Viral

“Consider a pre-emptive ‘what if’ versus ‘what if not’ scenario, akin to the runaway trolley model. If we had the means and the ability to change a disastrous outcome, would we be obligated to do so? The short answer is yes. As a for instance: What if we were to enact a plan to—in the most efficient and humane manner possible— stabilize some of Africa’s most troubled, suffering regions, to replace ineffective and oppressive governments and primitive infrastructure models with modern infrastructure and emerging technology—and to effectively replace populations stuck in unending cycles of poverty and disease?

“Then look ahead ten years. Compare what this region would be like if we didn’t enact this model—versus what it would be like if we did.

“What is our moral obligation?

“Just suppose.”

Trent skimmed ahead several paragraphs, to the specific proposal to “reseed” portions of Africa, and came to the words that he knew had the potential to create a media firestorm. Two words in a five-thousand-word analysis: “humane depopulation.”

The words that he had used, on a drunken evening that should have been long forgotten. Now they were circulating across the Internet. Written in a style that sounded like him. That detailed an idea he had expressed, incautiously, once. His idea. His words. But it wasn’t him.

He stared for a time at the waves on the rocks below and thought again of Charles Mallory. Recalling what he had said, and what he hadn’t.

Why hadn’t he heard any more from Charles Mallory? Had something happened to him?

Remembering something else, then—a phone message he had picked up that morning—Thomas Trent went back to his computer and booked a flight to Washington, D.C.

MEHMET HASSAN WORE a rumpled gray flannel suit and silver metal-frame glasses. He carried a laptop computer and a copy of the Financial Times as he rode the Metro to the Smithsonian station. He strode along the platform with the same detached, hurried pace as the other exiting professionals. A look that differentiated them from the tourists.

The name on his English driver’s license and passport was Mark Phillip Burns, although he was known to some by another name: Il Macellaio. “The Butcher.”

Hassan’s appearance was non-descript but studied. Anyone who gave him a second look would have pegged him as a businessman. Perhaps someone in financial services. But his actual calling was very different. He was in Washington to carry out two jobs for the man known as the Administrator. An assignment for which he was being paid very well. Well enough to live on for the rest of his life, if that was what he wanted.

THIRTY

Tuesday, September 29

IN THE MORNING, JON Mallory logged on to his computer and was startled to find that Melanie Cross had written about Thomas Trent and the TW Paper on her blog overnight. “Thomas Trent linked to ‘depopulation study,’ ” she tagged it. Instead of reporting it herself, though, she reported what other people were saying. “Several bloggers are connecting media billionaire Thomas Trent to a controversial report urging the ‘depopulation’ and ‘repopulation’ of parts of the Third World.” Melanie had hyperlinked to three of these bloggers. “This comes amid unconfirmed stories of a deadly flu virus spreading through remote regions of Africa. Although the connection appears tenuous at best, it is causing a little buzz among Internet conspiracy theorists. Excerpts of the so-called TW Paper have emerged on the Web over the past twenty- four hours, although its origins are uncertain. The author is listed as Stuart Thames Borholm, which, this reporter has learned, is an anagram for the economist Thomas Robert Malthus, one of Trent’s heroes.”

Jon Mallory felt a rush of anger. He was stupid to have told her about Malthus. But he also felt something else: a gut instinct that the story about the “TW Paper” was wrong.

HE TOOK THE Red Line Metro train to the Weekly American offices in Foggy Bottom. Knocked on Roger Church’s partially opened door.

“Welcome back.”

“Thank you.”

“I was waiting for you to come in. Please.” Church gestured for him to have a seat. “I sense you have a lot more to tell.”

“I do.”

“Coffee?”

“No, thanks.”

Church sat and tugged at one of his shirtsleeves, watching Jon. “Go ahead.”

Jon started to summarize what he’d seen in Africa but then interrupted himself. “I have a question to ask you.”

Church nodded.

“What do you know about Thomas Trent?”

“Thomas Trent. Well.” Church raked a hand through his mop of white hair. “Brilliant man. Grew up with something of an inferiority complex. His father was an immigrant from Eastern Europe, as you know. Something of a manic depressive. Trent overcompensated. A shameless self-promoter in his younger days. Dated a couple of movie stars. Why do you ask?”

“What’s his relationship with Perry Gardner?”

“Oh, I don’t think there is one.” Church frowned. “They apparently had a falling out some time ago. Two very driven men. Accusations on both sides—of defections, of stealing ideas the other had been developing. Neither of them talk about it.”

“Why? What do you think happened?”

Church was trying to put things together, Jon could tell, to figure why he was asking about Trent. “What happened was that Trent decided to get into software for a while and decided to go after Gardner. Trent had the idea he could create a global computer network that wouldn’t depend on Gardner’s quickly outdated software products. It represented a big threat, which Gardner took very seriously. Supposedly, he hired a security firm to pose as cleaning people and root through his trash.”

“I saw some references to that.”

“Never proven.” Church blinked twice. “Interesting blog from Melanie Cross, I noticed.”

“Yeah. I inadvertently helped her. I figured the anagram for her. There’s something wrong with her story, though.”

“Which part of it?”

“Trent. The whole thing, actually.”

“Well, it’s good timing on her part. The African wire services are moving a story right now about Olduvai Charities. Alleging that Olduvai is providing a flu vaccine that may, in fact, be causing a potentially deadly mutation of the virus in two East African countries.”

“What?”

“It just came across.”

“According to whom?”

“It quotes health officials in Kenya and Somalia. I have a feeling it’s probably going to be a full-blown news story within a few days. Or hours.”

“Is that what they’re saying: ‘May be causing?’ ”

“Yes.” He lifted a printout from a corner of his desk and handed it to Jon. “The Ministry of Health in Kenya is