Bat out of Hell

by Alan Gold

  He checked his notes before walking toward the brilliantly illuminated set where a settee was waiting for him and where he would be sitting alongside the two presenters who would question him about his radical interpretation of the president’s and the prime minister’s recent statements. He knew both of the presenters, having been on Good Morning Britain several times in the past few months. This time, though, it would be different. This time, his appearance wouldn’t be known only to homemakers, shift workers, and the unemployed. This time, he’d make national, possibly international headlines.

  Mandy Sawyer, the leggy, toothy presenter who was talking to the show’s director, saw him tiptoe over the snake-like tangle of cables on the floor, weave his way through the three cameras, and extend his hand toward her.

  “Gerard, good to see you. Okay, you sit there. We’re doing a filmed segment about the oldest continuously used toothbrush in England, and then we’ll cut to you in about ninety seconds.”

  He sat on the couch, arranged his clothes, and ensured that he looked morning fresh. The time passed in a flash, and he only just had a chance to clear his throat when he heard Mandy, sitting beside her co-presenter Daniel Cohen, comment upon the previous segment. “What an amazing story . . . how often do you change your toothbrush, Dan?”

  “At least once a month,” her co-presenter replied with a laugh. “How she could have kept that thing for twenty years is beyond me.”

  Mandy laughed. “Me too. But on to more serious topics.” She turned and looked directly at camera two, her face suddenly taking on the image of gravitas, and she spoke personally to each of the three million viewers. “I’m sure you all saw Prime Minister Alistair Blain when he said that birds are definitely not the cause of this terrible virus outbreak in North London. He was echoing a statement made by the US president, Nathaniel Thomas who said that all evidence showed it was bats, not birds, that are the reservoir. But that hasn’t satisfied our next guest. He’s England’s most popular environmental writer and scientist, Doctor Gerard Sobel, who joins us in the studio this morning.”

  She turned toward him, and a long shot was picked up by camera three. “You disagree with what’s been said, Gerard?”

  “I neither agree nor do I disagree, Mandy. I’ve listened carefully to both statements, our own prime minister’s and the president’s, and frankly, they were long on rhetoric and very short on science. They were like a couple of spin doctors putting a slant on a story to keep the natives happy. But this outbreak is far too serious for spin. This is an outbreak that threatens the life of every man, woman, and child in England, and for our political leaders to dismiss a possible carrier just because the government will cop a bruising in the polls if it talks about the culling of all birds is just wildly irresponsible. I’m a naturalist, an animal lover, dedicated to protecting all species from the damage human beings have caused to the environment, but even though the killing of all birds is too awful to contemplate, if it has to be done to save our lives, then so be it.”

  Daniel Cohen interrupted, “But do you have any evidence that birds could be the carriers? The president and the PM were quite specific in their denials.”

  “That’s the point. I have no evidence that it is birds. But far more important, I have no evidence that it’s not. And until somebody, some reputable scientist, proves with 100 percent certainty that it’s bats or fleas or something and not the bird population, I shall keep on thinking that it quite likely could be birds.”

  Mandy started to speak, but Gerard spoke over her, “And if you examine their statements, they talk in vague and general terms—non-scientific terms—about likelihoods and probabilities. Dear God, we have hundreds and hundreds of people dying in agony from some terrible contagion. How utterly irresponsible to try to assure us that it’s not one particular species of animal, when those very animals . . . birds . . . are known to have been responsible for deaths of human beings from the virus they were carrying in their blood. It was avian influenza, and it crossed species and killed human beings. We’ll never know how many Asians died of avian flu, simply because their health records and reporting methods are so poorly kept. And those authoritarian governments in that part of the world tend to hush up these sorts of outbreaks. Did a thousand people die? Ten thousand? We’ll never know. But I’ll tell you one thing . . . if I lived in the countryside of England, I wouldn’t be very happy if I saw a tree full of rooks or crows. I’d want to know what was in their blood. And I’d tend to live my life indoors until our scientists have found the cause and cure for this deadly virus.”

  The interview continued for several more minutes until the cross to the news. When the studio went dark, Gerard shook hands with both presenters and was praised for his “great television” by the director as he walked back to have his makeup removed.

  As the taxi drove him back to his home in Wimbledon, he pondered the headlines. Gerard’s warning was carried by the BBC news and picked up by local radio stations. Only the BBC carried a recording of his voice. The others repeated what he’d said, and one had followed up with a statement from some Department of Health bureaucrat who parroted the line that the prime minister had taken the previous night.

  And then his phone began to go berserk. Newspapers wanting to interview him, international media wanting him in a central London studio for a feed back to their countries, Department of Health functionaries asking whether he’d consider popping in for a cup of tea and a chat to discuss his latest statement, and they’d show him the scientific proof negating what he’d said on television.

  After ten phone calls, the taxi driver commented, “You’re busy today, Guv.”

  He didn’t have a chance to answer because the phone immediately rang again.

  “How’d it go?” asked Tom Pollard.

  “You could say that I’ve put the cat amongst the pigeons. When your bloke comes out on American television and says what I’ve said, all hell will break loose.”

  “He already has. He just stopped short of accusing the US president of crimes against humanity. The news media has gone wild. Ballistic. The White House is plugging holes like it was a sinking ship.”

  “That’s the way it’s going to be here too if I know my media.”

  “Thanks, Gerard . . . I owe you one.”

  “Oh,” said Gerard Sobel, “you owe me all right. Big time. Talk tomorrow when we’ve seen the headlines. And I’m already working on follow-up media ideas. We should be able to keep this going for some time. Oh, and Tom, I’d keep low if I were you. Let us experts handle this for a couple of days; then, when there’s a mass popular movement toward species extinction, that’s when you come in and save our little feathered friends.”

  “Agreed,” said Tom. He pulled it off again. He put down the phone and allowed himself a couple of moments to ponder the past twenty-four hours. A wildly successful press conference in Hollywood with one of the most beautiful women on earth telling him that she’d do anything to help his cause, frantic denials by the leaders of the United Kingdom, the United States, and UN, and finally the icing on the cake—two well-known media environmentalists putting CHAT right back into the middle of the debate. He couldn’t help smiling. Was there nothing he couldn’t do to create headlines . . . the lifeblood of his organization?

  DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH WHITEHALL, LONDON

  The television program ended with a hiss as the screen in the conference room turned to black. The eight men and six women looked at each other. Debra had conferred second-in-command status on Daniel Todd. As a professor of biology at Harvard, he was equally as qualified as the rest who sat around the table, except that his English was far better than the Italians, Africans, Asians, or scientists from the Middle East who were part of the rapid response team. The three scientists from England’s Oxford and Cambridge universities had been warned by the minister not to make public announcements, so Daniel was the last spokesperson standing when Debra was away.

  The team had just listened to Doctor Gerard
Sobel pontificating on some morning show about how birds might be the vectors for this viral outbreak. He’d single-handedly managed to undo the strong statements of the prime minister and the president, who had assured the public that birds were in no danger.

  “Your opinions?” asked Daniel.

  Janet Wheelwright, an Oxford don was the first to speak. “The man’s an arse. He’s a failed scientist, a failed policy maker, and he’s found his fifteen minutes of success as a public commentator. He’s the darling of the media because he’s willing to say wildly unlikely things on television without any science behind his pontifications. My view . . . just ignore him. He’ll be forgotten by tomorrow.”

  Others around the table nodded, and Daniel was about to say something when his mobile phone rang.

  “Daniel,” said Debra, her voice echoing across the Atlantic. “What was the reaction in England to the broadcast?”

  “Debra, it’s only just been broadcast. I’ve just switched it off.”

  “Didn’t you pick it up on CNN?”

  “It was on some morning show on a commercial channel over here.”

  There was silence on the line.

  “What broadcast are you talking about?” asked Daniel.

  “An American scientist from Tulsa State University has slammed the president for minimizing the danger from birds. He’s said that until there’s 100 percent proof that it’s bats, birds can’t be dismissed as a reservoir for this virus.”

  “Oh shit!” said Daniel.

  “What?”

  “That’s exactly what some Mickey Mouse environmentalist named Gerard Sobel said on British television just now. We’ve just this minute turned off the TV. It was a live broadcast. It sounds like a joint effort across the pond. The United States and England joining forces to whip up a frenzy.”

  “What organization was your guy representing? Our guy in the States was representing himself alone. Or claimed to be.”

  “Same here. But who knows.”

  “Okay, we’ve got to hose this thing down or it’ll get out of hand again. Can you get on to the British media, hold a press conference, and say that it’s not birds?”

  “Debra . . .”

  “For god’s sake, Daniel. In your guts, you know it’s bats. Just this time, go public and put people’s minds at ease. If you don’t, the panic will be catastrophic. Nobody will come outdoors for fear of a bird flying overhead.”

  “Is that what your guy over there said?”

  “Yes, or words very close . . . why?”

  “That’s why our guy here said. You don’t think . . .?”

  “Hold the press conference this morning. I’m meeting with the president later on this evening, our time. Just put this thing into a bottle, will you. We’ll work out who’s behind it when it’s died down.”

  She disconnected the phone. Daniel turned to his colleagues at the conference table and explained what he had been asked to do.

  “But how can you say it’s definitely not birds, Daniel, when we haven’t positively determined the vector?” asked Professor Wheelwright.

  He didn’t reply.

  ***

  It wasn’t his first time in front of the media, but he never felt comfortable. Unlike the president of the United States, who could make carefully constructed statements and refuse to answer questions shouted at him over the noise of Marine One on the lawns of the White House, Daniel knew he would be peppered with questions. It was a delicate balancing act between his professional integrity and scientific reputation . . . and his team leader’s clear instructions to bottle up the bird issue.

  He decided not to make a statement, but instead began his comments in the Ministry’s media room in front of one hundred or so journalists, cameramen, and sound recordists.

  “You will no doubt have heard your prime minister’s comments that birds are not to blame for this outbreak of viral deaths. And no doubt, you’ll have heard Doctor Sobel on television earlier this morning, saying that we have no evidence that birds are not responsible. Doctor Sobel, somewhat mischievously, opened up doubts in people’s minds once again.

  “As a professor of mammalian biology at Harvard University and as a member of the rapid response team, I’m here to tell you that bats are by far the most likely reservoir for this recent outbreak and other outbreaks in other parts of the world. Despite the outbreak of avian flu a decade back, which killed a small number of people, there is almost no doubt in our minds that birds are not responsible for these eruptions. I repeat, ladies and gentlemen, birds are almost certainly not responsible.

  “The worldwide bat population is under stress from global warming, the depletion of their food source due to the massive transfer of agricultural and fruit-growing land to the growth of bio-energy crops, and loss of their habitat due to human encroachment. Where these and other changes in the environment bats live in have occurred, the viral load of these mammals has increased; in some cases, the viruses have mutated to become deadly and cross species into farm animals and human beings. So yes, it’s spilling out into the human population. But let me put the population of England at ease by saying that it’s not birds . . . it’s bats.”

  A reporter shouted out a question. “Professor, you say that bats are the far more likely cause of this modern day plague. And just yesterday, the prime minister also said that birds were definitely not the cause. Are you also saying that birds are innocent of causing this outbreak in North London, that they’re not the cause?”

  He squirmed in his seat. The Ministry PR man had briefed him on answering this question. “Look, it’s almost certain that birds are not . . .”

  “Almost?”

  “Well, you can’t rule them out completely . . . we’re scientists and we have to . . . well, not until we have positive proof that bats are the reservoir and until we find the particular bat colony that has caused this latest outbreak, then we can’t absolutely rule out birds, but . . .”

  “So birds could still be the culprit?”

  “Yes, of course they could. But they’re probably not. What do you mean by culprit? We won’t know until . . .”

  The rest of his sentence was drowned out by reporters shouting questions at him. The Ministry PR man, seated on the back row, groaned and put his hands over his face.

  Debra Hart groaned at the same time, three thousand miles away. Seated in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House where daily briefings were given to the world’s White House correspondents—empty now because the media wouldn’t return to the building until the next scheduled briefing at 5:00 p.m. that night, Debra watched a monitor tuned to the BBC as her second-in-command made a hash of the media conference. She turned to the president’s deputy press secretary, Kia Markovitch, a fifteen-year veteran of three administrations and asked, “What now? This thing just won’t go away.”

  Crossing her long legs in the confine of chairs, Kia used the remote to turn off the plasma screen. “It won’t go away because people are shit-scared of anything that could cause them fatal harm. We’ve tried to stop the panic over birds. And if the strategy had worked, it would have been marvellous, because bats are just far less known and common, so blaming them would have been great, especially as a lot of people have a repulsion toward bats. But if there’s the slightest possibility that birds could be the cause, then panic is still the go.”

  “We just have to find the colony of bats that has caused this outbreak and prove it to the world,” said Debra.

  “First, we have to try to get to see the president as soon as possible and tell him what’s happened. I’m afraid that you might have to fire your second-in-command, in public, for causing panic. That might calm things down a bit,” said Kia.

  “Fire Daniel? No way. He’s one of the best members of the team.”

  Kia stood and said, “You may have no choice. If the president says he has to go, and that’ll be my strongest recommendation, then go he must.”

  The two women walked out of the pre
ssroom and down the corridors toward the wing where the Oval Office was situated.

  “Kia, a couple of days ago, I had a run-in with Secretary Jenny Tan about my authority. Much as I respect the president, and recognizing that it was he who suggested me for this position, I’m afraid that I’m not answerable to him but to the secretary-general of the United Nations. It’s my decision as to who I fire, not yours, not Secretary Tan’s, and not the president’s.”

  Kia stopped, walked, and turned to face Debra. She gave her that famous look that she gave from the podium of the pressroom whenever a reporter asked an inappropriate question, a withering look but one steeped in bemusement, as though asking silently, Can you really be that stupid?

  “Debra, do you really want to stand tall against the full might of the president of the United States of America? ’Cause if you do, girl, ain’t no way I’m going to stand between the two of you.”

  ***

  It took them half an hour of sitting in the anteroom of the president’s office before they were told by his personal assistant that they could enter the Oval Office and see him for just fifteen minutes before his next appointment. They stood in front of the inner door waiting for it to open. When it did, the senate minority leader walked out, the president’s arm around his shoulder. The two men shook hands, reminded each other of a squash match that had been rescheduled a dozen times, and President Nathaniel Thomas greeted the two women warmly.

  Seated on the couches, Kia brought the president up to date on the situation during the past three hours.

  “Who are these environmentalists?” he asked.

  Kia and Debra filled him in.

  The president thought for a couple of seconds before saying, “They’re just taking advantage of the situation. They’re just beating it up for personal publicity. I could have told you something like this would have happened. I don’t think it’s anything to concern ourselves about. Problem would be if we reacted to the reaction . . . if I went to the media and denied what these two commentators are saying. Then the public would get into a rare old panic. If we ignore them, they’ll have an afternoon in the sunshine, and by tomorrow morning, something else will have distracted the public’s attention.”