‘S hit!’ Kate Braithwaite looked up at her wall clock, grabbed her notebook, locked the door to her office and hurried off to her first meeting with the new Colonel, annoyed that to have any chance of being on time she would have to run.
Two minutes later Kate slowed to a deliberate stroll as she turned the corner of the drab green corridor that led to the conference room, only to find that the door was guarded by a tall, thin Marine Corps Captain with pimply skin, nervously tapping a ridiculously polished boot on the cement floor.
‘Quickly,’ he hissed as Kate approached. ‘The Colonel’s coming.’
Bully for the Colonel, Kate thought, as she smiled sweetly, rolling her eyes and guessing this was the new J ‘what’s-his-number’. Imran caught her eye and winked as she took her place with the advisory group of scientists sitting along one wall. ‘I’ll get you for that,’ she mouthed at him, her eyes twinkling as she made a show of silently sucking in a breath through pursed lips.
Kate exchanged glances with a couple of her closest colleagues. Clearly there was an undercurrent of conspiracy running, and she wondered what ‘Colonel Cluster’ might have in store for them. If the stakes hadn’t been so high it would have been comical. Another Captain was sitting bolt upright against the opposite wall. Kate surmised he was the duty briefer and she shuddered at the prospect of a mind-numbing expose on some obscure mad mullah in outer Baluchistan. The young Captain from the Pentagon was probably too shit-scared of the Colonel to offer anything other than the military line that the United States was winning the war in Iraq, she mused. After Imran had left her office earlier in the day, a colleague had confided in her that not only had Imran’s nickname for the new Colonel caught on, but while she’d been away at the CDC her fellow scientists had enhanced it. She’d been assured that Colonel ‘Clusterfuck’ was infinitely more appropriate and the scientists were running a book on who would get the vote at the end of the year for the most incompetent; the military moron who’d taken over command or the pimply-faced jerk of a captain he’d brought with him as his sidekick. At the moment Captain Crawshaw was marginally in front, not least for his bizarre habit of saluting the Colonel from as far as 100 metres away while at the same time yelling ‘USAMRIID Sir!’ Kate reflected that ‘Panic Palace’, as the scientists called the headquarters, had been taken over by dumb and dumber. Dumber was now hovering nervously inside the conference room doorway.
‘Atten..hun! The Colonel Commanding!’ Captain Crawshaw saluted as Colonel Wassenberg strode into the room. ‘All present and accounted for Sir! USAMRIID Sir!’
Kate and the other civilian scientists half rose in their chairs as the military members snapped to attention.
‘At ease!’
Jesus Christ, I’m in the middle of a military circus, Kate thought, suppressing a grin. The circus ringmaster immediately reminded her of some sort of latter day Napoleon, except this one was even shorter. She didn’t dare look at Imran for fear of getting a fit of the giggles.
Colonel Wassenberg snapped open his folder that was embossed with a blue and gold Marine Corps seal. Without speaking he scrutinised those on the left and right of the table, then he did a slow visual inspection of the advisory group sitting along the walls.
‘I’m still not satisfied with the standard of dress on this base,’ he said finally, looking directly at Kate. Innocently she blinked her green eyes at him, which infuriated him as she knew it would. Here they were in USAMRIID on the cutting edge of research into some of the most dangerous pathogens on the planet and all this dickhead could find to worry about was what people wore.
‘I want an instant improvement,’ the Colonel demanded, looking around the room again before glancing down at his notes. The first item on the agenda was his newly instituted requirement for a daily report from Heads of Departments.
‘Epidemiology!’ Wassenberg snapped, glaring at Professor Sayed.
‘No change from yesterday, Colonel,’ Imran replied quietly and pointedly, but the message went straight over Walter Wassenberg’s closely cropped head.
‘What do you mean “no change”?’ the Colonel demanded, his face colouring.
‘Dr Braithwaite returned this morning from the CDC and I’m sure she will be able to brief you on her work, but other than that our programs are all proceeding on schedule.’
Colonel Wassenberg turned towards the advisors, singling out Kate with his stare. In the silence that followed, Kate again blinked at the Colonel with a calculated touch of insolence. As soon as he’d walked into the room she’d concluded that he was the type of man who would be very uncomfortable around women. It was an advantage she was determined to press.
‘And what have you got to add, Ms Braithwaite?’ the Colonel demanded.
‘It’s Doctor, actually,’ Kate replied icily, any sense of mischievous amusement extinguished. She was not sure what the Army could have been thinking when they appointed him, but at a place like USAMRIID a military automaton could be a disaster.
‘As I’m sure you’re aware, Colonel, research into areas like Variola major does not normally herald daily results. I’ve responded to your memo on smallpox and I’ve sent it back unsigned with a recommendation that we strongly support the World Health Organization’s efforts to have the world’s smallpox stocks destroyed. I’ve also requested that the series of experiments on the Great Apes not go ahead.’ Colonel Wassenberg looked as though he was about to give birth.
‘I’ve not signed mine either, Colonel,’ Professor Sayed said, taking the heat away from Kate. ‘And I know there are many other scientists in this room who think along similar lines. The World Health Organization has voted on no fewer than three occasions to have the last remaining stocks of this virus in Atlanta and Siberia destroyed; first in 1994, then in 1996, and again in 1999. Each time the United States has been instrumental in delaying that destruction. If smallpox ever falls into the hands of terrorists, Colonel, with thousands of aircraft criss-crossing the globe every day, the resulting epidemic could kill hundreds of millions of people. It would make 9/11 and bird flu look like child’s play. Smallpox is one of the most deadly diseases on the planet, one that took D. A. Henderson and others a lifetime to eradicate,’ Professor Sayed added pointedly. He was wasting his breath.
‘I’ll remind you all that the United States of America is at war. At war!’ Colonel Wassenberg slammed his fist on the table. ‘Those stocks of smallpox are vital to the protection of this country and they’ll be destroyed over my dead body!’ Wassenberg glared again at Professor Sayed before turning his attention back to Kate. ‘The experiments on the monkeys are essential for the development of vaccines and not only will those experiments proceed but I want fast results!’ Wassenberg’s face was flushed with anger as he unknowingly exposed his total lack of knowledge of the painstaking nature of research involving deadly viruses. He fixed Kate with a stony stare. ‘I’ll see you in my office, Braithwaite, tomorrow at 1700 hours.’
At the end of the morning briefing Colonel Wassenberg marched back to his office and sat behind his desk. His anger was still at boiling point. Impertinent woman. Far too sure of herself and her clothing was appalling. Her relationship with that Muslim professor had not escaped him either; too cosy by half. A far more disciplined approach was needed for the entire base and where others had so obviously failed, he, Colonel Walter Wassenberg III, would succeed. In the light of the feedback from the Surgeon General’s flunky he would have to tread warily, but at the first opportunity he would find a way to get rid of both of them.
CHAPTER 21
‘T here’s something else you might like to think about, Mr President,’ Dan Esposito said, after the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense had left. ‘Your second term still has a while to run, and you will have left this country and the world an enduring legacy, but we need to give some consideration as to who you’re going to support to succeed you in this office. If the Democrats run someone like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, we’re going to need a candidate who is tough and uncompromising on the war on terror, someone who represents the values of the American people.’
