Genocide of One: A Thriller (25 page)

Rubens had pushed himself hard doing the research and was relieved at what he’d found,
because it meant that they should be able to avoid the worst choice of the three,
the one that involved killing. Since it was possible that the viral infection had
led to the birth of multiple superhumans, the entire Kanga band would have to be killed
to eliminate the threat. But Rubens found it hard to imagine his superiors authorizing
a massacre on that scale.

Of the two remaining choices—leaving the creature alone or capturing it—Rubens had
to eliminate the first. There was a danger that this amazing intellect could potentially
break the most secure codes, which might fall into the hands of a potential enemy.

But capture also was worrisome. According to the Heisman Report, this superhuman possessed
“mental qualities that are incomprehensible to us.” It was impossible to predict how
it would react to the attempt to capture it. To avoid the unexpected, they had to
be cautious and not take extreme hostile action against it.

This was phase 1 of the investigation. A team of specialists, guarded by Special Forces
troops, had to be sent to the site to check out the veracity of Pierce’s information.

Once they established the facts they would proceed to phase 2, isolating all members
of the Kanga band and all participants in the operation. The participants would need
to be quarantined because of the possibility that they’d been infected at the site.
A certain amount of deception was necessary, and they would need to fabricate a story
about the spread of Ebola or some other lethal virus in order to justify the quarantine.

In phase 3 all the people in quarantine would be subjected to biochemical testing
so they could determine whether a virus that could produce an evolutionary change
really existed. If they did detect the virus, then the steps after that were up to
the politicians. Most likely they would push to develop an antiviral drug to nip this
evolutionary change in the bud. And if it turned out that the viral threat was a false
alarm, then the people in quarantine could be released.

Concerning the three-year-old child with the mutated brain, it and its parent could
be given United States citizenship, financial support, and be put under a not-so-stringent
watch. The major premise would be respect for their individual rights as people, avoiding
extreme measures such as imprisonment. They needed to impress upon the creature that
modern man was not an enemy and then use the intellect of this superhuman to benefit
the United States.

Rubens’s plan, however, was rejected the day after he turned it in.

“The higher-ups think it’s too soft,” the external affairs chief told him when they
met in the conference room at the Schneider Institute. “We have to quickly eliminate
this threat to the United States.”

“Eliminate?” Rubens realized immediately what this meant. Killing them.

“Also, financing your plan and implementing it are both problematic. We have our hands
full fighting two wars in the Middle East. And it’s impossible to quarantine forty
Pygmies in a war zone.”

“It should be doable if you use civilians, not the military. If you put out the story
that the effort is intended to defeat a lethal virus, you can disguise it as humanitarian
aid. None of the factions fighting in the Congo wants to make enemies of America.”

“Listen, Arthur,” the chief said mildly as he corrected this rash analyst. “You still
don’t get it about this administration, do you? You can convince me, but that’s not
going to change their opinion. They’ll just find another think tank that’ll do as
it’s told.”

It was a beginner’s oversight, and Rubens felt embarrassed by his naïveté. True enough,
that’s how they operated. They’d pick apart any opposing opinion, exclude it, and
surround themselves with yes men. An autocratic approach to decision making dressed
up as democratic. This was how the Burns administration spearheaded the slaughter
of so many Iraqi civilians.

“Their decision isn’t based on an examination of the plan’s validity. It’s simply
how they like to do things. This administration has a typical cowboy approach, and
they don’t like roundabout methods. If there’s somebody who can break their most secure
codes, they want to remove him right away. Before an enemy country can find out.”

“But let’s say they kill the Pygmy child. The potential threat remains. If a virus
caused the mutation, another child like him might be born in the Kanga band.”

“They took that into account when they made their decision.”

Shocked, Rubens stared at the chief across the table. He thought he had a good grasp
of the psychopathology of the Burns administration, but he’d vastly underestimated
their viciousness. The conference room was secure, but still Rubens lowered his voice.
“You’re saying that they plan to liquidate the entire Kanga band, including Nigel
Pierce?”

The chief grimaced and nodded. “If you’re going to survive here in Washington you
need to be careful with the words you use. Not
liquidate
, but
eliminate.
As long as there’s a possibility of viral infection, we’ll have to eliminate more
than those forty-one. The troops who carry out the operation will have to go, too.”

As he vigorously argued against this, Rubens was surprised to find an unexpected moralist
within him. “But the military won’t accept that. These will be Special Forces–type
troops, people they’ve spent millions of tax dollars training. You really plan to
eliminate
crack troops like those?”

“That’s why we have private defense contractors. We just send in mercenaries. Plus,
if this plan really comes to fruition, it will be an assassination led by the White
House. Safer to outsource it.”

This wasn’t murder, Rubens thought. It was genocide. The target was an individual
who made up an entire race. A genocide of one. “But what’s the plan if the viral infection
has spread beyond the Kanga band? You’ll eliminate all the people who live in the
area?”

“I’m sure they’ll discuss that when the time comes. Submit a new plan by tomorrow,”
the chief ordered. As he was leaving the conference room he turned around. “Watch
your back, Arthur,” he said.

This wasn’t a threat, Rubens decided, but a piece of friendly advice.

Rubens left the institute while it was still light out and walked back home down M
Street, the one street he most enjoyed strolling in all DC. The street was filled
with small, elegant shops, and the crowd on the street was lively, as if regretting
the waning sun. What Rubens saw, however, was people living lives as well-intentioned
citizens, people who had come to terms with the savage desires deep within them. This
is America. And the Burns administration was humiliating this country.

Rubens came to the steep steps at Prospect Street and stood there, deep in thought.
There was one thing he understood about the decision to liquidate this newly evolved
species of human. Just as chimpanzees can’t manipulate humans, humans would not be
able to control this new species of superhuman. If allowed to live, it could pose
a threat to human society. The problem was the forty-some innocents caught up in it.
If he didn’t think of a way to save their lives, he would be the ringleader in their
massacre.

He could resign, but quitting his job wouldn’t change anything. Somebody else eager
to go along with Burns’s ideas would just take his place, and the massacre would proceed.
He, Rubens, was the only one who could reduce the number of victims.

He could send a warning to Nigel Pierce, but that meant sending an e-mail through
Pierce’s satellite phone, which was out of the question—Echelon would immediately
catch the message and trace it back to him.

Watch your back, Arthur.

Rubens sensed the danger he was in. He felt like he’d been slowly, unknowingly, dragged
into a criminal organization, threatened, and forced to become a hit man. Actually,
the White House
was
a lot like the Mafia. When they had a problem, murder was one of the options they
considered as a solution.

After giving it a lot of thought, Rubens decided which path he should take.

He returned to the town house he rented near Georgetown University, went into the
small room he used as a study, and began composing a new plan.

First of all, in order to get those involved in the operation to commit mass murder,
he appropriated the notion of an explosive outbreak of a lethal virus. And he named
this fraudulent operation to save humanity from the risk of extinction Guardian.

Unlike his earlier report, his new plan included a great number of specialized terms
and difficult concepts without any explanation. He also hinted that the operation
would be quite risky and that there was a high chance of failure.

Rubens implied that the person who could best manage the mission had to possess certain
qualities. He had to be grounded in politics and military matters but also needed
academic training in biology. He should be the kind of person who, if and when the
upper levels of the administration gave the order, could be easily sacked. There couldn’t
be many people who would fit the bill—other than the young analyst from the Schneider
Institute.

Rubens was staking everything on this. Well before the Iraq War think tanks had become
a vital part of the military-industrial complex and civilians who worked at some of
them had set up the Office of Special Plans and became prime movers in the war. It
was perfectly conceivable that Rubens would be involved in this secret operation,
including its execution.

It was past midnight when he finished writing his proposal, and he turned to the blanks
he’d left for the code names. The target, the three-year-old child, he code-named
Nous, a Greek term that meant superior intelligence and was the origin of the term
noosphere, coined by the Jesuit philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to refer to
what he saw as the third stage in biological evolution. And Rubens named the operation
to murder the three-year-old child after the Greek goddess Nemesis, the goddess of
divine retribution, the name given to the massive meteorite that brought about the
extinction of the dinosaurs.

A month later Operation Nemesis, classified as a special access program, was approved
by President Burns and set in motion. A combat operations center was established in
the basement of the Pentagon, in corridor 3.
OFFICE OF SPECIAL PLANS, SECTION 2
, the sign on the door read, and to get inside one needed to show a security badge
and ID card and undergo biometric scans. Rubens was, naturally, given access, for
the White House had, as he had hoped, named him operations manager.

Everything had gone as planned. He was given authority to change the operation if
he deemed it necessary, right before the four operators selected from private defense
contractors were to kill the Pygmies. Rubens had decided he would use the sole weapon
at his disposal, his extraordinary intellect, to save the lives of those forty people.

There were eleven staff members in the operations center, including the deputy assistant
secretary of defense for African affairs, designated the overall supervisor; one military
adviser and one science adviser; and below them Rubens and six staff members under
his direct supervision, including some from the Defense Intelligence Agency and CIA
strategic planning headquarters. These staff members were go-betweens, ready to liaise
with staff members from their respective organizations who were standing by.

Rubens was especially thankful that the science adviser was Dr. Melvin Gardner. Gardner
had begun his career in quantum mechanics, then moved into physical chemistry and
later molecular biology. He had made major contributions to these fields, earning
him a National Medal of Science. He had the perfect background to advise the operation,
and his calm demeanor did much to soften the often ruthless atmosphere in the operations
center. In contrast, the military adviser, Colonel Glenn Stokes, assigned from the
Office of Special Plans, was a difficult character, and the other members enjoyed
listening to the clash of opinions between him and Gardner.

Rubens was able to talk with Gardner one-on-one just before the operation commenced
to go over some basic procedures.

“Professor, do you support killing Nous?” Rubens asked point-blank.

Gardner answered calmly. “I think it’s probably unavoidable. Say that three-year-old
grows up and successfully conducts cold nuclear fusion. It will change power relationships
worldwide. He’ll control mankind in every field—not just in energy but also in science
and technology—weapons development included—medicine, and economics. If it came to
that, all wealth and power would accrue to Nous.”

Gardner seemed to have a correct grasp of the nature of this biological threat in
the jungle of the Congo, and in this he and Rubens were on the same page.
Power
was the threat. Not the destructive power of nuclear weapons or the power of cutting-edge
technology but the intellect that gives rise to them.

“Unfortunately,” Gardner went on, “we’re intolerant. We can’t stand beings more intelligent
than we are. Personally, though, I’d love to meet Nous.”

Rubens felt the same way. “I wonder what he’d look like if he grew up.”

“Considering the possibility of neoteny, his face would probably look like that of
human children. Even though he looks odd as an infant, eventually he’d be indistinguishable
from human children.”

“I see.”

Modern man was said to be the neotenic incarnation of its ancestors, the anthropoid
apes. The skulls of a chimpanzee infant and an adult human are basically identical.
If Nous grew up you wouldn’t be able to tell him apart from a human child—except that
he would be small in stature, like the Pygmies.

“Now, about the most critical element of this operation—”