Spiral

by Paul Mceuen

  The room was silent. “Lay out our options.”

  “Other than giving her what she wants, not much. Our best chance is to stop her before she releases it.”

  “And if we don’t catch it?”

  Arvenick said, “Antifungals don’t seem to work. A private company, Genesys, has a prototype vaccine. It’s not ready, but we’re going to run human tests. It’s a vaccine, not a cure. It does no good if the fungus has already spread. Maybe we could prevent a second wave, but that’s it.”

  The President nodded, his hands on the table before him. Dunne tried to read his face. “Mr. President,” Dunne said, standing.

  “Lawrence.”

  “The health consequences are only the start. However bad they are, they pale in comparison to the broader implications. The entire country would be cut off, isolated. No airline flights. No one would get in or out. The stock market would crash in a way that would make 1929 look like a walk in the park. Within days, we would have shortages of all kinds—food, medicine, water—as trade shut down. We would become a Third World nation. The financial center of the world would move to London, or more likely Hong Kong. The United Nations would—”

  “I’m aware of what would happen,” the President snapped. Then to Arvenick, “We’ve got nothing else?”

  Arvenick shook his head. “Nothing good. We know that antibiotics make you vulnerable. We could ban antibiotic use, but in doing so we’d be signing thousands of death sentences. Not to mention we’d have a whole series of bacteriological epidemics sweeping the country. And even after all that, it might not help.”

  “Why not?”

  “We’ve assumed that those people who’d taken broad-spectrum antibiotics within the last few weeks would be at risk. That gives a maximum number of dead in the hundreds of thousands. But it might be much, much worse. If you believe Sadie Toloff at the USDA.”

  Dunne jumped to attention at this. He’d heard nothing about revised estimates.

  “Toloff’s piecing together what Liam Connor knew. She’s got a team of over forty scientists—fungal biologists, epidemiologists, gastrointestinal specialists—going through his notebooks. His published papers. It’s clear he was looking to find a cure for the Uzumaki.”

  Dunne lost his patience. “Get to it.”

  “Mr. President,” Arvenick said, pointedly ignoring Dunne. “We’ve known a long time that the Uzumaki infects humans after an antibiotic regimen. After the bacterial populations in the digestive tract are knocked down. But—and this is what Sadie Toloff is piecing together from Connor’s notebooks—he maintained we have in our appendix a specific bacterium that feeds on the Uzumaki. Like a parasite, the bacterium knocks the Uzumaki out, almost like a natural bacterial immune system.”

  “And most people have this bacterium?” asked the President.

  “Not quite, sir. Most people had it. But we’ve been using antibiotics for decades now. The bacterium might well be nearly wiped out in the human population. Once it gets killed by a course of antibiotics, it looks like it’s slow to come back.”

  No one spoke. No one moved.

  “General Arvenick, give me your best guess on casualties. How high?”

  “Say on day one we have one person infected. And every day each infected person infects one more. At the end of one month, that adds up to over five hundred million.”

  It was as if the air had been sucked out of the room.

  40

  THE JUMBO BOX OF MALTED MILK BALLS ARRIVED IN THE hands of Wally Atherton in his morning food package. Wally was a long-termer, had been in for twenty-two years, with only four to go. He ran a number of small businesses within the Hazelton prison. He was a middleman, making a living on the spread, trading cigarettes for junk food, and contraband booze for skin mags. He could even get you a cellphone if the price was right. Most of what he did was penny-ante, but on occasion he came across an opportunity to make some real cash.

  This was far and away the biggest opportunity yet.

  He’d first been contacted two months before, and he had been laying the groundwork since. The money was already flowing, building up in an account in a bank in Toledo, Ohio, his hometown. When he got out, he’d be a millionaire.

  Atherton took the carton of malted milk balls, wrapped it in a bedsheet, put the buds from his iTouch in his ears, and started for the laundry room. Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?” serenaded him as he walked.

  Once alone inside the laundry room, he placed the carton of malted milk balls on a folding table, opened it, and poured them out. They clattered and rolled, but the table had a little lip that kept them from falling to the floor. What the hell was malted milk, anyway?

  He checked the chocolate balls until he found the specific one he was looking for. No malted anything here. It was a plastic sphere dipped in chocolate, designed to look and feel like all the other milk balls, but it was slightly larger. He popped it in his mouth and sucked off the chocolate. Then he wiped it down with a rag, took a razor blade he had stashed in his shoe and carefully cut the plastic shell open.

  It split like a tiny egg. Inside was an amazing little thing.

  A little mechanical spider, just as he’d been told. Glued to its back was the smallest damn camera he’d ever seen. The size of the dots on dice, no bigger. He leaned down to face it, then checked his iTouch. He could see his own face on the screen.

  Wally hopped up on the table and set to work unscrewing the cover from the overhead vent. As he worked, he wondered if machines had a basic understanding of the world. They move, they respond, they move again. No free will, but an intelligence nonetheless. Wally was interested in free will. Someday a machine would have it, begin to carve out its own kind of meaning, he was sure. Not yet, but soon maybe.

  This little bugger had no free will. It took its orders from the rich, faceless SOB who’d paid Wally one-point-four million dollars. This little bugger was an instrument of his will. Not that different from Wallace Atherton.

  He did as ordered, placed the little Crawler in the duct, pointed it in the right direction. Then he hit the app on his iTouch and the Crawler took off down the vent, skittering away, Wally guiding it by running his finger across the screen. The sound of its legs was a delicate, almost lovely clitter-clatter.

  To Wally it sounded like the echo of future coins of gold.

  KITANO REMINISCED, FLAMES BURNING BRIGHT IN HIS MIND. Dunne was not due for another hour. In the meantime, Kitano had his memories. As he grew older, he found that the present became hazier, more like a dream, but the past became clearer and clearer. It was as if the past was real, the present only a shadow. His true self lived there, still watching, still waiting, still reliving the events of 1945.

  By summer, the war against the Americans in the Pacific was lost. Tokkō was Japan’s doomed, romantic last-ditch effort to change the tide of the war against the imperialist Westerners. Machines of steel had failed. The machines of flesh were the last hope. Thousands of young Japanese soldiers, bravely piloting planes, boats, and human-guided torpedoes on one-way missions aimed at the heart of the enemy. In the West, they would be known by another Japanese name, a word that translates as “God-wind,” after a pair of typhoons that destroyed a Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century.

  God-wind. Kamikaze.

  But even this could not stop the Americans.

  August had arrived hot and bleak in northern China. The Soviets were amassing to the north. All was in chaos. An entirely new kind of bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, reducing them to rubble in seconds. The Soviets launched their attack, cutting through the lines of the Japanese Kwantung Army with ease. All was nearly lost. They would overrun Unit 731 within days.

  The order came. All remaining prisoners killed, all records destroyed.

  Eight men assemble in the room. The oldest was General Shiro Ishii, then fifty-three years old, his city of terror soon to be reduced to dust. Kitano stood beside him. The other six are Tokkō volunteers, none ol
der than twenty. Ishii has been their commander and father, has supervised their training personally for months. He was usually brusque with them, almost cruel. But today he is solemn. Ishii opens the hinoki box, and to each Tokkō soldier he gives a cylinder, bowing respectfully.

  These six would carry the last, most terrible breath of the God-wind. They are the breathers of Uzumaki.

  They were the last hope.

  Each Uzumaki specimen was contained in a small canister the size and shape of a cigar, bronze metal, two pieces threaded to lock and then sealed with wax at the joint. There were six of these canisters, contents identical, arranged in a polished hinoki cypress wooden box with inlays cut especially for them. The brass cylinders and hinoki box were constructed by the best craftsmen that the Japanese Imperial Army had to offer. Once a month, the cylinders were removed, and new ones put in their place. Unit 731 scientists were still working, improving, testing. This box contained the high-water mark of their achievement.

  For Kitano, the seventh Tokkō, they had made a special cylinder, small enough to be implanted in his finger bone.

  He would lie in wait as the submarines carried away the other six. If they failed, he would succeed. Slip into the world of his enemy and wait for the right moment. Confess everything, earn their trust. Then find his way to the right spot, somewhere in the north. He’d memorized the bottlenecks for all the major flyways. Migratory birds were almost perfect vectors for the Uzumaki. They could have spread the deadly fungus over the entire country in a matter of days.

  He would have succeeded. Had it not been for Liam Connor.

  WALLY STOPPED THE CRAWLER OVER THE FIFTH VENTILATION duct it passed, the one over crazy-old-man Kitano’s cell. He made the little robot spider tilt so the camera looked down through the vent. The image wasn’t much, like a thumbnail, but you could clearly see the old bastard on his bunk, staring off into space.

  This better work, Wally thought. Kitano was one bad old Jap. This went right, he was rich. But this goes wrong, Wally Atherton was a dead man.

  Wally moved his fingers. The little spider dropped through the grate and fell like a tiny little leaf, the camera shot spinning, spiraling down and down to the target below.

  41

  THE DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF THE FBI SAT ACROSS FROM DUNNE in the reinforced-steel-and-bulletproof-glass limo, but the two hadn’t spoken in more than fifteen minutes. There wasn’t much to say.

  The vehicle sped down I-68 at more than ninety miles an hour, a West Virginia state trooper escort in front and behind, lights on but sirens off. The Morgantown airport was ten miles behind them, and the federal United States Penitentiary in Hazelton was another six ahead. On the seat next to Dunne was a Lucite box containing two of Kitano’s pigeons. More birds were in the trunk.

  Kitano was waiting in his cell. Kitano had been told. He’d demanded to see Dunne.

  Dunne’s job was to get Kitano to agree to turn himself over.

  The plan that the Army settled on was simple: give Orchid the money, give her Hitoshi Kitano, and then blow them both to hell.

  DUNNE THOUGHT OF THE LAST TIME HE HAD SEEN KITANO out of prison. It had been at the old man’s estate in Maryland, west of D.C. Kitano’s compound was relatively modest by billionaire standards; set atop a hill, a shed-roofed clutch of modernist buildings were linked by glass walkways.

  An assistant, Japanese, had led Dunne through the main house. The inside was spare, bamboo floors and white walls with only a few abstract paintings and a collection of Japanese swords interrupting the emptiness. Historically, samurai warriors had tested the quality of a sword by cutting through the stacked corpses of executed criminals. Kitano was a fanatic for swords—like most Japanese nationalists, he fetishized the blade. Dunne remembered a quote by Nietzsche, he thought: “Every murderer loves the knife.”

  The entire back wall of Kitano’s home was glass, looking out on ten acres of pristine lawn and landscaped gardens. Dunne could picture him clearly that day, standing outside, looking down the hill, stroking the breast of one of his pigeons.

  By then Kitano was already in deep trouble. He was forbidden from leaving the country, had been charged with federal tax fraud. His empire was bleeding. Investors were withdrawing their money, and his business partners were shunning him. Kitano’s entire world, his carefully constructed reality, had been slit open, and Dunne knew the hand on the knife had been his own.

  Dunne had stepped through a sliding glass door. The weather that fall day was cool but sunny. On a teak table next to Kitano were two glasses and a bottle of scotch, along with a plate of pâté. Dunne recognized the scotch. It was Macallan, Special Reserve, 1945. A ten-thousand-dollar bottle.

  “Please,” Kitano said.

  Dunne poured a glass. Kitano tossed the pigeon upward. “Watch,” he said.

  The bird flew in a tight circle, then performed what amounted to a backflip in the air. The bird did the aerial somersault twice more before returning to Kitano’s arm. “No good for racing, but they are a pleasure nonetheless, no?”

  “Is it a new breed?”

  “Heavens, no. This is an English short-faced tumbler. They’ve been around for centuries. Charles Darwin wrote about them.” Kitano headed toward the coop, and Dunne followed. Coop didn’t capture the sense of the place. It was a miniature pigeon palace. Seated on glass shelves were nests, each like a little apartment, with separate food and water. Kitano returned the English short-faced tumbler to its home, then went back outside, another pigeon in tow. “This is a racer. There is a red string on that tree, the large one at the end of the field. Watch.”

  Kitano tossed the pigeon upward, and it shot off in the direction of the tree.

  Kitano said, “Try the matsutake and hazelnut pâté. It is the perfect season in the pine forests of Japan. My chef has a special preparation. He marinates them in blood.” Kitano used a small metal spoon to scoop the mushroom pâté onto a cracker. He took a bite, then prepared one for Dunne. Dunne found its sharp taste seductive. Many of his sophisticated, expensive tastes could be traced to this man. Kitano had opened up new worlds.

  Dunne noticed Kitano watching the sky.

  Dunne followed his gaze, spotting a large bird circling high above. “Is that a hawk?” Dunne asked.

  “Falcon. I also keep birds of prey.”

  The pigeon flew toward them, the red string in its beak, oblivious to the danger. The falcon hung in the air high above the pigeon, practically motionless. Neither man spoke.

  Finally, Kitano said, “We had plans.”

  Dunne kept his face neutral, taking another bracing sip of the alcohol. “That was a long time ago.”

  “Time has not diminished the necessity of action.”

  Kitano appeared calm, placid, but Dunne knew better. “Hitoshi—”

  “You and I were going to change the world. Instead you are sending me to jail.”

  “That was your own fault.”

  “Don’t insult me. You had those charges brought against me. You can stop this at any time.”

  “Hitoshi, you left me no choice.”

  Kitano kept his eyes on Dunne. “How close are you to a cure?” “We don’t have it. Let it go. It’s over.”

  Kitano turned his gaze back to the falcon. “It can dive at one hundred eighty miles an hour. It comes down so fast that its prey cannot see it, cannot respond.”

  Dunne watched as the falcon pulled in its wings and plummeted downward, picking up speed as it neared its prey. It was over in a fraction of a second. The falcon struck, and the pigeon almost exploded in midair.

  Kitano said, “Make these charges go away. Or I will kill you.”

  Dunne had put down his scotch carefully, looked Kitano directly in the eyes. “You think this impresses me? A falcon killing a goddamn pigeon?” He shook his head. “If you can beat these tax evasion charges, do it. But the Uzumaki is a national security issue. You say one wrong word, and I’ll have you locked up without a trial so quick your head will spin.” Dunne pause
d. “Another option would be to turn you over to the Chinese for prosecution of war crimes.”

  Dunne had laid it out in detail.

  “You need me,” Kitano said. “Once I have the Uzumaki—”

  “But I don’t need you, Hitoshi, not anymore. I have the President now. And once Detrick develops the cure, we can take down China anytime we want.”

  “You’ve discussed this with him. The President of the United States.”

  “When the time is right, I can bring him along.”

  Kitano changed direction. “Japan will oppose any unlawful—”

  “We’ve already spoken to the Japanese government. They will be best pleased if we make you disappear. You are an embarrassment, a relic that they’d prefer to forget. Listen closely. I’m the falcon here, not you.”

  And that had been the end of it. Kitano had kept his mouth shut. He had lost his case, gone to jail. SunAgra was shuttered.

  Kitano had become nothing more than an old man in a cage. Soon he would be dead. No matter what happened to Orchid, Kitano would not survive—on that, the President had clearly agreed with Dunne.

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, THEY WERE OUTSIDE KITANO’S cell. The old man stood stiffly in the small room’s center, head held high and clearly angry. From behind Dunne, they wheeled in the cart with the pigeon cage. Kitano barely glanced at them, keeping his focus on Dunne.

  “Leave us,” Dunne said to the warden.

  When they were alone, Kitano pointed to the pigeons. “I expected to go to my estate. To see them fly again.”

  “Clearly impossible at this point, you must know that. You wanted to see your pigeons; here they are.” Dunne pushed on. “Now let me tell you how this will play out: You’ll lead us to Orchid, you and a Marine. Special Forces. He’ll be carrying the money. In the money are carbon trackers—completely undetectable. We’ll hit first with an EMP weapon, knock out any electronics, including the MicroCrawlers she’s collected. After removing that major threat, we hit her. We take Orchid down, and that’s that. It’s over. You ride away in a Black Hawk helicopter.” Dunne laid his hand on the pigeon crate. “We put you on a flight to Osaka with your birds. You’re a free man.”