Pharmageddon Chapter 4

New York 12:00 Sunday 2 January T+17hrs

The sound of his feet pounding on the treadmill and his heavy breathing made it difficult to hear the news at noon on CNN, but as soon as Baldwin caught the reference to the UN he climbed off the machine and moved closer to the TV. And when he heard that their warehouse in Sweden had been sabotaged, he headed for the showers.

In the six months he’d been living and working in mid-town Manhattan, Baldwin had settled into a different routine to the one he’d followed for more than 20 years in the military. Working alone meant there was no pressure from his fellow officers to fill his weekends with golf, cookouts and meeting eligible girls, and he hadn’t gotten around to making many friends. It wasn’t that he was antisocial, exactly, but he found the freedom of living alone to be... liberating.

Much the same could be said about his work. The director himself had told Baldwin there was no users’ manual for his assignment as the liaison officer at the United Nations. There would be nobody to tell him what to do.

‘I want you to write the manual, colonel. Find the best way to safeguard US security and intelligence interests as they relate to the UN. Bring a pair of fresh eyes to this.’

Since taking up the assignment, lieutenant colonel Arthur Baldwin had done exactly that – written a detailed proposal on how the complex relationship between the USA and UN could be modified to fall in line with the goal of the office of the director of national intelligence, which was ‘to integrate foreign, military and domestic intelligence in defense of the homeland and of United States interests abroad’.

Baldwin knew his proposal, once it had been vetted and spun by countless securocrats at the ODNI, would be merged with similar documents from the departments of state, treasury, trade and others, to give shape to the so-called ‘new beginning’ jointly announced by president Thomas and secretary general Kapur shortly after the president’s inauguration.

Ten days ago Baldwin submitted the first draft of his proposal and he was now waiting for further orders – to re-work some or all of the document, or to report for a new assignment. But for the moment he felt... directionless... and he was enjoying the feeling!

Baldwin’s first call was to Frances Dumont, the UN chief security officer, who was already at her desk. Although she sounded pleased to hear from him she said she had not yet been cleared to discuss the issue, and he knew better than to press her. She promised to call back when she could.

His next call was to his boss at his home in Virginia. As he expected, the deputy director told him to gather as much information as he could on the situation and report back. He sounded pleased that Baldwin was taking the initiative.

Baldwin’s third call was to the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, who patched him through to their own deputy director. He didn’t sound very surprised to be hearing from the ODNI. He told the colonel that the man he needed to talk to was professor Paul Stanislav, the CDC’s chief HIV epidemiologist, who just happened to be in New York for the holidays.

A call to Stanislav on his cellphone found the epidemiologist at a Soho bookstore, where he was looking for rare books to add to his collection. He said he would be happy to have lunch with the colonel at the store’s coffee shop. Baldwin spent a few minutes downloading as much information as he could about the AIDS pandemic, and about the bombings that had interrupted his holiday weekend, before heading out in search of a taxi.

Just as he was giving the driver the address of the Housing Works Bookstore he got a call from Dumont, asking if they could meet at 14:30, which meant keeping his lunch with Stanislav very short. When he arrived at the bookstore in Crosby Street he learned it not only had a superb collection of collectible books, but devoted all its profits to homeless people living with HIV.

Paul Stanislav looked more like a reclusive software developer than a top epidemiologist. The thirty- something professor was wearing distressed jeans and a woolen jumper with the sleeves pulled up. He sported a stubble-beard and his long sandy hair was drawn back into a pony tail. Baldwin had told him to look out for a ‘big black dude in grey sweat top and jeans’.

‘Hey, colonel, I guess I should be pissed at being called to a meeting when I’m finally getting some R and R but.... Jesus... when I saw the news! What do you need?’

‘Well prof, right now I don’t know whether these bombings have any implications for US security, but if they do I need to be on top of it so I was hoping you could give me some background. I know very little about AIDS, but I need to get up to speed, fast.’

Stanislav looked at Baldwin thoughtfully. ‘How do you want it?’

‘Straight up, no spin. I was reading this...’ Baldwin held up a copy of UNAIDS’ annual report which he’d downloaded from the internet and scanned in the taxi. ‘Maybe you could settle one thing for me first – HIV, AIDS?’

The epidemiologist smiled. ‘Okay, that’s a good place to start. Cause and effect. HIV is the virus, and AIDS is the resulting illness. It can take years for HIV infection to show the symptoms we call AIDS, and most people have no idea they are infected during this time.’

‘Okay. I see nearly three quarters of these infections are in Africa. Why?’

‘Three reasons, I’d say.’ He counted them off on his fingers. ‘First, we’re pretty sure the virus originated there. Second, sexual practices in that part of the world seem to favor transmission. And third, we’ve done all the wrong things to control it in Africa.’

It was Baldwin’s turn to smile. ‘Talk about an answer that raises more questions...’ 

‘Hey, what can I tell you? You want me to go through them in turn...?’

‘Please.’

‘Okay, but I should warn you that, when it comes to AIDS, there’s almost nothing that everyone agrees on. Still, we’re pretty sure the virus jumped species from apes to humans, maybe sixty, a hundred years ago. Apes carry a very similar disease called SIV, simian immunodeficiency virus, but it doesn’t kill them...’

‘So how did it get into humans?’

‘Conventional wisdom is that some guy cut himself while slaughtering a chimp for the pot. They call it “bush meat” out there. We’ve found people – pygmy tribes – who’ve been hunting and eating chimps forever. And sure enough they have traces of chimp viruses in their blood, but it doesn’t make the pygmies sick. My guess is something else was needed to transform SIV into HIV.’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, they did this experiment at the University of Kansas. Took a weak virus which could be given to monkeys without much of a problem, and made it into a much stronger bug that gave those monkeys AIDS.’

‘You don’t say. How?’

‘It’s a trick called serial passaging. It... shit, it’s like a relay race. If you pass the virus quickly from one host to another, and another, and if your timing is right, the bug gets stronger.’

‘So you’re saying that someone, somewhere, did this serial passaging thing before we were born?’

Stanislav smiled. ‘Yeah. Not deliberately, but... well, if you look at the timing of the epidemic, it’s probable that HIV was created around the time we were learning about vaccines and blood transfusions, fifty or sixty years ago. At the time medics often used one needle to inject thousands of people, and they harvested blood for transfusions from people who had recently received a transfusion themselves.’

‘So they were transferring blood from one person to another... and there’s your relay race?’

‘Could be. Also the way they did smallpox vaccinations back then – they scraped the blisters on the skin of people who’d recently been vaccinated, and used the gunk from inside those lesions to inoculate the next guy...’

‘You’re joking!’

‘I wish! A lot of things we did back then seem crazy by modern standards.’

‘So you’re saying that AIDS could have been created by doctors...’

Stanislav nodded slowly. ‘Yeah, epidemiologists like me, sure. But in mitigation of sentence, your honor, we did it while successfully saving millions of people from diseases like smallpox and polio. Of course there are people who say we created HIV deliberately.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh yeah, to control population growth in Africa, or to kill homosexuals – that kind of shit. Some say it was a deliberate project run by the US army. Listen, I like a conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but it’s all crap. I mean, even back then they’d have known that releasing a dangerous virus into a population could end up wiping out everyone, including them. Still, there are some people around who believe it.’

Baldwin made a note on his pad. ‘Okay. So the virus jumped from apes to humans, maybe with some help from medics. Then what? How did it kill millions of people?’

‘Well, let me just say that AIDS doesn’t kill anyone. Not directly, anyway. What it does is weaken their resistance to other infections, so diseases they’d normally shake off end up killing them.’

‘Right. I knew that.’

‘Okay. In Africa there are a lot of people with weak immune systems – you know, from malnutrition, malaria, tuberculosis, whatever. And they are exposed to a lot of bugs because they don’t have good water, food, safe ways to dispose of sewage. So they get more infections, and they die more often from them.’

‘So... it would be easy to miss AIDS, because it’s not like the people were dying from anything new...’

‘Yeah. Hey, you’re good at this! They were just dying more often from the same old diseases. So HIV spread for years – decades – in central Africa without anyone noticing. They may have had their suspicions, but it’s not like they knew what to look for, or there were any tests they could use. Also there was a war going on in that part of the world – remember Idi Amin?’

‘Sure. So how did they spot it?’

‘Actually we identified it first here in the USA, in our gay community. We noticed that there’s a rare form of cancer called Kaposi’s Sarcoma which often manifests in AIDS patients. What we didn’t know is they were also seeing a lot of Kaposi’s in southern Uganda. Then a doctor at the Uganda Cancer Institute – David Serwadda – made the connection and... bam! Overnight we realized the epidemic was much bigger in Africa than here.’

‘So the epidemic started in Africa and was transferred to the gay community here in the US?’

‘Yeah, probably through Haiti. Back then everyone blamed it on Haitians, and they got pretty pissed off, but turns out there’s good evidence that it was carried from the Congo to Haiti, and then from Haiti to the gay community right here.’

‘Through anal sex?’

‘Well, yeah. Maybe. I mean we’re pretty sure anal sex is riskier than vaginal sex, but we know for sure that screwing multiple partners is how it spreads, regardless of the hole you stick your dick into. Some of those guys had more than a hundred partners in a year!’

Baldwin grunted and shook his head, but didn’t look up from his note taking. Stanislav ladled sugar into his espresso, stirred and swallowed it in one gulp, then caught the eye of a waiter and signaled for a refill before turning back to Baldwin who was now sipping his own flat white.

‘Funny thing about this bug – the deadliest epidemic in human history – is that it’s 100 percent preventable, and pretty much everyone knows how to prevent it! It’s almost like some people have a death wish. I believe it was Robin Williams who said that God gave man a brain and a penis, but not enough blood to operate both at the same time!’

Baldwin spluttered into his drink, put it down quickly and swabbed at his mouth with a napkin as the epidemiologist continued.

‘I mean if everyone had a single sexual partner for life, and nobody shared a needle, that would be the end of it. New infections just wouldn’t happen.’

‘But needles... injecting drug use isn’t an issue in Africa, is it?’ Baldwin patted the UNAIDS report, to show he’d done his homework.

‘Naah, it’s pretty much all heterosexual sex out there. In places like eastern Europe and south east Asia they share a lot of needles, and the rate of transmission is huge, but the bug seldom spreads outside the circle of drug users, their partners and kids. In places like that we hardly ever see a prevalence over one percent.’

‘What about prostitution?’

‘Well, sure! We used to think prostitution was the key to everything. But the truth is that the bug doesn’t seem to spread outside of the guys who go with working girls and their immediate families. Except in Africa...’

‘Which is because...?’

‘Well, like I said, there’s nothing about AIDS that everyone agrees on, but we’re pretty sure now that the answer lies in concurrent partnerships. Sexual concurrence.’

Baldwin frowned at the unfamiliar term. ‘What – like polygamy?’

‘Yeah, but more often it’s informal. Wife, mistress, mistress number two...’

‘I’ve seen that in the Caribbean. Women have kids with different fathers, who still come calling.’

‘Exactly. Which is why the Caribbean has a similar epidemic to Africa – we call it a generalized epidemic, where it’s not confined to specific groups like people who go with prostitutes or share needles. In generalized epidemics we see a lot more women infected – even more than men.’

‘So... are you saying that men in Africa and the Caribbean have more sexual partners than... others?’ Baldwin was looking steadily at the young professor.

‘Hell no, amigo! We’ve got a pile of surveys that tell us the average African guy gets laid no more often than anyone else. But they keep doing it with the same group of women. Concurrence.’

‘So... someone in this circle gets infected, and... suddenly they’re all infected?’ 

‘Hey, listen colonel, if you are thinking of a change of career...’

Baldwin laughed. ‘Hey listen professor, how about you call me Art?’

Stanislav offered his hand. ‘As long as you call me Paul.’

After they’d shaken hands Baldwin leaned back, and looked surreptitiously at his watch. ‘So it’s really about behavior patterns?’

‘That’s right, Art. And in Africa we find some behaviors which are pretty dangerous, when you have a bug like HIV on the loose...’

‘Like concurrency.’

‘Yeah, and a lot of other things too. Girls having sex with older men in return for school fees or cell phones. Tribes where the headman deflowers all the virgins, or where widows are obliged to have sex with their brothers-in-law. Ritual circumcisions, tattoos, body piercing, where the same blade is used for everyone...’

‘Jesus!’

‘It’s a long list. And there’s a lot of sexual abuse of children and rape... but the thing that’s really driving the epidemic is those concurrent sexual partnerships.’

‘But what about condoms?’

‘Yeah, what about them? Look, from the guy’s perspective, these are regular partners – so why use condoms? As for raping kids, one theory is that they do it because it’s seen as safe sex, and another is that it’s a way to cleanse themselves of the virus. Either way the whole point is not to wear a condom.’

Baldwin blew between his teeth, and shook his head. Stanislav continued.

‘And then there’s the official response to the epidemic – which for a long time was a total fuck-up.’ The epidemiologist hesitated. ‘This is another long discussion. How are you for time?’

‘Almost out. Can we do the headlines?’

‘Sure, I’ll try. Problem one – denial. For a long time African leaders had a hard time accepting that HIV existed at all, or that it was transmitted by sex, or that condoms could prevent infection, or that ARVs were effective, or that their customs were making things worse. Some of them said took a different view in private, but in Africa nobody wants to speak out, break ranks, because loyalty is a big thing.’

Baldwin nodded. This much was obvious from the news.

‘Problem two – inertia. African politicians take a long time to be convinced of anything, and longer still to act. It’s often a case of one step forward, two steps back. Then you have corruption. It’s really hard to get anything done – even humanitarian stuff – without turning a blind eye to self-enrichment by those in power.’

Another nod from Baldwin as he took notes.

‘And problem three – machismo. Real men don’t wear condoms. Real men don’t talk about sex, especially to women and children. Real men spit on those living with HIV – after all, “they brought it on themselves!” It’s amazing how many of these guys blame their women for infecting them, even when they’re screwing three women on the side.’

Stanislav spooned sugar into his second espresso and downed it, while Baldwin swallowed the last of his own coffee.

‘Listen, Art, I’m not suggesting any one of this happens only in Africa. But... it all comes together there. It reaches a critical mass.’

Baldwin pulled a wry face to show he was listening as he wrote, but said nothing. 

‘And then there’s us.’

‘Us?’

‘Yeah. The west. The north. Developed countries. We’ve also fucked up, big time. Even though we knew condoms were the best way to prevent infection, our Bible-thumping politicians said abstinence and faithfulness were the way to go. We couldn’t bring ourselves to give condoms to schoolkids, so we gave them bullshit instead...’

Baldwin looked up, as though he wanted to say something, but then thought better of it. Stanislav continued.

‘Then there are ARVs. Long after we had them here in the US, the drug companies were holding out for prices which they knew bloody well they couldn’t afford in Africa, Latin America, south east Asia. The suits were full of crap like: “even if they have the drugs, they don’t have the means to administer them.” But then we saw some projects in Haiti and Cape Town which showed ARVs could be used very effectively, even in low-income countries. India and Brazil began issuing compulsory licenses to make generic drugs, and pharma found themselves being dragged into court in South Africa – and losing. So finally they rolled over.’

Baldwin looked at his watch and began to collect his papers. ‘So how was it resolved?’ 

‘Well, the biggest actor in all of this was the US government...’

Baldwin froze. ‘Oh?’

‘Yeah. Our administration was backing pharma big time, trying to prevent the third world from making generics. There was some pretty bad stuff going on behind the scenes – people being beaten up, threats of trade sanctions. But after pharma saw the light in 2003, Bush launched the biggest AIDS program in history to buy ARVs from big pharma and dish them out to the third world. Fifteen billion dollars over five years. And in 2008 Congress voted to triple that amount.’

‘Could this have anything to do with the bombings?’

Stanislav nodded slowly. ‘I’d be surprised if it didn’t.’

+++

‘Come in, Art. I hope I haven’t spoiled your Sunday by making you wait?’

‘Frankie, you know I’m always at your disposal. And I was able to use the time.’

Frances Dumont was dressed in a business suit, as usual. Her office in the UN building was as impersonal as an office-furniture showroom. Baldwin had met the UN chief security officer many times over the past six months but he knew very little about her – and the French-Canadian gave no sign that she was interested in what he did in his own time. Still, he enjoyed working with her, and they had slipped into nicknames very soon after meeting. She didn’t waste any time on small talk. As usual.

‘I’ve been given the green light to share with you, although I probably can’t tell you anything you don’t know already.’

‘Try me.’

‘Okay. We know that four devices were detonated simultaneously...’ she looked at her watch, ‘nearly 20 hours ago. Three in India and one in our warehouse outside Stockholm.’

‘So you haven’t heard about the one in Iceland?’ 

‘What?’

Baldwin smiled. ‘Yeah. There’s a research laboratory in Reykjavik which is developing a new class of antiretrovirals.’

‘What happened?’

‘They got lucky. It seems a group of cellphone transmitters were shut down for routine maintenance. Middle of the night. This place – Vikmed – was also closed over the holidays but one of their company executives heard about the bombings in India and... well, when he couldn’t reach his security guards because their phones weren’t working, he called the Reykjavik police and asked them to check on the lab. When he said he was worried about a possible bomb they followed their standard protocol for bomb threats which includes...’

‘Shutting down the cellular network! Of course.’

‘Yes. Or keeping them shut down, in this case. When they sent their bomb-squad to the laboratory they found a device.’

‘That’s great news. Is it in the public domain?’

‘No. The authorities in Iceland have agreed to keep it under wraps. But I thought it would be useful information for you guys.’

Dumont was nodding thoughtfully. ‘I hope they are more successful in keeping it quiet than we were with Stockholm.’

Baldwin pulled a face. ‘Yeah, everyone is a reporter these days.’ Then he smiled. ‘Okay. So I’ve showed you mine...’

She grinned and pretended to rip open her blouse. ‘Well, I’ve been instructed to give you full access...’

When they’d finished laughing, she continued. ‘All we know about Stockholm is that at the same time as the Indian blasts – which was two AM in Sweden – an incendiary device was triggered in the drug cage. That’s a secure area inside the warehouse. It caused a fire which destroyed everything inside the cage, but left the rest of the warehouse more or less intact. Nobody was injured and the automatic sprinkler system put the fire out before the fire brigade arrived.’

‘Any leads?’

‘Only circumstantial. Pointing to a couple of security guards employed by the company that does our security in Stockholm.’

‘And they’ve disappeared.’ It wasn’t a question.

Dumont shook her head. ‘I can’t believe we didn’t see this coming, Art. It seems... so obvious now. How vulnerable the ARV pipeline really is. It was so easy for them.’

‘Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.’ Immediately Baldwin regretted the cliché, but Dumont didn’t react, so he continued. ‘I’m going to have a look at the Reykjavik laboratory tonight – see if I can get a handle on who might be behind it. And if it’s okay with you, I’d like to go on to Stockholm. Take a look around there. You’re welcome to join me...’

She caught his eye and gave a neutral smile. ‘No, thanks Art. I need to be here. But there’s no problem about access, as I said. Will you keep me in the loop?’

‘Sure. Same for you?’ 

‘Absolutely.’

Johannesburg South Africa 01:00 Monday 3 January T+22hrs

What a way to spend a Sunday! Breakfast on Shan’s Gulfstream, lunch at his headquarters in Shimla, dinner on a commercial flight to Johannesburg!

The South African Airways A340-600 was in the air for more than eight hours, but flying west meant it was still – just – Sunday when we landed, back in the same time-zone in which I’d woken that morning. I’d spent more than seventeen of the past twenty hours in the air. It felt like the longest and most bizarre dream of my life, and being cooped up in the first-class cabin of the Airbus meant I had plenty of laptop time to follow the unfolding nightmare.

First came the bombshell from a regular stringer in Stockholm, ‘Blogsson’, that the UN warehouse had been sabotaged at the same time as the Indian plants. I didn’t need to be told what that meant – I’d visited that warehouse a couple of years earlier with my friend Nikki Kershaw while researching a story on UNAIDS’ ARV procurement and distribution network. I knew their central purchasing service had saved many millions of dollars – and almost as many lives – in impoverished countries.

Vonnie’s concern at the undercurrent of panic on our chat forums had been right on the money – before I landed in Jo’burg there were reports of raids on a rural AIDS clinic in the Haitian highlands, and at a government drug dispensary in the city of Imphal, north eastern India. These were both areas where the epidemic was particularly bad, and also where there were long-standing military insurgencies. I knew that men in uniform are not only prime candidates for HIV infection, but also the most likely to do whatever it takes to survive.

I felt certain the only reason we weren’t getting similar news from Africa was that it was the dead of night, and that the morning would bring unwelcome news – especially from the southern end of the continent, which had not only the world’s biggest AIDS-epidemic but also some of its highest crime-rates. And a lot of men in uniform.

On the plane I posted an op-ed which I called ‘After Pharmageddon, Judgment Day.’ What can I tell you – the word ‘pharmageddon’ just popped into my jet-lagged brain.

‘Evil’ doesn’t simply mean ‘bad’, it means immoral. The word belongs to people who see the suffering of others as incidental to their quest to get whatever they want – a matter of inconvenience rather than a troubled conscience.

The sneak attacks which have crippled the global production of generic antiretroviral drugs are quintessentially evil because they threaten the survival of millions of people who have nothing the bombers could possibly want, and who can do nothing to help themselves. Clearly, for the terrorists, these people are simply pawns in some kind of bizarre game, a means to some – as yet undefined – end.

Whoever did this is evil. And anyone who finds merit in their actions deserves the same epithet.

Edmund Burke famously said that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. So what should good men and women do about the sabotage in India and Sweden? We should shout out that those responsible are not fit to walk among us. We should reassure those who depend on these medications that we will not rest until their future supply is assured, and those responsible have been stopped.

School biology tells us how the human immune system reacts to viral invasions. Unfortunately HIV – the virus that causes AIDS – has the ability to dodge this response, and then to weaken the immune system itself to the point that almost any infection becomes life-threatening.

Strangely enough the AIDS epidemic does the same thing to society as the virus does to our bodies – it tricks us into indifference and inaction, probably because of its association with social taboos. As a result every step in the war against AIDS has been a desperate struggle to persuade people to overcome their prejudice and preconceptions, and to calmly stare the beast in the face.

The AIDS epidemic demands that we talk to our kids from an early age about sex; that we make condoms available to everyone; that we work with prostitutes, intravenous drug users and men who have sex with other men; and that we drop our assumption that people living with HIV somehow deserve it. The epidemic demands that we help AIDS patients to live, instead of ignoring them to death.

Three decades into the AIDS epidemic we know these strategies work and, thankfully, so do an increasing number of people in positions of power. While the epidemic is unparalleled in history, so is the scale and scope of the global response. AIDS is no longer considered a life-threatening disease in most of the world, and people who are successfully medicated are no longer considered infectious.

There have also been giant leaps in preventing new infections. Transmission of the virus to new-born babies has almost been eradicated. Countries which are working with, not against, prostitutes, injecting drug users and gay men have turned a torrent of new infections into a trickle. Communities which are equipping their children to protect themselves with knowledge, condoms and institutional protection are at last able to imagine an AIDS-free future.

The fifth secretary general of the UN, Javier Perez de Cuellar, said the measure of any civilization is how it treats its weakest members. His successors have honored him by ensuring those who are defenseless against this virus receive sophisticated and expensive drugs, not excuses. It is a perfect expression of civilization, and the antithesis of evil. It may well be humankind’s highest achievement.

Which makes four bombs, strategically placed to undo this great work, our lowest.

Yesterday the world witnessed pure evil. Today is judgment day. It is time to choose sides. There is no space, and no time, for anyone to do or say nothing.

By the time I hit the ‘send’ button I was collecting a lot of material from my earlier spray of emails, for example the one from Folbert at the WHO quoting Macbeth: ‘A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ At the time it didn’t occur that he was probably talking about me, rather than the bombers.

On the forums everyone was blaming everyone else. But it did help me to construct some scenarios for the editorial conference that Jim had scheduled for that afternoon. I certainly wasn’t stuck for ideas.

But by the time we landed at Johannesburg’s O R Tambo the scenarios were blending into the breaking news in my foggy brain, and it was all I could do to recognize my name on a board held by the Michelangelo Hotel’s chauffeur. I don’t even remember checking in.

Reykjavik Iceland 04:00 Monday 3 January T+27hrs

Baldwin spent most of the five-hour flight monitoring the latest developments on what the media were now calling pharmageddon, and researching Iceland. He was surprised to learn the island was ranked as the most developed country in the world along with Norway, and was also one of the most egalitarian.

There’s only one problem, he thought. All that ice! But then he read that the winter temperatures in Reykjavik seldom dropped much below freezing, thanks to a relatively warm ocean, and he decided he would keep an open mind. An hour later the Icelandair Dreamliner fluffed out her skirts and settled on the runway at Keflavik. Only a few passengers disembarked from the plane, which was carrying on to Frankfurt.

Baldwin wasn’t expecting to be met at 4 am but as he exited the airbridge he saw a graying woman who looked like she should have been waiting for a grandchild, except that she was airside of passport control and was holding a placard with his name on it. She introduced herself as Eva Arnarrson, liaison officer for the Vikingasveitin or counter-terrorism unit.

‘I imagine you would like to go directly to the laboratory, colonel?’

‘Thank you... Mrs Arnarrson?’

‘You can call me inspector, but I would prefer Eva. Or aunty. Most of my colleagues call me that.’

Baldwin laughed and followed her as she swiftly led him through immigration and customs, and to a waiting Volvo in the car park. In ten minutes they were heading towards the Vikmed Laboratory on the outskirts of Reykjavik, twenty minutes away.

During the drive Baldwin confirmed the combination of good luck and good police work which saved Vikmed’s laboratory. A clutch of cellphone towers owned by Siminn and Vodaphone had been shut down after midnight for routine maintenance. When the Reykjavik police got the call from a company executive in Chicago, alarmed by the news out of India, the duty officer contacted the two cellular operators and instructed them not to turn on the towers until further notice. A search by the bomb squad found a device powerful enough to flatten the entire building, and to kill anyone inside.

Baldwin was amazed to find the laboratory brightly lit and crowded with cops at four thirty in the morning, a day after the bomb was found. Aunty Eva was greeted with hugs by everyone from constable to commissioner. Only later did Baldwin learn that she was the widow of a much-loved former chief of police who dropped dead at his desk from a cerebral hemorrhage. Until his untimely death his wife had been a kind of mother figure to the island’s close-knit law enforcement community. Six months after his death they missed having her around so much they asked whether she would consider joining them as a liaison officer. It turned out she was missing them just as badly.

Inside the laboratory Baldwin was shown the explosive device, defused but still in place, and introduced to the head of the Icelandic Intelligence Service Per Johannson, commissioner of police Stefan Erikkson and others. They made him very welcome, and spoke English to each other so he would not feel excluded. He began to warm to these people. A steaming concoction of coffee, caraway seeds and vodka certainly helped.

Once the ice was thoroughly melted Baldwin told the group why he was there.

‘Well Arthur,’ Erikkson didn’t ask for titles and didn’t use them. ‘The cellphone which was rigged to the detonator was locally bought, from a department store, and the SIM card was the prepaid type anyone can buy over the counter. They were purchased about a month ago, by someone who paid cash. There were two inbound calls, both from a European pre-paid card, on Friday morning and eight more on Saturday night. The first was at eleven, and the rest were at ten minute intervals. The first two were almost certainly to test communications. The rest, of course, were not connected.’

‘Eleven pm was the same time as the devices in India and Sweden were triggered?’

‘Yes.’

‘What are the chances of tracing the owner of this phone?’

‘Not as bad as it would be in a bigger country. But we may find it is someone who was asked to buy the phone it for a stranger.’

‘And the European phone?’

‘We’re waiting to hear from the German police. We understand the calls were placed from Stuttgart.’

Baldwin made a note. ‘And what about the explosive?’

‘It is military grade. We should know very soon where it was made – my guess is the former Soviet Union. It must have been smuggled in, possibly on a fishing boat.’

It was all pointing to a sophisticated international operation, rather than the work of one or two fanatics. ‘So that leaves us with expertise and access...’

‘That’s right. And I have most of my staff working on that right now.’ 

‘Forced entry? Guards? Staff? Security video?’

Erikkson smiled at the questions. ‘I can save you some time, Arthur. We have been unable to locate a security guard who was on duty during the day-shift yesterday. We are afraid he may have left the island last night.’

‘What do we know about him?’

‘He’s a contract worker from Germany. Stern. Johan Stern. He’s been working at Vikmed for the past five months. According to the security company he has a clean record.’

‘This security company...’

‘Yes, Arthur. It’s the same one that provides security for the UN warehouse in Stockholm. A multinational company. It seems unlikely that their management is involved in something like this, but some of their staff could have been... planted or persuaded.’

‘Would this guard have access to the inside of the laboratory?’

‘Only in an emergency, in which case he would have to break the seal to a cabinet containing a key, and an alarm would be automatically triggered. But if he had a duplicate key he could have entered undetected, except for the CCTV.’

‘And the video tapes?’

‘The recording for Saturday is missing. Or rather, it is blank. It is not a tape – they use a hard-drive system – and it appears someone erased a section of the recording. Unfortunately it is possible for anyone with physical access to the security console to do that. It seems the administrator’s password was common knowledge among the guards.’

Erikkson must have caught – or imagined – a fleeting expression on Baldwin’s face, because he gave an embarrassed laugh. ‘There is very little crime in Iceland, colonel. I’m afraid it can make some of us... complacent.’

‘I assume Stern wasn’t working alone during that shift?’

‘No, there was another guard. There should have been two more, but... they were on a skeleton staff for the New Year weekend. Another weakness in their protocol, I’m afraid. The second man is an Icelander, Guðmundur Bergen. It seems he... went to sleep. He welcomed the New Year the night before, and Stern said he would cover for him. Guðmundur volunteered for a polygraph today and we are pretty sure he is... not involved. We are also awaiting the results of a blood test to see if he was drugged.’

Something about the way Erikkson spoke attracted Baldwin’s attention. ‘Do you know this second guard. Bergen?’ He saw at once his intuition had been right.

Erikkson gave a small nod. ‘He is my nephew. My sister’s son. He’s a university student, and this is his way of earning money while allowing him to study on the job. I was with him during the celebrations on Friday night. It will make no difference to our enquiry, I assure you. His interrogation was... is... being done by Per’s men.’

The Icelandic Intelligence Service chief took this as his cue. ‘Colonel Baldwin, our theory at this stage is that Stern was probably working alone, and left the country before the bomb was due to detonate. But we are exploring all possibilities. We are checking airport and harbor records and tapes. Fortunately there are not too many tourists at this time of year, so it narrows the field.’

Baldwin looked back at Erikkson. ‘I understand two men disappeared after the Stockholm device was detonated. One was a German, also with about five months on the job, and the other was a Swede, with several years of experience. The local man hasn’t been found. Yet.’

The police chief looked down at his hands, and nodded. Baldwin scanned the group sitting around the table in the laboratory canteen. ‘Does anyone have any theories as to the motives, or who is behind this sabotage?’

There was a pause while they looked at each other to see who would speak first. Attention gravitated to a young woman sitting at the far end of the table. Baldwin had been introduced, but could not remember her name.

Per Johannson cleared his throat. ‘Chief Inspector Einarson... Katrin... was sharing a theory with us when you arrived.’

‘I was saying that if I wanted to blow up targets in several countries I wouldn’t use my own people – regardless of the nature of my organization,' she said. 'I would hire a contractor. Mercenaries. That would make it much harder to trace back to me. Much less risky than attempting to train my own followers.’

Baldwin nodded approvingly. ‘I would do the same. The problem with using believers – whatever they believe in – is that they are not necessarily good soldiers. The fact that they may be willing to take great risks or even give their lives for the cause makes it harder to stop them, but easier to trace them. Contractors are far more difficult, and unfortunately there are a number of, ah, people, that take on such work.’

Baldwin was expecting the young woman to look pleased at his endorsement of her theory, but she nodded gravely. ‘Yes, that’s what we were thinking. I mean our security think-tank. We met last evening to brainstorm these attacks. Except that we thought of another advantage for... believers. They are cheap. I believe mercenaries are quite expensive.’

Johannson must have seen Baldwin’s embarrassment. ‘Katrin lectures in security studies at the University of Iceland, as well as being a senior detective.’ He smiled. ‘Many of us wear several hats. It keeps our heads warm!’

Baldwin just managed to stop himself from apologizing to the young woman for patronizing her. He reminded himself again not to take anything in Iceland at face value. Instead he ploughed on.

‘May I ask – is there anything in this situation which does NOT fit this theory – that a contractor was hired to infiltrate a man onto the Vikmed security staff, and to plant a bomb with a cellphone trigger?’

This time there were no takers.

‘And is there anything which leads you to believe that anyone who is still in Iceland could have been part of this conspiracy?’ All he got were shaking heads.

‘What about the nature of the work done here? The kind of pharmaceuticals?’

A young man with a beard and unkempt gingery hair spoke up. ‘That’s my department, colonel. I’m the chief research biochemist here, Dr Alan Walker.’

‘What can you tell me, doctor?’

‘Well, we do developmental work here. Biogenetic analysis of organic compounds – like folk medicines and herbs – to determine their active constituents and test them in vitro. Then we design processes to synthesize the molecules we want, and we support clinical trials. Finally we design industrial equipment to mass produce active pharmaceutical ingredient...’

‘The same kind of materials they produced at those factories in India?’

‘Well... yes and no. They produce the API on a large scale. We develop the kind of processes and equipment they use to do that. We are developing a new generation of ARVs here, as you probably know.’

‘Why would someone want to stop you?’

Walker shook his head. ‘I’m not sure... we’ve completed the clinical trials phase on this drug, but we’re still several months away from full-scale production.’

‘And when you do go into production? What are the implications of this new drug?’ 

‘For patients, or the pharmaceutical industry?’

‘Both.’

‘Okay. For patients – it will be a big deal. The drug works in cases that are resistant to all other medications, and it doesn’t need to be used in combination. Side effects are minimal, whereas they can be pretty severe with some ARVs. And our dosage form is an injectable, once a week. Which makes compliance a lot easier to monitor. It really is a huge step forward in the treatment of AIDS.’

‘And the industry?’

‘I don’t think it worries our competitors too much. Our drug will be very expensive, so there’s no incentive to replace existing regimens with our injectable. People will only use it when they have no choice. Also, our dosage form suits a first-world setting, where a weekly injection is less of a logistical challenge than it would be in a third-world setting. We don’t see an immediate application in most of Africa, for example.’

‘Why will the drug be expensive?’

‘Oh, partly because our parent company invested hundreds of millions developing it, but also because the production process is very sophisticated. The equipment to produce it at a commercial scale will be some of the most expensive apparatus ever used in the industry.’

‘And how much of a setback would it have been if the bombs had gone off?’

‘Well... that’s the strange thing. It would have set us back a few weeks. Couple of months, at worst. But you can’t un-invent something. It wouldn’t have affected the final outcome – we’ll still make this drug in the end.’

‘So all it would have done is to buy time. For somebody.’

‘Yes, it would simply be a matter of replacing the equipment and re-establishing the cultures but not...’ Walker’s voice trailed off and his face lost its ruddy flush.

‘What is it?’

Walker was out of his chair and heading into an adjacent office. Baldwin followed, as did most of the Icelanders. They found the scientist seated at a computer terminal. For a long moment the only sound was the clatter of keys as Walker hammered at the keyboard.

‘Oh god,’ he whispered. ‘They’ve hacked into our records. It’s all gone.’ 

Erikkson pulled up a chair next to Walker, and spoke softly. ‘What is it Alan?’

The biochemist stared at the monitor for a moment longer, then swivelled in his chair to look at the people crowded into the tiny room. ‘I... can’t believe I didn’t check this earlier. It simply didn’t occur to me.’

Nobody spoke. Walker rubbed at his hair impatiently. ‘Aaargh! All the data from our research... is gone. We’ll have to do it again. This is really going to slow us down.’

Erikkson put a hand on Walker’s arm. ‘Please, Alan. Explain it to us non-scientists.’

Walker stared blankly at the police commissioner. ‘The output of our work here is... figures. Data. Terabytes of data which are meaningless to anyone except us. But they’re the data we need to design the production process – temperature readings, pressure, times, volumes for each constituent, every reaction. It’s very slow work. There’s no way around it, but it only needs to be done once.’ He shook his head dazedly. ‘Unless you lose the data. In which case you go back to the beginning. This is... years of work.’

Baldwin spoke, keeping his own voice soft. ‘Surely you have backups?’

Walker turned to look at the American. ‘Of course. Three levels of backup, two of them off-site – one at our head office in Chicago, and one at a secure online data repository.’ He turned back to his monitor. ‘But I can see them all from here. They’re all... blank.’

As Erikkson probed gently, it emerged that the backup system was designed to protect the data from physical damage – even if the whole laboratory were to be obliterated their records would be safe – and from data corruption, by storing copies in three different locations.

And while the backups were protected by a firewall from internet hacking, they were not secure against someone with physical access to this terminal and a password. Even the password could be overcome, given enough time and skill. The researchers had simply not anticipated that anyone would want to erase the data, or that anyone with the necessary skill and intention would have access to this computer.

Katrin Einarson asked about the possibility of retrieving the deleted data from the storage media, but nobody believed that anyone who went to such lengths to delete them would have neglected to use scrubbing software to remove all traces. Still, it was something to try.

‘Surely you keep copies on DVD, or some similar media?’ she persisted.

Walker shook his head impatiently. ‘No, writing the data to any portable medium is too risky. It can be stolen or copied. There aren’t any ports or devices for removable media in our computers.’

The group moved back to the canteen and a fresh round of spiked tea was served while they chewed over the implications of the data loss. Baldwin asked if the bombing of the plant could have been planned as a diversion, to hide the loss of data, but Walker pointed out it would only have been a matter of hours before the scrubbing of their hard-drives was discovered, even if the bombs had been detonated.

When Katrin Einarson suggested the blasts might have been intended as a publicity stunt, Baldwin’s first reaction was to laugh, but the sober nodding of the rest of the assemblage stopped him. In the end they concluded that it was entirely possible the perpetrators wanted to make sure their action could not be concealed – a simple assault on their computer storage system could easily have been hushed up by the company, whereas a massive explosion in the industrial quarter of Reykjavik would inevitably lead to a public inquiry.

But why was it important to be seen to attack Vikmed? And was the sabotage in India also designed to prevent a cover-up? The question led to a renewed commitment by all present to keep a lid on this information, although secrecy was becoming increasingly difficult in these days when anyone and everyone was supplementing their income by reporting the news.

Two hours later, after a breakfast with enough cholesterol to shorten everyone’s life by at least a year – and even though it was still five hours before sunrise – the gathering broke up and Aunty Eva drove Baldwin back to the airport to catch the next flight to Frankfurt, and his connection to Stockholm.

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