Peter May - Snakehead

She had no opportunity to respond. Colonel Zeiss was anxious to get the meeting underway. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, just so that none of you are labouring under any illusions, the reason you are all here tonight is that in our view we are facing a full-scale national emergency.’ He had everyone’s attention now. ‘As some of you already know, blood and tissue samples taken from the bodies found in the truck at Huntsville have revealed that the victims appear to have been injected with the virus which caused the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918.’ His announcement prompted a mixed reaction around the table.

‘Flu?’ Hrycyk said dismissively. ‘Is that all? I get a shot against the flu every year.’

Dr. Ward spoke for the first time. ‘The Spanish flu was the most pathogenic flu virus in history,’ he said. ‘It killed more people in three months than the Great Plague in three hundred years. And there is no shot that will protect you against it, Agent Hrycyk.’ He leaned forward. ‘Your own figures for illegal immigration should tell you that the ninety-eight Chinese we found in that truck are probably just the tip of the iceberg. They died by accident. We have no idea how many others successfully crossed into the United States bringing the virus with them.’

Margaret was puzzled. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘How do you know it’s the Spanish flu virus? I don’t remember being off the day they did virology, and my understanding was that we didn’t even know about the existence of viruses in 1918. So you’ve nothing to compare it with.’

Dr. Ward responded coolly, ‘Perhaps, Dr. Campbell, you were too busy helping out the Chinese police to keep up with the news. A research team at AFIP managed to partially sequence the Spanish flu virus at the end of the last decade.’

Margaret felt her face colour. ‘Then perhaps you’d like to enlighten me, Doctor,’ she said, trying to retain as much dignity as possible.

‘There are others around the table besides yourself, Ms Campbell, who require enlightenment,’ Dr. Ward said. By now Margaret had the very firm impression that she didn’t like the good doctor very much. He took a moment to compose himself. ‘Back in the nineties,’ he said, ‘a team of researchers at AFIP HQ in Washington, led by Dr. Jeffrey Taubenberger, discovered that tissue from seventy Spanish flu victims had been stored at AFIP’s National Tissue Repository. They were able to recover fragments of viral RNA from the lung tissue of a twenty-one-year-old private who died from the flu at Fort Jackson, Carolina, in 1918. Along with other samples, and soft tissue recovered from an Eskimo grave in Alaska, they were able to sequence enough of the recovered fragments to establish for the first time that the 1918 pandemic was caused by an H1N1 type virus, and that it was completely unlike any other human flu virus identified during the past seventy years.’ The doctor paused to let his words sink in. There were others around the table to whom this was also news.

He went on, ‘The closest match they could find was with a strain known as Swine Iowa 30, a pig flu isolated in 1930 and kept alive at various culture repositories ever since. It lent some credence to those who had always believed that the virus mutated from a strain found in birds, was passed on to pigs and then ultimately to humans — a unique sequence of mutations giving the virus its unparalleled pathogenic qualities.’ He sat back. ‘And of course, it was by a unique sequence of good, or bad, fortune that we actually identified the virus in these Chinese immigrants. The viral panel requested by Dr. Cardiff included a routine test for flu virus. But it was sheer chance that one of Dr. Taubenberger’s team got to cast an eye over the results. She immediately recognised part of the sequence, and initiated further, specific tests that proved positive.’ He leaned forward, elbows on the table, fingers interlocked. This was his moment and he was making the most of it. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are 99 percent certain that what we are dealing with here is the original Spanish flu virus. Last time around it killed anything up to forty million people. This time, it could be a whole helluva lot more.’

‘I’m sorry to be a nuisance,’ Margaret said, cutting short Dr. Ward’s moment, ‘but I’m beginning to wonder now if I was off the day they did virology. I mean, if all of these people were injected with this virus, how come none of them showed any flu-like symptoms?’

‘Because they weren’t suffering from the flu, my dear.’ Mendez’s interjection took Margaret by surprise. She turned toward him, blinking.

‘What do you mean?’

‘They were only carrying it,’ he said. ‘In a noninfectious form. They weren’t affected by it at all.’ He now had the attention of everyone around the table. He ran nicotine-stained fingers through his pure white whiskers. ‘The virus with which they were injected was genetically manipulated so that the DNA in their genomes would be transformed to contain its code.’

Margaret was struggling to keep up with this. ‘I thought that RNA viruses couldn’t get into the human genome.’

Mendez smiled. ‘My dear, if you want to be technical about it, then you are absolutely right. But by using standard gene therapy methods, it’s not too difficult.’ He leaned forward and looked around the faces at the table, intoxicated by his own knowledge. ‘All you have to do is to take a retrovirus called Moloney leukemia virus and use it to nest the code for the RNA flu virus along with a few genes required to make the nested virus into an active transcript.’

‘Woah…Hey, hold on there!’ It was Hrycyk. ‘This is going wa-ay over my head.’

Mendez looked at him appraisingly. ‘I’ll try to make it simple, then.’ And Hrycyk shifted uncomfortably, as if in having to make it simple, Mendez was passing comment on the perceived level of Hrycyk’s intelligence. The professor said, ‘Viruses are made either of DNA or RNA. In this instance, our flu virus is made of RNA. Simply put, what you do is splice the code for the RNA flu virus into the Moloney leukemia virus, which is going to act as your vector, or carrier. Then you coat that virus to make it into a retrovirus that can convert its RNA into DNA and integrate into the DNA of its host.’

‘Hang on.’ Hrycyk cut in again, at the risk of looking even more ignorant. ‘Doc, you said you were going to make this simple.’

Mendez smiled patiently. He had always had a good way with his students, and for him this was just like any other class. There was always one obstinately ignorant student. ‘In the simplest terms, for the gentleman at the end of the table,’ he said, ‘these Chinese hopefuls had their DNA transformed to make them, effectively, into walking-talking flu viruses.’ He raised an eyebrow in Hrycyk’s direction inviting a further question. When it did not come, he added, ‘However, the flu would not have become active until their DNA got converted back into its infectious RNA form.’

‘And how would that happen?’ This from one of the AFIP doctors.

‘Good question.’ Mendez leaned back in his chair, still smiling. ‘I don’t know. At least, I know how the change would be triggered, but not what would trigger it.’ He placed his hands, palm down, on the table in front of him. ‘That’s what I’ve been brought out of retirement to find out.’ There was an odd tone to this, and he leaned forward and looked along the table toward Zeiss. ‘That’s the party line, isn’t it, Colonel?’

Zeiss looked uncomfortable. ‘The Department of Defence considers you to be the foremost expert in this field, Professor,’ he said.

Mendez nodded. ‘Yes, when it suits them.’

Hrycyk said, ‘Hey, I’m sorry to butt in on this mutual admiration society. I mean, call me stupid, but I still don’t quite get this.’