CHAPTER 7

Tired, rumpled, but elated, Dr. Hallam met us as we came out of the dressing rooms the next morning.

"My theory was right. The bomb was full of virus," he said, his face lighting up happily for an instant. Then, as the thrill of discovery faded, grimness clouded his eyes. "At least now I can prove what we are up against, thanks to you two."

Clinging to my arm, Pat looked at me and sighed, "Thanks to John! But the cost was high."

"Maybe that price won't have to be paid. They've been working all night in Serology, since I determined that the virus gave the same reactions as the flu virus, to concentrate immune globulins from convalescent sera. They just sent up a hundred c.c.'s." He indicated a packet on the table.

"John can take the first dose right now."

"That's fine," I said, "and I certainly appreciate it, but why should I get the serum when other doctors on the outside, treating flu patients all day long, are not getting it. That's hardly fair."

"Democratically speaking, it should be distributed by lot," Hallam said, "but there's no time to argue the point. If it will ease your conscience any, you're getting it, not because of favoritism, but because you, and Pat and I too, are the subjects of the first controlled experiment on human beings with the new virus. We know exactly when we were exposed to it; we know that you, at least, received a very heavily concentrated dose, and if this globulin proves effective then we can start issuing it in large quantities. The word has already gone out through the Public Health Service, to collect blood and process the serum. By the time we find out if it protects us, it will be in bottles ready for issue all over the country. It's a terribly expensive and cumbersome way compared to using a vaccine, but we have no alternative. They haven't yet got an antibiotic that will attack the flu virus. But we're wasting time! C'mon, drop those pants and take your medicine."

* * * * *

Later, as we sat gingerly on the hard chairs around the dining table, Hallam outlined his plans.

"We won't work with antisera at all. The Routine Lab can handle that. What I want to do up here is to produce something that will give active, permanent immunity ... not just passive immunity that has to be repeated every week."

"You mean to produce a vaccine?" Pat asked.

"That's one way. We could try killed virus, formalin treated, something like the method Salk used for the polio vaccine. But that too can be done in the Public Health Labs or by the big drug companies. They have all the equipment set up for it."

"It takes at least three months from isolation of virus to production of vaccine ... and another three or more until everybody can get a shot."

"Right-o, John. It must be done of course, but I'm going to tackle the problem in another way. Maybe we can shorten the time."

"How will you do it?"

Hallam turned to Pat. "I don't say we can do it. We shall try. If we could alter the virus enough, by physical or chemical treatment, to knock out only the sterility effect, we could let people have the flu. Then it would be necessary only to produce a limited amount of the new virus and start it going all over the country."

"That would eliminate all the processing of killed virus, sterilization and so on," Pat said excitedly.

"And everybody who had the virus would produce more and spread it, faster than the drug companies could make it," I added.

"Precisely ... if it works," Hallam said. "That's what we will concentrate on. Biochem is analyzing the structure of the virus. They are going to advise us when they get the nucleoproteins sorted out. We may be lucky. Sometimes substituting a methyl group by hydrogen or changing the positions slightly will make a tremendous difference in properties of the molecules. It will have to be rather a hit and miss program. There isn't time to work out the full formula of the virus. By the way, have you seen the paper this morning?"

"Not yet," Pat said.

"They have a new name for it now--Sterility Flu, or S-Flu for short."

"Yeah, short for flu but long for sterility," I muttered.

"Maybe the sperm cells will regenerate after a few months," Pat said hopefully.

"I wouldn't put any down payments on a baby carriage if I were you," I said, as we moved towards the workrooms.

* * * * *

It was the third morning after the fight on the docks. Pat had finished injecting an enormous dose of concentrated human serum into my left buttock and was giggling at my choice selection of swear words when the phone rang. I answered struggling with my pants at the same time.

"Cope here," it said. "Is that you, John?"

"Yes Harry, how are you?"

"I'm afraid I've caught the flu, laddie." He was obviously trying to sound unconcerned. "I've got a fever and all the aches and pains that go with the ruddy stuff. I wanted to tell the Old Man I shan't be working for a day or two."

"Damn it, that's a shame," I said. "Look Harry, why don't you come up here and let us give you some serum, it might forestall the complications."

"Might as well, I suppose, but isn't it too late, really?"

"Too late for the flu, of course, but maybe not too late for the orchitis."

"Right-o," he sounded resigned. "I'll see you in half an hour."

"Wait!" I had the receiver halfway down before I remembered. "Better bring Polly along too. If she hasn't got the flu now, she probably will have."

"Will do," he answered and cut me off.

Pat heard us talking but Hallam was away and would have to be told later. Nowadays he was seldom available, being constantly in conference or on the telephone talking to specialists in preventive medicine or virology from other parts of the Americas or Europe. For the moment, Vancouver was the center of attention of the western world. Most of the NATO countries by now were battling full scale epidemics of their own and wanted to know what we had found out about the disease.

All over the province the schools, theaters and all public meeting places had been closed. All main routes of travel were under police and military control and only the most essential transport was allowed on the highways, the rails, or in the air. The same precautions were soon put into effect across Canada. The United States was under martial law, with the National Guard in complete control in each state. Communities which had not yet reported cases of S-Flu were isolated for their own protection and supplies were sent to them by military convoy. The guards and truck drivers were men who had already had the disease and were no longer infectious as far as anyone could tell. Even so, they were not allowed to come close to the isolated ones who unloaded the supplies with the greatest care after the truck drivers had got out and moved away. In spite of the most stringent precautions, the disease still broke through into some of those areas, and, as the weeks passed by, the uninfected zones were reduced to such locations as small hamlets in the eastern and western mountains, little whistle stops on the prairies and, in the southwest, some of the desert communities.

When the truth about the S-Flu became known, many families in the cities tried to barricade themselves in their homes. Some had already been exposed to the virus and hunger drove others out, only to catch the disease. Later, when the public health services were better organized, the same isolation techniques used on whole villages were used wherever a family was found untouched. Even in the worst areas a few were known. There were, of course, the cranks and selfish ones who couldn't bear to see others escape their own fate, but as a rule the people responded well. They knew, finally, it was either that or race suicide.

Ten days after exposure the three of us were in fine condition, although my behind felt as if a porcupine had attacked me, from all the injections of serum.

As I complained to Pat, "You women are lucky. You have a bigger target for all these damn needles."

Two weeks went by without a sign of S-Flu and, once more, when it seemed definite that we had escaped, we were locked up again in the Lab. Under the military orders covering all uninfected persons, we had to be isolated, but, as we were still working with the virus, the Research Building was the obvious place. To me, there was only one thing really wrong with the situation. In all the rush and excitement of our research, we had not yet taken out our marriage license, so, not being completely brazen, we had to take to our separate rooms and beds again, with the Chief as chaperone to our physically consummated but legally unlawful union.

I said to Pat when we were locked up, "That does it! Now, if you really are pregnant, all the women will condemn you as a fallen sister while envying you for being with child ... besides wondering whose child."

She chuckled. "A most unusual situation, and one I intend to exploit to the fullest extent."

"Do you think you are pregnant?" I said hopefully. "You ought to be, I'm plum wore out trying."

"Well, I'm not ready to take up knitting yet," she joked, "but there are encouraging signs."

* * * * *

All across the continent, virus laboratories were working continuously and almost exclusively with the S-Flu. A number of experiments using convalescent serum were in progress but, as it was not known exactly who had been exposed to virus, and when, the results were hard to evaluate. Now we had proof. We three had been exposed to virus at a known time and yet, two weeks later, there we were as healthy as ever. When the news was published, every blood bank in the country was swamped with volunteers. At first the convalescent serum was given only to the males ... a dramatic reversal of the laws of chivalry ... but the women did not complain. They knew that without fertile men there could be no children and to most of them such a world seemed empty indeed. Gradually, as supplies increased, all non-infected persons living in contaminated areas received weekly doses which, though much less than I had had, were found to give sufficient protection in most cases. It was still not known if there were any ill effects on unborn children so pregnant women were also included in the schedule. Where injections were given, and no new cases reported, the quarantine was lifted after a while, but where the disease had never reached, the population was still isolated, awaiting the day when a permanent vaccine would be available. Sporadic outbreaks of the disease were still to occur, months and even years later, among those who had never had it, but at last the major epidemic was over. The discovery, at the Medical Center of New York, of a protective vaccine, eventually made isolation unnecessary.

Long before that happened, the restriction on our movements was lifted. Only those in the uncontaminated areas were confined to their own locality. The rest of us, provided we took our weekly serum shots, were let loose.

"Now I can make an honest woman out of you," I joked as we walked out of the Lab and breathed gratefully the cool damp air of early winter.

"You don't need to darling," Pat said. "If I am pregnant there's at least a million women envying me right now. When it was easy to get pregnant it was proper to do it only in holy wedlock, as they say, but moral standards are changing already. To be pregnant is an honor, illegitimately or otherwise. I imagine before long there will be a lot of husbands looking the other way or condoning artificial insemination if they can have sons thereby."

"You still want to get married, don't you?"

"Of course, sweetheart," she squeezed my arm, "but I want a proper wedding, not a civil ceremony, and we haven't time for it now."

* * * * *

Late one afternoon shortly before Christmas we were sitting contentedly in front of the fire in Pat's apartment when the front door buzzer sounded. She pressed the speaker button.

"Hello, who's there?"

"It's Hallam. I've brought you a visitor. May we come up?"

"Certainly, come right in."

A few moments later they walked through the opened door.

"This is Inspector James of the RCMP," said Hallam, introducing a tall, thin, grey-haired man in civilian clothes.

"Won't you sit down?" Pat indicated chairs by the fire.

"How about a drink?" I said to the Inspector.

"If you're having one."

"We were going to. Dr. Hallam likes Scotch and water. With a name like yours you might like the same."

"That will be fine, thank you."

I brought their drinks and poured our usual gin and Italian vermouth for Pat and myself.

"Inspector James has been in charge of the investigation into the virus warfare theory," Dr. Hallam began. "He knows your stories already but something new has come up and he wanted to talk to you." He settled back in his chair and looked over at James.

Inspector James took his cue. "Since Dr. Hallam proved that the aerosol bomb contained virus, we have been trying to track down all possible agents, and our maritime division has been searching for the ship off our coast. We have been in constant contact with the FBI and the US Coastguard, and through them, with the US Armed Forces. As far as we can determine, one group of saboteurs inoculated the Vancouver area, the Interior of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest. Then they disappeared."

"You actually traced some of them?" Pat asked.

"No, I'm afraid we didn't," James said ruefully. "We base our conclusions on indirect evidence, stories like those Dr. Macdonald found in the public health reports, you know, aerosol bombs triggered off accidentally and so on. The epidemic pattern in BC is now following a more natural course so we believe the agents left ... probably they were recalled right after that fight you had."

"There might still be some undercover agents left," I guessed. "Natural epidemics tend to die out, even as virulent as this one is. However, if they give it a boost from time to time, they might get eighty or ninety percent of the population. Anything less wouldn't be too damaging, we could make up the population deficit in a few years."

"We thought of that, Doctor, and we are continuing the search. However, the main party of agents appears to have left. Some days after your fight, routine air patrols noticed what could have been the Japanese fishing boat off California. Not long afterwards, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego had their first outbreaks. Unfortunately our governments had not yet given the order to find and arrest all agents. By the time that order was given, the ship had disappeared. We presume it stayed out at sea. The epidemics in Mexico originated in Monterey, Vera Cruz and Mexico City, which makes us think they were started by saboteurs operating from the Atlantic side."

"Last week there was the beginning of an epidemic in Medellin, Colombia, and then in Guayaquil, Ecuador, which appeared separately from the already established disease in Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires and other eastern cities of South America. Our consulates and the United States embassies in those countries had been warned and passed the word on to our Latin American friends." He paused to drink his Scotch and then continued. "The countries concerned have been searching their coasts for any sign of strange vessels but without success until yesterday."

"You mean they found the boat?" I interrupted hopefully.

"I believe so," he said. "Ecuador, as you know, owns the Galapagos Islands, well off the coast, and for many years a favorite out-of-the-way retreat for all sorts of people. Now Ecuador claims fishing grounds a great distance off her coast and around the islands. This has led to a lot of international incidents and sometimes to confiscation of fishing boats stopped inside these limits by Ecuadorean gunboats and charged with poaching. Well, these annoying rules proved very useful yesterday. A spotter plane found a black cannery ship flying a Japanese flag in the waters off the Galapagos. That vessel is now anchored in the main harbor--I forget the name--under the guns of a patrol boat."

"Wonderful," Pat breathed. "What about the crew?"

"I haven't any information about them but I do have a request from the Department of State of the U.S.A. that you fly down to Ecuador and, with their consular officials, and I suppose the Ecuadorean authorities, go to the Galapagos to see the ship and crew. This is necessary because it must be kept secret. We don't want the Communists, if that's who they are, to get suspicious. This must look like a simple arrest for poaching, at least for the present."

"Do both of us go?" I said.

"That was the intention, since you both saw the men and the boat," the Inspector smiled, "and of course all expenses will be paid."

"Oh boy!" I looked at Pat. "Christmas this year is going to be a summer vacation ... the one we didn't get."

* * * * *

We flew south to Quito in one of the fast new jets of the Canadian Pacific Airlines and from there to the Galapagos in a much less comfortable Ecuadorean Air Force transport plane. The air-strip on Baltra Island, so busy during World War II, lay neglected and forlorn among the lava blocks and scrub. From it to the Governor's house on Chatham Island, we rode first by motor launch and then in a rusty old jeep, probably another relic of that war or subsequent lend-lease.

"I wish I could see a tortoise," I said, clinging desperately to the struts of the canvas top as we bounded through clouds of dust from the jeep ahead.

"They're probably all in zoos now," Pat said, mopping cautiously at her face where the makeup was slowly melting in the steamy tropical heat. "You couldn't see one anyway in this dust."

It was a little cooler on the screened-in porch of the residence. The Governor, a fat little man who looked like the caricature of a Mexican snoozing under a tree, fussed around all the important visitors. With obvious pride he produced cold drinks from what was probably the only refrigerator on the island. I took a long draught of beer, settled back with a sigh and looked out over Wreck Bay.

"Hey! There's the fishing boat." I sat up again excitedly and pointed it out to Pat. The officials exchanged nods and smiles. It was the boat ... the first test of identification was over. An hour later we went aboard although there was nothing to see that could be of use in solving the case. All the tanks intended for holding fish were empty and had been flushed with sea water. One tank held fish when the ship was captured, probably as camouflage. There was a well-equipped laboratory but that had been explained away as necessary for marine biology research. There was absolutely no clue. No trace of aerosol bombs or other apparatus for holding the virus had been found.

Ashore again, we were taken to see the prisoners, watching them through peepholes as they exercised in the small jailyard. Almost at once Pat shook me and tried to point through the little peephole before she realized how silly that was.

"Did you see that tall man on crutches?"

"Yes, it's the one I tossed on the deck."

"And there's the second man, and ... look over to the right there, by the wall! That's the leader, I'm sure of it!"

"Wait till he comes closer," I said, "but I think you're right."

The crew members were circling around the yard, getting exercise under supervision of the guards. As they came closer to our hiding place there was no doubt. Yellow-hair and his pals were there.

One by one, the three Slavs were called in to stand before us. The blond leader was first. I thought his eyes widened a little when he saw me. There must certainly have been despair in his heart when he realized that they were not being held as poachers, but his control was admirable.

"Do you know these people?" The question was in English.

"No."

"You never saw them before?"

"No."

"What about that night at Horseshoe Bay," I broke in.

"I don't know what you are talking about."

It was useless, and had been from the start. All three men stuck to the same story. They were White Russians in the pay of a Japanese fishing company, partly as laboratory workers and partly for their ability to speak several languages.

We went back to the Governor's house feeling defeated. This was an anticlimax. The only points in our favor were that we had recognized the boat and three crew members immediately, and our descriptions of the men, given in Canada, corresponded quite well with their present appearance. Unfortunately, I had washed the fingerprints off the aerosol bomb in the shower, and with them, the only material evidence of the Russians' connection with the S-Flu. Or was it? I was thinking over the problem as we sat down to a late lunch.

* * * * *

While we ate both the Ecuadoreans and Americans questioned us politely but thoroughly. As they explained to us, the question of identity was extremely important. We were the only witnesses that the captured Russians had actually possessed a virus-filled aerosol bomb and on that one fact might rest the future of the world. Where they had come from was by no means certain. The ship's papers, and those of the crew indicated Hakodate as their port of origin but the Japanese embassy in Quito had indignantly repudiated them, insisting that no such ship was registered in Hokkaido. There was nothing to link them with the USSR, which had not bothered, so far, to answer the first discreet inquiries.

"Did the Russians tell you where they came from?" I asked.

"From Hokkaido," the American military attache said.

"No, no, I mean recently. Where has the ship been sailing."

"They claim they've been following currents across the Pacific, looking for new fishing grounds."

"Then they were not near British Columbia?"

"Not according to their stories, nor to the ship's log."

"There's a couple of ways we might check that. The Russians went ashore in B.C. Maybe they'll have pollen grains or dust in their clothes that could be traced to that part of the world."

"It's a possibility. We'll look into it."

"And then there's my sloop. We scraped along the side of the fishing boat and some paint must have come off. I haven't had time to repair it. At least that might prove we have met before, if the paints are similar, which would make our bomb warfare theory much more credible."

"It certainly would. We need all the evidence we can get."

"What are you going to do with them?" I asked the senior American officer after lunch.

"We have practically convinced the Ecuadoreans that these people are really saboteurs, but naturally nobody is going to say anything about that. Our Latin friends are past masters of the art of 'mañana'--I think they could give the Russians and Chinese lessons in procrastination. They have agreed to hold the ship as long as they can on the poaching charge. If neither the Japs nor the Soviets claim it, that could mean indefinitely. I think it's too late to do much good," he concluded thoughtfully. "The epidemic is already out of control down here. The health services are too small and the distances too great, to say nothing of the lack of education of many of the people, ever to stop a pandemic without outside help. We in the States used to send aid but this time we have our own hands full."

"It sounds pretty hopeless."

"It is. Thank God the measlepox isn't here too or this continent would go back to the jungle."

* * * * *

Back in Quito I stood with Pat on the balcony of our room. We were both quiet, pleasantly tired. In another few days we would have to return to the northern hemisphere and winter, but here, under the summer moon, it was almost impossible to imagine. I looked over the railing down the narrow street with its high-walled houses. In the cool air the faint sound of music and singing carried up from the town. Apparently the flu couldn't dampen all the liveliness of these people.

"If I had a guitar I'd get down there in the street and serenade you," I said playfully, my arm around her slim waist.

"If you could sing, I wouldn't mind," she retorted.

"Doggone it, already you sound more like a wife than a mistress," I complained. "Where have all those romantic ideas and that passionate lovemaking gone?"

She batted her eyes at me. "Why don't you take me inside and find out."