The Lucifer Sanction (16 page)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Gardner Hunter
Education
March 28, 2015

Hunter and Sam sat in the Tom Bradley Terminal
with time to kill, time to enjoy people watching - time to
study faces of travelers pulling wheeled luggage to checkin counters. As they boarded, Hunter went through his
usual routine of analyzing the appearance of passengers,
searched for nuns, a football team, a folk singer with a
guitar slung over his shoulder – a priest – if he saw none,
he relaxed.

The overnight flight would arrive in Zurich at six
o’clock; Hunter would take in an in-flight movie, spend time
reading a magazine or two, throw down several miniature
bottles of Courvoisier and try to grab a few hours’ sleep.
Sam on the other hand would sleep the entire flight,

A beeping noise sounded as the dimmed lights of
the cabin came to life. One of the flight crew announced,
“Good morning, we’re one hour out of Zurich. Your flight
attendant will be by shortly with coffee and beverages.”

Sam opened one eye, tugged the blanket around
his neck, readjusted his pillow, eyed the six empty cognac
bottles stuffed into Hunter’s magazine slot and grumbled.
“Did you get any sleep at all?”

There was a long pause as Sam went into brooding
thought. “I emailed copies of the files to two of our
physicists. They’re up on what’s going on with both
CERNA and Libra.”

Sam gave a look of self-satisfaction. “I sent it ten
minutes after you left the office.”
“Get anythin’ back?”
“Yeah, Charlie Towne looked it over.”
“And?”
“Said he was impressed.”
“I’ve heard of Charlie, heard he’s a genius. What
about the other guy?”
Sam nodded. “Pete Steinberg, he specializes in
particle physics, co-discovered the neutral pion and the
muon neutrino.”
Hunter sniggered, “Yeah sure, I’ve read the
thesis,”
“Sure you did.”
“Really, Sam - what news have you got from the
two bagel boys?”
Hunter tagged anyone with an IQ above 150 as
bagel boys
, a reference to Einstein’s Bagels.
“The competition between Zurich and Geneva
stepped up.”
“Stepped up?”
“They raised security levels. Pete and Charlie are
working on some notes scrawled in the files.”
“Notes?”
“Something to do with nuclear waste storage.”
“You mean like uh - plutonium?”
Silence.
Sam reached below the seat, pulled the file from his
attaché case and rifled through the pages. “In one of their
earliest efforts, CERNA sent some guy back, a dangerous
character. Don’t know his name.”
“What happened?”
“Miscalculated coordinates.”
“What the fuck’s that mean, Sam?”
“They sent him back too far, that’s what we’ve
found here in this file.”
“Too far?” Hunter asked. “Too far to where?”
“The Roman Empire,” Sam replied. “To the year
550.”
“Jesus, what could he do back then?”
“The guy came this close,” Sam said and held
his index finger and thumb an inch apart. “He had the
pandemic. CERNAwas initiating the very first depopulation
sanction.”
Hunter asked, “Jesus Christ, who’s fundin’ these
madmen?”
“We’ve a hunch - but that’s all it is, a hunch.”
“Are you sayin’ the guys in Geneva started a plague
back in the days of Rome?”
“Bingo. The Justinian plague,” Sam replied.
“History’s recorded the outbreak in Constantinople as
having been carried to the city by infected rats on grain
boats arriving from Egypt, but we know better. I’ve a few
pages of history on the pandemic.”
Sam reached back to his attaché case and took out
a note pad. He ran a finger down the first page. “You see
here, it says it was the middle of the 6th century. Justinian
had spread his Byzantine Empire around the rim of the
Mediterranean and through Europe. Rats from Egypt spread
the plague to Alexandria. From there it went by ship to
Constantinople, Justinian’s capital. It eventually wiped out
half the population of Europe. Everything stopped, trade,
expansion - it marked the beginning of the Dark Ages.”
“That uh, plutonium - that’s really got me
worried.”
“Yeah, and it has the bagel boys beat too. CERNA
had two of its people attend a recent world conference in
Rome. They’re setting up a kind of think-tank on the causes
of the re occurrence of the pandemic, are trying to figure out
the evolution of the plague bacillus, how it infects humans
and what can be done to counteract its spread. These were
questions they hoped would be answered.”
Hunter nodded slowly. “I thought CERNA was all
about sanctionin’ the pandemic, they wanted to cull the
population, right?”
Sam shook his head. “And how do you think
CERNA would best stay ahead of the race?” Pause. Then,
“What do you think they need to stay abreast of?”
“Jesus Christ, you sayin’ they attended the Rome
conference just to...”
“You got it. They needed to keep the enemy close
to their chest, to understand exactly what they needed to
protect their research from. They needed to make certain
their research couldn’t be neutralized by progress in other
facilities. Physicists are like doting mothers, they like
to parade their babies, and they like to brag. That’s why
CERNA has a finger on the pulse.”
“Goddammit,” Hunter groaned. He turned and
looked back toward the galley. “Gotta get another coffee
- need to clear my head.” He signaled the flight attendant
who promptly brought coffee. Twenty minutes later as the
landing gear lowered, Sam stared at the amber tinted clouds
on the outskirts of Zurich.
“Sam, this guy, Moreau, just say he does somehow
slip on by - is there some kind of serum if he makes it back
to the States?”
“There is for the pandemic that’s here already, the
earlier strain. It’s the third pandemic, the one introduced to
China in the late 19th century that eventually spread here;
we’ve already got ourselves a large dose of that one in
animals in the southwest.”
“Anythin’ nearer to home?”
“Yeah, Los Angeles in 1924.”
“So what happened - is it still in LA?”
“That outbreak was contained. The Rome conference worked on man-made viruses. During the Cold
War, Soviet physicists created organisms that if unleashed
would’ve had a terminal effect on the planet. There’d be no
burials. People would be dying at too rapid a rate. They’d
be left to rot, further adding to disease. Mankind wouldn’t
have survived had the Cold War exploded. A Third World
War would mark the end of civilization.”
“So wha’dya find so overwhelmin’ in that file?”
“This file? Well, it’s only a matter of time before
the world experiences another outbreak like the 1918
influenza according to the information in this file. Not only
is it inevitable, it’s imminent.” Pause. “Got your interest
yet?”
“Keep goin’.”
“Based on historical patterns, influenza pandemics
can be expected to occur three to four times each century
when new virus subtypes emerge and are spread from
person to person. If the source of the pandemic is a
new virulent pathogen, or a new form of an old virulent
pathogen, very few people, if any, may be resistant to the
disease. The reduction in world population will be high,
unless effective prevention strategies are rapidly developed
and implemented.”
Hunter asked, “But there’s no preventative strategy
for the stuff the guys have taken back, right?”
“Right . . . none. The most recent pandemic scares
occurred in ‘97 and ‘99. In ‘97 at least six hundred people
became infected with the avian A/H5N1 flu virus in Hong
Kong. Eighteen people were hospitalized, six died.”
“Yeah,” Hunter nodded. “I remember that one. I
had a shot for it.”
“This virus was different,” Sam said. “It moved
directly from chickens to people, rather than having been
altered by infecting pigs as an intermediate host.”
“Intermediate host?”
“The intermediate host, the swine. They could
incubate and carry the pandemic in a kind of dormant state
that could be released at some future date, a swine pandemic
eliminating a huge number of the planet’s population.” He
took a break, sipped the remnants of his coffee.
Hunter showed anxiety. “That anti-virus injection
I had...”
“You’re fine. You can’t contact the earlier virus.
CERNA’s following a British team from Cambridge’s
Sanger Center actively studying the plague organism.
They’ve achieved an amazing feat until recently believed
to be impossible; they’ve decoded the complete DNA
sequence of Yersinia pestis.” He glanced about, hoping
his voice wasn’t heard by nearby passengers. “They’ve
reproduced a genome sequence containing every possible
vaccine necessary to eliminate the pandemic organism.”
“That other plague, Ebola - the one they’re fussin’
over,” Hunter said. “What’s the difference between the
two?”
“Ebola spreads by human to human contact. No
fleas required.” Sam pulled a file and carefully fingered his
way through an alphabetical set of tabs. When he came to
E, he paused. “Ah yeah, here it is - two British historians, a
guy named Christopher Duncan and a woman, Susan Scott.
It says here they published “Biology of Plagues.” They
argued that death spread way too quickly through Europe
in the 14th century for the cause to have been Yersinia
pestis. Scott and Duncan believe the Black Death spread
through human-to-human contact. An anthropologist
from Pennsylvania State University, James Wood, made a
similar case at a meeting in Buffalo. He said the disease
spread too rapidly among humans to have originated in the
rat population as the bubonic plague had.
“The research has obviously shaken the boys at
CERNAand Libra. Libra sped up the transfer of Moreau and
Campion with their ampoules.” He flipped to a dog-eared
page. “It says right here that Ebola was not in contention.
It says those ampoules could only affect rats and the fleas
living on their blood. If Ebola was a contributing culprit, it
was purely coincidental according to these notes.” He put
on a solemn face and repeated, “
Purely coincidental.
”
Sam took another pull on his coffee, read further
into the CERNAfile and gulped as he came across a yellow
hi-lighted paragraph. “Well, well - look here. This’ll put a
dent in the Ebola argument. It says here that two molecular
biologists; Drancourt and Dutour from the University of
the Mediterranean in Marseilles did some research in ‘98.
These guys identified Yersinia pestis in human remains
from 1590 and 1722.” He studied the file more closely,
moving it nearer his bifocals. “Hmm, interesting, says that
two years later they reported a similar finding in remains
dating back to 1348.”
Hunter was intrigued. “That’s impressive evidence
that Yersinia pestis played a major role in the Black Death,
right Sam?”
“Impressive enough, it says archeologists are now
intensively searching for plague cemeteries from the time
of Justinian. The theory that Ebola was the sole cause of
deaths is under scrutiny.”
Sam’s eyes were stinging from the strain of reading
small print. He reached for a paper napkin, folded it, dipped
one corner into a glass of untouched ice water, compressed
it into a ball and pressed it into each of his eyes. It was a
premeditated pause, time to soften the blow he was about
to deliver to Gardner Hunter.
Sam said, “I don’t understand these references to
plutonium and uh, see here.” He pointed at one partially
scratched out line. “It mentions Mexico and right here -
they’ve scribbled over what looks like Lucifer Pecillius. I
think that’s what it said, can’t quite make out the rest.”
Hunter looked closely at the scribbled notes. “Don’t
know. Looks like it could be New Mexico. Like that.”
There was a break in the conversation that continued
until the plane touched down and taxied to the gate.
“There’s one important name you need to familiarize
yourself with,” Sam suggested. “An organization whose
interest is, uh, well . . . their interest is world dominance,
the beneficial needs of mankind - according to their
members of course. These guys - they uh - they appoint
world leaders. They’re known as the Bilderbergers, power
mongers who determine through their so-called scientific
and economic resources what, ‘in their opinion’, is best for
the planet, and what might affect what is truly good for the
planet. You see, they’re two different objectives, Gard. You
understand where I’m coming from with this?”
“Yeah Sam, I’ve heard about those guys. The
Bilderbergers . . . sure.”
“They finance movers and shakers,” Sam added.
“They contribute funds to political campaigns. They get
their
people into power.”
“Anyone you can name?”
“U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner
immediately comes to mind. There’s hardly a world leader
who doesn’t owe favors to the Bilderbergers.”
Sam faked an exaggerated shudder. He placed a
finger in his water, touched his cheek and made a hissing
sound. He slid his eyes sideways, did a little role playing
and whispered, “Motherfuckers of the highest caliber.”
The monotone voice said, “Please remain in your
seats until we’ve come to a complete stop. Also please
check on your overhead carry-on luggage as it may have
shifted . . .”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Device
Libra Facility, Zurich