Resurrection (4 page)

What good is a bit of a virus?’

Lang smiled wryly and answered, ‘When we set out to sequence the virus we expected it to be fairly routine. As with all viruses we thought its genes would be concerned with the structure and propagation of itself. Only half of them were. The other half turned out to be human genes.’

There were several instances of raised eyebrows round the table, despite the scientific credentials of many present.

‘
They were genes concerned with the human immune system. In short, the smallpox virus knows more about the human immune system than medical science does. That’s really what prompted the delay in destroying it completely. It can teach us a lot.’

‘I’m uncomfortable about having all these bits and pieces of virus floating

around.’

Lang shrugged and said, ‘It’s not as if just anyone could just join up the fragments to recreate a live virus. It would take a first rate molecular biologist, someone who had studied the entire genome and even then he or she would need a lot of luck. Having said that, if there was any evidence that someone was even contemplating trying such a thing we would step in immediately and put an end to it. Criminal charges would almost certainly be brought.’

‘And rightly so,’ said the chairman. ‘In the meantime, doing nothing is not an option for us.’

He paused and the others waited in silence for him to continue.

‘
We are clearly not happy about the vaccinated man but I don’t think we could recommend a return to wholesale vaccination. There are risks associated with all vaccination programmes and we would have to justify them to the people who might suffer side effects.’

‘Perhaps a limited reintroduction might be in order?’ suggested one man. ‘Just to be on the safe side.’

‘
That would be a possibility but it’s a decision I think we would have to leave up to individual governments.’

‘Israel was uppermost in everyone’s mind.

‘But before we do that or recommend anything else, I suggest that we ask the Iraqis outright why their man had been vaccinated against smallpox and judge them on their reaction.’

The suggestion gained universal approval.

‘Then that’s settled. I will arrange for a joint WHO/UN delegation to draft the question. We will reconvene when I have an answer. In the meantime perhaps Dr Lang and his colleagues could check again with the institutes holding live virus

and also on the state of monitoring of these fragments.’

Lang nodded. ‘Of course, sir.’

EIGHT DAYS LATER

Same Location
.

‘We have received a reply from Baghdad, ladies and gentlemen,’ announced the chairman. ‘They say that during a routine vaccination programme for some of their troops an old batch of smallpox vaccine was used in mistake for hepatitis vaccine. Apparently one batch of freeze-dried vaccine looked pretty much like any other to the junior medical staff who were involved in giving the shots. They apologise for the border incident and any alarm caused.’

‘They apologised?’

‘Makes me suspicious.’

The chairman, took off his glasses and waited until the comments subsided before saying, ‘It is just conceivable they are telling the truth. Unlike many vaccines, freeze-dried smallpox vaccine can be stored for a long time. Such a mix-up could have happened.’

‘The question is, did it?’

‘I think we must be very cautious,’ said the German woman.

‘Dr Lang, have you anything to tell us?’ asked the chairman.

‘We approached both the CDC and the Russian institute. Both report no attempted breach of security and stocks of the virus are all accounted for.’

‘Good, how about fragment movement?’

Lang moved a little uneasily in his seat. ‘That was a bit more difficult,’ he confessed. ‘Many labs across the world have requested viral fragments for their research programmes. AIDS research is very intense. There is a lot of competition.

‘ ‘There’s a lot of money at stake!’ came the cynical comment from one of the group members.

‘Is the monitoring system to ensure that no one lab gets more than twenty percent of the complete virus working or not?’ insisted the chairman.

‘Y. .es,’ replied Lang but he sounded uncertain.

‘Let me put it another way,’ said the chairman, ‘Is it at all conceivable that an attempt has been made to recreate live smallpox virus from these fragments?’

‘I would really think … not.’

‘But you’re not absolutely certain?’

‘One can never be absolutely certain. If someone is determined enough to do something then, who knows?’

The chairman was reluctant to let Lang off the hook. He said, ‘Supposing a scientist were to request a few fragments of virus at one institution and then move to another, would it be possible for him - or her to order some more fragments without you realising what was going on?’

‘Our records are institute records,’ conceded Lang. ‘Fragments are not referenced against individuals.’

‘So a university department or research institute might be credited with having three fragments when, in practice, an individual scientist working there might have brought three more with him from his last job and have access to six?’

‘I suppose so.’

A great deal of unease had been created by Lang’s answers. The chairman had to hold up his hand for quiet.

‘Ladies … Gentlemen … please. I suggest we keep a sense of proportion about what we’ve learned. I was deliberately trying to paint a worst possible case scenario. Let us pause and consider the facts as they really are.’

The room returned to calm and order.

I think we can be reasonably sure that stocks of live virus remain untouched and there has been no criminal attempt to obtain them.

People nodded their agreement.

The situation pertaining to the fragments however, may or may not be a cause for concern. We need more in the way of reassurance.’

‘I vote we recommend a complete ban on the circulation of these fragments for the moment,’ said the German woman, Lehman. It was a view that attracted considerable support from the others but one that made the chairman discernibly uncomfortable.

‘I see two things against that course of action,’ he said. ‘One is the fact that we would undoubtedly interrupt aspects of AIDS research programmes all over the world. To what extent, we can’t be sure, - perhaps very little in view of the slowness of progress in that particular field, but it would certainly cause inconvenience and even some degree of resentment among the scientific community. Universal goodwill is important to both the World Health Organisation and the United Nations. I am loath to do anything that might damage it.’

‘
Chairman, there is also a view that being overly concerned with our image makes us impotent. I would like to draw the meeting’s attention to the last report issued by the UN inspectors in Iraq before their work was interrupted. They uncovered the presence of a factory at
Wadi Ras
which they suspected was being used for the manufacture of biological weapons. The Iraqis successfully argued that it was actually being used for vaccine production. In the light of what we’ve heard, I don’t think we can take comfort from that … ’

Argument and discussion continued until the chairman said, ‘Colleagues, We’ll put it to a vote.’

Voting slips were passed round the table, marked in silence and returned to the chairman who separated them into two piles in front of him. It was obviously going to be a close run thing. With the last slip assigned, he stood up and announced, ‘We have voted by a majority of two to recommend an immediate halt to the movement of smallpox viral fragments.’

Some people shrugged, others smiled.

‘Dr Lang? You have something to add?’

‘Perhaps I should just say that individual countries have already been asked to carry out an audit on the fragments their research institutions are holding.’

‘Good, that would be helpful,’ said the chairman. ‘But let’s hope than none of this is really necessary at all. Let’s look forward to finding out that our fears are

groundless and our suspicions nothing more than paranoia.’ It was an appropriate note on which to end the meeting.

The Home Office

London.

October 1997

Adam Dewar arrived at the Home Office with only two minutes to spare before his scheduled meeting. He thought he’d given himself plenty of time for the journey up from his flat by the river but he had underestimated the sheer numbers of late season tourists in the capital. He was feeling distinctly ruffled by the time he had circumnavigated the final group.

‘
Video cameras! There can’t be one dog turd left unrecorded in London,’ he complained to his boss’s secretary, Jean Roberts as he entered her office a little breathless.

‘
Tourism is good for the economy, Dr Dewar,’ she replied with a smile. ‘Nice to see you in good form. You can go straight in.’

Dewar worked for the Sci-Med Inspectorate, a government body set up to provide preliminary investigation into potential wrong-doings in the Hi-Tec areas of science and medicine, areas where the police had little or no expertise. The staff comprised a number of medically or scientifically qualified people whose task it was to carry out discreet, occasionally under-cover enquiries in the often blurred margins that separated incompetence from outright criminality. Highly qualified professional people invariably resented outside interest in what they were doing, regarding it as unwarranted interference, so discretion was of the utmost importance until at least, the facts were established.

Adam Dewar was a doctor specialising in medical investigations. He was well aware that there was no more sensitive or conservative body than the medical profession. Closing ranks was almost a knee-jerk response to outside questioning. The well-guarded mystique of the witch doctor was still extant in late twentieth century medicine. The less the patient knows the better.

Dewar had been on leave for the past four weeks. This was part of the pattern of the job. Investigations were often intensive, requiring long hours of work and high stress levels. Occasionally they could be downright dangerous or even life threatening. When they were completed, leave was generous. Dewar had spent his staying in a small village in the south of France which he had known since childhood, enjoying the wine, the food and sunshine of Provence. He had however spent the final week preparing for his return in fairly hard physical exercise. He had swam three miles daily in the sea off San Raphael and used the cool of the evening to run respectable distances along the vineyard paths between neighbouring villages. He felt reasonably fit again not that his last assignment had taken much out of him in a physical sense.

He had been sent to look into the apparently high death rate among patients of a Lincolnshire surgeon when compared with statistics for similar operations in other parts of the country. There had in fact, been no criminal aspect to this case. The surgeon in question had merely grown old in his job and had been unaware of his failing powers. His strong personality - common in surgeons, had prevented colleagues from doing much about the situation. It was one thing knowing what was wrong, quite another saying it. The man was also very influential in senior medical circles, circles which could make or break careers. The situation had been allowed to develop until the Sci-Med computer had draw attention to the statistical blip.

Dewar had not been subject to the man’s power and influence and he had a strong personality too. Under the terms of the Sci-Med Inspectorate he had the power to resolve the situation and he had. The surgeon had been retired. Happily, the end result had been achieved without scandal or rancour thanks to the application of common sense.

Dewar knocked on the door and responded to the immediate invitation to enter.

A tall silver-haired man stood up behind his desk and held out his hand. He was John Macmillan, Dewar’s boss and the director of the Sci-Med Inspectorate.

‘
Good to see you, Dewar. How are you feeling after your break?’

‘
Very well, thank you, sir.’

‘
Good, What d’you know about smallpox?’

Dewar shrugged his shoulders. ‘Not a lot, I’m afraid. It was a terrible disease in its time but it’s been extinct for many years. A triumph for the World Health Organisation, as I recall. It was cited as an example of the power of vaccination programmes when I was at medical school. Quite poetic really when you think that the very first instance of vaccination was Edward Jenner’s work on that very disease back in the eighteenth century. It took just under two hundred years to wipe out something that had been around as long as mankind.’

‘
Wipe out may be a little strong,’ said Macmillan.

‘
You mean it’s broken out again?’ asked an incredulous Dewar.

‘
Not exactly but this has newly come in from a joint WHO/United Nations body. They’d like our help.’

Macmillan handed the documentation over to Dewar who flicked through it and quickly realised he’d need more time to assimilate it.