Chapter 48: Deadly Toxins

If anybody's got a stomach for really bad news, brace yourselves. Andrei, you're up. Tell 'em what you've learned." Mike dropped heavily into his chair, motioning the big Russian intelligence operative to stand and speak.

"Dah. It is not good, what we have dug out. We have a plot with roots extending from Iraq to Syria to Libya, reaching down to Central Africa. It combines religious warfare and biological terrorism. A poison developed by that disgraced dictator who hid himself in a hole in the dirt, until he was pulled out and later hanged by his enemies, has changed hands many times, but finally it has reached other madmen who intend to unleash it against us. I should say, not us exactly. To discredit us. To place great shame and blame on our heads by making those who we are trying to save, believe that we are bringing instead an unspeakable horror upon them!" Andrei explained.

"It was admitted by Iraqui officials that Saddam's weapons people had produced 19,000 liters of the deadliest poison known to us, during their aborted efforts to develop a weapon to kill masses of those who opposed his rule. This poison, one of many, was certainly the most lethal but also proved most difficult to deploy effectively over a large area. So they gave up, and turned to other things. It was claimed after the war that all of those 19,000 liters had been destroyed. Oh, if only that were true. Not all of it was destroyed; some was smuggled away, and it has changed hands many times.

"I speak of a very common poison. It is so common that we often breathe or consume its spores quite often, unknowingly but harmlessly. It is only when this organism is given a proper brewing, one could say, so it may grow great in number and produce its poison in quantity, that it becomes fearsome. So fearsome, in truth, that Saddam had caused to be produced 19,000 liters of toxin, a quantity sufficient to kill every man, woman, and child living on our planet. This toxin is held to be far more deadly than cyanide, as much as 100 times more deadly!

"This poison is sometimes produced by careless cooking or food preservation. You all know it. I speak of botulism, or to use its full name, clostridium botulinum. All the major nations have studied this as a possible weapon, including mine, and yours, Michael. Most efforts have attempted to use it as an aerial spray, an aerosol, to spread over a large area so that people might inhale it and die. This is very difficult, and unpredictable. Clumsy attempts, mostly by Japanese terrorists decades ago, failed. And it is not easily used in liquid form to poison a city water supply. Chemical water treatment, and the huge size of the reservoir make this not so easy. Also, heat kills it so safe cooking prevents many deaths.

"But, in a small attack, it is deadly. If I were to spray some on your food, on your fruit, or salad, or put some in your sauces or pour some in your camp water, you would all die a most horrible paralyzing death within three days. In that time, I would be far away and nobody would know that it was I who had killed you.

"I regret to say that our enemies in the Sudan region have obtained some of those liters of toxin. They were smuggled to Syria. Some were given over to groups operating in Libya. Now a few of those, a handful, have been acquired by use against us in central Africa. We have been most fortunate. Our Nikogda Snova intelligence people maintain a very deep network in the Middle East, the better to sniff out terrorist intentions against us. A conscientious operative, knowing of our difficulties here, heard a rumor and uncovered a most disturbing plan.

"I should explain that the entire region is disintegrating in religious hatred and violence. It is insane. But the crazies are running this part of the world, so to them it is sane. It is what they do. A man loves God by praying in Farsi. Another loves God by praying in Yiddish. So of course they must kill each other, their wives, neighbors, and all the children. This is because the fanatics say this is what they must do.

"That is life in their part of the world. And even those who share a common tongue and worship the God they call Allah, they look back in their history and find cause to kill each other! Sunnis killing Shiites, Shiites killing Sunnis, and it never ends.

"Until you arrived, my friends. You, the Masi'shen; you, the common enemy; you, the ungodly aliens! If there is one thing that can interrupt the killing among themselves, if there exists one cause to unite them in one purpose, it is to kill you!" Andrei roared, causing everyone in the room to gasp with shock!

"But they cannot kill you. You are too powerful, too protected by your technology and your devices. So they have given this much thought, the Imams and the Ayatollahs and the fanatics, and they have decided. They will drive you from their lands, and from this planet! How? They will use the people you try to help. They will turn them against you. They will cause the victims to fear and hate you, their protectors.

"It is so easy: agents will slip in among the masses of refugees who seek safety in the camps you protect, and these agents will put Saddam's poison into the food you have provided to feed the starving masses. Thousands upon thousands will die. Before there is any hope of finding the cause, and then finding sufficient anti-toxin and administering it, they will die. And among the 2.5 million refugees already there, whose numbers increase by the thousands each day, who will find these agents who poisoned their food? Who will be found to prove guilty, to place blame, to establish your innocence?

"And as the thousands upon thousands fall dying, the pulpits of every mosque will cast the blame upon you the ungodly, the alien, the interloper who is not a savior but a destroyer from another world, Satan's world, the awful Enemy of the True Faith!"

"That, my friends, is what we have uncovered and it is in motion as we speak. The liters of toxin have been broken down into small ampules, easily concealed. A kit of hypodermic syringes for injecting into sauces, juices, or any container of liquid condiments; and sprayers for wetting down flats of vegetables or any food taken to hand and eaten uncooked. All have been prepared and even now are being distributed to those who will hide among the incoming refugee masses. It will be impossible to sort them out. It will be most difficult to guard all the food supplies or watch all the food handlers every minute of every day.

"I think we must find a way to trace their steps from where they've been dispatched. I do not believe they have yet entered the area. But even if we catch all of them, more will come. The fanatics among their leaders will try again, and again. I think we must take both an immediate action to stop this wave of poisoners, and we must also take a long view. Somehow we must stop those who are sending the poison!

CBW Counter measures

"There's no quick and easy solution," Michael commented, immediately berating himself mentally stating the obvious. "While I'm spouting cliche's, I should also stay that we have to be right all the time, and one of them needs get through only once to -- excuse a sick pun -- to spoil our day.

"So let's run through a list of our strengths, and our weaknesses," he asked.

"Strength: we have decentralized feeding. Most of the families cook for themselves, at their own tents or shelters. That makes it difficult to effect more than a few people by poisoning a cooking pot," Marie Wapato noted.

"True. But it also means we've got food stuffs scattered all over the camp that hasn't been cooked yet. Someone could sneak around and slip poison into sacks of it in scattered locations. That would affect a bunch of families," Eric Stridehorn suggested.

"We haven't switched over to centralized kitchens and feeding arrangements. Would there be an advantage to that?" Mike asked.

"It's a trade-off," Marie said. "We'd need a lot of kitchen equipment, tables, benches, and cooking crews. I think there's simply too many families, too many people here to make it work. Also, the women prefer to cook for themselves. There'd be resentment."

"That means we have to protect their individual food stocks, or dispense it on a daily ration from secured locations. Would that be workable?" Mike wondered.

"It will take food lockers placed around the camp, enough to be within an easy walk for the area it serves, yet not so many we don't have people to service them or to dispense from. Security will be paramount. We'll need trusted people to supply them, hand out daily rations, and to secure them," Marie added.

"Right. And we need a very secure food depot for the camp to fill the camp lockers, absolutely secure against tampering. And the entire supply pipeline into the food depot. Every food shipment must be guarded, secure against tampering from the time it arrives at the airport until it goes into our camp lockers," Eric said.

"This is damned frustrating," Michael grumbled. "You know, this reminds me of the big scare years ago, even before terrorist became a common threat word. Remember the madman who injected cyanide into the off-the-shelf pain-killer bottles? People died. There was no effective way to guard against it until all the manufacturers changed the packaging to make it tamper-proof, or at least to show visible evidence of tampering.

"Yes, I recall that scare," Marie said. "The difference was, that affected only a few people, similar to if one of our family cooking pots is poisoned. Here, we're facing a possibility of an entire shipment of something being dosed with botulinum. That would kill thousands."

"So we have few choices," Eric said. "We order that no new refugee--or anyone unknown, for that matter--is allowed into any existing camp. All new arrivals go into a new camp where we run the strictest screening and shakedowns to find those agents and their containers. I don't think any part of that is workable, so forget it."

"I agree. Sounds good at first blush, but it won't work," Marie agreed. "Too many people and families, most of them in terrible condition, coming from all directions. All of them carrying something important to them, as scant as it might be. We dare not strip and search every refugee, and their bundles and carts. It's humiliating and intrusive to them, it alienates all of them, and there are simply too many of them and too few of us. Besides, how easy is it for someone to conceal a small vial or two? Damn, we'd even have to consider body cavity searches! impossible!" she snorted.

"Alright! That part of our problem is clear, then," Eric concluded. "There's no way we can separate the infiltrators from the refugees, and there's no way to intercept smuggled vials of the poison. They are too small, too easily concealed in the masses of people and their stuff. Damn it, Mike! Are you sure the Masi'shen don't have some sort of magic chemical sniffer device that could detect the botulinum?"

"I know you're joking, Eric, but no magic sniffer device. The stuff is colorless, odorless, and as far as the few survivors could tell, tasteless. No cigar, Eric. Besides, packaged in a glass or metal container, that makes it even harder," Mike answered.

"Alright. So it's option two. We stop worrying about the infiltrators. Let the bastards come. And we stop worrying about the poison they're carrying. Let them bring it in. And maybe we'll get lucky and one will accidentally poison him or herself with a leaker.

"So we make it impossible for them to get the poison into the food. We guard the stockpiles at the airport, in secured freight containers. We carry the food in secure containers under guard, not in bags piled high in open trucks. We guard the shipments until they are off-loaded into secure food depot buildings or containers at each camp. And each day, our crews will take a daily allotment to the distribution boxes where the family women will collect their day's ration for cooking. Damn, that adds a lot of overhead!" Mike protested.

"Yes, it does," Marie said. "But we're better off dealing with that than facing the alternative!"

Michael and the mission command staff worked through a long night and half into the next day drafting a plan and a list of all the shipping and storage containers they'd need to send out to all the receiving points, storage depots, distribution centers, and camps. List in hand, he called the Geneva embassy to raise the alarm for help in locating, purchasing, shipping and setting up everything required. Meanwhile, the rest of the command staff hustled to spread the orders to every refugee and displaced peoples camp on line with the new alert and safeguards.

"Don't wait!" was the general order. "Get every can, bottle, bag, crate, or pile of food locked down and under guard. Nothing is to be left unsecured and unguarded, especially at night. Every truck, every convoy, every load is to be secured. Lock it down where possible. Round up all possible people to help, and arm them. Be sure they understand that this is truly a life or death alert. It might help to add that it could be the food in their next meal that proves deadly if they don't prevent it. Remind them that there will be no cure, no help for them. Death comes in three days. Stay alert, stay on your guard, and stay alive!"