by John Lyman
“I beg your pardon?” Diaz responded, looking up at John like he was a waiter that had just spilled coffee on an expensive dinner jacket.
“You were talking earlier about something called a mouse pox.”
“Oh, yes ... of course. I was talking about the method Rene’s team of molecular biologists and virologists used to engineer the pathogen. The story behind the discovery is quite fascinating, actually.”
“We have the time, Doctor,” Lev said. “We still have six more hours of flight time before we cross over the Central American coast and head north.”
“I think I need to stretch my legs and have a drink first.” Diaz stood and walked to the front of the plane before returning with a bottle of Merlot and several glasses. As he poured the wine and handed it out, he surveyed the surprised faces staring back at him and smiled. It seemed that Dr. Diaz possessed some social graces after all.
“Ok, let me explain,” Diaz said, leaning back on the bench-like seat. “Viruses are some of the most ancient life forms on the planet, and all pox diseases are viruses. There are hundreds, if not thousands of poxviruses that occur in nature. They infect almost every species known to man. Besides mouse pox, there is cow pox, monkey pox, deer pox, horse pox, canary pox ... the list is endless. There’s even dolphin pox and gerbil pox ... even snakes catch snake pox. Insects are really affected by pox viruses. In fact, many are starting to believe that modern-day vertebrates are actually descendants of insect pox viruses. Viruses are an essential part of nature, because if all the viruses on the planet were to disappear, insects would overwhelm the planet and destroy our ecosystem. Viruses are nature’s fail-safe system to prevent overcrowding, so you can see why there’s so much interest in them, which brings me to the Poxvirus Symposium.”
“The Poxvirus Symposium?” Leo asked.
“Yes, Cardinal. Back in 2002, an American microbiologist was attending the International Poxvirus Symposium in Montpellier, France. The event was held at Le Corum, the largest conference center in the city, because over six hundred poxvirus experts from around the world had been invited. The lobby was filled to capacity with scientists displaying their research on large posters ...you know, the way kids do in science fairs at school. Anyway, the microbiologist bumped into another American researcher he knew and the two just happened to be standing next to a poster describing the research being done in Australia by the Co-operative Research Center for the Biological Control of Pest Animals. The Aussies were using viruses in an attempt to slow the large population increase of mice, specifically the mouse pox virus, which is closely related to smallpox but cannot infect humans. The Australians had been infecting mice with a mouse pox they had engineered to make the mice sterile, but instead, to the researcher’s surprise, it killed them.”
“Doesn’t mouse pox kill mice anyway?” Ariella asked.
“No, mice have a natural resistance to mouse pox, and although it can make them sick, it usually doesn’t kill them, but just to be safe, the researchers had vaccinated some of them as a precaution. They were shocked to discover that their engineered virus not only killed all of the naturally resistant mice, but wiped out sixty percent of the vaccinated ones as well.”
Lev leaned closer so he could hear Diaz over the background noise of the roaring engines outside the window. “What happened?”
“The Aussies had added a single foreign gene, the mouse IL-4 gene, to the natural mouse pox virus. It produced a cytokine that acted as a signal to the immune system, so by inserting a single foreign mouse gene into a natural mouse pox, their scientists had created a vaccine-resistant pox that was super lethal to mice.”
“What’s this got to do with humans?”
“Those two American scientists at the symposium also noticed a Russian scientist looking at the same poster, and they knew right away that the world was in trouble. If an engineered pox can smash through a vaccine made for mice, then an engineered pox could do the same thing to humans. As with a lot of discoveries, the Australians had accidentally stumbled on a way to genetically engineer any poxvirus so that it would remain unaffected by vaccines. In other words, they had given the world a way to weaponize a virus against a vaccinated population that thought it was safe. Against a new, engineered version of the smallpox virus, no one would have immunity. A world that had been vaccinated against smallpox would now be vulnerable, and that’s exactly what the Russians counted on when they went to work creating a new, engineered strain of smallpox we have no vaccine for.”
“Unbelievable!” Leo exclaimed. “I had no idea.”
“Holy shit!” Alon said. Everyone turned and looked at him. “Sorry, Cardinal.”
“That’s ok, Alon ... I happen to agree with your observation.” Leo paused as the enormity of what Diaz had just told them began to sink in. “It’s hard to believe that anyone would stoop to these kinds of tactics in the name of national defense.”
“People have been doing it for thousands of years, Cardinal,” Diaz said, “ever since the Hittites drove victims of the plague across their borders into enemy lands.”
“I always thought that the first time people used disease as a weapon was back in the 18th century,” John said. “You know, during the Indian Rebellion, when the British gave the Native American population in Canada blankets contaminated with smallpox.”
Diaz smiled. “Oh, heavens no. It’s been speculated that the Black Death that spread over Europe in the 14th century was the result of a primitive form of biological warfare used during the siege of the Crimean in 1346. The attacking Mongol forces catapulted plague-ridden bodies of Mongol warriors of the Golden Horde over the city walls, triggering an outbreak of plague that eventually spread across the entire continent.”
Lev got tired of swaying in the turbulence and took a seat next to Diaz. “So, Dr. Diaz, it’s your opinion that Rene’s scientists used a mouse pox to, in effect, weaponize their pathogen?”
“Yes, but it gets worse.”
“Worse?”
“Apparently, instead of using the ordinary form of the virus, they used the hemorrhagic form as their basis. It’s a virus I’ve never seen before, and I’ve seen just about every virus on the planet. Then they mated it with a variant of the H1N1 Flu virus before including a genetic trigger that’s pulled when someone ingests the genetically modified wheat.”
“And why exactly is that worse?”
“Because a flu virus is much more unstable than a pox virus ... in other words, it has a vastly greater potential to mutate, thus rendering it unpredictable outside the lab.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Probably because it was easy to obtain and spreads through the air more quickly. They’ve created quite a nasty little bug. It’s almost like an airborne Ebola, and there’s no defense against it, natural or otherwise.”
“But those who don’t eat the wheat should be safe,” Lev said. “I mean, we just have to destroy their wheat fields ... right?”
“For now, Professor. However, like I said, this new bug they’ve created has the potential to mutate outside the lab. The only thing that will prevent that from happening is a failsafe mechanism inside the virus that gives it a very short life span once it’s exposed to the outside atmosphere.”
“What do you know about the failsafe mechanism, Dr. Diaz?”
“Quite a bit, actually, Professor. I was one of the scientists who developed it.”
Diaz looked up at all of the shocked faces staring back at him. “I believe I need another drink.”
As soon as Diaz had his drink before him, he took a deep breath and continued. “When I was working for the Acerbi Corporation, all of our research was compartmentalized. It was beginning to feel like we were all working in a top secret government research facility. We were told we were doing research with the goal of looking for new antiviral drugs, so we started playing around with different variants of the same virus ... specifically, the one I had never seen before.” Diaz paused to take a sip of wine before
continuing.
“Some of the viruses we created began to mutate, causing differing symptoms in our research animals. Some contracted the more common respiratory form of the illness, while others began to show neurological symptoms. They wanted us to isolate and save all the different viruses we had created, even though some of us were beginning to worry about the possibility that we were creating unstable pathogens that had the potential to mutate into something truly monstrous. It’s my belief that this is the reason the pathogen behaves differently in each new attack. They’re using those differing variants, making it harder for scientists to trace the pathogen back to the original virus. In other words, Acerbi is making it more difficult to follow his trail by using viruses with a slightly different DNA signature, even though basically they all come from the same mother virus.”
“But what about the failsafe mechanism?” Lev asked.
“We refused to go any further until they allowed us to engineer a failsafe code into the DNA that made it impossible for it to spread from person to person after the initial release. The virus particles themselves became harmless a few hours after they came into contact with the atmosphere. As a constant, we used the atmosphere we all experience at sea level, where the oxygen level hovers around twenty percent. I eventually left the program in protest, as did others, because they weren’t listening to us. They wanted to manipulate the failsafe mechanisms we had put into place to make it last longer. From what I could tell in the short time I had in the lab this morning, someone changed the failsafe mechanism we developed. I only hope they got it right, because if the one they developed fails, which is very likely considering the way in which it appears to have been engineered, then it’s only a matter of time before we are all at risk, no matter what we eat. Our only hope is to find where they’ve hidden all the different strains of the virus and kill it all.”
CHAPTER 50
While Diaz discussed poxviruses in the back of the plane, the Special Forces soldiers of Team 5 were relaxing in the front section of the specially modified Boeing C-17. Their time in France had been short. After being on the ground for less than twenty-four hours, they were speeding to a classified location for a mission that was still unclear. Such was the life of a Special Forces soldier. Move, adjust, move again ... all without being seen. But this time things were different. Something big was about to happen. The soldiers could feel it.
Looking through one of the jets small round windows, Ben could see a swarm of unmarked, desert camouflage-painted planes flying all around them. Off the tip of their right wing, he saw four more Boeing C-17 Globemasters, all flying in formation, while off to their left, he could see two air-refueling tankers, plus a fighter escort consisting of six Israeli F-15’s. He knew from experience that the cargo planes held more specially-trained troops, along with their armored vehicles, a few MH-60 Blackhawk helicopters, and enough supplies and weapons to launch a small war.
Speeding across the Atlantic with a heightened sense of urgency, this aerial armada was headed to a government airfield far from prying eyes deep in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. The construction of the airfield had been funded by the American CIA back in the days of the Cold War, and for years it had sat deserted, its wooden buildings baking in the sun, until a private company based in Nevada had leased the property from the General Accounting Office to test new drone aircraft they were developing for the military.
After flying over the Isthmus of Panama, the formation flew out over the Pacific Ocean before turning north and heading straight up the center of the Sea of Cortez. After descending to a height of fifty feet, they continued wave hopping over the water to avoid radar until they crossed an isolated stretch of beach forty miles west of the condos that followed the water’s edge in the resort town of Puerto Peñasco, Mexico. From there, they continued their low altitude, high speed run over the desert, skirting towering, rock tumbled mountains ringed with cactus, until finally they crossed over the international border into Arizona.
The primary reason for the aircraft’s stealthy approach was to avoid alerting the Mexican government to their presence, but there was another reason. They wanted to test the Mexican’s air defense capability. As predicted, nothing happened.
Now, as the glow from the lights of the desert city of Tucson, Arizona illuminated the dark sky off their right, they went to high alert. Entering U.S. airspace was a much different proposition than entering Mexican airspace, and within minutes, they were surrounded by American fighter jets of every description, including F-16’s, F-15’s, and the new F-22 Joint Strike Fighter. Wagging their wings in greeting, the American fighters peeled off and headed back to their bases. This brief encounter with American Forces had also been anticipated by the Israelis, for on this occasion, their crossing of the U.S. border at night had been cleared by the President of the United States following an urgent phone call from the Prime Minister of Israel.
Flying north over the Superstition Mountains, the pilot of the lead fighter jet began scanning the darkness below for signs of their destination field. Entering a coded radio frequency into his flight computer, he clicked his microphone switch once, and immediately a row of intense white lights along both sides of a long runway began switching on, revealing a glowing ribbon of paved desert that lay stretched out before him. Seconds later, at the approach end of the runway, another set of lights erupted in an arrow-like line of sequenced flashes that pointed the way to their landing spot. Pilots who were long on nerve and short on fuel referred to the running flashes of light as the rabbit, because it ran along the ground and pointed the way to safety when they were forced to make a landing at an unfamiliar field on a dark and turbulent night.
Circling down to land in pairs, the desert air was still warm when the planes whistled to a stop in front of a row of wooden WWII era hangars. The first men to emerge from the planes into the dry stillness could see bats flitting beneath the halogen lights by the hangars, while in the distance, a ring of dark jagged shapes rose from the desert floor, blotting out the star-filled sky along the horizon, a clear sign that this isolated base was encircled by a ring of tall mountains.
John stretched as he breathed in the warm, dry air. “Our ranch is a couple of hundred miles on the other side of those mountains. I suddenly have a craving for some Mexican food.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for some MRE’s until the cooks set something up in one of the hangars,” Lev said. “I heard they’ll be making a little foray into town in the morning to buy some extra supplies. I can slip them a special request if you care to make a list. I love Mexican food. Be sure to write down corn tortillas and skirt steak ... oh, and lots of hot sauce ... and cheese, lots of cheese.”
John was scribbling furiously as he made his list. “I can build a fire with some of the mesquite wood around here and we’ll be eating like kings tomorrow night.”
Lev pulled a cigar from his pocket and lit it with a match. “We’ll use that hangar over there as our main base of operations. I want to hold our first briefing in an hour.”
“What about that?” John said, pointing to a mobile home parked beside the hangar.
“It’s worth checking out. I hope it has air conditioning. It’s supposed to be 107 degrees here tomorrow afternoon.”
“Just like the Negev Desert.”
Memories of the year before flooded their thoughts, but they were quickly drowned out by the sound of helicopters approaching over the desert—lots of helicopters.
* *
The sudden appearance of so many helicopters at once looked surreal as they emerged from the darkness and passed over the lighted runway. One by one, they hovered into position and landed in rows in front of the hangars. When the last turbine engine whined to a stop, the Israeli soldiers watched as thirty American pilots walked out of the darkness into the glare of the hangar’s lights. A tall man wearing an olive-drab flight suit and a gray cowboy hat walked right up to Ben. Both men’s faces lit up as they hugged each other like long-
lost brothers.
“Ben Zamir, you little Jew piss-ant.”
“Ed Wilson, you stupid redneck.”
“I take it you two know each other,” Lev said.
“I believe the cavalry has arrived,” Ben said, turning toward Lev with a grin. “Professor, I want you to meet Colonel Ed Wilson, the commander of this wing of the U.S. Army’s First Air Cavalry Division. We trained together in a joint training exercise at Fort Bragg last year.”
“Good to meet you, Colonel,” Lev said, extending a hand to a smiling man with a short military-style haircut and thin moustache. To Lev, the man looked just like Errol Flynn, the popular 1940’s era movie star. His tanned face crinkled around a pair of intelligent gray eyes—eyes that seemed to catch every movement around him.
“Where did you and your men come from, Colonel?”
“Fort Hood, sir ... Texas. Please, call me Ed.”
“Then you better drop the sir and start calling me Lev.”
A big grin spread beneath Wilson’s thin moustache. “Ok, Lev. Where do we bunk?”
The two men looked around at the American and Israeli forces staring at each other across an invisible line on the tarmac. They looked like two football teams sizing each other up before a big game.
“Don’t worry, Lev,” Wilson said, still grinning. “These men will all be swapping war stories and showing each other pictures of their sweethearts an hour from now.”
“Good, because we’re just about to start our first briefing. Let’s get everyone inside the hangar.”
CHAPTER 51
Inside the cavernous hangar, young soldiers watched Leo and Lev as they took their seats at a long folding table beneath American and Israeli flags stretched overhead. The two men were seated between Colonel Wilson and Moshe on one side and Ben Zamir on the other. Sitting on the concrete floor with the troops, Alon and Nava were in the front row next to John and Ariella and the three Spanish scientists.
