Black Wind - Cussler Clive - Страница 28

“The news is most promising. The lab team has completed their study of the test results from the Aleutian Islands and verified that the virus was successfully rejuvenated during flight release. In addition, dispersion of the virus through the mock-up missile-borne vapor mechanism covered a ground path larger than anticipated. The program engineers are confident that the full-scale deployment system already built will be operationally successful.”

“Providing we can generate sufficient quantities of the virus. It was most unfortunate that all but one of the canisters on the I-403 submarine was destroyed.”

“An unforeseen circumstance. Since most of the recovered agent was utilized in the Aleutian test firing, very little was left available for laboratory growth purposes. Dr. Sarghov at the bio lab informs me it will take over three months to cultivate quantities necessitated by the orogram. For this reason, we have initiated your request to attempt recovery of the second Japanese armament stock.”

“A second Japanese submarine,” Kang muttered, picturing an Imperial Japanese submersible lying torpedoed on the ocean floor. “An amazing intelligence discovery that there was not one but two submarines destroyed carrying such a virulent cargo. How soon before recovery operations commence?”

“The submarine must be located first. We have the Baekje en route to Yokohama to pick up a leased submersible that will be required for the deep-water recovery operation. Once on-site, we expect the survey to take approximately two days, and the entire recovery operation to be completed within ten days.”

“And Tongju?”

“He will meet up with the salvage ship in Yokohama and remain on board to lead security operations.”

“Very good,” Kang said, rubbing his hands together in satisfaction. “Things are proceeding nicely, Kwan. The domestic pressures on the Americans will soon be very hot and the chimera project will be a sharp kick to their sides. We must soon prepare for the coming offensive and restoration of the country under our home flag.”

“You will hold a place of high honor in the new Korea,” Kwan stroked.

Kang looked again at the sweeping panorama to the north before him. The rolling hills of his native North Korea lay just across the Han River, stretching wide across the far horizon.

“It is time we regain our country,” he muttered softly.

Kwan started to leave the room, then stopped and turned.

“Sir, there is one other item that has cropped up related to the chimera project.”

Kang nodded at his assistant to proceed.

“The helicopter that was shot down in the Aleutians was operated by an American government research vessel from the National Un-I derwater and Marine Agency. Our crew believed the pilot and crew : were killed, which was initially confirmed by an Alaskan media report of a fatal helicopter crash. However, our U.S. field operations team monitoring the Americans' response to the test reported that the pilot, a special projects director named Pitt, and his copilot had in fact survived the crash.”

“That is of little consequence,” Kang replied irritably.

Kwan cleared his throat nervously. “Well, sir, I had our team track the pilot upon his return to home port in Seattle. Two days after their return, the NUMA men were seen in a small survey boat headed for the region where the I-403 is located.”

“What? That's not possible,” Kang belched with sudden anger, made visible by a large vein that throbbed on his forehead. “How would they have any knowledge of our activities?”

“I do not understand it, either. They are undersea professionals. Perhaps our recovery operation was witnessed by others and they were simply monitoring the I-403 for looters. Or perhaps it is just a coincidence. They may have been performing an engineering or archaeological assessment.”

“Perhaps. But this is no time to compromise the project. Have them both taken care of,” Kang directed.

“Yes, sir,” Kwan replied, backpedaling out of the room quickly. “It will be handled at once.”

To the ancient Aztecs of central Mexico, it-was known as the “Great Leprosy.” The ghastly plague of death had appeared sometime after the arrival of Hernando Cortes and his troops in 1518. Some believe a rival conquistador named Narvaez, sailing from Cuba, had carried the scourge. Whoever the carrier, the results proved horrific. When Cortes entered Mexico City after a four-month siege against the forces of Montezuma in 1521, he was shocked at what he found. Stacks upon stacks of dead, decaying bodies were piled high in homes, on the streets, everywhere the eye could see throughout the city. No casualties of battle, the dead were all victims of disease.

No one knows the origins of Variola major, but the deadly virus, better known as “smallpox,” has left an expansive path of tragedy around the globe. Though smallpox epidemics have been recorded in civilizations as far back as the ancient Egyptians, history knows the disease best as the scourge of the Americas, leaving its deadliest mark on the highly susceptible natives of the western continents. Introduced to the New World by the crews of Christopher Columbus, smallpox wreaked havoc throughout the entire West Indies and virtually decimated the original Carib Indians who greeted Columbus on his first voyage west.

The Cortes/Narvaez introduction of smallpox into Mexico is estimated to have killed nearly half of the three hundred thousand inhabitants of Mexico City in 1521. Cumulative deaths throughout the country from the highly contagious disease easily numbered in the millions. Similar devastation transpired in South America as well. When Pizarro landed in Peru in 1531 on his great quest for gold, the smallpox virus was already annihilating the Inca population. With his army of less than two hundred men, Pizarro would never have ransacked the Inca empire had the culture not been preoccupied with a chaotic struggle against the ravaging disease. More than five million Incas may have died from smallpox, which all but eradicated their entire civilization.

In North America, Native American tribes were not immune to the onslaught. Numerous tribes of river valley Mound Builders vanished altogether from smallpox, while the Massachusetts and Narragansett tribes were nearly wiped out. Estimates suggest that the population of the New World declined by ninety-five percent in the century following the arrival of Columbus, attributable primarily to smallpox.

The lethal virus didn't stop there, flaring up in sporadic epidemics that killed thousands more in Europe over the next two hundred years. Sinister military minds later made use of the disease as a tool of battle, to intentionally infect opposing forces. Historical allegations claim the British provided smallpox-infected blankets to warring Native American tribes in the 1760s, and employed similar tactics against American troops during the battle for Quebec during the Revolutionary War.

Primitive vaccinations were finally discovered in the early nineteenth century, using a related cowpox virus, which eventually provided some measure of control against the disease. Sporadic outbreaks and Cold War fears prompted routine smallpox vaccinations in the United States up until the nineteen seventies. In large part due to the World Health Organization's successful global battle against the disease, smallpox was declared completely eradicated in 1977. Save for a small research sample at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and an unknown quantity developed for military applications in the former Soviet Union, remaining worldwide stocks of the virus were completely destroyed. Smallpox was nearly a forgotten disease until the terrorist attacks in the early years of the new century raised the fear that a contagious virulent outbreak of any form was again a threat to be reckoned with.

The historical ravages of smallpox were of little concern to Irv Fowler at the moment. After mustering the strength to drive himself to the Alaska Regional Hospital emergency room, his only hopes were for a quiet room and an attractive nurse to help him recuperate from whatever form of killer flu was knocking him out. Even when a parade of somber-looking medical professionals kept marching by to have a look at him and then insisted he be wheeled into quarantine, he was feeling too weak to be alarmed. Only when a pair of masked doctors finally informed him that he had tested positive for smallpox did his mind begin to whir. Two thoughts came to mind before delirium washed over his brain again: Could he defy the thirty percent mortality rate? And who else had he infected?