‘Good,’ Adrianna said. ‘We’ll rely on you to—’
‘But…but, Jesus, Adrianna!’ Victor’s voice raised a notch and she said, ‘Yes?’
His face was mottled white, as though a surge of anger was now raging through him. ‘You… I mean, all right, suppose we do have enough vaccine. That’s a possibility. Considering who we are and the blank check we carry around in our back pockets all the time, we may be able to make it happen. But you haven’t solved the delivery problem, not even close to it!’
‘It’s a problem, it’ll be solved,’ she said.
‘Do you have any idea? Do you? My God, the last mass immunization we had in this country was the swine flu fiasco, back in 1976.’
Nobody said anything. Adrianna paused, hoped someone would pick up the ball, and thankfully, it was her New York detective.
‘Going to need a history lesson there, pal. Most of us were pissing in our diapers back then. Go on.’
Victor wiped at his face with his right hand, ‘In 1976 — February, I think — there was an outbreak of a respiratory illness at Fort Dix in New Jersey. An Army recruit died, and autopsy results showed he died from a variation of swine flu. That got a lot of people’s attention. You see, a form of swine flu was believed to be the strain of influenza that broke out in 1918 and 1919. A lot of people died worldwide from that epidemic.’
Monty said, ‘Define “a lot”, doc.’
Victor’s voice was now calmer, and icier. ‘How does fifty to a hundred million people sound like?’
Brian said, ‘Sick? You mean, fifty to a hundred million people sick?’
‘Shit, no, not sick. Dead. Fifty to a hundred million people dead. Worldwide. In the space of a year.’
Adrianna’s mouth seemed dry. So many dead… She said, ‘Impossible. How could that many people have died without us knowing about it today? Something like that should be in all the history books.’
A sharp nod from Victor. ‘Of course. But something else was crowding out the news about the pandemic. The end of the First World War. Tens of millions had died in the trenches and elsewhere. What was another ten or fifty or a hundred million? Which is why the CDC back in ‘76 freaked, thinking that the swine flu that killed this soldier was just the tip of the iceberg. Old reports I saw, the estimate was that if there was a swine flu outbreak that year, by the end of 1976 there could be a million deaths in the United States alone. A million. So there was a crash program, announced by President Ford, to immunize everybody in the United States against swine flu.’
Brian said, ‘Sorry, doc, you’re gonna have to continue the history lesson here. I don’t remember this shit at all.’
‘Can’t see why you should — because it was a fiasco. It was supposed to be another Manhattan Project style of government management but those type of projects tend not to repeat themselves in terms of success, if you know what I mean. A global war against Nazis and Japanese militarists tends to focus one’s mind and efforts. Not the threat of a possible flu epidemic. Anyway, pharmaceutical companies were pressed into service to develop the vaccine. One company spent all their time developing the wrong vaccine and had to start over. Insurance companies said they wouldn’t pay out any claims against the pharmaceuticals. Congress had to step in to provide protection. The vaccine for children had to be administered in the two-dose system. Paperwork and administration was a nightmare. Then some elderly people started dying, the day they got the vaccine. And then it came out that people receiving the vaccine were at a greater risk of developing Guillain-Barre syndrome, a delightful and occasionally fatal form of paralysis. By the time it went down in flames, only a third of the population had been immunized, and the total cost reached almost a half-billion dollars. And there was no swine flu outbreak that year.’
‘Christ on a crutch,’ Monty said.
‘And another thing,’ Victor said, pressing on, ‘they had nine months to do it, and they still didn’t get it right. How in hell do you expect us to do the same thing in under a month?’
Adrianna was pleased at how calm her voice sounded, and felt a quick burst of pride — quickly suppressed- at how well she was doing. ‘Victor, what other choice do we have? Wait for the outbreaks to start in Chicago or Atlanta or DC? It will be too late by then. You know it.’
‘Another mass-immunization program… it can’t work,’ Victor said. ‘You know it can’t. Not in the space of time we have. Not to mention the media attention. Hell, the news medias’ focus on the program back in ‘76 crippled it. Back when there were only three major networks, no news cable channels. Can you imagine what it would be like now, today? With the cable news channels? The twenty-four/seven coverage? The cameras outside the clinics? The interviews with people who have a bad reaction from the immunization? The chat rooms? The weblogs? It would be a disaster before it even—’
Monty interrupted, ‘Not to mention that it would give the assholes with the anthrax an excuse to hit us now. Not wait until some special date on their fucked-up calendar. Now.’
Another pause in the conversations. It seemed like a moment had been reached, and Adrianna knew what it was. She had prepared for it, had practiced it, but still, it was hard, getting the words out.
‘Then…then what we’re talking about,’ she began, ‘is that perhaps the only option is to proceed with the immunization. But in private.’
There, she thought. It was out. From the looks on the faces of the other Tiger Team members, it was as though she had taken a baseball bat to the back of their heads. Darren, now looking even more pale, turned, stared at the other members, and said, ‘What do you mean, private? You’re talking nearly three hundred million people. How can something this huge be done in private?’
More voices, from Monty and Victor but not, she noted, from Brian. He seemed to be keeping his counsel, and Adrianna raised a hand and the voices quieted down for a moment. She said, ‘Perhaps “private” wasn’t the correct word. Secret, then. An immunization program in secret.’
Another blow to their heads. More silence. And now it was Brian’s turn.
‘You’re looking at hefty prison sentences for all of us, if this goes through,’ he said.
‘Perhaps. And perhaps hefty prison sentences will be a worthwhile price to pay for saving millions of lives, for saving this country, for saving civilization.’
Victor said, ‘Adrianna, we’re facing terrible choices, we all know it, but hyperbole and exaggeration isn’t going to help us—’
She let her voice rise. ‘What hyperbole? What exaggeration? Come on, Victor. You know your history. You know what we’re up against. Let’s say we do nothing about immunization. Let’s say that we depend on Monty and his bright young men and women to intercept the attack teams. I’m sure they’ll be successful in most cases. But they’re not perfect. Let’s say a handful get through…what next? You’re still looking at hundreds of thousands of deaths. Panic. Collapse of our economy. Perhaps even the end of us as a functioning superpower. What then? I’ll tell you what then. Meetings are held in Tokyo and Moscow and Paris and Berlin and even in poor London, and decisions are made. Compromises. Appeasement. Surrender. From the politicians in those nations who don’t want mass graves in football stadiums or wheatfields as a consequence of cooperating with us in our war on terror. And I know it’s a fucking cliche and all that, but by then the terrorists win. And how long before sharia — Islamic law — is imposed in Paris, in Amsterdam, in some of the Asian countries? How long?’