Crime Zero (aka the Crime Code) (1999)

by Cordy, Michael

  "So you wish to ask whether the Russians destroyed their stocks of smallpox as agreed? Or whether we lied."

  "I wouldn't put it so bluntly," said Weiss with a similar smile. "Let's just say that any remaining stocks of the smallpox virus need to be located for the benefit of all mankind. Any help in locating those stocks would be to our mutual advantage."

  For a moment the huge face froze on-screen, showing no emotion or expression of any kind. Then it flickered into life again, and Tabchov turned to his left. There followed a heated debate in Russian with an off-screen adviser that lasted almost five minutes before the Russian president turned back to face them. Kathy could feel her heart racing, hoping. It seemed contradictory then that they were relying on a dreaded plague from the Middle Ages to help combat the most technically advanced genetically engineered virus ever created.

  "I am sorry," he said with a slow shake of his head. "But despite your obvious prejudices, we did indeed destroy our stocks." Kathy could feel a palpable slump in the room's morale. "However," said Tabchov, raising a large hand, "a number of our best scientists defected from our virological research program in the late nineties. Many were not entirely scrupulous and went for money. We suspect that some took more than their expertise with them." Tabchov turned again to his unseen adviser as if to confirm something. "There is one such person who may have what you seek." He paused then, and the heavy slabs of his face shifted to form a sad smile of acknowledgment. "What we all now seek."

  Sutter Street, San Francisco. Sunday, November 16, 3:00 A.M.

  Lana Bauer always slept naked. She had done so ever since she was a kid. And now she slept like a baby in her apartment on Sutter Street. For the first time in weeks she had the whole weekend to herself. Tonight she had gone out for a few drinks and actually got drunk.

  As she slept, she dreamed of her job. It had been even more tiring than usual recently. It was only her third major assignment, and it was weird. She didn't know exactly what was going on at the place, but it was important. She knew that much.

  The window by her bed was open, and the night air blew the curtains into the room. The gentle movement had become background noise. So when the figure on the fire escape outside pulled the window open a few inches more and climbed into the room, Lana Bauer barely stirred.

  She didn't even wake when the hand was placed over her mouth. Only the click of the gun pierced her unconscious dreams.

  She opened her eyes and was alert in an instant. A gun barrel pointed at her right eye, a hand clamped over her mouth. Above her a tall figure looked down from the darkness.

  "I need to ask you some questions," the figure said. "I suggest you answer them."

  Two hours later Lana Bauer was dead, a bullet buried in the frontal lobe of her brain.

  Chapter 44.

  Al Manak Baby Milk Factory, Iraq. Sunday, November 16, 7:16 A.M.

  The world had turned upside down. Civilians were protecting themselves from their own infected soldiers. Enemies were becoming allies, and now plagues of death were offering elixirs of life. But Yevgenia Krotova did not complain as she marched down the long dark corridors of the Al Manak baby milk factory in the north of Baghdad, the largest of Iraq's seven biological warfare laboratories.

  The recent death of the Iraqi president from the Peace Plague had removed the immediate threat of execution from Yevgenia and her family for her failure to stop the disease. But she still feared for their safety. Deaths in Iraq were already estimated in the high tens of thousands with many more, particularly infected soldiers, dying in the isolated and hastily constructed concentration camps in the desert. The measures were brutal but necessary, and it now appeared that some kind of containment had been reached.

  Yet now the Americans had contacted the new rais, offering money and help to rebuild his shattered country, specifically seeking access to Yevgenia Krotova's treasures to combat an airborne strain of the disease roaming the world beyond Iraq's quarantined borders. They had warned that a death toll of biblical proportions was only days away, but with her help they could vaccinate the world, including Iraq, against this mystery scourge.

  As she descended into the hidden labs beneath the factory, the irony that the key to stopping this apocalypse lay with her and the lethal work she had been conducting over the last ten years was not lost on Yevgenia Krotova.

  After showering and donning her protective suit, Yevgenia went down into the gloomy maze of concrete storage tunnels where her arsenal of pathogens was kept. Opening a six-inch-thick steel door, disguised to deter UNSCOM inspectors, she walked down another corridor, passing a large room with dented steel walls, the underground testing site for explosive biological warheads. Continuing to the end of the corridor, she came to another steel door. Unlocking this, she found herself in a room surrounded by racks of glass vials. She went immediately to the far wall, reached up to the top shelf, and lifted a rack onto the steel worktable in the center of the room. Here she examined four vials: her four horsemen of the apocalypse.

  The first was Ebola. The second was a toughened, more lasting strain to yield a 100 percent death rate. The third was the doomsday virus that had encouraged the last Iraqi president to invade Kuwait and defy the Americans. It was a chimera, a blend of Ebola and other viruses that made it airborne. This chimera had only been possible because of the contents of the fourth vial, a virus so rare it was virtually unique. It was this that had made the Iraqis pay Yevgenia so much blood money to get her here. And now it seemed as if God, not the devil, had been looking over her shoulder when she smuggled it out of Russia. Holding up the vial, she studied the toughened strain of smallpox, marveling at how this medieval scourge of mankind might become its savior.

  Isolation Ward 4, Ballygunge Hospital, Calcutta, India. The Same Day, 11:28 P.M.

  By day seven Crime Zero had fully established itself within the cells of Babu Anand's hypothalamus and testes.

  Because of the fourteen-year-old's youth, he enjoyed virtually no time in the first stage of the virus. The telomeres on his chromosomes and the SRY gene on his Y chromosome immediately triggered the final and fatal stage.

  The surge of androgens was so high and so fast that weeping pustules broke out on his face within hours. His hair began falling out in clumps, and his voice deepened.

  Rushed to the hospital, he convulsed in his bed, manifesting physical symptoms of acute anxiety as vast levels of adrenaline began to course through his system. The other brain fuels, dopamine and norepinephrine, which stimulated cerebral activity, also kicked in, rocketing to intolerable levels. Simultaneously the influx of the inhibitor serotonin was now so high his blood was saturated with MAO.

  His brain was frying in an electrical thunderstorm brought about by massive and conflicting neural traffic, trying to contend with peaking aggressive stimuli while experiencing steel-clawed emotional inhibition. Revving on full power while braking at the same time, his inflamed brain began to rupture as it attempted the impossible task of accommodating these opposing forces.

  Hallucinations, terror, and guilt now dominated what was left of his disintegrating mind.

  As his brain imploded, crushing itself, his blood pressure shot up in the shock response known as the Cushing reflex. It heralded his imminent death. His brain had to have blood to survive, and as the swelling from the inflammation closed off vital arteries, the pressure rose further, so his body drove its blood pressure higher to meet the rise in brain pressure, to force blood into the brain. The resulting terminal spike in blood pressure triggered a series of hemorrhages throughout his body and ultimately his brain. A hemorrhagic nosebleed marked his point of death.

  His final minutes did not go unnoticed by the authorities. Within an hour of his admission to the hospital the Indian government's senior medical officers had registered his mystery symptoms, along with the results of various tests.

  And before Babu Anand's body was cold, an encrypted message was being sent to all the leaders of the world.

&nb
sp; Crime Zero Phase 3 had claimed its first victim. And it was only the beginning.

  Chapter 45.

  The Womb, ViroVector Solutions, Palo Alto. Sunday, November 16, 9:17 P.M.

  "Take a look, Luke. It's beautiful," said Kathy Kerr. In the darkened Womb the electron microscope bathed her helmet and visor in a green aura.

  Taking Kathy's place and gazing down into the submicroscopic cellular landscape, Decker couldn't see any beauty in the virus. The Conscience vector Kathy had shown him earlier looked like a shimmering halo, and Crime Zero like a coiled noose, whereas this Project Reprieve vector looked like a deformed half-moon.

  According to Kathy, the complex viral vector he was looking at was a hybrid, containing DNA from the antidote in his body and the smallpox vector they had received from Iraq. It had been lovingly crafted and was potentially the DNA antisense vaccine with the power to save mankind. But it still wasn't beautiful.

  Within an hour of the conversation between the U.S. and Russian presidents, Iraq had been contacted. The new rais had been more reasonable than the last and, because of the crisis in his country, had been more malleable. But he had still been highly suspicious of the American motives, initially refusing to admit there were any stocks of smallpox in the country. Eventually, after Pamela Weiss had promised to help fund the rebuilding of Iraq's infrastructure and to cure the plague devastating his country, they had come to an agreement.

  The real revelation, however, hadn't been the discovery that Iraq did indeed have smallpox stocks, a relief in itself, but the toughened strain Yevgenia Krotova had sent them. It was perfect for their uses, so much so that Kathy warned how if they paused to consider the implications of someone of Krotova's skill helping Iraq's biowarfare program, no one would sleep easily again.

  The Schlossberg twins had laid much of the groundwork over the last week, and when the engineered virus arrived, Kathy, Sharon Bibb, and their teams had been able to shortcut the splicing process, merging the antisense sequence with the smallpox envelope genes. They were now satisfied that all the necessary genetic characteristics were in place and that each of the inserted sections should express their instructions when reaching its target cells. Jim Balke had since run off a batch of weapons-grade viral droplets in the pilot biroreactor. This is what Decker was looking at now.

  "I think we can do it," said Kathy beside him. Her tired face was aglow with excitement behind her faceplate. "We've got to test that it's safe and it works. But if it does, then we could stop Crime Zero. This is good, Luke. Don't you think?"

  "Yeah, of course. It's great." But he still felt uncomfortable. For the last few days he had been trying to come to understand the implications of this "cure." He still felt angry that his genes had been changed. He didn't enjoy possessing Axelman's genes, but they were his, and he was just coming to terms with them. Now genetics had robbed him of his right to grapple with his own past.

  "What's wrong, Luke?" Kathy said, watching him carefully.

  "I don't know. You're right; this is the best, the only option. But I can't help feeling it's wrong somehow."

  "How can it be wrong? Assuming this thing works, we'll save all men."

  "That's the point. You won't. At least not men as they were. Men as we know them will still die. I can't help thinking that the survivors will be different people--perhaps better, perhaps worse, but different in some way. I'll be different. Perhaps I already am." He wanted Kathy to argue with him, so he could get these concerns out of his system. But she said nothing, just stood there and nodded, as if to acknowledge the point he was making.

  "Don't you see?" he went on. "Despite what Alice Prince and Madeline Naylor believe, men serve a purpose. Yes, men are more aggressive than women are and commit most of the crimes, and they want to dominate rather than negotiate. Yes, they seek sensation and take risks. But it's precisely this drive and aggression that make them challenge the oceans, the galaxies, and everything from religion to unjust rulers. For good or ill, men, not women, have been the agents of change and of civilization, not exclusively but for the most part. Project Conscience on hardened criminals is one thing, but taming the spirit of every present and future male is something else entirely. The implications for the future could be disastrous."

  "Surely not as disastrous as what will happen if we do nothing," said Kathy

  "Of course," he conceded, "but it still sucks."

  Kathy smiled. "Look, I know this is a compromise. But I'll tell you one thing, Luke. I'd rather have you here with a few genes changed than dead. And there's something else to consider. This change, whether it's Conscience or the more drastic Crime Zero, will affect civilization more than any other initiative in our history. But it wasn't conceived or implemented by men. Perhaps in a perverse way this proves that women have more drive than men credit them with. Who knows? Far from being doomed, perhaps humanity will benefit from having both genders share the driving seat for a change."

  Decker shrugged. "I hope you're right."

  Kathy hoped she was right as well. A week had passed since Crime Zero had gone live and people would soon start dying, and continue to die in increasing numbers, unless the vaccine was released--side effects or no side effects.

  Suddenly the door to the Womb hissed open, and Kathy saw two blue Chemturion space suits enter. She recognized the wearers as Sharon Bibb and Major General Tom Allardyce.

  Allardyce was rubbing his gloved hands together, as excited as Kathy imagined a career military type ever got. "It's all set," he said. "We've got twenty infected male volunteers, all military personnel. All have agreed to be exposed to the Reprieve smallpox vaccine. Each has been fitted with a gene sequence and blood test wristband. The predictive gene scans and blood readings should tell us if they're in the clear by tomorrow morning. We're already recruiting female subjects, and once we know it works on men, we'll test it on them--to ensure it's safe. So by tomorrow night, assuming all the tests are positive, we might, no, should have a vaccine to deliver.

  "Strategic production sites have been set up here, in the U.K., Russia, China, Iraq, Brazil, and Australia. They are waiting for the go-ahead from the tests, and then each will receive a transfer file giving the full genetic sequence and production spec for the vaccine. They in turn will supply squadrons of military and commercial aircraft from most major nations, which will bomb every significant population center on earth. By analyzing global weather patterns to harness the airflow effects they have on microclimates, we'll be able to target the airborne spread. And this assault will be supplemented by the use of bacteriophage air purifier tunnels at every major hub airport. Over the next week we'll blanket-bomb the world. Crime Zero will have no place to hide."

  "So you'll only release the samples and gene sequence of the vaccine once you're sure it's safe and effective?" asked Decker.

  "You bet," said Allardyce. "For all we know, the vaccine could be useless or, worse, lethal. So we're keeping it under strict control until we know it's OK." He walked over to a white box in the corner of the Womb by the Genescope. It had no monitor, only a series of lights, a large red button, and a keypad down one side. It looked as if it had been recently installed. "This is an SDU, a Secure Data Unit. It's not linked to TITANIA or any network until a six-letter code is keyed in and that red button is depressed; then and only then will the data stored on its drive be sent down secure lines to the designated production sites. Until that happens, it's effectively a bulletproof, hackerproof strongbox for data.

  "As well as the data all the samples, including those produced by Jim Balke in the BioSafety Level Four pilot plant area, are now here in the safe or with the test subjects down in the slammer. Effectively every piece of data and material relating to the vaccine now resides here in the central core of the lab complex."

  "In that case," said Decker with a wry grin, "if the vaccine works, let's hope nothing happens to this place."

  Allardyce smiled behind his visor. "I wouldn't worry about that. This is one of the most secure
places on earth."

  Kathy was more concerned about timing. "Can't we test the vaccine faster? You said you had to wait to test it on men before testing it on women. Why?"

  Sharon Bibb answered, "Female volunteers are less easy to find, and frankly we don't want to risk women's lives until we know Reprieve works on men. Crime Zero won't harm women, but Reprieve could--especially if we haven't properly attenuated the smallpox vector Krotova gave us."

  Kathy frowned at this. "But every minute could be crucial. There are almost three hundred million teenage men in the world. The youngest of these will die a week after infection. That means that anytime now our youngest males are going to start dropping like flies. We've got to test women now. Each hour represents hundreds of thousands of lives."

  "Hang on a minute," said Allardyce. "Wait till we get an OK from the men. If Reprieve doesn't work or, worse, it kills them, then there's no point putting women at risk."

  Suddenly the computer by Alice Prince's safe began to beep.

  "What the hell's that?" growled Allardyce, turning to view the monitor.

  "It's a message," said Bibb as Kathy watched the short terse report come up on screen.

  "Shit," said Decker softly as he read the text.

  On the screen was a picture of a young Indian boy. According to the classified report, he was the first recorded casualty of Crime Zero and had died a little over an hour ago. Time had run out. The death toll had begun.