The Gemini Virus (20 page)

It was imported into Wyoming via several large containers of coleslaw that had been infected in Nebraska before being shipped across state lines, where it was enthusiastically consumed during a community picnic. All sixty pounds were procured by a local wheeler-dealer named Chester D. “Chet” Maxwell. Quick with a laugh and a firm handshake, he was tall and handsome with the hairstyle all parents wished for their sons. He was an insurance salesman by trade, but his great love was his hometown, and the conduit through which he exercised that love was any organization associated with it—the Elks, the VFW, the church. In high school, he couldn’t go a week without being mentioned or photographed in the local paper for one astonishing sports achievement or another. But he didn’t have what it took to be a pro, and he knew it. Being involved in community affairs had been his way of staying in the spotlight. He was particularly proud of the coleslaw deal, from a vendor in Casper that no one had ever heard of. All the food at the picnic, in fact, was got at phenomenal prices, keeping him within a budget that was already microscopic and, as a result, once again anointing him the hero. Sitting in the first-floor office of his comfortable home three days later, however, he found himself faced with the very real possibility of becoming the focus of the local media’s wrath rather than its love. With a tenuous and sweaty grip on the phone, he listened with diminishing strength as the details of the outbreak’s investigation were relayed. Six people were already dead, twenty-two others infected, and at least forty to fifty more—estimated conservatively—would follow in short order. One of the dead was a little boy whose parents had bought a fire-insurance policy from Chet some years back. Another was one of his former teachers. And it had come from the cut-rate coleslaw, the caller said; of that there was no remaining doubt. After Chet returned the phone gently to its cradle, he sat in stunned silence for a while. The phone rang again, but he didn’t answer it that time. He hadn’t eaten any of the slaw himself; he didn’t like the stuff. But he had still been there that day, shaking hands and taking kisses on the cheek like the equally cut-rate politician he was. So he would have the infection soon, too—of that there was also no doubt. He rose from the chair in a daze, went upstairs into his bedroom, and got the revolver that he’d inherited from his father out of its locked box at the back of the closet. Then he nestled the barrel snugly beneath his chin and squeezed the trigger.

A couple that had attended the picnic, Willie and Lorraine Pryce, flew to San Francisco later that night to begin a fifteen-day cruise. They had been chattering about it to anyone at the picnic who would listen. It had been their dream to take a cruise on their honeymoon twelve years earlier, but they hadn’t been able to afford it at the time. When they boarded the first day, they both felt fine. By the second night, however, Willie had begun to feel nauseated. After Lorraine had fallen asleep, he all but crawled into the bathroom—or rather the head, as he understand the nautical term to be—and involuntarily transferred the contents of his stomach into the small porcelain bowl. At first he thought it was seasickness, then rejected the idea on the basis that he had been on his boss’s boat a half dozen times without so much as a stomach flutter. He stayed in the head wrapped in a blanket and curled close to the toilet because he didn’t want to wake his wife during her dream vacation. He threw up three more times before finally drifting off to sleep. He was jarred awake a few hours later by the sound of the door being thrown open. Lorraine stood silhouetted by the gaining sunlight shining in from the row of portholes above their bed and was holding on to the doorway for support. At first Willie thought that look of terror on her face came from waking up and finding him gone. Then he realized she felt as awful as he did. She charged forward and just about made it to the throne in time to copycat his earlier performance. From his ringside seat, he got to see everything in Technicolor clarity, thinking her mouth looked like the end of a fire hose that was discharging water the color of cooked salmon. He put one hand on her back as a gesture of support and used the other for the multiple flushes he knew would be required. After some discussion, the couple decided the culprit had been the cruise’s inaugural dinner from the night before. They then took showers, got dressed, and decided to soldier on. By the time they reached their first port of call, however—Acapulco—the rash had broken out and they were forced to seek medical attention. They were advised to return home by plane and did not argue. Meanwhile, the Sun-class cruiser and its nearly 1,800 passengers—several dozen of whom were now also infected—continued on its way, with scheduled stops in Huatulco, Puntarenas, Fuerte Amador, Cartagena, Aruba, and the Panama Canal Zone.…

*   *   *

President Obama was one of the few people in the Situation Room not wearing a military uniform. He was seated at the head of the table, and a map of the Middle East was on the screen at the far side. It felt as though he’d seen it a hundred times, and he thought many more presidents would see it in the future.

CIA Director Leon Panetta had delivered the grim news yesterday—the man identified as Abdulaziz Masood was directly connected to the government of Iran. The supporting evidence was overwhelming. There were names, phone numbers, and email addresses on Masood’s hard drive. There was a bank account with several recent transfers from an offshore account known to be controlled by several past Iranian regimes. There were notes and letters found in a hollowed-out cavity behind a piece of molding along the kitchen floor. And there was Masood himself, Syrian-born but a resident of Tehran since 1988. When the clear liquid in Masood’s spray bottle was analyzed, no one was surprised to find it contained the same virus in Masood’s bloodstream.

What FBI and CIA investigators never suspected was that the Iranian connection was apocryphal. In this respect, Masood had done a truly masterful job. He got caught because he wanted to get caught. But any confession that might’ve revealed the truth behind the lie was impossible because Masood lost consciousness in the intensive care unit at Saint Vincent’s less than two hours after he’d been apprehended and died shortly thereafter.

A distraught Obama listened stoically as his military advisers now had a conversation that was inevitable.

Admiral Thomas Teller, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said, “Iran’s solid-fuel, Sejil-Two surface-to-surface missiles have a range of about twelve hundred miles, Mr. President.” Teller looked more like a suburbanite from the 1950s than a military officer, the type who mowed his lawn every Saturday, then admired it on Sunday while cooking Delmonicos on the barbecue. He was sixty-two, soft-spoken, and on most days, upbeat and congenial. Not today, though.

“The Sejil series is a vast improvement over their Shahabs,” he said, “which are liquid fueled. Sejils are much more accurate.”

“And this is the best asset they’ve got?” Obama asked mechanically.

“Yes, although we’re all but certain they’re actively developing a two-stage rocket. That, of course, would allow for greater range with less fuel consumption.”

“Let’s not focus on what they haven’t got,” the president said.

“No, sir.”

“Let’s just stick to what they’ve got.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If we hit them, can they strike here? The American mainland?”

Teller shook his head, as did the others around the table.

“Not yet, Mr. President. Although I’m sure they’d like to. Chances are they’d strike our allies in the region, including Israel. That would be their way of exacting revenge.”

“And then Israel would strike
them,
” a female vice admiral commented from the other end of the table.

“And the region would explode in all-out warfare,” added a marine general across from her. “The Middle East conflict everyone’s been expecting for years. It would be a bloodbath.”

“Tom, who else would get involved if we attacked?” Obama asked. “Would Syria?”

“The Syrian ambassador has already made it clear through diplomatic back channels that any strike against Iran would be regarded as an act of war. If it came from Israel, there’s not much doubt they’d stand alongside Iran in that instance. If it came from us—” He put his hands up. “—it’s much harder to say. But they would spin it as a slap to the face of Islam rather than the Iranian government, and that could cause some problems.”

“What about China?”

Teller nodded to one of his subordinates, a lieutenant general named Albright who’d been stationed in the region.

“China’s ties to Iran have increased and strengthened in recent years, as you know, Mr. President,” Jettick said. “As you know, Iran terminated most trade with Japan in the early 2000s, mostly because they didn’t like the fact that Japan had become so friendly with us. So, China became one of their new customers. And thus far, I’m sorry to say, it has worked out nicely for both sides. Iran, for example, is a generous producer of hydrocarbons, and China is a voracious consumer.”

Teller finished with, “As China’s dependency on Iran grows, so will its motivation to feel protective.”

Obama nodded. “Sally, what’s your read on the Secretary General?”

Sally Kramer was the first female African American U.S. Ambassador to the UN, having been confirmed in the Senate by unanimous consent. A graduate of both Stanford and New College, she previously worked in President Clinton’s National Security Council.

“His feeling is that any military action on Iran would have little support from the great majority of our allies. In spite of what appears to be an Iranian-funded attack on our citizenry, no one is eager for more American aggression in the Middle East.”

Several in the room had the same thought at this moment:
If we hadn’t invaded Iraq in 2003, we’d have the political cover we needed.…

“And Russia?”

“It’s very hard to gauge Russia’s reaction at this point, Mr. President,” Kramer replied. “There are still active trade relations between them and Iran, but due to Iran’s inability to get their own economy fully stabilized, Russia is becoming more and more dependent upon us and other Western nations. Then again, they continue to provide Iran with most of their airplanes, both domestic and military. So it is a complicated situation. The Cold War is supposedly over, yet Russia keeps trying to delimit American influence in Central Asia, with China’s help, through the Shanghai Cooperative. If we launched a strike against Iran, both Russia and China might very well feel the need to respond.”

Obama nodded gravely. “The opening salvo to World War Three.”

“And yet we can’t do nothing,” General Teller said. “We have to respond in some fashion, sir.”

“I’m aware of that, Tommy.”

“These people planned and carried out an attack on America, on our soil.”

“I know.”

“We’ve got over four thousand dead. Dead bodies are being found all over because no one wants to touch them. American bodies lying dead. The press knows about Masood and is running with the story, fueling public fear and outrage. Our economy is grinding to a halt, which means the global economy is next. And the CDC people can’t stop this thing. We’re speeding toward some kind of Armageddon scenario, and—”

“I
know,
Tommy.”

The others fell silent as the president closed his eyes and massaged his temples. The tension in the room became asphyxiating.

Obama took a deep breath. “Give me a little time to think it through,” he said softly.

“Yes, sir, Mr. President.”

“Thank you.”

The room emptied swiftly. When everyone else had gone, Obama shook his head and muttered one word to himself.
“Dammit…”

*   *   *

Sitting in the lab’s break room, Cara Porter thought,
Kathy and David don’t know what they’re talking about
,
but Russell and Craig do. They’ve got it right
.

“Greg Thomas is going to win the whole freakin’ thing,” Russell said, talking through a mouthful of tuna fish. He always brought his lunch from home, she had come to notice, usually a sandwich wrapped a bit too tightly in clear plastic. A piece of fresh fruit and a little juice box usually completed the meal, all carried in a vintage Van Halen lunchbox, as if he were in the third grade. Porter immediately picked up on the fact that this was part of Russell’s big joke on the world. He was in his early thirties, married with two kids, and was one of the smartest virologists on the team. His unkempt curly hair, thick glasses, and habit of wearing concert T-shirts under the white lab coat that he never kept buttoned made him easy to underestimate. She now believed that was exactly what he wanted.

“He’s the next American Idol, so get used to it.”

“He’s a rocker,” Kathy Chi said. “Rockers are a dime a dozen.” Chi was the other midlevel virologist in the group. She was young, pretty, and single, and the latter was engineered, Porter had come to understand, because “career” came before “marriage” on what Chi called her Life List. She still had a few rungs to climb before she was ready to start targeting handsome young doctors. She sat cross-legged in a distinctly ladylike fashion, leaning slightly forward with her lab coat buttoned to the top, eating sushi. Her skill with chopsticks was something close to amazing. Porter found her bubbly personality a bit of an act, but she couldn’t help admiring Chi’s solemnity where the job was concerned. Like Russell, she was very good.

“He’s the only one in the bunch who plays an instrument,” Russell said emphatically. “Guitar, harmonica, piano, mandolin … Every week he’s out there with something different. What’s your girl play? The lottery?”

“Debbi Dixon has the best
voice,
and that’s what the show’s about, right? Singing?” Chi looked to the others fiercely, ready to pounce on the first dissenter.

“I think what Russell’s saying is that Greg Thomas is more diverse. He’s a more complete package.” This was Dr. Kevin Little, the bushy-bearded team leader. His easygoing nature and disheveled appearance belied a vast intelligence that bubbled just below the surface. If this was a college setting, he’d be the professor all the students liked, the one who managed to maintain a degree of order that his more hard-assed colleagues found frustratingly evasive. Porter particularly appreciated the way he never spoke to any of them in a condescending manner.