THOMAS SAGGED on the couch, looking peaceful and sad at the same time, Kara thought. But behind his closed eyes, only God knew what was really happening. He’d been sleeping two hours, but if she was right, two hours could be two days in the colored forest, assuming he didn’t sleep there.
Amazing. If only there was a way for him to bring Rachelle back with him. Or for her to go with Thomas.
The bustle of security and secretaries and white-coated lab technicians had eased for the moment, leaving them alone in the large room they were coming to think of as their situation room.
Six hours had passed since Raison had ordered the tests. And still no answer. No definitive answer, anyway. There’d been a ruckus just after Thomas had fallen asleep, when Peter had barged into the situation room, mumbling incoherently. Peter turned on his heels and hurried into Raison’s office, white smock flying behind.
But when Kara ran in, Raison insisted the results weren’t conclusive. Even mixed. They had to be sure. Absolutely positive. Another test.
She glanced at her watch. If she didn’t wake him soon, he wouldn’t sleep well tonight, when he might very well need to. She shook him gently.
“Thomas?”
He bolted up. “Tanis!”
Thomas’s eyes jerked about the room. He yelled the name of the firstborn from the colored forest. “Tanis!”
“You’re in Bangkok, Thomas,” Kara said.
He looked at her, closed his eyes, and dropped his head. “Man. Man, oh man, that was bad.”
“What happened?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure. I went into the black forest.”
“And? Did you learn anything?”
“There’s no ship. He’s black! Teeleh is—” He swallowed.
Kara rubbed his back. “Easy. It’s okay. You’re here now.”
He quickly reoriented himself.
“Did you learn anything about the Raison Strain?”
“No . . . he wouldn’t tell me. I . . .” Thomas gripped his head, and she saw that his hands were trembling. “Crazy. It was crazy, Kara.”
She put her arm around him and pulled him close. “You’re okay, Thomas. Easy.”
He looked up. “Did anything happen?”
“Nothing positive. They’re still testing.”
Thomas sighed and sat back into the couch. Kara stood and paced the carpet, thinking. “You sure you’re okay? I’ve never seen you wake this upset.”
“I’m fine,” he said, but he wasn’t fine.
“Maybe we should bring in a psychologist,” Kara said. “Maybe there’s more of a connection to your dreams than we’re understanding. Or maybe there’s a way to control them more. Give you suggestions while you’re sleeping or something.”
“No. The last thing I want is a shrink crawling around in this crazy mind of mine. The fact is, they have the Raison Strain by now, and I know Teeleh will never tell me what we need to know. It’s hopeless.”
“And is it hopeless there as well?”
“Where?”
“In the colored forest?”
He stood abruptly, gaze lost. He walked to the window and peered out.
He’s fried to the bone.
“I don’t know,” Thomas said. He faced her. “If I don’t get back, it might be! Something’s happening to Tanis. If he crosses . . .” Thomas hurried over to her. “I have to get back, Kara. You have to help me get back!”
“You just woke up! We need you here. And you’re asleep there right now, right?”
“I’m unconscious there,” he said.
“You’ll wake when you wake. It doesn’t matter how long you’re awake here. The times don’t correlate, remember? For all you know, someone could be kneeling over you right now, waking you. You can’t control that. What you can control is how long you stay awake here. We need you to be awake now. We need your mind here. The results from the tests will be coming down any minute.”
He thought about it and then nodded. They sat on the couch, side by side.
“You’re sure that you can’t get any more information from the black forest?”
“I’m sure.”
“And Rachelle wasn’t helpful?”
“No.”
“Then what do we have left?”
He frowned in thought. “Monique. I think there’s something about Monique. We need to find her. Maybe there’s something else I can do in the colored forest to find her.”
“I think you’re right; she’s the key.”
“I had her, Kara. She was right there in my arms. I could have thrown her over my shoulders and made it. At the very least, I should have stayed.”
“You had Monique in your arms?”
“She kissed me; that was her distraction while she told me about Svensson and the virus. But that’s not the point.”
“Maybe it is the point,” Kara said. “You obviously have a thing for her, and you hardly know her.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Maybe not. Any other time, maybe. But right now it makes sense.” She stood from the couch. “All this talk of rescuing Rachelle, while at the same time Monique is in desperate need of exactly that. And maybe the connection is even stronger. Maybe you’re right. Maybe you have to rescue Monique. Maybe it’s not a matter of stopping Svensson, but rescuing Monique. Maybe your dreams are telling you that. Why else are you falling in love with her?”
He started to object but thought better of it.
“I mean, from everything I’ve heard, stopping someone from spreading a virus is almost impossible anyway. Fine, let the authorities do that.”
“Great, and Thomas goes after Monique. No need for professionals, CIA, Rangers, SWAT teams. No fear, Thomas is here.”
“You managed pretty well this morning,” Kara said.
He turned back to the window, hands on hips. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Yes, you can,” Kara said. “And for all we know, it’s just starting. Maybe you need a few new skills.”
He didn’t answer.
“I’m serious, Thomas. Look at you. You don’t die; you don’t fight like any man I’ve seen. You—”
“Trust me, that guy could break my neck with one kick. Fact is, he did kill me. Twice.”
“You don’t sound very dead to me. Listening to you on the phone, you’re sounding anything but dead these days. You’re even turning into a bit of a romantic. Stop being so stubborn about this. I’m just supporting you.”
He took a deep breath. “I’m just Thomas, Kara. I didn’t ask for this. I don’t want to do this. I’m tired, and I feel like a wet rag.” He suddenly looked like he was on the verge of tears.
Kara walked up to him and put an arm around his waist. He lowered his head on her shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Thomas. I don’t know what else to say. Other than I love you. You’re right, you’re just Thomas. But I have a feeling Thomas is a much bigger person than anyone, including myself, can possibly guess. I think we’ve all just seen the beginning.”
The door flew open to their right. Jacques de Raison stepped in, face blank.
“So?” Thomas said. “You have it?”
“Monique’s right. You’re right. The vaccine mutates at 179.47 degrees. As far as we can tell, the resulting virus is extremely contagious and very probably quite lethal.”
“What a surprise,” Thomas said.
Valborg Svensson wore a soft smirk that refused to budge from his face. In his right hand he held a sealed vial of yellow fluid that diffused the glare of an overhead spotlight. His left hand rested on his lap, quivering slightly. He squeezed his fingers together.
“Who would ever have guessed?” he said. “History changed because of a few drops of such an innocuous-looking yellow liquid and one man who had the stomach to use it.”
Eight technicians milled in the lab below, talking, stealing furtive glances up at the window behind which he sat. Mathews, Sestanovich, Burton, Myles . . . the list went on. Some of the world’s most accomplished and, as of late, highest-paid virologists. They had sold their souls for his cause. All in the name of science, of course. With a little misdirection from him. They were simply developing lethal viruses for the sake of antiviruses. How many of them truly believed what they were doing was so innocuous, Svensson didn’t care. The fact was, they all took his money. More important, they all understood the price of compromising confidentiality.
“Bring her up,” he said.
Carlos left without a word.
How many billions had he invested in this venture? Too many to count offhand. They meticulously explored the most advanced science, and yet, in the end, it came down to a vaccine and a bit of luck.
Svensson knew the history of biowarfare well enough to recite in his sleep.
1346: Tartars send soldiers infected with the plague over the wall in the siege of Caffa on the Black Sea.
1422: Attacking forces launch decaying cadavers over castle walls in Bohemia.
American Revolution: British forces expose civilians to smallpox in Quebec and Boston. The Boston attempt fails; the one in Quebec ravages the Continental Army.
World War I: Germans target livestock being shipped into Allied countries. Overall impact on war: negligible.
World War II: Unit 731 of the Imperial Japanese Army directs biowar-fare on a massive scale against China. As many as ten thousand die in Manchuria in 1936. In 1940, bags of plague-infected fleas are dropped over the cities of Ningbo and Quzhou. By the end of the war, the Americans and the Soviets have developed significant bioweapons programs.
Cold War: Both the United States and the Soviet Union bioweapons programs reach new heights, exploring the use of hundreds of bacteria, viruses, and biological toxins. In 1972, more than one hundred nations sign the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, banning production of biological weapons. There is no enforcement. In 1989, Vladimir Pasechnik defects to Britain and tells of the Soviets’ genetically altered superplague, an antibiotic-resistant inhalation anthrax. The Soviet program employs thousands of specialists, many who scatter when the Soviet Union crumbles. Some of these specialists take up residence in Iraq. Others take up residence in the Swiss Alps, under the thumb of Valborg Svensson.
Dawn of the twenty-first century: The first truly successful use of any biological weapon is unleashed. The Raison Strain redefines modern power structures.
The last wasn’t yet a matter of history, of course. But the vial in Svensson’s hand said it would be soon. In reality, biological weapons were still in their infancy, unlike nuclear weapons. Anyone who understood this also understood that whoever won the unspoken race to perfect the right bioweapon would wield more power than any man who had ever preceded him. Period.
The door opened and Carlos marched a disheveled Monique de Raison forward.
“Sit,” Svensson said.
She sat with a little encouragement from Carlos.
“Do you know what would happen if I dropped this vial?” Svensson asked. He didn’t expect an answer. “Nothing for three weeks, if your friend is right. And I will say that our people think he very well may be. He was right about the virus, why not about the incubation period?”
Still no reaction. She believed this much already.
“If you only knew the trouble we’ve accepted over numerous years to be in this position today. Monoclonal antibody research, gene probes, combinatorial chemistry, genetic engineering—we’ve scoured every corner of Earth for the right breakthrough.”
Her eyes remained on the vial.
“And today I have that breakthrough. The Raison Strain—it has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? What I need now is the antivirus, or an antidote. There are two ways I can proceed with this task. One: I can have my people work on the numbers we already have. They will eventually develop precisely what I need. Or, two: I can persuade you to develop what I need. You know more about these genes than anyone alive. Either way, I will have an antivirus. But I rather prefer a quick solution to one that drags out for days or weeks or months, don’t you?”
“You honestly think I would lift a finger to help you with any part of this . . . this insanity?” She had the look of someone who was seriously considering an assault. If her hands weren’t bound, she might have tried. Her spirit was entirely noble.
“You already have,” he said. “You’ve created the vaccine, and you’ve provided more research than I could have hoped for. Now it’s time to help us with the cure. A cure doesn’t interest you, Monique?”
“Without the antivirus, you have nothing.”
“Not true,” Svensson said. “I have the virus. And I will use it. Either way.”
“Then throw it on the floor now,” she said evenly. “We’ll die together.”
He smiled. “Don’t tempt me. But I won’t, because I know that you will help us. If nothing else, the fact that this virus now exists will force your hand. Every day that passes without a way to protect the world’s population against this disease is a day closer to your torment.”
“You think my father isn’t already working on an antivirus?”
“But how long will it take him? Months, best case. I, on the other hand, have some idea where to begin. I’m confident we can do it in a week. With your help, of course.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
She would change her mind within twenty-four hours.
“I’ll give you twelve hours to change your mind on your own. Then I will change it for you.”
She didn’t react.
“No more word, Carlos?”
“None.”
The first call from the authorities had come two hours ago. A courtesy call from his own government, requesting an interview of the highest priority. It meant that they suspected him already. Fascinating. It was Thomas Hunter, of course. The dreamer. Carlos had said he’d killed the man in the hotel room, but the media said differently. Carlos either had lied deliberately or, more likely, had been bested by this man. It was something he would keep in mind.
The authorities didn’t have enough for a search warrant. He’d granted them their interview, but not for two more days. By then it wouldn’t matter.
“Everything is ready?”
“Yes.”
“Then I will handle the next move. I want you to eliminate the American.”
He watched Carlos. Not a flinch, just a steady gaze. “I shot the American twice. You’re saying that he’s not dead?”
The woman glanced up at Carlos. She, too, knew something.
“He’s alive enough to be in the news. He’s also the source of the antivirus. I want him dead at all costs.”
Monique turned to him. “Are you aware that your right-hand man is lying to you? One of the men who came for me outside Bangkok was Thomas Hunter. Carlos knows that. Why is he hiding this from you?”
“Thomas Hunter?” Carlos looked at the woman with some surprise. “I don’t think that’s possible. He may not be dead, but he has two bullets in his chest. And he’s a civilian, not a soldier.”
Her accusation was meant to sow distrust. Smart. But he had far more reason to distrust her than Carlos.
The man from Cyprus faced him. “I will leave immediately. Thomas Hunter will be dead within forty-eight hours. On this you have my word.”
Svensson looked back into the lab. The technicians were huddled over three different work stations now, assessing the information Carlos had reported from Thomas Hunter, this string of numbers.
Svensson now faced two very significant risks. One, that his operation would be found out. Unlikely, considering all their meticulous planning, but a risk nonetheless. Timing was now critical.
The second significant risk was that neither his people nor Monique could develop an antivirus in time. He was willing to accept that risk. His name was now out there; sooner or later they would know the truth. If he didn’t succeed now, he would either spend the rest of his life in a prison or die. The latter was more appealing.
“I will be contacting the others in a few hours. Meet us at the control facility as soon as you’ve eliminated Hunter. Take her.”
Thomas stared at the monitor that displayed what the electron microscope had uncovered. The Raison Strain. He tried to imagine how a sea of these tiny viruses could possibly hurt a flea, much less slaughter a few billion people. They looked like an Apollo lunar-lander, a miniature pod on legs that had landed its host cell.
“That’s the Raison Strain?”
“That’s the Raison Strain,” Peter said. “Looks harmless, doesn’t it?”
“Looks like a tiny machine. So the mutation is sustained even when the temperatures come down?”
“Unfortunately, yes. It’s terribly unusual, you know. No regulation or protocol even suggests testing vaccines at such a high temperature. No one could have possibly guessed that mutation was even possible at such a temperature.”
Thomas straightened. Jacques de Raison stood by Kara and a half dozen other technicians in white coats.
“And how can you tell what the virus will do?”
Peter looked at Raison, who nodded. “Show him.”
Peter led them to another computer monitor. “We’re basing the conclusions on a simulation. Two years ago this would have taken a month, but thanks to new models that we’ve developed in conjunction with DARPA, we’re down to a few hours.” He tapped several keys and brought the screen to life.
“We feed the genetic signature of the virus into the model—in this case human—and then let the computer simulate the effect of infection. We can squeeze two months into two hours.”
“Put it on the big screen, Peter,” Raison said.
The image popped up on an overhead screen.
“Hold on . . . there.”
A single cell appeared.
“That’s a normal cell taken from a human liver. Lodged on its outer membrane you can see the Raison Strain, introduced through the blood supply—”
“I don’t see it.”
“It’s very small, one of the reasons it fares so well as an airborne agent.” Peter stepped up and pointed to the left side of the cell with a wand. “This small growth here. That’s the Raison Strain.”
“That’s the deadly beast?” Thomas said. “Hard to believe.”
“That’s it on day one, before lysogeny—”
“Could you explain it in layman’s terms? Pretend I’m a fifth grader.”
Peter smiled awkwardly.
“Okay. Viruses aren’t cells. They don’t grow or multiply like cells do. They consist basically of a shell that harbors a little bit of DNA. You know what DNA is, right?”
“Blueprint for life and all that.”
“Good enough. Well, that shell we call a virus is able to attach to a cell wall and squirt its viral DNA inside. Think of it as a nasty little bug. The squirted DNA makes its way into the DNA of the host cell, in this case a liver cell, so that the host cell will be forced to make more viral shells as well as pieces of identical viral DNA. Follow?”
“This little bug can do all that? You’d think it has a mind of its own.”
“That and more. Viruses are assembled; they do not grow. They take over the host and turn it into a factory for more viral shells, which repeat the process.”
“Like the collective Borg in Star Trek,” Thomas said.
“In many ways, yes. Like the Borg. The way they kill the cell is by making so many shells that the cell literally explodes. This is called lysogeny.”
“Somehow I missed all this in biology.”
Peter continued. “Some viruses linger and wait until the host is under stress before constructing themselves. That’s called latency. In this case our virus is a very slow starter, but after two weeks it becomes very aggressive, and its exponential growth overtakes the body in a matter of days. Watch.”
Peter returned to the keyboard and punched in a command. Slowly the image on the screen began to change. The virus injected the host cell like a scorpion. The liver cell started to change and then hemorrhaged.
“Lysogeny,” Thomas said.
“Exactly.”
The view expanded, and thousands of similar cells went through the same process.
“A human body infected by this virus will literally eat itself up from the inside out.”
He hit another key. They watched in silence as the same simulation was shown on a human heart. The organ began to break apart as its countless cells hemorrhaged.
“Quite deadly,” Peter said.
“How long?” Thomas asked.
“Based on this simulation, the virus will require under three weeks to build enough momentum to affect organ functionality.” He shrugged. “It is then a matter of days, depending on the subject.”
Thomas faced Raison. “I take it we are now in agreement?”
“Yes. Clearly.”
“And you’ve informed the CDC?”
“We’re in the process now. But you must understand, Mr. Hunter: This is a scenario, not a crisis. Outside this laboratory, the Raison Strain doesn’t even exist. It would never occur in nature.”
“I realize that. But I have it on pretty good authority that someone is going to go around nature. It may be too late, but on the off chance it’s not, we have to mobilize as if it is a crisis. We need to stop Svensson, and we need an antivirus within a couple of weeks.”
“That’s impossible,” Raison said.
“So I keep hearing,” Thomas muttered. He turned to Peter. “You can’t create an antivirus with all this computing power?”
“I’m afraid it’s an entirely different matter. Two months, best case, but not three weeks.”
Thomas caught Kara’s stare. She had that look. This would be up to him. But he didn’t want it to be up to him.
“If we had Monique,” Peter said, “we might have a chance. She engineers certain particulars into all of her vaccines to protect them against theft or foul play. It’s essentially a backdoor switch that’s triggered by the introduction of another uniquely engineered virus, which renders the vaccine impotent. If her engineering survived the mutation, her unique virus could also kill Svensson’s lethal strain.”
“So she may have the key?”
“Maybe. Assuming the mutation didn’t destroy her back door.”
The room went silent.
“You don’t have this switch of hers? She keeps this where, in her head? That seems stupid.”
“Until a vaccine is approved by the international community, she keeps the key to herself. It’s her way of making sure no one, including employees, steals or tampers with the technology.”
“And she keeps no records.”
“It’s not a complicated matter if you know which genes to manipulate,” Peter said. “If there are records, no one here knows where they would be. Either way, it’s a long shot. The switch may have mutated along with the vaccine.”
“Naturally, we will search,” Jacques de Raison said. “But as you can see, we must find my daughter.”
“Agreed,” Thomas said. “We should also wake up the world.”
Thomas left the meeting exhausted and, worse, powerless. He was still under house arrest for kidnapping. He made a dozen phone calls but was quickly reminded of why he came to Bangkok in the first place. News of this sort wasn’t received well from a source as unlikely as him. Especially now that he was quite famous for kidnapping Monique.
Fortunately Raison Pharmaceutical commanded far more respect.
Reports of the potential mutation of the Raison Vaccine hit all the appropriate teletypes and computer screens throughout the massive bureaucracy of health services.
It did not send the world scrambling for answers.
It was not a crisis.
It was hardly even a problem.
It was only a possible scenario in one of the models held by Raison Pharmaceutical.
Thomas collapsed into bed at nine that night, weary to the bone but frazzled by the knowledge that the probability of this particular scenario was 100 percent.
It took him a full hour to fall asleep.