Under a Graveyard Sky-eARC by John Ringo Page B

usually tropical, country. Well, remote to the developed nations. It was local to the people dying. “Natural color SEM. That is, in fact, it’s color…”
    “Question from Dr. Sengar, Stockholm…”
    The conference was currently under control of Dr. Addis Bahara, Deputy Underminister for Operations and Response of the WHO. Dave knew Addy and liked him. He was one sharp Ethiopian. And he was a professional unlike the head of the WHO who was chosen mostly for his connections.
    “That has a remarkable resemblance to rabies,” the senior WHO representative for Sweden said. “With the exception of the color. There has been no indications of motor impairment.”
    “We have seen patients with notable motor impairment,” Dr. Wong replied. “Information lag. Yet I take your meaning. The nodules are grossly similar to rabies but they seem to have a different effect. And rabies is not airborne.”
    Telling Sven Sengar, who’d earned any award in virology you’d care to name short of the Nobel, that “rabies wasn’t airborne” was one of the reasons that Wong was a pathologist buried in the basement of the L.A. morgue.
    “I said ‘has a resemblance to’ rabies,” Svengar replied, evenly. “Have you attempted to test the Pasteur method for a vaccine?”
    “We don’t do vaccines,” Wong said. “Just autopsies.”
    “CDC…”
    “We’ll begin examining it immediately.” James Dobson, like Addis, was one of the “tech” specialists at CDC but also a decent political animal. “Decent” being defined as good at politics while still holding onto some semblance of a brain. “I’d have said a week ago that Pasteur method was cracked but this pathogen has me wondering if I know basic biochemistry.”
    “Dr. Kwai, Thailand…”
    “Is there any additional information as to the origin?”
    There was a brief pause as people wondered who was supposed to answer that one.
    “CDC…”
    “No,” Dr. Dobson said. “Computer analysis is showing that it was probably distributed in public venues, notably airports and bus stations on the West Coast of the United States beginning some two weeks ago. Method of vectoring is still unknown and there are no known suspects. For that matter, models indicate it’s still being spread, including in airports and bus stations. FBI has various ideas but quietly they’re admitting that there are no hard leads. We and USAMRIID are…cooperating. But after the Anthrax Debacle getting cooperation is…harder.”
    “No shit,” Curry muttered. The entire Anthrax investigation had put researchers on notice that the FBI cared a lot less about science or rationality than politics. That, in fact, the DOJ didn’t have the slightest clue about molecular biology and could care less. The only suspects who were ever identified, and they were publicly identified well in advance of even the thinnest shred of evidence, were professional researchers from USAMRIID, the U.S. Army’s version of the CDC. Both of the “accused” researchers had also been on the teams at USAMRIID advising the FBI. In neither case was there any real indications that either researcher had created the Anthrax spread shortly after the 9/11 bombings. But the FBI was Johnny-On-The-Spot with accusations.
    As far as most epidemiologists were concerned, if you could explain to the FBI how something worked, in other words if you had the ability to do it, it meant to whoever you were talking, you were their current prime suspect. Which meant that nobody in their right mind in the industry wanted to explain anything to an FBI agent. Of course clamming up and being “uncooperative” also made you a prime suspect. Catch 22.
    The attack, on the basis of no real evidence except “ability,” had finally been pinned on a minor researcher who had, basically, really serious personality problems, not uncommon in any intellectual community, and who very conveniently committed suicide when he realized the FBI was going to “out”