by Harold Coyle
Burridge shook his head. “No, at least not yet. The fact is, most people don’t pay any attention, even at the elevated level.” He turned back to Catterly. “Phil, how is the virus passed along?”
Catterly seemed to bite his lip. “Frankly, we don’t know much about Marburg’s origins or mechanics of transmission. Other than dealing with infected monkeys, most documented cases are based on close contact with the carrier, including sexual transmission, exposure to small amounts of body fluids, or handling of contaminated objects. There is also evidence of respiratory transmission among monkeys, dating from 1983. Of course, that’s what we fear the most.”
“How do we prevent it?” Burridge asked.
Catterly glanced around the room. “I wish to God I knew.” He allowed the sentiment to sink in. “There’s a CDC manual for treating hospitalized patients, basically the same as other hemorrhagic fevers. Sterilization and isolation. But the long-term effects can be grim. Patients who recover still are susceptible to recurrent hepatitis, transverse myelitis, or uveitis. There is…”
The FBI’s special agent, Jefferson Bethune, intervened. “Excuse me, Doctor. What’s all that?”
“Transverse myelitis is partial inflammation of the spinal cord. It’s a neurological disorder related to polio. It interrupts control of body movements and functions. Recovery may be total or partial over a period of months. Uveitis is serious inflammation of the eyes. There’s also a record of inflammation of the testicles and other glands.”
“So, even without a twenty-five percent fatality rate, this thing could overwhelm our entire healthcare network.”
“Correct.” Catterly continued. “The incubation lasts four to sixteen days with fever, chills, headache, anorexia, and muscle pain. It’s often followed by nausea, vomiting, sore throat, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Most victims exhibit severe symptoms between days five and seven with bleeding from multiple sites but mainly the gastrointestinal tract, lungs, and gums. Bleeding and lesions precede death by day sixteen at the latest, resulting from shock, with or without extensive bleeding.” He paused. “That seems to be about where our mysterious young patient is. We don’t know when he was infected, but he can’t last much more than another day or so.”
Secretary Burridge tracked his gray eyes around the room. “I’m meeting with the President, SecDef, and the Surgeon General this afternoon. We need to present some options right away.”
Bethune asked, “Well, do we know enough to start looking for anybody?”
Burridge shrugged. “Apparently not. But we should at least formulate a couple of contingency plans.”
“My God, Bruce, don’t we have contingencies in place yet?” Virginia Governor Fitzhugh Parmenter was more concerned than most. The Old Dominion would take the brunt of a DC outbreak.
“Sure, for outbreaks of bio weapons. But if this Islamic kid was injected with a virulent strain of Marburg, as the Brits suspect, we need to get to the source ASAP.”
The NSA representative spoke up. “If we’re going to start looking along the Pakistan-Afghan border, we’ll need thousands of people, or just a few who are really well informed.”
Burridge nodded. “That’s right. I’m talking to Donna over at State this morning. It seems there’s concern about an increased American presence in Pakistan, and it looks as if we don’t have enough assets to spare on the Afghan side. So…”
Bethune finished the thought. “We send a deniable asset.” Burridge remained expressionless.
“Who you have in mind, Bruce?” Parmenter thought he already knew.
“Mike Derringer and SSI.”
* * *
The afternoon meeting convened in the Oval Office, where President Patrick James Quincannon wasted no time on pleasantries. He had already consulted with SecDef Gregory Hooper, who shared Burridge’s recommendation of employing a private military contractor: a PMC.
The president opened: “Allow me to save time by summarizing your info sheets. We have a particularly nasty situation brewing, probably the work of Islamic radicals operating in Pakistan. State says we can’t insert our military without drawing more heat from the fundamentalists in-country, so that limits our options.” Quincannon then addressed his Homeland Security czar. “Bruce, I don’t know much about your friend Derringer other than he runs Strategic Solutions and he’s reliable. What’s he like, personally?”
“Mike Derringer is one smart son of a bitch,” Burridge began. He briefly flushed in the obscure presence of Secretary of State Donna Lombardi. Sailor’s vocabulary, he told himself. “We were at Annapolis together. I was in the upper half of our class but he graduated ninth out of 388 and just kept going. The guy was a water walker most of his career: astute and tough; a tad cynical. He was on the staff of the Joint Chiefs when the Soviet Union collapsed, and he saw it coming before most people. Even though he had one of the best records as an analyst in Pentagon history, hardly anyone believed him. He predicted the collapse about ten months beforehand, but where colonels go for coffee, a rear admiral doesn’t carry a lot of weight.”
“So what’d he do?”
“With his record he probably could’ve stuck around for a third star, maybe got a fleet command, but by then he’d had enough. In ‘89 he wrote me a letter and I wish I’d kept it. He laid it all out, almost month by month. He said that with the Evil Empire no more, the politicians would rush to dismantle DoD to placate the peace lobby. Mike’s nothing if not objective. He detested Clinton, but said the Republican-controlled Congress would roll over for major force reductions, and he predicted increased deployments that would lead to retention problems. He was right. He also said that few service chiefs — if any — would protest, let alone risk their jobs by standing up for the troops. He was right.
“Mike said there would be a major war in the Mideast in 1991 or 92: likely involving Iraq, Iran, and/or Saudi. He was right. When Bush wimped — ah, opted — out and left Saddam in power, Mike said we’d have to go back and do it again in ten years, but with fewer assets. He was wrong there — it was twelve years.”
Quincannon grinned. “Doesn’t he ever get tired of being right?”
“No. Never. But if you want to get his goat, just mention ‘rightsizing.’ Man, he hates that word.”
“So how did all this lead to SSI?”
“Well, Mike foresaw that all the downsizing and rightsizing bull… was based on an absurd premise: just because the USSR collapsed didn’t mean peace in our time. He knew we’d get caught short eventually, and he saw an opportunity. That’s mainly why he put in his papers: he wanted to get a jump on other private military corporations. While outfits like Executive Outcomes were showing their stuff in Africa and elsewhere, he decided that he should form his own PMC. The result is SSI.”
“Very well,” the president said. He looked around the table. “Any comments?”
Secretary of State Lombardi leaned forward. “Mr. President, you must realize that even though they’re legitimized as PMCs today, these organizations are basically mercenaries. That still carries a stigma in some quarters.” She glanced down. “Especially in the UN.”
“I know, Donna. But what’s your point?”
“It’s just that, well, we might lose some support in the international community.”
Before the president could respond, SecDef Hooper intervened. “So what? The so-called international community isn’t doing a hell of a lot to support us as it is. Besides, the whole point of using a PMC is deniability. A contractor is not operated by the U.S. Government. Any of us can go on CNN or Fox and truthfully state that no American military forces are engaged.” He choked down a derisive snort. “But you already know that, Madame Secretary.” It was an open secret in Washington that SecDef and SecState really truly disliked one another.
Ms. Lombardi’s face reddened beneath her makeup. She half rose from her chair when the president responded. “I understand the concern about PMCs or mercenaries or whatever you call them…”
Hooper saw
an opening and took it. “Excuse me, Mr. President. I remember the, ah, ‘contradictions’ in UN attitudes about Executive Outcomes, one of the early PMCs. In ‘93 when the Angolan army couldn’t protect its oil fields against the rebels, EO was called in. It solved the problem with a few hundred elite troops, but then international protests arose. EO was recalled and several thousand UN ‘peacekeepers’ arrived but they couldn’t keep the peace — or even defend themselves. The usual UN crowd was all hot and bothered because of EO’s South African origins, but you know what? Most of the troops were black, and they were saving thousands of black lives. EO did the same thing in Sierra Leone and elsewhere, but the facts didn’t matter then, did they?”
The Secretary of State returned her rival’s gaze without speaking. As the ambient temperature in the room dropped ten degrees, the president resumed control.
“Well, there you go. State says the situation in Pakistan doesn’t allow us to insert military forces, so we have two other options: rely on the locals, some of whom support the terrorists, or go with a PMC.” He visually polled each secretary in turn.
Secretary Lombardi had recovered enough to find her tongue. “One moment, sir. I think we should know what we’re getting into. I mean, have we ever used this SSI company before?”
Quincannon looked to Hooper, who said, “Sure, and several other PMCs besides. You know, Donna, in Iraq we don’t have enough troops for convoy escorts and contractor security. In fact, our soldiers will tell you that the PMCs and military are working pretty well together.”
Lombardi shook her head. “No, no. I mean, have you hired this firm for other covert operations?”
SecDef exercised his best press-conference blank face while the commander in chief regarded SecState for two heartbeats. President Quincannon smiled and looked around the room. Damned if I’ll tell her what I don’t know. “Well then, if there’s no other business, we’ll adjourn. Turning to face Homeland and SecDef, he said, “Bruce, Greg: make it happen.”
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA SSI OFFICES
Michael Derringer convened the briefing in SSI’s most secure facility. There was seating for sixteen people in the room known as “the cone of silence.”
“Gentlemen.” He nodded at Sandra Carmichael, the firm’s head of operations. “Lady. Dr. Catterly is one of the leading immunologists in the country. He’s worked all over the world and now chairs a crisis response committee with representatives of WHO, CDC, and other agencies. He’s here to familiarize you with the threat we face. You’ve all heard of Ebola; well, we’re up against something almost as bad: Marburg virus.
“Three days ago, an American citizen collapsed at Heathrow Airport with advanced Marburg. He won’t last much longer. We know a little about him and the feds are looking closer. Briefly, he was a disaffected youngster who converted to Islam and spent quite some time in Arabia and Pakistan. It’s likely that he was intentionally infected with the virus as a means of spreading a serious disease in the western world. His travel plans included the UK, U.S., and Canada.” Derringer turned to Catterly. “Doctor.”
Phil Catterly cleared his throat. “I’ve spent a few years in Africa and Asia and I’ve seen some terrible sights. But based on the images I received from a colleague in Britain, this young American is far worse than anything I’ve ever seen. He had one of the worst cases of Marburg anybody’s seen.
“While driving out here, I tried to think of a phrase to communicate the severity of this case for you. The best I’ve come up with is from a book called Plague Wars. Mangold and Goldberg said that Marburg turns humans into ‘a digested slime of virus particles.’”
Derringer scanned the faces around the table, assessing the reaction. Most remained impassive. Sandy Carmichael covered her mouth with one hand. She had two daughters.
Catterly stopped to gather his thoughts. “The worst cases are almost indescribable. The virus attacks nearly every system and organ except the bones and some skeletal muscles. It replicates itself in the body, and accumulates small clots in the bloodstream. Circulation suffers. After a while, the patient develops red spots that are hemorrhages beneath the skin. As they grow, they burst through the surface, and often the skin just drops off. Finally, the heart begins bleeding into itself. You can tell at that point because the eyes turn red from excess blood.” He spread his hands on the table, palms up. “The pain is horrible. Just horrible. Without heavy sedation, the patient dies trying to scream, but sometimes the tongue is gone.”
The firm’s domestic ops chief uttered, “Jesus wept.” It was a cross between a whisper and a croak. Derringer knew Joseph Wolf, former FBI assistant director, to be a devout Catholic.
SSI’s president, Marshall Wilmot, tapped his pencil on the table. “What’s the likely mortality, Doctor?”
“Best case: about twenty-five percent.”
Wilmot nodded, apparently unaffected. Derringer thought, Marsh’s home life isn’t much cheerier than that prospect.
“There’s something else,” Catterly added. “It got little notice, but there’s already been an outbreak in the U.S. In fact, in this area.”
Derringer already knew about it. “Reston.”
“Correct. In 1989 a shipment of laboratory monkeys from the Philippines was imported by a legitimate contractor. At least one of them was a carrier and infected many of the others. CDC and the Army were both called in. The only thing to do was euthanize all the monkeys, decontaminate the facility, and close it up. We were just damned lucky that no humans died, though a few were infected.”
A chilly silence descended over the room. Finally Wolf asked, “Okay. How do we fit in?”
Derringer leaned back, flipping some notes he did not need. The hard drive of his memory was almost infallible, but a lifetime of habit had sunk deep roots. “You heard about the C-130 crash in Karachi a few days ago. It was loaded with disaster relief supplies for delivery up-country but it went down in a populated area. At least thirty people died on the ground. Of course, the radical elements in Pakistan turned it into an Evil Satan situation — never mind that we were trying to help the locals. The responsible agencies in Islamabad understand the facts, but there are unsympathetic people in the government. State says that an increased U.S. military presence in the country is not acceptable at present.” He shrugged. “They’ve offered the job to us. I wanted a consensus before accepting.”
Wilmot gave Derringer an arched-eyebrows expression with a slight nod toward Catterly. Derringer nodded, then turned to the researcher. “Phil, we need to discuss some discreet business. May I ask you to…”
“Surely.” Catterly read the signs all too well. They need to talk money.
As the researcher closed the door, Wilmot continued. “Just as background, I think everybody should know that Mike and I haven’t had much time to discuss this contract. He was still fuming about The One That Got Away when I picked him up.”
There was laughter in the room; some knew that Wilmot was only mildly exaggerating.
“Anyway, because I’m working with Corin Pilong on contracts, I think it only fair to note that this is a seller’s market. Now, maybe that makes me an evil bastard, considering what we’re up against. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t point that out.”
“Marsh is right,” Derringer added. “Because this is a covert op on a tight schedule, there’s no competition. We can maximize the profits on this one because there’s relatively little overhead. We envision probably three dozen operators and maybe a few helos. Plus the cost of getting there and back, of course.”
Sandra Carmichael had enough experience with international PMC ops to raise a cynical question. “What are the chances we may run into other operators over there? You know, somebody working as a backup in case we fail.” She shrugged. “And what about the Brits?” It was the kind of question that Derringer liked.
“Sandy, unless Greg Hooper is leading me on, it won’t happen. And I’ve known him over twenty years. We have the lead on this project, but the administration
is keeping London informed in general terms.”
Derringer almost smiled at Carmichael’s mission-oriented attitude. It was one of the things he appreciated about the small-town Alabama girl who finished her army career as a lieutenant colonel. He suspected that deep down, the rural squirrel shooter still stirred in her; she liked to play with subguns and pistols, which gave her credibility with Frank Leopole, chief of SSI’s foreign operations division. The former marine 0–5 looked the part: high-and-tight haircut and perennial scowl. While he enjoyed plinking with Carmichael, he still felt that it should be beneath a lady’s dignity to kill anyone.
Derringer proceeded to the next items on the agenda. “Very well. We’ll push the contract right along but we’ll begin planning today to save time.” He looked at Leopole. “Frank, unless we have an operator fluent in Urdu and Pashto, you’ll want to put Omar on this one. Of course, he also speaks Arabic.”
Leopole nodded, grunting, “Roger that.” Though suspicious of all Muslims, he respected Dr. Omar Mohammed’s awesome linguistic ability — the native Iranian was fluent in four languages and conversant in half a dozen others.
“One more thing,” Derringer added. “Given the medical and scientific nature of the mission, we would benefit by having a specialist on the team. I’ll talk to Dr. Catterly but he’s on the shady side of sixty, and he wouldn’t perform well at eight thousand feet. He may know somebody.”
Leopole dexterously flipped his pencil like a miniature baton between his finger. I could never do that, Sandy Carmichael thought. “We could go through Dave Main; he probably has a couple of names from Fort Detrick.”
Colonel David Main was SSI’s “official unofficial” liaison with Special Operations Command. Leopole looked at Carmichael. “Sandy?”
Carmichael shifted awkwardly in her chair. Leopole knew they were acquainted from West Point and suspected they may have been something more than classmates. “Sure, ah, yes. I can call him today. But aren’t we supposed to avoid U.S. military personnel?”
Derringer caught Leopole’s expression and made a mental note. Something going on there. No business of mine — unless it affects my business. “Sandy’s right. But go ahead and call him. Maybe the bio researchers in Maryland can put us onto a civilian immunologist who likes exotic places.”