II Rendezvous in Icefjord

Icefjord Harbor, Iceland

A small patrol boat emerged from a shroud of mist as it approached the port of Vatnajökull, Iceland. A USCG Sentinel-class Fast Response Cutter, it flew an Iceland flag port side, as a courtesy to the host nation; starboard, the craft flew an American flag, with the NATO ensign below it. Despite these protocols, it was under NATO command, and its’ crew was predominantly Estonian. A Bell 407 search-and-rescue helicopter was parked in the center of the craft, flanked by a rigid inflatable and a cache of diving gear. The sea was rough, and the vessel danced like a moth in firelight.

A woman with long red hair stood on deck between a cluster of sailors and the 25 mm cannon. She wore a white civilian ski parka with fake fur around the edges of the hood. She was taller than most of the sailors, each of whom wore coveralls with the blue and white NATO emblem over the left breast pocket. None of this attire sufficed to fend off intermittent waves of clumped snowflakes and sleet, but no one seemed bother by it. The crew – men and women – seemed to be uplifted by her serene presence.

The civilian was Joanna Smythe, Ph.D., an expert in the fields of anthropological epidemiology and forensic microbiology. She had written books on epidemics over past millennia, even ones among ancient, extinct animal species. She rocked the academic world with a definitive account of past centuries’ biological warfare, exploding preconceptions which had dominated previous accounts. Now she was on academic leave from Yale, working on contract with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which was keenly interested in her area of expertise.

She represented the United States in the Joint International Task Force on Bio-Agent 7. “BA7” was a suspected bio weapon responsible for an outbreak of disease in and around embattled Donetsk, Ukraine. It obtained its’ name because, unlike most microbes that occur in nature, it expresses seven distinct surface proteins. These in turn as many different receptors on human host cells. This makes it seven times as infectious as it would be otherwise – a capability seldom found in pathogens occurring in nature.

Senior NATO officials started to suspect a bio-agent when soldiers returning from the front showed symptoms similar to anthrax. Captured Russian troops said that there were indeed bio-weapons in use, but it was hard to tell if this was a fabrication intended to please their interogators. A senior official at NATO headquarters dismissed them as “attention whores” and social media descended into a maelstrom of contention over the matter.

Scientists at the US and European Centers for Disease Control analyzed samples taken from members of the Ukrainian National Guard who had fallen ill. Both temas discovered a novel virus and, despite quarrels over who was to take credit for the breakthrough, they agreed on the basic science. Deemed the new “uber-virus”, BA7 manifested surprising complexity and had what were regarded as super powers compared to all previously known viral species.

Wild speculation broke out on the internet immediately, and the most widely traded conspiracy theory was that Russia had achieved a biological “Sputnik. There was panic buying of anything rumored to be a cure: garlic, Tamiflu, ivermectin, astragulus, licorice extract, shiitake mushrooms, iboga root…it’s a long list. But none of the pop remedies worked. People were dying, not just soldiers, but people throughout the eastern portions of Europe. Every week, grim-faced public health officials announce increasing cases further Smythe, and a few travellers had brought the virus into the Americas and Africa.

Masks were sold out everywhere, especially N95s and P100s, except for the black market, where they commanded obscenely high prices. Protesters took to the streets, asserting every imaginable demand, some asserting no demands. Police over-reaction escalated tensions. These led to more over-reaction on the part of the involved governments and thus the vicious cycle of escalation and de-escalation on what seemed to be a weekly cycle.

The CDC was the repository for an array archaeological microbiology specimens and thus they were the first to discover a similarity between the Donbass isolates and a sample in their microbe library. They had a stash of thawed remnants from the excavations under the retreating ice near the North and South Poles. Long sections of viral RNA matched in the specimen sets, and artificial intelligence confirmed scientists’ gut feeling that these matches were extraordinary and indicated a shared lineage. Moreover, glycoproteins in the outer capsule of the suspected bio-weapon and the samples from the Iceland permafrost were virtually identical. Identical, and surprisingly diverse. Virologists had never seen a large virus with so many facets, and this gave the organism multiple means by which to attach to human cells.

This led to another nickname for BA-7: Hydra. In Greek mythology, Hercules confronted the monster with many heads, each of which grew back when cut off. He only triumphed when he shot flaming arrows to cauterize the decapitation wounds. In the laboratories of the CDC, the virus exhibited uncanny behavior. Any time an antibody was developed that would bind a viral epitope, a new, slightly different version would pop up on the mutating virus. The virus was like the mythic Hydra in more ways than one, and the name stuck.

Ground zero for this find was the site of archaeological ruins just outside of Icefjord, Iceland.

Smythe was glad to be there. Climate change had made southerly latitudes exceedingly hot, and Iceland was a welcome respite. Tourists flocked there to escape the blistering heat which enveloped lower latitudes. At one time the town was famous for it’s Vatna Glacier, but the ice had receded dramatically. Once a jumble of icebergs, Icefjord harbor had yielded to the onslaught of warming global temperatures. The icebergs were gone, and the harbor was filled with a slushy mixture of ice chunks and cold water. On the outskirts, the former labyrinth of blue and white ice had been transformed into an alpine meadow.

A second boat approached the harbor — a German Braunschweig-class corvette. It displayed the flag of the German Democratic Republic but it too bore the blue and white flag of NATO. Identifying markers indicated it was part of Standing Maritime Group 4, a special unit formed in the late 2020’s. NATO form the group when it expanded to incorporate Norway and Sweden and Russian naval activity in the Baltic Sea menaced Scandinavia.

As the crew milled about to prepare for docking, Smythe pulled out her phone. Previously, she had not been able to connect, but now she got a ring and a voice came over the line.

“Ali! We’re almost there!”

“Joanna! Great! Can’t wait to see you!”

“I brought you a small present.”

“Oh, you didn’t have to do that? What is it”

“I have the full nucleotide sequence for BA7.”

“Very nice.”

“Wait. There’s more to it. Do you remember that cute paperweight you gave me?”

“The one that looked like a cytomegalovirus?”

“Yes! I love it. My colleagues do too. I enjoyed it so much that I had one made for you in Atlanta.”

“Another cytomegalovirus?”

“Even better. BA7!”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“No. I know a glass blower who worked with Dale Chihuly. A young woman rising through the world of science art. She’s an illustrator too. I commissioned her.”

“A Chihuly student? Wow. That thing probably belongs in a museum.”

“She’s an old friend. And she owed me a favor. I got her a scrip from France when her son was sick. You remember the shortages?”

“How could I forget.”

There had been riots throughout the developed urban nations north of the equator during an Ebola scare near the turn of the decade. Experimental drugs from Europe eventually panned out and demonstrated the capacity to eradicate the virus. Due to regulatory delays and patent disputes, the drugs languished in warehouses for many arduous months. People were literally killing to get their hands on the medication, and insiders set up semi-illegal distribution channels. Despite lots of hair-splitting about ethics, most people felt that it was better to get the drugs into bodies, and Dr. Smythe was among those who were willing to risk professional consequences to save lives.

“Joanna, your signal is breaking up.”

“I think it’s interference from that other boat that’s in harbor. I will see you when we dock.”

“Yes. I will see you soon Joanna.”

She tucked the phone back into her pocket. It was late afternoon and the sun was setting behind the ridge that dominated the western end of the harbor. The cool breeze became a sustained, frigid wind.

Even though she was wearing muck-lucks and wool socks, her feet were starting to get numb from the cold. She stomped them on the deck to get the blood moving. The thin tights she wore were leaving her thighs exposed to the cold Arctic breeze; she thought it advisable to don a pair of warm-ups before the sun got any lower.

She turned to head for her cabin and noticed the captain sizing her up. It was pretty clear that he had grown attached to her companionship after the cruise from Brussels. She didn’t want to deal with an awkward good bye so she shot him a glance and said “Yikes! Didn’t think it would be this cold.” She ducked down the hatch before he had a chance to say a word.

The skipper was a widower in his late forties and had spent many a lonely night at sea. He caught himself starting to develop a growing interest in his prestigious passenger, but didn’t allow himself the luxury of pretension that it would be mutual. He understood that his role as captain was paternal, transitory and strictly professional. He certainly would not have minded indulging a relationship with the legendary Joanna Smythe Ph.D. which went beyond business – that would have presented an irresistible prospect. But he knew that he was a simple man, a sailor, the son of a fisherman, and that his rough-hewn ways would not likely appeal to an educated cosmopolitan woman almost ten years his junior. And no one would ever replace his departed wife. Nothing could stand in for her plain-spoken down-to-earth nature and pious faith that things would always work out. Not even religion, and thus the captain had no religion, just reverence for the memory of his unforgotten spouse.

As Joanna Smythe vanished below deck, he turned and faced the only mistress he knew — the sea. She whipped his stony face with cold, salty water, and he knew he that despite a bittersweet loneliness deep in his heart, he would be fine.

Next — Chapter Three: The Crusader

© 2022 – 2023 Geof Bard

This is Chapter Two of Anthropocene Memoir: Ghosts of the Forgotten Snows, an installment novel by Geof Bard.

Read Chapter One here at Neocities; earlier versions of chapters 1-3 first published on Medium.