by Trevor Hoyle
Jo didn’t cry out again. In the quiet glade she whined softly and the tears washed the encrusted chocolate from her face and lips. It was the taste of indignity, of hurt, of disillusion, this salty chocolate, and her throat burned with a mush of chicken and salad vomit.
Dan’s body thumped like a piston while his head roared redly in a blast furnace of deafening heat.
“You mean you haven’t noticed anything? Nothing at all?” Nick Power said. He sounded incredulous.
“What in hell are you talking about except a few high spirits, for God’s sake? Jesus, you damn English are all the same,” Tom Brannigan complained. “Skittish as kittens.”
Either Brannigan was playing dumb or he was dumb, Cheryl thought. Nick was right, she knew it, as did a lot of others in the community. Yet she trusted Brannigan about as far as she could have thrown his rugged 210-pound frame. There was a crafty slyness about him hiding behind his honest-as-the-day-is-long blue-eyed stare. The down-to-earth all-American patriot, that was Tom Brannigan, or so he liked to make out.
“It’s like a disease,” Nick said. “Don’t ask me whether it’s physical or psychological because I don’t know—but believe me, something’s happening to us and it’s getting worse. Especially the young people.” He looked around at the other council members, nine in all, who carefully avoided his and one another’s eyes, none of them prepared to support him. Or, more likely, afraid of disagreeing with Brannigan.
“What is this?” Cheryl demanded hotly. “Are we afraid to admit it to ourselves? Nick’s right and we all know it, or most of us do. The rest must be walking around with their eyes shut. It isn’t only the climate and vegetation that’s gone haywire—there’s something deeper and more fundamental that’s affecting us all, every single one of us.”
“Hey now, let’s not get hysterical,” Brannigan said indulgently. The fact that this was a woman’s opinion dredged up the latent male chauvinism that was only millimeters beneath the bluff, jovial exterior. It was only to be expected, his manner suggested, that nervous and highly strung females were prone to such outbursts.
Cheryl recognized the ploy and choked back her anger.
“I’m no psychologist, I’d be the first to admit,” Brannigan went on reasonably. “I’m just a simple guy, you all know that. The last thing Tom Brannigan is, is some kind of intellectual. Sure I’ve read a book or two, but I believe at bottom in good old-fashioned common sense. Isn’t that why we joined the community in the first place, to get back to the simple, basic issues and not get mixed up with all that nonsense outside? Look, set me straight if I’m wrong, but we have a good life here at Goose Lake. We’ve built it up from nothing and made it work by the sweat of our brow. We grow our own food and see to our own needs.” His blue eyes in their brown crinkles were so sincere it hurt. “Is anybody seriously telling me that something is wrong with us? Because, to be honest, I don’t see it. What I do see is a community with—yeah, okay—one or two problems, but you’re always gonna get that. It’s only to be expected.”
Nick was staring at the wall, his face stiff and tight. His eyes didn’t flicker when Brannigan said:
“Now Dr. Power here, who we all know ain’t a medical doctor—and Dr. Detrick likewise—in my opinion are getting uptight over nothing at all. And judging from the rest of you I’d say you go along with me. Am I right or am I right?”
“You’re not only blind, Tom,” Cheryl said. “You’re stupid as well—” Nick held up his hand. “Tom, listen to me. If you don’t wake up to what’s happening you’re heading for trouble—and you’re going to drag the rest of us with you whether we like it or not.”
“Aw bullshit—this is a load of crap and you know it. Godammit, we’re safe here. Nothing can touch us.”
“What about your son, Tom?” Nick said quietly. “Are he and some of the other young men behaving normally in your opinion?”
If someone had stabbed a pin into Brannigan he couldn’t have reacted more sharply.
“What’re you getting at? What d’you mean?”
“You haven’t noticed his influence over the others and the way they’ve been acting?”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re going on about,” Brannigan said coldly. Those crinkly blue eyes had turned to arctic ice.
Nick glanced at Cheryl and released an audible sigh. Then he turned and looked Brannigan straight in the face. “I didn’t want this to get personal, Tom, but it has to be said. Baz leads the other kids into all kinds of troublemaking and everyone but you seems to know it. I hate saying this—”
“Then don’t say it!” Brannigan’s voice was flat as a whipcrack. “I don’t make remarks about your kid, so don’t start on mine. It’s none of your fucking concern.”
“It is if it disrupts the life of the community.”
“Jesus,” Brannigan snorted, “you goddamn English.” He’d flushed a darker brick red. “Like to think of yourselves as everybody’s conscience, don’t you, you and your prissy high-minded ways.” He pointed a thick forefinger like the barrel of a gun. “Let me tell you, what Baz does is my affair, not yours, and don’t forget it. Do you think I need you to tell me about my own son? You can go to hell!”
“That means you don’t know,” Nick said in the same quiet voice. Brannigan’s square jaw jutted. “Know about what?”
“Baz and his friends are on a big drug kick. They’re eating them like jelly beans.”
A pulse throbbed visibly in Brannigan’s temple. His neck swelled. He swayed forward in his chair, a fist half-raised.
But it was Cheryl who said blankly, “The kids are on drugs? Nick, are you certain?”
Nick nodded without speaking, watching Brannigan.
“How many of the kids? All of them or just a few?” Cheryl said. She really wanted to come straight out and ask if Dan was one of them, but daren’t. Had she been as stupid and blind as Tom Brannigan? If it was true it explained quite a lot that had been puzzling and worrying her about Dan. His attitude. His moods. His erratic behavior.
“I’m warning you, Power.” Brannigan was trembling, his voice low and dangerous. “Don’t you come making accusations about my boy. I see your game all right. You’re out to cause trouble. Well I’m telling you here and now for the first and last time to keep your fucking nose—”
The door crashed open and Nick’s wife stood wilting against the light. Her face was in silhouetted shadow, but they didn’t need to see it to know that something was badly wrong. Cheryl felt the nausea churn in her stomach.
Nick was on his feet, staring at his wife. “What is it, Jen?”
Her voice sounded like an ancient gramophone record, indistinct and scratchy, periodically fading so that some of the words were lost.
“It’s Jo ... please come, she’s been ... horrible and I can’t believe ... please come now ... oh please ...”
She would have fallen to the pine floor if Nick hadn’t caught her in time.
The genetically adapted virus containing tetrachlorodibenzo-paradioxin, developed in the Zone 2 laboratories on Starbuck Island, had been spectacularly effective in contaminating the most densely populated areas of Africa, Asia, the subcontinent of India, China, and the Far East.
Burrowing its way into the gut of animals—from small rodents to man—the virus attacked the cellular structure of its host, causing cancer, disruption of blood-cell function, deformation of the liver and other organs, leading eventually and inevitably to death.
It was deployed via the water supply and thence by the contaminated hosts themselves, which passed it on to other animals and humans by means of direct contact, infected feces, and by the rotting corpses, each of which was a bacteriological factory in miniature. A single contaminated corpse, for instance, could wipe out a village or small town. It was the modern version of the Black Death, which swept Europe in the Middle Ages; only this time the plague was man-made, scientifically deployed, and a hundred times more virulent.
No one had been forewarned. No one�
�not politicians, scientists, business leaders, nor even military personnel—could be trusted not to reveal the existence of the Primary Plan before its inception, and therefore everyone without exception in the Designated Areas was included.
Contamination squads—specially trained units operating under orders from Advanced Strategic Projects—dumped canisters of the TCDD virus in streams, rivers and reservoirs. Only a few parts per million were required. Even had the authorities suspected that some form of toxic contaminant was being added to the water supply they would have needed highly sophisticated detection equipment, which they didn’t have, to verify the fact. As it was they were in total ignorance that the covert operation had been mounted and put into effect.
The virus had been bred from various strains and was capable of retaining its effectiveness over a wide temperature range. Once ingested by the population it went immediately to work, and by C Day + 7 (one week after Contamination Day) had infected nearly 50 percent of those in the Designated Areas. By C Day + 12 the first deaths were reported, and thereafter the red line on the graph rose steeply to the vertical as millions perished in writhing agony.
Once begun, the process was self-perpetuating. The mounds of rotting corpses, left where they lay because there was no one to bury them, spread the contamination to the soil. Rainwater washed it into sewers, streams, and rivers. A black stain spread across continents, killing every form of animal life it encountered. The numbers of dead and dying went rapidly from hundreds of thousands to millions, to tens of millions, and then to hundreds of millions. Statistics were meaningless. Megadeaths became the standard term of measurement.
It was the Chinese who tried most desperately to find an answer. They managed to isolate the virus, but their centuries of experience in “natural” medicine were worse than useless when dealing with a chemical substance that hadn’t existed until man invented it. They were vainly seeking an antidote to the most deadly poison on earth, and no such antidote existed.
Three weeks after C Day it was estimated that over one and a half billion people had died. This was still a long way short of the projected target of 4.3 billion, but it was an encouraging start. The poison would carry on doing its work because there was no way it could be stopped. Even the most remote regions with their own independent water supply weren’t safe, thanks to cloud seeding: God’s rain falling from the skies brought death in parts per million.
The scientists at Starbuck had warned that this technique should be used only as a backup to the main operation. Clouds were at the beck and call of winds, and winds were no respecters of national boundaries. A cloud bearing its deadly load of TCDD might cross an ocean and drip creeping black death on friend instead of foe—or, worse still, on the land of its perpetrators. Great care had to be taken to confine the cloud-borne contamination to specific geographical localities whose meteorological patterns and trade winds could be plotted with a high degree of certainty.
As the weeks went by and the death toll mounted and entire cities, regions, states, countries, and continents were progressively laid waste, the decaying carcasses were subjected to the gradual yet ineluctable processes of nature.
Still alive and thriving inside the cellular structure of the dead, the virus increased in concentration and began to infect the soil. Sewers became biological fermentation tanks. Rivers were log-jammed with sodden decomposing corpses that added their toxic load to the already bacteriologically fertile water. On the seaboards of every affected continent mighty rivers and small streams alike discharged their quota of chemical-bearing virus into the oceans.
The black stain spread from the landmasses and began to seep outward in ever-widening circles, carried by the mingling currents into every ocean of the world. In relation to the volume of water it was an exceedingly minute concentration. But it had been genetically adapted to survive in conditions that otherwise would have dissipated and destroyed it.
To the scientists at Starbuck, who had accomplished the task set them, their pride and jubilation was unclouded by any fears of what might happen now that the Primary Plan had been implemented and successfully concluded. They reasoned that the amount of TCDD in global terms was infinitesimal, hardly enough to be measured even with the most sensitive instruments.
Literally a drop in the ocean.
The film was all the more horrific because it was silent: mute dreamlike images of death.
Continuous movement and fast disjointed cutting engendered in the viewer the impression that this was the work of an insane director who’d abandoned the conventional techniques of moviemaking and instead pointed his camera randomly at bodies erupting with cancerous growths and babies decaying in gutters. As a horror film it was brilliant in its totally objective noninvolvement: a clinical record in lurid, disgusting Technicolor.
Shot by telephoto lens from a helicopter, whose shadow flitted brokenly over buildings and raced along streets, this was official ASP footage of the results of the Primary Plan—proof of its success for the politicians and military brass.
“I’m impressed, Lloyd,” hissed Wayne Hansom, the secretary of state, into General Madden’s ear. “Not a sign of life and yet all facilities left intact. We couldn’t have achieved this even with our neutron bomb capability.”
“Aside from which, the expense would have been prohibitive on this scale. The cost effectiveness of a bacteriological strike can’t be matched by any other method.” Madden’s voice was soft and measured as usual, yet with an undercurrent of excitement, of nervous glee. “We’re talking about a few cents per hundred thousand, Wayne. Plus we made use of the army’s existing delivery technology—no fancy systems had to be developed. It was all the usual hardware manned by crews specially trained in handling contaminants.”
They lapsed into engrossed silence, watching the film, an aide replenishing their glasses when they ran dry. Madden had seen it perhaps a dozen times already but wasn’t bored. The close-ups were fascinating. The Primary Plan had fulfilled all their expectations and the secretary of state would have no hesitation in commending ASP’s role to the president when he made his report.
One of the State Department officials had a question. How soon before the target figure of 4.3 billion was met? At this moment in time, he pointed out, there was a considerable shortfall.
Madden delegated that one to Major Jones, whose stolid black features concealed a brain bulging with data. “Our original projection was C Day plus four months for virtual wipeout of the Designated Areas, but it now appears more realistic to think in terms of C Day plus six months. Right this minute we’re approaching two billion, which means that all cities and large towns have been zilched. Obviously the dense urban populations were easiest to hit. The rural and less-populated regions will take longer for precisely that reason. But the virus will get to them eventually because nothing can stop it. By C Day plus six”—he turned down both thumbs—“total wipeout.”
Hansom and Madden exchanged looks, smiling into each other’s eyes.
“As I understand it, you’re completely happy about containment.” This was neither statement nor query, but rather a nervous plea for reassurance from Jim Devanney, the assistant secretary of state. Fingers drumming the arm of his chair, eyes behind gold-rimmed bifocals swiveling from face to face.
Madden’s faint smile snapped off like a light. “Completely. Isn’t that right, Lutz?”
“TCDD in the form of the virus as developed at Starbuck is highly contagious and is transmitted either by person-to-person contact or through the water supply,” intoned the scientific officer. “It can’t be transmitted any other way. There is no risk of spreading the infection to landmasses many thousands of miles away, absolutely none whatsoever.”
“Supposing an infected person were to carry the disease to the United States,” Devanney proposed. “That’s possible, isn’t it, if they take days or even weeks to die after being infected?”
Lutz smiled, amused by the naiveté of the layman. “If an infected pe
rson managed to reach the United States—highly unlikely because the symptoms are debilitating in the extreme—we should know at once. One of the first signs of infection is cloracne, a particularly unpleasant, and very noticeable, skin complaint. Such a person would be handed over to the military and quietly and effectively disposed of. ”
“And what about the people he traveled with—those on the same aircraft or ship?” Devanney persisted.
“They would be quarantined until such time as we were satisfied beyond any doubt that they were free of the disease.” Lutz leaned forward, eyebrows raised, his neck thin and veined like an ostrich’s. “I can categorically assure the assistant secretary that we have provided for all eventualities, unlikely as they may be. Believe me, sir, anyone infected with the virus will be in no fit state to travel.”
Devanney gnawed his lip, still uneasy. “It can’t travel by air? I mean carried by the trade winds?”
Eyes closed, Lutz shook his head.
One of the State Department officials said, “But it can travel by water. Presumably there’s a considerable runoff from the infected bodies that will find its way into the oceans eventually. What happens to it then?”
It was Madden who said brusquely, “Nothing happens to it. The concentration is minute to begin with, only a few parts per million. In the oceans it will simply dissipate until it’s ineffective.”
“You’ve carried out tests to show this,” Hansom said.
“Of course.” Madden reached for his crystal glass and took a sip of Perrier water. “The matter of containment has received the most careful and thorough investigation at Starbuck. I can give you gentlemen an absolute assurance. You need have no qualms.”