The Devil on Chardonnay

by Ed Baldwin

“You have no idea how glad I am to see you,” Joe said soberly. “Ebola did something so sinister, so clever, so unexpected …”

  His voice quivered and he turned away.

  “We sent some guys in biohazard suits up to see if those suitcases were intact, but it was like someone dropped a canister of napalm on the site to cook it.”

  “Why would you want that stuff?” Boyd asked suspiciously.

  “We didn’t. Gen. Ferguson just wanted to be sure someone else didn’t go up there and get exposed.”

  “So, you went in with flame throwers?”

  “Well, no. They had some specimen containers. Just in case there was something viable,” Joe said defensively.

  Ferguson was looking at his notes.

  “What about that antibiotic? I kept hoping that would come in like the cavalry and save somebody,” Boyd said, trying to ignore a cold nagging spot in his consciousness.

  “Didn’t work out. We were trying it on monkeys in China, and it didn’t do a thing. I almost brought it along anyway when I heard you were sick. But if it doesn’t help, it doesn’t help.”

  Joe looked away, tears brimming suddenly in his eyes, and said, “I’m sorry, Boyd.”

  The telephone buzzed and an aide answered. “You’re on,” he said, and they filed into the small meeting room.

  “We have Maj. Gen. Ferguson with Col. Smith from USAMRIID and Capt. Chailland with the latest on Ebola.”

  Boyd was directed to a seat and took it. When he looked up, all eyes were on him. A screen descended silently behind the lectern. The electron micrograph of Ebola was already on it. Ferguson began speaking.

  “Capt. Chailland led the team that found and finally stopped Ebola. He’s just recovered from having it himself. I’ve asked him to come today, but he’s not prepared to answer questions just now. I hope you’ll understand.”

  There were a few nods, and then Ferguson continued.

  “Since our brief two weeks ago that Ebola was contained, a lot of information has been gathered about who wanted it and why. Nothing has stirred up the dark forces in the world like Ebola. It’s sobering. To recap, a European merchant banker, Charles Meilland, contracted with Lymon Byxbe, owner of BioVet Tech in South Carolina, to capture Ebola, replicate it and develop a vaccine for it. That was a tall order, but Byxbe pulled it off. He delivered viable virus and a vaccine to Michelle Meilland at Charleston in September. In spite of our best efforts, she delivered some virus and vaccine to couriers for an Arab jihadist group, and they deployed it in an unconventional attack on South Sudan.

  “The vaccine worked initially, but they ran out, and the virus quickly spread to the unvaccinated. That is, combatants, health care workers, and noncombatants. Fortunately, we were forewarned by members of Capt. Chailland’s team in Mombasa and advised the Egyptians to move quickly to close their border. The loss of life in Sudan was staggering, approaching 20,000 this week. But it could have been much worse. There were only a few dozen cases in Egypt, and they were from combatants who fled back from Sudan and got through the border checkpoints. Let me break from the recap to let Col. Smith fill you in on what we’ve learned about the virus.”

  He sat, and Smith took the podium.

  “Byxbe’s plan was a sound one,” Joe said as he pointed at a picture of chromosomes from Ebola on the screen. “He had his technician set up with a lab in the Seychelles to break the Ebola’s gene sequence here, attach it to a plasmid, which is a fragment of RNA that will take the sequence into a host’s cells and incorporate it into the function of the cell. Once a part of the cell, that sequence would then use the cell’s resources to produce the outer protein coat of Ebola in some quantity. This is how most of our genetically engineered pharmaceuticals, like insulin, are manufactured. When released into the bloodstream, that protein would be recognized as foreign and the host would produce antibodies against it. That’s how immunity is created. This next slide shows a monkey lymphocyte with some fragments of RNA in its cellular structure. We got this from the Seychelles.”

  “From where in the Seychelles?” one of the Joint Chiefs asked.

  “It’s from one of the dead monkeys at the lab. That proves they were working with plasmids and gene sequences. The process of breaking the chromosome, attaching it to the plasmid and reproducing it in quantity involves heating to precise temperatures, repeated centrifuging and exposure to some chemicals. Jacques, the technician had all the equipment to do that on the island. His letter about the virus mutating was correct, but it didn’t mutate in a monkey, it mutated in his lab. He overheated the virus while he was replicating it and created the South Carolina strain. That got mixed back in with the wild Kikwit strain, and when he infected monkeys after they were vaccinated they got sick and were bitten by mosquitoes. The vaccine worked, most of the monkeys survived.

  “Jacques sent some of that vaccine to Byxbe, who replicated it in his lab in South Carolina. Then, when Jacques brought fresh monkeys in for another round, they got sick right away, and he did, too. They got sick from mosquitoes that were living on the island and had blood in them from biting the first group of monkeys while they were sick.”

  Some of the flag officers looked confused.

  “Here’s the new strain,” Joe said as the picture changed and the little red dot from his laser pointer danced about. “There are two changes in the gene sequence. This one changes the Ph of the outer protein coat to allow Ebola to live in the digestive tract of a mosquito. It couldn’t do that before. The other one, here, increases its virulence. It has become 100 percent lethal.”

  “Why do you call it South Carolina?”

  “We name them after the location where we first isolate them. Instead of fleeing the country with his $5 million worth of gold bullion, Lymon Byxbe laid low at a house in the swamp south of Charleston and tested the vaccine again on some monkeys he had there. It got out the same way it did in the Seychelles. Mosquitoes bit the monkeys while they had active infection and then bit some people nearby. Fortunately, there was a hard freeze right after that and that stopped the spread. If it had broken out in June, it would have gone across the nation in two weeks.”

  “The vaccine works?” The chairman asked.

  “It does, but it’s not as simple as Jacques thought. It took us weeks of working with it to perfect the technique. The good news is, yes it works for both strains.”

  “How’d you find Byxbe?” someone asked.

  “The smell,” Joe said derisively. “He was in bed, surrounded by stacks of gold coins, a perfectly good Boston Whaler tied up at his dock.”

  Then Joe went into a discussion of random mutations and how overheating the virus resulted in just another random mutation.

  The hair on the back of Boyd’s neck stood straight up. It was the same pattern he’d followed from the beginning. It was like Ebola was a living, thinking, scheming thing. He remembered the red eyes in the dark, Mikki’s terror and Ferreira’s scramble down the hall. In the past six months, he’d encountered the extremes of good and evil, and they were not random.

  “Khartoum was a close call,” Joe began another stage of the presentation. “The first wave of jihadists had some vaccine that did work on a few dozen people when the virus got out, giving them the false sense of security that drew thousands in to be infected and die. Fortunately, there are 400 miles of the world’s worst desert between there and Wadi Halfa and another couple hundred to Aswan. The Egyptians, to their credit, were quick to move and apparently have stopped the spread. There hasn’t been a death or a new case in Egypt in two weeks.”

  That ended Joe’s part of the presentation. He sat down, and Ferguson stood.

  “We’ve learned valuable information about the worldwide jihadist movement,” Fersuson said. “It’s clear they aren’t in any way unified. The jihadists that started this epidemic were freelancers from Qatar with big ideas. Khalid Adnani and Hamid Shah hatched the plan. They showed up dead in Doha last week, dumped on the street with their hands tied and their thro
ats cut. That’s a classic message of Arab revenge.

  “But their twinkle of success by giving the virus a charismatic name attracted thousands of young men eager to prove themselves and be involved in jihad. That tells us jihad is a cultural phenomenon with widespread appeal and a hair trigger. Radical clerics jumped on the bandwagon and encouraged more young men to leave their homes and race into the desert. When the folly of their attack became evident, the Grand Mufti of Egypt issued a fatwa, or religious edict, to stop – and they did. He represents moderate Islam. Khalid and Hamid were working with Iran, and they gave some of their virus and vaccine to the Iranians.”

  “Might the Iranians carry on with the plan?” One of the Joint Chiefs asked.

  “They might, but nobody wants a repeat of the Khartoum debacle,” Ferguson said. “That set jihad back a generation. They’ll be very careful.”

  “That brings us to the next shocker – the identity of the aircraft parked on the island Pico to receive the remainder of the virus and vaccine. We tracked it to Switzerland. One of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies was willing to pay $10 million in gold to acquire the vaccine on the black market and slap a patent on it. We gave them and several other pharmaceutical companies the material Col. Smith and Capt. Chailland got from the Seychelles, so now it’s a race between free enterprise and the jihadist to see who can tame Ebola. I’m betting on free enterprise.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY FIVE

  “I’ve got reporters camping out in the hall outside my room at the Ritz-Carlton, calling me on the phone, television cameras in the lobby,” Boyd said as they packed up and left the conference area. “Any chance I could move over to Andrews or Fort Belvoir, stay on base, get out of the public eye a little? I need some rest.”

  “Really?” Ferguson asked, surprised. Joe had already left for a medical school lecture in Georgetown.

  “I feel like a rock star, or a criminal. They just won’t quit.”

  “OK,” Ferguson said, thinking as they walked. “The Ritz-Carlton was the closest hotel. We wanted you there for this meeting. I’ll send someone over for your clothes.”

  Ferguson took a ring of keys out of his pocket and pulled two off.

  “Here, take this. Do you know where the Pentagon Athletic Club is, just out the back door by Corridor 8?”

  Boyd nodded.

  “Go out the back door, cross the road that goes along north parking, there’s a footbridge to the Lyndon Johnson Grove, and there’s a marina over there, the Capital Marina. This will get you into the dock area, and this one is for my boat, slip 76. She’s a 43-foot Hatteras flying bridge sportfisher. She’s all plugged in to water and electricity. There’s food, a propane heater and a good bed. I’ll come by later and we’ll talk.”

  ******

  The rain had let up, but the wind hadn’t. Not a steady gale like the Azores, this was a soul-numbing breeze off the Potomac that made its way through the light jacket and summer uniform Boyd wore. Pausing on the bridge, Boyd looked across the river. The Washington Monument seemed to be holding up the sky, as its peak was just into the low clouds.

  Boyd looked at his watch. Pam and Donn would be closing on their bank in Wewoka, Okla. The exuberance of their plans had brightened the trip back from Culpepper the afternoon before.

  “I’m gonna be a bank president,” Pamela had confided to him. “Turns out Donn is a lot smarter than I thought. He explained it to me. Me, the lawyer and CPA. He had 800,000 bucks in clean, taxes-paid money. It was legal compensation for work he did before he was arrested and, since it wasn’t money from the savings and loan that went under, it is not recoverable by the Resolution Trust Fund.”

  “You sure?” Boyd had asked. It was Donn who’d taught him how dreams were the surest conduit for a scam.

  “I’ll have to test it, of course, but it’s him putting up the money, not me. If he’s trying to pull something, he’s going to lose his pouncing privileges, and I don’t think he wants to risk that,” she said with a happy laugh.

  In the weeks Boyd was in isolation on Corvo, they’d returned to Oklahoma and convinced the Bank Board they were legal, and their deal had been approved and should be closed by midafternoon. It made Boyd feel better. So much was gone, something, at least, should start. He crossed the bridge and found the marina.

  It was past dark when Ferguson boarded his boat, the Granite Mistress, with Boyd’s clothes, a pizza and a case of Bud longnecks. Curled up in a blanket, asleep, Boyd was disoriented and grumpy. He was still on Azores time, which is five hours later than D.C. He finished a beer and a piece of pizza listening to Ferguson go on about some Pentagon intrigue.

  “Sir, I really appreciate your letting me stay here. I’ve grown rather fond of the feel of water under my bed,” Boyd said, smiling blandly.

  “I can see you’re going to need some time off,” Ferguson said. “We’ll cut the debrief. I pretty much got the story as it happened. I’ll write the final report for the Joint Staff. Tomorrow, you’ll go to the White House for your Air Force Star. We have 10 minutes with the president. Be pleasant.”

  “Yes, sir.” Boyd tried to smile.

  Ferguson pulled a manila envelope out and laid it on the table between them. For a moment, Boyd thought it might be another mission. He fought back a wave of nausea.

  “Two months convalescent leave. Here’s the paperwork.” Ferguson laid the paperwork down. “You’re medically grounded, of course. I’ve leaned on the Surgeon General’s Office. They’ve agreed to wait until the summer to do a full eval at the Aeromedical Consultation Service at Brooks City, Texas, before deciding about your flying. They’ve as much as agreed you could go back to flying, it’s the high-performance stuff that’d be the problem – ejection seat aircraft.

  “In the past 18 months, you’ve had a fractured skull, two collapsed vertebra, three broken ribs, a gunshot through the lung breaking another rib, and a near-death brush with Ebola. They wonder that you’re still alive.”

  “Sir, flying fighters is all I ever wanted to do,” Boyd said, looking down at the envelope. He wasn’t angry, he knew the rules.

  “How old are you,” Ferguson asked, sternly.

  “Twenty-eight.”

  “Two years below the zone for major, with two Air Force Crosses and a commendation letter from the Chief of Staff of the Air Force and two from the president of the United States. Buy some oak leaves. Second, how many majors over 30- do you know flying front line fighters?”

  “A couple.”

  “Promoted below the zone and waiting for orders to Air Command and Staff College, or back from there and flying as the squadron ops officer and waiting for the Lt. Colonel Board,” Ferguson said, softening his tone a bit. “The pyramid is getting steeper. We’ve got fewer high-performance aircraft and a steady stream of young jocks to fly them. Flying fighters isn’t a career, it’s a phase, and not a job for anyone over 30. Look ahead.”

  “Yes, sir,” Boyd said, feeling worse.

  “Boyd, I’d like to have you on my staff. I need you on my staff, but I know you want to fly. So, the Chief of Staff makes the final decision on return to flying. We’ll keep you flying, don’t worry.”

  “Yes, sir,” still looking down.

  “Now, I have a letter from Clyde Carlisle.”

  Boyd opened the letter and read the first paragraph.

  “Eight Ball has lost some weight, but he can knock down brush for four hours straight chasing quail, without a rest. He’s primed for the season.”

  Ferguson said, “Here’s a South Carolina and a Georgia hunting license, and a letter from the commanders at Fort Jackson and Fort Stewart putting you on their lists – and they’re very short lists – to hunt quail on the military reservations there.”

  “That sounds great,” Boyd said, warmth flooding him as he thought about how excited the black lab got with an exploding covey of quail.

  “Got some billeting reservations here for the quail trips for you and a guest at the DV suites at Fort Jackson an
d Fort Stewart.”

  “Well, uh …” Boyd struggled somewhat, his friend meter was nearly on empty. “I could use some of that.”

  His mind wandered. Maybe Clyde Carlisle could get some time to go hunting, or he could call Patsy Burke, the waitress he’d met in Sumter. Pulling himself soberly back to the moment, he said, “There’s one more thing.” He leaned elbows on the table and hesitated, looking at Ferguson.

  Very slightly, the boat rocked, and water lapped at the dock.

  Ferguson’s eyes shifted, alert.

  “You guys are gonna call me again,” Boyd said. “We both know it. Some shit storm is gonna come along, and you’re gonna call. I can’t work this way if you hold back. You owe me the whole story.”

  “Sure,” Ferguson said, looking right at him, but he said nothing else.

  “Charles Meilland.”

  He wasn’t afraid; Ferreira was there to back him up, and Wolf, and Neville, and Angela. They all wanted to hear it, deserved to hear it. Were going, by God, to hear it.

  “OK,” Ferguson said and let out a sigh. He leaned into the table.

  “We didn’t tell the Joint Chiefs, because they have no need to know,” Ferguson said. “This is Top Secret, Sensitive Compartmented Information. You’ll have to be read into it tomorrow, so when you come by the office, that’s another bunch of papers for you to sign. When we put a filter on Meilland’s computer, we found out he was sending emails to Israeli Intelligence. The CIA confronted them. He’s been a Mossad agent since 1962. Charles Meilland conned the Arabs into sending their hothead jihadists into a death trap in Sudan.”

  “Why didn’t you interrogate him?”

  “Oh, I didn’t tell you? He died in his sleep two weeks ago.”