Hardin sat down, slid a sheet of notepaper across the desk and began scribbling on it. ‘Ebola in Crete is really scary,’ he continued. ‘An infection in a major holiday area like that could scatter the virus over most of Europe. What about jurisdiction? Do we have an EPI One?’
The Centers for Disease Control is a federal agency. That means before the CDC can send anyone to investigate something within America, the state in which the outbreak occurs or its local health authority has to formally request assistance from the CDC. Outside the United States, exactly the same rules apply: the CDC has to be officially invited to assist by the government or its health ministry.
The form known as EPI 1 is basically a movement order for a CDC officer or team. It confirms that assistance has been requested from the agency, provides a brief summary of the investigation which the CDC intends to undertake, and what it hopes to achieve, lists the names of the CDC personnel who will be involved, and specifies which authorities in the destination government’s health department are to be contacted on arrival.
‘It’s being typed right now,’ Cross replied. ‘We’ve been formally requested to assist by the Cretan health ministry, but the contact list is real short. It’s just one man – Dr Theodore Gravas – and he’s actually now on the scene at this village called Kandira.’
‘What else have you done so far?’ Hardin asked.
‘I’ve faxed the Cretan health guys the standard list of instructions and warnings. I’ve got people making airline bookings right now, and others recalling the staff you’ll need with you. And I paged you, of course. Good response time, by the way.’
‘Thanks,’ Hardin grunted, abstractedly.
It had taken Inspector Lavat some three hours to set up the cordon, and would have taken a lot longer if the village hadn’t sat almost on the edge of the cliff. Therefore the seaward side fortunately required no action, but summoning the men he needed from Chania and Irakleio had taken time, and even then they were too thinly spread for his liking around the hastily created perimeter.
Gravas had been adamant: nobody was entering or leaving Kandira until he said so. And that would not occur until he knew for sure exactly what had killed Aristides. The big problem was that he couldn’t perform the diagnosis himself. He and his men would need expert help and specialist equipment, not least biological space suits, just to go anywhere near Aristides’s body again.
When he had telephoned the Cretan Ministry of Health, requesting they contact the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for urgent assistance, the officials there hadn’t argued for long. Most health professionals would know about Ebola, and the consequences of any kind of a filovirus outbreak erupting in a highly populated tourist destination like Crete simply didn’t bear thinking about. And even that might be the least of their worries. If tourists, returning home to America, Britain and Europe, began incubating any filovirus with a lethality similar to Ebola, they could soon spread an uncontrollable plague that would make the Black Death seem like an attack of head colds.
With the Ministry of Health informed, and the wheels set in motion, Gravas had turned his attention back to his more immediate problem – Kandira and the people who called the small isolated community home.
There were now several problems he had to address. First, he had to ensure that anyone who had already stepped inside Aristides’s house was fully quarantined. He realized this could be overkill, because Ebola and Marburg are normally spread by body-fluid exchange from an infected victim. But there was a third, little-known, Ebola variant called Ebola Reston, which was lethal to monkeys but for some reason appeared not to affect human beings, and was believed to be transmitted by airborne particles. So it was better not to take any chances.
He also needed, urgently, to find out where exactly the Greek had been, and who he had been with, over the last few days – especially the previous day. Those who had last seen him could provide valuable clues to his physical appearance, which might give Gravas some pointers indicating how fast the disease had progressed. And of course there was the real possibility that some of the people who had been in Aristides’s company were now also incubating the virus, in which case there would be more deaths, possibly a lot more, over the next few days.
His final problem was the biggest: he had to find out exactly how and where Aristides had become infected by the virus that had killed him. And, as he looked up and down the dusty street, baking in the afternoon sunshine, Gravas had no idea how he was going to determine that.
The faxed message from the Centers for Disease Control to the Cretan Ministry of Health was in English and ran to some eight pages of single-spaced typing, but what it said could be condensed into a simple five-word instruction: ‘Touch nothing. Wait for us.’
It also contained a request for two large chest freezers, and if necessary a generator to power them, to be shipped to the site of the outbreak if such facilities weren’t already available there. The duty officer at the Ministry made two telephone calls, got no sense out of either party, shrugged, and then made another two calls. The first went to a domestic appliance supplier in Irakleio, the second to an industrial equipment company.
Within thirty minutes of the telephone call received from Dr Gravas, an urgent meeting had been convened to decide on necessary action before the CDC team arrived. It was short and fairly acrimonious. The Minister of Tourism, concerned primarily with the island’s image as a holiday resort, had opposed almost everything pending confirmation of exactly what had happened in Kandira, but had been over-ruled every step of the way.
Fifteen minutes after stepping out of the conference room, the Minister of Health issued a series of instructions that only reinforced the isolation of Kandira. An hour after that, he finally issued a short statement to a handful of waiting pressmen, but refused to answer any of their questions.
Looking pink and well fed, Simpson returned to the squadron building just after four in the afternoon, and noted the two empty sandwich wrappers and a paper cup – evidence of Richter’s rather less than gourmet lunch – with a certain amount of dissatisfaction.
‘Why don’t you ever eat properly?’ he demanded.
‘Unlike you,’ Richter retorted, ‘I don’t have an unlimited expense account. And food is just food: protein, carbohydrate, starch and fat. As long as you get enough of it inside you, it doesn’t much matter what the source of it is.’
‘God, you’re a Philistine, and a scruffy one at that.’ Simpson glared at Richter’s faded jeans and T-shirt.
‘These are the clothes you brought out for me,’ Richter observed.
‘Yes, but you’re the one wearing them, and they were pretty much all we could find usable in your flat.’
‘I prefer jeans, and T-shirts are comfortable.’ Richter was tiring of the subject. ‘I take it you had a good lunch? Largely liquid, perhaps?’
‘None of your business,’ Simpson replied sharply.
The door opened behind him, and Giancarlo Perini entered the briefing-room. He carried a large plastic bag which he placed on the table only after Richter had removed the debris he had left there.
‘What’s this?’ Simpson asked.
‘A Kevlar jacket,’ Perini replied. ‘We have no idea if Lomas – if it is him – will be armed, though we’re assuming he will be. I want everyone who gets close to him to be protected – including Mr Richter here.’ Richter himself thought this was an excellent idea. ‘You, Mr Simpson, will presumably not be at the scene yourself?’
Simpson shook his head firmly. He was an organizer, not an operative. ‘When do we leave?’ he asked.
‘In half an hour or so,’ Perini replied, and gestured out of the window at the sleekly pointed shape of the Agusta 109 helicopter squatting outside on the tarmac. ‘We’ll fly to a location a mile or so from the villa, and meet the DCPP officers there.’
The SISDE, like Britain’s Security Service, has no law enforcement powers, and relies on a division of the police force – the
‘How many men are you using?’ Richter asked.
‘Ten including the drivers,’ Perini said. ‘They’ll all be armed with automatic weapons and side-arms, and wearing body armour.’
