The White Plague

by Frank Herbert

  The foggy curtain outside his window thinned somewhat in a drift of wind, giving him a glimpse of a convoy far below moving out toward the end of the island. That would be their military guardians changing shifts. With its tunnels blocked and the bridges down, Manhattan was now considered a fairly secure bastion. There were still some burned-out pockets within the city and only official traffic moved on the streets at night, but it had shaken down into a new pattern that some were calling “secure.”

  It was a false security, Bergen thought.

  The military cordon drew a jagged line around the city, extending into New Jersey from near Red Bank west to Bound Brook, swinging northward there along the Watchung Mountains to Paterson; then, growing increasingly erratic, it meandered over the New York-New Jersey boundary through White Plains and out to Long Island Sound north of Port Chester.

  “The Flame Wall,” people called it, taking their sense of security from the image of the wide blackened barrier beyond this land, a place where ashes drifted across mounds of ruins and the unburied bodies of those who had perished on that ground.

  Bergen did not like to think of the human deaths represented by the Flame Wall, the ones killed in its creation and the ones who had died trying to cross it into the sanctuary of New York.

  Barriers, he thought.

  Everything was barriers in this new world. Identity cards and barriers. You could be summarily shot for not possessing a valid identity card.

  Barrier Command had set the pattern.

  Within the reassurance of that label there lay a nasty sound to Bergen’s ears. He pictured the naval blockade around Ireland and Great Britain, the combined naval and land blockade around North Africa. Massive was the only word for it.

  The glowing face of Bergen’s wristwatch told him it was only 8:53 P.M., less than three hours since he had measured his press-conference performance against the evening’s television reports. The anchorman had parroted the words of the “high official.”

  “Essentially, we ignored a crucial thing happening in technology and scientific research. We failed to see the central bearing of this factor on all international affairs. To my knowledge, not a single high official in any government seriously considered that one individual alone could create such devastating chaos as this man, O’Neill, has done.”

  The next question had been anticipated and the answer carefully prepared.

  “The evidence is overwhelming that it was this John Roe O’Neill and that he acted alone.”

  They had not expected him to be open and candid about the findings in Seattle.

  “There is virtually conclusive evidence that the Ballard basement is where he concocted his devilish brew.”

  “Sir! Brew? Singular?”

  That had been a balding reporter from the Post.

  “We cannot be certain,” Bergen had admitted.

  The conference had moved then into the area that had prompted Bergen to call it, defying the President of the United States and a half-dozen prime ministers.

  North Africa and, now, the Saudis.

  “Led by the Soviet delegation,” he had told the reporters, “there is pressure for a drastic change of tactics in North Africa and surrounding regions.”

  After all of the years of carefully censoring his words, it had felt good to Bergen just to say this, speaking out truthfully and with no diplomatic embroidery.

  Let them vote me out, he thought.

  The Rommel campaign had been a clear demonstration that desert patrols could be penetrated. The British had moved in and out of Rommel’s lines. And now, the Saudi problem had to be confronted in the light of that knowledge.

  How bad was the contamination?

  Israel was threatening atomic sterilization of its “borders,” a clear Talmudic fist being shaken in the direction of Saudi Arabia.

  The only thing holding them back was the Madman’s threat. Would this atomic sterilization be considered an act against the targets of O’Neill’s revenge? There had been an untallied number of Libyans among the Mecca pilgrims.

  And what about the source of the contamination – North Africa?

  The Russians wanted a “ring of fire,” another Flame Barrier. It was their euphemism for a plan to put a linked series of outposts around the land perimeter: flamethrowers, radar, day and night air patrols…

  “Damn the cost!” they said. “We’re talking about survival!”

  The real question, though, was where would their perimeter be drawn? The Saudi problem threw this issue into high relief. Israel had its own suspicions about where the Soviet Union wanted to install its “ring of fire.”

  Hysteria is infectious, Bergen thought.

  The United States wanted a “ribbon track” of cobalt dust around the area, a radioactive moat that no life could cross and survive. This told Bergen, among other things, that the United States had squirreled away a large stockpile of such dust. He had argued that radioactive contamination of the entire Mediterranean basin would be an inevitable consequence. Israel had been outraged.

  What choice did they have? the United States had asked. What other decisions made sense now that Turkey, Lebanon, Syria and southern Italy were being written off? Only Israel remained as a fragile island of plague-free land within that contaminated region. And how plague-free were they? No outside observers were being permitted to investigate.

  As the French ambassador had said at their morning meeting: “Losses are inevitable. The sooner we accept them the better.”

  He had cited Brittany, Cyprus and Greece as his supporting arguments.

  All of this Bergen had told the press, speaking plainly and without the usual euphemisms. He had held back only on the heated argument between the French and the Israelis. Name-calling was not a new thing within the United Nations’ walls, but this had transcended past performances.

  “You are anti-Semitic animals!” the Israeli had shouted.

  Oddly, the Frenchman had responded only: “France, too, is a Mediterranean nation. Whatever we do there will have its effect upon us.”

  The Israeli would not accept this: “Don’t think you fool us! France has a long history of anti-Semitism!”

  It was understandable that tempers were short, Bergen thought. Somehow, diplomacy had to survive despite this atmosphere. They did not dare go their separate ways.

  Could Israel be relocated in the Brazilian heartland, as had been suggested?

  A new Diaspora?

  It might come to that, Bergen thought, even though Brazil said it could take no more than half of Israel’s population, and there were a multitude of strings attached to the offer. Brazil, of course, was looking at Israel’s atomic capability.

  Bergen thought of the Israelis sitting there in their desert oasis, their atom bombs wrapped in the Talmud. An excitable people, he thought. There was no telling how they might respond to such an international decision. And Brazil – had it really considered what it might be letting within its borders? It was Bergen’s opinion that Brazil would become the new Israel, that there would be no way to confine such resourceful people.

  And there were so many unknowns. What was really going on within Israel’s borders? They would have to permit outside inspection and soon.

  He put aside the Brazilian suggestion, although it had excited the media. An interesting distraction, perhaps, but the magnitude of such a move made Bergen shudder.

  As he had been expecting, the red telephone’s light came on and its chime sounded. Bergen returned to his chair and lifted the phone from its cradle.

  Prescott surprised him immediately.

  “That was a damn smart move going public that way, Hab!”

  Familiarity! Something was cooking, as the Americans were fond of saying.

  “I’m glad you think so, Adam. I must confess I was a bit uncertain of your reaction.”

  The President produced a mild chuckle. “My old mother used to say that when things start to stick to the bottom of the pot, you give it a brisk s
tir.”

  Cooking, indeed, Bergen thought. He said: “I had something on that order in my mind.”

  “Knew you did. I told Charlie that was what you were doing. Tell me, Hab, what’s your reading on this Admiral Francis Delacourt?”

  Bergen recognized the tone. Prescott was getting right to the point. Barrier Command’s chief was an obvious question mark. A lot of power sitting out there on its own in Iceland. The secretary-general did not envy Delacourt, especially now with Prescott probably gunning for him.

  “He seems to be doing a pretty good job, Adam.”

  “Pretty good?”

  “Something bothering you, Adam?” That was an advantage of the familiar, Bergen thought. You could ask the loaded question without any resort to diplomatic niceties.

  “He’s French back there somewhere, isn’t he?” Prescott asked.

  “His family came from Quebec, yes.”

  “I hear he’s a historian.”

  Bergen recalled Delacourt’s statement accepting the Barrier Command post. There had been a pedantic tone in it: “It’s the same problem the Romans had but with modern tools.”

  “My sources say he’s quite a respectable historian, Adam,” Bergen agreed.

  “Patton was a historian,” Prescott said.

  Patton? Oh, yes, the World War II tank commander. And there had been something at the time about Patton admiring the Romans.

  “Quite a few military leaders have had that hobby,” Bergen said. .

  “Bothers me,” Prescott said. “Is he going to have delusions of grandeur, too?”

  Too? Bergen wondered. Was that how Prescott thought of Patton?

  “I’ve seen no signs of that,” Bergen said.

  “I think we should keep an eye on him,” Prescott said, and then the kicker: “The Russians have just been talking to us about him. He worries them, too. And by the way, Hab, I had the devil’s own time smoothing them down. They were really upset by your off-the-record briefing today.”

  “It’s good to have you on my side, Adam.”

  “Depend on it, Hab. Well, ‘nuff said. Why don’t you get out the admiral’s general orders and have another look at them?”

  “I’ll do that, Adam. Anything special I should look for?”

  “Damn! You talk just like an American sometimes,” Prescott said. “I’ve nothing special there, nothing in mind at the moment. I just think we should start making sure he has to second-guess us, not the other way around.”

  “I’ll make it a point to give his performance my special attention,” Bergen said.

  “You do that, Hab. And while you’re at it, you might look into the rumor that Delacourt’s boys have sunk a few coffin ships with all their occupants aboard.”

  “Ahhh, I hadn’t heard that rumor, Adam. New?”

  “It just surfaced. Well, good talking to you, Hab. Long as we stay clean we may get in that golf game yet.”

  They broke the connection.

  Bergen got out his copy of Delacourt’s general orders and read them over twice. They were pretty direct.

  “If you make physical contact with any person from the Proscribed Areas, your own people will kill you or drive you onto the shore, where the inhabitants likely will do the job for us.”

  That paragraph, for instance. There was no mistaking its meaning.

  Bergen sat back and thought about Delacourt. It was pretty clear that the admiral thought of his problem as deer-stalking in the coves and inlets of those rocky coasts.

  A game?

  If so, death was the price of failure.

  “… the same problem the Romans had but with modern tools.”

  Tools? Was that how Delacourt thought of battleships and all the rest of it? Tools? All of that firepower. Then again, perhaps he was right. Caesar had probably thought in a similar way.

  And what did the coffin ships have to do with Prescott’s concerns?

  Bergen did not want to think about the coffin ships, but there was no avoiding it now. Did it matter in the larger sense if Delacourt’s people sank some of those ships with occupants aboard? Morally, yes, it mattered, but… the ships themselves were a necessity. God alone knew what the Madman might learn. He had to be obeyed. The Irish must all go back to Ireland, the Libyans back to Libya and the British back to their little island.

  It was utter madness.

  The reports made Bergen sick. Mobs hunting the poor refugees – French mobs, Spanish mobs, German mobs, Canadian mobs, American mobs, Mexican mobs, Japanese mobs… Even in China and Australia and probably everywhere else. The anguish and terror were so awful that blame had to be lodged somewhere.

  Television coverage of the wrenching embarcations had brought tears to Bergen’s eyes. He knew there were instances of brave defiance around the world, babies, women and children being hidden… but the hysteria and savagery – suicides, murders, lynchings – those were the dominant pattern.

  And we thought we were civilized.

  Coffin ships – every female aboard being sent home to certain death. And there were stories – rapes, torture… The floating prisons were forced to anchor offshore at their destinations; passengers driven ashore in small boats by gunfire.

  The secretary-general shuddered.

  The many suicides were understandable.

  Perhaps sinking the ships was a mercy.

  Sighing, Bergen turned on the single low swinglamp at the side of his desk and centered it over his blotter. Methodically, he took a notepad and wrote a brief order to an aide. Delacourt’s behavior would have to be scrutinized.

  When he had finished the order, he put both palms flat on the blotter and forced himself to think about the priorities. The Saudis and Israel – number one. Ring of fire or a cobalt moat? He feared there would be no pulling of rabbits out of hats here. Whatever they did, it would be a monumental mess. Another Kissinger comment came unbidden to Bergen’s mind:

  “The difficulties in the Middle East occurred not because the parties don’t understand each other, but in some respects, because they understand each other only too well.”

  Cobalt radioactivity would be sure to spread. The American experts admitted it. If it destroyed the usefulness of Saudi oil, would the Soviets pick up the slack as they had hinted?

  Bergen was tempted to laugh hysterically and say: “Tune in tomorrow at this same time!”

  No vapid American soap opera had ever contemplated such monumental disaster.

  A trembling anger overcame him then. Why should the secretary-general have sole responsibility for such terrible decisions? It was too much! He had to admit then that, in all honesty, he did not have sole responsibility. Decision-making worked on a different system nowadays.

  Abruptly, he turned to the red phone and lifted it out of the open drawer onto the desk, keying the sophisticated scrambler equipment as he did this.

  A United States Navy communications officer answered on the first ring. He identified himself as Lieutenant Commander Avery.

  “May I speak to the President?” Bergen asked.

  “One moment, sir. He’s at Camp David.”

  The President’s voice sounded alert and curious. “Something new come up, Hab?”

  Still familiarity. Good.

  “Adam, I forgot to ask whether the Russians discussed your cobalt suggestion when they called.”

  “Oh, glad you brought that up.” Prescott did not sound at all glad. “There’s a big argument between them and the Chinese over it. The Chinese favor our suggestion.”

  “If we decide on the cobalt, Adam, could we announce at the same time that air transport from all over the world is standing by to remove the Israelis to Brazil in an orderly manner?”

  “That’s quite a mouthful, Hab.”

  “But could we do it?”

  “You could say it but it might not be true.”

  “We must do our best. The Jews have suffered too much. We can’t abandon them.”

  “The way we did with the Greeks, the Cypriots
and some others.”

  “Those others did not have atomic weapons.”

  “That sounds rather cold-blooded,” Prescott said.

  “I don’t mean it that way. We have to address these emergencies by a priority system, which we both understand very well. Will you do your part in this, Adam?”

  “Shared responsibility,” Prescott said.

  “That’s what I had in mind, Adam.”

  “I’ll do my best, Hab.”

  As the President returned his phone to the cradle in the lounge of the main lodge at Camp David, he looked at Charlie Turkwood, who stood at the fireplace, back to the flames.

  “That son-of-a-bitch Bergen just called in his counter,” Prescott said. “And it’s a doozy.”

  The past is dead.

  – Arab proverb

  THE METAL bed of the lorry was chilling beneath John’s bare skin. He curled himself into a tight ball, his arms hugged around his chest, but the lorry’s movement jostled him and a cold wind blew through the canvas cover over the bed. They had stripped him bare on the float at Kinsale, parceling out his clothes and the contents of his pack, arguing over who would get the six French chocolate bars.

  Kevin O’Donnell had appeared uninterested in all of this, but he had kept the money and the Belgian pistol.

  “Why’re you doing this?” John had demanded.

  “Because we’re kindly men,” Kevin O’Donnell had said. “We kill anyone we catch within five hundred meters of the shore.”

  “Even if we come in from the sea?”

  “Well, me and the boys were disappointed in you, Yank. We were expecting some folks from another coffin ship, maybe a pretty woman or two.”

  One of the men stripping John said: “Not many women surviving the trip anymore.”

  They finished with him, removing even his shoes and socks. He stood, hugging himself, bare and shivering on the cold float.

  “Just be happy we’re sparing you, Yank,” Kevin O’Donnell had said. “Up y’ go, Yank. Into the lorry with him, boys. And this time, bring some of the good stuff back wi’ you.”