The novelist leaned forward. “Well, Gideon, not every American is ready to surrender. Those of us in this room, along with a small group of other like-minded individuals, are not going to let this happen. We’re going to save our country.”
Gideon desperately tried to order his thoughts. Blaine was a powerfully persuasive and charismatic speaker. “And the smallpox? Where does that come in?”
“Surely you can now guess where that comes in. We’re going to release it in five of the enemy’s cities. The enemy’s great vulnerability is their population density and their dependence on trade. As the virus spreads like wildfire through the virgin human population, the world will impose a quarantine on the infected country—it will have no choice. We know that for a fact: response to a smallpox event is detailed in a highly classified NATO plan.”
He smiled triumphantly, as if the operation had already taken place. “With a quarantine, that country’s borders will be sealed. Everything will be stopped or blocked: flights, roads, railroads, ports, even trails. The country will remain quarantined as long as the disease is present. Our epidemiologist tells us it might be years before the disease can be recontained. By that time, the enemy’s economy will be back where it was in the fifties. The eighteenfifties.”
“They’ll lash out with nuclear weapons,” Gideon said.
“True, but right now they don’t have all that many, and not of high quality. We will take down most of their missiles in flight. A few of our cities might be hit, but then we will massively retaliate. After all, it iswar.” He shrugged.
Gideon stared at him. “You’re crazy. They’re not our enemy. This whole plan is insane.”
“Really, Gideon, you’re smarter than that.” Blaine held out his hand in a supplicating gesture. “Gideon. Join us, please. Give me the smallpox.”
Gideon backed toward the door. “I won’t be part of this. I can’t.”
“Don’t disappoint me. You’re one of the few with the brains to see the truth in my words. I’m trusting you to think about this—really thinkabout what I’ve said. This is a country that only a generation ago murdered thirty million of their own people. They don’t place the same value on human life that we do. They’d do it to us—if they could.”
“It’s monstrous. You’re talking about murdering millions. I’ve heard enough.”
“Think of Alida—”
“ Shut up about Alida!” Gideon found his arm trembling, his voice cracking, the soldiers backing away in fear as he waved the puck about.
“No!” Blaine entreated him. “Wait!”
“Tell the soldiers to lay down their guns! Now it’s my turn to count to five. One—!”
“For God’s sake, no!” Blaine cried. “No here, not near Washington. You release that smallpox, you’ll do to America what we were going to do to—”
“Look into my eyes if you don’t believe it. Tell the soldiers to put down their guns! Two…”
“Oh my God.” Blaine’s hands shook. “Gideon, I beg you, don’t do it.”
“ Three…”
“You won’t do it. You won’t.”
“I said, look into my eyes, Blaine. Four…” He cocked his hand. He really was going to do it. And—finally—Blaine saw that.
“Lower the guns!” Blaine cried. “Lay them down!”
“ Five!” Gideon screamed.
“Down! Down!”
The guns went down with a clatter, the soldiers clearly terrified. Even Dart and the lieutenant threw their weapons down.
“Hands up!” Gideon demanded.
All hands went up.
“You son of a bitch, don’t do this!” Dart yelled.
Gideon edged around, past the laboratory table, one hand still raised, the other behind his back. He had very little time. He reached the door, pushed it open with his knee. Then he spun around, took a fresh grasp on the puck, and hurled it to the floor with all his might, simultaneously darting out and racing down the hall.
As he ran, he heard the puck shatter, the broken pieces ricocheting around the ready room—and then an absolute chaos of shouting, scrambling, running, while, rising above it all, came a great and terrible roar from Blaine, like a lion speared through the heart.
72
Simon Blaine stumbled backward with a cry as the puck struck the floor and split open, spewing its contents with a puff of condensation, the pieces of plastic and glass bouncing off the door frame and skittering across the floor. He could see the crystalline powder melt on contact with the floor.
With lightning clarity his mind saw the future: the sealing off of Washington and its suburbs, the quarantine, the inexorable spread of the disease, the frantic and useless vaccination efforts, the galloping pandemic, the mobilizing of the National Guard, the riots, the ports closed and borders sealed, curfews, states of emergency, bombing sorties, war along the borders with Canada and Mexico… And of course the total collapse of the US economy. He saw these things with a certainty born of knowledge. These were not speculations: this was exactly how it was going to happen, because he had alreadyseen it happen to the enemy in their computer simulations, over and over again.
All this flashed through his brain in a few seconds. He knew they were all likely infected already; the disease was as catching as the common cold, and the amount of smallpox in the puck represented a staggering quantity of virus, enough to directly infect almost a hundred million people. With the shattering of the puck, it had been rendered airborne. They were already, all of them, breathing it in. He and the rest of them were dead men.
He saw all this with a horrific lucidity. And then he became aware of the shouts, the cries of the soldiers, the hollering of Dart.
“Don’t move,” he said in a commanding voice. “Don’t stir the air. Stop yelling. Shut up.”
They obeyed him. Instant silence.
“We need to get the building sealed,” he said, with a strange, sudden calm that surprised even himself. “ Now.If we can keep everyone inside, we might just contain it.”
“But what about us?” Dart asked, his face white.
“We’re finished,” said Blaine. “Now we need to save our country.”
A long silence. A soldier suddenly screamed and bolted, leaping over the doorsill and tearing off down the hall. Without hesitation, Blaine drew his weapon, took careful aim, and pulled the trigger. The old Peacemaker kicked with a roar and the soldier went down, screaming and gargling.
“Fuck this, I’m putting a suit on,” Dart said, his voice breaking, scrabbling at the rack, pulling down suits. “We’ll be safe in the lab!” Several suits fell off the rack with a crash and now the soldiers rushed in, grabbing at suits, shoving one another, all semblance of discipline vanished.
Multiply that panic by a hundred million, Blaine thought. That’s what the country was facing.
His eye fell back on the faint, damp patches where the crystallized virus and its substrate had sprayed across the floor and walls. It was unspeakable. He couldn’t believe Gideon had actually done it. Blaine knew he was perfectly willing to give his life for his country—in fact he had expected to—but not like this. Not like this.
And then he noticed something.
He bent down. Looked closer. Got on his hands and knees. And then reached out and picked up the broken puck. A small serial number was stamped on the side, along with an identification label in tiny type:
INFLUENZA A/H9N2 KILLED
“My God!” he cried. “This isn’t smallpox! We’ve been tricked. Spread out, search the building, find him! This is a different puck. He switched pucks.He’s still got the smallpox! He’s still got the smallpox!”