“You’ve got it.”
“Dr. Arensky is not a nuclear scientist,” Chechnik said, leaning back in his chair with a sigh. “He is our premier expert at biological and chemical weapons.”
“Biological,” Mike said, softly.
“Dr. Arensky walked out of the Novy Birsk Biological Weapons Research Facility with four viles of weapons grade smallpox.”
“WHAT?!” Mike shouted, then clutched his head. “How in the FUCK!?”
“The security on our facilities has… much to be desired, yes?” Chechnik replied, shrugging. “This material was kept in Category Five quarantine, the very highest level. It was surrounded by guards. Everything in and out was carefully controlled. As far as we can determine, he moved it out slowly. First from Cat Five then to Cat Four and so on. The missing material was not discovered until after he left. Left does not cover it. The offices of the facility were destroyed by a special operations team that took down the entire guard force. Then we did a very thorough survey of the materials and, lo, the smallpox was missing. Only that. And it was the only sample of that particular, particularly vile, weapon.”
“Jesus Christ,” Mike said. “Smallpox. That shit is nasty. And you go and let him waltz out with… ”
“Yes, it is nasty,” the Russian said. “Also eliminated from the face of the earth. But this is not just any smallpox. This was developed very late in the Soviet era, when genetic technology was fairly advanced, far enough advanced that our scientists could really begin to tinker, yes? They made a breakthrough, then. May I lecture?”
“Go ahead,” Mike said, sighing.
“There are three strains of smallpox,” Chechnik said. “Standard, hemmorhagic and macular, you understand this? Standard has about a thirty percent death rate, but it has a slow onset. So if you are innoculated against it, only those with very weak immune systems die. Often innoculation will stop onset even in those showing symptoms. Hemmorhagic and macular are quite different. They strike very very fast and kill even faster. And almost everyone who gets them dies. The one clinical study showed ninety-four percent for hemmorhagic and one hundred percent for macular, each with over a hundred cases.”
“So this is, what? Hemmorhagic or macular?” Mike asked.
“Wait,” the Russian replied. “It is worse. The problem with hemmorhagic or macular as a weapon is that they are infectious for a very short period of time. Then the carrier dies and is no longer spreading them. From a bio-weapons standpoint, that is termed a ‘sub-optimal carrier.’ Standard, in many ways, is better because the onset is slow.”
“You figured out a way to spread it out,” Mike said, tonelessly. “Or you upped the fatality level of standard.”
“This is a modified form of macular, the very most deadly,” Chechnik said, nodding. “The infected person lives for up to five days while being infectious and then dies, nearly one hundred percent of the time. And that is even if they have been given the vaccine. There is no vaccine, no antidote, that will save anyone who is infected. If this gets out, it will kill the whole world. Your writer Stephen King wrote a book, yes, ‘The Stand.’ This is Captain Trips. At most a few thousand people left in the whole world. That cannot even restart the human race. And it was modified to be very… latent. That is it will survive for a long time even if there is not a host. It will wait for years if necessary to find a host.”
“You evil motherfuckers,” Mike whispered. “You couldn’t just destroy it, could you? We turn our nukes away, you turn your nukes away, but you keep this… this fucking doomsday device? Why?”
“We see as one on this,” Chechnik said, shrugging. “Vladimir swears that he was unaware of this weapon, but I don’t believe him. However, if you recover it… ”
“If I recover it it’s going straight to the US,” Mike said, savagely. “I don’t know if they’ll destroy it or not… ”
“No,” Chechnik said. “Please. This is exactly what we cannot allow.”
“What? You think I’m just going to give it back?”
“No, I don’t expect that,” Chechnik said. “No one expects you to give it back, although I have been assured if you do that we will destroy it.”
“Right,” Mike scoffed. “Just like you did for the last, what? Twenty years?”
“But Dr. Arensky knows the proper protocols for destroying it,” the Russian continued as if he wasn’t listening. “He will show you how to destroy it. You must recover Arensky, alive.”
“I’m tempted to put a bullet through his head,” Mike snarled.
“Don’t,” Chechnik said, shaking his head. “Arensky is very much a victim in all of this.”
“Huh?” Mike replied, frowning. “More stuff you haven’t told us?”
“Arensky is a patriot,” Chechnik said. “A good man. Yes, he works on biological and chemical weapons. But he has come up with more cures, more defenses, than assaults. He also is a… a universalist, yes? He thinks of his country first, but then of the good of the world. He prefers playing the defense, yes? You have people in your own military who work on these things. Are they all evil?”
“So why’d he defect?” Mike asked. “And take this shit with him?”
“Probably his daughter,” Chechnik said with a sigh. “He dotes on Marina. We now believe that Marina disappeared well before Dr. Arensky. It is probable that she was kidnapped and used to force him to do this. Arensky is also a genius in the entire field. He is expert on chemical and biological production methods. He even has much knowledge of details of nuclear weapons production. We believe the smallpox was only the tip of the iceberg. He took discs with him with details on various forms of production, including nuclear. We believe that he is being traded to a major country. They probably were the funding source for this operation. One assumes that they can continue to use Marina as a method to force him to assist them in their WMD efforts. And the smallpox is probably not for use. Some country, Iran, yes? They will get it, prove that they have it, and hold it to prevent the Americans from taking action against them. Mutual Assured Destruction, yes? If you over throw the mullahs, they destroy the world.”
“Your security is a nightmare,” Mike said. “You know that, right?”
“We are aware of that, yes,” the Russian said with a frown. “In this case… we are aware of this, yes. We are, as they say, working on it.”
“Work faster,” Mike replied. “I’m getting tired of cleaning up your messes for you. The Keldara are not prepared to handle chem-bio. Hell, we haven’t even trained them on MOPP gear!”
“If this gets loose, it won’t matter,” Chechnik said, shrugging. “But the vials are in very sturdy containers. As long as those are not breached, and you cannot do that with a rifle or even an RPG, then everything will be fine. He took containers as well. They are about ten centimeters high and eight across and made of steel and depleted uranium, yes? You cannot even penetrate one with one of your Barrett sniper rifles. But you must recover Arensky, yes? It would be good if you could recover Marina. Then destroy the vials and this nightmare is over.”
Mike thought about what was being asked of him for a moment and then shrugged.
“I’m going to do this anyway,” he said, carefully. “And I don’t want to sound mercenary. But… Bob pointed out that if I recovered nukes, I’d get the vig on those. If you guys don’t even want me to tell the US what I got… ”