Pathological

by Jinkang Wang

  The four henchmen had heard their boss’s phone call, and came over to ask, “Is the time set?”

  “Yes, the Chinese man will send the paper flowers to Kabul by December twenty-fifth at the latest. We should set out tonight.”

  They loaded the smallpox virus onto their mules. It was a five-day journey to the house Zia Baj had rented near Kabul, where they’d be able to mix the smallpox with the scent granules before scattering them on the paper flowers, then repackage them and put them on a flight to Tokyo. And then—there’d be quite a spectacular show to watch.

  He asked, “Are all the mules loaded up?”

  “Yes, they’re outside the cave to stay cool.”

  In winter, this high above sea level, it was about ten degrees below zero, a natural freezer. Considering that the virus would spend five days in the open air while being transported (there was no possibility of a freezer van in this area), Zia Baj had chosen winter for the attack. One-eyed Ahmed chuckled. “The Americans have it coming to them again, another 9/11!”

  Zia Baj hadn’t told them any details of the plan. “No, not America. This is for Tokyo.”

  “Japan?” Tamala was puzzled. “Americans deserve to die more than anyone else. Why not infect New York or Washington, DC?”

  “Americans are on their guard, and we’d never get this stuff through customs. Besides, they’ve already had a smallpox attack, they’ve stockpiled lots of the vaccine. I decided on Japan this time.”

  Tamala said anxiously, “What about Japanese immigration? Won’t they inspect the goods?”

  “No, I’ve looked into it carefully. They only test plant matter for infection, or people and boats from infected areas. Paper flowers or other manufactured products aren’t on their radar.”

  “All right, so we’ll kill a few hundred thousand Japanese, that’s not bad either. Who asked them to be so friendly with the Americans, always sending them troops and ships?”

  Ismail said, “What a coincidence, the last two test subjects were Japanese, too.”

  All five of them turned to look in the same direction, a deep crevice within the cave, where the bodies of the two test subjects were buried. A year ago, Tamala had casually asked, “So, do our viruses work or not?” That was precisely what Zia Baj wanted to know. The original smallpox pathogens he’d brought with him were powerful, but would this virulence have been maintained after more than a decade of production? He’d tested them on himself, and they’d induced a satisfactory antibody reaction, but needed to try them on someone without immunity before he could really be sure. Fortunately, that would be relatively straightforward. Zia Baj made a call to a friendly organization, and before long they sent over an elderly Japanese couple who’d been abducted while sightseeing in Kabul. They spoke no English, and no one there spoke any Japanese. They could only gape in terror, babbling nonstop, probably asking their kidnappers for mercy and saying they’d be willing to pay any ransom. Zia Baj grew tired of their babbling, so he got his men to hold them down while he injected a syringe of smallpox-infected blood serum into them. The incubation period was usually two weeks, but after just four days they started showing symptoms—high fever, delirium, pustules—and soon they’d reached the dangerous stage of sepsis. Zia Baj didn’t wait for the disease to kill them. The strength of the virus was no longer in doubt; the test could stop. Since the victims’ bodies were full of the virus, which could be preserved and used for the next step of expansion, he got his underlings to tie them up so their blood could be drained and put in cold storage. The old man was in a frenzy, probably realizing what his fate would be. Suddenly breaking free from Ismail and Tamala, he charged toward Baj and bit his left wrist hard. Tamala ran up from behind and knocked the old bastard to the ground.

  He’d broken the skin on Baj’s wrist, which glistened bloodily. He laughed coldly, and did nothing about the wound. He and the four others had all had the pox, and then deliberately contracted smallpox—the immunity from cowpox was shorter, whereas full smallpox more or less conferred immunity for life. The old Japanese fool was wrong if he thought he could drag Baj down with him. He was held down, and his blood drained. The man thrashed, his skin growing slowly paler, his body weakening till it was over, and he was motionless.

  They did the same thing to the woman, then left the bodies in the deepest part of the cave, covering the opening with a rock. Then Baj separated their blood with a centrifuge, freezing the virus-rich blood serum. Tamala, assisting him, suddenly burst out laughing. “Mr. Baj, why bother using machines and electricity growing these viruses? This method isn’t bad. Get a few hundred infidels, stick them full of germs, and when they’re almost dead, suck out their blood. That’s recycling, making use of rubbish. No need to waste electricity, no need for these machines, and no need to keep buying animal blood in the village.”

  The other three called out their agreement. Baj chuckled and said this was indeed a good method, and Western virologists would never think of such a simple, effective way of doing things. They never did put that into practice, though. Not because their consciences forbade them, but because they worried that if too many infidels went missing on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, it might attract international attention and expose their secret lair. Not a risk worth taking.

  That night, they left the cave, leading four mules and a donkey. The mules carried a load of crude smallpox virus that they’d manufactured in the last few years. One-legged Tamala couldn’t come, so he said good-bye at the cave entrance, probably forever. Baj had given each of his men five hundred afghanis, which wouldn’t even cover travel expenses. Tamala was almost sixty and only had one leg. It was easy to imagine what the rest of his life would be like. Zia Baj would have liked to have given him a little more money, but that simply wasn’t possible. The cash he’d gotten from Hamza was almost all gone, some spent on that farm in Idaho, some on setting up Heavenly Fragrance, and the rest on funding this attack.

  Anyway, Tamala didn’t seem too sad, smiling as he said good-bye. Twenty-eight years ago, during the Afghanistan War, a rich man calling himself Mohammad had given him two valuable diamonds, but he’d rejected the gift because he’d known he didn’t have many days left to live. Yet Allah had taken special care of him, and he’d made his way through forests of guns, hails of bullets—and although he’d lost a leg on the way, he’d held on to his life. Which is to say, those twenty-eight years had been a bonus. Of course, when he thought of the fortune he’d turned down, he couldn’t help regretting it.

  The four mules and donkey disappeared into the distance, leaving Tamala at the entrance, waving to his comrades. He lit a piece of wood and tossed it into the cave, which they’d doused in gasoline, so a plume of smoke immediately rose from its entrance, high into the night sky.

  Tamala stumbled away on his crutches, hopping against the backdrop of the raging fire. He could see four people leading pack animals, carefully walking down the steep path, heading toward Kabul. When everything was settled there, the other three would say good-bye to Baj; this would likewise be forever. All these years they’d lived together in resistance—suffering, murdering, fleeing—with no friends, no family, their one goal in life to become martyrs and enter paradise. But paradise hadn’t taken them yet, and now the war no longer needed them, so how would they live? They all felt a little empty, a little sad.

  There was no light anywhere around them, apart from a sliver of new moon shining on the uneven path ahead. Jamal and Ismail walked in front, and Ahmed brought up the rear, with Zia Baj in the middle. Baj could sense the heavy hearts of his three companions, but he was in the same boat. This was without a doubt his last mission for the cause, and whether or not he succeeded, his life would probably end here. Right now, the only spiritual strength keeping him going was not so much faith as hatred. He loathed the cocky, bullying Americans, the complacent Japanese and Europeans, the wealthy Chinese and Indians. He hated that man who went by Mohammad—he and his leader had chosen submission and pleasure while handin
g over the virus and letting him toy with the infidels’ lives; he hated Hamza—who’d once been his spiritual leader, but changed sides after being captured by the Americans; and he hated the instructors at the camp he’d trained at—they’d plucked young Zia Baj from regular life and turned him into this thing, destroying his chance to ever be normal. But it was too late now, at fifty-four years old Zia Baj could only follow the path he was on till the end.

  The journey was smooth, and even though they had to pass through some army checkpoints on the way, a trading caravan comprising five animals and three disabled men aroused little suspicion. Now they just had to get through the Ayal Pass, and Kabul would be very close. Baj got another call from the Chinese man. The signal wasn’t good, and he bellowed, “I’m traveling, you’ll have to talk louder!” Amid the static, He Zhichao said that he’d sent the goods to Kabul, and was about to get on a plane to Tokyo himself, to personally oversee the campaign. Baj paused a moment before answering—on the desolate Ayal Pass, amid a caravan of mules, he worked to summon the persona of the wealthy Saudi Bin Talal—and finally said in a smooth, cultured voice, “Very good, everything’s going to plan here. I’ll leave you to handle the Tokyo side of things.”

  January 2030—Tokyo, Kabul, and Beijing

  Sun Jingshuan, his wife, and the two kids spent more than ten days in Japan, traveling to Tokyo, the Heian Shrine, Mount Fuji, Yokohama’s Chinatown, and Disneyland, and enjoying some hot springs. On New Year’s Day and the next few days, they spent some more time in Tokyo, again at the Yaesu Fujiya Hotel. This stay was partly to rest and regroup—even Jiji, the most energetic, was asking for a break—partly to experience how the Japanese celebrated New Year’s. The hotel was nicely decorated, with a kadomatsu outside the main entrance; there were organized trips on New Year’s Eve to a shrine to hear the traditional tolling of the bell one hundred and eight times; and on New Year’s morning, the hotel served toso sake, o-zōni, and other New Year foods like herring roe, black beans, little fish cooked in soy sauce and sugar, and so on. The manager of Fujiya Hotel even led his workers in paying New Year’s visits to the guests and handing out greeting cards.

  On the third day of the new year, they did more exploring in Tokyo, visiting a shopping mall in Ginza and watching a song and dance performance, wandering through the Akihabara electronics emporiums Laox and Akky, picking up some of the latest gadgets as gifts for friends back home, buying so much they had to arrange for the purchases to be sent back to China. It was dusk by the time they left the mall, and red clouds were slowly fading into darkness in the west. As the night thickened, neon lights flashed on above all the shops. Nikko Street was full of people, every bit as crowded as Beijing’s Wangfujing. As they moved through the throngs, looking for a restaurant, Jiji suddenly pointed at the sky and shouted, “Jiaojiao, look, airship! Three huge airships!”

  “Dad, Mom, they really are airships! They’re huge, and so pretty.”

  The three white dirigibles had risen in the sky behind them, and were heading steadily in their direction. They looked a lot like spaceships, and blotted out almost half the night, squeezing the sky into the gaps between them. Lights glittered all around the airships, illuminating them in silhouette, with swiveling lamps beneath shooting beams of multicolored light into the air. The two kids screamed with delight, and the adults were exclaiming too, everyone tilting their heads back to look. Then, from the tail of each airship, long white dragons suddenly appeared, their bodies twisting and disintegrating into snowflakes that drifted down and scattered over the crowd. Everyone reached out to grab at them. Sun Jingshuan got hold of a few, which turned out to be delicate paper flowers, so light and soft they might have been made of silk, covered in something like the powder on butterfly wings. Squeezing them released a delicious scent. On each flower was Japanese writing in kanji, a haiku and an advertising slogan. Jingshuan noticed the brand name beneath: China Heavenly Fragrance Cosmetics Inc. He had to laugh at that, chuckling to his wife and the children. “It’s a perfume ad! A Chinese company. They know how to hustle—ads in Tokyo, and so creative, too.”

  He Ying and the kids were grabbing at the flowers too, the kids sniffing delightedly and saying how good they smelled. “Our Chinese perfume is even better than those Italian ones.” They squinted, trying to decipher the words, and Jiji looked up, confused. “Uncle Sun, why is the airship dropping smallpox? Look, it says here.”

  Before Jingshuan could answer, Jiaojiao butted in. “Idiot, that’s not what it says, can’t you read? It’s petals of . . . something. Flowers from heaven, anyway.”

  Jingshuan looked at the row of words Jiji was pointing at. He’d only picked out the capital letters in “SMALL Petals Of X-tasy” and read “SMALLPOX.” Jingshuan stifled a laugh. Jiji was Mei Yin’s grandson and Xue Yu’s son, of course he’d immediately think of smallpox—virology ran in his blood. He ruffled Jiji’s hair. “Your sister’s right, it’s referring to the heavenly lady dropping flowers from above. Anyway, the Japanese word for ‘smallpox’ is completely different.”

  He Ying scolded her daughter. “How can you call your little brother an idiot? That’s not how a big sister should talk!”

  Jiaojiao pouted. “That’s just what we call each other, it’s not bad language. He calls me an idiot too.”

  He Ying laughed, because Jiji indeed used the word a lot. Still, she insisted. “Even if he does, you’re not allowed to.”

  Meanwhile, Jiji wasn’t satisfied with Jingshuan’s explanation. “But Uncle Sun, the heavenly lady dropping flowers from above is a Chinese legend. Do the Japanese have the same story?”

  “Yes, it came over here from China.”

  Only now did Jiji believe him, and so he bent down to gather a pile of flowers. All around them, Japanese pedestrians were grabbing flowers too, having decided they were a sign of good luck for the new year, sniffing them and stuffing them into pockets. The airships sailed into the distance, still dispensing flowers, and disappeared into the night. The Suns had dinner and got a taxi back to the hotel. In the Fujiya lobby, a man in his thirties, seeing Jiji and Jiaojiao with their arms full of paper flowers, asked in Chinese, “Are you from China?”

  “Yes,” Jingshuan said. “You here on vacation too?”

  “No,” he said jubilantly. “I’m here for an ad campaign. Those flowers your kids are holding are advertising my company’s perfume.”

  Sun Jingshuan and He Ying praised his work, calling the campaign a masterstroke, then said good-night.

  They went to bed early, since they were leaving for home the next day. In the middle of the night, He Ying was roused by her husband tossing and turning. He turned on the bedside lamp, and when she saw the look on his face, she asked, “Are you all right? Worried about something?”

  “This might be nonsense. But what Jiji said—about the airships distributing smallpox—made me really uneasy. I’m thinking . . . what if there was something in that?”

  “But it was a Chinese perfume company doing the ad. That General Manager He we met tonight doesn’t seem like a terrorist.”

  Jingshuan shook his head. “Don’t forget, when Zia Baj organized that tour of remembrance attack more than ten years ago, he made use of that Native American guy who had no idea what was going on. That’s how he operates.”

  He Ying wasn’t convinced, but still felt a chill. If her husband’s suspicion was right, then smallpox was in their bodies at that very moment, multiplying in the dark, quietly feasting on their flesh. But more importantly—the children! Jiji might be all right, Sister Mei had said something about him having been exposed to “mild smallpox,” so he’d have some immunity, but Jiaojiao had no such protection. If . . . but it was too terrifying, she couldn’t complete the thought. “So . . . what should we do?”

  Jingshuan had no answer for her. After thinking about it, he made a decision and picked up the phone, asking the operator to place a long distance call to China. From more than six hundred miles away, Mei Yin’s sleep-filled voice a
nswered, “Who is it?”

  “Sorry to disturb you. It’s Jingshuan. Something urgent’s come up. I remember Mr. Matsumoto from the WHO moved back to Tokyo after he retired, is that right? I need you to give me his number.”

  Immediately, Mei Yin was wide awake. She knew he must have a good reason for calling her in the middle of the night with a request like this. “Yes, he’s in Tokyo, and I have his number. Why are you—”

  Jingshuan briefly explained about the airborne ad campaign. “It might be nothing, but I do sense the whiff of that terrorist on these paper flowers. He’s skilled at making use of a patsy to do his dirty work. And not long ago, you said that Zia Baj wouldn’t just vanish quietly, that he’d pop up again sooner or later.”

  There was a rustling sound, and then she gave him Matsumoto’s number. “You’re doing the right thing—considering the worst-case scenario. Whatever happens, tell me as soon as you know.”

  Jingshuan didn’t waste any time in calling the Matsumoto residence. Up to now, He Ying had been skeptical, but seeing how seriously he was taking this, she couldn’t help becoming anxious too. Quickly getting out of bed, she went to check on the kids, who were sleeping soundly. She touched their foreheads. No fever, and no blisters. That meant nothing, of course—there’d be an incubation period of several days at least. She went back into the main bedroom, where Jingshuan was on the phone to Matsumoto. He kept repeating, with some embarrassment, that this might be no more than a hyperactive imagination, that he had no proof.

  Matsumoto assured him. “Don’t worry about that. It won’t hurt to do a test and be sure. I happen to have some of those flowers—picked them up while saying good-bye to my guests this evening. I live in Shibuya, which is quite some distance from where you were, in Akihabara. I’m afraid that means these flowers might have scattered over most of the city. Two or three hundred thousand people might have come into contact with them.”