.”

  Hupp raised a hand, curiously like a student calling for a teacher’s attention. Lepikov looked quizzically at him.

  “A visit to a Libyan consul, an embassy,” Hupp said. “To the United Nations. What would he need to know? The addresses of charity organizations in Tripoli and Bengasi, perhaps? None of this information is difficult to acquire. There are people anxious to give it to you. It is their job.”

  “Some charities and relief organizations sell their mailing lists,” Beckett said. “Or they’ll exchange them – their list for yours.”

  “When I was at UCLA,” Hupp said, “a political activist could get almost any mailing list he wanted. I know of one computer specialist who put himself through school by stealing such lists from computer storage systems and selling them.”

  Danzas turned and looked down his long nose at Hupp. “You associated with political activists?”

  “It is called here a learning experience,” Hupp said.

  “We describe a world of anarchy and madness,” Lepikov said.

  “To which the Soviet Union has made significant contributions,” Godelinsky said.

  In Russian, Lepikov said: “Such remarks do not go without notice.”

  Godelinsky responded in English: “I don’t really care.” She pushed her chair away from the table and bent over with her head close to the floor.

  “You feel faint?” Beckett asked. He got up and went around to stand beside her chair. He could see the white spot on the back of her hand. It was quite prominent. He had dismissed it earlier as a lab discoloration, spilled makeup or perhaps a daub of toothpaste. Now… he felt a chill in his guts.

  Godelinsky’s voice sounded remote and weak from her bent-over position. “I feel faint, yes.” She coughed. “It is a very strange feeling. Both faint and excited.”

  “I think we’d both better turn ourselves in at the hospital facility,” Foss said.

  Beckett whirled to stare at her. “You, too?”

  “The great granddaddy of all headaches,” Foss said.

  Godelinsky straightened, looking pale. “I wonder…”

  “It is not possible!” Lepikov said.

  “How could the Madman know about this place and what we do here?” Danzas asked.

  Hupp stood up and came around to stand beside Beckett. Both of them looked at Godelinsky. Beckett lifted her left wrist and took her pulse. “One hundred and ten,” he said.

  “Have our speculations been bootless?” Danzas asked. “Is the Madman someone in our midst?”

  Hupp looked startled. “One of us?”

  “No, no,” Danzas said. “But someone with whom we have commerce.”

  “Let’s get these women to the hospital,” Beckett said, and
he felt a pang of fear for his own family. He had thought them safely isolated at the family’s fishing camp in northern Michigan.

  OLD MAN: What do you know of my grief? You’re a stripling lad who’s never had a woman!

  YOUTH: And you’re a whining old bastard! It’s the likes of you cost me all the hope of my life. You think I can’t know the grief of something taken because I’d not yet had it?

  – from Plague Time, an Irish play

  ON THE flight to Paris, John reflected carefully on the things he had done (and was doing) to cover his tracks. The plane was a Boeing 727 with one of the “facelifts” the airline was promoting – slick leather upholstery in first class, extra cabin attendants there, a fine choice of wines and food. John’s seat mate was a chunky Israeli businessman who bragged that he had ordered kosher. John made no response, merely looked out the window beside him at the cloud cover over the Atlantic. The businessman shrugged and brought out a briefcase, from which he took sheafs of papers on which he set to work.

  John glanced at his wristwatch, calculating the time difference to Seattle. By now, investigators would be raking through the ashes of the Ballard house. They would suspect arson immediately, of course. An all-consuming blaze – multiple thermite charges, phosphor arranged to spill from its water cover, exploding bottles of ether-ammonium hydroxide.

  The investigators naturally would seek human remains, but not even bones could survive the heat of that fire. It would not be surprising to have them conclude that “John McCarthy, the inventor,” had perished in the accidental ignition of one of his experiments.

  The high heat could be enough.

  And the investigators would be scrambling the evidence they would want later. By then it would be too late, the ashes hopelessly disturbed.

  John’s wrist itched under the watch. He removed the watch and scratched, glancing at the back of the case. The engraving was professionally scrolled there, a Spencerian “J.G.O’D.” John Garrett O’Day or John Garrech O’Donnell. The O’Day passport nestled in his coat pocket next to his heart. The O’Donnell passport lay with the spares in the secret compartment of the carry-on bag under the seat in front of him. He restored the watch to his wrist. The engraving was a small touch but he thought a good one.