‘And the dead Iraqis?’
‘Cremated with the vehicles.’
The debriefing officer drew in breath through his teeth.
The group leader felt compelled to defend his action. ‘I thought in the circumstances and not knowing what the agent was, it would be best to burn everything,’ he said.
‘Well, so far the Iraqis haven’t made any noises at all,’ said the officer. ‘We haven’t heard a peep out of them.’
‘Is that good or bad sir?’
‘In my view, bad. Silence usually infers guilt. If this had been a case of a patrol innocently straying across the line they would have been screaming the place down and calling the UN into special session.’
‘How is the Iraqi we brought in, sir?’
‘Still alive, I hear. We’re waiting for the experts to arrive.’
‘So no one knows what’s wrong with him yet?’
”Fraid not. We’ll keep you posted. In the meantime I’ll have to ask you all to be patient.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Still feeling all right?’
‘Yes sir, we’re fine.’
The four soldiers were encouraged to get some sleep but it proved difficult for all of them. Although well used to having to sleep where and when they could under operational conditions, lying on a clean comfortable bunk, alone with their thoughts in their present predicament was not something they had been trained for. The enemy this time was completely intangible; it was something they could not get to grips with. It was invisible and deadly and for all they knew, it was already inside them; chances were, it had already won the battle. They became hyper-aware of their own bodies When one of the soldiers sneezed the others froze in apprehension. Was it the first sign? The slightest twinge of pain in their limbs, any suggestion of stiffness took on a whole new significance.
‘This waiting is driving me mad,’ said one of the men as they started their third day drinking coffee and playing cards.
‘Surely they’ll figure out something today,’ said another. They had experts flying in all day yesterday. Porton Down, CDC Atlanta, a team from Sweden.’
‘Sweden?’ chorused the others.
‘Apparently they have a great deal of expertise in mobile isolation facilities for disease outbreaks. They set up a team after one of their cities was threatened with an outbreak of filo virus a few years ago. They’re top notch.’
‘So they think it’s a virus then?’
‘Seems to be, the way they’re moving,’ agreed the leader.
‘Christ, we must have it,’ said one of the soldiers, getting to his feet and starting to pace.
‘It’s been three days and we’re still all okay,’ countered one of the others.
‘I know but … Christ, we must have it. It wouldn’t be much of a biological warfare agent if we didn’t, would it?
‘So it’s a crap agent, I’ll settle for that,’ said the leader. It’ll be on a par with Saddam’s crap missiles. They would have been as well throwing rice pudding at the Israelis as these SCUDS as I remember.
‘Or maybe our shots are working against it. We could be immune. ‘
‘Yeah, let’s look on the bright side.’
This spawned a short chorus of ‘Always look on the bright side of life’ which had more bravado than humour about it. It prompted their Saudi monitors to ask if they were still feeling all right.
‘Never better,’ replied their leader, not bothering to explain any further.
At seven on the evening of their third day in quarantine the doors to the isolation unit were suddenly opened up and the four soldiers were joined by British and Saudi officers.
‘Your incarceration is over gentlemen,’ announced one. ‘You’re free to go.’
The men were taken aback. The Iraqi’s okay then?
‘No, unfortunately he’s dead but not from any dreadful new plague virus I’m delighted to say.’
‘Then what?’
‘Our international team of experts tell us he died from something called, disseminated vaccinia; he was just unlucky.’
‘I’m sorry sir, I don’t think I understand,’ said the group leader.
‘Apparently the chap suffered an adverse reaction to a vaccination against smallpox.’
A vaccination?’
‘I’m told that there are a certain percentage of people in any population who are hypersensitive to vaccinia virus which they use for giving protection against the disease. This poor chap was one of them.
‘So we are okay then?’
‘Indeed you are.’
‘Thank f….goodness sir.’
‘Amen to that sergeant.’
TWO
World Health Organisation
International Disease Monitor
Geneva
September 1997
It was a hot afternoon. The sun was shining brightly on the summer crowds that thronged the pavements but inside, the room was pleasantly cool because of air conditioning and comfortably shaded thanks to half closed blinds. There were twenty four people assembled in the room when the doors were finally closed and the chairman brought the meeting to order.
‘Thank you for coming, ladies and gentlemen, I‘ve convened this special meeting of the Viral Pathogen Group to scotch a rumour I’ve been made aware of and to relay a report that has arrived on my desk from our colleagues at the United Nations Disease Monitor.
The facts of the matter are as follows. Two weeks ago a sick Iraqi soldier was picked up just inside Saudi Arabian territory by a routine desert patrol. His intentions were not clear in crossing the border but it seems he was being pursued from the Iraqi side so we can assume that he was seeking help or even asylum. He was too ill to give any information to the men who picked him up but one of these men who had special training in biological warfare recognised the possible dangers of the situation and sought expert advice by radio. The sick man was subsequently airlifted, along with the patrol to a hospital in Dhahran which had isolation facilities and where they were all put in quarantine. The immediate fear for the authorities was that the Iraqi had been subject to some biological or chemical warfare accident. One of the staff physicians, however, a man in his sixties thought he recognised the disease as being smallpox.’
A slight hubbub broke out in the room.
‘Quite so,’ conceded the chairman. ‘A full scale alert was declared.’
When specialist people arrived from CDC Atlanta along with a Niklasson team from Sweden it was determined that the disease was not in fact smallpox but an adverse reaction to vaccination against the disease. The man was in fact, suffering from disseminated vaccinia. He was one of these few extremely unfortunate people who cannot tolerate vaccinia virus- I can’t remember the exact incidence figure?
‘One in a hundred thousand,’ said a man half way down the right side of the table who spoke with a strong Swedish accent..
‘Thank you, Sven,’ said the chairman. ‘Of course, once it was established that it was not smallpox they were dealing with there was relief all round. The three or four day nightmare was suddenly over. Unfortunately the Iraqi himself died without being able to furnish us with any details of what exactly had happened. The patrol members who naturally had been worried about their own safety were released from quarantine and allowed to return to duty. But it was a very worrying time for all concerned.’
A murmur of agreement surfaced in the room.
‘In view of the rumour about an outbreak of smallpox, circulating in certain professional circles, both here and at the UN building, I thought I would put the record straight. I have also asked Dr Jacques Lang from the joint WHO/UN smallpox advisory group to join us today and give us an up-date on the world situation with regard to that disease.’