Bioterror! (an Ell Donsaii story #14)

by Laurence Dahners

  Adin took great care not to use the library’s electronic resources. He never asked the librarian for advice. He avoided the employee’s eyes. He spent his time in a corner on the third floor, reading about smallpox and cowpox in printed versions of textbooks and journal articles. Though sadly the library stocked fewer and fewer journals in print form as the years went by, every one he found in print meant one less electronic access that might be tracked by Homeland Security if they were watching for someone who was too interested in smallpox. Fortunately, they seemed to still be stocking new versions of major textbooks.

  Adin used an elderly tablet on which he’d disabled the internet connection to take photographs of pages he thought he might need to refer to in the future. The tablet was encrypted, an encryption for which he used a very long and highly secure password.

  All these efforts—reading only print versions, staying off the Internet, keeping documents on a single encrypted and unconnected device—were directed toward keeping any government surveillance systems from recognizing how intently he was studying the two viruses. When he did have to search for information he couldn’t find in print form, he used AIs at the public libraries around town, signing in as any one of a number of other people. He’d invested significant effort in watching for and committing to memory the sign in information of a number of complete strangers.

  Though his soul felt impatient, he regularly reminded himself that he was playing the long game and should never be rushed.

  Instead of walking directly to his car, he detoured and stopped at a corner. There he looked at three different directions as if puzzled, then hesitantly turned to the north. After walking about thirty feet, he stopped, looked about, then started back to the south. Fifty feet to the south, he turned between two buildings and stopped.

  Ten minutes later, another man entered the other end of the gap between the two buildings. As agreed, they met in a dark alcove. “Harvey?” the man said.

  To complete the query and response, Adin said, “No, Marley.” He stepped forward and felt the man’s head to make sure he wore no AI. Then he handed the man the end of a length of surgical tubing and mimed putting it in his ear. Once the man was holding it in place, Adin spoke quietly into the rubber cup at the other end of the tube. “You’re from Islam-Akbar?” The man nodded, a puzzled expression on his face. Adin continued, “Speak to me through this so we can be certain no microphones pick up our conversation.” He handed the cup to the man and took the end of the tube to insert hold to his own ear.

  The man said, “You are ready for jihad?” He held the cup out to Adin

  Without taking the cup Adin merely nodded, slipping his left hand into his coat pocket and around his pistol.

  The man lifted the cup again, “Are you willing to wear a suicide vest?”

  Adin shook his head and took the cup. “I’m building a weapon much, much more powerful than a suicide vest,” Adin said. “Can you deliver it?” In the dim light he couldn’t assess the man’s reaction and wondered once again how he could be certain the man didn’t belong to Homeland Security. True, Adin had found him through one of his dead son’s contacts, but of course he couldn’t be sure that the contact hadn’t been the one responsible for his son’s exposure, capture, and death. Adin slid off the pistol’s safety.

  After a long pause, the man took the cup again. He said, “A larger bomb?”

  Adin shook his head.

  “Chemical or nuclear weapon?”

  Adin shook his head again.

  “A disease?” the man breathed.

  Adin nodded and took the cup, “It’ll kill billions of the unbelievers.”

  “It will kill believers too, no?”

  Adin shrugged as he took the cup again, “Yes, some noble sacrifices. We’ll vaccinate our people before releasing it.”

  The man stood motionlessly for minutes as Adin’s finger tightened slowly and inexorably on the trigger. Finally the man took the cup. He said, “I’ll have to talk to others. Contact me again in a week.”

  ***

  Adin felt proud as he walked down the street, thinking that the research phase of his task might well be done. After extensive review of every relevant piece of printed literature that he could access, as well as careful perusal of a few papers he could only find online and therefore’d had to read in various public libraries, he believed that he’d identified a pivotal enzyme produced by both Variola major and Variolae vaccinae. Different isoforms of this enzyme seem to be associated with the virulence of the species in which they were found. A highly virulent smallpox virus isolated in Bangladesh in 1975 had an isoform at one end of the spectrum while the most benign form of the vaccination version of cowpox had an isoform of the enzyme that fell at the other end of the spectrum.

  A second fruit of his investigation had been recognition that one of the proteins coded for by the viral DNA in both viruses was associated with respiratory expression and therefore communicability.

  A little genome editing should produce a more benign cowpox and a more malignant smallpox, both of which were more easily spread by respiratory transmission.

  Finally, he knew which proteins the two viruses shared and believed that he’d identified the ones on the external surface of the virus which were recognized by the human immune system. He could cut out and insert modifications of the genes for those proteins in his more lethal variola strain and simply insert modifications of the proteins in his milder Variolae vaccinae. When his version of smallpox began to ravage the nonbelievers, it wouldn’t be recognized by antibodies created by vaccination using old Variolae vaccinae strains that various governments might have on hand and attempt to use to save their people. His own Variolae vaccinae strains would produce immunity in believers to both the old form of smallpox and the new. Thus he could produce documentation of the success of his research into a new means for vaccination with his Variolae vaccinae and talk it up as a safer, better strain for vaccination. He could even justify growing up and freeze-drying large quantities of it. He’d just have to be certain that it didn’t actually get released to any governments.

  He adjusted his scarf so that it covered the lower part of his face before he turned in to the burger joint. He stood and briefly appraised the menu before approaching and speaking to the pimply faced kid behind the counter. “Sorry, the PGR chip on my AI seems to have crapped out. Can I place my order here at the counter?”

  The pimply kid behind the counter produced a surly looking nod. Adin stepped close to one of the microphones suspended above the counter to pick up requests from the employees and spoke quietly. Since all of the employees appeared to be busy and no other customers were at the counter, the first thing he did was to ask the AI to send a message to a number Adin had memorized. Once it acknowledged that request, he rattled off GPS coordinates as a simple string of numbers that ran right into a string of numbers for the date and time. He’d meet his contact at a spot one block south of that location, one hour before that time. Because he’d practiced reeling off the numbers, it took him well under a minute. Then he placed his order almost as rapidly and turned to find a seat.

  Adin casually kept an eye on the worker bees behind the counter. When a large cluster of people entered the restaurant, passing between himself and the counter, he exited behind them without getting his food or paying. Paying would’ve left behind identifying numbers with which he could be tracked. A pit formed in his stomach over the fact that if someone did track the call to the restaurant, they could presumably go over the surveillance video and acquire Adin’s face. He’d tried to keep his face turned away from the cameras he knew about, but even a side or overhead view might let them identify him.

  He sternly reminded himself that such stores tended to record over the files from those cameras after a few days. After all, the employees tended to be unhappy if big brother kept a permanent record of their hijinks and misadventures, often erasing drives themselves if it wasn’t scheduled.

  ***

/>   NASA, Houston, Texas—D5R and NASA reported today that Phillip Zabrisk—the first person to have been transported by port when he was returned from Mars after an injury—has survived the experience without apparent ill effects. The results of extensive testing have not found a reduction of his intelligence, a feared consequence of porting that had been noted during animal testing.

  Before you get your hopes up that you might soon be porting to exotic locations, please know that extensive preparations including an extended period under general anesthesia were required to achieve this result. It has been the conclusion of all investigators studying Mr. Zabrisk’s outcome that porting of human beings should be reserved for emergency situations in the foreseeable future…

  Adin watched uncomfortably as Ibn Sinar brought the hard-looking man into the room. Ostensibly, Adin was at this lawyer’s office to write his will. Since the death of his son, he had no one to whom he wished to leave any of his worldly possessions. Therefore, the writing of his will was of virtually no consequence.

  This lawyer had assured him that it was quite normal for a client and his attorney to have multiple meetings during the drafting of a will. Those meetings would provide a cover for his meetings with this man who’d serve as Adin’s conduit to the great jihad which Islam-Akbar was assembling around his virus.

  The attorney bowed and left the room. Adin turned to the other man, “Hello, I am…”

  The other man cut him off with a gesture, “Let us dispense with pleasantries. We are here on the business of jihad and should not waste time on other topics.”

  The man’s gaze was intense. Adin committed himself to a holy war and told himself that he cared nothing for his own life but that it contribute to the elimination of nonbelievers. Nonetheless, he found himself swallowing nervously. What if I am found wanting by this man? he wondered as he nodded.

  The man said, “You’re sure that your virus will kill large numbers of people?”

  Adin shrugged and spoke truth, “Fairly certain. It needs to be tested in cynomolgus macaques.”

  “Sinna what?”

  “Monkeys. Cynomolgus macaques are used in a lot of laboratories and they’re susceptible to smallpox. They’re a pest in Southeast Asia so it shouldn’t be hard to obtain some.”

  The man narrowed his eyes, “Why haven’t you tested it yourself?”

  “If I ordered some monkeys and started killing them with smallpox I’d be in prison. I wouldn’t be much use to Islam-Akbar there.”

  “So what, we gather some monkeys and inject them with this smallpox you’ve grown?”

  Adin studied the man, wondering whether he was sophisticated enough to understand what’d need to be done. “I’ll explain what needs to be done in general. This plan can be modified depending on what materials you can get access to.”

  The man nodded slowly.

  Adin continued, “You’ll need two boats, twenty monkeys, and someone with some medical training. Both boats should have radio controlled explosive breaching charges. They go far out to sea with ten monkeys in each of two separate rooms on one of the boats. Everyone on board the boats and ten of the monkeys get vaccinated with the protective virus. Five days later all twenty monkeys get injected with the smallpox virus. Twelve days after that the ten monkeys that didn’t get vaccinated should be dead. The other ten monkeys and all of the people should be fine. If so, the people return in the second boat and the explosive charge sinks the boat with the monkeys. If the people complain of getting sick, you sink both boats and I start over. This way you’ll have proof of the effectiveness of the vaccine and the danger of the virus.”

  “And then you think we’re going to go around the world injecting the virus into all the billions of nonbelievers?”

  “Monkeys are much harder to kill with the virus than humans. Humans should catch it if we spray it into the air, then they should spread it from one to another by coughing and touching.”

  The man studied Adin for a few minutes, then he said, “This virus of yours, it’s different from the smallpox virus that killed people in the past, yes?”

  Adin nodded, “The original smallpox killed about thirty percent of people it infected. This one should kill a significantly higher percentage.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  Adin shrugged, “Then I’ll need to change it.”

  “So, it needs to be tested in people?”

  Adin nodded.

  “Where’re we going to do that?” He curled his lip, “We don’t have a prison where we can do such experiments on the inmates.”

  Adin said, “Drop an aerosol sprayer from a helicopter onto North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal. It’s populated by the Sentinelese who’ve avoided contact with other peoples for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. A flyover a few weeks later should tell you whether there’re any survivors since they generally come out and shoot arrows at any helicopters.”

  The man seemed surprised to learn that there were people so isolated, but then Adin himself had been surprised to learn of them. After a moment, he said, “And how do we check to be sure the vaccination provides protection?”

  “If it works in monkeys, it should work in people.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  “If you want to be sure, you’ll need to test it in some people. I’ll leave that to you, but realize that if the smallpox gets out of your control before the day we’ve chosen to release it, someone may be able to create a vaccine quickly enough to make all our efforts pointless.”

  “Why can’t they do that when we do release it?”

  “When we release it, we’ll do it using D5R’s damned ports. Before the release, you can place them by the thousands in the cities of the unbelievers, all around the world. We’ll release the deadly virus by blowing it out of those ports as a highly concentrated aerosol, everywhere, all at once. I’m sure they will eventually generate a vaccine, but not until after hundreds of millions… and more likely billions are dead.”

  The man stared at Adin and this time he was the one who swallowed as if in fear. After a long pause, he continued, “And what’ll we tell the believers when we’re going around vaccinating them?”

  Adin shook his head, “We won’t tell them. You shouldn’t tell anybody or there will be leaks. Your warriors will drop off ports all around the world without knowing why, or even knowing that they’re fighting a battle. You could even give them a false story that you’re using the ports to sample the air to determine whether the nonbelievers are fouling it. Months ahead of time we’ll place the same kind of ports in the major cities of the faithful and, elsewhere, just in the mosques. They’ll release the vaccine virus slowly in low concentrations so that it won’t overwhelm anyone.”

  The man drew back, “But then it’ll protect some of the nonbelievers… And some of the believers won’t be protected by it!”

  Adin shrugged again, “You’re right, it won’t be perfect. Some will sacrifice their lives in this great battle, as in every other battle since the beginning of time. Every war has unintended casualties and fails to kill all of the enemy, but the world will be a vastly different place afterward.”

  The man sat back thinking for a time. He leaned forward, “You say we’ll release the vaccine months ahead of time?”

  Adin nodded.

  “Why? It’s just more time for the great Satan to realize what we’re doing and respond.”

  “The severity of an illness produced by exposure to a virus depends to a large degree on how many viral particles you’re exposed to. If we expose people to just a few particles of the lethal smallpox version, many of them will survive. On the other hand, if we release the vaccine virus in high concentrations, even it will kill some people. If people start dying, the medical establishment will investigate and likely figure out what’s happening. They may even be able to develop a vaccine to prevent our vaccination version that’ll protect people against our smallpox version. Therefore, we must release the vaccine version in low con
centrations over long periods of time so that people can develop immunity to it without becoming overtly sick. Even at this low concentration, some people will become ill. Health agencies will eventually begin to respond and, when they do, we must be prepared to release the great death immediately.”

  ***

  Feeling a rising sense of his own power, Adin sat down to wait for his next meeting with the man from Islam-Akbar. When he’d last met the man, Adin hadn’t told him that Adin’d only worked out a plan for modifications to the two viruses and tested of some of the steps. Now however, he’d actually successfully excised and replaced the genes for the virulence factors and the protein coat in both viruses. Growing the viruses in the immortalized HeLa line of human cells, he’d to his delight proven that a modified enzyme he’d inserted into their genomes rendered both viruses resistant to tecovirimat, cidofoviran and two other antiviral medications that were active against the pox viruses.

  Finally, with what he thought of as a stroke of genius, he’d inserted a gene sequence into the vaccination virus. When this version of the cowpox virus infected human cells, it rendered them incapable of replicating the virus in the presence of the bovine thyroid hormone which was present in bovine serum. Since culture of the human cells in which the vaccinia virus was generally produced was usually done in bovine serum, this’d mean that they’d have to be grown in a different medium. However, if someone recognized that Islam-Akbar had released the vaccinia virus in Islamic areas to protect its own people and they tried to grow up that virus to protect their people, they’d almost certainly try to grow the virus in bovine serum. When it didn’t grow, he hoped that it might take them weeks or even months to realize that bovine serum was the problem.