The Viral Epiphany (39 page)

“Roger, sir.
 
Check off item twenty-nine.
 
No holds until launch.”

The men in Silo Foxtrot Twelve sat up a little straighter in their comfortably cushioned, red-fabric, executive style chairs and watched their control room console more intently, and each of them were now quiet with their own thoughts.
 
They had never actually switched over to batteries in all their training drills, and the simple act of switching the missile to battery power had suddenly made them aware of the devastation they were about to unleash.

In each Minuteman and Peacekeeper missile silo around the country, on board each of the nuclear submarines that lay quietly and secretly on the floor of all the world’s oceans, and aboard every long-range B-52 and B-2 bomber that was now nearing its destination, launch crews and bombardiers switched their switches at the same, precise instant. Then, to a man, each sat back for a brief, heart-stopping moment and reflected, for they had now crossed a point that had never been crossed before.

President Cranston sat at the desk in his stateroom on board the
Seawolf,
holding the secure phone in his hand, and listened with a growing feeling of concern and impatience.
 
It had been ringing for three minutes, yet no one at the underground Alaska headquarters of Project Omega had answered it.
 
He turned to Grace and saw the look of despair on her face.

“They’re not answering, Grace,” he said, “they must be very busy now.
 
I don’t know if we’ll be able to get through.”
 
He looked down at his watch and then at her, but said nothing more.

“Alan, please,” she said,
 
“Keep trying. You have to talk with them and find out for sure!” He looked at her for a long moment and slowly shook his head.
 
She could read the feeling of resignation on his face.

 
“Grace, I don’t think they are going to answer now.
 
They must be very busy up there. The launch countdown is a very complex and coordinated process and they are probably responding to all sorts of real time problems.
 
I think the
Seawolf
must be already behind in the countdown.
 
I’m going to have to…Hello…
 
Hello…? General Baker?”
 
He smiled at Grace and put his hand on the telephone mouthpiece, “I have him!”

“Yes, sir, Mister President, this is General Baker.”

“General, I’ve been trying and trying to get through.
 
What’s happening there?”

 
“I’m sorry for the delay in answering, sir.
 
We’ve just gone through a major milestone in the worldwide countdown. All missile systems are now on battery power. We are now fully committed.”

President Cranston glanced over at Grace for a few moments but said nothing to her.

 
“OK,” President Cranston finally said. “I understand.” He turned away from Grace and spoke more softly into the phone.
 
“Listen, General, I need to know something about your choice of targets in Ireland, and, of course, we don’t have much time. Specifically, how sure are you that these cities you’ve targeted are really infected with the virus?
 
I mean, could there be a mistake of some kind about the Irish targets?”

“I don’t think so, sir, but would you mind telling me why you are questioning the choice of targets there?” General Baker looked up at the countdown clock and shook his head in exasperation.

“Certainly. I have spoken with an Irish research scientist.
 
He has created a vaccine for the disease.
 
In fact he has given us a small supply. He also said that Ireland is disease free! We need to quickly re-verify our information General.”

“Yes, sir. Hold on a minute, please, sir.”
 
General Baker picked up the P.A. microphone and paged Franklin James Singleton III to come to the Omega control room immediately.
 
A minute later, red-faced and out of breath, Franklin pushed the control room door open and hurriedly waddled over to General Baker’s desk.
 
He sat down across from the General and began wiping the perspiration from his forehead with his left hand. He was holding a half-eaten almond croissant in his right hand.

“Franklin,” General Baker said, looking slightly disgusted,
 
“I need an answer, and I need it fast!”

“Yes, sir!” Franklin said, very surprised. He had never heard the General talk to him like this before.

“What data set did you use to determine that cities in Ireland should be targets in Clean Sweep? Hurry up. The President needs to know!”

“Data set?
 
What do you mean?” Franklin replied as he looked wildly around the room for the President.
 
“We used the population data that was published by the Irish government.
 
Why?”

“No, no, no.
 
I mean what disease data did you use?”

“Disease data?” Franklin asked, looking perplexed. “Why do you think we used disease data?
 
I don’t have any disease data. The computer just uses model projections.
 
We do that for all the cities.
 
Why?”

“You mean you don’t know if there are actually any cases of the disease in Ireland?” General Baker had never bothered to learn the details of how the targeting program actually worked, but he had always assumed that it relied on actual disease statistics.

“No, sir, of course not.
 
I’m sure you must recall that the Clean Sweep targeting program was written with the assumption that there was a worldwide outbreak of a really bad disease.
 
Right?
 
So, given that there is a worldwide outbreak then it’s just a matter of eliminating cities of certain size in order to control the spread of the disease.
 
We don’t need actual disease data,” he said and sat back with a self-assured smile.

“You don’t need disease data?” the General said, completely dumbfounded.

Franklin smiled proudly, shook his head ‘no’, and took a bite of his croissant.

General Baker sat and stared at him for a second. “OK, Franklin.
 
You just sit tight here and listen in case I need you. I’m going to put this on speakerphone now, but you just keep quiet unless I tell you to speak.
 
Got it?”

“Yeah, John,” Franklin said nodding amiably, “Sure.”

 
General Baker then took a deep breath before he spoke again to the President. “Sir, I’m afraid we don’t have any disease data for Ireland.”

“What?” the President said, looking over at Grace, “you targeted Ireland with no data?”
 
A slight trace of hope appeared on Grace’s face.

“It’s a long story, sir.
 
But that’s it in a nutshell.” General Baker wondered for a split second how he might have to explain this later on.

“General,” the President said with a tone of urgency now in his voice,
 
“this researcher in Ireland, his name is Doctor Dan Quinn, told us he has a vaccine that works!”

“Daniel Quinn?” the General asked, unable to hide the surprise in his voice. “Is he in Cork City?”

President Cranston hesitated for a second before replying, “Why yes, he is. How did you know?”

“Sir, we have a black team looking for him right now.
 
He knows too much about things he shouldn’t.”

“What??” the President shouted, “Are you out of your minds over there?
 
Call that team off right now!
 
This guy has a vaccine, General!”

“Yes, sir. I understand. I’ll take care of it. Right away, sir.”

“General,” President Cranston said, calming down slightly,
 
“they have millions of doses already made in Ireland.
 
And…he said that our CDC is currently manufacturing millions of doses too! Did you know that?”

General Baker looked up for a moment, trying to remember if he had heard anything about the CDC making a vaccine. “No, sir.
 
I hadn’t heard that. Sir, I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t see how that’s relevant at this time. I mean we’re past T minus thirty now and what difference does it make if anybody has a vaccine now? There’s no time left to give millions or billions of people shots.
 
It’s too late.”

“Well, maybe not for Ireland.
 
Doctor Quinn said they are already making inhalers and they will be distributing them to everyone in about a week. I don’t think we shouldn’t be targeting them!”

“Yes, sir. Maybe you’re right about that. But, sir, how are they distributing the vaccine?
 
It can take months to give everyone an injection. Oh, did you say it was inhaled?”

“Yes, the vaccine is inhaled, General. They are mass-producing inhalers that they are distributing to the people!”
 
President Cranston suddenly had an idea.
 
“General, wait a minute.
 
Maybe we could do that too!
 
Maybe our industry could do the same as theirs! We have so much more manufacturing capability than they do.
 
Maybe there’s still time!”

“Sir,” General Baker said with as much patience as he could manage,
 
“I don’t want to contradict you sir, but the population of Ireland is only about four million people.
 
The U.S. has about three hundred million people and the world population is over six billion! I’m afraid that wouldn’t work. You can’t just hand out hundreds of millions or billions of inhalers to everyone on the planet now.
 
There’s just not enough time. The computer projections show that.
 
Hell, I have the expert right here beside me.”
 
Franklin looked over at him and frowned slightly.
 
He had been listening intently to the new course the conversation had taken and he didn’t want to be put into a position where he might be blamed for any miscalculations.

 
General Baker then looked up at the control room countdown clock for a moment. “Sir, I don’t want to rush you, but I have to get going, we’ll be coming up to T minus fifteen minutes pretty soon.”

“I see,” President Cranston said with the disappointment clearly in his voice, “We’re going to take Ireland off of our target list, General, but I only wish we could do something more. What, with all the vaccine that’s being made, I just wish we could find a way to use it.”

“Sir,” General Baker said, trying to console him,
 
“if you had something that could do aerial spraying of the vaccine, sort of like the Nightshade bomber, you might be able to do it, but we’ve only got one of those.
 
I don’t know how else you could do it.”

“Yes! That’s it!” President Cranston said, “Why can’t we use the Nightshade?
 
It’ll be able to cover a lot of ground quickly, won’t it?”

General Baker raised his eyebrows and shook his head.
 
The President had never shown much grasp of what it takes to really get things done and as a result he had a history of always promising far more than he could deliver.
 
“It’s only one plane, sir, you would need thousands and we just don’t have them. It’s sort of funny, though – now that you mention it. We do have enough bladders – I purchased a few thousand of them a while back when we had some extra funding and couldn’t spend it any other way.
 
If we only had the planes we could probably do what you’re saying. But we don’t!”

 
“Of course you do!” said a loud voice behind him.
 
General Baker turned around and saw Franklin beaming at him.
 
“Sure you have planes, John. You could put those rubber bladders into all of the commercial airplanes and military airplanes in the country.
 
Just take out the seats! You hook the bladders up to the exhaust air vents in the tail – all the planes have them – and then you just spray the vaccine over the cities!” Franklin smiled broadly at General Baker and popped the last bite of the croissant into his mouth.

General Baker stared at Franklin, his mouth half open in wonder.
 
He’s right!
he thought.
We probably could do that!

“Sir,” General Baker said to the President as his voice rose in excitement, “I think we might have an idea here.
 
I think we can use our chemical bladders and the country’s commercial and military fleets of large aircraft to spray all the major cities in the world.
 
If there really is enough vaccine, sir…well…I think we can do this!”

President Cranston smiled over at Grace and then said, “Well then, General lets do it! Cancel Clean Sweep immediately!”
           
“Yes, sir!”

“And General, listen,” President Cranston said lowering his voice and talking very slowly,
 
“This means that we have some serious damage control to do now. We need to keep this whole Clean Sweep thing a very, very deep secret. The American people, hell, the world population, can never know that we actually put Clean Sweep into operation. Right?
 
Do you understand me, General? This is very, very important!”