Inferno (Page 155)

Sienna took a deep breath. “Dr. Sinskey, Bertrand came to you personally. He begged you to acknowledge that we are on the brink … begged you to engage in some kind of dialogue. But rather than listening to his ideas, you called him a madman, put him on a watch list, and drove him underground.” Sienna’s voice grew heavy with emotion. “Bertrand died all alone because people like yourself refused to open your minds enough even to admit that our catastrophic circumstances might actually require an uncomfortable solution. All Bertrand ever did was speak the truth … and for that, he was ostracized.” Sienna wiped her eyes and gazed across the desk at Sinskey. “Believe me, I know what it’s like to feel all alone … the worst kind of loneliness in the world is the isolation that comes from being misunderstood. It can make people lose their grasp on reality.”

Sienna stopped talking, and a strained silence followed.

“That’s all I wanted to say,” she whispered.

Sinskey studied her for a long while and then sat down. “Ms. Brooks,” she said, as calmly as possible, “you’re right. I may not have listened before …” She folded her hands on the desk and looked directly at Sienna. “But I’m listening now.”

CHAPTER 102

The clock in the Swiss Consulate’s lobby had long since chimed 1 A.M.

The notepad on Sinskey’s desk was now a patchwork of handwritten text, questions, and diagrams. The director of the World Health Organization had neither moved nor spoken in more than five minutes. She stood at the window, staring out into the night.

Behind her, Langdon and Sienna waited, seated in silence, cradling the last of their Turkish coffee, the heavy aroma of its pulverized grounds and pistachio grains filling the room.

The only sound was the buzz of the fluorescent lights overhead.

Sienna could feel her own heart pounding, and she wondered what Sinskey was thinking, having now heard the truth in brutal detail. Bertrand’s virus is a sterility plague. One third of the human population will be infertile.

Throughout the explanation, Sienna had watched Sinskey’s range of emotions, which, while restrained, had been palpable. First, there was a stunned acceptance of the fact that Zobrist had actually created an airborne vector virus. Next she had displayed fleeting hope when she learned that the virus was not designed to kill people. Then … slowly, there had been the spiraling horror as the truth set in, and she realized that vast portions of the earth’s population would be rendered sterile. It was clear that the revelation that the virus attacked human fertility affected Sinskey on a deeply personal level.

In Sienna’s case, the overwhelming emotion was relief. She had shared the complete contents of Bertrand’s letter with the WHO director. I have no more secrets.

“Elizabeth?” Langdon ventured.

Sinskey emerged slowly from her thoughts. When she returned her gaze to them, her face was drawn. “Sienna,” she began, speaking in a flat tone, “the information you have provided will be very helpful in preparing a strategy to deal with this crisis. I appreciate your candor. As you know, pandemic vector viruses have been discussed theoretically as a possible way to immunize large populations, but everyone believed that the technology was still many years away.”

Sinskey returned to her desk, where she sat down.

“Forgive me,” she said, shaking her head. “This all feels like science fiction to me at the moment.”

Not surprising, Sienna thought. Every quantum leap in medicine had always felt this way—penicillin, anesthesia, X-rays, the first time humans looked through a microscope and saw a cell divide.

Dr. Sinskey gazed down at her notepad. “In a few hours, I will arrive in Geneva to a firestorm of questions. I have no doubt that the first question will be whether there is any way to counteract this virus.”

Sienna suspected she was right.

“And,” Sinskey continued, “I imagine the first proposed solution will be to analyze Bertrand’s virus, understand it as best as we can, and then attempt to engineer a second strain of it—a strain that we reprogram in order to change our DNA back to its original form.” Sinskey did not look optimistic as she turned her gaze to Sienna. “Whether a countervirus is even possible remains to be seen, but hypothetically speaking, I’d like to hear your thoughts on that approach.”

My thoughts? Sienna felt herself glance reflexively at Langdon. The professor gave her a nod, sending a very clear message: You’ve come this far. Speak your mind. Tell the truth as you see it.

Sienna cleared her throat, turned to Sinskey, and spoke in a clear, strong voice. “Ma’am, the world of genetic engineering is one I’ve inhabited with Bertrand for many years. As you know, the human genome is an extremely delicate structure … a house of cards. The more adjustments we make, the greater the chances we mistakenly alter the wrong card and bring the entire thing crashing down. My personal belief is that there is enormous danger in attempting to undo what has already been done. Bertrand was a genetic engineer of exceptional skill and vision. He was years ahead of his peers. At this point in time, I’m not sure I would trust anyone else to go poking around in the human genome, hoping to get it right. Even if you designed something you thought might work, trying it would involve reinfecting the entire population with something new.”

“Very true,” Sinskey said, seeming unsurprised by what she had just heard. “But of course, there is the bigger issue. We might not even want to counteract it.”

Her words caught Sienna off guard. “I’m sorry?”