The Barrier

by Shankari Chandran

  ‘I do what I must to maintain the stability of my country. The West knows that. When it churns their stomachs, they look away, but they don’t dare try to stop me.’

  He leaned closer to Noah. A few centimetres more and Noah could crack the president’s skull with his own forehead, stand, pick up the chair behind him, spin and thrust one of its legs into the man’s thick neck.

  Rajasuriya saw his face. ‘Tie him up better – I’d like to talk to him alone.’

  The soldiers hesitated. One of them spoke, ‘Sir, the general was very clear – we were to stay with you . . . and him, at all times.’

  ‘Are you refusing to obey me?’

  ‘No, no – of course not.’ Another soldier hurried forward and roped Noah’s arms and legs to the chair. They left the room.

  ‘That’s better. Now we can talk like friends.’

  ‘Tie all of your friends up, do you?’

  The president ignored him. ‘You talk about sacrifice. Imagine if you’d asked any man on the street – one of your streets – to sacrifice his right to worship God, his right to love God, to follow a religion of his choice. What would the average American or European say to that? Your civil rights advocates would be up in arms, defending the right to privacy, to freedom of expression – what else? There must be at least three other rights that cover religion.’

  ‘It’s been a while since I read our Bill of Rights.’

  ‘The shame of it is you selfishly kept God for your own people but the majority of you ignored him anyway. Like a child that wanted something for Christmas but then got bored by New Year’s. That’s another advantage of living on this side of the shield by the way – we don’t have to do Christmas anymore, thank God.’

  The president laughed to himself. ‘No, your people prefer to worship the gods of materialism and consumption, vanity and celebrity. You don’t deserve God.’

  ‘We don’t deserve God? God doesn’t deserve us,’ Noah replied contemptuously.

  ‘Hush, Noah, he might hear you. You have a very unhealthy relationship with God, and we should explore that some other time.’

  Rajasuriya called the soldiers back. ‘Untie him,’ he commanded. ‘I’d like you to help me with something. Hackman tells me you have many talents.’

  Noah rubbed his wrists and flexed his shoulders and upper torso.

  ‘I hope we didn’t hurt you too much? I apologise – we had to get you out of there quickly, before they returned for you. You’re better off with us.’

  They. We. They.

  ‘I’m sorry about your team. We don’t operate like that, despite your interference in our business. I told you when we first met, Sri Lanka is a sovereign nation,’ Rajasuriya echoed Hackman’s defence. ‘We reserve the right to implement our global commitments in our own way.’

  ‘My team . . .’ Noah cleared his throat.

  ‘Yes, yes, your team. It was a little over-the-top, but they’re like that.’

  ‘Who?’ Noah demanded.

  ‘This is my interrogation, not yours.’

  ‘Who,’ Noah tried to control his voice. ‘If it wasn’t you, who did it? Please.’

  ‘Does it matter? They’re dead all the same. And dead is dead, as you know.’

  ‘It matters to me. It won’t help them, but it matters to me.’

  The president raised an eyebrow. ‘You really are ready for retirement.’

  Rajasuriya bent towards him, his lips near Noah’s ear. Noah saw the soldiers around the president tense, weapons ready. ‘Tell me something,’ Rajasuriya asked softly, ‘do you believe in ghosts?’

  Chapter 32

  The soldiers stepped back. He heard the door behind him open and the sound of a body being dragged in. He knew that sound well. He looked up, just as they dumped Khan’s limp form onto the chair in front of him.

  General Rajasuriya was with him. ‘Bind him, he can’t stay up. Water.’

  They tied Khan’s chest to the chair and poured water on him.

  The scientist shook his head and gasped, rocking with sudden violence.

  ‘Don’t move,’ Noah said, reflexively. ‘It hurts when you fall with the chair. Be still if you can, I’m here.’

  ‘Noah – thank . . .’ Khan stopped, grasping for a word, just beyond the horizon of his memory.

  ‘Why are you here? What’s happening?’ the old man asked. His shirt was torn and bloodstained. His left ear dangled by a thin strip of skin.

  ‘Who,’ Noah whispered. ‘Who did this to you?’

  ‘The general’s men – the hospital lobby. I didn’t even make it to the lab. Devi must be worried. Did you go to the lab?’

  ‘I did – they’ve taken your work, hard drives, everything except Devi – they didn’t touch her.’

  ‘Thank . . .’ Khan stopped.

  ‘Thank who?’ General Rajasuriya asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Khan said hoarsely. ‘I don’t know who . . .’

  ‘Dr Khan, you have been accused by the Department for Biological Integrity of developing a decoy vaccine.’ The general spoke to Khan but looked at Noah.

  ‘Your friend Dr Williams here has been investigating whether you are responsible for four breaches of the Immunity Shield that have taken place in the Eastern Alliance recently.

  ‘You have been questioned by us and you have denied the allegations – is that correct?’

  Khan looked at the general and shook his head.

  ‘Dr Khan – conspiracy to undermine the Immunity Shield is a national and international crime, punishable by death in Sri Lanka. How do you answer these charges?’

  Khan’s words stumbled. ‘I would never do that. One hundred percent herd immunity is vital for our survival . . . Ebola is out there, waiting for its moment.’ He coughed and took a deep breath. ‘I’ve only ever developed vaccines to help us. I tried telling them, Noah, but they showed me pictures of this vaccine. It’s not mine –’

  ‘Enough!’ the president stepped forward. He thrust images in Khan’s face. Enlarged photographs of the vaccine used by Hassan Ali. He fired off questions and reloaded with more. ‘Why did you make this? Who did you give it to? Tell me who you’re working for. I want the names of your vaxxers. I want the population sets you’ve breached.’

  ‘I told you, sir. I told your brother so many times.’ Khan cried as he looked at the photographs again. ‘I know this vaccine – but it isn’t mine. It is beautifully crafted but not complete. I would never leave something unfinished, you know that.’ He looked at Noah.

  ‘Son, he needs to do better. The vaccine won’t work – no Ebola immunity. Mine is better. Full immunity, with a passive strand – so it won’t hurt anyone. I wish I had more time. I wanted to extrapolate more vaccines. We worked much better together. Aisha always said that together we were the genetically perfect virologist.’ He tried to laugh but grimaced with pain instead. ‘I could finish it with him if I had more time. Devi knows what to do. She wants to help too.’

  Noah’s heart raced. Khan sounded delirious but he wasn’t. Noah had seen pain drive men mad – this was clarity not madness.

  Where did Rajasuriya get the pictures from? No one had those except Bio. Fuck you, Hackman. I told you I would contain Khan when I was certain. I told you I wasn’t sure. Khan was something – but not the ghost. Why had Hackman turned him in to Rajasuriya?

  ‘Calm down, Amir, please. You need to calm down.’ Noah looked at the soldiers around them. ‘How do you recognise the vaccine? Where have you seen it before? Think carefully.’

  ‘How do I recognise . . .? Of course I recognise all exceptional virology. I even recognised the Ebola strain in the hospital outbreak. It was perfect; just what I needed. If you paid more attention you’d recognise it too,’ Khan replied.

  ‘You’re scolding me? Now?’

  ‘I won’t have much time to scold you in the future.’ Khan smiled, tears in his eyes. ‘That vaccine isn’t mine – I swear to you. Mine is better. Take it back to him. He’ll know what to do. Trust
him – you need to have faith, Noah.’

  ‘Who is he talking about?’ Rajasuriya turned to Noah. ‘Who is he talking about?’

  The president leaned in to Khan. ‘God?’ he whispered. ‘Are you talking to God now?’

  ‘God,’ Khan whispered the name and closed his eyes.

  The president stepped back and nodded at a soldier. He raised his handgun and smacked Khan across the face, sending his body towards the floor. Noah jumped up and caught him in his arms. He heard Khan’s ragged breathing in his ear. Ancient Sanskrit words found their way from some lost cavern in the old man’s brain, mumbled and mispronounced, but immediately recognisable to Noah.

  He set the chair and Khan firmly upright. Then he turned around and drove his boot into the soldier’s knee, welcoming the sound of bones breaking, tendons severing.

  Soldiers shouted and raised their weapons to his head. He put his arms up, hearing someone step up behind him. He relaxed his body for the blow to his back that was coming. Impact hurt less if your muscles were relaxed. Of course a spinal break was something else.

  There it was. Badly placed to the left kidney. He sank to his knees, hands on the ground, waiting for the follow-up. He needed to outlast this beating and work out what to do.

  ‘Wait!’ the general shouted. ‘Wait. Get him up.’ Hands dragged him up and onto his chair. He heard the chime of handcuffs and the click as it bound him. Hands in front this time. Better.

  ‘Noah,’ Khan whispered. ‘Noah, please don’t worry about me.’

  ‘Isn’t that touching? Tell me, Doctor, who paid you to develop this vaccine?’ President Rajasuriya asked.

  Khan looked up at Rajasuriya, confused. ‘I didn’t develop it – no one paid me. I work for you – for Sri Lanka, for its people. I’m trying to help you.’

  ‘Help us? With a vaccine that doesn’t work? A vaccine that undermines herd immunity and invites death on all of us?’

  ‘No, no, no,’ Khan wept. ‘I told you. My vaccine – the one I’m working on – will provide immunity for Ebola and future strains of the virus. It could change everything.’

  ‘Change is rarely stable,’ the president replied. ‘Let’s talk about your other vaccine in a moment. My people will disconnect that computerised-arm machine in your lab. I presume that your work will be recorded on its hard drive?’

  ‘Devi.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I call her Devi. Please don’t hurt her. She can help you if you work with her.’

  ‘I’ll keep that in mind when we bring her here and look inside her artificially intelligent brain. Who are you working for?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Khan repeated wearily.

  President Rajasuriya’s right hand twitched slightly. A soldier stepped forward with a short stick, like a riding crop, in his hand. He slapped Noah across the face, left side, whipping his head back. He tasted a rush of blood in his mouth. Noise, like waves breaking, in his ears. The eye was still intact.

  ‘No, no – I said, not his face.’ The president shook his head. ‘He needs to talk – and Hackman might want to see him before he trades. Body blows only. Something we can dress up later.’

  ‘Hack –’ His lip was split but functional. He swallowed hard and tried again.

  ‘Hackman won’t trade me. I’m expendable.’

  ‘Don’t talk about yourself like that, Noah. You’re special.’

  He turned back to Khan. ‘Finger or nail?’

  ‘What?’ Khan asked. Noah felt his blood chill. He’d asked that question before.

  ‘Finger or nail – what would you prefer?’

  ‘Don’t do it – he’s a crazy old man with strange theories about evolution. An obsessed scientist. He isn’t trying to breach the shield.’

  ‘Then why did he create that vaccine? You heard him, he recognised the photographs – he said he can fix it. Where did it come from? Who are you working for?’ The president was shouting into Khan’s face, spittle flying from his enraged mouth.

  ‘Finger or nail,’ he screamed.

  ‘Nail, nail, nail,’ Noah shouted, stamping his feet at Khan. It was painful but fast. It grew back eventually if the nail bed wasn’t damaged too badly.

  A soldier behind Noah grabbed his wrists. Shocked, Noah clenched his fists. People always clenched their fists. They always did it and it was always futile. Hands pried his fingers apart. He screamed a loud primal cry from the base of his chest as the nail was torn out of its bed.

  He rocked forward and back on the chair, his chest thrashed against the pain. He put his legs out and planted his feet on the ground to steady himself. His nerve endings were raw and cold to the hot room around him.

  ‘No – hurt me, hurt me! Noah!’ Khan cried, lunging in his chair towards him. He fell over. A soldier threw him back upright.

  ‘Again – I ask you. Who are you working for?’ The president shouted. ‘He has plenty more of those, Dr Khan, and unfortunately for him, he’s good at pain. He’ll be conscious for most of it.’

  ‘No one. Please, I beg you,’ Khan half cried, half talked.

  Noah breathed in and out of his mouth rapidly. Grunting like a speared animal, he tried to shake himself out of the pain chaos.

  ‘Take a moment to compose yourself, Noah, we’ve got time.’ Rajasuriya sat down on a chair and crossed his legs elegantly, as if settling back for a chat.

  ‘Were you commissioned to create the vaccine or did you work alone?’ he asked.

  Khan shook his head.

  ‘He’s telling the truth. Jesus, I mean –’ Noah caught himself. ‘Why are you doing this? He’s telling the truth.’

  ‘No. He’s not.’ Rajasuriya motioned to the soldier behind Noah and he felt hands on his wrists and chest again.

  This time he pulled himself up and the chair came with him, plastered to his body with his sweat. It dropped, clattering to the ground. The soldiers were on top of him. One grabbed the chair and turned it up. Others pushed down on his shoulders, forcing him back into it. Another punched him in the stomach so he hunched over, breathless. A belt was strapped around his chest; the leather tightened, squeezing the air from his lungs.

  Hands gripped his wrists at the side of the chair again. He saw the pliers this time. A crocodile’s snout. The teeth. Small but strong. Anything you bought at the local hardware store would do. He preferred German steel.

  Pain bolted through him like electricity. He threw his head back and screamed louder for the second nail and then clenched his jaw, muffling his cry through his teeth for the third and fourth one. He convulsed forward, trying to hit his head on the men around him, trying to knock himself out. They moved back and let him fall over with the chair. He was stranded on his side, his cheek pressed against the water and the blood on the cold floor.

  ‘Stop, stop – I beg you!’ Khan cried.

  ‘Like you begged me last time?’ The president sneered. Khan looked up sharply, his eyes full of a deeper pain than Noah’s.

  ‘Yes, you begged me to show mercy but there was nothing you could do for your lovely wife. We’ve been watching your clinic at Anuradhapura. I don’t know how you put up with that smell. I imagine you’re drawn to it, aren’t you, Doctor? The smell of death. The fragrance of your wife? Her last resting place. Her final moments. Do you wonder what they were like? Was she terrified? Was she in pain? Would you like me to tell you?’

  ‘No,’ Khan whispered. ‘She knew whose she was. She knew where she was going.’

  ‘A sweet sentiment. Did you discover that while meditating under a Bodhi tree?’ the president taunted. ‘When the hospital outbreak happened, I suspected you at first. I thought you might be seeking revenge for her death. You’re an accomplished virologist. You could have hidden old stores of contaminated blood.’

  He looked at Noah to make sure he hadn’t passed out, and then turned back to Khan.

  ‘But I was wrong about you – I was wrong from the beginning. It’s more than mere revenge, isn’t it? I
think you’ve been working on something far more powerful.’

  Noah could see Khan processing the president’s words. He knew this man now, knew what he looked like when he was working through a problem.

  ‘Finger or nail, Noah – you choose this time.’

  Noah tensed instinctively and then exhaled. He relaxed his fingers.

  ‘Nail.’

  ‘Enough, I’ll tell you,’ Khan spoke clearly but quietly. Everyone in the room looked at him. The general moved closer.

  Khan looked at Noah. ‘I did it. I developed the placebo vaccine. For Aisha. And because I’ve been remembering things – I knew the vaccine was changing us. I told you, part of its structure is damaging us.

  ‘I couldn’t understand its purpose but I tried to stop it. I developed a completely ineffective vaccine that passes the scanners – you would never know who was immune and who wasn’t. I found vaxxers who didn’t believe in the vaccination programme anymore. I ran four trials – I would have done more but then you came, son.’

  He paused to catch his breath. ‘Water,’ he whispered. The general nodded and a soldier stepped forward with a canister. Khan gulped erratically, almost choking.

  ‘Enough.’ The president intervened. ‘You said four trials – I don’t believe you. There must be more. Tell me where the breaches are or we can play with Noah’s fingers a little more.’

  Khan shook his head. ‘If I had more time, I would have done more,’ he repeated.

  ‘Who did you work with?’

  ‘No one. I worked alone – as you said, I’m a skilled virologist. My expertise is unsurpassed. If you’d read any of my papers you’d know that. I don’t need anyone’s assistance. Just Devi.’

  He looked at Noah. ‘I’m sorry if I disappointed you, son. When this is over, you should go back to Devi. Tell her what happened to me – don’t tell her everything. She’s very sensitive, I know she doesn’t look it. Tell her I learnt a great deal from her. Tell her I said goodbye. Would you do that for me, please, Noah – it’s important.’

  ‘When this is over you should tell her yourself. She doesn’t like me very much.’

  ‘That’s not true – she likes you. And she trusts you as much as I do. She just thinks you’re a lazy scientist. She doesn’t like to see potential wasted. There was more you could have learnt, if we had time. You should read more, study more, think more. Fight less. Learn from your father, he was very wise. An explorer.’