The Nightmare Scenario (20 page)

“My second thought is this. My cousin works at a bank as a derivatives trader. He’s tried to explain his work to me many times, but valuing options involves math that is well beyond what I understand. One thing he’s taught me, though, is that
every
option has value. Instead of action now, I’d look for a way to create an option for action in the future.”

“Hmm… I agree, Richard. Admiral, start moving the appropriate parts of the seventh fleet into position from which we could quickly enforce a naval quarantine around eastern Indonesia. But by God, do it quietly.”

“Richard,” said the president, beckoning him closer so that he could speak to him without the others hearing. “I’m a bit wary about this whole thing. As you know, my predecessor didn’t do particularly well in a similar situation. I don’t want to make the same mistake. I need to know what is happening, as it happens, in language I understand.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“I want you to go over there, to Geneva. Park yourself in this Dr. Hughes’s office. Get on top of what’s going on and keep me briefed.”

“I’m flattered to be given such a responsibility, Mr. President.”

“Good, so it’s done.” And with that, the president rose and turned his mind to other matters.

NUNC IN MONDO

(Now for the world)

AUGUST 4
^TH
, 7 PM, MAKESHIFT CAMP, MARE, MALUKU ISLANDS, EASTERN INDONESIA

R
ebecca stepped outside the small building that served as ‘the Office’. It was really nothing more than a naked chunk of concrete with one room inside. Two small, windowless openings on opposing sides allowed a modicum of light to enter. The room was sparsely decorated, with just a plastic chair and a wobbly folding table on top of which there was a video terminal connected via satellite and an old coffeemaker. An uneven supply of electricity was provided by the solar panels mounted on the roof.

She inhaled deeply, letting the moist ocean air slowly fill her lungs. She opened and closed her jaws in a chewing motion tasting the salt from the sea. The taste was real, natural. She wasn’t sure whether the semi-sweet flavor that settled on her gums around lunchtime was
actually real, a product of some esters released from the HEPA filter, or just a figment of her imagination, but the salt of the sea made it go away.

She looked toward the beach, where most of the staff was gathered around a campfire, teaching each other songs from their respective home countries, accompanied by someone playing the guitar. The light of the setting sun forced her to squint. It was a surreal image – in front, her colleagues singing and roasting marshmallows, in back, the Tidore volcano, enshrouded in flickering shadows. Laughter and joy juxtaposed against the Island of Death.

She considered it once more. She had to make sure she was doing this because it was the right thing to do, not because she wanted to see Roger. The idea had come to her during the most recent update call with Geneva.

Aeolus had gone into one of his usual frenzies, lamenting over the lack of resolve of the American president and the ignorance of his advisors. A quarantine was looking very unlikely. Stan, the WHO’s press guy, had proposed organizing a leak to the press to try to sway public opinion and put pressure on the president, but Aeolus had rejected even discussing such an idea, insisting, that: “It is not within my mandate, nor that of my staff, to break the rules of confidentiality that we ourselves have established, just because we feel it would suit us.”

Technically speaking, she was not his staff, and he had never disputed that support from the press would be helpful.

It was time to call Roger. She had not spoken to him since she’d left him in Atlanta a week ago.

The instant he picked up he spoke her name, somehow deducing from the country code of her satellite link that she was the one calling.

“I thought you’d never call. How are you? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Roger.”

It took Rebecca fifteen minutes to answer Roger’s barrage of concerned questions, ranging from her health to what she was eating and where she was sleeping. Only after that could she get to the point.

“I’m sorry to call you this late, but there’s something I need to ask you.”

“Not at all, my dear, it’s six o’clock here in Singapore.”

“You’re in Singapore?”

“Yes. I told you, I need to be close to the story.”

“Are you out of your mind? What could you possibly be writing in Singapore that you couldn’t write from home?”

There was a brief pause, and then Roger responded in a bashful – too bashful – voice. “Touché! To be totally honest, I was hoping you’d call, as you sort of promised. Figured it was better to be close to you if you got a weekend off. You might not be able to make it to San Francisco then, but surely you couldn’t decline an invitation to meet up in Bintan, no? Or so I reasoned, at least.”

“Frankly, Roger, no one here is going to have a weekend off for quite some time.”

“Is it that bad?”

“Yeah. Anyway, I’m not calling to invite you for a weekend in Bintan, but do you want to come here?”

“Come over there? I’m not sure I get you. You want
me
in the hot zone? Me? The man who doesn’t wash his hands after going to the bathroom? I’m practically a walking herbarium of tropical diseases as it is, you know?”

“Roger, I don’t have time for this,” she said, but her voice didn’t come out as resolute as she had intended. She was smiling, because it was exactly this that had drawn her to him from the beginning, and what made her stay; his ability to lighten any situation with self-deprecating wit, getting laughs by making the joke about himself, never anyone else. Even on such a dark day as her mother’s funeral, he had made everyone smile without it feeling inappropriate or in any way demeaning the somber event.

Yes, she’d convinced herself she was calling for purely professional reasons, but so what if she wasn’t? If having him here made her pull through a couple more days, if it made her a better leader, wasn’t that reason enough in itself?

“What I meant to say is that I’m not calling for personal, but professional, reasons.”

“I’m listening…” Roger answered inquiringly.

“I promised you that if you held your story on Aeolus, I would make it up to you.”

“In ways professional as well as personal, I seem to recall…”

“Roger, cut it out! We need you now. It’s worse than the press is reporting. There’s been a third incident.”

“A third incident?”

She heard what sounded like a pencil scratching on paper. Good. At least now she had his attention.

“The journalists don’t get it. They treat this like any other virus. They’re so comforted by how the WHO stopped SARS, the latest bird flu and the swine flu, that they don’t take it as seriously as they should.”

“So you’re saying it’s more serious than we think?”

“Yes Roger, a lot more. Now, Aeolus, Dr. Hughes,” she corrected herself, “is trying to get the US to quarantine eastern Indonesia, but with no success so far. We
need
that quarantine. What would help is a piece in a major newspaper that is balanced, but raises the issue in a real way, an article that builds public support for what we’re trying to do.”

“And you’re turning to me for this? I’m a journalist, not a propagandist.”

“Come on, Roger. This
is
the story. No one has it. It’s yours to tell. You have the best source imaginable – the doctor in charge of the hot zone.”

“Okay, what do you need? Something along the lines of, ‘This could kill us all. We know how to handle it and if you let us there’ll be no problem, but we need the international community under American leadership to do X.’?”

“Yes, something like that. If your other piece about Aeolus is generally positive, I would release that too. He needs all the help he can get.”

“I can have this story run in the International New York Times tomorrow morning Geneva-time, and as for
the piece on Aeolus, it’s ready to go out as a special issue of Time whenever I pull the trigger.”

“Time magazine?”

“Yes, it required calling in a longstanding favor that I’d saved for a special occasion. I thought something like this would happen. I never believed the government hogwash about SARS anyway. Also the story is pretty good, and for once, there’s no questioning my sources.”

“Thank you
so
much, Roger. So, let me fill you in on what’s really going on.”

AUGUST 5
^TH
, 8 AM, WHO MANAGEMENT FLOOR CORRIDOR, GENEVA

K
evin was half running down the corridor toward Aeolus’s office for their morning meeting, skimming the Times article as he went. The headline read: “The Plague Reborn” in large, bold letters. As he passed Ed’s new office, he banged on the open door and waved the paper. “Ed, have you seen this?”

“I’m seeing it just now,” said Ed, scanning the article. “It’s pretty accurate. Conclusions are way above the average journalist. It has to be an insider. The man is
not
going to be happy.”

In fact, Aeolus wasn’t upset at all. He was certain that no one on his staff had been the source of the leak, and recognized that this article would help him.

“It’s a surprisingly veracious article. This journalist has a knowledgeable source, most likely someone on the ground in Indonesia,” he told the troika before him, Ed and Kevin still catching their breath, Walt calm as always.

“Hank won’t be pleased,” Walt put in.

“No, actually, he’s, to use his own vernacular, going to go ape-shit. I don’t think they’ll wake him up just for this, though, so we should have a couple of hours before he calls. Then he will, though, for certain, let his own personal version of hell rain down upon us.”

“It gets better,” said Stan, who had just appeared in the doorway. He tossed a copy of
Time
on Aeolus’s desk. “It’s an advance copy.” On the cover was a picture of Aeolus and the words: ‘The Man Who Might Save the World’.”

“Walt, come to think of it, I don’t think ape-shit will even begin to describe Hank’s reaction. Maybe we won’t have a couple of hours after all.”

Aeolus picked up the phone and called the Head of Security.

“James, we have a bit of a situation. Yes, the articles. Can you put together a package for me?

“Yes, that’s exactly what we need. Thanks.”

Kevin, still reading, said, “You speak seven languages?”

Aeolus didn’t bother to answer or even acknowledge the question.

“And what on earth is Hokkien?” continued Kevin.

This question, however, drew Aeolus’s attention, always up for lecturing others on inane trivia. “It’s a
form of Min Nan Chinese spoken, in various dialects, in southern Fujian, Taiwan and among the Chinese population in Southeast Asia. It’s great for swearing – unparalleled in terms of foul words.”

No one bothered to say anything more. They continued reading in silence until the speaker came on, with Tomomi’s voice announcing that Hank Wiley was on the line.

“Well, I guess they woke him up after all,” Aeolus said dryly, then sighed. “Put him through.”

Hank’s voice was so loud it was distorted by the speaker. “What the hell do you guys think you’re doing? I thought we had an agreement? No press coverage without coordination? Measured and balanced statements? You’ve just set the whole fucking house on fire!”

“Hank, my dear friend, I can assure you that the leak did not come from here, so spare me the invectives. You might want to check your own backyard.”

“My own backyard? It’s clean as a whistle, I can guarantee you that. We run the CDC with military discipline. Besides, I’m the only one here who has the information required for an article of this detail. This journalist has a source on the inside. It has to have come from you. How can you be so sure the source isn’t in Geneva?”

Aeolus removed a speck of dirt from the corner of his eye with his finger. He studied it with curiosity for a moment before he blew it away and responded.

“Well, first of all, the article about me in Time Magazine contains so many inaccuracies that the source cannot be anyone who knows me. For instance,
I don’t speak Bahasa. It’s a vulgar language. No gender, no inflections, no tense. It’s just a bunch of words strung together. I wouldn’t be caught dead speaking it. Secondly, Hank, I know it was not from us because the only people with the required insight are in this room right now, and I have them monitored.”

“You have them monitored? How?” Hank demanded.

“We check all their emails, both professional and personal. We monitor their phone calls. We track their movements via their cell phones when they’re outside the office and track the proximity of other phones to their houses to see if they receive any visitors with whom we might have an issue.”

“I don’t believe that for a minute. You’re a civilian authority. You don’t have the guts, or the power, to do something like that.”

“Old friend, this is Geneva, not Waco, Texas. And in Geneva the UN is king. And I am, even though I understand you might find it difficult to comprehend, held in a certain esteem within the UN.”

“Whatever… Seeing is believing, Aeolus. If you’re right, it has to be someone on the ground.”