Mutant (31 page)

Epilogue

The
New
York
Herald,
Monday, July 24, 2000

The death toll from the July Fourth attack on New York now stands at 423, two more infants having died last night as a result of the bird flu. These unfortunate children had been in intensive care for the last sixteen days. “As grim as these numbers are, they could have been much, much worse,” said Dr. Greg Stanton, Dean of the New York City Medical School. “Thanks to the early warning by Dr. Kathleen Sullivan and Dr. Richard Steele, we were able to intervene quickly enough to thwart the bulk of the infections. As it turned out, thanks to a new class of drugs called neuraminidase inhibitors, many of the 75,000 people actually exposed to the spray had no symptoms at all, and the majority had only a mild case of the flu. Of the 10 percent who were seriously ill, almost 7,000 have recovered completely. Of course, these numbers are little consolation to the families whose loved ones perished. As is often the case, it was the most frail who succumbed, the very old and, tragically, the very young.”

Almost all those who were quarantined are now released. When asked if the risk from the bird flu was over, Dr. Stanton replied, “We won’t really know that for many months, and the highest risk of it reoccurring will be when the influenza season arrives next fall. Ironically, the technicians who perfected the delivery of this hideous weapon may have inadvertently helped us. They left behind a dozen monkeys who survived their exposure and now contain antibodies to the hybrid. Using sera from these animals, our researchers are fast-tracking a possible vaccine to prevent the disease which may be ready for mass distribution in about six months. In the meantime, if anyone experiences coldlike symptoms, I suggest they see their doctor immediately.”

The
New
York
Herald,
Wednesday, July 26, 2000

Police continue to piece together how the Independence Day attack was mounted. Testimony from members of the Blue Planet Society reveals that Steve Patton used his worldwide environmentalist network as unwitting accomplices in his scheme. Members of the organization in Asia have testified that in 1997 during the bird flu outbreak in Taiwan they advised him about a genetic vaccine being used against the virus that in some areas seemed to be making things worse. At the time they were surprised when he appeared to ignore the information, but when the vaccine was withdrawn by Biofeed International, they let the matter drop. Members of the European environmental community, however, recall Patton showing a sudden interest in the radical fringes of the so-called green movement around that time, especially those factions that had resorted to violent action in the past. Police now believe it was through such extremist groups that he made contact with the terrorists in Afghanistan who subsequently supplied him with the money, resources, and manpower he used to mount the assault, including the construction of the Agrenomics laboratory north of White Plains, New York. Neither the police, the FBI, nor spokespersons for the CIA will comment on the likely identity of these men and women or their organization, but it is believed that they are still at large.

In other developments, Honolulu Police have heard testimony and found records at the Oahu offices of Biofeed International which shed light on another participant in the conspiracy, Mr. Robert Morgan. Documents revealed that the man was an employee at the company in 1998 and had instigated the resale of a faulty genetic vaccine against bird flu to local farmers under the guise of it being ordinary feed corn. When the virus jumped the species barrier and infected a young child in the area, just as it had a year earlier in Taiwan, Morgan was promptly dismissed as part of an immediate cover-up carried out by company officials.

Police are also questioning a former Biofeed employee who has come forward to state that shortly after the infected child died and news of the case was broadcast around the world, a man claiming to represent the Blue Planet Society approached her. “He asked very pointed questions about feed corn containing a genetic vaccine for bird flu and if any had been marketed in the area by the Biofeed company. Being an active environmentalist myself, I did a bit of clandestine investigating for him, sneaking into computer files, and found bills of sale regarding recalled feed corn from Taiwan bearing Bob Morgan’s signature. Though vaccines weren’t specifically mentioned, I knew Morgan had been abruptly fired recently under suspicious circumstances. So I passed copies of the records to this guy from the Blue Planet Society and suggested he track down Morgan to learn what he had to say about the feed corn. I didn’t hear anything further, so figured nothing had come of it. When I saw all the headlines about the July Fourth attack, there were photos of the man I had dealt with, Steve Patton himself.”

The
New
York
Herald,
Sunday Edition, July 30, 2000

Authorities still have no definitive plan on how to deal with acres and acres of corn contaminated with the RNA of Ebola virus throughout the South and Midwest. “This is no hoax,” declared one official. “Ground-up meal from these plants has been fed to laboratory monkeys, and every animal tested so far fell ill with the disease, 90 percent of them dying within 10 days.”

Initial plans to burn the affected crops were put on hold as agricultural specialists consulted with European scientists who’d participated in “burn offs” of soya crops last year after they had been unintentionally infiltrated by genetically modified strains of the plant. “Our worry is that fragments of the corn stalks may escape being incinerated and end up carried for miles by the smoke.” No one can say for sure if such a spread of debris would be dangerous, and experts on both sides of the Atlantic continue to study the matter.

But time is of concern. While humans can be prevented from eating the isolated produce, it’s impossible to keep small animals and insects out of the affected areas. If one of these invaders turns out to be the unknown host for Ebola virus, then the organism will have a permanent foothold in America.

Another expert who insisted on remaining anonymous says that even the measures taken to prevent humans from unintentionally ingesting the contaminated product aren’t foolproof. There are rumors that while most of the first crop already harvested was marketed for replanting as feed corn, several shipments inexplicably ended up being sold to the food giant’s own flour mills, which in turn supply the corporation’s retail division, the well-known Biofeed Grocery Chain. Officials for the company refused to comment further, but confirmed that a nationwide recall of all their corn-meal products is in effect. So far no confirmed cases of Ebola have been reported, but emergency rooms across the land are being overwhelmed as anyone who experiences even the slightest stomach upset from any cause is now running to see a doctor. The drain on medical resources is preventing many hospitals from dealing with their usual caseloads.

“While there is no treatment for the disease, early implementation of supportive measures, such as rehydration with intravenous solutions, can increase the chances of survival,” said a spokesperson for the CDC in Atlanta. “We are also working on an experimental vaccine against the deadly virus which looks promising with primates. Unfortunately, much work still needs to be done in refining it, and human trials are years away.”

On the economic front, repercussions in the agriculture sector show no signs of letting up. Prices for meat and poultry from the North have soared as Americans continue to boycott produce from the South for fear the animals and birds have accidentally been given the mutated feed, despite assurances from state officials that they have successfully tracked down and isolated all the crops that had been tampered with . . .

Richard grimaced and threw down the newspapers, then leaned back in his beach chair. Looking out at the sparkling ocean, he heard Kathleen Sullivan stir as she drowsed at his side, then felt her take his hand and give it a reassuring squeeze.

“Try and relax, Richard,” she said. “It’s not our fight for the moment.”

He entwined his fingers with hers, and swept the shoreline with his eyes until he spotted Chet and Lisa frolicking with Boogie boards in the surf. At least I’ve been able to put my own little world back together, he thought.

They were spending the rest of the summer north of Portsmouth, Maine, having rented a beach house there after they got out of quarantine. Greg Stanton had insisted they needed the time off, and for a parting gift handed Richard a formal clearance to resume his duties as chief of emergency at New York City Hospital in September. Martha, once she had them properly installed, gently insisted on taking a well-earned cruise to Europe, leaving the two of them and the children to play house alone. As for his worries about Chet, it took Lisa about ten minutes to win him over, and the two had been practically inseparable ever since. She sometimes even included him when one of her many boyfriends came to visit and invited her for a drive or to the movies in a nearby town. “You’re my birth control, in case they get any wrong ideas,” she said at dinner one night, making his youthful face blush.

Chet picked himself up from where a big wave had deposited him on the sand, glanced across the blond dunes to where Steele and Kathleen sat, and gave them a big grin before charging back through the ruffled water. In that instant, as the sunlight bounced off the glittering surface and danced across his son’s face, Richard could have sworn he saw a pair of familiar dark eyes flashing their approval.

Author’s Note

In the year 2000 I set out to create a speculative “what if” tale about genetic weapons and how they could be used for an attack on America, beginning in New York City, followed by a second wave spreading to the country’s heartland. When
Mutant
was published in July 2001, though categorized as a medical thriller, some sites on the Internet listed it as science fiction.

Since September 11th, the resonance of what I wrote has changed.

The high-tech aspect of the assault remains speculative and “what if.” Horrible as the real events were and continue to be, they are not the result of anything high tech. But the perpetrators I imagined in my work of fiction have been singled out as the villains behind our current tragedy. Given their repeated threat to use weapons of mass destruction,
Mutant
may disturb readers beyond what is the usual purview of mystery and thriller genre.

Some may question such a story at a time when fear is high and the country is so on edge. I offer it not to frighten further, but to caution.

I also hope
Mutant
will provide a doctor’s take on such calamities, that it will illuminate why I think we will prevail against whatever the forces of ignorance and hatred throw against us. As a physician, I’ve had the privilege of spending twenty-eight years implementing the power of science and medicine. Of course I’ve witnessed occasional misuses of that power, and as a writer I must plead guilty for focusing on such lapses. But in reality the benefits overwhelm the mistakes, and for the most part we heed the lessons of where we go wrong. After a lifetime in the medical field, I have great faith and empathy for the people who work on the front lines of our profession, both in research and clinical settings.

Mutant
depicts how two such people, however flawed they are personally, use science, medicine, and courage to mount a response against a massive terror. We’re going to need a lot of their sort, and I assure you, there’s an army of them out there.

PETER CLEMENT

References

The following works were invaluable in the preparation of this story.

Too Early May Be Too Late
and
An Orphan in Science: Environmental Risks of Genetically Engineered
Vaccines
, both by Terje Traavik (Norway: Directorate for Nature Management, 1999), provided commentaries on the research into gene technology and genetically modified organisms of the last decade (including some abstracts of the articles Richard Steele came across on the Internet).

Molecular Biology of the Cell,
Third Ed. by Alberts, B. et al. (New York: Garland, 1994);
Virus Ground Zero
by Ed Regis (New York: Pocket Books, 1996); and
Principles of Molecular Virology,
Snd Ed. by Alan J. Cann (San Diego, Calif.: Academic Press, 1997) were all useful reference texts.

Periodicals that proved helpful included the following:

Nordlee, J. A. et al. (1996). Identification of a Brazil-nut allergen in transgenic soybeans.
New England Journal
of Medicine
14: 688–728.

Schubert, R. et al. (1994). Ingested foreign (phage M13) DNA survives transiently in the gastrointestinal tract and enters the bloodstream of mice.
Mol. Gen. Genet.
242: 495–504.

Schubert, R. et al. (1997). Foreign DNA (M13) ingested by mice reaches peripheral leukocytes, spleen, and liver via intestinal wall mucosa and can be covalently linked to mouse DNA.
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA
94: 961–966.

Syvanen, M. (1987). Cross-species gene transfer: A major factor in evolution?
Trends Genet.
28: 237–261.

———. (1987). Molecular clocks and evolutionary relationships: Possible distortion due to horizontal gene flow?
J. Mol. Evol.
26: 16–23.

———. (1994). Horizontal gene transfer: Evidence and possible consequences.
Annu. Rev. Genet.
28: 237–261.

A series of articles in the October 16, 1999, issue of
Lancet
under the general heading “Genetically Modified Foods: The Scientific Debate Now Begins” (pp. 1314, 1315, 1353, 1354) gave a framework to the back-and-forth arguments encountered by Steele on both sides of the controversy. Proceedings at the United Nations Conference on Biodiversity held in Montreal in January 2000, which stimulated some of the ideas expressed in this novel, involved reports and the various position papers submitted by delegates from Europe, Africa, and Asia who advocated a precautionary principle to regulate the commercialization of gene technology and genetically modified organisms; and the protests against this principle by the so-called Miami group of countries (United States, Canada, Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand). Facts regarding polymerase chain reactions came from the Web site of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Arizona.