Brendan DuBois - Final Winter

The silence was heavy, oppressive, as though some inert gas had slipped into the room and rendered speech impossible. Monty cleared his throat and said, ‘Doc, we know the numbers. You threw them at us this morning, right when they started. Ten thousand dead… a hell of a number, doc, a hell of a fucking number. And I’m gonna have nightmares sleeping tonight, trying to get my mind around that number. But I’m thinking about another number. I’m thinking, even if we get every attack team out there that’s coming in except for one — if just one slips through, in the space of a few weeks from now we’ll have a hundred thousand dead. Or two hundred thousand dead. And that’s only if we’re very, very lucky. And then we’ll have to live with the fact that we could have saved most of those people, if we had acted instead of sitting on our hands. And if we’re not that lucky, if two or three teams make it into Manhattan and Chicago and Los Angeles, then you’re talking a million casualties. A million casualties and a collapsed economy and UN peacekeepers in the streets and—’

Victor raised his voice. ‘You don’t have to tell me that! I know that already!’

Monty shrugged. ‘You were repeating yourself earlier. I was just repaying the favor. C’mon, doc, shit or get off the pot. Adrianna needs your answer.’

Victor took his glasses off, rubbed at his eyes. ‘I just want all of you to know the cost. That’s all. The cost. Because when we go to trial — and we will, one of these days, someday down the road — I want my conscience to be clear. I’ll want to know that I told everyone the cost.’

Brian said, ‘Yeah, we’ll remember that doc. And I’ll be happy that we’re sitting in a functioning court room in a functioning country to go to trial. Like Monty said, you’ve got to—’

‘Yes,’ Victor said.

Victory, Adrianna thought, sweet and total victory. ‘I’m sorry, Victor, could you repeat that?’

‘Yes,’ the doctor said. ‘Yes, and God help us all.’

‘Yes,’ Darren said. ‘God help us all.’

With the decision having been reached a sense of energy and purpose came over the group as if, having put the decision behind them, they could now move on. Adrianna felt the mood change but wasn’t fooled by it: these few people in here would be haunted for the rest of their lives for what they were about to do.

She picked up a pen, went to a legal pad. ‘Victor? To reaffirm what you said this morning, we’ll have enough vaccine by month’s end?’

‘Just barely,’ he said, his voice sullen. ‘We’re looking at immunizing the top five or six population centers, ten if we’re lucky — which means a lot of rural areas will be on their own. But the war-gaming all shows the attack teams striking at city centers. No other place makes sense. The rural areas will have to muddle through.’

The doctor moved from his chair, reached under the table and pulled out a shiny metal case. He undid the clasps and opened it up, revealing black foam inside. Nestled inside the foam was a metal cylinder about the size of a small fire extinguisher, colored dark green, with yellow letters and numbers on it. ‘Here’s a mock-up of one of the dispersal units. Each one like this can administer about one hundred fifty thousand vaccine units…’

Monty whistled and Darren said, ‘The fuck you say.’

‘Nope, that’s right. One hundred fifty thousand vaccine units. Now. Here’s the challenge, and I’m sure this is going to be the second question you’re asked tonight, Adrianna, by the coordinator. The first question being, of course, are you out of your ever-loving mind?’

She nodded, knowing what Victor was saying. ‘Absolutely. The second question will be, how do we administer the vaccine by a covert method. Victor, haven’t your folks come up with any delivery options?’

The doctor passed the cylinder to his right, to Darren, who examined it before passing it on to Brian. His hands now free, Victor said, ‘Yeah. Initially, the vaccine was going to be kept in ready reserve, at CDC and infectious-disease centers across the country. Way it was figured, if there was an anthrax attack on a city the first response would be to quarantine and treat those exposed with Cipro. Secondary response, outside of the quarantined area, would be to set up the airborne dispersal area. Like major parks, boulevards, sports centers. Anyplace where you could get a concentration of the population so you could immunize them quickly and in large numbers. Oh, there wouldn’t be much in terms of efficiency — some of the vaccine would end up drifting away — but to do it quickly, with large numbers, that’s how the preliminary plans came to be developed.’

Now Victor looked directly at Adrianna. ‘But now…well, we’re in a whole different universe. First, doing it covertly, and second, doing it over a large number of cities. Any suggestions?’

Wait, Adrianna thought, just wait. Monty came to her rescue. ‘Airborne dispersal, of course. Helicopters? Crop-dusters?’

Brian spoke up. ‘Not possible. Don’t you think it’d be all over the news, crop-dusters and helicopters arriving at the same time over the ten largest population centers? And how do you keep it secret, an operation like that? Not going to happen.’

‘Military, then,’ Darren offered. ‘Best way of doing this, keep it all in-house.’

Monty shook his head. ‘Maybe you could do it for a couple of cities, but not for ten. Most military craft don’t fly in and out of civilian airports, or transit civilian airspace. Same problem with news coverage. If you start having military aircraft suddenly appear over civilian airspace, then the questions will start.’

Victor seemed to want to say something, but kept his mouth shut. His hands on the tabletop in front of him seemed to be trembling. Adrianna said, ‘Those canisters, Victor. How can they be installed on aircraft? What kind of support mechanism would you need? Would a pilot have to activate the canister?’

‘No, you wouldn’t need a pilot,’ Victor said sullenly. ‘You could have it set up automatically, as simple as possible. You’d have a dispersal-control mechanism hooked up to the canister. Place the canister in a secure location. Set a radio altimeter switch in the canister so that when the aircraft carrying it rises up to three thousand feet the radio altimeter arms the canister. When the aircraft goes below three thousand feet, the canister begins dispersing the vaccine because of the change in altitude registered by the radio altimeter. In fact — shit, you know, that might work. That just might work.’

Adrianna kept quiet. It was important that the entire group take part in the process, have a stake in whatever outcome was chosen. Darren said, ‘Well, tell us, doc. What would work?’

‘What do all these population centers have in common? Airports. That’s what they have in common. Aircraft coming into airports all the time. Not a problem. Nothing unusual. Nothing to attract attention. If you time it just right…’

‘Shit,’ Monty said. ‘It could be done in just one night, right?’

Brian said, ‘Who are you going to get to do it? American Airlines? United? You think they’d take part in something as crazy as this? Not going to happen. Not in a million years.’

‘Then perhaps somebody else, another outfit,’ Adrianna said, the shaking of her legs continuing. ‘Not a passenger air-line, but an airline that—’

Darren spoke up, and Adrianna had to prevent herself from shouting in glee at his suggestion.

‘The General,’ he said. ‘We get the General to do it, that’s how.’

The expressions on everyone’s faces changed. Nobody needed an explanation of what Darren had just said. Former Air Force General Alexander Bocks, nearly ten years ago, had used his experience as a cargo-shipping officer in the Air Force to create one of the most successful airfreight airlines in the world, AirBox. His black-and-yellow Air Boxes could be seen on most streets in major cities in the United States and Canada, and the men and women delivering the packages coming out of the Air Boxes wore uniforms that were clear knock-offs of Air Force apparel. He was also a firm supporter of the current administration and of the latest installment in the round-the-clock struggle that characterized the new war on terror.