The Visitor

by Brent Ayscough

  Tak seemed content with the answer. Baron then asked, “What are the initial symptoms when a person contracts it?”

  “With non-specific Ebola, the incubation period is usually from as soon as two days to as long as twenty one days, but usually from four to sixteen days. Fever may be detectible after two days. Severe frontal and temporal headaches occur. Generalized aches and pains follow. Watery diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, dry sore throat, and lack of appetite occur. By day seven, maculopapular rash, that is, raised spots, and thrombocytopenia and hemorrhagic manifestations, especially in the gastrointestinal tract and lungs, with bleeding from all orifices and mucous membranes. By day twelve the skin starts to peel away from the rashes, and there is bleeding. Lesions are caused in almost every organ with necrosis. Although an organ may give way and fluid losses into tissues would be considerable, the effects are so severe that the actual cause of death is normally shock. The pain involved is enormous.”

  “Is there a worse way to die?” Baron asked.

  Dr. Dorogomilov responded with absolutely pure scientific impartiality. “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “What about the race-specific Ebola?” Baron asked.

  “It depends on where the unique antigen protein is found. If found in more than one organ, it will infect each. If in only one, it will only infect the one. For example, if the tissue is kidney, it will only infect the kidneys. Of course, if the kidney, being a very bloody organ, is being consumed by Ebola, and since it regulates many things, the entire body will be affected as the kidney is destroyed by the Ebola. The urine output stops, generalized edema occurs, along with blood pressure fluctuations and other problems, causing certain death. If in the lungs, then you have rupturing of alveoli and capillaries, coughing up blood, frothing of the mouth and nasal passages, difficulty in breathing, and the cause of death is likely to be drowning in one’s own blood. Eventually it will consume the entire lungs, even after the person dies. There are other organs to consider if you would care to know.”

  Baron was content with what he had heard and changed the subject. “What about the life of your variant before it is taken in by the Chinese? How can it be kept alive to distribute it to a whole country before it dies?”

  “That, of course, depends on how much of it is made and how many people you can use to disseminate it. Ebola is an interesting virus--it kills its host. People wonder how it exists for the usual three to five years before it pops up again in some African country and kills everyone in the village before it is contained. I have my own theory on that. I think it goes dormant. But what you need to be able to do is to keep it alive until you can get it there and distribute it. The best way to preserve it is to keep it very cold. The colder the better. Ice will work, but if you want to maximize the preservation of the entire stock, then liquid-nitrogen canisters. That can bring it down to about minus two hundred Celsius initially, and keep it very cold for a long time. Exposed to room temperatures, without any host tissue, it has lasted several days in numerous tests, and I’ve witnessed it lasting more than two weeks.

  “But why go into the zone you seek to contaminate with partially dead Ebola? In order to keep the stock all fresh, go with nitrogen-cooled canisters. Those are your best bet, and you will have one hundred per cent living Ebola, ready to spread about when you get there.

  “If you don’t spread it about quickly, you will have the government restricting everyone’s activities and then it could possibly be contained. Once inside a subject, it then has a host and does not die off as long as the host is alive, or as long as it has tissue to feed on.”

  “What do you think would be the best method of distribution to an entire country?” Baron asked.

  “Getting as many of the target race to get it into their lungs or mouths in as short a time as possible. When taken into the lungs, it enters the bloodstream and infects at once. So people breathing on others works the best. Taking it by food will work, especially if it is breathed into the lungs when tasting or inhaling the odor of the food so it goes into the lungs. Methods of getting it into the mouth result from the person getting it on his hands, which often end up in the mouth or passing it in food which enters the mouth. Sharing food, sex, using the same utensils, all this, in addition to close breathing on others will work. Placed on door knobs, currency, cigarettes, or other objects that are soon thereafter touched will result in infecting most who touch it. You can put a drop of it in fluid form on items at a vendor’s food stand.

  “Anyone who touches or eats the food that has it will become infected, and then spread it to many. All in all, people are the best vehicles to spread it. The ideal method would be to infect people at crowds, markets, gatherings, and travelers, and to do so at as many places as possible in a few days. The first person infected that enters a hospital will probably infect most everyone in the hospital, as they won’t know what they are dealing with.”

  “Does it take a lot of the virus to infect someone?” Baron asked.

  “Not at all. You realize that Ebola is a microscopic-sized item. It’s about eight-hundred-five nanometers in length, and eighty nanometers wide. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. A single Ebola entering the body can infect and kill, and, unlike a flu virus, being in good health will not prevent it from taking hold and killing. Just ounces could theoretically infect the whole country, if you were able to spread it widely and rapidly. I can make it in a fluid medium and, bringing it in with liquid-nitrogen canisters disguised as mineral water or liquor bottles, for example, should work.”

  Tak realized that Baron was still learning about it and decided to ask her own questions. “I’m interested to hear more of the details of how the race-specific Ebola is made.”

  “Certainly. Actually, the techniques are very simple, but of course I know what to look for, having done it before. The hard part is the fact that it needs to be done in a level four bio-warfare high containment center like this, which would take several billion dollars today to make new.

  “I first get tissues from the target race, which in your case would be the Han Chinese. I’ll look at the stomach, lungs, and liver, but other organs work as well. I look for unique antigen protein of the target race. Some are much better than others for passing along the infection rapidly, and the lungs are the fastest for an application such as this because, if infected in the lungs, the infected person will cough up an aerosol of contaminated fluid which will infect others very well.

  “To find the unique cells, I sonify the cells--that is to subject them to sonic waves, which makes up a homogeneous paste of them. Then I begin looking for something unique about the cells. In this case, we have to find antigens that are not found in Tibetans. While I’ve done this with a few Chinese, but no Tibetans, I predict that I’ll find just what I need. The Tibetans must not have the same antigen.

  “After I sonify the cells, the protein is then mixed with an eluent solution, and put in a high pressure column. This displaces the cells according to weight. Then a tiny fraction of each is taken from the bottom of the column in a fraction collector tube--the most would be, say, five hundred to a thousand, but I can usually do it with a hundred as I’ve done it so often. Then the optical density of each sample is tested against a standard of two-hundred-seventy. Light is passed through each tube and recorded optically.”

  Dr. Dorogomilov stopped to prepare a freehand graph on paper. He drew an X and Y axis, and a hypothetical horizontal line across it with several vertical sections, one of which was very high.

  “These elevations I have drawn are similar to what I’ll find eventually in the sample antigens. Now, of course, I’m simplifying things for you, but the result is the locating of the unique peaks of cells, until I select one that is not found in the control, that is, the Tibetans.”

  “I understand,” Tak said.

  “Good. Now, once this process is done, the unique protein is concentrated,” the doctor continued. “It’s then put into a dialysis tubing that will ret
ain the proteins but will allow the salts and electrolytes to pass. Then the solution goes into a beaker with ammonium bicarbonate and is freeze dried, just like foods at the market. That is called lyophilization. The result is a powder of a race-specific antigen, in this case Chinese.”

  Baron smiled. “A very special freeze-dried substance, indeed!”

  “Yes, very special,” the doctor answered. “This special powder is then dissolved with saline and injected into the inner canthus of the eye of a mouse. Detecting this substance in the mouse’s eye, the mouse’s spleen begins producing antibodies. The cells can then be identified from the spleen of the mouse that interact with the original antigen, the hybridomas yielding the monoclonal antibody. The identification has to be done by reading the original antigen peak, another process similar to the first one.”

  “How do you reproduce the antibodies?” Tak asked.

  “Now come the rabbits,” he responded. “The peritoneal cavity of the rabbit is an excellent incubator for monoclonal antibody production. So I inject it there and let it grow, and the abdomens of the rabbits will be swollen with it. With a peritoneal tap, I remove the antibodies and put them in put them in the ultracentrifuge. The antibodies go to the top and the cells to the bottom with the help of ammonium sulfate. This is now concentrated, but not pure.

  “You also need Ebola in sufficient quantity, depending on the size of the place you wish to infect. This is done with the monkeys. I infect the monkeys with Ebola in whose bodies it grows rapidly, even continuing after they die by living on the dead tissue. This means turning part of the lab into a deadly zoo. The monkeys will grow the Ebola and infect others in the cage. I then take the tissues much in the same manner as the non-infectious procedure, segregate the Ebola from it, and cleanse them. Extreme precautions are needed, so as not to allow a single Ebola particle loose or to come in contact with one of us, which makes this delicate work. One mistake and we all die.

  “Then, I’ll have the Ebola in quantity as well as the unique antibody of the target race. The two are then linked together chemically and reproduced in incubators. If anything goes wrong and Dr. Volkova and I become infected, you will not get your Ebola.

  Tak looked at Baron, as though to communicate that she had no further questions and was satisfied that the doctor had a credible presentation.

  Baron summed it up. “You have created a magnificent biological weapon. The beauty is that a small crew, disguised as tourists, for example, can take in Ebola into a country, spread it about, and not get infected themselves. They would never be suspected since there would be no trail back to anyone, as they would be long gone with so many other tourists. There is no other weapon like it. Terrorists would love to get their hands on this. This is so unlike an atomic weapon, for example, as the type of radiation can be easily traced back to the reactor where it was made and all involved would surely be caught. What do you need to undertake the project?”

  “Money for some new equipment and for supplies. I’ll need five expendable Chinese and two Tibetans, but they must not be related by blood. I’ll take tissue from the subjects without killing them, and then use them later for testing on how well the Ebola works, which will kill them. There are jail cells here in the building that we used to put criminals in that were sent to me for experimentation. I’ll need several very good security guards to help me with the Chinese, as they will object to being cut on for body parts. I’ll also need to hire some help, but that is available here. However, I need money to pay them.”

  “What equipment do you need? Baron asked. “I thought that you would have most everything here in this billion dollar lab.”

  “There are vast resources here such as the electron microscope. But the primary asset is the level four containment of the place. That’s the huge expense. There is simply no way to create a large quantity of Ebola without such a place. As for equipment, there have been advances in the equipment that, if I had it, would make the work go more quickly and more efficiently. I’d like to have a new ultracentrifuge. That is one that slings the samples to one hundred thousand times normal gravity. The one left here only goes to forty thousand gravities. That is very helpful in isolating different parts of the tissue based on their density.

  “Then I’d like to have one of the latest laser densitometers. I have a column chromatography and a gamma ray counter. I’d like a new cell fluorescent sorter--a fluorescent material can be added to the proteins, and actually lights up in the device so the proteins can actually be seen, and is very helpful in observing the linked virus to the antibody in the linking process.”

  The doctor became a little excited, like a kid in a candy store, adding whatever he could think of to his shopping list of goodies. “I’ve got a C02 water-jacketed humidifier which provides an atmosphere in which cells will grow very well. But a new spectrophotometer would be helpful. And, of course, I’ll need supplies and lots of mice, rabbits, and monkeys. I already have cages here for them, but I might need to convert some rooms to large cages when I go into production. Oh, yes, and I would like to have two of the latest and fastest computers available. I’ll put Russian Windows on one, and English on another, as I need both, and the two versions sometimes conflict. And, of course, the expendable subjects.

  “I should buy a few pressure suits, as mine are old. I can possibly get by without getting the best of everything, but if I have what I want, and if you can afford everything, I can almost assure you that it will go very quickly. With the right equipment, I can probably isolate what I want in a matter of days.

  “Then I’ll need operating money for wages, but the wages are very low here. I would use as few people as possible, and limit their knowledge. I would tell them that I’m working on the fungi for the project of eradicating the opium poppy for the Americans, which the Americans are presently funding.”

  The doctor seemed to have completed his shopping list.

  “How much will all that cost?” Baron asked.

  The doctor looked up and calculated in his head. “I’d say about two hundred fifty thousand dollars, not counting the cost of help and local expenses. Three hundred thousand US Dollars altogether will be sufficient. As for the animals, the cost is not high, but they have to be flown in so they don’t die in transit. There are places that grow mice and rabbits for labs, and those are easy to get. However, the monkeys are more of a problem. They can be bought in the Philippines, India, and Africa, and have to be flown in special cages. Not all the airlines like handling monkeys in cages, as you can appreciate.”

  Baron was relieved that it would only take so little for the equipment. “Here’s my proposal. I’ll pay for all the equipment from a special account, which will not go through the corrupt Kazakhstan government or banks. For your expenses locally, I will give you one hundred thousand US Dollars now in cash. As the equipment will come from Europe or the US, the payments made will go unnoticed and the arrival of equipment can be explained as from the US money for your fungi research. I will send some men here with the subjects, to assist with the handling of them and to keep an eye on the progress.

  “I’ll get you the Chinese and Tibetan subjects at my expense, within two to three weeks. They will be delivered here through Russia via Vladivostok on the TransSiberian Express.

  “The deposit will be in the account in a few days. I want everything set up at once. I want you to obtain the nitrogen canisters. I’ll get labels made to disguise them as Russian mineral water. They can be large sizes, perhaps a liter and a half on the outside. You will notify me when you are ready to ‘bottle’ your samples, and I’ll have several men here to collect them. I’ll have a crew ready to go on a tourist trip to Tibet and they’ll take the bottles.

  “When the product is shown to work in Tibet, the sum of five million additional US dollars will be deposited into the same account. I’ll get started on travel visas for you and Dr. Volkova now, so I’ll need copies of your birth certificates and Kazakhstan passports to take with me.” He thought
this would also make it easier for him to find them in case they bolted with his money. In which case, they would soon thereafter die at the hands of the Russian mafia.

  “Agreed,” Dr. Dorogomilov said.

  “Of course this agreement cannot be put in writing,” Baron said. “And we will rely on a gentleman’s agreement where a firm handshake is our contract.” He held out his hand to shake that of the doctor, and they sealed the deal.

  Baron opened his brief case with his travel and other documents in it and took out one hundred thousand US Dollars in one hundred dollar bills.

  “Do not show this about so as not to bring attention to yourself. You can rely on me, and I expect to rely on you. You are to notify me as to your progress, and I wish to be advised of any problem. Do not forget that I have friends nearby in Russia who can act on my command, and I will also have four or five here as guards with the subjects.”

  That was stated to let the doctor know not to take off with the deposit, in which case he would be hunted down and murdered.

  The doctor, holding the stack of money, smiled for the first time since they had been there. “I’ll make exactly what you want.”

  “Doctor, I recognize your genius. You will not have to work again after this. Oh, you may also keep or dispense with the equipment that you buy. However, you are not to take any risks by the selling of equipment that could lead to us.”

  “Why, thank you!” Dr. Dorogomilov, pleased that his genius would finally be appreciated, shook Baron’s hand vigorously. “I leave it to you to name the new virus.” This was bestowing an honor on Baron, to let him name it, even though there could never be any publication of it.

  Baron thought for a moment. “Tibet Restored.”

  CHAPTER 15

  The transaction completed, Baron and Tak stayed on the following day to attend the celebration of the annual Nauryz event that coincided by chance with their journey. It was held at a playing field near Stepnogorsk. Kariat, the nephew of the doctor’s deceased wife Karina, was their host.