The Viral Epiphany (26 page)

           
The three men looked at each other and chuckled. “Oh, no,” Mr. Brinkman said, “Good heavens. No.
 
I don’t think so.
 
I wouldn’t advise that!” he chuckled again. “I wouldn’t worry, sir.
 
When this all passes over the old order will be preserved if that’s what you’re worried about.
 
You can depend on us.”

           
“Thank you, gentlemen.” The President said, glad that these men possessed such deep knowledge.
 
He turned to the seventh member of the group, a middle aged woman who wore a gray skirt, and a white blouse with a red and blue scarf loosely fastened around her neck by a gold and emerald encrusted brooch.
 
She was the lead editor for the East-West Consolidated News Networks, an organization that, through the various media it owned, provided the news to over ninety percent of the American population.

           
“Nancy, you might be the most important person here right now.
 
What do we tell the people now?
 
We can’t have panic in the streets.
 
We need order.
 
We need to preserve what we have and we need to come through this thing with the capability to move onward again. We will need to rebuild after the storm passes.”

           
“Yes sir, I agree.
 
I expect we’ll soon be educating the people with several televised “specials” on the disease where we will highlight what research is being done at the CDC.” She turned and nodded to Harry, “ …and then we’ll certainly be talking with Mr. Goodfellow at UNAPS to show the American people that the entire world, the CDC, the UN, the military, everyone is working together on this. They are not alone.”

           
“Good, very good. Show some progress too, OK?”
           
“Certainly, sir.
 
Is there anything in particular you think would be appropriate?”

           
“How about interviewing some survivors?” the President said with an earnest look around the table. “I think that would be most encouraging, don’t you?”

           
“Sir… I…I’m afraid we don’t know of any,” she replied.

           
“Nancy, you need a survivor. You know what I mean? You need one.
 
The people need one…” he said softly.

           
“Yes, sir.
 
I understand.
 
We’ll find one. Guaranteed. We’ll find one…”

           
“Good.”

           
President Cranston took a deep breath and looked around at each of them. Then he said, “I have to leave all of you tonight.”

           
“Where are you going?” Charlie asked.

“Don’t ask me where I’m going. Please.” He looked at each of them in turn.
 
“I have to do this alone.
 
It…It’s for the good of the country…I have things that must be done that only I can do.” He turned to Charles Goodfellow, “Charlie, I’m leaving you in charge of this massive effort to protect the American population from this awful disease. I know you can do it, Charlie.
 
If anyone can pull this off, you can. Right, Charlie?
 
I mean that’s what you people do over at UNAPS, right?”

           
“Yes, sir.” Charlie nodded his head and beamed with pride.

           
“Yes, and don’t forget you have all these people here to help you,” President Cranston replied.
 
Admiral Mason was glaring at Charlie. “You too, admiral.
 
You’ll answer to Charlie while I’m gone – at least in this regard. Understand?”

           
“Yes, sir,” the Admiral said sitting up a little straighter in his chair.

           
“Thank you, sir.” Charlie said to the President,
 
“Thank you.
 
You won’t be disappointed.”

           
“I know it, Charlie, I know it.
 
We have an understanding, you and I, of priorities.” He took a last look at the people around the table and then stood up.
 
“Gentlemen…and lady! I’m sorry, Nancy; I keep saying gentlemen, don’t I? I have to leave now, please feel free to remain and discuss your future course of action.
 
I’ll be in touch…”
 
Without another word President Cranston quickly stood up and walked out of the room.

Minutes later, as the members of the List, were leaving via the South Portico of the White House, President Cranston went to the rear, delivery entrance of the White House and fastened the buttons on his black overcoat.
 
The evening had turned cold with a brisk wind now blowing in from the Atlantic Ocean.
 
He turned to his wife, who stood next to him. There were tears running down her cheeks.
 
He reached over and buttoned the top button of her coat and kissed her on the forehead. “It’ll be alright, Grace.
 
Believe me.”

“But Alan, I’m scared.
 
Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?
 
What’s going to happen?
 
And, can these men really run the country without you?”

“Shhh, Grace,” he said putting a finger to her lips, “Don’t worry, in the end everything will be fine.
 
I have it all worked out.”

He took her lightly by the arm and led her to the waiting delivery van.
 
The driver opened the rear door and the President and his wife climbed in a seat that faced sideways.
 
In front of them was a stack of cardboard boxes, each of them emblazoned with the same words that were printed on the sides of the vehicle: Bellevue Breads and Cakes, Arlington, VA.

“Take us to Andrews Air Force Base,” he said to the driver.
 
President Cranston and his wife then settled into the back seat as best they could, and the truck slowly drove forward and out the gate.

Twenty-Six

           
A freshening breeze from the north jostled the branches on the tall oaks and poplars that grew on the campus of University College Cork near the banks of the
River Lee
.
 
The clean, invigorating scent of arctic air washed over the campus, and although it carried a slight chill, the cool clarity of the winds also carried a sense of hope and promise that the air that bathed this green and fertile land would remain pure and help to sustain life for its people.
 
As the treetops swayed in unison with the northerly winds, the waters of the
Lee,
running fast and clear from the recent rains, swept past in swirling spirals.
 
Gurgling and leaping, the splashes and eddies seemed to echo the laughter of water fairies as they raced ever downward to the sea.

           
Ireland, the ancient and sacred land of the Celts whose high kings knew its lush, green, life-giving hills and valleys to be the very body of the goddess Eire, had now become Fortress Ireland.
 
Cut off entirely from the outside world and wrapped in a shroud of mist and mystery, no outsider was allowed to navigate its waters or penetrate its borders under decree from that modern day successor of the high king, the
Taoiseach
of Ireland.
 
Ireland had a standing procedure for sealing its borders.
 
The last time this had been employed, three years earlier, was due to an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in British cattle. The quick action by the Irish government had saved Irish cattle ranchers from the devastation that had occurred to their counterparts in Britain when over five million infected cattle had to be destroyed.

           
This time was, however, different.
 
The ban was not only on agricultural products entering Ireland; it was on everything.
 
Not a single aircraft, not a single ship or boat, nothing was allowed into Ireland. The small, but resolute, defense forces of the island nation were now guarding its coasts against the worst catastrophe in the history of the modern world.
 
Yet, even these staunch Warriors of Ireland,
the
oglaigh na hEireann
, knew in their hearts that their coastline was too long and rugged, the seas too rough, the rains and the nights too dark.
 
Sooner or later some poor refugee, someone desperate to escape the scourge of the Fever, would find a way to this land and this one person, seeking only refuge and safety, would carry the disease even to this last haven.

           
A way had to be found to combat the disease directly and no one knew this better than Dan Quinn.
 
Sheila stood behind Dan while he typed on the computer keyboard with Brendan sitting at his side, giving him input from his notes now and then.
 
They were using one of the computer workstations at the University’s
Boole Library
because the entire Biosciences Building was still closed for repairs due to the fire.

The venerable library was named after George Boole, the first professor of mathematics at the university.
 
Over one hundred and fifty years ago George Boole not only taught mathematics here, he also invented an entirely new system of algebra that bears his name today, Boolean algebra.
 
It became the mathematical basis for the operation of all modern computers, even the massively parallel supercomputer that the three researchers were now accessing.
 
Professor Boole would have been proud.

           
“OK,” Dan said, turning back to Sheila, “I’ve imported the code for the vaccine that Brendan created, and I’ve also started manipulating the genetic code for the virtual mammoth virus that I created based upon Brendan’s discovery of the viral DNA in the mammoth tissue.”

           
“You’re manipulating the genetic code for the viral DNA?” Sheila asked.

           
“Yes. I have instructed the supercomputer to build several thousand variants of the viral code based upon potential interactions with known present day viruses. This will give us a set of essentially all the possible hybrid viruses that could cause a disease that could be transmitted to humans.”

           
Dan smiled for a moment, satisfied that they had done all they could do. “Now all we need to do is to let the supercomputer run a few hundred thousand sets of multivariable simulations and then we’ll see how well Brendan’s vaccine performs.
 
Here’s hoping…” he said as he pressed the ENTER key.
 

           
The final step in the process would require the use of one additional program, the Vaccine Effectiveness Simulation Program (VESP).
 
It had been the brainchild of Dan three years earlier.
 
He had designed the top-level structure of the program and the executable code had been written, under Dan’s direction, by a team of students at the University.
 
So far it had only been used in tests on known vaccines where the actual effectiveness was already known. The program had always returned remarkably correct results.

           
“How long will the entire simulation take?” asked Brendan.

           
“It really depends upon the number of independent variables and the starting point of the simulation. Even though we are making use of over ten thousand computing nodes, the program can still take a long time to converge to a solution.”

           
“Oh,” Brendan said looking slightly disappointed, “So, it’s possible that this may not even work?”

           
“We’ll just have to wait and see,” Dan said, “but even if it converges very quickly it will still take a while, so why don’t we head over to the Glucksman for a cup of tea?
 
There’s nothing else we can do here.
 
What do you think?”
 
Less than a minute later they were walking down the gray, stone-paved walkway towards the café enjoying the warmth of the sun on their faces as the cool northern breezes hurriedly pushed one last remaining, small, white cloud from a deep blue sky …

           
It was only after they had each settled into their chairs in the café, and they had sipped their first taste of the steaming hot tea, that Dan settled back a little in his chair and let himself relax.
 
He smiled as he looked out the large window and saw a young boy and his father cast their fishing lines from the bank of the river.
 
Then he looked at Sheila and Brendan with a more serious look on his face.

           
“Remember those two men the
gardai
caught in the parking lot the night my office was bombed?
 
I need to tell you what the
Garda
captain told me about them.”