The Nightmare Scenario (27 page)

“That sounds like a reasonable interpretation of the ‘swift action’ you called for in your address to the UN, Dr. Hughes.”

“Yes, Mr. President, I agree that these measures would increase the security of the nation considerably,” said Aeolus, envisioning an infected Indian landing in Bulgaria and spreading the infection to someone who could be in New York seven hours later without being affected by any of the restrictions Hank had just proposed. But he knew this discussion was over and, if he was honest with himself, he’d achieved more than he had expected.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. President. We will keep you updated on any developments that might cause your evaluation of the situation to change.”

INITIUM FINIS

(The beginning of the end)

AUGUST 10
^TH
, 4 PM, WHO REGIONAL OFFICE, MAHATARNA GANDHI MARG, NEW DELHI

T
he posting to the regional office was a considerable step up in responsibility for Rebecca, albeit in an administrative rather than hands-on capacity, and it had taken her two days to find her bearings.

As the infection spread and number of cases increased, Aeolus could no longer singlehandedly micromanage all the medical care centers involved and had been forced to delegate to Rebecca. In fact, he’d given Rebecca free rein, which surprised her. She had expected requests for hourly updates and Aeolus’s involvement in most decisions, but Geneva had left her to her own machinations.

The WHO had sent detailed instructions to all the medical institutions they were in contact with. These included diverting all suspected cases to one hospital, how to quarantine them within the hospital, how
to trace their prior movements and preemptively isolate potentially infected, how to limit the number of medical staff treating them, and what precautions the medical staff should take to protect themselves. It also included what little they knew about treatment to maximize chances of survival and detailed descriptions of how to make a preliminary diagnosis for the Maluku Flu by visual inspection in case tests weren’t available.

It had been a great step forward when Dr. Loo developed the antigen reagents. There were still two problems, though. The first was that it took time to produce them, too long time. The second was distribution. Supplying the major regional hospitals was not difficult, but getting them to every clinic in rural Cambodia and Laos, who was not even a member of the WHO, was something different altogether. They didn’t even know where most of those clinics were.

In spite of the information campaign, Rebecca was bombarded with questions about everything the instructions were supposed to cover. She was constantly on the phone with doctors discussing potential cases and fought tooth and nail to have them implement the appropriate procedures to prevent further spread.

With many rural areas still lacking tests, they had about fifty potential, but not confirmed, cases. In spite of everything, she felt they were exceeding expectations. Roger was one of the reasons for that.

Since the world press was now covering the story, there was no real scoop for Roger and he wasn’t the type of journalist who wrote dime-a-dozen articles regurgitating the same official statements as hundreds of others.
Instead, he put his energy into helping Rebecca. Take Malaysia for instance. Rebecca had demanded they isolate everyone infected, as well as track down and quarantine everyone they could have been in contact with. She also wanted them to close the airport. It was clear they weren’t going to be able to contain the outbreak in Kuala Lumpur, and even though an increasing number of countries were blocking flights from Malaysia, planes still left every hour. As expected, they refused.

Roger had stepped in and taken care of it. He was now not only a celebrity in the world of journalism, but had gained considerable clout. He got on the phone with the Malaysian prime minister and explained to him, in no uncertain terms, that if they didn’t shut down the airport, he’d launch a smear campaign to be printed broadly in the world press, to the effect that the prime minister was a coward and too incompetent to be taken seriously as a head of state. The prime minister reluctantly accepted that this would undermine his position and ability to conduct foreign policy to such a degree that he eventually caved. Not only did he stop outbound flights, he put Kuala Lumpur under quarantine. No one could leave the city without special permission. It was unclear whether it was going to be effective, or even if it was, whether it had been in time.

As in Ternate, Roger was also, for her personally, a continuing source of strength, energy and comfort. It was amazing how quickly their relationship had recovered, deepened and become stronger than ever in such a short time. Maybe it was because they were facing such apocalyptic circumstances together. Maybe it was
because they were really meant for each other. Maybe it was because they had no one else to turn to for support. Whatever it was, Rebecca was overjoyed that they were together again, and she was convinced that they would continue to be once this was over.

The staff was more competent and dedicated than Aeolus had led her to believe. Once she’d fired the few who weren’t up to the task, as per Aeolus instructions, the rest were neither lazy nor lacking intelligence. They did a good job; they followed her lead and caught on quickly. She’d been in contact with Dr. Chen-Ung Loo to find anyone she could fly in from the region to strengthen the team, but the bulk of the staff were those who had been there from the beginning and they were performing well.

As she leafed through folders of high-priority cases that had made it through the filtering processes, Roger entered the room. His face was pale, as if his usually rosy cheeks had been drained of blood.

“Twinkie, I’ve just gotten some news you’re going to want to hear.”

AUGUST 10
^TH
, 11 A.M., SHOC, WHO HEADQUARTERS, GENEVA

A
eolus stood before a monitor in the SHOC, which displayed the flu’s spread. The number of cases and their locations had gone well past the point where he could keep them all in his head, and the map on the screen provided a good overview. Dots indicated singular cases, and circles showed multitudes. The color yellow indicated a possible case. Red was a confirmed case and black meant deaths. The circles sat within each other, yellow furthest out, red inside the yellow and black inside the red. The circles increased in size with a logarithmic scale as a function of the number of cases.

The red circle over Ternate now covered half the island. The situation there was hopeless. There wasn’t even a count of the infected or dead, just an estimate in the thousands, and it increased every day. The epidemic there would be over in a matter of weeks and thirty thousand or so people would be dead. The circle in Jakarta was still smaller than the one to the east,
especially the inner black circle as it was still early and people had not yet started dying on a grand scale. They would though, and at the rate Jakarta’s circles were growing they would overtake the Maluku Islands within days.

There was, however, some good news. The quarantine in Kuala Lumpur had been mostly effective. Even though the number of infected were closing in on a hundred, the spread was much slower, thanks to the actions taken. One case had been confirmed outside Kuala Lumpur, but Rebecca was able to effectively isolate a large group of those who’d been in contact with the patient. With luck, it might hold. In Vietnam, there had been no further cases, neither suspected nor confirmed. Still, Aeolus wasn’t happy.

Richard, just off the phone from a call with the states, came up to Aeolus.

“Dr. Hughes, you look concerned.”

Kevin had explained how the map worked to Richard, who now pointed out: “The red dots seem well contained. Surely that’s good news? We don’t have the mass outbreaks through Southeast Asia you predicted. Why are you so worried, or is paranoia just a regular trait of your trade?”

“You see the scattered yellow dots in eastern India and northwest Thailand?” Aeolus answered. “These are rural areas. They don’t have the test yet and it will be another twenty-four to forty-eight hours until we know the situation there. Even if many of them turn out to be false alarms, there are still a lot. These yellow dots have been vetted by Rebecca, and they wouldn’t
be on the map if they weren’t likely. She’s far too good for that. I can’t believe they’re all false, unless there’s some other infection raging there, but if that were true, we’d have heard of it. It just doesn’t make sense.

“But the amount of cases isn’t what worries me. What worries me is where they are. If we have a case in northern Thailand, how come we have none, not even suspected, in southern Thailand, closer to the Malaysian border? Something’s not right there. It doesn’t smell right.

“That said, you’re correct. In my profession we’re paid to be paranoid. It is indeed part of our trade.”

“Maybe it’s all just a coincidence?”

“Let’s hope so. Still, this map gives me that same uneasy feeling in my stomach that I usually associate with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber.”

AUGUST 10
^TH
, 6 P.M., FISHING VILLAGE, THREE MILES DOWNRIVER FROM HKA-U-IN, MAGWE PROVINCE, MYANMAR

H
laing’s catch had been meager, which was why he was returning so much later than the other fishermen. He was hurrying, punting his boat with increased force towards the village. This made maintaining balance more difficult. Learning how to stand and steer the flat-keeled boat with nothing but a pole took years of training.

As he pulled his boat onto the beach, the usual cry of a lonely bird sounding over the marsh was cut off by gunshot. Hlaing jolted, and started running toward the village, crouching low in the shrubbery.

The sight that met him as he peeked out over a bush, into the village center, was exactly what he’d feared. There was the military, and in large numbers. The villagers were sitting in a line, the children wailing
and the women weeping. At the end of the line lay his brother, motionless, with blood oozing from a hole in his forehead.

Why were they here? They hadn’t been this far out for almost a decade. The village was a quiet place, subsisting mainly on fishing and some pearl trading. They had done nothing to upset the military.

As a soldier aimed a flamethrower at one of the houses and set it on fire, Hlaing realized what was about to happen. They were going to destroy the entire village.

The images before his eyes moved in slow motion as the captain pointed his gun at the head of Hlaing’s wife and pulled the trigger. Hlaing’s heart stopped, but he managed to remain silent. But when the captain repeated the procedure, this time targeting Hlaing’s eldest son, he could not hold back his horror and screamed out loud.

The captain turned toward the sound and two soldiers started running in his direction.

Hlaing took off in a sprint, bullets ricocheting around him. He ran for his life, with great strength, but without aim. As the forest opened up and the beach stretched out before him, he realized it was over. He was exposed and there was nowhere to go.

AUGUST 10
^TH
LUNCHTIME, SHOC, WHO HEADQUARTERS, GENEVA

T
he conversation had turned to Richard’s many questions about the flu in general, the current strain in particular and the essence of effective epidemiological countermeasures. Aeolus had come to like Richard. At first, he’d thought it was absolute nonsense to let someone in who knew so little about what they were doing, and he found Richard’s questions supremely annoyed him. But the boy was a fast learner. His questions were getting better and more relevant. He’d had no academic education beyond college, but he had a good head. He also obviously had the president’s ear. Aeolus saw the value in having him in the WHO’s corner.

Aeolus was explaining how smallpox had been eradicated and why, in spite of all WHO’s efforts, they were nowhere close to making any similar progress with polio, when the speakerphone crackled to life. It was Mandy, informing Aeolus that Rebecca Summers was on the line from New Delhi. Aeolus told Mandy to
put her through and Rebecca appeared on the video screen. Next to her stood a man in his mid-thirties with brown hair, sloppily dressed in a hunting green herringbone tweed jacket with patched elbows, and far too long sleeves, reaching beyond second knuckle of this thumb.

“Aeolus, I don’t believe you’ve met Roger Burton,” said Rebecca.

“No, I haven’t had the pleasure. So, you’re the journalist who made me famous?”

“Yes, indeed I am.”

“Well done, I must say. It was a most timely article. It’s a genuine pleasure to meet you. Next time, though, please get your facts right. I don’t speak Bahasa. The mere thought of me doing so is embarrassing to me.”

“Aeolus,” said Rebecca cutting him off, “Roger has something to tell you that I think you want to hear.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Well, Dr. Hughes,” Roger began, “as you know, Burma, or Myanmar as the junta refers to it, has always been a closed nation.”

“To say the least,” nodded Aeolus.

“And during the last two years it’s become even more so. The military have forced all foreign correspondents out of the country. International phone calls and the Internet have been shut down. They trade with other ‘rogue states’ and subsist on smuggling, primarily heroin, but also weapons and precious stones.”

“Yes…”

“The country is now so closed that
no one
knows what goes on inside its borders.”

“Yes…”

“Or rather, virtually no one. I worked there before the regime cracked down on journalists, and I still have some sources in the northern part of the country – drug runners. Drug runners who’ve kept satellite phones without being discovered and so have means of contacting the outside world.”

“Mr. Burton, would you mind getting to the point?”

“Something terrible is happening in Burma at the moment.”

“When is it not?”

“The army is killing people in their thousands, initially only in the southern parts of the country but now all over. It’s wholesale slaughter of an unprecedented magnitude, even for this regime.”