Genetic Bullets: A Thriller (A Rossler Foundation Mystery Book 3)

by JC Ryan

  Within the four weeks or so that the diggers had been on this particular site, the top two layers had been removed from the entire grid, and several more layers were removed in step fashion from corner A to the center spire on a diagonal pattern . The result looked like a trench, with the lowest area just wide enough for an adult to walk in without tripping over the four-inch deep and eight-inch wide steps that angled upward from either side. That is, Summers remembered it looking like that.

  When the group arrived though, an area just outside the grid boundary adjacent to Corner A had collapsed except for a small opening in the center, perhaps the size of two hands spread side-by-side. Corner A’s stepped excavation had collapsed as well. Summers rushed to it in dismay.

  “Who has been in here? The dig is compromised!” Summers shouted. JR assured him that no authorized parties had been inside the valley since Rebecca called for the site to be shut down. “Who would sabotage my dig?” Summers insisted.

  The others looked at Summers and then at each other, but no one could conceive of such a thing. “Is it possible some of the support staff came in?” asked Rebecca.

  Daniel was examining the opening in the caved-in section just outside the grid. “Look here. There’s steam coming out of this hole, and the ground around it is wet,” he observed.

  “Is it very hot?” JR asked.

  “Hot enough to vaporize water, but it isn’t coming out rapidly, and doesn’t seem to be under pressure. Look, it’s just drifting.”

  “This is one of the geothermal wells that Robert’s been mapping. I wonder if he has this one on his map.”

  Rebecca came over to look, and noticed something that looked like algae under a thin overhanging rock. “I think we’d better get him in here to take a look. If I’m not mistaken, that’s algae. I wonder if anything could live in such a hot environment. Like fish?”

  “Someone will have to go and get him; the train’s at this end,” JR said. “I’ll go. Rebecca, are you coming with me?”

  “I think I’ll stay here and keep looking, JR. We don’t have a lot of time before the next conference call.”

  JR left at a ground-eating lope while the others split up and searched both the grid and the undergrowth nearby for anything out of the ordinary.

  Two hours had passed with no sign of JR and Robert when Daniel said, “Tell me again why we aren’t using motorized vehicles in this valley?”

  “The idea was, no gasoline-powered vehicles; nothing that could emit exhaust. The valley is too small, and the walls too high, to permit hydrocarbon-based fuel in here. It would destroy the ecology.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Daniel. “But what about electric carts?”

  “We didn’t have the budget for them; too much else was critical. Next year,” answered Summers.

  “If there is a next year,” Daniel said, just as Rebecca returned from her last foray into the surrounding gardens.

  “Oh, there’ll be a next year,” she said, misunderstanding what Daniel meant. “There just may not be any people.”

  Daniel knew the situation was grim, but he hadn’t spent any time looking at the calculations. “Surely this virus couldn’t kill everyone on earth in just a year,” he said, catching Rebecca’s meaning.

  “Ever hear of that old IQ test math story problem?” she answered. “Almost everyone gets it wrong.”

  “No, what are you talking about?”

  “If an encroaching vine doubles every day, and it takes ten days to cover half a dam, how long does it take to completely cover it?”

  “Twenty days.”

  “No, you fail. Eleven days. You should look at Raj’s spreadsheet again, Daniel. Assuming this virus continues at the rate it’s going, and that it will eventually kill anyone it infects, it could completely depopulate the planet in around five months.”

  “Seven billion people?” Daniel said, aghast. “But, you said it only targets Middle Eastern people.”

  “You seem to be laboring under the misguided illusion that all of us are pure this, that or the other,” Rebecca said. “What would you think if I told you that virtually everyone on earth today has between one and four percent Neanderthal genes? At some point, homo sapiens and homo Neanderthalensis intermingled for thousands of years. Clearly, they also interbred. Eventually, Neanderthals died out, but their genes live on in us. Who’s to say that whatever is making Middle Eastern people vulnerable to it doesn’t exist in small quantities in all of us?”

  “Are you saying that this virus only attacks Neanderthal genes?”

  Rebecca made an erasing gesture, impatient that she hadn’t made it clear she was just using an example.

  “No, not at all. But, in the human genome there’s about ninety percent of the DNA that contains no instruction codes for making proteins. We don’t know what that’s for. They call it ‘junk’ DNA, but it has to be for something. In fact, around eight percent of it is endogenous retroviruses. Basically, it’s leftover fragments of ancient viruses.”

  “Retroviruses, like HIV?”

  “That’s a suspected one. We just don’t know, Daniel. What I’m saying is, there could be something about Middle Easterners, something more prominent in their genetic makeup than in ours that makes them vulnerable to this virus. But it might not be exclusive, and on top of that, viruses have a tendency to mutate. When they run out of their preferred host, there is a good chance they’ll mutate to take advantage of some weakness in the rest of us.”

  “But then, wouldn’t we be sick, too?”

  “Maybe it takes longer. Maybe some other factor neutralizes it. Whatever the case may be, we may not have time to discover it and craft a response.” Rebecca fell silent, her body bowed with the weight of her understanding and even more so with the weight of what she didn’t yet understand. Daniel put a hand on her shoulder to steady her.

  “We’ll find it,” he said. “We have to.” He turned in surprise as a thudding sound behind him announced that JR had arrived, with Robert Cartwright on his heels.

  “Crikey, have you ever tried to keep a fast pace for this one?” he asked of no one in particular. “Near ran my legs off. Where’s this fumarole you’ve found?”

  “Is that what it is?” Rebecca asked.

  “Bob’s your uncle. Hole in the ground, steam coming out. Abso-bloody-lutely. That’s the real McCoy.”

  Everyone crowded around as he examined the fumarole. “Nice one. Probably opens out a little ways under. This is probably what powered your hospital, or maybe just supplied hot water and such. What else can I tell you about it?”

  Remembering her earlier question, Rebecca asked, “Can anything live in that?”

  “Oh, yes. I’m no biologist, you need Nyree. But various little creepy crawlies can live in that environment. Some too small to see. See here, algae’s growing, and all kinds of little whatchamacallits and thingamabobs feed on that. Be careful if you want a sample. The ground around it could be undercut. You don’t want to fall into one of these. Unless you fancy being instantly cooked.”

  With nothing else of obvious interest and because time was now running short to get to the next video conference, Robert used a long extension pole to collect a good-sized sample from the algae and another from the wet dirt on the other side that didn’t contain an obvious algae bloom. Then the group started back for the rift in the valley wall and the train that would carry them quickly back toward the outside.

  Chapter 19 – Time to tell the President

  Epstein and Nyree had hurried to her lab, which had more equipment for examining biological specimens, after collecting the imaging device he’d brought with him to take with them.

  Nyree lamented the loss of her friend Haraz el-Amin, whose knowledge of botany would have helped them with the first examination, that of the algae. But the main thing they wanted to know was whether there were any microorganisms living on or within the algae. The next thing was, if so, what were they? If they actually found insects, it was very likely that those were the v
ector. It was well-known that insects and their viruses had developed more or less synchronously. How a virus might have gone airborne from such a vector was a question they weren’t prepared to answer yet.

  At the appointed time, Daniel, JR, Summers and Rebecca were gathered in the conference room for their next video conference call with Sarah and her advisers in Boulder. No one was surprised to see Luke with her, or Nicholas, but Sinclair’s presence was a shock. Before anyone in Antarctica had a chance to ask or comment, Sarah broke into her famous smile and spoke first.

  “We’ve had wonderful news! Sinclair and Martha are free of the virus.”

  Everyone on both ends of the video link broke into applause at that. Not only was it good news personally, but it gave them a clue about how the virus had gone active and spread. If neither of the O’Reilly’s had the virus, it meant that no one had been contagious in Antarctica until the second five victims contracted it.

  The first five had shown no symptoms until after they left the valley. This meant that the virus probably wasn’t contagious until symptoms appeared, at least until it had gone airborne, which they surmised because they all carried it, even those who hadn’t been directly exposed to the sick diggers.

  Sarah was able to report the course of the disease after symptoms began. Questioning several doctors who were dealing with patients in the Middle East had revealed that symptoms started with a sore throat, following which patients experienced moderate symptoms similar to seasonal flu; that is, sore throat, coughing, headache and body aches. Instead of beginning to improve at the seven to ten day mark, though, symptoms worsened. The patients’ lungs filled with fluid, leading doctors to believe at first that the patients had contracted a case of pneumonia secondary to the respiratory aspects of flu.

  Around the ten to twelve day mark, a high fever set in, resisting all efforts to lower it until the patients’ organs were affected. Most patients died of acute and cataclysmic kidney failure. A few died when their fever reached one-hundred and seven or above before organ failure, in which case they died of brain aneurysm when their blood pressure shot up because of the fever itself. Death always occurred between twelve and fourteen days after symptoms began.

  Investigators that Sarah had hired had also confirmed that all known dead were of Middle Eastern origin, and that no one not of Middle Eastern origin was thought to have the same flu. The latter was made more difficult to determine because it was ‘flu season’ in the northern hemisphere, and several strains of virus were causing outbreaks of similar symptoms to the early stage of the deadly strain. That meant that anyone with flu symptoms had to wait at least a week to determine what it was.

  In view of the fact that all of the non-Middle Eastern expedition members were carrying the virus without symptoms, Rebecca recommended that all flu victims, no matter what strain they or their doctors thought they had, be tested for what they were now calling the 9th Cycle flu. The cost would be staggering when multiplied throughout the world, but they couldn’t take the risk that carriers would infect more Middle Eastern people. There was also the concern that the virus could mutate at any time. It had gone airborne in record time here in Antarctica, and that showed its superior ability to adapt.

  Both Sarah and Rebecca made notes on the science matters. Rebecca for the purpose of conveying the new information to Epstein when the call was over, and Sarah because the next agenda item was the political climate. She understood that the time had come to warn the President.

  There was no question that not only the President of the United States but also world leaders in every country must be informed, the sooner the better. They had to be given a chance to respond to the crisis proactively, even though Rebecca was convinced that no conventional response could avert the growing disaster. Not to tell them would be irresponsible and in addition would be political suicide, not only for the Rossler Foundation, but for the US, as the host and major supporter of the Foundation.

  The issue was exacerbated because of two factors. Many of the fundamentalist Muslim leaders in the Middle East had taken the stance that the 10th Cycle Library was the property of the Middle East rather than the Rossler Foundation. This despite the Foundation’s stated goal of making the information available to everyone so long as it wasn’t something that could be made into a terrorist weapon.

  The second factor was that, because of the prevalence of terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East, some supported by governments, no Middle Eastern country was represented on the Foundation board. Israel was the only one, and of course that added to the bitter enmity of the two factions. The bottom line was that the Middle East, in general, had a deep suspicion of the Rossler Foundation and could easily be influenced by any whisper of conspiracy.

  Before the Rosslerites had an idea what to say, therefore, the entire group would brainstorm the potential consequences, so that they could put together a presentation for the President and Board that would show they’d left no stone unturned.

  JR insisted, backed up by Daniel, that the worst consequence after the mounting death toll was going to be the tendency of radical Islamic elements to believe that this was a deliberate attack. It was likely that they would claim it was engineered by the Rossler Foundation, or the Western world in general. Even if the leaders of those elements, the Shiite Ayatollah or imams in the affected countries, didn’t believe it was deliberate, they might very well say it was, just to take advantage of the situation to further their agenda. No one in the group questioned that, though mainstream Muslims were peace-loving, the radical elements had total world domination as their goal. Their tactics for the past few decades had intimidated some world powers into appeasing them at any cost.

  Unfortunately, there were elements on the other side of the question that would use any excuse to wipe out the terrorists even at the cost of innocents. Since before September 11, 2001, the world had been perpetually on the brink of widespread warfare, with the US leading the way in taking their grievances to the battlefield in the Middle East. This disease, if the world were to believe it was a deliberate attack on Muslims, could turn the tide of what was left of positive popular opinion against the US. If the Middle Eastern countries united and pressed a military response against the US, there was every likelihood that countries previously neutral in the question, or even leaning toward the Middle East, could join them. Some of those countries had nuclear weapons.

  Sarah could take no more of this talk. “Have you all forgotten the 10th Cycle warning?” she asked. “You’re talking about the cataclysm that could end this cycle, and that’s if the entire world population isn’t wiped out by the disease! We can’t be planning a military solution! We have to find a cure.”

  “Sweetheart,” Daniel said, leaning into the screen as if he could reach through it to take his beloved in his arms. “You don’t understand what we’re saying. It won’t come to nuclear war everywhere. As soon as they understand the virus came from here, there’s every chance that the President will be forced to nuke this valley to appease the Muslims. They’ll also think it will wipe out the source of the virus, but that ship has sailed. It’s out of confinement already, and nothing can stop the spread.”

  Sarah had turned white at Daniel’s matter-of-fact discussion of their group being the target of a nuclear blast. She felt like throwing up, but for the sake of the rest of the group, suppressed the urge. With a superhuman effort, she steadied her voice to respond.

  “Then we must find the cure soon. Now. What do you need?”

  Rebecca spoke up. “We need at least one more virologist. If Ben contracts it, we’ll lose the ability to work on a solution. But, you just heard why the CDC is reluctant to send anyone. They may not have figured out that we may all be in danger of elimination, but they know we’ve put ourselves under quarantine. We can’t afford to infect anyone else, and now that we know we’re carriers, it would be highly irresponsible for us to leave here. Unless we can find a cure, anyone coming in is probably making a one-
way trip.”

  Sarah shuddered. She had urged Daniel not to go, but his sense of responsibility forced it. Now they may be separated forever. It was too much to bear, but she must bear it. For the sake of their son, for the sake of the Foundation, and for the sake of saving everyone they could, she must hold it together and lead the Foundation.

  “I’ll find someone who will volunteer,” she answered, though she had no idea how to do it. She would cross that bridge when she came to it. “Now, what do we tell the President, and the Board?”

  Together, they crafted points to convey in their report to the President. After showing it to him, they would call the Board together on an emergency basis and inform them as well. It wasn’t out of the question that the President would take it straight to the UN, but in any case, the Rossler Foundation would do its part. They decided to leave out any speculation about a nuclear solution. Instead, they would first present the facts, including the projections of the spread, the confirmation that only Middle Eastern people got sick from the virus, the theory that non-ME people were carriers and could infect others, and that the death rate among those who got sick was 100%.

  They would recommend that anyone presenting with flu symptoms be tested for 9th Cycle virus, and that quarantines be put into place for anyone found to be carrying it, until a vaccination or antiviral medication that would kill the virus was developed. Finally, they would put in a well-reasoned warning about the concern that the Muslim world, ninety-nine percent of people originating in the Middle East, might easily be persuaded to believe that it was a deliberate attempt at ethnic cleansing, to wipe them out, in other words, genocide.