The Faithful Spy

He stripped naked and folded his clothes on a chair. Normally he worked first with less dangerous germs before entering the bubble. But tonight he wanted to be close to his “specials,” Y. pestis and Bacillus anthracis— anthrax. He opened the first door of the bubble — the door to the airlock — and stepped inside. He pulled on the shirt, underwear, and sweatpants that he used in the bubble, then slipped a white smock over his clothes. He pulled the door shut and smoothed over the plastic sheeting on the door, sealing off the bubble from the rest of the basement. He picked up his respirator, hooked up his oxygen tank, and pulled the mask over his face. He breathed deeply, making sure the oxygen was flowing smoothly, then cut back on the flow to preserve the tank. Then a cap, booties, and gloves.

Finally he opened the inside door of the airlock and stepped into his bubble.

In here he could have been underwater, or on the moon. Only his breathing broke the perfect silence. He slid noiselessly to the safety cabinet. A week earlier he had grown Y. pestis for the first time, placing the bacteria in petri dishes of blood agar at 28 degrees Celsius, about 82 degrees Fahrenheit. Two days later, white colonies of bacteria speckled the red agar, their edges pebbly and uneven. They looked like tiny fried eggs, the telltale shape of Y. pestis. They were ugly, Tarik admitted to himself, small and ugly. But anyone who didn’t respect them would be surprised. And he controlled their power. The thought gave him great pleasure. after growing the plague, Tarik injected it into six mice. Only one survived more than two days. Now it, too, lay on its side in the safety cabinet. Tarik put the mouse’s carcass in a glass container, then filled the container with hydrochloric acid to destroy the remains. At McGill he would have autopsied the animal to see how exactly it had died, but in here that wasn’t important. He simply wanted to prove to himself that he could grow a good, virulent strain of Y. pestis. And he had done just that. But Tarik knew he had taken only a small step toward his ultimate goal. Infecting people with pneumonic plague was much harder than sticking a needle in a mouse. He needed to figure out a way to spray the germ in a fine mist that could be inhaled and caught in the lungs. He would have to test different solutions, different plague concentrations, chemicals that might allow the mist to disperse more easily without killing the bacteria inside it. That challenge had perplexed scientists in labs much more sophisticated than this basement. Aum Shinrikyo, an apocalyptic Japanese cult, had spent millions of dollars in the 1990s trying to develop biological weapons, and had even sprayed Tokyo with botulism and anthrax. But Aum had never managed to infect anyone. Its only successful attack had come with nerve gas, which was far easier to make than biological weapons.

Furthermore, military scientists weren’t exactly publishing reports about their experiments with plague. Tarik would have to make his own mistakes. He wished he could talk to someone about the technical difficulties. But his only confidant was Omar Khadri. Khadri was a typical nonscientist. He seemed to think that unleashing an epidemic should be as easy as growing germs in a beaker and then tossing them on subway tracks. He had been bitterly disappointed when Tarik had explained otherwise.

“You received my present?” Khadri had asked in their last conversation, a few days after the plague arrived. Tarik was at a pay phone at a gas station in Longueuil, on the other side of the Saint Lawrence River, miles from his house.

“Yes. Thank you, Uncle.” They always spoke French and never used names or specifics.

“So how long will it be?”

“I can’t say, Uncle.”

“Your best guess then. A month? A few months?”

“For the purpose you require, a few months at the earliest.”

“You know I’m anxious to see your work.”

Tarik shifted anxiously from foot to foot. He hated to disappoint Khadri. “I beg your forgiveness. But this job cannot be rushed.”

“Will you need more money?”

“Yes.”

“How much?”

“The same as January.” That was $200,000. Tarik had spent carefully, but the equipment he needed was unavoidably expensive.

“The same?” Khadri laughed, but the sound had an edge. “You think your uncle is so rich?”

Tarik said nothing.

“I’ll make the arrangements,” Khadri finally said. “And how is your wife?”

“Uncle, I don’t know what to do.”

“Don’t let her become a distraction, my nephew.”

How easy for you to say, Tarik thought. “Will you visit soon? I’d like to see you.”

“I wish I could,” Khadri said. “But I’m very busy these days. You’re sure you don’t have any competitors?”

“I’ve been very careful.”

“Well. Nephew. In this I am in your hands.” Khadri sighed, as if he found that admission particularly painful. “Keep up your work. You know the whole family has great hopes for you. We’ll speak again soon.”

“I won’t disappoint you, Uncle.”

Click.