Pandemic pr-2

by James Barrington

  ‘The cause of his death is still unknown, but the Cretan Health Ministry believes, based upon the initial report from the doctor who examined the victim, that he could have been attacked by a very fast-acting virus, possibly a filovirus like Ebola. For those of you who don’t know, Ebola is a very rare virus previously only encountered in the Congo. It is highly contagious and normally fatal.

  ‘The only good news is that this outbreak has occurred in one of the smallest villages on Crete, which is perhaps why the death toll up until now is so low. Kandíra has a population of under five hundred: if this had happened in Irakleío, Chaniá or Réthymno, and if the causative agent is indeed some kind of virus, there could already be dozens dead and hundreds infected.

  ‘The consequences of an Ebola-type epidemic anywhere are horrific to contemplate, so the Cretan authorities are well aware that swift and decisive action is necessary to contain the situation. They have therefore requested the assistance of the Centers for Disease Control at Atlanta in Georgia, and have already established a police cordon around the village of Kandíra. Nobody is to be allowed into or out of the village until the CDC personnel arrive to assess the situation.

  ‘We have been informed that the Cretan authorities have begun transporting tents, bedding, clothing, latrines and washing facilities, cooking equipment and provisions to Kandíra. These are obviously for the benefit of the police and other personnel assisting in this operation.

  ‘Some police officers are already inside the barricade because they had been originally tasked with investigating the first death, so were actually there in the village itself when the doctor realized that they were facing a possible epidemic. Because they are possibly contaminated by the pathogen, they will have to remain within the cordoned-off area for the foreseeable future.’

  The Operations Officer – Ops One in the parlance of the Royal Navy – turned back to the map and pointed again at Kandíra.

  ‘Fourth: anticipated tasking. The biggest problem the Cretans have in this emergency is access,’ he said, tracing a route on the map.

  ‘The only road to Kandíra runs through Soúgia, and I understand that this road here is almost literally a cart track, heavily rutted and barely wide enough for a large van to pass. From Soúgia the road winds north up a fairly narrow valley to the west of Lefká Óri before dropping down to Néa Roúmata. From there, vehicles have to continue north-east through Chiliaró and Alikanos before they reach the main east–west coast road at Chaniá. There are other routes out of Soúgia, but that is probably the fastest and most direct, which is why moving personnel and equipment into and out of Kandíra is inevitably going to be slow and difficult. Quite apart from the mountainous terrain, most of those roads are narrow and twisting, and in many places in a poor state of repair.

  ‘That is the principal reason why we have been called in. Driving to Kandíra from the closest large town, which is Chaniá, could take two hours or more, but a helicopter can cover the same distance in a few minutes. The Cretans will continue to use road vehicles to transport the heavier items to Kandíra, so we will probably be asked to move only personnel or small pieces of equipment required urgently.’

  The door into the briefing-room stood open, not least because the room was actually too small to accommodate all the squadron personnel, and several were listening intently from the outside corridor. Ops One heard a slight commotion and looked up to see Ops Three pushing his way down through the crush. He finally reached the lowest tier and handed Ops One a flimsy.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt, sir, but we’ve just received this tasking signal.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Ops One scanned the page rapidly, nodded and looked up at the clock on the bulkhead. ‘Right, this more or less confirms what I’ve been saying. Our first task is to collect a civilian specialist from the CDC. He will be arriving at Irakleío Airport early tomorrow morning and will need to be flown immediately to Kandíra. There will be a dedicated briefing for the crew involved at zero six-thirty tomorrow.

  ‘That really covers topic five as well – collection of this CDC official will mark the start of our involvement in this matter.

  ‘Finally, to facilitate HDS operations, I will be sending one of the Ops staff ashore to Kandíra to liaise with the CDC people there on the ground. He will have a radio, and will relay requests for transport as and when required. He will also be able to talk to arriving and departing helicopters, and crews should establish two-way communications with him as soon as their aircraft have left the visual circuit and once cleared by Soúda Bay Tower. Helicopters will have callsigns allocated by Mother, but we will probably use the aircraft side-numbers to keep things simple.

  ‘The Ops staff on the ground will use the callsign “Fob Watch”, derived from “FOB” – “Forward Operating Base”.’ Ops One looked round as if expecting applause, and was rewarded with a handful of polite smiles. He paused and looked down at Commander (Air). ‘Have you anything to add, sir?’

  The Commander stood up and turned to face the assembled aircrew.

  ‘Thank you, Ops One, only two things. First, I need hardly remind you all that this is not an exercise. This is a real operation involving real people quite probably facing mortal danger. I want no mistakes from anyone, and I expect you to operate with all the skill and professionalism you’ve shown in the past.

  ‘Second, as you’re aware from what Ops One has already said, this epidemic apparently involves some kind of fast-acting virus or other pathogen, so any direct contact with it could prove fatal. But I should emphasize that there is no suggestion that any of Invincible’s aircraft will be required to do anything other than ferry personnel and equipment to or from a landing site well outside the cordoned-off area around this village.

  ‘As things stand, therefore, neither I nor the Senior Medical Officer see any necessity for aircrew to wear AGRs or NBCD suits, but obviously we will review the situation as this operation progresses.’

  That was a small relief. AGRs – anti-gas respirators – are somewhat cumbersome whole-face gas masks designed to prevent the wearer from inhaling chemical or biological agents. Uncomfortable enough to wear in a ground environment, they are very awkward in an aircraft, making the hearing of radio messages and transmitting responses – both vital to all aircrew – very difficult and prone to misinterpretation. NBCD suits, whose initials stand for Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defence, are one-piece suits covering the whole body apart from the face, where the AGR would be worn, and the hands, which would be gloved.

  ‘However,’ Commander (Air) continued, ‘any aircrew who start feeling unwell after a flight to Kandíra are to report to the Sick Bay immediately. That is all.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. Briefing complete.’

  Paul Richter, who’d been leaning against the door jamb for the entire session, nodded briefly to himself and walked away. Rotary wing flying only, and basically HDS – Helicopter Delivery Service – operations at that, so just a glorified taxi service. He decided to visit the ship’s library and find another couple of books to read, because it now looked like being a long week, with almost exactly nothing for him to do.

  It would be a long week – Richter was right about that – but in fact he would have plenty to do.

  George Washington Memorial Parkway, Virginia

  The briefing Dave McCready had given in the safe house in Arlington had been his first. As an inexperienced agent, he’d been flattered when John Nicholson had summoned him to his office and told him what he wanted done, and he’d taken care to follow his superior’s instructions to the letter.

  McCready had only been with the Agency for a couple of years and had spent most of that time working in the Intelligence Directorate, but outside Langley at one of the numerous satellite establishments the Company maintained in Virginia. He wasn’t to know that Nicholson had picked him primarily because he was quite certain that he had never met Elias, Stein or Krywald. All he’d needed was a buffer, somebody who could deliver the necessary briefin
g to the recovery team, but who would be unknown to all the members of that team, and McCready had seemed ideal.

  Once the three agents had left the safe house, Nicholson had said nothing about his performance, but simply told McCready to go out and get himself some lunch and to return to the house for a debrief at three-thirty in the afternoon. That, McCready had guessed, meant that he had been inadequate in some way. The Director was not known as a man who lavished praise on anyone – his direct subordinates were more usually the recipients of caustic tongue-lashings, if canteen gossip was to be believed – and he’d been somewhat apprehensive when he’d walked back into the building.

  But to his surprise and relief Nicholson had declared himself more than satisfied: in fact, his comments to McCready had bordered on the fulsome. As he headed north-west back towards Langley along the George Washington Memorial Parkway out of Arlington, the Potomac glinting in the sun over to his right, McCready wondered idly if Nicholson might be grooming him for some kind of advancement, or maybe a different job within the Agency.

  If he hadn’t been quite so preoccupied, McCready might have registered the old and battered tan Chevrolet following him, three cars behind his two-year-old Ford compact. If he’d been a more experienced agent, he might also have noticed that the same car had been parked about seventy yards down the street from the safe house, and that the driver had eased it out of the parking space seconds after McCready had accelerated away.

  As it was, he didn’t register anything until he was a couple of miles short of the off-ramp for State Route 123. And when he did finally notice the Chevrolet, it was too late for him to do much about it.

  McCready was in one of the centre lanes, passing a line of trucks, when the tan car accelerated and moved into a position directly behind his Ford. As McCready reached the cab of the leading truck, the Chevrolet driver accelerated hard, swinging his car to the left, apparently trying to overtake the Ford and making a pretty bad job of it.

  ‘What the hell?’ McCready muttered to himself, as the image of the Chevrolet filled his door mirror. Instinctively, he steered a little to the right, giving the other driver more room, but supremely conscious of the forty-ton eighteen-wheeler travelling at sixty miles an hour eight feet to his right.

  It didn’t help. The bigger car moved over with him, the driver apparently having difficulty controlling the vehicle and, as the two cars cleared the front of the truck, they touched, the Chevrolet’s bumper hitting the left rear of the Ford and forcing McCready further over to the right.

  As his Ford lurched forwards and sideways under the impact, McCready suddenly realized that the man in the Chevy might be something more than just another incompetent road-user. He touched his brake pedal, thought better of it and pressed the accelerator instead. If he could just get ahead of the Chevrolet and clear of the Mack truck he might just make it.

  The blare of the truck’s horn momentarily deafened him, but McCready was concentrating only on the tan Chevy. Time seemed almost to stop, and the Ford’s pickup seemed slower than normal, the speedometer needle moving with treacle sloth around the dial. The bigger car dropped back slightly, then accelerated again, its big old V8 engine giving it a degree of mid-range acceleration denied the Ford. The Chevrolet smashed into the left rear of the compact car, pushing it sideways and directly into the path of the truck.

  Now McCready braked hard, ramming his foot onto the pedal, and wrenched the steering wheel to the left, but the bigger car had the weight and the speed, and the Ford swung right, directly across the inside lane, right-hand wheels lifting. Tyres howled in protest, blue smoke swirling as rubber was torn off them.

  The truck’s horn blared again, then McCready heard the hiss of the air brakes as the trucker hit the pedal. As his car lurched directly in front of the eighteen-wheeler, McCready looked with horrified fascination through the passenger side window, and saw nothing but a huge vertical radiator bearing the word ‘Mack’.

  Half a second later the truck hit the Ford, its massive steel bumper smashing into the right rear of the car. Immediately, the Ford swung hard to the right, broad-side-on to the front of the truck.

  In the car, McCready’s body lurched to the right, then left, crashing into the driver’s door, his seat belt tensioning automatically and the airbags deploying. In a normal crash, that might have been enough to save him, but this was far from normal.

  The airbag forced McCready back into his seat, tearing his hands from the steering wheel and turning him into a helpless passenger as the Ford lurched under the colossal impact of the forty-ton weight of the Mack truck. For maybe half a second McCready thought that the Ford would stay upright as the truck’s speed fell away, but then he felt the unmistakable lurch as the car was lifted onto its left-side wheels and it slammed over, rolling onto its roof.

  The last image that registered in McCready’s brain was the grooved tread of an immense tyre, inches from his door, just before the left-hand front wheel of the Mack lifted up and over the Ford’s chassis and crushed the vehicle beyond recognition. The momentum of the massive truck bounced the left rear wheels of the cab over the wreck, finishing the job the front wheel had started, and when the Mack finally stopped the Ford was just a mess of twisted steel and leaking fluids.

  Murphy pulled the Chevrolet onto the shoulder a hundred yards or so beyond the wreck and stopped the car. He took a pair of compact binoculars from his pocket, turned round in the seat and looked carefully back up the Parkway. Cars and trucks had stopped at all angles, hazard lights flashing, their drivers staring in horror at what was left of the Ford, which lay, like some obscene roadkill, half-under the trailer of the Mack. Already people were milling around, talking on mobiles, pointing at the car. One guy was even taking pictures.

  He couldn’t see clearly, but Murphy was as certain as he could be that McCready was dead. The left wheels of the Mack’s cab seemed to have gone right over the passenger section of the Ford and the whole of the bodywork looked as if it had been flattened. Even if he hadn’t been killed outright, McCready would probably be dead long before the fire service and paramedics could cut him out.

  Murphy tossed the binoculars onto the passenger seat, pulled the shift into ‘drive’ and eased the Chevrolet down the road. As he accelerated away, he switched on the radio, found an easy-listening station and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel rim in time to the music as he drove. Faintly in the distance he heard the wail of a police siren and automatically checked his speed, then smiled slightly. His ‘extra’ job for Nicholson had gone without a hitch, as he’d expected.

  McCready’s death would be classed as just another unfortunate traffic accident on a busy stretch of road. It didn’t really matter if anyone had noticed the manoeuvres he’d performed in the Chevy. The police would likely assume the driver had been drunk or on drugs, and would probably disbelieve any witness who claimed that the driver’s actions – actions which Murphy had been specially trained to execute – were deliberate.

  He’d stolen the car in Tysons Corner late that morning, and he was going to dump the vehicle once he got clear of the Parkway. Even if somebody had been able to note down the plate number, and the police tracked it, there would be nothing in the car to provide a link to Murphy. He’d worn thin rubber gloves when he’d jacked the Chevy, and he’d leave them in the car when he walked away from it. In the glove box was a small incendiary charge, slim enough to slide into the fuel tank, fitted with a time switch. Once that blew, any forensic evidence he’d left would burn up along with the car.

  Murphy pulled off the Parkway onto State Route 123, heading for McLean. He’d dump the Chevy there and catch a cab back to Falls Church. He’d already set the timer on the incendiary charge for ninety minutes, so all he had to do was flip the switch and slide it into the gas tank as he left the car. He glanced at his watch: if he didn’t meet any problems, he’d be halfway to the airport at Baltimore before it blew.

  Irakleío, Crete

  It had taken the ed
itor less than twenty minutes to be persuaded to put the story of the mysterious epidemic at Kandíra on the front page of the following day’s paper.

  The reporter had taken the few crumbs he had extracted from the policemen guarding the barricades and from the two village men he had interviewed, and he had concocted a story that sounded dramatic in almost every way. It was dramatic in what it said, which was actually very little, and in what it implied, which encompassed almost every possible permutation of the ‘Unknown Pathogen Kills Villager’ angle. And most of all in the heading, which screamed the story across the top of the front page: Biological warfare in the Mediterranean. Diver killed by deadly germ found on seabed.

  Arlington, Virginia

  Nicholson was just about to leave the safe house when his mobile phone rang.

  ‘Yes?’

  Murphy didn’t bother introducing himself, because he had no idea who might be listening in to either his or Nicholson’s mobile. The fact that both numbers were unlisted provided some security, but these days you never knew. It was better to be circumspect. ‘That matter we discussed,’ he said. ‘It’s been taken care of.’

  ‘Good,’ Nicholson replied, and ended the call.

  He put the mobile down on the desk, reached inside his jacket pocket and extracted a slim black diary. All the entries in it were entirely innocent and innocuous, apart from those on a single page at the back. That contained seven lines of what appeared to be code.

  In fact, the lines looked very much like the product of a single or double transposition cipher, created by nothing more complicated than two memorized key-words and a knowledge of how to encode and decode a message. One of the characteristics of a message enciphered in this way is that all the groups are the same length, usually four, five or six letters. The lines in Nicholson’s diary were all five-letter groups: