Genocide of One: A Thriller (11 page)

“These eight dots are the camps used by the so-called Kanga band of Pygmies, which
is made up of around forty people. The area is approximately thirty-five kilometers
from one end to the other. This will be your field of operations.” Singleton looked
at each one of them. “All right. Let’s get into the details of the operation.”

Yeager and the others shifted in their seats and listened carefully.

“The operation is code-named Guardian. You’ll use fake names and pose as members of
a wildlife conservation organization. You’ll fly from Entebbe International Airport
in Uganda to the Congo. We’ll guide you to the infiltration point in the Ituri Forest,
then you’ll be on your own, with no more supplies. Make sure you have absolutely no
contact with the locals. Move through the jungle without attracting the attention
of the insurgents, locate the hunting camp where the band is, and wipe them out.”

“Why?” Meyers asked, without raising his hand. “Why kill the Pygmies?”

“Let me finish,” Singleton snapped. “We’re planning ten days for the operation, but
if things go as planned the whole thing should only take five days. We’ll need you
to take a video of the forty corpses to confirm the kills and transmit this digitally.
Then you head to the rendezvous point we specify and we get you out of there by chopper.
If you run into one of the insurgent groups along the way, there are no special rules
of engagement. We’ll leave that up to you.”

Yeager raised his hand, and Singleton nodded. “Is the Kanga band the only group of
Pygmies in the area of operations?”

“No. There are several other similar bands living about ten kilometers away.”

“Then how do we tell one from the other? How do we know which is our target?”

“Nigel Pierce, the anthropologist, is the key. He’s living with the Kanga band doing
fieldwork. He believed the cease-fire would hold, and he went to the Congo, but once
hostilities restarted he couldn’t get out. The camp where Pierce is, that’s your target.”

“So we’re supposed to take out Pierce, too?”

“Correct.”

“We’re going to kill an American?” Meyers said in low voice.

Singleton stared at the medic. “Why do we have to kill an American professor and the
Pygmies? Here’s why. Half a year ago a new type of virus was discovered in the jungle.
Like the Ebola virus, the host isn’t clear, but we do know it infects primates, including
humans. The problem is the incubation period and the mortality rate. It takes two
years from the time you’re infected to the time you show symptoms, and the mortality
rate is a hundred percent. In other words, there is plenty of time for an infected
person to spread the virus, and once the symptoms appear, no one survives. If this
virus were to spread outside this region there will be a pandemic, and the human race
might be wiped out.”

The team members were taken aback by this unexpected situation. Yeager finally could
see the big picture. What he’d been told when he was recruited wasn’t a lie after
all. It was, indeed, a dirty job. Yet one that would do a service to mankind.

“Operation Guardian is how we’re dealing with this danger. I’m sure you’ve figured
this out already, but Nigel Pierce and the forty or so people of the Kanga band are
the only known group infected by the virus.”

“But why kill them?” Meyers argued. “Why not just isolate them?”

“A large-scale medical team can’t be sent in—not in such a chaotic region, where more
than twenty armed insurgent groups are battling it out. If they’re going to send in
a force it’d have to be an army, but other countries hesitate to do that because they’ll
be accused of participating in the war. And there’s another reason we have to deal
with this immediately. You’ll recall the hunting down of Pygmies I spoke of. If the
insurgents’ cannibalism were to reach the Kanga band, what then? All the troops would
be infected by the virus, and when they attack villages and rape the women and girls,
the infection would spread even further. UN peacekeeping forces themselves sexually
abuse local women, and then it would be only a matter of time before the virus makes
the leap to other continents.”

“If you’re infected with the virus, what are the symptoms?”

“That I can’t say. It’s classified, so that’s all the information I have.”

“Hold on,” Meyers said calmly now, so as to not upset the director of operations.
“There’s one piece of intelligence we still need. Isn’t there a risk that we’ll be
infected during the mission?”

“We’ve taken preventive measures. The virus has one weak point. In the first month
after a person contracts it, it can easily be stamped out with a drug.” Singleton
pulled out a small capsule from his shirt pocket. Inside the clear capsule they could
see a white powder. “I can’t reveal the origin of this, but an unnamed country’s military
research lab developed the medicine. Once you finish your mission you’ll all take
this medicine. But even with this drug you can’t let your guard down. During the mission
avoid any physical contact with your targets. Be careful not to get sprayed with any
blood when you shoot them. Do that and you run no risk of infection.”

“Is the medicine safe to take if we haven’t been infected?”

“Of course. It won’t harm you.”

“I see,” Garrett said, nodding.

The Q&A came to an end, and an oppressive silence hung over the room. Yeager could
sense that the others had made their final decision to participate in the operation.
Who came up with the idea for such a crappy mission? he wondered.

“I know you’re not enthusiastic, but you have to understand that this situation is
the result of a perfect storm of adverse conditions. If the Congo were a peaceful
country it wouldn’t have come to this. But right now there’s not a moment to lose.
We have to ensure that Operation Guardian is a success no matter what. Everything
depends on the four of you.” He went on, sounding more apprehensive. “Three final
points. After you wipe out the Kanga band, you need to collect samples for research.
You’ll bring back several types of organs and blood samples. I’ll give you the complete
list later.”

“And that would be my job?” Meyers gloomily asked.

“You other three will help him,” Singleton said, indirectly answering Meyers’s question.
“And again, take all necessary precautions to avoid infection.”

Yeager had a small question, one he thought was critical. “If we damage the bodies
like that, don’t we run the risk of blowing the secrecy of the mission? If a PKO happens
onto the site they’ll know this wasn’t just some ordinary firefight.”

“No need to worry. The local fighters don’t just eat the flesh of the Pygmies; they
also cut off pieces of them to use as charms. Any PKO’ll think that’s what happened.”

“I see,” Yeager said. They’d thought of everything.

“Now the second point. You need to confiscate Nigel Pierce’s laptop and bring it back
undamaged.”

None of them knew what the point of that was, but they had no objection.

“And finally, the most important instruction of all. If during the operation you run
across a living creature you’ve never seen before, kill it immediately.”

What was he talking about?

Mick, who’d been quiet the whole time, thought maybe he’d misunderstood the English.
“What did he say?” he asked. “Living creature we never saw before?”

“That’s right. If you see a living being you’ve never seen before, you need to kill
it right away.”

“Do you mean the virus?”

“No—you can’t see a virus. And a virus isn’t a life-form anyway. What he means is
an animal that has a shape, a form.”

“I don’t get it.”

Yeager stepped in. “There must be lots of living things in the African jungle we’ve
never seen before.”

Garrett and Meyers cracked a smile, but Singleton remained serious. “Most of those
are things you can imagine—butterflies, lizards, whatever. What I’m talking about
is a special type of creature, something that doesn’t fit into those categories.”

“It would help if you could give us some more details.”

“The client has restricted the amount of information,” Singleton said, his expression
uncertain. By client he meant the country that ordered the operation. Most likely
meaning the White House. “I’m merely the messenger here. The creature is in the jungles
of the Congo. And the chances that it’s in the Kanga band’s hunting camp are very
high. It will appear like nothing that’s ever been seen before. But it’s not violent,
and it moves slowly, so with your skills you should be able to take it out with a
single shot. After you kill it, collect the whole body.”

“But that can’t be all—”

“That
is
all the information I’ve been given,” Singleton said, abruptly closing the subject.
“The most striking characteristic of this creature is that you’ll know as soon as
you spot it that it’s a totally unknown type of being. It might confuse you when you
see it, but the point is not to think about it. Don’t ask yourself what sort of creature
it is. Once you see it, just shoot it. That’s Operation Guardian’s highest-priority
target.”

The evening after
his dinner with Sugai, Kento interrupted his experiments, wolfed down a cup of instant
noodles he’d bought at the campus store, and headed over to the Tokyo University of
Humanities and Science hospital. The hospital was a twelve-story building a ten-minute
walk from the science campus. Kento was going to see Yoshihara, an older student he’d
met at parties a number of times back when they were in college.

He entered through the staff entrance at the rear of the complex, told the security
guard whom he was visiting, and proceeded into the main building. Kento couldn’t help
but feel a bit uncomfortable. He’d convinced himself that the medical school was superior
to the pharmacy school, and he could never shake his sense of inferiority.

In the elevator to the upper floors he remembered the orientation session he’d attended
when he first entered college. The dean had proudly told the assembled students, “Even
if you were to become doctors, the number of patients you could save in your lifetime
would be, at most, around ten thousand. But as a drug researcher, if you develop a
new drug, you can save more than one hundred thousand people.”

Which was exactly the point, Kento thought. If he were to actually develop a drug
that treated PAECS, he would not only save the one hundred thousand patients suffering
from the disease worldwide but also help the children who might be born with the disease
in the future. Kento hoped the dean’s words would encourage him, but they fell short.
He still felt helpless—the hurdles he was facing were just too high.

It’s simply impossible, he thought. He shouldn’t get his hopes up. He had to tell
himself this; otherwise, when he failed, his disappointment would be all the greater.

He got off the elevator at the fifth floor and walked over to the pediatrics nurses’
station. One of the busy nurses noticed him and asked if he was visiting someone.

“Yes, but not one of the patients,” he replied. “I’m here to see Dr. Yoshihara.”

The nurse nodded. “Dr. Yoshihara!” she called out to a white-coated cluster of people
beyond the nurses’ station.

“Yes?” a man with short hair replied, and turned around. It was Yoshihara. Up until
high school, Kento had heard, Yoshihara had practiced kendo, a type of sword fighting.
And now here he was, being addressed as Doctor.

“Hi, Kento! Haven’t seen you in ages,” he said in his characteristic low voice. He
was dressed in a button-down shirt, tie, and white coat, and he appeared totally different
from the way he looked back in college. Kento felt out of place in his jeans and worn-out
down jacket.

“Sorry to bother you when you’re so busy.”

“No problem. Let’s go over to the office,” Yoshihara said. He left the nurses’ station,
taking Kento with him.

“So you’re going to be a pediatrician?” Kento asked.

“I’m an intern now, so I do rotations in different departments. Pediatrics is okay,
but it doesn’t pay.”

“Doesn’t pay?”

“You don’t earn enough for the effort you put into it is what I mean. If you plan
to open up your own clinic, a different specialty would be better,” Yoshihara said,
turning to glance back at the pediatric wing. “When you meet a pediatrician you know
for sure he’s a dedicated doctor who isn’t in it for the money. But I’m going into
a different field.”

As they waited for the elevator Yoshihara brought up the main reason for Kento’s visit.
“Lung sclerosis, isn’t it?” he asked, using the shortened form of the name for the
disease.

“That’s right.”

“Unfortunately there’s nothing present-day medicine can do. All we can do is try symptomatic
treatment and see how things go. It’s just a question of how long you can extend the
patient’s life.”

“So there’s no cure?”

“None,” Yoshihara said flatly.

“What about basic research?”

“There’s one person, a Dr. Garrado in Portugal, who’s trying to develop a remedy.”

“A remedy?” Kento was surprised. This was unexpected news. “How far along is he?”

“That’s really out of my field. Hold on a minute.”

They got out at the sixth floor, and Yoshihara headed to a corner, following a sign
that read
MEDICAL OFFICE
. There was a series of doors down the hallway, each labeled with a different medical
specialty. Yoshihara went into the one marked
PEDIATRICS
. There were a number of desks, but since it was evening, only a handful of people
were there. Yoshihara opened a locker and extracted a sheaf of papers from a shoulder
bag.

“I downloaded some of the articles I found,” he said.

“Thank you,” Kento said, taking the printouts. He quickly glanced through them.

“They seem to be at a stage well before preclinical trials.”

“So it appears.”

Dr. Garrado, of the Lisbon University Medical Center, had already developed a model
of the three-dimensional structure of mutant GPR769. Based on this he was trying to
design a drug that would bond to the receptor and could be activated as a medicine.
His work probably put him in the forefront, worldwide, of clinical application research
in this field.

“He’s gone as far as structural optimization of the lead compound.”

“What’s that?”

“He’s found a compound that may act as a drug, and he’s trying to configure its structure
to maximize its pharmacological activity.”

Garrado wasn’t just outstripping him, he was already years ahead of Kento. Trying
to catch a big fish with spider silk was, after all, probably an impossible task.
The research Kento could do in the tiny room in the deteriorating apartment building
was no match for Dr. Garrado’s. Like Little Leaguers playing against a major league
team.

“So he’s on the verge of completing a drug to treat lung sclerosis?”

“No; that’s still a few years away. Even if he’s isolated the lead compound, the chances
of coming up with a drug are one in a thousand. Assuming things go well it would take
more than five years.”

“So this won’t help patients now?”

“No, it won’t.”

Yoshihara sighed. “Follow me,” he said, and took off down the hallway. The sign above
Kento’s head read
ICU
.

“One of my patients is a child with lung sclerosis.”

“Really?”

They went through the swinging doors into the ICU. One wall was a huge window, and
behind it lay the most critically ill patients.

“The row on the left, third bed from the front,” Yoshihara said quietly.

A little girl, six years old or so, lay among the adult patients. Her skin was pale
and purplish, her eyes closed as she labored to breathe. The numerous IV drips around
her showed how serious her condition was.

A nurse was near her bed, along with a woman in her thirties who was likely the girl’s
mother. The mother wore a mask to keep the room free of germs, but it was still clear
that she was close to breaking down in tears.

The nurse lifted the tiny oxygen mask from the girl’s face and wiped away the fresh
blood that stained the skin around her mouth. Kento took a step back, shocked.

“She’s terminal. She’ll be dead in about a month.”

It was so unfair. Faced with this hideous reality, Kento felt even more wretched.
He wasn’t able to save her. The miserable hovel of a lab became, in his mind, the
reality of his father and of himself—and their inability to do anything about this
girl’s condition.

Perhaps out of a need to punish himself, Kento read the name of the patient on the
nameplate.
MAIKA KOBAYASHI, AGE 6
. He knew he wouldn’t forget that name as long as he lived. The name of the child
he’d stood by and watched die.

“I’d like to earn money, sure, but I also want to save my patients,” Yoshihara said.
“You’re in pharmacology, so you should develop a drug someday that will cure this
disease.”

“But doing it in a month is impossible.” Kento thought of the limit of twenty-eight
days his father had given him. One month from now.

The sun had long since set, and the temperature had dropped considerably. On the Yokojikken
River, which paralleled the sidewalk, migrating winter birds floated on the surface,
resting from their journey.

As he made his way back to his lab, hands stuck in the pockets of his down jacket,
Kento hung his head like a wounded animal. He couldn’t shake the image of the little
girl on the verge of death.

She’d never done anything to deserve this, so why did she have to suffer? Why did
she have to die at age six? Even a mediocre scientist such as he knew the answer to
that one. Sometimes nature, indiscriminately, is unfair and cruel.

Researchers in pharmacology combat this threat, but what had he accomplished? In the
six years since he’d entered college he’d wasted one day after another, with no sense
of mission or purpose.

Still, knowing that, what was he able to accomplish from now on? Kento looked up at
the night sky, hoping to shake off these gloomy feelings. Above him spread the universe—countless
stars, light-years away, shining brightly.

A drug would someday be developed to cure PAECS. But that would be five years in the
future, at least, not a month from now. He’d been given an impossible assignment.
Crushed by a sense of impotence, Kento still couldn’t shake his father’s final message.
His father wouldn’t have spent such a huge sum of his own money to prepare that private
lab without some confidence that he could successfully create the drug. All he could
depend on now was the GIFT software installed in the laptop, though he wasn’t sure
of its function. And that Korean exchange student who’d done computerized drug development.
Doi should be checking his schedule. Kento was about to phone Doi when he heard someone
calling his name. He was so lost in thought that at first the voice didn’t register.
“Kento Koga?” he heard a second time, and came to a halt.

Kento had arrived at the rear of the pharmacology building on the science campus.
At night it was usually deserted. The only light came from the fluorescent lights
illuminating the distant bicycle parking area.

Kento looked out into the darkness, but he couldn’t see anyone. It had been a woman’s
voice, but just as he was about to dismiss it and walk off he heard faint footsteps
approaching from behind.

He turned to find a slim, middle-aged woman. She was dressed in a neutral-colored
coat and wore no makeup. The kind of fresh, well-scrubbed look that women in the sciences
often had.

“You’re Kento Koga?” she asked in a faint voice.

Maybe she was someone on the science faculty. Still, she seemed a bit ghostly for
that. “Yes, I’m Kento.”

“I have something I need to talk with you about. Would you mind?”

Kento hesitated. “Uh…”

“Come with me,” she said, and began leading him away from the campus.

“Wait a second. What’s this about?”

“It’s about your father.”

“
My father?”

The woman nodded, all the while staring straight at him.

“I need to talk with you about something.”

“But how did you know I’m Seiji Koga’s son?”

“Your father showed me a photo of you once. He was very proud of you.”

That had to be a lie. Kento couldn’t picture his father bragging about him.

“Please, follow me,” the woman said, walking briskly. She seemed to be concerned about
the voices of students filtering over from the bicycle parking lot.

“Where are we going?”

“It’s cold out, so let’s talk in the car.”

“Car?” he repeated. By then they were outside the main gate. A minivan was parked
on the narrow road alongside the wall that surrounded the campus. It was parked in
the space between the streetlights, and all he could tell was that it was a dark color.

Kento stopped. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt like if he got in the car he’d never
see the campus again. “Can’t you tell me here?”

“But I—”

“What about my father?” he asked, and as he did, a second question came to his confused
mind. “Excuse me, but who
are
you?”

The woman looked away. “My name’s Sakai. Your father helped me a lot.”

“Miss Sakai? And your first name?”

“Yuri. Yuri Sakai.”

Kento didn’t recognize the name.

“Your father never mentioned me?”

“No, he didn’t. What’s this all about?”

Yuri Sakai glanced at the minivan. “I was shocked when I heard your father died.”

What a strange way to express regret, Kento thought. Why hadn’t she paid her respects
at their home in Atsugi, as everyone else did? “What kind of relationship did you
have with my father?” he asked.

“We did research on viruses together.”

“At Tama Polytechnic?”

“I’m in a research facility outside the university.”

“You mean joint research?”

“That’s right. You really never heard anything about it?”

Kento could only nod. There was so much about his father’s activities that was a riddle
to him, so he couldn’t determine whether she was telling the truth.

“I wanted to ask you about that research. I left some valuable experimental data with
your father.”

“Data?” For a moment Kento believed her. Nothing was more important to a researcher
than their data.

“Did your father happen to leave behind a small laptop?”

Kento froze. She was talking about the laptop his father had left in his study, the
one that wouldn’t boot up.

Never let anyone else have it
.

“N-no, I don’t know anything about that,” he answered, flustered. It was obvious how
unsettled he was.

He pushed his glasses up higher on his nose, trying to regain his composure. Yuri
looked at him, smiled, and chuckled quietly.

“You’re just like your father.”

Kento looked in surprise at her smile. He’d never expected this gloomy woman to smile.
This straightforward, candid woman was, he noticed for the first time, rather pretty.