After the Truth (Book One)

Thirteen

A Tuesday morning, two months after I confessed to Isabel about Evelyn, we stood once again on the back porch. This time Jeremiah and Samuel were at school.

Isabel and I were arguing, but not about Evelyn. I cannot deny what I had said had changed us, but I believed we would get through it. That Tuesday we argued because I had come home early and told Isabel I had resigned as director of the GAR programme at the WHO.

'This has gone too far!' she shouted at me. 'It was one thing believing people just drop dead because they lie, but to quit your job because of it is ridiculous.'

'It's not a belief. I know it is fact.'

'That's not what I've heard. I was speaking with Zack and Christie yesterday. They say there are rumours the WHO are about to announce they know what is causing the deaths and that there is a possible cure.'

Zack and Christie were neighbours from across the street. Christie led the International Health Regulations program and her husband Zack worked as liaison between the WHO and many African and Asian NGOs. They were good friends, but I had been aware for a few days of their acceptance of a politically convenient response several member nations of the WHO had been putting pressure on the leadership to publicise.

I did not hold back from telling those that would listen of my first-hand knowledge of the cause of death for Evelyn and Hiro, the children in California and the slowly growing number of other deaths around the world. My succession to Hiro as director of GAR gave me access to all levels of WHO leadership and government public health officials.

Had it not been for the video evidence of the self-inflicted experiment Special Agent Williams conducted on himself, I would have been rightly ridiculed. But when people saw what happened to Agent Williams their disbelief of my extreme ideas became muted. Even the most vocal sceptics partly believe what I told them.

'What Zack and Christie say is a lie,' I told her.

'Why would they lie?'

'It is easier than telling the truth,' I said, barely able to contain the anger swelling inside me. It was the worst kind of anger: that arising from frustration. But it was not directed at Isabel, nor even Zack and Christie. My anger was directed more and more at the world, or at the leaders of the world, and their refusal to accept the truth. Worst of all, my anger grew each day I saw the tide of opinion only growing against me. I had become an inconvenient truth to hundreds of people. It is maddening to try and convince so many people of facts they do not want to accept. My argument with Isabel that day was the tip of an ever-growing iceberg.

'Why can't you go along with that they are saying?' Isabel pleaded. 'It's ridiculous for you to resign.'

'No it is not!' I shouted. 'I cannot go along with a lie. Don't you understand? It will kill me. Besides my own direct danger, I've come to realise that for far too long too many people have accepted those who lead, those we should be able to trust, lie to us for their own agendas. I have no choice, on many levels, I have to tell the truth now, no matter what the cost.'

As I spoke those last words I saw the withdrawal sweep across Isabel's face. She felt she was part of that cost. She went back into the house, slamming the door behind her.

I wanted to tell the truth, both because I had to and I wanted to. Being forced to tell the truth had made me realise its vital importance, and easily lies were used out of expediency. It seemed absurd to me then how easy the truth had been an optional extra for so long.

Despite the efforts of so many authorities, the tight net of secrecy around sudden deaths was beginning to unravel. The media was beginning to notice. The US media had found out about the Californian children being kept in quarantine at Edwards AFB. They had learnt of the deaths and the possible connection with the death of an FBI agent. Rumours were beginning to bubble about some unexplained contagion, with deaths not just happening in the US, but other parts of the world. Health authorities of several member countries had become alarmed and turned to the WHO for more information and explanation, wanting to know exactly what we knew.

In turn, the WHO was getting pressure from the US and UK governments and security agencies. We were even being told what to say. An official statement was almost written for me, describing the deaths being by a rare bacterial pathogen, similar to meningococcal disease, but far quicker at bringing on death and very limited in its spread. I was told putting this story out would pre-empt any other stories that might leak. After Covid-19 the entire planet was hypersensitive to any hint of a another potential global pandemic. The economic impact of unchecked speculation could be disastrous I was told, doing far more harm than the sporadic, but unexplained (to others anyway) deaths. I was asked to consider the health damage that could be caused by potential panic due to a completely unknown pathogen existing that could strike anyone, anywhere, at any time, without any sort of warning.

I had been resisting the pressure for several days. No one from the US authorities would speak to me, but I had managed to get a call with Sir Robert Newbury. He knew what I knew, he had seen the footage of Agent Williams' death. I asked him whether he knew about the story the WHO was being pressured to put out. When he told me he did know my heart sank.

'Did you have a hand in crafting it's content?' I asked quietly as I sat alone in my office in Geneva. I closed my eyes and silently preyed he would not give the response I dreaded.

'It's not important who was involved in creating the response,' answered after some delay. His clever abdication was almost as disappointing to me as the lie he had helped create.

'But it's not true,' I said simply, realising how childlike I sounded.

'We don't completely know it isn't true,' he squirmed, 'we are dealing with a few sporadic deaths due to an unknown pathogen, we should be cautious –'

I did not have the patience for his circuitous, fatuous answers. 'You were in the room with me Sir Robert. You saw what happened to Agent Williams. You have seen all our research, you know full well no bacterial pathogen could go undetected in all the tests the WHO labs have utilized.'

'I admit we are dealing with an unknown, which is why we need to conduct more research before we –'

'You know the facts, the scientific facts, Sir Robert. Why let your government ask the WHO to put out information you know to be scientifically false?'

'We are dealing with an unknown. We have to be very careful how we proceed. After Covid-19 the international community are very wary of potential pathogen with potential global reach.'

'Isn't that the trouble, with the world, lies have reached every corner of the globe.'

'Sometimes,' Sir Robert said slowly, as if speaking to a child, 'lies need to be the truth.'

Words and expletives boiled inside me, all trying to explode from my mouth at once. They choked each other and I said nothing. I simply ended the call and let my handset drop to my desk. All my strength had left me and I slumped back in my chair. I felt I was being crushed by a horrible sense of hopelessness.

After Isabel had gone inside, I stood alone and felt for the first time that the entire weight of humanity somehow rested on my shoulders. I seemed to be the only person alive who knew the enormity that everyone now faced.

No false truths, no spin, no other manipulation of reality could affect what lay before us. A word has no mass, no substance, nothing that can be held back by physical barriers, or social distancing. Humanity was hurtling to a crossroads, far bigger than Covid-19 had caused.

I had chosen my path on the other side of the crossroads, or it had been chosen for me. Whatever, I feared my path was now separate to Isabel and the boys.

In all the chaos of recent times there is one interesting fact I learnt on that last day as leader of GAR. Computer forensics analysis of the server hosting Malcolm Privet's website showed, beyond any doubt, that he was not responsible for creating or posting the Word on the site. The random text had come about because of a hardware fault on a disk in the server.

Theirony appeared to be that the impending doomsday due to humanity's wantonability to corrupt the truth had come about because of the corruption of a singlecomputer's memory. How many lives would now be affected by the glitch in asingle silicon chip.