The Ajloun Castle ruins sat high on the hills overlooking the governorate and all of the villages. The castle stood as testament to the great warrior Saladin who pushed back the Crusaders at Ajloun, just as the Moabite King Eglon defeated the Hebrews on the same holy ground.
Surely God was showing his anger as only one village – a Christian village – suffered with unimaginable illness as no one – neither friends, neighbors nor government officials – came to their aid.
* * *
34
* * *
LyonBio
Lyon, France
Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Raines, US Navy Captain “Camp” Campbell and retired FBI agent Billy Finn were huddled in the executive offices with a much-relieved and revitalized Thierry Gaudin. The Frenchman wasn’t nearly as ready to get back to work as the three Americans were. Raines pushed hard for production schedules from manufacturing.
“Thierry, you understood the timeframe when you accepted the project.”
“Leslie, I know, but we have had set-backs and too much drama. It can’t be done. Five million doses in seven weeks? By October fifth? Impossible. We haven’t even done a human clinical trial.”
“We’ve been over this, Thierry,” Raines said as she got closer to her threshold of patience. “The human clinical can be waved. This is an emergency situation. We have no choice.”
“Not if LyonBio’s name is on the product. It must have a clinical trial.”
“How many?” Camp asked.
“One trial is sufficient I suppose, given these circumstances. But finding patients who might randomly be exposed to inhalation tularemia is not something you can just run an advert for on the Internet.”
“What about volunteers? What if we find volunteers who would be willing to take the vaccine and then be exposed to the bacteria?” Camp pressed.
Thierry smiled.
“Sure, do you really think 20 people from Lyon would be willing to take 50 Euros to see whether or not they will get infected by a bio-weapon?”
“What about three people? What if three people would take the vaccine right now and step into the pilot house to see what happens?”
Raines and Finn snapped their heads around to face Camp.
“Ah, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but change that number to two. This old boy ain’t stepping into the rabbit fever chamber,” Finn said as he got up and distanced himself from Camp.
“Camp!” Raines said quietly and directly.
“Come on, Les…did you create a vaccine-resistant tularemia or not?”
“I did.”
“And did you then create a super vaccine that kicked that bacteria’s butt?”
“Yes, but –“
“But nothing. I believed in you from the first day I met you, from the day you rescued my rear end after I borrowed 200 rats from Uncle Sam. Come on, it’ll be fun.”
“Fun? Have you gone insane?”
“Have you got a better idea?”
Raines was silent.
“Wait, even if the vaccine makes you immune from the tularemia, there’s still no way that we can manufacture, package, ship and deliver five million injectibles by early October,” Thierry said.
The reality was sinking in. The mission was too big.
“Injectibles…Les, why does it have to be a vaccine injection? Can we make these things sublingual?” Camp said as he found new energy.
“Sub what?” Finn asked.
“Sublingual, tiny droplets under the tongue,” Camp explained.
“A solution of the vaccine hits the floor of the mouth as tiny droplets,” Raines explained. “The mouth is full of high density blood cells in the mucous membranes there. Immune system cells capture the vaccine and migrate them quickly throughout the body. The impact on the lungs would be immediate. A sublingual could disseminate immunity to a broader range of organs in a faster amount of time.”
“Did you say time? We need time,” Camp said with a school-boy grin.
“It might even be better than a nasal spray. No complications in the central nervous system.”
“But would it be efficacious?” Thierry asked. “Will it work?”
“Let me worry about that,” Raines said as she stood up. “Can you produce five million sublingual doses by October first?”
Thierry dropped his head.
“There are too many variables…too many unknowns. I cannot guarantee anything.”
“But will you try?” Raines pleaded.
“Yes…I’ll try.”
Raines and Camp headed for the door as Finn followed from a distance.
“Thierry, we will need you to clear out the pilot house for a few hours tomorrow morning. There’s not enough time to test a sublingual but we can test an IM, intramuscular injection of the vaccine,” Raines said as they left the room.
Camp and Raines walked past the personal protective equipment staging area and over to the vapor-locked door leading into the BSL-3 chamber inside the pilot house as Finn went into the control room. Two LyonBio employees were sitting at their chairs, studying charts and more likely than not talking about Bernard. They didn’t realize that the ‘janitor’ was now in the room. Finn saw all that he needed to know, just as Raines had told him. Because of contamination to their clothing, skin and hair, Camp and Raines couldn’t go into the chamber like monkeys. The red lever would activate the misting system that pulled the vaccine resistant strain of the tularemia bacterium out of the holding tank. Six seconds later a fine mist would fill breathing tubes directly into their lungs as they would have to pinch their nostrils to avoid general release of the toxins. Finn’s job was easy. He was supposed to release a toxin, a bio-weapon recipe that Raines had cooked up, an enhanced tularemia concoction that had never before existed on the earth naturally. More than an illness producing bacteria, the weapon had lethal potential, especially among the weakest who inhaled the microbes.
Finn could only hope that the vaccine was more powerful than the poison.
Raines and Camp paused at the vapor-lock doors as other employees came and went. She pulled two syringes out of her lab coat and handed one to Camp. She rolled up her sleeve and tore open an alcohol swab and cleaned her arm. Camp paused then carefully stuck the needle into her arm, pushing the plunger in gently as the vaccine worked its way into her system. Camp pulled his sleeve up and dabbed his own skin with another swab. Raines pulled the cap off the needle and injected the vaccine into US Navy Captain “Camp” Campbell.
Finn walked out of the command center and joined them by the door.
“I’m going to head to the lab and get started on the sublingual,” Raines said. “I’ve got to do a lot of research and make several calls. Let’s call it as 0930 hours tomorrow morning. I want these vaccines to bake in our bodies for 24-hours.”
“Aye, aye ma’am.”
“Camp…this is an attenuated vaccine derived from avirulent Francisella tularensis. It’s not dense, and it’s not pathogenic. But it’s not Type B either. It’s a hybrid. I want you to take these with you.”
Camp held out his hand as Raines loaded him up with some tablets.
“If you get sick, feel the least bit odd, take the streptomycin. If you feel real bad, chances are that I will too. Finn get him back here immediately, and we’ll hook up two doxycycline IV’s and see if we can knock it down.”
“Les, why don’t we just stay together?” Camp said with a hint of romantic intention.
“I’m racing against the clock, sailor. I need you and your sorry-ass FBI friend to get out of my hair.”
Raines winked at Finn as Camp reached out to touch her hand before the two men walked out of the pilot house and into the parking lot for the ride back to the Hilton Lyon Hotel.
General Ferguson got the SIPRNET email Camp sent from his hotel room just as he and the coffee-pouring majors were about to head over to the DFAC for dinner.
“SITREP: Sir, everything back on track with LyonBio. Human clinical trial underway. Slight
change of plans for delivery method. Not enough time for injectibles, so Raines is back in the lab creating a sublingual version. It’s within the realm of possible / hopeful. V/R, Camp.”
LyonBio
Lyon, France
Dressed in her white lab coat, Raines was busy concocting a sublingual version of her tularemia vaccine. Once she had perfected it, Thierry Gaudin knew that she would need to put four more rhesus monkeys back into the pilot house BSL-3 chamber just to make sure under-the-tongue droplets really worked.
Thierry was already working his rosary beads and praying for the health of monkeys.
Camp and Finn arrived at her lab just before 9:00am. They were carrying their backpacks.
“Ready?” Raines asked as she put her work down and checked her watch.
“You’re already at it, Raines?” Finn asked.
“What makes you think I ever went back to my apartment last night?” she said. “I can sleep when I’m dead.”
She noticed Camp’s pack on the floor. “Going somewhere sailor?”
“I had a call last night…from a friend Finn and I met up in the Hindu Kush…he needs to speak with me, Les. He wouldn’t say what, but he’s pretty bent out of shape.”
“So you’re heading back to the Hindu Kush?”
“Not exactly, we’re going to hook up in the Middle East.”
Raines dropped her face into her hands.
“Oh, good, the Middle East…well that narrows it down for me. Why didn’t you just say that in the first place, Camp?”
Raines stormed off and pulled some data up on her computer screen.
“Geez, you’re a bit on edge this morning.”
“Sorry, just trying to invent a sublingual vaccine to save a few million people. Normal hectic day at the office, sorry, my bad.”
“You’ve got everything under control here, Les. What are we supposed to do? Just stand around and watch you think?”
“Under control? You and I are about to inhale a poisonous toxin. In five hours we might be in the local emergency room. Hell, we could be in the morgue for all I know. And you think you’re going to have a little dose of inhalation bio-weapon and just be on your way to the airport!”
“Ah, I’m gonna go grab a mocha, anybody want one?” Finn said as neither Camp nor Raines acknowledged his departure.
“Maybe you’ve forgotten, but you are on a federal ‘do not fly’ list into Israel. Have you noticed that most people aren’t thrilled with your freelance work? Count me in as one of them.”
“I’m not flying to Israel, Leslie.”
“Well, that sure narrows down the choices, then.”
“Les, I found an Army major with a slug in his brain, stuffed in a frozen shed. He was a gynecologist for God’s sake, two kids and a wife…a private practice back in Pennsylvania…it’s the least I can do for the guy.”
“Camp, you were sent to Lyon…to assist me…need I remind you that you received a direct order?”
“I’ve been assisting you, Les. Seriously, what more can I do for you? I even let you stick me with the vaccine and became your human guinea pig. If you haven’t figured out that I’m crazy about you yet, then you never will.”
Camp picked up his backpack and headed to the door. For the first time he second-guessed himself. Maybe he couldn’t be the man, let alone the friend, that Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Raines deserved, much less needed.
“Let’s get this over with,” Camp said as he pulled a water bottle out of his pack. Camp felt foolish and dejected. Raines was out of his league. She had all the intellectual heft and measured her pace with precision. He was just a former SEAL, a knock-the-doors-down sort of a guy, who left piles of debris for others to clean up when the mission was over.
Raines didn’t budge. “How crazy?”
Camp turned around and softened a bit. He grasped at any sign of hope.
“Insane crazy, Les…I love you.”
Her lower lip started to quiver as she folded her lab coat-covered arms against her chest. Tears dripped down Leslie’s cheeks. Camp dropped his bag, moved in close and held her tightly. Tugging her buried face up from his chest Camp kissed her lips as a familiar voice thundered from the corridor and into the lab.
“Three freaking Euros for this little coffee. Damn French,” Finn spouted as he walked in, observed the embrace and kiss, then spun a quick u-turn. “Geez! Pick your poison guys, love or rabbit fever? It’s 0930, the pilot house is ours. Are we going to do this thing, or not!”
Finn walked out of Leslie’s office followed by Camp and Raines as they walked the short corridor to the pilot house. Finn took his place in the control room. Thierry had cleared out all employees and sat next to Finn.
Two transparent and clear vinyl breathing tubes protruded out of the inner chamber of the pilot house and into the personal protective equipment staging area. Camp put the breathing tube in his mouth and pinched his nostrils. Raines closed her eyes, said a quick prayer, and did the same. Both nodded to the control room.
Finn reached for the red lever and gently pulled it down.
* * *
35
* * *
Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania
Seabury and Ruth Campbell were sitting in their living room watching the evening news on CBS. Old Sea Bee was sitting in his well-worn recliner. A 1970s era metal folding TV tray was propped up in front of his chair with a half-eaten bowl of vanilla ice cream starting to melt. Every 30 seconds or so Sea Bee would pick up the crossword puzzle book that Ruth had picked up for him in the checkout line at the Dollar General. He never wrote in the book, but he picked it up frequently. He never saw anything on the pages, but he looked each time. He studied it, always looking for something.
Ruth sat in her velour rocker next to Sea Bee working her long-needled hook crochet project. The ladies’ auxiliary at the church had a bizarre the first Saturday of every month to help support the benevolence fund. Hundreds of people in the county were unemployed. Many families were losing their homes to foreclosure. Gasoline prices were rising at the pump. The trucks that hauled milk from the farms to the processors and then out to the stores were paying almost 50-cents more per gallon than the previous year. The cost of milk shot up as did the cost of bread, eggs and flour and just about everything else in the aisles at every supermarket. Now, it seemed like there was no end in sight as to how high fuel prices might climb. The Keystone Pipeline from Canada was stuck on paper thanks to an aquifer in Nebraska. Libyan oil production was uncertain after the execution of one dictator and a revolution by rebels. Another dictator controlled oil production in South America while many there hoped for a new crop of rebels with similar intent. American forces crossed their fingers as military convoys exited Iraq and entered Kuwait, all the while hoping that oil fields would produce rather than burn. American farmers put their corn crops into ethanol production which sent the cost of consumption corn through the roof.
And then there was Iran. They refused to sell anymore oil to the United Kingdom or France in a pre-emptive move as European Union nations prepared to punish Iran with crippling sanctions. Iran tried to sell their over-production to fossil-fuel-hungry India until Turkish refineries stepped in and rejected Iranian crude. Saudi Arabia increased oil production and supply, but OPEC prices per barrel spiked and jumped on a trajectory that might not level off. The economic boom in China created what most had doubted would ever happen: a burgeoning middle class of more than 300 million Chinese to go along with one billion other peasants and aristocrats. As the middle class expanded, the taste for luxury, automobiles, modern appliances and food with animal protein skyrocketed. The entire world coveted energy, massive amounts of energy, and the world was just beginning to realize what the residents from Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania already knew. There wasn’t enough supply to meet the demand. There weren’t enough jobs to pay for that demand and not enough pay to satisfy the bankers who demanded that mortgages be satisfied.
But the world had one commodity that
was in abundant supply: uncertainty.
Ruth thought about all of it. The more she thought, the faster her crochet hook moved.
Sea Bee picked up the crossword puzzle book then set it down. He wasn’t thinking at all.
“And from Brussels today,” the CBS News anchorman reported as Ruth looked up and Sea Bee stared straight ahead, “the Secretary of Defense is speculating that Israel may launch a pre-emptive first strike on Iran soon. The leak by the Defense Secretary is widely seen as an attempt to publicly pressure Israel to give sanctions and diplomacy more time to work. Israel, on the other hand, may be concluding that the window of first strike opportunity is rapidly closing. Experts fear that the Iranians may have stored enough enriched uranium in underground facilities to make as many as six nuclear weapons.”
“This is a real mess,” Ruth said as she watched the news and talked back to the television.
“Israel, meanwhile, is testing their ‘iron dome’ anti-ballistic missile defense system over Tel Aviv. With longer range rockets being produced by Iran and supplied to militants in the Gaza Strip, Tel Aviv is now within rocket range. Israel Defense Forces claim they could have a 75-percent kill rate of incoming Iranian rockets.”
“Junior’s over there somewhere, you know,” Ruth said to Sea Bee who did not respond.
“According to senior Israeli government officials, more than 200,000 rockets and missiles are pointed at Israel by enemy countries every day,” the news continued.
“They’re gonna just blow that place up, aren’t they?” Ruth said.
“While UN sanctions are starting to sting within the increasingly isolated Iranian regime, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs told a press briefing at the Pentagon today that he believes Iran is still a rational actor and will eventually get in line with the will of the world community.”
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