A Heartbeat Away - Michael Palmer [20]
“A little too late for the Jackson family,” Townsend said.
Allaire bowed his head. Salitas, sensing the president needed time to gather his thoughts, spoke up.
“The people at Veritas conducted a close inspection of Jackson’s biocontainment suit and found a tiny opening by the wrist, probably from bumping against a syringe or scalpel,” Salitas said. “At the time, Dr. Chen’s team was working with a new strain of the virus, trying to increase its potency and effectiveness. That pinhole-sized leak in Jackson’s suit turned him into a carrier. He went home feeling fine and spent the night with his family. He infected all of them without his knowing he was a walking hot zone.”
“Jesus,” Hank Tomlinson murmured.
“The Veritas team immediately destroyed the viral line and resumed work on an earlier strain. They augmented it and controlled how fast it acted when administered. But they never perfected it. Then the president shut down the program.”
“What happened to the Jacksons?” Tomlinson asked.
Allaire looked at Salitas through reddening eyes. The defense secretary walked to the water cooler and returned with water for both of them. Allaire drank his cup dry in a single swallow, then was able to continue.
“They were tightly quarantined, and treated as best our doctor knew how with massive doses of IV antiviral drugs. But nothing worked. They died in just a few days.”
“My God. And that virus is what we have been exposed to?”
“That or a variant, yes. We were all devastated by what happened to the Jackson family, but we had to weigh that tragedy against the possibility of ending the war on terror.”
“Ending the war on terror? Mr. President, just what does this virus do?” the police chief asked.
“The target organs of the germ are a group of structures in the midbrain including the hypothalamus, the anterior cingulate cortex, the amygdala, and the limbic system. These structures in the gray matter of the brain influence many functions, but taken as a whole they control the will—the ability to make voluntary decisions, the uniquely human ability to lie. When the microbe was first brought to my attention by Dr. Chen, a professor at Columbia, her animal studies had shown that cats infected with the virus would swim without resisting. Hard-core carnivores could be trained to eat a mix of vegetables and vitamins. Mortal enemies could quickly be taught to live in the same cage.”
“So? Since when did we get into the development of biological weapons?”
“Since terrorists flew airplanes into the World Trade Center buildings,” Gary Salitas said, returning to the table. “That’s when. And I wouldn’t call WRX a weapon. This country is pockmarked with cells of enemy combatants who don’t feel much like sharing their plans with us.”
“And you’re suggesting this virus will make them?”
“That was the idea,” Allaire said. “With the liberal press holding a constant magnifier on our techniques of interrogation, we have a very limited toolkit when it comes to extracting information from these … individuals. We were developing and testing the virus in hopes of making them share what they knew without resorting to more stringent measures, or having to move ahead based on their version of the truth. And for a time it looked as if Veritas was going to be a success.”
“But even with the new strain, there were still side effects,” Salitas added.
“What sort of side effects are we talking about here, Mr. President?” Bethany Townsend asked, her tone cool.
“I had been assured by Dr. Chen that the results from the new variant strain were most encouraging,” Allaire said. “But as I read through her reports it became increasingly clear that the germ still had some serious problems. It was unstable in terms of mutation, and there had been no progress made in controlling how it spread from host to host. In fact, the data suggested that the highly contagious