Ice Age

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘I’m uneasy, with you so far away,’ said the older man.

  ‘How about my coming back to make another statement to the House?’

  ‘About this Russian thing?’

  ‘No,’ refused Reynell. ‘That’s run its course. I’ll have to deal with Moscow in the future.’

  ‘Good point,’ accepted Ranleigh. ‘What then?’

  ‘I’ll find something,’ promised Reynell.

  Geraldine’s first excitement was from the English findings. There was a positive link between two specific genes – p21 and p53 – in tissues from the cave bodies and those from the current victims in Canberra, Tokyo, New Delhi, Vienna and Rome. She judged the most important to be p21, the gene scientifically proved to block the division of damaged or infected cells to enable them to self-repair. Its known and connected secondary effect was to prevent division when cells aged. In each of the senility-illness cases p21 had been activated and when taken from recent victims and reactivated in laboratory cultures, it exploded through as many as forty other genes, at least fifteen of which in chromosomes 5, 16 and 19 were believed to cause or accelerate ageing or age-related conditions. One of the genetic team, in the covering summary, referred to p21 as ‘going mad’. What was unclear, although obviously related, was the contribution – or lack of it – from p53, the proper function of which was closely allied to the other, a ‘gate-keeper’ gene to repel cell invaders. Again, in every victim test, p53 had been turned off, unable or stopped from performing its purpose.

  Although genetics was her specific science Geraldine refused to let the DNA developments deflect or overinfluence her from the other re-examinations the Fort Detrick specialists, as a team, had asked for and conceded with the proper scientific objectivity that the sea mammal and ornithological pathology was probably as significant, although neither she nor anyone else could suggest how or where that significance might fit in to a pattern they still hadn’t begun to see.

  The gut infestation by the unidentified worms was found in rorqual, sei, bow-head and humpback whales and independently – from more detailed analysis of suffocated carcases from Tasmania, Japan and the coastal regions of the Indian sub-continent – came secondary, qualifying autopsy reports that no identifiable virus had been located confirming influenza to be the cause of death. Because every request from Fort Detrick urged cross-referencing, they began receiving bewildering oceanographic and fishery authority accounts, primarily from Scandanavia, Britain’s North Sea coast and from Spanish deep sea fleets, of huge shoals of floating dead fish, thousands entrapped in the weed-mass breeding grounds of the North Atlantic’s Sargasso Sea. When they split open, which they did upon touch, their digestive tracts were jellified. Intestinal jellification – melting was how it was described in some post mortem analysis – was also reported by ornithologists dissecting birds collected from human outbreak locations of the ageing illness in America, Austria, Spain and India.

  The in-house botanists at Fort Detrick, whose more regular occupation was to find antidotes to natural sourced toxins, subjected the nothofagus-type vegetation from Baikal and both polar regions to a series of experiments, including caterpillar, house-fly and bee exposure. All three insect species died, although the botanists could not extract an identifiable poison from the plants. There was, however, a heavy pungency which was still being tested for mephitism.

  It took four full days from Sergei Grenkov’s Washington arrival for the Russian to complete his re-examination of the existing material, although that correlation did not include what had come in during that time and which was kept separate, to finally bring the man completely up to date. The last two additions came the day Grenkov declared himself satisfied that everything was now fully shared.

  From external microscopic study of the intestinal worms, helminthologists at the Smithsonian isolated an almost undetectable proboscis, although no positive head. Under higher magnification it proved to be pointed and hollow. Maintaining that increased magnification, they confirmed that the creature had an elementary digestive tract. And entomologists again working from within Fort Detrick noted that the ticks recovered from the caves, the bore samples and from the bodies of the Antarctic victims shared the Ixodidas characteristic of being soft skinned.

  ‘So what do you think?’ asked Stoddart, when they finished talking everything through in anticipation of the following day’s first full discussion with Sergei Grenkov.

  ‘I think it’s like trying to wade through that mile-deep primeval mud at the bottom of Lake Baikal,’ said Geraldine. ‘Millions of tiny separate pieces, sucking us down to nowhere.’

  That night the last of the six chimpanzees subjected to the measured, heat-diminished enzyme died, making the immunization experiment a failure.

  * * *

  But one out of a matching number in Moscow was still alive, after three weeks, and actually showing signs of recovery, moving around the cage in which five days earlier it had slumped near-comatose in a corner, now eating everything it was offered and grabbing for more.

  It had been a rigidly controlled experiment, every piece of data recorded, and Raisa Orlov didn’t have the slightest doubt that she was vindicated, even though she’d failed to isolate the virus. That could follow: would follow, with the next experiment. Which was to extend that control beyond an anthropoid from the very introduction of the infection. Then the sneering, jealous derision would stop. She’d be reinstated by title, although the official lack of it hadn’t changed anything, and the first thing she’d do would be to dismiss Sergei Grenkov, the second to demand the dismissal of Gregori Lyalin. She hoped she didn’t have to wait too long for the international acknowledgement.

  Thirty-Six

  Geraldine Rothman finally argued – openly – that the varied sciences had become too widely divided at their ultimate, four-person level and that the assessment should be expanded to the specially seconded department and division heads to guarantee the essential interchange, which furthered Pelham’s determination to totally rehabilitate himself and Fort Detrick in the president’s eyes. It also covered Jack Stoddart’s self-admitted limitations.

  At a pre-conference gathering of just the four of them they also agreed Pelham’s suggestion that it should be a general, point-making review for every division director hopefully to slot his or her particular contribution wherever they felt it fitted. Despite that prior discussion about patterns and schemes and shapes, Geraldine was surprised when the normally undemonstrative, word-pedantic Pelham opened the full gathering by describing their problem as having the spilled and jumbled pieces of a smashed mosaic without the picture from which to reconstruct it.

  ‘We’ve got to find how – and why – piece A is followed by piece B and B by piece C. And having got that, how to halt the progression long enough to stop the dying.’

  Although she’d read everything more times than she could now count, Geraldine very quickly decided that having all the known facts and findings and opinions verbally recapitulated, as Pelham was setting them out, gave her a clearer, better perception. She might, she conceded, have even dulled herself by the constant eye-aching, mind-aching reading.

  ‘There are too many gaps,’ complained Pelham. ‘Why did some children survive in the caves when adults didn’t? Why is most of the sea life that’s dying infested, like those cave victims were infested, by parasitic worms unknown to helminthologists which aren’t in the bodies of any of the victims from the Antarctic or Noatak or Iultin? But why is it that the worms – and we’ve now tested more than four hundred recovered from mammals or humans – are not in any way toxic, which they would need to be to have caused the deaths, if indeed they were the carrier of whatever caused their deaths? Why, in some but not all, of those polar victims are there non-toxic microscopic ticks not found anywhere else in the world? But were found in the caves, in the fur of the dog-like creature and the rats? Why, though, in all the victims is there the same enzyme – an enzyme defying every effort to purify, let alone crysta
llize – that destroys their internal organs? And liquifies the intestines of birds and fish? What, if any, is the significance of the unknown genus of nothofagus that was found in the caves as well as in bores sunk in Noatak and the Antarctic …?’ Pelham paused, for effect. ‘I started by asking you to interrupt: fill gaps. No one has. So I’m asking you again: what are we missing? What aren’t we seeing clearly enough, analysing enough …?’ He allowed another unfilled hesitation. ‘We, in this room, are the leaders in our respective scientific fields in the United States of America, with unrestricted back-up from every institute, academy and research facility throughout the world. There’s no other more highly qualified or better equipped group. We’re it! So …?’

  No one spoke.

  It wasn’t the room-quietening histrionic that stirred Geraldine. She had the same feeling she’d experienced when she’d abruptly guessed that Henri Lebrun was progressively dying internally, although this time she didn’t have as much – anything – upon which to substantiate the hope of a further step forward, let alone a breakthrough. It wasn’t entirely what Pelham had said. She was sure there was a connection with something she’d read. Or was it what she’d expected to read, but hadn’t? She was suddenly aware of Pelham’s attention and hurried to her feet, to pick up on the medical and genetic details.

  Stoddart was only belatedly aware of her rising from beside him, his mind working very similarly to hers. It quite obviously had to have been triggered by a remark of Pelham’s, a reference closer to his own more physical science than to Geraldine’s mysteries, too small to see and too abstruse properly to comprehend, despite her patient layman’s translation. Gaps, conceded Stoddart, using Pelham’s description. Or perhaps missing links. It all had to be linked to get to the same horrifying end, capable of killing humans and animals and mammals and birds alike. But how could the same enzyme cause that same end, transmitting and transmuting through so many species? Concentrate on his own science, Stoddart told himself. There was a partial, easy answer to how microscopic, prehistoric worms were infesting sea life. Global warming melting ice sheets in which they’d been preserved for millenia, multiplying parthenogenetically in their trillions and entering the marine food chain. But they were harmless, scientifically proved to be totally non-toxic. A broken link. A climatic route perhaps? The hurricane winds of Lake Baikal were unique, capable of lifting virus and spores into the upper atmosphere but it was inconceivable – like so much else remained inconceivable – that Baikal could be the source of the global pandemic. If it had been, the first cases would have occurred there, Irkutsk would be the city of the dead, the Listvyanka Institute would have isolated it long before the collapse of the cliff-face and most important of all there was no consistent, all embracing wind-stream in either the upper or lower atmosphere blowing over all the now affected countries. Another broken link. So what was it, scratching at his mind’s door? He had to stop listening for what he couldn’t hear but pay attention to what he could: hadn’t he already decided that he more than anyone else needed as much help as possible?

  He came back into the meeting as Geraldine reached their most recent genetic results from England, aware that for the benefit of all she was still trying for layman’s simplicity.

  At that moment – and at last – there was the interruption Pelham had invited, from the grey-haired, fat female anthropologist brought into the investigation from the conveniently close Smithsonian. ‘You haven’t given your opinion why young kids in the caves weren’t infected?’

  ‘Because I don’t have anything upon which to base an opinion.’

  ‘But they had worm infestation?’

  ‘The two we examined,’ confirmed Geraldine, turning invitingly to Sergei Grenkov.

  ‘In all but two of the children we examined in Moscow,’ agreed the Russian. ‘We couldn’t find anything to explain it, either.’

  ‘What about the presence of the enzyme?’ asked the black, surprisingly young entomologist from California’s Berkeley University.

  ‘None, in our cave children,’ said Geraldine.

  ‘The faintest traces in only three of ours in Russia,’ said Grenkov. ‘Our only conclusion so far is the most obvious, that they had a natural resistance.’

  ‘Which the adults didn’t have?’ pressed the anthropologist.

  ‘Or had lost,’ said Geraldine.

  ‘I need guidance,’ interjected Paul Spencer, truthfully but at the same time anxious to have his position recognized by the wider audience. ‘I’m the only guy here who doesn’t have the degree to help me understand. And I’ve got to liaise on all of this with Blair House and maybe even the President, which means answering questions beyond what they can read from the transcript. The only way I can imagine so much physical damage being caused to genes and organs and God knows what else is by our not looking for one bug – one virus or bacterium or enzyme – but for several. Anyone want to help me on that?’

  Geraldine paused, automatically looking to Pelham. She was about to respond when the director didn’t speak but unexpectedly Grenkov said: ‘I’m not sure that any of us can provide a complete answer, but it comes down to the enzyme. A virus or a bacteria usually attacks a specific target with a specific effect. A cold virus gives you a cold, an influenza virus gives you influenza, although both can develop into other respiratory infections like pneumonia …’

  ‘The majority of the victims now have respiratory complications,’ broke in another woman, a middle-aged toxicologist permanently attached to Fort Detrick.

  ‘But we haven’t isolated a virus,’ said Grenkov. ‘We’ve got an enzyme and enzymes can have multiple effects. They’re catalysts, protein that controls and motivates the body’s metabolism. Everyone’s body contains thousands and each cell produces several varieties. Science has so far only isolated a very few, mostly connected with the gut and digestion, particularly turning starch into sugar.’

  ‘Let’s explore that,’ persisted the toxicologist. ‘Dr Rothman’s told us that it’s the existing body genes that are going into accelerated overdrive.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Overnight senility. And you’ve just told us science only knows a few hundreds of the many thousands of enzymes we have. Could what you’re finding not be an outside intrusion at all but an enzyme we already have within us, being activated to affect the genes in some way?’

  Grenkov frowned. Keeping any surprise from his voice at the question he said: ‘The enzymes in the human body are different from those in other animals and mammals and birds that have died.’

  The toxicologist didn’t appear embarrassed. ‘Poisons can cause different metabolic changes in different creatures. As I understand it from what’s already been said, the enzyme in animals and mammals is different?’

  Grenkov nodded, reluctantly. ‘It’s a very slight variation. In my opinion – and it’s a personal opinion – I think all the indications are that it’s an outside intrusion.’

  ‘What about poison?’ came in Duncan Littlejohn. ‘Do these unknown ticks carry the encephalitis the Frenchman caught?’

  The middle-aged woman shook her head. ‘We’re only three days into animal testing. There’s a lot of skin irritation: lung and nasal congestion.’

  ‘Respiratory again!’ seized Pelham. ‘There’s got to be a fit there somewhere!’

  The toxicologist gave another head shake. ‘It’s controlled experimentation, obviously. Eight chimpanzees, divided in twos. Measured doses, all the same food and liquid nourishment. Only four of them are showing any signs of infection. The other four are perfectly healthy. We don’t know why some are getting sick and some are not.’

  ‘Talking poisons, there’s something positive that came in overnight,’ announced the blonde-haired, in-house botanist. ‘The nothofagus we got from the caves and the bores is definitely mephitistic.’

  ‘What’s that?’ demanded Spencer, pained.

  ‘It can emit an odour poisonous to small insects. A lot of plants do. It’s a protective mechanism, against beco
ming an insect food source. It was the odour, not the plants themselves, that killed the insect we tested.’

  ‘There’s something!’ exclaimed Grenkov. ‘Give me a moment!’ It took more than a moment and the impatient foot shuffling and chair scraping began before the man came up from the file he’d created. Talking more to the inner group than the division leaders, Grenkov said: ‘It wasn’t all shared, although it wasn’t withheld. We collected all the vegetation that remained after what you took from the caves.’ He looked out into the room, to include the botanist. ‘There’s nothing in the reports assembled here about tick colonies?’

  ‘There weren’t any, in what was brought back from Siberia,’ said the botanist.

  ‘What about the polar bores?’ pressed the Russian.

  ‘No.’

  ‘In total, we received in Moscow just short of four kilos of plant and vegetable matter from Siberia,’ recorded Grenkov. ‘There were tick colonies on at least half of the nothofagus.’

  ‘They under experimentation?’ demanded Pelham.

  ‘It hadn’t been started before I left Moscow. Some of the colonized plants could be shipped here, for comparable testing.’

  ‘I think I should come in here,’ intruded the Berkeley entomologist, a towering, bull-chested man. ‘We’re comparing, with helminthology. Maybe the ticks are puparial.’

  The reaction was a contrast between sudden realization among a very few – Pelham and Geraldine among them – and total incomprehension.

  Spencer began. ‘I need some more—’ but Geraldine overrode him.

  Looking between the two museum experts, she said urgently: ‘When?’

  The huge man made an uncertain movement. ‘Today, sometime.’

  ‘Make it now!’ insisted Geraldine.

  Amanda O’Connell took the call at Blair House, aware of Reynell’s concentration as she spoke. She included Lyalin in the smile as she replaced the telephone. ‘They’ve taken a break. Spencer says something’s come up they’re very excited about but he can’t understand it yet.’