The Vice President was equally thoughtful, although not in any religious sense. Despite the seeming uncertainty of the President, Bolton felt a sense of satisfaction over the direction in which the conversation was heading. Although it was by no means a done deal, at least the President’s advisor had taken the bait on CDC and USAMRIID. If the proposal to get back into research on biological weapons got up, CDC was a logical choice for the assignment, but earlier in the day he’d casually floated the idea of the dangers of media leaks from USAMRIID and CDC with Esposito. Bolton smirked inwardly. He would shortly play another card and bring Esposito up to date on the Halliwell construction, but for the moment the little advisor hadn’t disappointed him. Esposito was only too well aware that lately several highly sensitive top-secret documents, including the FBI’s surveillance on ordinary American citizens, had become public and the damage to the Republicans’ chances of retaining both houses in the mid-term elections had been considerable. Any development of biological weapons at either CDC or USAMRIID in defiance of the international Biological Weapons Convention would be a very high-risk strategy.
CHAPTER 18
A lthough the Surgeon General had personally assured him of the importance of his new post as Commanding Colonel of USAMRIID, Colonel Walter C. Wassenberg III, US Army Medical Corps, was in a foul mood. The promotions list for Brigadier General had been published the day before, and once again his name hadn’t been on it. He was short and fit, his uniform was immaculate, but time was running out. Underneath the black hair dye, his ‘jarhead’ Marine crew cut was now very grey. Colonel Wassenberg had once thought he would make four stars as Commandant of the Marines but an accident in Somalia had brought his career as a marine to an ignominious end. He’d never got over it and, although he’d accepted the Army’s offer to put him through a degree in medical administration, a deep and grudging bitterness was never far from the surface. Promotion in the Army Medical Corps had a ceiling of three stars – Lieutenant General – but Wassenberg knew that you had to be a goddamn poodle-faking doctor to get that job. Walter Wassenberg had not even made his first star.
Colonel Wassenberg turned the next page in the folder containing the biographies of USAMRIID staff, finding himself confronted with a photograph and profile of a Dr Kate Braithwaite. ‘The day they have women playing in the Super Bowl will be the day I accept front bums have something meaningful to offer the Army,’ he muttered to himself. Ignoring her string of degrees and doctorates he focused on the photograph, and as he did his eyes narrowed and his thin lips pressed even more firmly together. The scientist’s untidy hair irritated him and he made a mental note to have her fix it. In Walter Wassenberg’s world haircuts and discipline went hand in hand, and in the short time he’d been at USAMRIID he’d been appalled at the lax attitude to both. He was infuriated by what he’d decided was a ‘fifth column’ in the ranks of the long-haired scientists. His early morning parades for the academics had not lasted more than a week before there’d been a damaging revolt. Word had filtered back to the Pentagon and he’d been told by some flunky in the Surgeon General’s office to modify his style.
Walter Wassenberg continued to browse through the pages until he got to Professor Sayed’s profile and his pulse quickened. Here was a man of Middle Eastern appearance who had unrestricted access on a top-secret US base. Incensed at the entry ‘Muslim’ beside the heading of religion, Colonel Wassenberg never made it past the first page. Had he bothered to turn that page and read more than the executive summary of Sayed’s details, he would have discovered that Imran Sayed had been born in Karachi to a Pakistani father, and an American mother. He would have also discovered that Imran’s wealthy shipping merchant father had been killed in an accident on Karachi’s docks when Imran had been just four years old. The detailed biography recorded that after the accident, his mother had brought the very young Imran back to the United States and raised him in New York. He had graduated summa cum laude at the Yale School of Medicine and after a distinguished international career in some of the world’s most desperate health trouble spots which included outbreaks of smallpox, dengue fever, typhoid and malaria, Imran Sayed had returned to Yale as a visiting Professor of Epidemiology. Professor Sayed was now on contract to USAMRIID and to the World Health Organization, and the Secretary General of the United Nations valued Imran as a friend and a trusted advisor. Wassenberg buzzed for his J3.
‘Sir!’ Tall and gangly to the point of being awkward, Marine Captain Donald Crawshaw appeared inside the Colonel’s door in an instant and snapped to attention. Crawshaw wasn’t the sharpest spine on the porcupine but he’d worked out quickly enough that the very short ex-Marine Corps Colonel was a man of explosive action who detested being kept waiting. Captain Crawshaw aimed to please. His performance report from his last unit hadn’t been too complimentary and he had also missed out on the last round of promotions, but he figured that all was not lost. A strong recommendation from an ex-Marine like Colonel Wassenberg might help him to replace his two bar insignia for Captain with the coveted oak leaf of a Major.
‘We have a security problem on this base, Crawshaw. A security problem!’
‘Sir!’ The colour drained from Crawshaw’s face as he wondered whether or not he was responsible.
‘Come around here, son. You see this man – he’s a goddamn Muslim! This is a Christian country. A Christian country that is at war with these motherfucker Muslims and now I find that we’ve got a goddamn Muslim scientist in the middle of a top-secret base. I want a security review done on every one of these motherfucker scientists without delay. Without delay d’ya hear!’ Colonel Wassenberg slammed the folder shut and shoved it towards his J3.
‘Yes SIR! USAMRIID SIR!’ Captain Crawshaw rammed the folder under his left arm, snapped to attention again and saluted before marching back to his small desk just outside the Colonel’s door.
Walter Wassenberg breathed in deeply. His predecessor had not only been pushing for the destruction of the country’s stocks of smallpox, for chrissake, he’d allowed a Muslim on his staff. Another poodle-faking-motherfucker doctor who’d never seen a shot fired in anger, he thought resentfully. The Muslim would have to go and the stocks of smallpox would be destroyed over his dead body. For the third time in as many minutes he checked his watch. On his first day he’d timed the walk from his office to the conference room down the hall at precisely 59 seconds and his watch now showed 0858 hours, just over a minute before he would leave the office.
Colonel Wassenberg got up from behind his desk and stood in front of the full-length mirror he’d had installed behind the door of his office and adjusted a shirt fold above his belt. He also made an adjustment to the position of the large nameplate that took pride of place in the front centre of his desk, specially made in polished silky oak, with WALTER C. WASSENBERG III embossed in large gold letters, and COLONEL COMMANDING underneath. On the wall behind his desk he’d had two flags installed in a polished wood cabinet. The Stars and Stripes always had pride of place, but in a breach of protocol for a medical unit Colonel Wassenberg had insisted on installing the Marine Corps flag, as well as the Marine Corps seal on the wall above – a huge bald eagle atop the Western Hemisphere with a foul anchor behind it. In its beak the eagle carried a scroll with the Marine Corps motto – Semper Fidelis ‘Always Faithful’. Satisfied, Colonel Wassenberg ran his hands over his Marine Corps combat gear that he kept hanging on two wooden pegs inside the door, just in case he got the call. He made a final check of his watch and as the sweep hand passed the hour he strode purposefully through his J3’s office and down the corridor towards the conference room.