The Malthus Pandemic

by Terry Morgan

CHAPTER 37

  Being Tuesday, Kevin Parker was still deciding whether to have his lunch at the University or the Richmond pub. He was sitting in his flat reading a book on another of his Victorian heroes - Isambard Kingdom Brunel. But his mind kept wandering - one minute to what Larry Brown had told him earlier and the next minute to what Mohamed El Badry had said about having a solution to over population. To make matters even worse, the latter seemed ready to be launched.

  Kevin's vivid imagination had also turned to wondering what could possibly happen if he, directly or through the Malthus Society, was somehow implicated in a plan that might involve deliberately starting a pandemic to reduce the population. Words and phrases like mass murder, annihilation, ethnic cleansing and genocide kept coming into his head. To Kevin it was sounding more and more plausible that El Badry and whoever his associates were, were deliberately planning to carry out one of these crimes and, in doing so, try to implicate the Malthus Society somehow. Could it be that he was trying to divert attention from his own organisation or deliberately use some of the Society's more radical members scattered across the globe?

  Could he expect a knock on the door or, worse, the breaking down of the door of his flat by police with battering rams at 3am. Perhaps Tunje was right and word had already got out of something going on and he was already being watched.

  It was such a nightmare scenario that he had started to wonder what he should do to avoid the breaking down of the door at 3am. Should he go to the police before they came to him? Warn them in advance and so be able to plead total innocence?

  But he, Kevin Parker, had often advocated the use of radical solutions to the problem of overpopulation. If anyone had wanted to check his opinions, all they needed to do was check out the Malthus Society website. The evidence against him was all there.

  So, perhaps El Badry was just being supportive. But Kevin was no longer sure he wanted this sort of support and, anyway, he didn't like Mohamed El Badry. The man had made him nervous. He had looked, smelled and sounded like a rogue, just the sort of rich, foreign businessman Kevin had hated in the past, especially in his youth.

  And it had all happened too suddenly. Kevin's strategy had always been a patient build up leading eventually to perhaps mass demonstrations by youth across the globe and then the final recognition by politicians that he had been right all along and something needed to be done about the population.

  Kevin felt another cold sweat coming on and held his wrist to check how fast his heart was beating. At times like this he often wished he possessed a blood pressure monitor. But Kevin's decision about where to go for his lunch suddenly became clear. He would go to the Richmond. But first he would call Tom Weston to make sure he'd be there.

  "How about a pint or two and egg and chips on me, Tom. I need to pick your brains."