by S Venkatesh
The third attribute is treatability: whether the disease is difficult, or impossible, to treat, especially at short notice, and whether there are any vaccines available.
The fourth attribute is scalability. This means that the pathogen underlying the bio weapon should be suitable for mass production, storage and weaponisation. This would determine the level to which it can cause mass destruction.
The professor went on to note that most known bio weapons’ agents meet only two or three of the attributes of what he called the Four Horsemen.
Anthrax has high virulence; it is often fatal and can be effectively delivered against a target. But it has a limitation of not being contagious.
The plague, which was a big killer in medieval times, is now controllable by using insecticides to kill fleas, which are the transmitting carriers, and is treatable using antibiotics if detected early. So, it did not meet the third attribute.
The dreaded Ebola virus is high on virulence—the ability to harm, even kill, the host; and it does not have a documented cure. However, infection from one human to another requires physical touch, so it is difficult to use for mass destruction.
The file ‘Notes’ also contained a list of items at the end that Professor Bavdekar needed to follow up on. The last item in the list sent shivers down Sam’s spine.
It said ‘Reminder: ask Ananya for introduction to Professor Hudson’.
What did Ananya and Professor Hudson have to do with biological weapons? What kind of stuff had she gotten mixed up in?
***
Sam waited with bated breath as Damini opened the second file, called ‘Discussions with Prof. Hudson’.
Background to the meeting: used Ananya’s contacts in the NGO world to get an introduction to Prof. Hudson. He is one of the few experts who openly profess to know about biological warfare, while the rest of the scientists mostly work for covert government programmes. He exposed weapons programmes in the Soviet Union (in the 1980s), the US and, more recently, Syria.
Sam paused for a second. At least he was now beginning to know how Ananya fit into the whole thing.
Objective of the meeting: to understand KaalKoot. What sort of pathogen might have been involved in the second leg of the Imperial Guard plot mentioned in the verses?
Sam and Damini stared at each other, intrigued. So the Imperial Guard plot had a second leg, probably using pathogens. And mentioned in some ‘verses’. And then there was KaalKoot again. This was getting interesting. And crazy.
After much prodding, Hudson revealed some information that he had received from one of his contacts deep in the CIA; information that was apparently so heavily classified that it would be impossible to verify independently.
He talked about a secret US project called ‘Project Darkworm’, which was rumoured to have conducted extensive research on bio weapons. This project was supposedly after the ultimate bio weapon, a pathogen that could achieve all four attributes of an effective bioweapon—the ‘Four Horsemen’, as I called them.
There were murmurings that they had actually achieved some measure of success in finding the ultimate bio weapon. It was a toxin, code-named Toxin Z, produced by a pathogen, code-named Pathogen Z.
Damini let out a low whistle.
Was there any clue about the identity of Pathogen Z and Toxin Z? Hudson hazarded a guess.
The prime suspect would be the most poisonous substance known to mankind—the dreaded botulinum toxin—responsible for a disease called botulism. This toxin is produced by a bacterium named Clostridium Botulinum, or C.botulinum. According to a paper prepared by a Working Group on Civilian Biodefense and published in The Journal of the American Medical Association in 2001, a single gram of this toxin, evenly dispersed and inhaled, would kill more than one million people.
So theoretically, a few kilograms could wipe out the earth’s population, subject to effective dissemination. Not surprisingly, covert programmes of many countries have focused on harnessing the deadly power of the botulinum toxin. But they have all met with technical limitations in weaponising it. Is it possible that Project Darkworm somehow found a way around these limitations, maybe by developing a genetically modified variant of the bacterium?
Damini and Sam continued reading pensively.
Pathogen Z, and probably Toxin Z, could apparently be transmitted through air, enabling it to be delivered effectively at a gigantic scale. This possibility for airborne infection, along with its virulence, and resistance to treatment and scalability, could make it potentially the most lethal pathogen known to man; more lethal than existing versions of the botulinum toxin.
Without an antidote, such a bio weapon would be potentially disastrous because it could annihilate not only the enemy but also the US itself. If and when fully developed, it could indeed be a weapon of mass destruction, maybe even a weapon of ultimate annihilation of the world.
Rumour has it that Project Darkworm was disbanded just after Obama’s election in 2008.
Sam’s eyes widened. This was serious stuff.
The next sentence was in bold letters.
HERE COMES THE SHOCKER
When I described the symptoms of KaalKoot mentioned in the verses, Hudson said they are strikingly similar to the symptoms said to have been noticed in the testing of Toxin Z!
Drooping eyelids, double vision, loss of control over facial muscles, weakness and loss of sensation in the arms, skin on the arms turning purple, laboured breathing, and difficulty talking and swallowing. The affected person progressively becomes paralysed and turns fearful, then delusional and finally dies a torturous death. The symptoms matched to a tee.
Could it be that KaalKoot is the same as Toxin Z, and that Manohar and the Yogyaveer had stumbled upon it, even as the Imperial Guard were close on their heels, searching for it? The scientist in me is fascinated with the thought, even as the humanist in me is terrified.
Damini had begun pacing up and down the small room. This was the type of challenge that she lived for.
Bavdekar was on to bio weapons, and he was missing. Hudson had clearly caught on to something, and he wound up dead. The third, a nutty professor, was in the next room at the safe house. And they were all on the trail of something that could apparently unleash destruction on a gigantic scale.
KaalKoot. The mythical plague that could destroy all of creation.
Botulinum toxin. A few kilograms of which could wipe out the earth’s population.
Toxin Z. Probably an even more lethal variant of the botulinum toxin.
And somehow a bunch of professors were mixed up in all this.
They needed to talk to Bani. Now.
CHAPTER 22
ACG safe house, Goa, Tuesday, 2.15 a.m.
Bani bit his lip as he faced a belligerent Sam and a stern Damini. So they had gotten to know about KaalKoot, and the second leg of the Imperial Guard plot. Unlike with Mukhshuddi, he could not fib his way out this time.
Maybe he could play this to his advantage. Maybe he could sound cooperative and reveal just enough to make them co-opt him. That was still his best bet to find Bavdekar.
‘All right, all right; I’ll fill you guys in,’ he said, palms open defensively.
‘How very kind of you,’ Sam snorted, settling into a chair.
Bani took a deep breath as he started. ‘For many centuries, going right back up to medieval times, a terrible legend has been doing the rounds among the locals in the upper reaches of the Himalayas. About the most lethal poison ever known to mankind.’
‘KaalKoot,’ Sam said slowly.
Bani nodded. ‘Kaalkoot. Named after the mythical poison that was unearthed during the Samudra Manthan, the churning of the cosmic ocean, mentioned in the Puranas. The legend among the locals is that any person who even inhales the air around an infected person develops a series of violent symptoms and dies within hours.’
Damini quoted from Shrikant Bavdekar’s file. ‘Drooping eyelids, double vision, loss of control over facial muscles, weakness and loss of sensation
in the arms, skin on the arms turning purple, laboured breathing, and difficulty talking and swallowing. The affected person progressively gets paralysed and turns fearful, then delusional and finally dies a torturous death.
Bani nodded again. ‘Professor Bavdekar and I had heard the legends but there was nothing documented, so it did not fall in the radar of government authorities and was not mentioned in any records. And then during Steve’s travels, he did come across a few ravaged villages with not a single soul alive, and we started wondering whether the legends might be true.’
He continued: ‘Professor Bavdekar put together the legends and concluded that that the toxin—KaalKoot—was probably produced by a bacterium which thrived in the low-oxygen environment of the upper Himalayas. The bacterium, or its dormant spores, might have been transmitted to humans by the bite of a certain type of tick, possibly belonging to the Ixodidae family, which might exist in the upper Himalayas.’
‘Ticks?!’ Sam exclaimed. ‘They seem like harmless insects.’
‘Ticks are technically arachnids, like spiders, not insects,’ Bani snorted. ‘And they are far from harmless. For instance, Lyme Disease, caused by a bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi and transmitted by a tick bite, is quite common.’
‘Anyway,’ Bani continued, ‘when a human was bitten by this Ixodidae tick in the upper Himalayas, he would carry the bacterium, possibly in the form of dormant spores, back to the village. While the bacteria were largely dormant at very high altitudes, something dangerous would happen to them if the temperature became even marginally warmer.’
‘And that was. . .?’ Damini asked.
‘The spores, which were harmless in themselves, would germinate into active bacteria, start to multiply rapidly and produce the deadly KaalKoot toxin. As the infected person breathed or sneezed, the pathogen would get aerosolised and get lifted up into the air inside tiny droplets or even dust. It would then spread through the airborne route, and infect anybody who inhaled this mist. A single infected person would be enough to infect his family, and through air currents, the entire village. Villagers still talk about KaalKoot in hushed tones, almost as if mouthing the word itself might invite the pestilence to their homes.’
‘What’s all this got to do with the Imperial Guard and the second leg of their plot?’ Sam butted in.
Bani ignored him. ‘In the nineteenth century, the British Regent in the court of the king of Nepal, Brian Houghton Hodgson, who was also an avid naturalist, heard about these legends, and took it on himself to investigate. He even documented a few insects or ticks which might be the carriers of the bacterium which produced the toxin KaalKoot.’
‘Many decades later, in the 1940s, some members of the Imperial Guard seem to have gotten hold of some of Brian Hodgson’s papers, and they realised that this tick and therefore KaalKoot, if discovered, could be a valuable tool for their unholy ends,’ Bani said.
‘How so?’ Damini asked, skeptical.
‘Because an airborne pathogen can literally spread like wildfire. It can kill people in the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. If discovered, Britain could have used it in their fight against the Nazis. And certain sections of the Imperial Guard felt that it could be used to accomplish something else.’
‘What was that?’ Sam asked, his curiosity overtaking his scepticism.
‘To leave a “parting gift” for the Indians,’ Bani sniggered. ‘KaalKoot would fit in neatly with the Imperial Guard’s intent to wreck India before the Empire left. The “Scorched Earth” policy. If they could not hold on to India, the Imperial Guard would reduce it to rubble before they left.’
Sam nodded, slowly comprehending.
‘The first leg of the Imperial Guard plot—to destroy or desecrate iconic symbols of Indian civilisation—was somewhat metaphorical, aimed to strike at the country’s pride. Testing KaalKoot on Indian territory, on the other hand, would be a real, deathly blow. It would leave the fledgling nation tottering on its knees, without leaving a clue about who had unleashed it. The trail of mass destruction would be impossible to erase for generations to come.’
Damini let out a groan, shocked. ‘Would the British have sanctioned such a dastardly attack against the Indians?’
‘Well, in a different context, Churchill is on record that he was “in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes”. He said that “it would spread a lively terror”. While we do not have any evidence of Churchill being a member of the Imperial Guard, it is conceivable that the Imperial Guard might have gone ahead with their plans irrespective of government sanction,’ Bani explained.
‘How real was this plot? And how did you get to know about it?’ Damini questioned.
Bani inhaled slightly. He would have to be careful now.
‘Manohar seemed to fear that it was real. He and the Yogyaveer apparently visited multiple villages ravaged by KaalKoot, trying to find out more. And the Imperial Guard was close on their heels.’
‘Did the Imperial Guard actually succeed in finding KaalKoot?’ Sam asked.
‘Obviously not, Einstein,’ Bani snorted. ‘If they did, they would have used it against the Nazis, right?’
‘You still haven’t answered how you got to know all of this stuff. It wasn’t in the publicly available information in your papers,’ Damini prodded.
Bani’s face went pale for a second. His more recent discovery— the scroll that contained the verses—was known only to Steve and Bavdekar. Was there any way Damini had gotten to know about it?
But he recovered and played along. ‘From another letter of Manohar’s that I discovered. It is not in the public domain.’
Damini had noticed the momentary draining of colour from Bani’s face. What was he hiding?
‘What were these “verses” that Bavdekar referred to in his notes?’
Bani’s heart skipped a beat as he answered. ‘Manohar’s letter was in the form of verses, that’s all.’
***
Sam and Damini were back in the other room.
‘The bastard is evading again,’ Sam says. ‘We now need to up the ante with him.’
Damini frowned. Bani did not seem the kind of guy with whom upping the ante was likely to have the desired effect. He was more the kind who might reveal things if put at ease.
‘Is there somebody who can tell us more about this Project Darkworm?’ Sam asked.
‘There is,’ Damini said tersely. ‘But I am not sure I want to call him.’
***
Damini sighed as her memory went back to the events of two years ago.
She had first met Bob on an Interpol anti-terrorism exercise. He was a data mining specialist with the CIA—a tall, wiry guy; brilliant and witty, while also being nerdy. He had a certain offbeat kind of handsomeness and intensity, and that had attracted her.
Hacking was Bob’s passion. During their tenure in Lyon, he had hacked with equal ease into the French intelligence network, into the records of the torrid deliberations of the European Central Bank in the months following the Lehman crisis, and into private videos of an English soccer league team having group sex following a home win.
If there was somebody who could tell her about Project Darkworm, it was Bob.
Damini frowned as she realised she would have to call him.
She had always known that their relationship would never work out. They were too far apart—she with the ACG, and he with the CIA. A life together was inconceivable. Yet, at a personal level, they were alike—creatures of the shadows, haters of mundaneness and conformism.
They were, to quote the Mahabharata, like logs of wood in a stream, destined to travel together for some distance, and then be separated when the time came.
With a sigh, she picked up her phone and switched on an encryption app. She could not risk Kunal, or the Chief, getting to know that she had contacted an external agency.
***
Tuesday, 2.55 a.m.
Bob called back within ten minutes with details on Project
Darkworm.
It was a biological weapons’ programme started around fifteen years ago. It was so deeply classified that no official records existed. It was not even clear whether the project had the sanction of the CIA top brass, or whether it was spearheaded by a bunch of rogue elements within the CIA. Bob had managed to get the information from a source deep inside the CIA.
This project was led by a mysterious guy of Eastern European origin, known in rarified intelligence circles as the Doc. In his early days in Europe, this man was apparently known as the ‘Maestro’. But there were no records of the Maestro, not even of his name.
The rest of what Bob said rhymed with what Hudson had said: that it was rumoured that this group apparently had found some measure of success in finding the ultimate bio weapon, code-named Toxin Z, produced by a bacterium, Pathogen Z.
‘However,’ Bob said, ‘they could not find an antidote to the pathogen. Without the antidote, the weapon cannot be effectively deployed because the pathogen can spin out of control and devour even those who unleash it.’
Bob continued: ‘Now for the interesting part.’
‘Huh?’
‘All the key guys associated with Project Darkworm are now dead. One guy had a heart attack. The main guy—this guy they called the Doc or the Maestro—died in a bomb blast. One guy went mad, was lodged in an asylum and committed suicide, and another guy died in a car accident.’
***
Tuesday, 3 a.m.
Bob continued: ‘Most details relating to these guys have been wiped out. Social security numbers, insurance details, police files, everything. It’s almost like these guys never existed.’
‘Then I suppose it would be too much to ask for some more info on this Maestro guy?’ Damini asked, tentatively.
Damini’s question tickled Bob at that precise place in his psyche where curiosity, masculinity and self-worth intersected.
‘Give me some time,’ he replied.
***
3.30 a.m.
Bob called back in half-an-hour. Damini put him on the speaker phone so that Sam could listen in.
‘I have a photo of the Maestro.’