At this phase in his life, Tom Keeley was struggling to get to grips with a wider range of medical issues than he would ever have been asked to grasp as a research scientist and the incident at Grand Central quickly dropped below his radar – mentally filed away as just another of those unexplained loose ends that regularly trail behind a correspondent’s life.
It was to be almost thirty years before he thought of it again.
35 | Common ground
At the last moment, Michael had switched to the evening flight and called Seema to invite her for lunch before returning to Geneva. They had arranged to meet at the Brazilian Pavilion on 52nd Street, just off Second Avenue. The weather was still bitterly cold, though the heavy clouds of the previous week had given way to flawless blue skies.
The restaurant had been almost empty, and for fifteen minutes the atmosphere had been strained, a rendezvous in limbo, every topic of conversation artificial. Neither of them interested in the food, they both took an age over the menu. And when Michael said he would have the salt cod with smoke-flavoured black beans, Seema ordered the same. Both were struggling, and each saw the struggle in the other’s eyes.
Michael managed a sympathetic smile as the waiter brought water and left. ‘Well, this is an improvement on yesterday lunchtime.’ Seema widened her eyes, enquiring. Michael hesitated for a long moment, absorbing her look, then turned to face the street. ‘I spent nearly an hour in the Delegates Lounge over at the UN. It was an odd feeling. Place was crowded, but I still felt conspicuous.’
‘I know, I felt just the same even walking the streets this morning, even sitting in the library. What were you doing in the Delegates’ Lounge? I never figured you for schmoozing.’
‘Can’t abide the place. But as a rumour mill … I got treated to several current whispers, including one about a Chinese DF-5 ICBM test launch that apparently only just missed some place in Papua New Guinea, and another about some Russian who’s been drawing a salary at the UN for the last three years and has only been seen in the office twice.’
‘Nothing else?’
Michael’s eyes held hers for a long moment. ‘Nothing else.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’
‘I think so. We can be pretty sure Hughes went for the end-run.’
After that the conversation had begun to flow a little more easily, with talk about how dull Michael’s earlier meeting had been without Hélène’s speech and how long Stephen was planning to remain in New York. Seema picked up the menu again for no particular reason. The words ‘Brazilian Pavilion’ were embossed in gold letters on the cover. ‘It was in a pavilion that it all started, wasn’t it?’
Over coffee, in search of a safe topic, the talk had drifted to the missing years, Seema telling him in more detail the story of her return to Karachi. ‘I hated it. And I hated myself for hating it. Everybody assuming I’d marry straight away, have children, evenings at the Gymkhana Club, perhaps a little light academic work two afternoons a week at the University.’
Michael tried to picture her living such a life, but failed completely. ‘Your parents wanted to arrange a marriage?’
Seema nodded, as unable as he to imagine herself in this alternative universe. ‘Being a “modern miss”, as they put it, they knew I’d want to have a say in choosing a husband, so they started drawing up a shortlist. When the offer of the Jefferson Fellowship came out of the blue I didn’t know a thing about it. All that mattered was – it was a ticket out of Karachi.’
‘Hence the interest in Jefferson?’
‘Initially, yes. It seemed only right to know something about my rescuer.’
Neither had any inclination to bring the lunch to a close. And as the talk stretched on into the afternoon, almost without them noticing there stole upon them again that pleasure of communication that was independent of what was being said, that enjoyment in getting to know the mundane details of each other’s lives, that gentle dissolving of time and place and self that was unfamiliar to them both, allowing them to escape for a time from the iron cage whose bars were forged of secrecy, and of the still-stunned awareness of what they had done.
Seema eventually had to interrupt with some determination in order to turn the conversation away from her own life. ‘What about you, Michael? Has there been anyone?’
‘No, not really.’ Michael looked down the fold lines in the tablecloth, resisting an impulse to tell her about all the times he had thought about her, all the places in the world he had carried her with him, all the occasions when he had been subject to an irrational certainty that she had been somewhere nearby. Seeing the unease in his eyes, his reluctance to say out loud the things he might be thinking, she eased him on to safer ground, asking about life in Geneva and whether he got to travel much in Europe. He talked for a while of Nyon, but his fear of boring her was tangible and despite her best efforts he soon found a way to turn the conversation back to her own interests. He talked first about life in those parts of Africa from which most of the slaves had been taken, eventually hitting upon the story of the slave, Onesimus, who had introduced variolation against smallpox into North America. And from here it was but a short step to telling her about Thomas Jefferson’s letters to Jenner and his enthusiasm for vaccinating slaves, until at a certain point Seema could not stop herself from laughing at the earnestness of his search for common ground between his world and hers. In a moment both were laughing and, just for a second, touching fingers across the table.
36 | It’s Harvey
Paul Lewis entered the director’s office to find Becket Bradie sitting at his desk surrounded by papers.
‘It’s Harvey.’
Becket absorbed the news for a moment. ‘Isn’t that the one all the labs had?’
‘The very same. WHO insisted on all registered smallpox research teams having the same strain of the virus to work on. Could have come from any one of them.’
Becket came round to join Paul in front of the window facing out over the campus.
‘And how many were there in the end?’
Paul clicked his tongue. There were dark hollows in his cheeks and the skin of his hands and face looked worn and thin. ‘Must have been sixty or seventy labs that had that particular flavour in the freezer, in maybe a couple of dozen countries.’
Becket sighed and turned to look out at the beginning of another Atlanta day. ‘And you’re getting the others in?’
‘Ferguson coming down from Detrick this afternoon, and Herrick as well, though that might not be until tomorrow morning. They’re going to think it’s awful strange, Beck. No real co-operation with DoD for years and then suddenly we call them in to ID a virus. CAM results clear as day. Like I’m calling in a couple of the world’s leading zoologists to confirm a horse is a horse.’
Becket again responded with the ‘ours not to reason why’ gesture. ‘So what have you told them?’
‘What we agreed. It’s come in from Iraq. One of the labs that was supposed to have certified. And for some reason best known to themselves, State’s insisting on three independent verifications.’
Becket nodded. ‘Leave it at that, would you? When they get here, I mean.’
Paul Lewis nodded with an exaggerated expression of bafflement, then got to his feet. ‘Anything else?’
Becket also stood. ‘I suppose there’s no chance of narrowing it down any further, where it might have come from?’
‘None at all. Common-or-garden variety.’
‘And now it’s back in the freezers?’
Paul nodded, pushing out his bottom lip. ‘Everything back to normal down there. Not hard to find, by the way, just follow the signs.’
‘Go on with you, and let me know when they’ve confirmed your horse is a horse will you? And Paul, how are you feeling?’
‘Curious.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
Late that afternoon Becket Bradie was back in the nation’s capital. After a short wait he was once more ushered into the office of
the Chief of Staff. Toni Restelle was seated at the small conference table. Opposite her was a heavy-set man in his fifties.
‘Beck, this is Bill Marriot. Bill’s representing the FBI and the CIA both.’ The two men shook hands, Marriot’s grim expression making it clear that he was up to speed. When they had taken seats, Toni locked her fingers on the table. ‘Okay, tell us the worst.’
‘It’s smallpox.’
After a few seconds of absolute silence, Marriot stood up and walked round behind his chair, resting his hands on the pierced back. ‘Okay. First off. At this moment in time, who knows about this thing?’ The suit fitted perfectly across the massive chest and shoulders. The necktie, hanging down in front of the chair back, displayed the blue, gold and white stripes of the US Navy.
There was the faintest of smiles on Toni Restelle’s face as she answered, not turning to look at him. ‘The President. The three of us here. Camden Hughes, the guy who took delivery of the package in New York. That’s it. Plus, of course, whoever shelled out the quarter for the locker in Grand Central.’
‘What about the pick-up team, drivers, porters, the lab guys and their aunts and uncles?’ Marriot exuded assertiveness with a none-too-subtle undertone of ‘I’m dealing with a bunch of amateurs here.’ Becket again spelt out that it had not been difficult to pass off the pick-up and ID as routine.
‘You mean you’ve got stuff like this coming in all the time?’
Becket decided to put the aggression in the man’s voice down to an unfortunate manner. ‘No, I wouldn’t say all the time. About once a year, maybe, we get something in. There were a lot of labs around the world doing research on smallpox.’
‘Labs where?’
Becket shrugged. ‘Belgium, Chile, Poland, the UK. Bilthoven in The Netherlands, Japan, South Africa, Iran, Iraq. Maybe seventy labs in total around the world. And they weren’t all as meticulous as they might have been when they were asked to certify destruction of stocks.’
‘When was that?’
‘Most had certified by the end of last year.’
‘Most?’
‘I believe Porton Down still has to certify, and one lab in South Africa.’
‘Inspections?’
‘No. The WHO just has to take each country’s word for it. But the problem’s more that the freezers in most laboratories aren’t regularly cleaned out. Once in a while someone finds something they’re not sure about, maybe a vial without a label. Happened a couple of times just recently. An unmarked ampoule turned up in a lab in Tanzania that turned out to be variola. Batch of a dozen came in from California about a year ago. So just the checking process isn’t going to set off any alarms.’
Bill Marriot’s expression left little room for doubt that he considered all this lax beyond belief. ‘Something “turns up” – it comes to you, right?’
‘Either to us or the Research Institute for Viral Preparations in Moscow. Depends where it’s found.’
Bill Marriot returned to his chair, feeling that he had probably established his grip on the proceedings. ‘Okay, we’re gonna need a team.’
Becket looked sharply at Toni. ‘I take it you’ve discussed the need—’
Marriot waved a hand. ‘We have. And I’m not the one who needs to be told about keeping this under wraps.’
Becket recoiled at the man’s tone but Toni Restelle appeared unruffled, even favouring him with a small smile as she reached for the coffee pot. ‘What you might need to be told, Bill, is what the President has to say about it.’
Marriot put whatever he had been about to say on hold as Toni poured for the three of them, taking her time. Eventually she leaned back from the table, cup in one hand, saucer in the other. ‘The President thinks that a leak would likely cause a panic, and that a panic is not what he wants right now.’ She smiled again. ‘His exact words were that it might be best if we ran this show on a real tight “need to know” basis that didn’t include “any Joe Blow with CIA clearance”. And I think there might also have been something about heads rolling and keeping on rolling?’
Bill Marriot made a long show of lighting a cigarette, realizing that any attempt to put down Toni Restelle at this point would look like he was challenging the President. In the pause, Toni returned the cup to the table and raised both hands, palms facing the two men. ‘Two response paths. First – find whoever’s responsible, preferably before they release that persuasive little statement to the Times or the Post. Bill, you’ll obviously lead there and we’ll come back to that in a moment. Second – prepare for this going public, which we pray to God doesn’t happen. As I said, the President has quite a strong preference for never hearing about this again. But we have to be ready. Beck, you’ll obviously lead on that.’
Becket smiled inwardly as Toni continued and Bill Marriot held in a lungful of smoke.
‘You’ll both be reporting to the President, via his Chief of Staff in the first instance. Now, on the manhunt, Bill, I’m going to need an answer for when the boss asks whether you can get a search up and running without breaking any china – in other words, he’s going to ask how you can hunt for “who” without word getting out about “what” and “why”?’
Marriot again waved a dismissive hand, leaving a wraith of smoke over the table. ‘We’re always pushing out the word to listen out for this and that, dealing out keywords to the NSA guys, that kind of thing. There’ll be rumours but there are always rumours. No one’s going to get too spooked.’
Toni nodded thoughtfully. ‘And I can take it there’s no news yet on the package?’
Bill Marriot sighed out smoke. ‘Only just got it in.’
‘So, nothing else for the moment on the search side of things?’
‘We could use more help from you guys,’ said Marriot, turning to Becket Bradie. ‘You’re sure your people can’t tell us anything more about where it might have come from?’
‘I’m afraid not, Bill. Most sources of smallpox virus you could think of would be likely to have that particular strain.’
For a second Marriot showed his disbelief at this state of things, then snapped back into practical mode. ‘Okay, we’ll need a list of all the labs that might have held it, personnel details, any known leaks in the last ten years, everything you’ve got on them, names of foreigners employed …’ – he waved the cigarette again.
Becket thought for a moment. ‘Give me twenty-four hours.’
Marriot looked unimpressed. ‘Then we’ve got the language analysts going over it. We’ll see what they come up with.’
Toni Restelle turned to him slowly. ‘You’ve given it to language analysts?’ Bill Marriot paused, enjoying the moment, giving the Chief of Staff a patient look. ‘Different analysts got different blocks of text. Sensitive stuff excised. By me.’
Toni gave him a long look, then relaxed. ‘Okay, so let’s move on to the response side of things. Bill, I don’t think we need keep you but you’re welcome to stay.’
Marriot pointedly remained where he was as the secretary entered and handed her boss a note. When the door had closed again, Toni looked up from the single sheet of paper and turned to Becket Bradie. ‘So, response oversight team: ourselves, plus the boss wants Warren Taylor. So four. Anybody else?’
‘Camden Hughes is an obvious point man in New York.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Bill Marriot’s tone was contemptuous. ‘You know what our number one lead is at this point in time?’ He looked at the other two. ‘It’s your friend Camden Hughes. First question: why him? And I gotta tell you there are question marks all over that guy’s CV.’
Becket was coming to the conclusion that giving in to an instant dislike for Bill Marriot would probably have saved time. Taking his lead from Toni Restelle, his voice remained calm. ‘Camden Hughes has nearly four decades of fine public service behind him. May we know what the question marks are?’
‘You may not. But it’s no secret he has, or had, contacts that bat deep in the Civil Rights movement.’
‘
The Civil Rights movement?’ Becket was losing the struggle to remain patient. ‘Being part of the Civil Rights movement gets you a suspicious persons docket over at the Bureau these days?’
‘Look after the security of your labs, Dr Bradie, and leave us to tend our business. This guy’s also writing a book about Marcus Garvey – that’s Garvey as in “blacks of the world unite” Garvey.’
‘I knew that. Very interesting life, I’m told. And, by the way, I hear some professor over at Princeton’s writing a new biography of Luther King. Why not put him under suspicion, too?’
‘Let’s get things back on track here.’ Toni Restelle had assumed a look of forbearance. ‘We don’t absolutely need Hughes at this point, so let’s go along with Bill for the moment. Who else?’
She was looking at Becket, who hesitated for a moment, wary of the reaction to his next suggestion.
‘You’re probably not gonna like this either, but we more or less have to bring in the World Health Organization. They’re the ones who ran the global smallpox-eradication campaign – know everybody who’s anybody in smallpox, every lab, every researcher practically. Plus for the last couple of years they’ve had the IRR up and running – International Rumour Register – to investigate anything that comes up anywhere in the world that just might be smallpox making a comeback. If anyone knows which labs were most likely to leak the stuff – which researchers went where when it was all over – then it’s them. And in any case, if the shit does hit the fan in a few weeks’ time we’ll have no choice. This thing doesn’t stay behind the yellow line at the immigration desk.’
The Kennedy Moment Page 21