nodded.
'That seems to fit the facts as we now know them, ' Ken Alden said.
'We lucked out with this one, ' Robert Sorenson said while stretching.
'That's all I can say, and that said, it doesn't speak well for all our planning and exercises to date regarding bioterrorism. Our counterintelligence didn't block it, and our response system didn't contain it.'
Jack and Laurie looked at each other. Spontaneously they leaped to their feet and threw their arms around each other.
After the tension and fear engendered by their incarceration, the good news filled them with joy. They hugged and laughed, unable to contain their relief.
'Whenever you're ready, we'd like to debrief you immediately about the People's Aryan Army and their alleged fireman leaders, ' Robert Sorenson said. 'The bureau is going to put the highest priority on their apprehension and prosecution.'
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21
1:30 P. M. 'Try another station! ' Curt said.
Steve leaned over and twirled the dial until the radio came in reasonably clearly.
They were in an old Ford pickup truck that Steve had bought for five hundred dollars under an assumed name. They were about fifty miles from New York City, and the radio signals were getting progressively weaker.
They'd heard one news flash soon after getting into the truck a half hour earlier, just when they were starting westward on Interstate 80.
The news flash had been brief. It had only said that there had been a major bio-weapon event in lower Manhattan, resulting so far in general panic.
At the time, Curt and Steve had cheered wildly and high-fived in a delirium of excitement. 'We did it! '
they'd shouted in unison. But now they wanted more details, but they were having trouble finding any follow-up reports.
'There's probably a government-sponsored media blackout, ' Curt said.
'They never want the public to know the truth about anything, Waco, Ruby Ridge, even who shot JFK.'
'I'm sure that's it, ' Steve said.
'The government is afraid to let the public know.'
'God, it went perfect, ' Curt commented. 'A goddamn perfect military operation! '
'It could not have been any better, ' Steve agreed.
Curt looked out at the rolling countryside, resplendent in fall colors.
They were in western New Jersey approaching the Pennsylvania border.
'Hell, what a beautiful country, ' he said. He gripped the steering wheel harder. He laughed. He felt great. In fact, he felt as if he'd had ten cups of coffee.
'Do you want to stop for lunch in Jersey or wait until Pennsylvania? '
Steve asked.
'I don't care, ' Curt said. 'As excited as I am, I'm not hungry.'
'I'm not hungry either, ' Steve said. 'But I sure wouldn't mind washing my hands. I know Yuri said it was safe touching those plastic sausage things, but it still bothers me knowing what was inside.'
'Hey, where's that envelope? ' Curt asked.
'You mean Yuri's? ' Steve asked.
'Yeah, the one with the directions on making the bio-weapon, ' Curt said.
'He told us he also wrote some pointers of what we should do after the laydown.'
'I got it with all the maps and shit to get us to the various safe houses, ' Steve said. 'You want me to get it out? ' Curt shrugged.
'Why not. Let's see what we should do for our protection.
' Curt laughed again. 'As if we need that little prick's help at this point.' Steve reached back behind his seat and pulled out a folder closed with an elastic cord. He opened it, shuffled through the contents, and pulled out Yuri's envelope.
'Whoa! This thing is thick, ' Steve said. 'What'd he do? Write a book? '
He extended it toward Curt so he could take a look.
'Open it, for crissake, ' Curt said.
Steve got his index finger under the sealed flap and tore it open.
From inside the envelope, he pulled out a thick card sealed with another flap.
'What the hell? ' Steve said.
Curt took his eyes off the road long enough to take a gander. 'What does it say on the front? '
'To Curt and Steve from Rosslya-matoshka, ' Steve said. 'Whatever the hell that means.'
'Open it up! ' Curt said.
Steve tore through the tab and as soon as he had the card leaped in his hands and snapped open. At the same time a coiled spring mechanism propelled a sizable puff of powder into the air along with a handful of any glittering stars.
'Shit! ' Steve yelled, startled by the small explosive device.
Curt had started as well, mainly because Steve had. He had to fight to keep control of the truck.
Both men sneezed violently and their eyes watered briefly.
Curt brought the truck to a stop by the side of the road. Both men were coughing, the powder tickled their throats. Curt grabbed the card away from Steve, who then got out of the pickup to whisk the glittering stars off his lap.
Curt examined the card. There was nothing written inside. He looked in the envelope. There was nothing there either. Then, all of a sudden, he had a terrible premonition.
________________________________________
Unfortunately, much of what the characters in Vector say about bio-weapons and bioterrorism is true.
This holds most notably for Detective Lou Soldano's comment concerning the potential for a major bioterrorism attack in the United States or Europe, it is not a question of whether one will occur, but rather, when. Indeed, there have already been several minor bioterrorist events in the United States.
In 1984, there was an intentional contamination of restaurant salad bars in Oregon, causing an outbreak of salmonellosis in 751 people. In 1996, there was an intentional contamination of muffins and donuts in a hospital laboratory in Texas, causing an outbreak of Shigella dysenteriae in forty-five people.
The threat of bioterrorism has risen progressively in the world, particularly over the last decade.
Consider the example of Aum Shinrikyo, the apocalyptic sect that released sarin gas in the Tokyo subway in March 1995. At the same time the cult unleashed its chemical attack, it was engaged in an active bio-weapons program involving both anthrax and botulinum toxin, just like Yuri Davydov was in the novel.
They'd even gone so far as to send a delegation to Zaire to explore the possibility of obtaining the Ebola virus for weaponization.
The Soviet Union had maintained an enormous covert bio-weapons program prior to its dissolution in 1989, despite being a signatory to the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) strictly forbidding such activity. At its height, the program employed more than fifty thousand scientists and technicians in research and production facilities. It was administered under the aegis of Biopreparat, which was under the Ministry of Defense.
The program purportedly has been dismantled by the Yeltsin government (although many experts fear not completely), resulting in a diaspora of tens of thousands of highly trained bio-weapon personnel.
Considering Russia's current economic dislocations, the question invariably arises, where are these people now and what are they doing? Some, perhaps, are driving taxis in New York City like Yuri Davydov, the disaffected emigre in Vector, and meeting up with equally disaffected members of the violent far right.
Rogue nations like Iraq, Iran, Libya, and North Korea have added to the rising threat of bio-weapons.
In the aftermath of the Gulf War, the United States and its allies were shocked to learn the size of Iraq's stockpile of bio-weapons and production facilities, whose existence had entirely eluded intelligence operations. This revelation served as a sharp wake-up call to the various allied governments. Regrettably, at the same time, the discovery captured the attention of terrorist groups and individuals worldwide who suddenly became intensely
