LyonBio
Lyon, France
Dressed in her white lab coat, Raines was busy concocting a sublingual version of her tularemia vaccine. Once she had perfected it, Thierry Gaudin knew that she would need to put four more rhesus monkeys back into the pilot house BSL-3 chamber just to make sure under-the-tongue droplets really worked.
Thierry was already working his rosary beads and praying for the health of monkeys.
Camp and Finn arrived at her lab just before 9:00am. They were carrying their backpacks.
“Ready?” Raines asked as she put her work down and checked her watch.
“You’re already at it, Raines?” Finn asked.
“What makes you think I ever went back to my apartment last night?” she said. “I can sleep when I’m dead.”
She noticed Camp’s pack on the floor. “Going somewhere sailor?”
“I had a call last night… from a friend Finn and I met up in the Hindu Kush… he needs to speak with me, Les. He wouldn’t say what, but he’s pretty bent out of shape.”
“So you’re heading back to the Hindu Kush?”
“Not exactly, we’re going to hook up in the Middle East.”
Raines dropped her face into her hands.
“Oh, good, the Middle East… well that narrows it down for me. Why didn’t you just say that in the first place, Camp?”
Raines stormed off and pulled some data up on her computer screen.
“Geez, you’re a bit on edge this morning.”
“Sorry, just trying to invent a sublingual vaccine to save a few million people. Normal hectic day at the office, sorry, my bad.”
“You’ve got everything under control here, Les. What are we supposed to do? Just stand around and watch you think?”
“Under control? You and I are about to inhale a poisonous toxin. In five hours we might be in the local emergency room. Hell, we could be in the morgue for all I know. And you think you’re going to have a little dose of inhalation bio-weapon and just be on your way to the airport!”
“Ah, I’m gonna go grab a mocha, anybody want one?” Finn said as neither Camp nor Raines acknowledged his departure.
“Maybe you’ve forgotten, but you are on a federal ‘do not fly’ list into Israel. Have you noticed that most people aren’t thrilled with your freelance work? Count me in as one of them.”
“I’m not flying to Israel, Leslie.”
“Well, that sure narrows down the choices, then.”
“Les, I found an Army major with a slug in his brain, stuffed in a frozen shed. He was a gynecologist for God’s sake, two kids and a wife… a private practice back in Pennsylvania… it’s the least I can do for the guy.”
“Camp, you were sent to Lyon… to assist me… need I remind you that you received a direct order?”
“I’ve been assisting you, Les. Seriously, what more can I do for you? I even let you stick me with the vaccine and became your human guinea pig. If you haven’t figured out that I’m crazy about you yet, then you never will.”
Camp picked up his backpack and headed to the door. For the first time he second-guessed himself. Maybe he couldn’t be the man, let alone the friend, that Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Raines deserved, much less needed.
“Let’s get this over with,” Camp said as he pulled a water bottle out of his pack. Camp felt foolish and dejected. Raines was out of his league. She had all the intellectual heft and measured her pace with precision. He was just a former SEAL, a knock-the-doors-down sort of a guy, who left piles of debris for others to clean up when the mission was over.
Raines didn’t budge. “How crazy?”
Camp turned around and softened a bit. He grasped at any sign of hope.
“Insane crazy, Les… I love you.”
Her lower lip started to quiver as she folded her lab coat-covered arms against her chest. Tears dripped down Leslie’s cheeks. Camp dropped his bag, moved in close and held her tightly. Tugging her buried face up from his chest Camp kissed her lips as a familiar voice thundered from the corridor and into the lab.
“Three freaking Euros for this little coffee. Damn French,” Finn spouted as he walked in, observed the embrace and kiss, then spun a quick u-turn. “Geez! Pick your poison guys, love or rabbit fever? It’s 0930, the pilot house is ours. Are we going to do this thing, or not!”
Finn walked out of Leslie’s office followed by Camp and Raines as they walked the short corridor to the pilot house. Finn took his place in the control room. Thierry had cleared out all employees and sat next to Finn.
Two transparent and clear vinyl breathing tubes protruded out of the inner chamber of the pilot house and into the personal protective equipment staging area. Camp put the breathing tube in his mouth and pinched his nostrils. Raines closed her eyes, said a quick prayer, and did the same. Both nodded to the control room.
Finn reached for the red lever and gently pulled it down.
35
Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania
Seabury and Ruth Campbell were sitting in their living room watching the evening news on CBS. Old Sea Bee was sitting in his well-worn recliner. A 1970s era metal folding TV tray was propped up in front of his chair with a half-eaten bowl of vanilla ice cream starting to melt. Every 30 seconds or so Sea Bee would pick up the crossword puzzle book that Ruth had picked up for him in the checkout line at the Dollar General. He never wrote in the book, but he picked it up frequently. He never saw anything on the pages, but he looked each time. He studied it, always looking for something.
Ruth sat in her velour rocker next to Sea Bee working her long-needled hook crochet project. The ladies’ auxiliary at the church had a bizarre the first Saturday of every month to help support the benevolence fund. Hundreds of people in the county were unemployed. Many families were losing their homes to foreclosure. Gasoline prices were rising at the pump. The trucks that hauled milk from the farms to the processors and then out to the stores were paying almost 50-cents more per gallon than the previous year. The cost of milk shot up as did the cost of bread, eggs and flour and just about everything else in the aisles at every supermarket. Now, it seemed like there was no end in sight as to how high fuel prices might climb. The Keystone Pipeline from Canada was stuck on paper thanks to an aquifer in Nebraska. Libyan oil production was uncertain after the execution of one dictator and a revolution by rebels. Another dictator controlled oil production in South America while many there hoped for a new crop of rebels with similar intent. American forces crossed their fingers as military convoys exited Iraq and entered Kuwait, all the while hoping that oil fields would produce rather than burn. American farmers put their corn crops into ethanol production which sent the cost of consumption corn through the roof.
And then there was Iran. They refused to sell anymore oil to the United Kingdom or France in a pre-emptive move as European Union nations prepared to punish Iran with crippling sanctions. Iran tried to sell their over-production to fossil-fuel-hungry India until Turkish refineries stepped in and rejected Iranian crude. Saudi Arabia increased oil production and supply, but OPEC prices per barrel spiked and jumped on a trajectory that might not level off. The economic boom in China created what most had doubted would ever happen: a burgeoning middle class of more than 300 million Chinese to go along with one billion other peasants and aristocrats. As the middle class expanded, the taste for luxury, automobiles, modern appliances and food with animal protein skyrocketed. The entire world coveted energy, massive amounts of energy, and the world was just beginning to realize what the residents from Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania already knew. There wasn’t enough supply to meet the demand. There weren’t enough jobs to pay for that demand and not enough pay to satisfy the bankers who demanded that mortgages be satisfied.