by Thomas Hopp
“Mike’s got spunk,” I said. “He’ll make it.”
“Yes, let’s hope so.” McKean stroked his chin. “I’ve been thinking. One way to follow developments is to consider the vehicles we saw at the ranch. Mike’s heroism has eliminated the white truck and most of the jihadis. We ourselves accounted for a black SUV and the Sheriff’s car. The FBI got the black pickup truck. That leaves those three white passenger vans.”
“Don’t forget the other black SUV,” I added.
“And Sheik Abdul-Ghazi’s limousine,” said Jameela.
* * * * *
An hour later, while Nurse Hawkins sweated in his tight-packed yellow isolation suit, clearing away our picked-over dinners, the computer at the on-duty station beeped. We went to the video screen, where Janet was waiting. “Dr. Holloman wants to talk with you again.”
McKean hrumphed, as Stuart Holloman plunked his hefty body in the lab chair.
“Hello Peyton,” Holloman started coolly. “Seems you’ve beaten everyone to the punch again.”
“How so?”
“The President contacted me on the phone. He’s gotten wind of your synthetic vaccine through Dr. Erwin and her Fort Detrick connections.”
“That makes sense,” McKean replied.
“He wants us to scale up to the largest batch we can make. And now I find out Janet’s already doing that.”
“Right, again,” said McKean.
Holloman stared hard at McKean across cyberspace. “Didn’t you think you should keep me informed?”
McKean’s eyebrows rose as if his breach of company protocol hadn’t dawned on him. “I assumed you wouldn’t have a problem with that.”
“You’re right, I don’t have a problem with the vaccine. But it makes me look stupid when the President of the United States calls and I’m in the dark about what you’re doing.”
“Good point,” McKean admitted. “I hadn’t thought it through.”
Holloman paused like he was waiting for an apology. McKean didn’t deliver. Holloman drummed his fingers on the bench top, squinting sharply from the screen. “Next time, try to remember who you work for. Will you?” Veins had come up on his temples. “In fact, I’ll handle the details of what gets done with your, er, ImCo’s vaccine from here on out, is that understood?”
“Yes, it is.” McKean sounded cool to the idea.
“Why do you have a problem clearing things with me?”
“Because getting your approval might slow down the decision-making process.”
Holloman scowled harder. His bald cranium took on a red glow. He said in a level voice, “Let’s just accept that risk. I don’t want to be embarrassed again.”
McKean seemed about to say more, but he kept his mouth shut.
“The President,” Holloman went on, “asked me to keep things quiet, but go ahead and mass-produce the synthetic vaccine. He doesn’t want a general alarm to go out just yet. But the virus appears to be getting out of control in Sumas. He wants to immunize everyone who gets exposed, using both the old vaccine and our new one. If this virus spreads, ultimately the entire population of the U.S. might need a dose.”
“Yes, of course,” said McKean. “Janet’s already started our end of the deal.”
“So I have just learned,” Holloman muttered. “That’s why I congratulated you on beating everyone to the punch. Are you sure she’s making as much as possible?”
“Yes, I am. She’s maxing out our production capability. If the President wants more, he can send some folks to look over her shoulder. They can start another syntheses, in parallel, at their own facilities. Meanwhile, our vaccine batch ought to handle immunizing up to ten-thousand people. That should be sufficient to get immunizations started where they’re needed most.”
“Yes, Peyton, I’ll pass that along to the President. You’ve done an admirable job of planning ahead,” he said grudgingly. “I’ll make sure credit is given where credit is due when this is all over. For now, of course, not a word to anyone. The President is worried about a nationwide panic. Can I tell him he can count on you to keep your mouth shut?”
“Answer: yes.”
“And your reporter friend there?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m getting too sick to type, anyway.”
“I will be silent, also,” said Jameela.
Holloman’s face lightened when she leaned near enough to our computer’s minicam to show up on his screen. “Well, well,” he said. “Who is this lovely lady?”
McKean made the introductions.
“The pleasure is all mine,” said Holloman. He exchanged some brief pleasantries with her. And then he became stern again. “Just remember, Peyton. I’m in charge from here on out. I don’t want anything to happen before I hear about it.”
He got up and walked away from the camera without a goodbye.
* * * * *
That evening we watched the stories evolve on the cable news channels.
One reporter appeared on the stone steps of the Public Health Hospital in Grand Junction, Colorado. He said, “We’ve just learned the identity of the man who threw himself from the back of the terrorists’ van on the highway north of here. He is Mike Jenson, who disappeared from his home near Winthrop, Washington, several days ago in an incident that is under investigation as possibly linked to the smallpox outbreak in Sumas.”
“Details are sketchy,” he went on, “but FBI and Homeland Security personnel are said to be on the scene here in Grand Junction now. Nobody is saying very much.”
The news went to a commercial.
Jameela said, “If Mike dies, he’ll be the first martyr on our side.”
McKean said, “I wish I had tried harder to get the authorities involved before we went to the ranch.”
“Fuad had us stymied,” I reminded him.
McKean thought a moment. “I can’t believe Mike had the guts to throw himself out of a truck on the freeway.”
“He’s a hero,” said Jameela. “He’s made a difference twice already. Things would be a lot worse if he hadn’t led you to the Sheik in the first place. I would not have found out what the Sheik was doing if I hadn’t seen you go into that building. Now he’s sacrificed himself again to destroy the men he was riding with.”
We talked for a while about subjects for which we had no answers, like the uncertainty of Mike’s fate, injured and infected as he was.
McKean and Jameela started another chess match, but I felt a fresh wave of fever coming on and went to bed to ride it out.
Chapter 17
I woke the next morning shuddering with a full-blown fever that came and went in surges, as if the virus were unsure whether to claim now me or save me for later. McKean was watching the TV news, which reported Homeland Security raising the national terror threat level from orange to red in light of the Colorado incident. The entire town of Grand Junction was under smallpox quarantine.
Nurse Hawkins served breakfast about 8 am, but I had no stomach for it beyond a few nibbles of fruit cocktail.
I lay down again while the TV covered and repeated stories from Winthrop and Grand Junction. But I only heard half of it, if that. A crushing headache kept my head on my pillow. Chills shook my entire body. Sweat drenched my forehead and the chest of my hospital gown. No one tried to deny that smallpox had me in its clutches.
McKean came to my bedside several times and made clinical speculations on the progress of the virus inside me. Jameela came as well, offering words of sympathy and encouragement. McKean remarked that he guessed his own temperature had increased, although not as much as mine. Dr. Zimmer came around with a thermometer and confirmed McKean’s assessments, adding that he was worried that I might go into shock. He insisted both McKean and I should stick to our beds. That was easy for me.
McKean was much less affected. He sat up in bed and filled much of my waking time with discourses on viruses, medicines, and his peculiar observations on humanity and world events. But I spent most of my conscious moments wondering ab
out my fate, which was unknowably linked to viruses and vaccines and white blood cells moving through my veins.
About 10 am, the television delivered a new breaking story on CNN. The anchor, Connie Leong, popped my eyes wide open when she said, “We have videotape of Sheik Abdul-Ghazi, released earlier on a public access channel.”
I propped myself up on two pillows and watched as a poor-quality videotape began playing in an inset box beside Leong. The now-familiar, sallow, bearded face of Sheik Abdul-Ghazi lectured sanctimoniously in Arabic in a shaky, hand-held camera shot. He sat in his black-and-white robes, cross-legged on a prayer rug on what appeared to be somebody’s concrete basement floor, waving a lax hand with an index finger raised as he made his points.
Leong talked over the videotape. “Sheik Abdul-Ghazi is believed to be the mastermind behind the outbreaks of smallpox in Washington State and Colorado. Although he acknowledges the Colorado incident was a setback to his cause, he now calls upon his remaining jihadis not to despair, and to attack at the appointed times and places. Although he does not specify the nature of the attacks, our government sources clarify they are anticipating some form of biological attack at one or more population centers, using the smallpox organism now being referred to as the jihad virus.”
Behind Leong’s voice-over, the Sheik could be heard lecturing in harsh, emphatic Arabic. I watched his eyes. They wore the same sanctimonious glint as when he had overseen our inoculations.
The other side of the screen went to a tight shot of Leong’s face. “While it is the policy of this station, in the interest of public security, not to air such calls to action, this case is different. Because this videotape has already played several times on the public-access channel that first released it, and has aired on Arabic TV stations around the world, we assume any terrorists awaiting the Sheik’s message have already received it.
“Reactions have been mixed in other nations. Islamic radical regimes have praised the Sheik; friendly Islamic governments have issued statements of support for the U.S.; Al Jazeera, the Arabic TV news station, issued the tape without comment.
“According to a preliminary translation by the Department of Homeland Security, the tape also calls for stepped up attacks on U.S. and Israeli interests around the world, and urged all Muslims to rise up once the Great U.S. Satan is stricken. At this point, what he means by ‘stricken’ is unclear.”
The Sheik concluded his speech with a slight bow of his white-turbaned head. As Leong finished her voice-over, I stared at Abdul-Ghazi’s sanctimonious expression. Behind those dark irises lay a mind of inestimable cruelty. I silently wished him a death as horrible as the one he intended for me.
The tape ended, and Connie Leong turned to a pundit seated at the side of her news desk. “Our Mideast correspondent and news analyst, Benjamin Lesser, has been following this situation closely. Can you please give our viewers some background on the Sheik and his followers?”
“Certainly, Connie. Sheik Ibrahim Abdul-Ghazi al-Kharifi is an extremely wealthy man, who comes from the tiny but rich Sultanate of Kharifa located on the south Arabian coast, between the Al Mahrah region of eastern Yemen, and the Dohai region of western Oman. Its long-reigning Sultan, Ahmed bin Husayn al-Kharifi, has several dozen wives, and is the father of Abdul-Ghazi and fifty-five siblings. The Sultanate has a single city of the same name, Kharifa, in a valley watered by several desert springs. Traditionally, the Kharifi sultans controlled the world’s largest stands of frankincense trees, and operated an inland gold mine. The wealth from these assets enabled the current Sultan to build an oil pipeline from the Gulf Emirates, with a terminal on an offshore island in the Indian Ocean. Over the years, tariffs on the oil exports have made the Sultan an even richer man.”
“What about terrorism?” Connie asked. “Has it surfaced there before?”
“No. Kharifa, has until now been a quiet and placid place, with a docile population, well cared for by a beneficent ruler. Nevertheless, Kharifa is somewhat of an anomaly in the modern world. The Sultan can trace his lineage to the Prophet Mohammad and has declared it is his God-given right to rule over his people. And his enforcement of Islamic law has been seen as among the strictest interpretations short of Afghanistan’s Taliban, or al Qaeda itself. For example, a young woman who wore a thong swimsuit to a beach was stoned to death by his decree. Several state-authorized beheadings for major crimes have been reported. The entire judicial system is embodied by the Sultan alone. So, while his country remains a quiet place, he reserves for himself the ultimate authority over life and death.”
“And his relationship with his radical son, Abdul-Ghazi?”
“Strained. The Sultan claims he has disowned his son, but the Sheik has been seen coming and going at the Royal Kharifa Airport in recent months. So there is a little ambiguity there.”
“Turning to the taped message,” Leong said, “what do you make of it?”
“I’d say it probably was hastily made in the cellar of a safe-house somewhere in the U.S. It’s unlikely Abdul-Ghazi could have gotten past airport security to leave the country.”
“Good!” I exclaimed. “Then I can still hope to strangle his scrawny neck before I die!”
“In a related development,” Leong said, turning to the camera again, “two men have been arrested in connection with the tape. They are the licensees who ran the public-access TV series that released the Sheik’s tape. The program, entitled ‘The Way of Jihad,’ has long held radical Islamic sympathies. The two men have refused to cooperate with authorities regarding the origins of the videotape, citing their first amendment right to keep their sources confidential. They are currently being held in Federal jail on charges of aiding terrorism. Now, in other news - “
McKean picked up the remote beside his pillow and switched off the television.
“So, you’d like to choke the Sheik,” he said to me.
“Damn right. I’m astonished anyone could think himself holy while calling for death and destruction. I’m allowing myself something I haven’t allowed in years. I’m allowing myself to hate another human being with every ounce of me, every pulse of my heart, every breath, every bone, every muscle. I want to feel my fingers around his yellow-skinned, scraggly-bearded throat.”
“Well!” Jameela interjected. “Such emotions!”
“He’s trying to kill me,” I said, “and a lot of other people too.”
“I hope you get your chance, Fin,” said McKean.
At noon, Nurse Hawkins brought lunch. I joined Jameela and Peyton McKean at the room’s table, and while they ate with good appetites, I found myself hard-pressed to take down more than a few spoonsful of chicken-noodle soup.
Peyton McKean was in a philosophical mood.
“Why can’t people see the commonality of most religions?” he murmured. “Especially the monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam? I would go one step further and suggest that even the many gods of polytheistic religions could fit into the same scope, if their gods were equated to the angels and holy spirits of monotheistic religions. That done, then there would be precious little to divide one religion from another.”
“And precious little to fight about,” Jameela agreed.
“Good luck teaching that to the Sheik,” I said.
“He’s a hard case, I’ll admit,” said McKean. “But I remain optimistic that someday all religions will be reconciled. The simple means to do that is to tolerate other people’s terms for the divine, and not fight over semantics. Most of the strife between religions boils down to words. If I can’t accept your definition of God, or Jesus, or Holy Spirit, then we must go to war. It all could be solved by agreeing that each religion is entitled to its set of words for what is considered divine. Fighting only breaks out when someone takes an inflexible stance.”
“So much trouble in the world,” said Jameela, “all because of a few words.”
“Exactly,” said McKean. “And you are in a interesting position, Jameela, with one foo
t - so to speak - in each of two religions. I’d be interested to know how you see these things.”
“I believe the jihadis are the biggest blasphemers of all,” she replied.
“How so?”
“They are trying to tell Allah what he can and cannot do. They say God could not have a son like Jesus, because God is not human. But isn’t God capable of all things? They say Allah wants to destroy all other religions. But where is the proof of that? Being all-powerful, Allah could sweep them away in a minute. But why has he not chosen to do so? I think Allah is happy to allow the religions to co-exist. So, why do jihadis see it differently? And how is it that Allah wishes women to be second-class citizens? If he created our bodies, why should we hide them under clothing and stay locked in our homes? That made sense in medieval times, when the streets were dangerous. But now they are safe in most places - except where radical Islamists rule! I think jihadis want Allah to live in the past, not in the present. But it is not their place to dictate to Allah.”
“What can be done to change their minds?” I asked.
Peyton McKean shook his head. “I fear the world may have to endure as much as a thousand-year war with jihadis. They are as persistent as they are bull-headed. But decency will prevail. Their medieval views will always be a small minority, until at last they fade away.”
“But a thousand years!” I remarked.
“Give or take a couple hundred.”
“Are you sure our society can last that long?”
“Even the worst jihadi attacks are mere pinpricks on our culture. They haven’t had much impact, despite all the news-show talk to the contrary.”
“But they’ll have their way this time - if the virus gets out of control.”
“That’s a big ‘if,’ Fin. They’re using a medieval virus to fight for a medieval cause against modern medicine.”
“So far,” I said, touching my sweat-drenched chest for emphasis, “I think the bad guys are winning this round.”
* * * * *