My Favourite Author Of Recent Antiquity (circa AD 1962)

I learned from the best.

One of the authors who influenced my world view and general thought patterns (question everything) is Alistair MaClean. The first book of his I read was Night Without End, but the book that had me choosing to read more into military sciences was The Satan Bug. The passage below is what the men and women of letters would call hyperbole, but to me it is the only way you can grab your audience’s undivided attention. 

The story so far, there has been a break-in at a biological warfare complex in Britain, no one knows what has been stolen. The main investigator now gets to find out the truly awful nature of the biological weapons being perfected here. Now read on:  

The Satan Bug 

"I have no such fears of a nuclear Armageddon and I sleep well at nights. Such war will never come. I listen to the Russians rattling their rockets, and I smile. I listen to the Americans rattling theirs, and I smile again. For I know that all the time the two giant powers are shaking their sabres in their scabbards, while threatening each other with so many hundreds of megaton carrying missiles, they are not really thinking about their missiles at all. They are thinking, gentlemen, of Mordon, for we - the British, I should say - have made it our business to ensure the great nations understand exactly what is going on behind the fences of Mordon."

He tapped the brickwork beside him. "Behind this very wall here. The ultimate weapon. The world's one certain guarantee of peace. The term 'ultimate weapon' has been used too freely, has come almost to lose its meaning. But the term, in this case, is precise and exact. If by 'ultimate' one means total annihilation."

He smiled, a little self-consciously.

"I'm being melodramatic, a little? Perhaps. My Latin blood shall we say? But listen carefully, gentlemen, and try to understand the full significance of what I'm going to say. Not the General and Colonel, of course, they already know: but you Superintendent, and you, Mr Cavell."

"We have developed in Mordon here over forty different types of plague germs. I will confine myself to two. One of them is a derivative of the botulinus toxin - which we had developed in World War II. As a point of interest, a quarter of a million troops in England were inoculated against this toxin just before D - Day and I doubt whether any of them know to this day what they were inoculated against."

"We have refined this toxin into a fantastic and shocking weapon compared to which even the mightiest hydrogen bomb is a child's toy. Six ounces of this toxin, gentlemen, distributed fairly evenly throughout the world would destroy every man, woman and child alive on this planet today. No flight of fancy." His voice was weighted with heavy emphasis, his face still and sombre. "This is simple fact. Give me an airplane and let me fly over London on a windless summer afternoon with no more than a gramme of botulinus to scatter and by evening seven million Londoners would be dead. A thimbleful in its water reservoirs and London would become one vast charnel house. If God does not strike me down for using the term 'ideal' in this connection, then this is the ideal form of germ warfare. The botulinus toxin oxidises after twelve hours exposure and becomes harmless. Twelve hours after country A releases a few grammes of botulinus over country B it can send its soldiers in without any fear of attack by either the toxin or the defending soldiers. For the defending soldiers would all be dead. And the civilians, the men, the women, the children. They would all be dead. All dead."

Gregori fumbled in his pocket for another cigarette. His hands were shaking and he made no attempt to conceal the fact. He was probably unaware of it....

"Is it possible?" Hardanger's tone was dry but his face was set. "A deadlier poison than this damn botulinus? Seems superfluous to me."

"Botulinus has its drawbacks," Gregori said quietly. "From a military viewpoint that is. Botulinus you must breathe or swallow to become infected. It is not contagious. Also, we suspect a few countries may have produced a form of vaccine against even the refined type of drug we have developed here. But there is no vaccine on earth to counteract the newest virus we have produced - and it's as contagious as a bush-fire"

"This other virus is a derivative of the polio virus - infantile paralysis, if you will - but a virus the potency of which has been increased a million times by - well, the methods don't matter and you wouldn't understand. What does matter is this: unlike botulinus, this new polio virus is indestructible - extremes of heat and cold, oxidisation and poison have no effect upon it and its life span appears to be indefinite, although we believe it impossible - we hope it impossible - that any virus could live for more than a month in an environment completely hostile to growth and development: unlike botulinus it is highly contagious, as well as being fatal if swallowed or breathed; and, most terrible of all, we have been unable to discover a vaccine for it. I myself am convinced that we can never discover a vaccine against it"

He smiled without humour. "To this virus we have given a highly unscientific name, but one that describes it perfectly - the Satan Bug. It is the most terrible and terrifying weapon mankind has ever known or will ever know."***

***Maclean, Alistair (1962) The Satan Bug. London: William Collins Sons & Co.