scrambling over one another to buy Chinese imports. They knew that in reality the Chinese economy was already the second largest in the world and it was threatening to swamp the lead position of the United States. ‘Tsunami’ was a very accurate metaphor.
The Vice President nodded. ‘The Chinese are going to use the Beijing Olympics as their passport to credibility, Richard. They’re putting so much into it that for the first time in history the International Olympic Committee has had to tell a host nation to slow down on construction. The IOC’s actually worried that they’ll have a white elephant sitting around for a year before the Games. Without the drama in the lead-up the media will lose interest.’
The Vice President drained his glass and Halliwell reached over to refill it. ‘If the Beijing Olympics is an outstanding success,’ Bolton said, ‘we can forget about attacking them over human rights and Tiananmen Square, so I was thinking that we ought to try and find another way to slow these little bastards down.’ In a macabre parallel with Khalid Kadeer’s plans, the Beijing conspiracy of Richard Halliwell and Vice President Bolton was taking on a sinister shape.
‘Have you got something specific in mind?’ Richard Halliwell already had something very specific in mind but he was missing a vital element.
The Vice President lowered his voice. ‘Has the office been swept?’
Halliwell nodded. ‘Just last week.’
Halliwell’s Chief Financial Officer, still in his office two floors below, adjusted his headphones. The sweeping of the CEO’s office was a security routine that Alan Ferraro made sure he was well aware of.
‘I was thinking that if Beijing was to be subjected to a nasty health scare a couple of months before the Games that it might take some of the gloss off the event.’
‘It would take more than a health scare, Chuck,’ Halliwell replied. ‘It would take something like Ebola or smallpox, although there are problems with Ebola.’ Dr Richard Halliwell, one of the most ruthless and nationalistic men ever to wield corporate power in America, had already given the scenario a great deal of thought and he watched for any sign of squeamishness in his equally ruthless Vice President. Bolton didn’t flinch.
‘Unlike smallpox, which can be transmitted by a sneeze or a cough, Ebola can only be transmitted through direct contact with an infected person or their body fluids,’ Halliwell explained. Although most of his time was taken up with maintaining Halliwell Pharmaceutical’s domination of the global pharmaceutical market, Richard Halliwell was a very experienced biochemist, and one of only a few scientists among the hundreds Halliwell Pharmaceuticals employed around the world qualified to work in a Level 4 hot-zone laboratory. He had every intention of keeping his hand in. ‘If we just used smallpox on its own the Chinese would put the weights on us for a smallpox vaccine. While that might be profitable,’ Halliwell added with a sneer, ‘eventually vaccines and strict worldwide quarantine might bring it back under control. On the other hand, there’s no vaccine for Ebola. If Ebola was crossed with smallpox the Chinese would have to contend with a super virus that was easily transmitted. We could claim that the vaccine for that was still being worked on – even if it was ready for our own people.’
CHAPTER 10
C urtis O’Connor leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head. The sun had long since departed from the placid surface of the Potomac and the lights of the New Headquarters of the CIA probed the night around the lawns and the fishpond in the courtyard. The latest threat from Dr Khalid Kadeer was not making any sense and Curtis had an uneasy feeling that Kadeer was deadly serious. The Secretary of Defense was making even less sense, he thought, and his whacky views on windmills and an attack on the Netherlands were in keeping with the low opinion O’Connor reserved for most politicians.
O’Connor swung on his chair, turning to stare out into the night, switching his attention from possible targets towards the types of attacks al-Qaeda might mount. His mind went back to a fiery cabinet meeting in the White House Situation Room a few months earlier when he’d briefed the war cabinet on two reports. The first on the possibility of another biological attack against the United States using anthrax and a new strain of smallpox and the second from one of the CIA’s agents in Moscow on the possible defection of a scientist from Russia.
Both reports had come from a single source and O’Connor had urged caution. Single source reports, especially those whose reliability was unknown, needed to be confirmed by at least one other source. It was one of the intelligence community’s cardinal rules and he had wanted to check it before informing the White House, but the new DCI had overruled him. Dan Esposito was insisting on being kept informed of each new threat as it occurred. The hawks – the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense and Esposito – had led the others, demanding a ‘fight fire with fire’ retaliation and once again, Curtis had found himself backing the Secretary of State, a lone voice of reason in a cabinet convinced that America’s overwhelming military strength would prevail. O’Connor remembered it well. The anthrax meeting had been heated almost from the start.
As that war cabinet meeting got underway, Curtis O’Connor hadn’t had to consult his notes. He could recall both the anthrax and smallpox threats that had allegedly come from al-Qaeda and the cables from Moscow, word for word.
‘We have two reports, Mr President. The first one, purporting to be from al-Qaeda, warns that the United States will be attacked with new strains of smallpox and possibly anthrax sometime in the next twelve months. Several cities will be targeted, but the threat does not indicate which ones or whether they will be attacked with anthrax or smallpox or both.’
‘Purporting to be from al-Qaeda? What do you mean by that?’ Dan Esposito demanded.
‘I will come to that in a moment, Dan,’ O’Connor replied, not phased by Esposito’s challenge. ‘The second report is connected with the first and indicates that a Georgian scientist who is working for the Russians on the weaponisation of smallpox wants to defect. Both reports should be treated with caution, especially the defection.’
‘Why?’ Dan Esposito asked. ‘You seem to forget, Agent O’Connor, that 9/11 could have been prevented if we’d taken a little more notice of what you people in the CIA and the FBI were sitting on.’
‘I agree, Mr President!’ the Vice President interjected passionately, tapping the table with his pen for emphasis. ‘If we’ve got information on possible anthrax and smallpox attacks we can’t afford to ignore it.’
The President turned towards O’Connor, his left eyebrow raised.
‘I’m not suggesting we ignore it, Mr President, just that you should be aware that we are dealing with raw intelligence here, and it can be dangerous to treat it as fact. For starters, al-Qaeda normally broadcast their threats through al-Jazeera or one of the other Arab channels but this intelligence has come from a Muslim activist in Georgia. al-Qaeda are known to be active in the Pankisi Gorge area, about 48 kilometres from the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, close to the border with Muslim Chechnya. As a matter of principle, Mr President, single source reports always need to be checked for accuracy. We need to know whether this really is from al-Qaeda or from a Georgian group that might have its own agenda, especially where stirring up trouble with the Russians is concerned.’ O’Connor knew the hawks would see the need to double check reports as weak and bureaucratic but years of experience had taught him the wisdom of the process.
‘What do we know about the scientist who wants to defect?’ President Harrison asked.
‘A Dr Eduard Dolinsky. The last time he was seen in public was in Vienna at the 2003 International Conference on pox viruses. The Georgian Muslims are claiming that he’s been sent to Russia’s Koltsovo laboratories in Siberia to work on a top-secret program weaponising anthrax and smallpox.’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time the Russians have had a crack at weaponising smallpox,’ the Secretary of Defense broke in, glaring at O’Connor. ‘I seem to remember when that Stolichnaya-swigging Yeltsin was at the helm the Kremlin was busy telling us that they had all their stocks of smallpox locked away in a freezer in Moscow.’ He turned towards the President. ‘They got caught out at a World Health Organization meeting in Geneva in 1999, Mr President, when one of their scientists let slip that the smallpox viruses had been moved to the Siberian desert for testing.’
‘That’s true, Secretary,’ O’Connor responded, ‘but this is the first time this source has contacted us and we don’t know whether or not he’s reliable. As yet we’ve not been able to corroborate his information.’
President Harrison looked confused. ‘This Eduard Dolinsky, he’s a Muslim?’
