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.
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
