The Malthus Pandemic

by Terry Morgan

Until very recently I've never seen myself as a man who smiled a lot. Lurking behind the mask is a good sense of humour and my own thoughts often make me chuckle inside, but it rarely shows externally.

  I suppose I take things seriously but I've always likened life to running a business. Seeing the many pitfalls ahead before falling into them and planning a course of action to avoid them altogether is a skill I have nurtured. Only if the way ahead becomes very murky and the pitfalls impossible to see do I resort to 'nothing ventured, nothing gained' and 'muddle through'.

  I was on an Egypt Air flight from Cairo to Nairobi and spent most of the time staring out of the window and thinking whilst watching the ground and clouds far below move slowly backwards. I don't think I smiled at all. Lone travellers don't smile. But I was thinking about everything. Flying on your own is a good time to get your life into perspective. It's an even better time to analyse the state of your business.

  This job had been different to all others I had taken on. A finished job usually meant a verbal report back to whoever was paying my fee followed by a written one if requested.

  In this case, I already felt I'd done more than enough to earn a fee from Charles Brady at Virex. In fact, despite the vaguest of briefings, I felt I had far exceeded his remit and my own expectations. I knew who had taken Virex's lost material and I was right in thinking Brady had been a bit short on what he'd told me.

  Jan de Jonge had spilled far more beans than I'd expected. In fact it sounded as if he had stolen not one thing but two - something they were testing as an antiviral drug and a lethal virus. The man should be locked up. So should Charles Brady for his security lapses.

  I suppose I could, right now, be flying back to UK. Tomorrow I could be reporting to Brady about what I knew and then sending him an invoice. But, together with Larry Brown in Nigeria, Kevin and Colin in the UK and Jimmy in Nairobi, what I had uncovered went way beyond a simple case of theft of a company's property. This was a global problem that could now affect the lives of millions, if not billions. I looked around the half full aircraft. Half of us could be dead in a year's time. And why? Because of insufficient security by one organisation and the lack of international rules and controls placed on virus research.

  But I could also understand some of the problems that would be posed for anyone wanting to introduce rules and controls. Monitoring and policing was the only way. But virus research did not need concealing in remote spots or hidden inside mountains away from satellite surveillance. Given the funds and resources, this research could be carried out in a house or perhaps even a bedroom not much bigger than your usual computer hacker.

  I was about to meet Jimmy for the first time for a few years. Jimmy was the only one of our small group that consisted of me, Colin, Kevin and Larry who was not fully aware of the enormity of what we had found and this was something that I intended to put right as soon as I could persuade Jimmy to sit down and listen for a while.

  But none of us, on our own or together, was in a position to do anything to stop it.

  Report it? Yes. But to whom? The World Health Organisation? The Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention which, as Larry had discovered, seemed to rent office space at Bradford University? Was there an international system in place that could detect and deal with criminality of this sort? What we were uncovering was criminality that operated so secretly and so far below the radar that it was completely undetectable. Not only that but it respected no national borders.

  And what could anyone do? Make arrests? Close down the companies, the factories? And where was David Solomon? The man who, whilst not holding the purse strings, certainly held onto the technological strings and the ideological ones. And how many others were in on the plot. The Frenchman Lunneau? Were some of Livingstone's and Shah Medicals agents and distributors part of it? Were some going to hold stock of virus or of vaccine in the hope of making money? And even if they had managed to put a halt to the main Shah Medicals operation, how many others were out there and in on the act?

  And as for Kevin's optimistic hope that his long list of population control fanatics would see sense and not join in the fun, then I was not at all convinced. I was already worried that some may have already been primed ready to act when the time came.

  And this would also explain Mohamed Kader's visit to London and his meeting with Kevin. It was my view that that meeting was for Kader to check Kevin out in the same way he'd already checked out Kevin's Nigerian friend Tunje Fayinka. Kader, I felt, had wanted to see how radical Kevin was and whether he could be persuaded to be more actively involved in what was being planned. For some unknown reason, it seemed that Kevin had not passed the Kader test.

  And Kader seemed able to travel the world freely and frequently perhaps using the El Badry cover. In the past year there was evidence he had been in Jordan, Egypt, Hong Kong, Singapore, Pakistan, Nigeria and Kenya - and that was just the places I knew about. And if Kader was also the fictitious Doctor Mustafa in Kano then he must have been in Nigeria for many weeks, if not many months. It didn't make sense unless there was another high profile figure out there. And one possibility now high on my list of suspects was Doctor Ramses El Khoury from the Shah Medical Centre in Cairo. This man was missing. Who was he, where was he? At the very least, he seemed to have a very cosy relationship with Fatima El Badry who also seemed to double as Mohamed Kader's wife. No, this part of the organisation still needed unravelling and I just did not have the time or resources to deal with it.

  On the flight from Cairo, sat not far from me, was a small team of Kenyan athletes -tall, slim, black-skinned men in smart blazers - who smiled politely and signed autographs for a few younger Kenyan boys and girls. It was the athletes that had got me thinking about pitfalls and hurdles again. I knew there were a few more I had to jump over - and fast - before going back to London.

  As I watched them I suddenly wanted Anna with me.

  Kenya has always been my favourite African country. For all of its many differences to Thailand, I knew Anna would like it. And yes, Kenya had its problems too, like so many other African countries - corruption, health, poverty - but Nairobi is improving year by year. The number of cars on the roads is an indication of economic success. Like Thailand it relies heavily on a thriving tourism industry and the Kenyans, like the Thais, are good at it, recognising that a visible desire to give proper service to paying customers was paramount. Compare that to England and it's clear who are the best at it. I know South Africa well, but there is still something that troubles me about South Africa but, then, perhaps it is my own personal experiences of dealing with businesses there.

  Compare then Kenya to Nigeria where, until just a few days before, I thought I might go to join up with Larry Brown. My experiences in Nigeria had always been the worst of all - anywhere. Nigeria is still a mess. And what were the statistics that Kevin Parker had rattled off when we had met up at the Cumberland Hotel? Kevin had been in full, passionate flow about Thomas Malthus, Paul Ehrlich and others. Larry, Colin and I just sat and listened until he'd finished. But I will never forget what Kevin said.

  "Fucking mess, man. You ask my Nigerian friend Tunje up in Barnet. He knows and he's Nigerian. Why are there so many living here? Yes, it's part of the old British Empire but the reason there's so many here is because there's so many there. Do you think if their lives were better there that they'd want to come here? It's the same with all economic migrants.

  "Do you know that the current population of Nigeria is some 166 million and that figure is expected to reach 390 million by 2050. 390 million for Christ's sake!

  "Even at 166 million it's unsustainable. And with the increasing ethnic and religious conflict up in the north where you were, Larry, it's complete madness. That population needs to come down urgently to a more sensible figure like the 45.2 million figure it stood at in 1960. But is anyone standing on a bloody soap box, holding up a finger, pointing somewhere and shouting about it? No. No-one has got the balls to do anythi
ng.

  "And look at the unemployment figures in Europe and elsewhere. We just don't need vast numbers of people to sustain an economy any longer. Yes, we've got mass consumption but it's now mass over consumption. People don't need half the stuff they buy. Christ sake, look at the bloody shopping trolleys coming out of Tesco. They pack the stuff into the boots of their oversized cars, unpack it in their oversized homes, eat half of it and then throw the garbage and packaging away. Mass production is done by computerised machines unless local labour is still cheap. And as for all the hard, physical work like construction, building roads and canals that was once done by hundreds of labourers it's now done by machines.

  "Just look at your favourite place, Thailand, Daniel. How many Thai farmers now use buffalos and hand plant their rice and hand harvest it. They don't. They sit and watch a man with a machine. Meanwhile, as the population increases they gradually use up more and more land space to house a growing population. The space to grow rice gets less or they start encroaching on the jungle.

  "Malthus saw this happening two hundred years ago. No-one was unemployed once. You needed to do something just to stay alive. But the millions of unemployed or underemployed able bodied people should not need be kept alive by state handouts. For one thing it does nothing for their self esteem or quality of their lives. It merely keeps them alive. Quality of life comes from being a contributor. If an economy was working properly there would be jobs for everyone. Everyone would contribute and contribution is the bedrock of human contentment. We have the ability to control birth rates, maintain populations at sensible, viable levels and provide enough jobs to share around. So why not use it? But can you name one single politician who states the bloody obvious?

  "Meanwhile, while we wait, look at poor old Malta - that tiny little patch of rock stuck out in the Mediterranean is sinking under the sheer weight of economic immigrants. And what does the EU say about it? 'Stop complaining - it's their human right to come and stay.' 'But we don't have the space or the resources,' say the Maltese. 'Never mind,' say the big fat EU Judges sat in their robes and high chairs. 'Just pile them up one on top of the other behind barbed wire fences - that'll satisfy their human rights.'"

  How Kevin manages to avoid his passionate opinion spilling over into the lectures he gives his students I don't know. He must have continued his lecture to the small group sat in my London flat for twenty minutes or more. He ended with more statistics and yet another of his strong arguments.

  This one was about the human population expected to peak at 11 billion or so in a hundred years and about another of his fellow academics whose presentational style and opinions he was firmly against. The influential and convincing Swedish Professor Hans Rosling was well known for brilliantly presenting complicated statistics. But his facts about population seemed to suggest there was nothing to worry about. According to Kevin, this was Rosling's deep flaw. Rosling always failed to factor in resource depletion, environmental degradation and climate change.

  "Even the Global Footprint Network and WWF knows that humans already consume resources at a rate 50% higher than can be produced sustainably," said Kevin. "Living standards are already going down in the West. Belt tightening is the message from politicians struggling to cope with ever increasing demand for services with less and less resources. We are already seeing the early signs of less affluent lifestyles. Nothing angers people more than taking away what they think are their God given rights. They'll blame politicians and take things into their own hands. Mark my words - we've not seen anything yet.

  "And don't expect technology to come to the rescue. The green lobby want wider use of green technology for fuel power and power generation but they are pissing into the wind. Nothing that satisfies them will keep up with the insatiable demand for more and more electricity and that demand is now coming from places like Africa, China and India. It's not just Europe or America,"

  All of us, myself included, agreed with Kevin but we also agreed with the other side of his argument - that decisions about what to do could not be made by individuals like David Solomon or Mohamed Kader with support and financial backing from a criminal like Greg O'Brian. But, as Kevin also said, this is what happens when politicians fail to provide the leadership we expect.

  But Kevin concluded by saying something I will never forget.

  "The green lobby are a spent force," he said. "They will never win their battle by attacking big corporations and talking about carbon emissions. They should urgently get to the root cause of their grievances and change their focus to what the Malthus Society has been advocating for years - direct action on population control."

  I think Kevin should be given a wider role with an organisation promoting population control. But does one exist, other than his own Malthus Society?

  The plane landed at Jomo Kenyatta Airport exactly on schedule and I was in a queue for immigration ready to hand over a passport that said David John Franklin, Company Director, on the inside page. So the serious looking photograph on the inside was a good match with the serious looking face of the man in the queue. On the outside I didn't appear to be smiling, but inside I was thinking about Anna and smiling. The quicker I could get back to London the better.

  Still occupied by my own thoughts, I hardly heard the Kenyan Immigration officer handing back my passport and smiling "Have a nice stay."

  "Mr David!"

  I did, though, hear the shout from somewhere as I emerged into the arrivals hall. Deep in thought and forgetting momentarily that I was David Franklin, I ignored it. But then I heard it again. Jimmy Banda was walking, if nor running, towards me. Tall, lanky, just like the athletes, Jimmy had a broad smile across his face and his hand was outstretched.

  "Good flight, Mr Franklin? Did you see our Olympic athletes? Not raining today. Sunny. Booked you at the Best Western where you stayed last time. Not that you'll get to sleep much, we're going out tonight." Jimmy looked around him. There was no-one within several metres but he still whispered, "Surveillance operation. Still got the keys. How's Colin? Ah, yes, you've not seen him. How's Cairo?"

  I had no wish to quell Jimmy's unique energy and enthusiasm. The priority now was a serious face to face chat with him to explain more about the investigation, how it had started, where it had led and how difficult it was going to be to actually do anything with what we had found.

  We were sitting in my hotel room and I wasted no time in telling Jimmy I wanted a serious talk and no discussion, at least for now, of Jimmy's plans for yet another night-time raid on the Shah Medicals site.

  "It's difficult to know what we can do with our evidence, Jimmy. I am beginning to think it may be impossible to do something without some sort if international co-operation. And who is going to drive that co-operation? How many cases can you point to where there has been an instant international response to a problem on this scale? It can take months, if not years to organise debates of this magnitude. And then we'd need decisions on specific action. And how many times over the years have you seen nations coming together and actually agreeing unanimously on anything? Politics will raise its ugly head. National security matters would need to be put aside and there would be the usual pushing and shoving for the right to lead. I can't see it happening quickly. Neither can Colin or Kevin and neither can Larry who's currently in Washington trying to get someone to sit up and take notice.

  "The least that could be done is for virtually every country to agree to a system of urgent inspection of suspected businesses and individuals. But who should be suspected? We have our own small list of possible candidates but the chances are that there might be hundreds, if not thousands more out there.

  "So we are faced with a problem that has never been properly discussed in the past. But we are proving it is possible and that it is happening under the noses of governments despite all their highly sophisticated surveillance technology. The closest comparison to what we have uncovered is to imagine hundreds of individual cells of terrorists
- individuals not on any current databases held by the security agencies - individuals who could operate from home or small businesses hidden within communities. But they would be armed with sophisticated biological weapons just like the tiny metal canisters you found."

  Jimmy had sat throughout with one long leg resting on the coffee table that separated us. He had said nothing until:

  "Why Kenya? Why Nairobi?"

  It was a good question but I threw it back at him.

  "Why not? It's a great centre for the sort of terrorism being orchestrated. It's a big and sophisticated city with good communications. It has plenty of traffic going through - tourists, individuals, business people. Because you have already seen terrorism here, it is now as secure as somewhere like London or New York. It has good links with the rest of Africa - Nigeria, West Africa, South Africa, North Africa where the population control freaks might be looking to go first. Unlike Kano in northern Nigeria, international flights come in here from right across the globe. And Nairobi is not the place that first comes to mind as the sort of city associated with this sort of plot. For what my opinion is worth, I'd say that whoever decided on Nairobi as the centre was being very astute."

  Jimmy nodded. I had just quelled all the enthusiasm he had started the day with.

  "So," Jimmy said, "Shall we talk to the Government? The Minister for Trade?"

  As I look back now, perhaps we should have gone straight to the Kenyan Government. I think now that it was a mistake not to. But hindsight is a useless tool. Instead I went for 'nothing ventured nothing gained' in the belief that the more evidence we had, the stronger our case would be.

  I have to live with that mistake.

  So, in reply to Jimmy's question, I said, "Yes. But we'll need to be very careful and diplomatic. It would be very easy to appear alarmist. And don't forget, Jimmy, that a lot of the evidence about Shah Medicals, Nairobi has come from you breaking and entering their premises in the middle of the night and posing as a cleaner. We'd need to present the Minister with a much bigger picture and so we'd need a properly organised and well prepared hearing. I wouldn't want a five minute drilling on government trade policy and tourism."

  I stood up and went to look out of the hotel window, down into the road below and east towards the Kenyatta Hospital where Philippe Fournier had said he'd worked.

  "My name's not really David Franklin," I said. "It's Daniel Capelli."

  Jimmy removed the foot that had been on the coffee table and put both feet neatly on the floor side by side.

  "It's the sort of work I do, Jimmy. Sometimes it can get a bit fraught. Aliases help preserve my independence and don't leave a trail. Colin keeps track of me. But I need to settle down. I've lived out of that suitcase for too long." I pointed at the black bag propped in the corner by the TV. "Ideally I think I'd work out of London or Bangkok and cut down on the travelling if I can. But I want to see this one through first." I then added, "You've done brilliantly, Jimmy."

  Looking back I'm so glad I said that and I know Jimmy liked it.

  He suddenly sat up much straighter in his chair with his hands on the armrests. I smiled at him. "Let's try just one more of your night-time safaris shall we? I need to see the Shah Medicals stuff with my own eyes. Then we'll decide how to deal with your Minister."

  But I could sense that Jimmy now wanted to say something. Not surprisingly, he probably had a lot to ask. He rubbed his chin and opened his mouth ready to speak but, as he did so, my phone rang. It was Colin.

  "I'm with Jimmy," I said after Colin had asked where I was. "We're going on a night safari tonight. Then we'll try to see the Kenyan Minister of Trade. Then, if all goes well, I'm coming home."

  "There are things you need to know urgently Daniel. Listen to me.

  "First, news from Kevin. His Nigerian friend, Tunje Fayinka, had a phone call. It was from a man who Tunje said sounded Arab but wasn't Mohamed El Badry. He said his name was Ramses. Would Tunje like to meet him in London tomorrow night? The Nigerian project that had been discussed with him before was now ready to launch. People were already in place elsewhere. Would Tunje like to help co-ordinate the Nigerian end? Big fee offered - five thousand pounds mentioned and flight paid to Lagos. Question. Was he up for it?"

  "Is he going?" I asked already suspecting that this might the Ramses El Khoury from the Cairo Shah Medical Centre.

  "He asked Kevin what he should do. Kevin spoke to me. I suggested he go along, check it out. That's what he's planning to do I think."

  "It's just as I thought, Colin, we're rapidly running out of time."

  "Agreed. Now the next thing. Following your suggestion, Anna has been helping track down David Solomon."

  I smiled to myself. "And?"

  "We are almost one hundred percent certain we know where he is."

  "Thailand?"

  "Yes, and your tip off about the girlfriend Pim was spot on. We tracked her down to the University. After I'd explained to Anna what we needed to know, Anna phoned her with some made up story that she was in England - true of course - and was trying to contact a fictitious woman called On who worked at the University.

  "And?"

  "You know what women are like, Dan. They talked and talked. Upshot was that after Anna told her she had an English husband, Pim seemed to want to share the fact that she too had an English boyfriend - such a co-incidence - laugh, laugh - and what does your husband do and where do you live and this and that. My phone bill soared, Dan, but it was worth it just to sit and listen. Prompted by me, Anna's story was that her husband was called David. They lived in Bristol and David was a lecturer in Economics at Bristol University - a University, another amazing co-incidence, natter natter, natter - are you getting the strategy here, Dan?

  "That's Anna," said Daniel. "Once she starts there's no stopping her. But thanks for deciding not to call me Kevin. I've never seen myself as a Kevin. Go on."

  "David was very handsome and they had a very nice apartment but David spent a lot of his time talking to the government about the effects of immigration on the economy and so on and so on.

  "Well, what a surprise - another co-incidence - Pim's boyfriend was also called David and he also talked about immigration and population but that was not David's main job. David was a very clever - and of course very handsome - virologist from Boston in America and David was an adviser to a Virology Research Unit in Thailand. Pim was a lecturer in microbiology but viruses were not really her speciality. But David was an expert - so expert in fact that he had his own laboratory. But Pim didn't know where the laboratory was although Anna pushed her so hard it was almost embarrassing. So, are we getting closer, Daniel?"

  "Yes," I agreed, "But I also think it's getting more complicated. My original idea of where this virus might be located was either Cairo or Nairobi. Perhaps it's Bangkok."

  But there is only one laboratory in Thailand that fully matches the description," said Colin, "And it's not in Bangkok. It's the one that Larry identified and you already have the details. But what do you want to do, now?"

  "Normally, I think I'd probably head back to Bangkok. But besides everything else I've got another Thai commitment already waiting in London."