Virus

This isn’t his war; he personally doesn’t like the Russians either. He doesn’t trust the U.S. government to stick to the deal. They can have him shot for knowing too much. Although, it’s not like he has any other options.

Parker is either unaware or doesn’t care about Mr. Akiyama’s lack of interest. “Brucellosis only incapacitates, and Botulism can’t spread from person to person. We need something highly contagious and that has a high mortality rate. Any ideas?”

Mr. Akiyama thinks for a moment. “What are you currently working on?”

“We were working on sarin, but it has a bad shelf life and we’re looking into doing something new,” explains Parker.

The two men spend hours brainstorming ideas but to no avail. Parker shoots down ideas that would not please his boss. It just won’t be effective enough or cripple the Russians fast enough to prevent them from pushing a button and sending missiles of God-knows-what at them. Jesus, it’s so hot in here. Parker has a desk fan blowing, but it's blowing hot air.

“Can I have some water, please?” asks Mr. Akiyama.

Parker tries to get water from the cooler, which only dispenses warm water, but the handle breaks.

“Darn, I need to get that fixed.” Not making a good first impression. “So, anything else you might know that can help us?” Parker asks.

Mr. Akiyama’s thinking again. He had worked on something that was highly contagious in the past. They were planning to release an extremely deadly virus on a West Coast, U.S. city in Sept. 1945, during something that would have been called Operation Cherry Bomb. He never finished it because the atomic bomb ground the whole project to a halt. Those people will never know how lucky they were. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.

Now his project might get a second lease of life.

“We were working on a way to recreate the virulent strain that caused the Spanish Flu of 1918. The influenza virus is highly contagious and the incubation period is less than 24 hours. Viruses like this have a better chance of highly mutating and bypassing the immune system, causing massive complications and swift death.”

Raising an eyebrow, Parker leans back in his chair, seemingly interested in what the Japanese man has to say. Especially when he said, “swift death”. The colonel likes those terms.

Mr. Akiyama continues. “We almost sequenced the genome of the 1918 Spanish influenza virus, so it wouldn’t take long to complete it.”

Parker thinks this could be a great idea—if it can be done, that is. Also, based on the information he’s just been given, it probably wouldn’t take too long to do it with this virus.

“How did you come across a sample?” asks Parker. “To my knowledge, the Spanish Flu ended in 1919, and getting a sample would be rather difficult.”

“Under the orders of Emperor Hirohito, we were sent to Norway in 1938 to procure a sample from the corpses of miners who had contracted the virus,” replies Mr. Akiyama. He continues calmly as he looks out the window. The setting sun is casting a reddish hue in the room, giving Parker an eerie feeling as he listens to his story. “Many of the corpses were decomposed, but only two of them had their lung tissues intact. We cut it out and brought it back to China to be studied.”