CHAPTER 17
P resident Harrison leaned back into one of two long, cream-coloured couches that faced each other in the Oval Office. A large blue and gold Presidential seal was woven into the caramel carpet between them. Dan Esposito sat at one end of the President’s couch, and the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense sat opposite. Three trusted advisors who all thought along the same lines; it was an arrangement that this President had long been comfortable with. A sort of inner ‘kitchen cabinet’ whose time was not wasted in dealing with opposing views that came from people like the Secretary of State.
‘So what are we going to do about the production of smallpox vaccines?’ President Harrison asked.
‘I’m looking into that, Mr President,’ the Vice President responded smoothly. ‘I’ll have some recommendations to you later in the week, but the development will need to be done by a pharmaceutical we can trust that has a proven track record. One with the right facilities because they’ll need access to the smallpox we’re holding in CDC and they’ll need to produce this on time and on budget.’ The Vice President knew well that the only pharmaceutical with Biosafety Level 4 facilities outside of CDC and USAMRIID was Halliwell.
The President nodded approvingly. The contract would be worth nearly half a billion dollars and would require the production of 300 million doses of vaccine for the American people. The prospect of it being done ‘on time and on budget’ was the sort of uncomplicated news the President liked to hear.
‘Which brings us to the related issue of today’s agenda, Mr President,’ the Vice President continued. It was not an agenda that would ever be recorded on paper.
‘Quite frankly we were caught with our pants down on 9/11 and we took a lot of hits over the anthrax attacks afterwards. If we’re attacked with anthrax again and, heaven forbid, with smallpox as well, and if it ever gets out that we had prior warning, your presidency will be history. As far as Kadeer goes, I’m with Dan, I think the bastard’s bluffing, but Eternity and stolen windmills have got the media’s attention. The public is worried and we need to get into a position to reassure them.’
The Secretary of Defense nodded. ‘This town leaks like a sieve, Mr President,’ he said. ‘If the report warning of another anthrax and smallpox attack surfaces, the media and those bastards up on the Hill will have our balls in a vice.’
‘I agree.’ Vice President Bolton seized his chance to push the argument on the development of biological weapons to restore the United States to a position where they were leading the world in the deadly research that could only be carried out in hot-zone laboratories. ‘We need to fight fire with fire, Mr President, and to do that we need to reintroduce our own bioweapons research program so that we’ve got some idea of what these little Muslim bastards might be up to. And it’s not only the threat from the Islamists we should be worried about, Mr President. The Chinese have massively increased their spending on defense, and just like the Russians in the 1970s, I wouldn’t put it past them to develop biological weapons.’
‘We’re a signatory to the Biological Weapons Convention, Mr President,’ Dan Esposito interjected. ‘That prohibits us from developing the kind of weapons we’re talking about here.’ It wasn’t the ethics that was bothering Esposito; he was more concerned that the President obey one of the first maxims of a successful modern day politician, ‘thou shall not get caught’. The other two had missed the point.
‘For fuck’s sake, Dan!’ Vice President Bolton’s anger was never far from the surface and it always erupted when anybody dared to disagree with him. ‘The report on Dolinsky is more than credible. You and I both know the fucking Russians started a huge bioweapons program before the ink was even dry on that convention. When that fellow Alibek defected from Russia in 1992 we discovered that at the same time the Russians were telling us and the rest of the world they wouldn’t develop any biological weapons, they were actually building Biopreparat!’
‘Chuck’s right, Mr President,’ the Defense Secretary said. ‘Not only did they move their stocks of smallpox to Koltsovo without telling us but after they signed the 1972 convention, they employed tens of thousands of bioweapons experts in fifty different laboratories.’
‘And just in case you might think it odd that the Russians are employing a Georgian like Dolinsky, Dan,’ the Vice President continued, building on the unsolicited support from the Defense Secretary and pre-empting Esposito, ‘I’ll remind you that Alibek is Asian. He was born in Kazakhstan for fuck’s sake! This is war, and if the Russians ignored the convention, do you think a bunch of backward bloody Muslims are going to take any notice of any paper agreement? If they can get their hands on biological weapons, they will, and they’ll use them against the American people. Our own research stopped when that little shit Nixon canned it in 1969. Right now we haven’t got a clue what these bastards might be up to because we’re the only turkeys playing the game!’
‘You’re missing the point, Mr Vice President,’ Dan Esposito responded coolly, speaking from a position of power that infuriated Bolton. Esposito turned towards the President. ‘I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be in a position to strike first, Mr President, far from it. The point I’m making is that we need to make damn sure this doesn’t leak. The two organisations that have Biosafety Level 4 laboratories most capable of this sort of research are the CDC and USAMRIID. USAMRIID employs over 700 people, including 200 Doctorate level scientists, and the CDC employs even more.’ Dan Esposito absorbed facts and figures like a steel trap, something that hadn’t been lost on the Vice President.
For Vice President Bolton knowledge was power. The Vice President had briefed the Secretary of Defense but as yet, he hadn’t allowed Esposito into the compartment dealing with the top-secret construction at Halliwell. To the construction workers it was just another laboratory complex and only a handful of engineers with a need to ensure the hot-zone laboratory met strict tolerances were in the compartment – and even they had only been given a bare outline of the laboratory’s ultimate purpose.
Esposito glared at the Vice President, determined to protect his man and the Republican Party’s interests. ‘Not only that,’ Esposito said, ‘but the Colonel Commanding USAMRIID is on the public record as wanting the stockpiles of smallpox destroyed for hell’s sake, so if you think we can keep this quiet in USAMRIID, Mr Vice President, you’ve got more faith in them than I have.’
‘The Colonel Commanding USAMRIID has been replaced with an officer who shares the Administration’s views and, more importantly, who will do as he’s told,’ the Secretary of Defense responded bluntly. A silence descended on the Oval Office.
President Harrison was normally absolutely sure of his mission in the world but his trusted electoral advisor had put him in two minds. His Administration had taken a lot of hits and Denver Harrison knew that the American people would probably be against this. To authorise the development of biological weapons, even if they could later claim it was in self-defense, was a huge step into uncharted territory. Perhaps O’Connor was right. It might be prudent to go with the development of the vaccines and wait for confirmation of the threat. After all, he reasoned, no one in the media or on the Hill was likely to criticise him for not wanting to develop biological weapons. For a moment he let his mind wander, distracted by a higher mission. The one thing President Harrison was sure of was that at a time like this God would guide him. All the great Presidents had been god-fearing men, he reflected, and none more so than his hero Abraham Lincoln. As the Reverend Jerry Buffett, the charismatic televangelist from Atlanta, had often said, in this war on terror God was on the side of those who believed in freedom and democracy. The Reverent Buffet had reminded the President that it was no coincidence that America’s motto was ‘In God We Trust’. Discussions with Jerry Buffett always gave Denver Harrison a sense of purpose and resolve. Perhaps the debate that was swirling around him might be clearer once he’d had a quiet chat with the evangelist.