Nozzle in one hand and canister in another, Bernard returned to the cockpit and sprayed the controls, seat, floor and ceiling until they dripped with the milky green, noxious fluid. He then re-entered the passenger cabin, applying the high-pressure stream to everything he had touched, and more besides. He unscrewed the nozzle when the can was empty and released the pressure valve, placing the canister in a leather-cushioned seat. With the twist of a lever, the hatch hissed open, descending to a few inches above the concrete.
He tapped his pants pocket with one hand to make sure the flare pistol was there, felt for the six extra shells, and climbed down the stairway to the concrete, setting the Jeppesen case on the runway about ten meters from the jet’s bright red nose.
Step by step, he sabotaged his aircraft, first loosening and draining the hydraulics systems, then slashing the tires and letting out the air. With an ax he broke the windscreen on the starboard side of the cockpit, then the three passenger windows on the port side, clambering up on the wing to reach them.
He climbed up the stairs and entered the cockpit, reaching around the disinfectant-soaked seat to pull up the cover on the fuel jettison switch. With a hard click, the switch depressed under his finger and the valves opened. Bernard quickly left the plane, snatched the case and ran to where the gray and orange isolation suit lay on the strip.
The technicians and Pharmek personnel had made no attempt to interfere. Bernard removed the pistol and shells from his pocket, took off all his clothing and donned the pressurized suit. Balling up the clothing, he carried it to the pool of jet fuel under the Falcon. He returned and opened the case, removing his passport and dropping it into a plastic bag. Then he picked up the gun.
The shell slid smoothly into the barrel. He took careful aim—hoping the trajectory wouldn’t be too curved—and fired a flare at his pride and joy.
The fuel blossomed in a mushroom of orange and roiling black. Silhouetted against the inferno, Bernard hefted his case and walked toward the truck.
A customs official was not likely to be present, but to be legal and aboveboard, he held the plastic-wrapped passport out and pointed at it. A man in a similar isolation suit took it from him.
“Nothing to declare,” Bernard said. The man raised his hand to the suit’s helmet in acknowledgment and stepped back. “Spray me down, please.”.
He pirouetted in the shower of disinfectant, lifting his arms. As he climbed the steps into the truck’s isolation tank, he heard the faint hum of the air recirculator and saw the purple gleam of ultraviolet lights. The hatch swung shut behind him, paused, then sank into its seals with a distant sigh.
Heading toward Pharmek on a narrow two-lane road through grass pastures, Bernard peered through the thick side viewport at the landing strip. The fuselage of the jet had collapsed in a skeletal, blackened heap. Flames still leaped high into the summer dawn. The blaze seemed to be consuming everything.
19
Heinz Paulsen-Fuchs looked at the records of calls displayed on the screen of his phone. Already it was beginning. There had been inquiries from several agencies, including the Bundesumweltamt—House Environmental Oversight—and the Bundesgesundheitsamt, Federal Health. State officials in Frankfurt and Weisbaden were also concerned.
All flights to and from the United States had been canceled. He could expect officials on his doorstep within hours. Before they arrived, he had to hear Bernard’s explanation.
Not for the first time in his life did he regret coming to the aid of a friend. It was not the least of his failings. One of the most important industrialists in post-war Germany, and he was still a sentimental soft-touch.
He donned a transparent raincoat over his trim gray wool suit and carefully placed a beret on his curly white hair. Then he waited by the front door for the rain-beaded Citroen.
“Good morning, Uwe,” he greeted his chauffeur as the car door was opened for him. “I promised this for Richard.” He leaned over the seat and handed Uwe three paperback mysteries. Richard was the chauffeur’s twelve-year-old son, like Paulsen-Fuchs an avid mystery buff. “Drive even faster than usual.”
“You will pardon me that I didn’t meet you at the airstrip,” Paulsen-Fuchs said. “I was here, preparing for your arrival—and then I was called away. There are already inquiries from my government. Something very serious is happening. You are aware of it?”
Bernard approached the thick, triple-paned window separating the biological containment laboratory from the adjacent viewing chamber. He held up his hand, criss-crossed by white lines, and said, “I’m infected.”
Paulsen-Fuchs’ eyes narrowed and he held two fingers to his cheek. “You are apparently not alone, Michael. What is happening in America?”
“I haven’t heard anything since I left.”
“Your Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta have issued emergency instructions. All air flights intra– and international are cancelled. Rumors say some cities do not respond to communications—telephone or radio. There appears to be rapidly spreading chaos. Now, you come to us, burn your vehicle on our airstrip, make very certain that you are the only thing from your country to survive in ours—everything else is sterilized. What can we make from all this, Michael?”
“Paul, there are several things all countries must do immediately. You must quarantine recent travelers from the U.S., Mexico—possibly from all of North America. I have no idea how far the contagion will spread, but it seems to be moving quickly.”
“Yes, our government is working to do just this. But you know bureaucracy—”
“Go around the bureaucracy. Cut off all physical contact with North America.”
“I cannot simply make them do that by suggesting—”
“Paul,” Bernard said, holding up his hand again, “I have perhaps a week, less if what you say is accurate. Tell your government this is more than just a vat spill. I have all the important records in my flight case. I need to conference with your senior biologists as soon as I’ve had a couple of hours sleep. Before they talk to me, I want them to view the files I brought with me. I’ll plug the disks into the terminal here. I can’t say much more now; I’ll fall over if I don’t sleep soon.”
“Very well, Michael.” Paulsen-Fuchs regarded him sadly, deep lines of worry showing on his face. “Is it something we imagined could happen?”
Bernard thought for a moment. “No,” he said. “I don’t think so.”
“All the worse, then,” Paulsen-Fuchs said. “I will arrange things now. Transfer your data. Get sleep.” Paulsen-Fuchs left and the light in the viewing chamber was turned off.
Bernard paced the three-by-three meters area of his new home. The lab had been built in the early eighties for genetic experiments which, at the time, were regarded as potentially dangerous. The entire inner chamber was suspended within a high-pressure tank; any ruptures in the chamber would result in atmosphere entering, not escaping. The pressurized tank could be sprayed with several kinds of disinfectant, and was surrounded by yet another tank, this one evacuated. All electrical conduits and mechanical systems which had to pass through the tanks were jacketed in sterilizing solutions. Air and waste materials leaving the lab were subjected to high-heat sterilization and cremation; any samples taken from the lab were processed in an adjacent chamber with the same safeguards. From now until the problem was solved, or he was dead, nothing from Bernard’s body would be touched by another living thing outside the chamber.
The walls were neutral light gray; lighting was provided by fluorescents in vertical strips in the walls, and by three bright ceiling-mounted panels. Lights could be controlled from both inside and outside. The floor was featureless black tile. In the middle of the room—clearly visible from both of the opposed viewing chambers—was a standard business desk and secretary’s chair, and on the desk, a high-resolution VDT. A utilitarian but comfortable-looking cot, without sheets or blanket, awaited him in one corner. A chest of drawers stood by the stainless steel pass-through hatch. On one wall, a large rectangular square marked a hatch for large equipment—waldoes, he suspected. The ensemble was completed by a lounge chair and a curtained commode-shower facility that looked like it had been removed in one piece from an airplane or recreational vehicle.