Two Navy Guys Readers Group – Exclusive #2
The Pandora Deception
Bonus Chapter
Antananarivo, Madagascar
JP was glad he had ditched his suit in favor of rough khakis, boots, and a safari shirt. He stepped from the climate-controlled cabin of his private jet into the early morning humidity of Madagascar.
The heat wasn't as bad as Khartoum, but the humidity sapped his strength. It would be worse by midday, much worse.
Carrying a small backpack, JP strode across the tarmac to the waiting Land Rover and the local driver.
“Parlez vous français?” he asked the driver.
“Oui.” The driver nodded enthusiastically and released a torrential reply that only barely resembled French. JP sighed as he climbed into the back of the Land Rover.
As the driver navigated his way out of the airport traffic, JP slipped a folder out of his backpack and opened it.
Dr. Lu Xianshan was not a handsome man and his dour expression did nothing to counteract that fact. He possessed a remarkably square head that made his facial features look squashed together. The square wire-rimmed glasses only added to the effect.
Still, his list of accomplishments was impressive. Dual doctorates in epidemiology and bioinformatics made his skill set perfect for JP’s needs. Yet even those credentials weren’t his best asset.
In 2017, the island nation of Madagascar experienced an outbreak of Bubonic Plague. Although all but unheard of in the western world, the disease, which infected people from a flea bite, still existed in pockets of the developing world. The government and the World Health Organization worked in tandem to bring the epidemic under control but not before hundreds of people died.
Dr. Lu was part of the frontlines of the WHO operation and made a name for himself as an effective field operator. Largely through his efforts, the plague was contained quickly.
The less-reported aspect of Dr. Lu’s tenure—and why he was still in Madagascar—was his rapid identification of the changing nature of the epidemic. Victims of the Bubonic Plague were infected by a bite from a flea that had feasted on the blood of an infected mouse or other vermin. The result was a blood-borne disease, devastating to the host, but also not very transmissible other than through direct contact with bodily fluids.
Lu’s breakthrough was in identifying how the blood-borne disease turned into a lung infection—pneumonia—which in turn was highly infectious. A single cough could infect an entire room and the bacteria lived on surfaces in the room for hours. The exact cellular process of aerosolization of the disease was much more complex than originally thought. Lu was close to proving that the strain of Bubonic Plague in Madagascar was not spread merely by a mass dispersion of infected lung material—the disease had mutated into a strain that was an order of magnitude more virulent.
In effect, the dispersal mechanism in the bodies of the Madagascar patients had been weaponized.
The concept of a weaponized dispersal mechanism created a wave of protest in the scientific community. The debate revived the long-discredited theory that the Black Death, which wiped out a quarter of Europe’s population in the Middle Ages, was a super-bug, a disease that had been turbocharged by an external agent like Lu’s weaponized dispersal.
Lu had remained in Madagascar since the outbreak, endeavoring to prove his theory by tracing the exact lineage of the plague through the Malagasy population.
The worsening road conditions forced JP to discontinue reading and stow the folder.
The terrain in this part of Madagascar was green and lush. Terraced rice fields bordered the road as they approached the city of Saka.
The driver caught JP’s eye in the rear-view mirror. “Next road. Very bad,” he said in his butchered French. He mimed putting on his seatbelt to JP.
They turned off the main road onto a track of red dirt, made soft by the recent rain. Deep ruts lined the track and JP saw the driver shift the Land Rover into four-wheel drive as they powered through a pothole the size of a sofa. JP gripped the handle over his head and held on.
Three hours later, the Rover came to a stop at the base of small hill. He pointed to a pair of solid-framed canvas tents a hundred yards up the slope.
“Medicin,” he said. Doctor.
He began to put the vehicle back in gear when JP stopped him. “Wait here. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”
The driver shrugged and pulled out a packet of cigarettes.
JP stepped into the early afternoon heat, his body aching from the rough ride. The sun was bright and the air dense with moisture. He squinted up the hill. He’d left both his sunglasses and hat on the jet. Not a good omen for this visit.
He shouldered his backpack and trudged up the incline.
The canvas tents looked like they had been in place for a while. A group of women, squatting in the shade of the tent, eyed him suspiciously as he crested the hill, sweating and puffing like a man who did not run every morning.
The inside of the tent was dark and stifling. A desk fan whirred away valiantly, but JP detected no movement in the air. An attractive young Chinese woman wearing a white lab coat sat behind a desk tapping away at a modern laptop. She looked up in surprise as he knocked on the center pole of the structure.
“Excuse moi?” JP said with a smile.
“I did not hear a car—”
“I walked here,” JP said. Another smile, wider this time.
“Walked?” She looked alarmed until JP pointed down the hill to where the Land Rover waited.
“My name is Jean-Pierre Manzul of Recodna Genetics. Here to see Dr. Lu.” He handed her a business card. “I think the doctor is expecting me.”
Her expression turned to one of alarm. “I'm afraid there's been some kind of mistake. The doctor said he didn't wish to see you. I sent the email myself.”
JP’s face darkened. “You mean to tell me I have come all the way from Europe to see Dr. Lu and he is not here?”
The young woman looked like she might hyperventilate. “I—I don’t know what happened…This is all my fault. The doctor is seeing patients this afternoon. I will see if he can…”
She hurried out of the tent with the business card clutched in her hand. Through the thin tent walls, he heard a rapid-fire exchange of Mandarin and the sound of the young woman being reprimanded sharply.
She returned to the tent chastened and without the business card.
Perfect, JP thought. He’d gotten her email of course and promptly ignored it.
“Dr. Lu will see you this afternoon.” She took a deep breath. “I am sorry for the misunderstanding. It was my responsibility.” She lowered her voice. “The doctor does not like to be disturbed, especially when he is in the field. He is very angry.”
JP smiled at her encouragingly. “I’m sure my assistant made the mistake, but I’m glad he was willing to make an exception for me.”
In the back of his mind, JP wondered if he might have overplayed his hand. Showing up unannounced could be seen as a power move or it could alienate his target. No matter, he told himself, this will work. Every man has a price. He just need to ascertain the currency in which the doctor wished to be paid.
“You may want to wait in your car,” she said. “It would be more comfortable.”
“I prefer to wait with you, if you don’t mind.”
He received a tenuous grin at that reply. Good, he still had her in his corner. He let her go back to her laptop.
“What are you working on?” he asked.
She turned the laptop screen to face him. “I’m not a doctor,” she said, plucking at the white coat. “Doctor Lu insists we wear these all the time. I’m a computer programmer.” The screen showed what looked like a scatter graph, but as her cursor moved across the screen the dots sprang to life with data: a picture, vitals, health history.
“This is a database of Dr. Lu’s patients, but the goal is to build an interactive model for a pandemic.”
“But we have those models already.”
“No, the models we have are built based on historical data and crude estimates. They track what has already happened. This model will predict the spread of a future virus using artificial intelligence.” She tapped her keyboard. “Name any city in the world and the characteristics of the bio-agent used and I can tell you how long until the population reaches the tipping point.”
“Tipping point?”
“Structural breakdown of societal functions,” said a voice from behind them. JP turned to find Dr. Lu Xianshin.
If anything, the unflattering picture in JP’s file made the doctor look more attractive than he was in reality. His square head was posted on a thick neck and he had stubby arms and hands as if all his body parts had been compressed.
JP launched into full charm mode. “Doctor Lu, thank you for seeing me on such short notice. I’m Jean-Pierre Manzul of Recodna Genetics.” He extended his hand.
“I know who you are, Mr. Manzul,” Dr. Lu snapped at him. “And I don't appreciate you showing up unannounced at one of my research stations.”
JP backpedaled. “I'm sure it was just a miscommunication. My sincere apologies for having interrupted your busy day. Perhaps we could talk for just a few moments? It will be worthwhile, I promise you.”
Lu still appeared unconvinced. His assistant intervened on JP’s behalf. “I’ll bring you some tea, doctor.”
The Chinese doctor pulled a second chair into the entrance of the tent and sat heavily. He breathed with the grace of a water buffalo, content to ignore JP’s attempts at small talk.
It wasn’t until the tray arrived and he had poured two cups of tea that Lu spoke. “I'm sorry for my rudeness earlier.” He handed a steaming cup to JP. “I get so many reporters and people who think they can hang onto my coattails. I've done great work here and I intend to see it through.”
“I have no desire to latch onto your coattails, Dr. Lu. Quite the opposite in fact. I am here to boost the power of your research.”
Lu observed him over the rim of his teacup, but said nothing. The man's beady eyes were hard as stone and his mouth was set in a firm line. This was not the expression of someone who was open to a negotiation.
“What you are doing here in modeling an epidemic is just the first step,” JP said. Lu's eyebrows hitched up half a millimeter. At least he got a rise out of that line. JP continued, “But modeling an epidemic is not the same as stopping an epidemic. To stop an epidemic, you must have a vaccine. That's where I come in.”
Dr. Lu pulled JP's business card out of his shirt pocket. “Recodna,” he said. “I'm guessing that's a clever way of saying ‘recombinant DNA’?”
JP smiled. “Very good, doctor. Most people don't get the play on words.”
“Your company does what exactly?”
“We started in agricultural applications. Drought resistant crops, disease resistant animals.” He rested his elbows on his knees and lowered his voice. “But I recently received substantial funding to expand my operation into much more impactful areas.” Another twitch of the eyebrows indicated continued interest.
“I'm going to level with you, doctor. The world is a very dangerous place, and not getting any safer. We are seeing science-driven genetic manipulations and mutations on a scale never contemplated even ten years ago and no one can predict where that will take us.” JP set his tea cup down on the edge of the desk.
“The greatest threat to the future of the human race is a pandemic. You wouldn’t be here in Madagascar otherwise. How we respond to a pandemic will determine whether or not we survive.”
“You're talking about chimeras,” Lu said, genuine interest in his voice now.
JP nodded. “Right again, doctor.”
The set of Lu’s jaw softened. “You have my attention, but how serious are you? Do you have a bio-level four facility, for example?”
JP slipped a folder from his backpack and passed it to Lu. The other man, his tea long forgotten, pored over the details of the new lab.
“Where is this?” he asked.
JP shrugged.
“Who else have you recruited?”
Another shrug.
Lu handed the folder back. “How much can you tell me?”
“Five million dollars for a two-year contract and we will continue the funding of your epidemiological modeling effort. It may come in handy.” Lu’s pupils dilated at the salary. JP had set the hook, now he just had to reel him in.
“And I ask no questions, is that it?”
“That’s it, doctor. You disappear for two years and you come back a rich man with the greatest predictive tool in modern history. Take it or leave it.”
Lu picked up the tea cup. JP noted the liquid quivered in his grasp. “They say if I finish my work here, I’ll be nominated for a Nobel award in medicine.”
“If you join me, you’ll change the world.”
Lu replaced the cup on the corner of the desk.
“I'm listening.”
Copyright 2020 by David Bruns and J.R. Olson