Upon A Pale Horse

FORTY-TWO The Verdict

Jeffrey spent the two days following his meeting with Bertrand on pins and needles, holed up in his hotel room, taking advantage of the time to recuperate and rebuild his resilience. The blow to his head had taken a lot out of him, and the stress from his encounters with the German and Bertrand hadn’t helped matters. But even though he knew he needed the down time, every hour seemed to crawl by as if in slow motion.

He’d spoken to Monica once, and begged off after a superficial discussion, mostly her assuring him that she missed him terribly and couldn’t wait for him to come home, with him offering anodyne responses. If she detected a cooling from his end she didn’t let on, and he didn’t really care much whether she did or not — he’d be ending the farce once he got back, beginning with breaking the news that he’d had a lot of time to think, and that things had moved too fast for his taste, and that he’d put off dealing with his feelings about his brother’s death by plunging into a relationship and a new job instead of processing the emotions and grieving. It was the kind of psychobabble he heard on television all the time, including when he tuned into one of the forty English channels offered by the hotel.

She would undoubtedly try to weasel her way back into his bed, but he would simply be unavailable, even if it meant taking a long vacation to recover. Which stopped him. Could he return to his job now that he believed that it was all a lie, and that he hadn’t been hired because he was a rarity but merely so that unseen watchers could more easily keep their eye on him? And even if he could, was working in an office twelve hours a day, structuring byzantine schemes to help his clients avoid taxes, really how he wanted to spend whatever life he had? He could probably never know for sure that the job was part of the scheme he’d uncovered, but his gut told him it was, and he was learning to trust his instincts.

The events of the last week had changed something fundamental in him: They both depressed and sickened him, but also reinforced how precious his existence was. And his brother’s death was always lurking in the background, just out of reach, a reminder that there were no guarantees of a long and prosperous life. It could be over at any moment. And if he couldn’t figure out a way to stop the virus, it very well might be sooner than later.

He’d come up with some possible ways to block dissemination of the plague flu, as he thought of it, but none of them was foolproof, and all depended upon him being successful in implementing them before it was released. Once it was, it wouldn’t really matter who knew that it was man-made — everyone would be too busy dying. Even as he lay on the bed, watching another mindless show, his mind was racing into the redline, counting the seconds until he could reasonably call Bertrand and find out what he’d learned.

After lunch on the second day, he repeated his sneaking out trick, which had apparently worked like a charm the last time. Whoever was watching him obviously had bought that he was doing little but watching television and running up a big tab while he convalesced. He’d called the neurologist in the morning and made another appointment for the following day, at which point he was planning to give the man a progress report just to keep up appearances, even though he wasn’t due to check in for a week.

Jeffrey slipped out of the service door and down the alley, and then paused at the main street, waiting for a lull in the traffic to dart across and melt into the throng. The sidewalks were crowded, and he had no problem blending in with his fellow pedestrians, his dark pants and jacket rendering him as anonymous as you could get in a big city.

Once he was three blocks from the hotel, he sat down at a sidewalk café, ordered coffee, and placed a call on his burner cell to Bertrand. The Frenchman answered on the second ring, and sounded out of breath.

“When can you be here?” the scientist asked.

“In about half an hour, I think.”

“I’ll tell Marianne. See you then.”

Bertrand’s voice gave nothing away, but Jeffrey figured that he wouldn’t have told him to come to the office if he didn’t have big news. Either that or Jeffrey had misjudged him, and there would be an executioner waiting for him with a silenced pistol or a straight razor when he approached the building. There was only one way to know for sure, so he paid for his coffee and scanned the street, hoping to find one of Paris’ ubiquitous taxis. It took him five minutes, but eventually one skidded to the curb next to him, and soon the little vehicle was rocketing toward the rue de Vaugirard and the Pasteur Institute.

Jeffrey had the driver drop him off two blocks away, and he approached the main entrance of the six-story tan building from across the street, watching for anyone suspiciously lurking around the front doors. His primitive attempt at tradecraft exhausted after several moments of watching the passers-by, he crossed the boulevard, dodging speeding cars, and entered the lobby. The escort to the third floor was repeated, and Marianne was waiting for him, her face as grim as the last time he’d seen her, not a trace of warmth on it.

“This way,” she said in her typically clipped style. Without waiting for a response, she led him down the empty hall to the scientist’s office. Three raps, the buzzer sounded, and then Jeffrey was once again with Bertrand, who looked like he hadn’t slept since he’d last seen him.

The doctor was sitting behind his desk and started speaking before Jeffrey had a chance to sit.

“It’s far worse than we thought. It’s H1N1… but it’s not. It’s something much more devastating. We ran the data, crunched the numbers, examined the modifications that were made. How much do you know about the original H1N1 virus?” the Frenchman asked, obviously frazzled.

“Just what the German told me. Deadly, affected the young and healthy, had up to a five percent mortality rate, typically killed very quickly — within twenty-four hours of the onset of symptoms, in most cases.”

“That’s probably as much as most know, if not more. This… this makes that look like having the sniffles. The death rates will be off the charts. Literally. The numbers you gave me… it looks like this virus would kill eighty to ninety percent of those infected. And it’s extremely contagious. Again, almost immeasurable. If this was released, it would wipe out much of human life. Our rough model says six billion people, possibly more, before it ran its course.”

“Good God. Are you serious?”

“I have never been more serious about anything in my life. The main problem is that there would be no resistance — it’s been modified enough so that the existing flu strains and the natural resistance that develops over time from exposure to those won’t have any positive effect.”

“What about a vaccine?”

“By the time we could create one, it would be too late for many. And by the time we could go into full production, it would be over.”

“Antiviral meds?”

“Limited to no effect. Again, because we’re dealing with a specifically crafted variant that was designed to bypass the two major antiviral drugs, as well as any natural immunity. It’s the perfect virus, in that sense — indestructible, highly infectious, and as deadly as just about anything I’ve seen.”

“But you could start working on a vaccine now…” Jeffrey tried.

“Of course, but it would take months. And if your brother was under the impression that it was going to be released soon, we don’t have time. I’ve already checked, and there’s a large global flu shot program scheduled to start within a week. That’s a likely culprit if you’re even half right about your HIV dissemination suspicion. Or it could be as simple as releasing it in a number of popular airports. It wouldn’t take much. In fact, if a small group of travelers was exposed, or some security workers, as virulent as this is, tens of thousands would be infected and become carriers before anyone knew it. By the time the first ones started dying, we’d be talking millions exposed, at which point it would be too late. Frankly, this is the worst case scenario of the thousands of nightmare possibilities we’ve ever contemplated.”

Both men sat in silence, and then Jeffrey nodded.

“I have a possible solution. A blocking move. But it will require your help.”

“Monsieur, at this point, anything you can suggest would be of interest. The alternative is too horrible to consider.”

“The basic idea is to short-circuit the plan so it can’t be executed.”

“How?”

“I have some ideas…”