“Yes,” said Blankenship. “It was Dr. Garza who suggested Dr. Said.”
“Dr. Said is not Pakistani—he’s an American, born in Bakersfield, California,” Dr. Garza said. “He’s a well-known authority on recombinant DNA therapy, and well regarded at the Center for Gene Therapy—I have heard that he is being groomed as its next head. And he has extensive experience with the activity of NANs in human tissues.”
Rick leaned forward once again, determined to make his point. “As you know, I was responsible for Said’s background check when he applied to work with NANs,” he said. “I warned he might be a liability. We all know who his uncle was, even if it appears that he doesn’t.”
Blankenship didn’t bother looking up. “In the end, you decided to grant him access, correct?” he said.
Rick stared at his boss. “But we’ve had to keep a watchful eye on him. Are we really sure we want him to know—”
“He’s clean,” said the general. “He knows nothing about his extended family.”
“You’re absolutely sure of that?”
“His parents have been model citizens since resettlement. They’ve kept him in the dark,” replied the general. “I can show you the surveillance files, if that’s what you need.”
Rick sat back, all energy draining from his limbs. Files. When it came to Farooq Said, James Said’s notorious uncle, he’d seen all the files he needed to see. “Don’t bother,” he said. “Where is he now?”
Standing up, the general signaled the end of the meeting. “On his way to Langley as we speak. We’ll need you there to greet him.”
* * *
IN THE SMALL, brightly lit conference room, James Said hunched over the table, the Fort Detrick reports displayed before him on dimly lit screens. His fingers scrolled the pages steadily, his thin lips moving in silence.
With his lank frame, his black hair carefully oiled and plastered over flecks of premature gray, Said looked little like the militants whom Rick had encountered during his years under cover in Pakistan. Still, Rick felt his fists clench involuntarily as he sat across the table, waiting. He remembered wresting a sawed-off rifle from sinewed arms in an abandoned hovel outside Karachi. The pungent smell of cumin mixed with sweat. He remembered the searing pain, shooting up into his gut. The trip back home, without his leg—without Mustafa, the trusted interpreter he’d vowed to protect.
But this man smelled only of a nondescript American aftershave. His rumpled clothes were those of a middle-aged academic, on his way home to California for the Christian holidays. Gripping the back of his own neck with one hand, Rick willed his mental state down from orange to yellow, from yellow to all clear. The general had assured him: Though James Said’s family history was suspect, the man himself was not.
Sitting back, Said shifted a pair of reading glasses from the bridge of his angular nose to the top of his high forehead. The look on his face was unreadable.
“What do you think?”
“About what?”
Rick stared across the table. Said was obviously put out at having to curtail his vacation. Once the fear had worn off, he’d been understandably outraged. But now that the chips were on the table—was this really the time to start a game of twenty questions? “Are the findings sound?”
“The DNA sequence found in the archaebacteria is the same as that in the NAN. The archaebacteria are capable of making and secreting active NANs. It’s right there in the reports.”
“Then we need some ideas.”
“About what?”
Oh, my good God. “How to respond, of course.”
“If this really did happen—”
“And you just told me you agree it did—”
“If all of this is true, then you’re asking me to solve a monumental problem with about as much forethought as you gave when you unleashed this thing in the first place.”
“Listen.” Rick stood. Ignoring the pain of a thousand needles from a leg that no longer existed, he circled the table to stand at the doctor’s side. “I didn’t unleash anything. I’m just the poor sap who needs to figure out a way to clean it up. And I’m asking for your help.”
“I’m sorry.” The doctor looked up at him, his expression only briefly telegraphing something resembling sympathy. “Really. It’s just that I’d expected to be home now. With my parents. But instead I’m sitting here with you, and you’re telling me these things. It’s . . . a lot to process.”
“If it helps any,” Rick said, “we don’t expect anything to happen tomorrow.”
“How long do you think we have?”
“Detrick consulted the database at Argonne National Lab. Retrospective data on the natural spread of DNA for this type of desert microbe population yielded a few models. Possibly as long as five years before it breaches the region. Possibly less . . .”
“And we know that the DNA is currently only found in the one species of archaebacterium?”
“So far, yes.”
“Okay.” Said rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. “I suppose I don’t have any say in the matter, now. I know too much, as you say . . . We’ll have to get to work right away.”
Rick leaned forward. “What do you suggest? Some sort of vaccine, maybe?”
“A vaccine won’t work.”
“No?”
“A traditional vaccine helps the body mount an immune response to a foreign agent. But IC-NAN is designed to masquerade as nonforeign. What we need is a snippet of DNA that can short-circuit its action. And we need a method by which to deliver it to the human body. Genetic engineering on an unprecedented scale.”
“We can’t just eradicate the source? Kill these things?”
“Living, these microbes are acting as factories for that toxic DNA that you . . . that our government so wisely spewed out into the biosphere. They’ve already replicated it far beyond the dose dropped by your drones. And as they die, they are apparently capable of excreting the DNA in its original infectious form. Kill them on purpose, and you’d most likely only accelerate the release process. Quite simply, you’ve created a monster.”
“Couldn’t we just . . . burn them up?”
“You can try. But I can’t imagine you’ll meet with success. We’re talking billions and billions of infected microorganisms, by now most likely spread over miles of terrain, borne on the wind. And it’s quite possible that over time, new microbial species will be infected. I can’t think of a surefire way to destroy all that infectious matter . . .” Said stood up, his fingers splayed on the tabletop, back stooped and head down. Rick had to strain to hear what he said next. “No. We’ll have to find some way to modify the human body to live with this . . . this monster on the loose.”