Camp was deep in reflection, thinking about Omid’s words to him as they hiked through the Hindu Kush.
“Tell me, John…would Christians do things intentionally to try to tempt the apocalypse?”
“Overtly? I hope not. There are plenty of preachers who have sold books on the subject, but I don’t think anyone’s planning to literally blow up Jerusalem or the Dome of the Rock Mosque in an attempt to start Armageddon.”
“No one?”
Chaplain O’Brien withdrew and a serious scowl covered his otherwise jovial demeanor.
“No one other than, perhaps…Iran.”
The Pentagon
General Ferguson landed at Andrews Air Force Base and was immediately shuttled to the Pentagon where he was awaiting a meeting with the SECDEF and the Undersecretary of State’s Near East Bureau. Special Agent Daniels from CIA was already in the SECDEF’s waiting room when Ferguson arrived. Daniels and Ferguson exchanged brief pleasantries before the executive secretary ushered them both into the conference room where Secretary of Defense Pennington was finishing a private discussion with Undersecretary Miller from the State Department.
“Ah, Jim Ferguson, great to see you my friend. Do you know Katherine Miller from State?”
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am. May I introduce Special Agent Daniels from Central Intelligence.”
“Ma’am…sir,” Daniels said as all took their seats.
“Alright Jim, what’s going on and what do you need from us?” the SECDEF asked in his trademarked bottom-line style.
“Sir, three Afghans diagnosed with tularemia – rabbit fever – at a remote FOB in eastern Afghanistan, less than 50 clicks from Pakistan. The US battalion surgeon sends samples to Bagram, and they declare it garden variety tularemia, probably under-cooked meat or contaminated drinking water. A few days later that same battalion surgeon is kidnapped in a fairly complicated abduction plot. I sent a US Navy Captain and former SEAL to the FOB to investigate. While he’s there, one of our Afghan terps – a female – rigs up a homemade suicide vest and detonates. The Navy Captain saves her life and, in turn, gets some valuable intelligence. Turns out her husband put her up to it, and he’s part of the Haqqani Network working hand-in-hand with the Taliban in North Waziristan. The Terp gives us enough details to send Operation Detachment Alpha Team up through the Hindu Kush to rescue the abducted doctor. Meanwhile, Special Agent Daniels reports that commercial aerosol misting devices have found their way from Illinois to the black market in Indonesia and ended up in Islamabad. Simultaneously, CIA reports that the Russians are sending stockpiles of tularemia, a biological weapon that they were quite fond of, by rail down to Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. The Alpha Team finds the location in North Waziristan. The battalion surgeon has a bullet in his head. But in a back room, Alpha Team finds one of the missing commercial aerosol mosquito misting machines. The center of the house has a laboratory in it, almost a surgical suite. Three bottles of Russian-labeled tularemia are discovered. Alpha Team can’t blow the machine without risking egress, so they put a GPS tracking beacon on the unit. By the time our drones and satellites knew that they were tracking a machine and not a man, the device goes silent for a few hours and suddenly re-emerges in Damghan, Iran, home of the Iranians’ biological and chemical weapons facilities. Fort Detrick is working on the tularemia bacteria and a vaccine in their BSL-4 even as we speak.”
“Geez Jim, our hands are full enough with the Iranians over the nukes. Now tula-whatever?”
“Sorry, sir.”
“What do you need?”
“I’ve got the Navy captain and a former FBI agent in the air right now, Kabul to Dubai, Dubai to Istanbul, Turkey, then Istanbul to Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan. They need a meeting with the US Ambassador there, then support to investigate the rail yard and verify the shipment.”
“I’ll arrange the meeting with the Ambassador,” Undersecretary Miller said. “What are their names, and when do they arrive?”
“Captain Seabury Campbell, Junior and William Finn. They land at 1348 hours tomorrow afternoon.”
“I think it would be prudent to put a drone over Iranian airspace. We have a new stealth drone that’s deployable and ready for this type of mission. I want to make sure we keep an eye in the sky on this latest development,” SECDEF Pennington offered. “Any other resources, Jim?”
“Yes, as soon as we have a verifiable vaccine, we need to move to manufacturing. We’ll need your help, sir.”
“How soon will you know?”
“I’m heading to Fort Detrick right after this meeting. I’ll know more within a few hours.”
“Keep me posted. No surprises going forward.”
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan
Turkish Airlines flight number 324 landed precisely at 1:48pm on runway 12L and taxied immediately to the gate as a green-tailed Turkmenistan Airlines jet took off for Minsk. The orange and tan airport was much more modern than either US Navy Captain “Camp” Campbell or Billy Finn had imagined.
The US Embassy sedan was waiting curbside to take them to the Turkmenistan Hotel to rest and refresh before their morning appointment with American Ambassador Annette Pfister and her counterparts from the government of Turkmenistan.
Literally translated as the “city of love” in Persian, Ashgabat’s nearly one million people and relatively modern city served as a refreshing detour for Camp and Finn on the back-end of a brutal march up, over and back from the Hindu Kush in freezing weather. Situated between the Karam Kum desert and the Kopet Dag mountain range, Ashgabat was the capital of Turkmenistan, the last of the Soviet bloc’s to declare independence before the former Soviet Union collapsed.
Ashgabat was a major stop on the Trans-Caspian railway, a point that was of utmost importance to Camp and Finn as they rode in the back of the black sedan on the 23-minute ride to the hotel.
“Finn, can I ask you a question? What compels a group, or a country, to consider launching a bio-weapon that kills thousands, maybe millions, so indiscriminately?”
“That’s a bit heavier than the ‘wanna get a beer at the bar’ I was expecting.”
“Seriously, you FBI guys profile this sort of thing. How does anyone even think this way?” Camp asked.
“You can’t get your arms around it because you’re a rational warfare guy, Camp. Rationalist theory says the actors are rational and able to project their likelihood of success or failure. The Cold War was a stand-off between two rational players, armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, but each actor embraced the inevitable notion of mutual destruction. Hence, no war...both actors were rational.”
“I spent a lot of time talking to the Iranian…Omid.”
“I know…so let me jump to the chase; Iran is not a rational actor,” Finn said.
“But they are, Finn! They are completely rational within the constructs of their own brand of Islam. They rationally believe that they have a moral and spiritual obligation to usher in the Age of the Coming. It is their rational desire to trigger the annihilation of Israel in order to rationally pave the way for the Twelfth Imam. It’s all quite rational…for them.”
“Every Muslim?”
“Oh, no. Not even close. But the current Iranian regime…the Muslims in control of Iran today…they want rational annihilation.”
“They’re a bunch of radicals!”
“Billy, one man’s ‘radical’ is another man’s ‘rational.’ But here’s the problem: what about the 200 million more Shiite Muslims who follow this same brand of Twelver Islam? Do they secretly disagree with the interpretations of this Iranian regime? I haven’t heard any other Twelvers condemning them. Now add in the other 1.4 billion Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Would any of them be terribly upset if Iran wiped Israel off the map? Or would they reject Israel’s destruction on the grounds of being Islamic pacifists who preferred instead to live side-by-side in peace, content to wait for the Islamic messiah to reveal himself later on?”
“So…you think a type of quasi-rational theo
ry is in play,” Finn concluded. “The west is using their rational diplomacy, and the east is using their rational theology?”
“Exactly! We try to discourage Iran with western rational theory actions: sanctions, rebukes, then more sanctions…Iran responds with rational eastern theory and theocratic policies: shut down the Internet, suppress the popular revolt, then prepare the nukes and bio-weapons for the rationally-required annihilation of Israel that ushers in the Mahdi,” Camp said with almost complete exasperation.
“So, what if we think outside our rational western box and deny them first-strike capability?” Finn asked.
“Shoot the suicide bomber before he detonates?”
“It won’t change their theology...but it will slow them down,” Finn reasoned.
Camp stared out at the passing streets, cars and buildings without really seeing anything as he grew introspective.
“I’ve spent my entire career wearing this uniform, Finn, and here I sit not really sure why nations go to war in the first place.”
“Well, Rome marched into Carthage to crush a resurgent rival. Prussian General Von Clausewitz waged war as an act of force designed to compel his enemies to do his will. But the Jewish Talmud says it best,” Finn theorized. “There are only three universal reasons for war.”
Billy Finn fell quickly silent as he leaned forward and looked into the driver’s rearview mirror at the same unmarked car that had been following their sedan through the streets of Ashgabat since they left the airport.
“What is it?” Camp asked referring to his silence.
“Money, ideology-religion, and power.”
The sedan stopped curbside in front of the Turkmenistan Hotel, a comfortable Soviet-era three-story cinder block hotel with 90 rooms and five suites, all packaged from the outside with sea foam green paint and dark green awnings covering petite wrought iron patios.
Finn noted the trailing sedan as it pulled a u-turn after passing the hotel then parked on the opposite side of 19 Bitarap Turkmenistan Street.
“So be western irrational for a second, Finn,” Camp said as they exited the sedan, tipped the driver and made their way into the hotel and the reservations desk. “You heard what Omid was saying about the Twelvers. What would you do?”
“There’s only one way, Camp…cut the head off of every snake that comes out of that pit. Shoot the suicide bomber before he pushes the button.”
“But don’t blow the entire snake pit up?”
“Nope. That’ll piss off every other snake and make ‘em even more aggressive.”
“And how do you suppose we just chop off heads, Mister Irrational?” Camp asked.
Billy Finn smiled as he laid his passport down on the counter.
“Look the other way when the chopping starts. Get someone inside the pit to chop the heads, or just get it done yourself.”
The front desk clerk smiled and greeted the two American guests.
“You gotta be kidding,” Camp whispered as she processed Finn’s room. “CIA?” The clerk handed Finn his room key as Camp put his passport down on the counter.
“You have a beard now, Mister Campbell. It’s hard to recognize you from your photo,” the clerk said as Camp smiled and stroked his fledgling beard from the Hindu Kush mission that he’d all but forgotten. Finn leaned over and whispered.
“Mossad.”
* * *
20
* * *
National Interagency Biodefense Center
BSL-4 Facility
Fort Detrick, Maryland
General Ferguson and a new detail of coffee-pouring majors from the Pentagon pulled through the security gates at Detrick. The checkpoint guards called Lieutenant Colonel Raines immediately as instructed. Raines grabbed Dr. Groenwald, and they headed down the elevator without buttons to the atrium where they waited for Ferguson.
“General Ferguson, welcome to Detrick, sir, it’s great to see you again,” Raines said as she shook the general’s hand and introduced herself to his majors. “This is Dr. Groenwald who runs the facility.”
“Pleasure to meet you, doctor,” Ferguson said. “Colonel, how’s your health?”
“Medical cleared me to start running again and, other than being a bit winded I feel just about 100 percent.”
“Glad to hear it, colonel.” Ferguson’s eyes fixated on the coffee bar in the atrium. “Think we can grab a cup of high octane before you give me the briefing?”
Five cups of coffee in hands, Dr. Groenwald conducted the standard briefing then the entourage entered the elevator without buttons and rode it to the floor where a card reader and Raines’ biometric scan allowed her to go. Everyone took their seats in the conference room. Ferguson hesitated and almost seemed lost when Dr. Groenwald took the chair at the head of the table, so Ferguson quickly sat side saddle across from Raines.
“Last we spoke…you had successfully cooked up a vaccine-resistant recipe for tularemia. ‘Four Dead Monkeys’ I believe was the headline on your brief. Where do we stand today, colonel?”
“Sixteen. Sixteen more dead monkeys, sir.”
Ferguson rubbed his balding head.
“Well, that’s not good. Obviously, you have created quite a recipe. I suppose you don’t want to work on the manufacturing side of the equation until you master the vaccine.”
“That is correct, sir.”
“Do you think we should manufacture domestically, colonel?” Ferguson asked.
“The issue is FDA oversight and additives. Could be dicey, sir. Dr. Groenwald has put me in touch with two pharmaceutical companies in Europe, one in Germany and one in France. I’ve spoken with both, and I believe the one in Lyon, France – called LyonBio – has the manufacturing capacity we would need and lacks the public visibility, scrutiny and potential hysteria that we’d prefer to avoid.”
“Animal testing?”
“Yes, sir, they are equipped to handle the necessary applied research with animal testing to make sure the vaccine is effective, efficacious and safe.”
“Animal rights groups?”
“Not so much in southern France, sir.”
“Transportation?”
“For the vaccines, we ship at intervals when supply is ready. Antibiotics? If an outbreak occurs in the Middle East, northern Africa, or Europe, LyonBio could drop and ship five million doses within 48 hours. That’s not for manufacturing – that’s the time needed to ship. They’d need 72 hours for shipping to Southeast Asia, the Pacific Rim, North and South America. But our outbreak models suggest that the Middle East is more likely.”
“Israel in particular?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Dr. Groenwald, is 48 hours good enough?” Ferguson asked.
“As you know, the incubation period is three to five days from exposure. That’s the time window before health officials connect the dots and identify it as tularemia, unless someone announces they released this bio-weapon, which in that case, we can move very quickly. But the colonel is correct. Prevention is a better option than treatment.”
“What symptoms are we looking at?”
“The patient experience starts with chills, pus in the eyes, fever, headache, muscle pain and joint stiffness. Most will assume they have the flu. Unless a physician orders a blood culture for tularemia, it could go undiagnosed.”
“Then what?”
“If they contract the bacteria through the skin, then we’d expect ulcers and open sores to start appearing. That would be the best kind of tularemia to contract.”
“Inhalation?”
“If they breathe it in, then fever, sore throat, abdominal pain, diarrhea and vomiting for sure,” Groenwald described. “Untreated or undiagnosed, five-to-15 percent will die. If the lymph nodes swell and pneumonia sets in, mortality could reach 60 percent without antibiotics.”
“General Ferguson, the problem is that you only need 10 to 50 microscopic bacterial organisms in order to be infected,” Raines added. “With vaccines and antibiotics, the survivability t
ables look good. But the panic and fear will be more contagious. Most people will live – but everyone will be scared to death.”
“Colonel, I asked you to run some outbreak models for an aerosolized attack on Israel.”
“Yes, sir. Israel has a population of roughly seven million people with another four plus million living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.”
“You think they’d attack Muslims?”
“Perhaps not overtly, general, but tularemia bacterium is no respecter of persons. It doesn’t care if it infects Jews, Muslims, Christians, men, women, the elderly or children on a playground.”
“How many doses, colonel?”
“It’s not practical to vaccinate nearly 12 million people against something that might not happen or to prepare 12 million antibiotic treatments without an outbreak. But given the geographical constraints, Israel is a target-rich environment.”
General Ferguson stood up and walked to the door.
“Colonel, Rhode Island is the smallest state in the union, both in terms of land mass and total area. You could fit Israel inside of Rhode Island…two and a half times.”
Groenwald and Raines followed Ferguson and his entourage out into the hall. They rode the elevator with no buttons down to the atrium and then outside into the light rain.
“You’re on the clock, colonel. I need a vaccine,” Ferguson said as he started to walk away.
“Sir, I’m working as fast I can. I want to get the research done so that I can join Captain Campbell in Tel Aviv as soon as possible.”
Ferguson stopped on a dime, turned and walked back as the majors covered his head with an umbrella.
“Colonel, unless you two are planning to honeymoon in Israel, no one is going to Tel Aviv. Am I clear?”
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