The Virus (21 page)

“What old woman?” she asked sharply. “Does she live in Burundi now? Near here?”

“She does indeed,” Peter Lustig replied. “The locals call her Kagomba, which is the Kirundi word for wild cat. She must be getting on for seventy now. She’s some kind of recluse. She’s been living alone up on the peak there” — he waved a hand across the valley in the direction of the mountains — “for God knows how many years. From time to time, she comes down to the village for supplies. But for the most part she’s self-sufficient.”

“And she’s from Marburg?”

“That’s what she said. I’ve talked to her a couple of times. But she didn’t stop long. She scuttled back into the forest. I imagine her German’s getting pretty rusty by now. At least Helga and I have each other to talk to.”

“Oh, I talk to my horses in German too!” Helga said.

They all laughed.

That night Stephanie lay awake trying to fit this new piece into the jigsaw. Could the old woman conceivably be the person whom Stephanie thought she might be? If so, what was she doing here in Burundi?

The next day, Kodjo and Charles came for her early, to take her on the long-promised visit to Kodjo’s village.

Kodjo was apologetic. “We not make mwemba this morning, miss. Today is market-day. We make mwemba later.”

“Anytime you say, Kodjo.” Stephanie didn’t at all mind missing a hard day’s drinking. She didn’t have much of a head for local beer.

On the way down, Stephanie asked Kodjo if he knew about the old woman.

Kodjo laughed. “You mean Kagomba, the wild cat. Yes, we see her from time to time. Two or three times a year we see her at the market. Then she disappears into the forest again.”

“What does she do?”

He rolled his eyes as if to indicate that this was not his concern.

“Have you seen where she lives?”

Again Kodjo rolled his eyes.

“She inhabits the
ibigabiro
, the sacred grove. We are not supposed to go there but I sometimes do. That’s where the tambourine is hidden.”

“Tambourine?”

“In my country when the mwami — the king — dies, we do not say ‘yapfuye’, which means: ‘the king is dead’. We say, ‘yatanze’, which means: ‘he has given up the tambourine’. The tambourine is the symbol of royal authority. It is buried with the mwami. The wood for the tambourine comes from the
ibigabiro
on the summit of Lwungi. That’s where the monkeys are too. My friends the monkeys,” Kodjo added with an air of proprietorial pride.

Again, Stephanie had a feeling of things at last clicking into place.

When they reached the outskirts of the village, Stephanie saw that it was indeed market day, a typical African scene. Fruit and vegetables were spread out on the ground; colourful print dresses were hung up for sale; fish had been brought up from the lake and were being cooked over a wood fire; small boys offered boxes of matches and chewing-gum.

Stephanie got out of the car.

“Wait for me here, would you please? I’m just going to wander around.”

Charles and Kodjo were quite happy to sit in the car waiting for her. They had seen a thousand village markets if they had seen one. A boy brought them Coca-cola, and they drank it, while Stephanie drifted off.

At the far end of the market, out of sight of the car, was a stall which sold odds and ends, such as radio batteries. It was well frequented — the transistor radio had penetrated into the interior of Burundi as into much of the rest of Africa. Attracted by the small crowd, Stephanie wandered over and found herself standing next to a small wizened old woman, who held out a fistful of coins, asking to be served. Stephanie looked at her once quickly, casually, and turned away.

But there was something about the old woman which brought her back for a second look. She appeared to be talking the native dialect; her skin was deep brown; yet Stephanie knew at once that at some point in the past, perhaps the long-forgotten past, the woman had been a European.

Her transaction completed, the woman turned away from the stall. Stephanie knew that unless she spoke now, she might lose her opportunity. The little old woman would quickly be swallowed up in the crowd.

By an effort of will, she dredged up her school German.

“Frau Matthofer? I was hoping that I would find you here.”

The old woman started as though she had been struck.

12

Irving Woodnutt sat at his desk on the eighteenth floor of the Pharmacorp building, overlooking the Golden Triangle in downtown Pittsburgh. He felt vaguely dissatisfied. On the surface, everything had gone right for him. Under his leadership, Pharmacorp had grown into one of the largest drug and pharmaceutical corporations in the land, ceding place only to giants like Mercx and American Cynamid. He himself held a commanding position among the heads of the large corporations, not just in Pittsburgh, but across the nation. He had power. He had influence. He could pick up the phone and be put through to the President. Or at least to one of the top Presidential assistants. That kind of thing counted. At the golf club, people would point him out — a large, thickset man, almost florid and running to fat.

“That’s Irving Woodnutt,” they would say. “He’s President of Pharmacorp.” And they would stop and stare for a moment as Woodnutt drove off down the fairway before heaving himself into the electric golf-cart to follow the ball around the course.

Irving Woodnutt’s vague dissatisfaction with life had, therefore, nothing to do with Pharmacorp Inc.’s performance among the ranks of
Fortune
’s first one hundred American companies. It had nothing to do with Pittsburgh as a place to live. The air pollution which had once been such a feature of the city was a thing of the past. The waters of the two great rivers, the Allegheny and the Monongahela, which flowed together at the point of the Golden Triangle, were cleaner than they had ever been. The fact that great corporations such as Westinghouse and Pharmacorp had chosen Pittsburgh as their national and international headquarters had brought to the city lustre and prestige and the civic amenities had improved accordingly. The city’s orchestra was world-renowned; its libraries extensive; its suburbs on a par with, if not better than, those to be found in the large cities of other eastern states. No, if Irving Woodnutt wore the beginning of a frown on his broad tanned face, it was because — at the ripe age of fifty-three — he was looking for a new challenge in life.

Such as politics. Out of the window, as he mused, he saw a string of barges being towed down the river. They were carrying coal to the great new power plants which, over the vociferous objections of the environmentalists, had been constructed downstream. Either coal or nuclear, the environmentalists had been told. Ultimately, he thought, as the last of the barges disappeared from his line of vision, everything’s political. If you’re not in politics, you’re nowhere. For the moment Woodnutt had concluded that in spite of the appearances to the contrary he himself was still nowhere.

Realistically, Woodnutt knew that at his time of life, if he was going to make the jump into politics, he would have to go for Senator. It was that or nothing. The House of Representatives didn’t interest him. You did that for starters. But he wasn’t looking for starters. He was looking for the main dish. To be elected to the Senate he needed support; not just support from the party in the state: support from the party at the national level.

It was therefore a particularly happy coincidence that, just as Woodnutt had reached this point in his reflections, the telephone should ring.

Woodnutt noticed the light flashing, but left his secretary to take the call.

“It’s Mr Peabody from Washington; Mr George Peabody, Mr Woodnutt. Do you wish to take the call?” The voice of his secretary came through on the intercom.

“Don’t be naive, Louise,” Woodnutt spoke sharply. “Of course I wish to take the call.”

As he reached for the telephone, Woodnutt reflected that anyone who was interested in running for the Senate and didn’t wish to take a call from the Hon. George Peabody must be out of his mind. For George Peabody was a wily Quaker who, after an immensely varied career which (amongst other things) included a stint as director of the CIA, now looked after the national fortunes of the Democratic Party. Without a fair wind from Peabody, there was no way a Woodnutt candidacy for one of the two Pennsylvania seats in the Senate could stand any chance of success.

“Irving, how are you?” The cracked tones identified the man as surely as a red marker.

“Fine, George. Just fine.”

“That’s great, Irving. Just great.”

Peabody came straight to the point.

“Irving, is there any chance of your getting down to Washington within the next day or so? There are one or two things I and some friends of mine would like to discuss if you had a moment. It could be important. I know you’re thinking about that Senate seat, Irving, if you follow me.”

Irving Woodnutt followed him only too clearly.

“Just name the time. I’ll be there.”

Two days later, the President of Pharmacorp Inc. caught the morning flight from Pittsburgh into Washington’s National Airport. There was a limousine waiting for him, an anonymous black car. On the driver’s door the words “U.S. Government — Federal Service agency” were printed in small gold letters.

Woodnutt had assumed that he would be meeting Peabody downtown — probably at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. However, instead of crossing Memorial Bridge into the city, the driver turned off the freeway at the Arlington exit. Five minutes later the car pulled into the underground garage of the Arlington Sheraton.

They took the elevator up to the top floor of the hotel from the garage, without passing through the lobby.

“Why the secrecy?” Woodnutt asked.

The driver was non-committal.

Peabody was already waiting for him. He was a tall man, nearer seventy than sixty, with bushy eyebrows and a firm handshake. There was another younger man with him.

“Hi, Irving. Good of you to come.” He introduced the other man. “You know Dick Sandford, don’t you? My successor at the Agency.”

Woodnutt gave a start of surprise. When on the telephone Peabody had mentioned some “friends,” he assumed that Peabody was referring to some political cronies. He had not imagined for one minute that he would be meeting the present director of the CIA.

He shook hands with the thin dark-haired bespectacled man whom Peabody presented to him. He knew Dick Sandford by repute as one of the toughest operators in Washington; but they had never met.

While Sandford and Woodnutt were introducing themselves to each other, George Peabody was looking around the room as though sizing it up.

It was a penthouse suite and the large windows provided a superlative view of downtown Washington. Across the Potomac, the Lincoln Memorial gleamed white in the sun. The planes roared in low to land at the airport. Nearer at hand, the traffic curled off the Arlington Expressway bound for the Pentagon or for Alexandria.

“Don’t worry about the room, George.” Dick Sandford had noted Peabody’s interest in his surroundings. “The Arlington Sheraton is one of our safe houses. We use this place often.”

He turned apologetically to Woodnutt. “You must forgive the cloak and dagger,” he said. “When George and I have finished telling you what we want to tell you, you’ll understand why we can’t afford to have any official log of this meeting.”

The three men sat down. There was coffee in a flask and they helped themselves to it. For a few moments they made polite conversation. Then Peabody looked at his watch. He turned to Sandford. “Dick, I think the best thing would be if you led off on this one. I have to run along in any case. But that doesn’t matter. After all, I’m just the intermediary. You needed to get to Irving here and Irving happens to be an old friend of mine whose political career I’m following with interest.” Peabody leaned over and punched Woodnutt’s shoulder to make quite sure that the President of Pharmacorp didn’t miss the point. Then, as Sandford began to speak, he slipped away.

Sandford launched straight into the substance of the matter.

“You probably know,” he said, removing his spectacles and polishing them as he spoke, “that the Strategic Arms Limitation Agreement between this country and the Soviet Union doesn’t cover chemical and bacteriological warfare. SALT is, as its name implies, limited to strategic arms.”

Woodnutt nodded. “I know.”

“One of the consequences of this situation is that the United States as a whole, and clandestine agencies like the CIA in particular, have been devoting many more resources than in the past to CW and BW. This is more or less inevitable. The system is geared up for a certain amount of military spending. If you stop the money flowing down one channel, it merely flows down another.”

Again Woodnutt nodded. This was the kind of reasoning he followed easily. It wasn’t so different in industry. Once the budget was approved, the pressure to spend was there. And if it didn’t go on one thing, it would go on something else.

“Frankly,” Sandford continued, “CW and BW have become one of the Agency’s priorities. Of course, the United States is party to various general conventions which are meant to limit the use of chemical and biological weapons. Pious platitudes from the United Nations. The usual rubbish. The language is so vague you can drive a coach and horses through each subordinate clause. In any case, most of the international conventions which are meant to limit CW and BW are still couched in terms more relevant to the First World War and German mustard gas drifting over the Allies’ trenches.”

“You mean the CB/BW parameters have changed?”

“You bet they have. For some time one of our main priorities in the CW/BW field has been to examine the potential of exotic viruses.”

“Potential for what?”

“Potential for influencing the balance of power or terror.” Sandford warmed to his subject. “Imagine,” he said, “that the United States
and the United States only
is in possession of a lethal exotic virus which the whole world believes has been eliminated once and for all because the vector for this lethal exotic virus has itself been eliminated. Imagine what the United States might be able to do with that virus, under certain circumstances!”