Darkness at Dawn Read Online Free PDF Page A

seen?”
    A disheveled-looking man rose, passing a hand over his overlong flyaway hair and straightening a crumpled jacket. He looked like a caricature of an academic, but the instant his strong voice spoke into the microphone, he held everyone in the palm of his hand. His voice was deep and he spoke with utter authority.
    “There are numerous strains of hemorrhagic fever viruses, the most famous of which—but not the most frequent—is Ebola. HFVs are not, strictly speaking, human diseases. HFVs are transmitted to humans by means of contact with infected animals. The virus attaches to host receptors through the surface peplomer and into vesicles in the host cell. The main targets of infection are endothelial cells, mononuclear phagocytes and hepatocytes. Usually, the virus leads to hemorrhagic diathesis through direct damage of cells involved in hemostasis. In other words, vessels can no longer contain blood and the patient bleeds out, dying of hypovolemic shock. Mr. Deputy Director, how long beforehand had your agent been inserted?”
    “Two days,” Uncle Edwin answered. “But we don’t know when he was exposed.”
    “Well, it must have been an unusually virulent strain. Incubation can typically run up to twenty-one days, after which symptoms develop, including high fever, nausea, abdominal pain.” Dr. Samuels pointed a finger at the screen, frozen at the last moment of light—empty clothes in a vast white desert. “No known original cases have been reported outside sub-Saharan Africa, most have occurred in clusters around the equator. HFVs thrive in heat and moisture. Wherever that place is, it is in a mountain range full of snow and the temperature is below freezing. Furthermore, the man in the image seemed normal until affected by violent symptoms. Sometimes humans infected with HFVs have been known to take a week to die. On the basis of what was shown us, I think we could rule out hemorrhagic fever.”
    Uncle Edwin’s voice was clear and cold. “And what about a weaponized HFV, Dr. Samuels?”
    Dr. Samuels’s bushy gray eyebrows rose. “Weaponized? Hmm. Well, I know the Russians tried it and gave up. There’s a working group on civilian biodefense, which includes thirty representatives from academia, public health services and military services, chaired by the CDC. HFVs are twenty-eighth down on the list of possible dangers. It’s been said that North Korea might have weaponized yellow fever but doesn’t have a delivery system. As I said before, the disease thrives in heat and moisture, which rules out much of the earth north and south of the 30th parallels. Even when someone is infected, during the incubation period transmission of the virus isn’t common. These are not highly contagious viruses, and most cases of infection are by direct contact with the mucous membrane of an infected patient.”
    “Nonetheless,” Uncle Edwin said calmly. “I would ask you to posit a mutated form of a hemorrhagic fever virus, airborne, highly contagious, fast-acting also in cold or temperate climates. What would be our position then?”
    Dr. Samuels was silent for a long moment. There was no noise in the room at all. Everyone leaned forward a little to hear what he had to say, even Lucy.
    “There is, as of today, no known cure for any of the hemorrhagic fever viral diseases. The mortality rate is 89 percent. Treatment is supportive and basically palliative. USAM-RIID, the United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, has developed a vaccine that is 100 percent effective in monkeys but not in humans. Large-scale contagion of a weaponized, airborne cold-climate virus would require barrier nursing in every single hospital and medical center, all of which would become overwhelmed in less than forty-eight hours. Every infected person would have to be put in immediate quarantine for at least twenty-one days, something clearly impossible if there is large-scale contagion. Every single human being