At Any Price

Herbert Highstone


Chapter 1

"No germ warfare! No germ warfare!"

"Hey hey, ho ho! Genocide has got to go!"

The demonstrators were getting out of control again, and Senator Lester McKinley, the chairman of the National Security Subcommittee, vigorously pounded his gavel for order. His congressional hearing was turning into a riot, and McKinley, who was a conservative Republican from Indiana, was getting hot under the collar.

"If these demonstrations continue," Senator McKinley said, "I will instruct our security personnel to take whatever action is required to maintain order in this hearing. Mr. Colton, I'm not questioning your credentials as a genetic engineer."

Colton was glaring at McKinley with unconcealed disgust.

"You aren't competent to question the credentials of a short-order cook," he sneered. McKinley was simmering with rage. He pounded his big wooden gavel until the laughter subsided.

"If I hear one more insult, I'll cite you for contempt of Congress," the senator said. "It is perfectly clear to this committee that your dangerous and subversive proposal is nothing less than germ warfare, which is specifically prohibited by the Biological Weapons Treaty of 1972. This criminal germ warfare conspiracy that you are trying to hatch, this treasonable plot to attack Third World nations with vicious new diseases--"

"To hell with the treaty!" Colton shouted. "It's only a piece of paper! You've got to understand that all I want to do is save our kids from illegal drugs."

"Your dangerous and ill-conceived plan would have disastrous consequences," McKinley said. "You want to use germ warfare to win a brutal and unlawful victory in the war on drugs. All of the world's cocaine comes from the leaves of one single kind of plant, the coca plant. You are proposing to develop a genetically engineered disease that would wipe out all of those coca plants and bring cocaine production to a complete standstill."

"And why not?" Colton said.

"You are threatening to unleash a new kind of scientific terrorism that could destroy human civilization," McKinley said. "To deliberately manufacture and spread a dangerous new disease can only be described as germ warfare, and every civilized person on this planet will have to agree with me when I say that germ warfare is absolutely illegal and totally immoral!"

The crowded hearing room erupted in an outburst of applause, but the cheers were nearly drowned out by loud shouts of disapproval.

"No more crack babies! No more crack babies!" a group of women screamed. They called themselves American Mothers Against Crack, and their shrill outbursts disgusted the senator. McKinley had no sympathy at all for their wild-eyed fanaticism. So what if their miserable brats were hooked on crack? So what if a few million depraved and weak-minded citizens of our great nation were committing suicide by smoking crack cocaine? If they aren't fit to live, the senator thought, let them die! And good riddance to bad rubbish!

As if that gang of screaming harpies wasn't enough, the hearing room felt like a steam bath. Something had gone wrong with the air conditioning, and the notoriously humid heat of the nation's capital was roasting the entire building. And worst of all, CNN was broadcasting Colton's crazy rhetoric all over the world.

Victor Colton was gulping a glass of water. The man looked tall even when he was sitting down. He had dark, straight hair that made McKinley think of Geronimo, and his green eyes had a strange and devilish glow. Wolf eyes, McKinley thought. That lunatic Colton has wolf eyes. Back in dear old Indiana, when we see a dog look at us like that, we shoot it.

"I want the American people to know that your insane germ warfare plot could sabotage peace and economic stability throughout the entire Western Hemisphere," McKinley said. "Your proposal is a treasonable conspiracy to hijack the foreign policy of our great nation. In my opinion, you are the most dangerous man in the United States!"

There was another long burst of applause. Colton glared at McKinley.

"The real traitors in this room are the cowardly politicians who let the drug lords keep on killing our kids! You and your kind are the worst traitors since Benedict Arnold!"

The audience roared louder than ever, and the senator's rage finally boiled over.

"Don't you try to intimidate me," McKinley snarled.

"I'm telling you the plain and simple truth," Colton shouted. "If you're intimidated by the truth, you should resign from the United States Senate!"

McKinley felt as if Colton had punched him in the nose. The arrogance of that man was intolerable. As the senator gaveled for order, he felt a hand pulling on his arm. It was Harland Parris, the eighty-year-old dean of the Senate, who had asked to attend the drug control hearings as an observer.

"You'd better declare a recess," the old man said. "This hearing is turning into the Jerry Springer show."

"Don't be ridiculous," McKinley said. "Victor Colton is a dangerous extremist and he must be destroyed. When I'm through with him, his credibility will be less than zero."

But now Colton was completely out of control. His face was contorted with rage as he screamed into the microphone.

"We now have the power to completely eliminate the cocaine industry! I could personally wipe that filthy drug clear off the face of the earth! Why won't you let me do it? Why are you protecting the drug lords? Why are you giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States?"

The hearing room exploded into chaos. There was wild applause and equally loud booing. People in the audience were standing up and shouting at each other. Three men suddenly unrolled a banner that said LET COLTON SAVE OUR KIDS, and the television crews were pushing and shoving like hogs at a trough.

"This godless new technology could destroy all of us!" McKinley shouted. "Your irresponsible germ warfare scheme would plunge the world into war, epidemic, and total economic ruin! Your complete rejection of all the standards of civilized--"

"Cocaine killed my babies!" a woman screamed. "Senator McKinley is a murderer! He's a baby killer!"

The woman forced her way through the thin line of security people who were trying to protect the podium where the senators were sitting, and now she was screaming right in McKinley's face.

"Murderer! Baby killer! What about our children? Why do you want to kill our children?"

She was yelling like a crazy person as the security men pulled her back. The senator was astonished by her insane outburst. She'd gladly claw my eyes out, he thought. Those people are animals, all of them! Nothing more than animals!

"We need to cut this off before somebody gets hurt," Senator Parris said. Then Colton rose to his feet, and his words lashed through the air like the strokes of a whip.

"Do you represent the American people, senator? Do you understand the terrible pain of our desperate parents who are watching helplessly while cocaine murders their children? Or do you actually represent the drug lords of Colombia? Make up your mind, senator! We want an answer and we want it now!"

At that point an angry chorus of voices began to shout a simple slogan over and over again.

"No more drugs! No more drugs!"

The defiant chant rose louder and louder, and people began to stamp their feet in time with the inflammatory words. Nobody was paying any attention to McKinley's endlessly pounding gavel.

"I won't let this drug slaughter continue any longer!" Colton shouted. "The time has come for us--for us to decide--"

Then he abruptly collapsed, and as he lay on the floor his face looked as white as a sheet of paper. McKinley could hear voices shouting over the uproar.

"Is there a doctor here?"

"He isn't breathing. I can't get a pulse."

"Get the police! Call an ambulance!"

An aide was talking into McKinley's ear.

"The police are using tear gas. You'd better adjourn this hearing right now."

"Nonsense!" the chairman shouted. Once again he pounded for order, but the gavel broke in his hand. Then old Senator Parris grabbed McKinley's microphone, and his slow Southern drawl echoed through the hearing room like the voice of God.

"Due to the indisposition of the witness, this committee will stand in recess until ten o'clock tomorrow morning." Senator McKinley was as mad as a wet hen.

"You had no right to do that," he barked. "I'm the chairman of this committee!"

"I can smell the tear gas already," Parris said. "It's time for us to get out of here. There's a door right behind us. Let's use it before we have a riot on our hands."

The blue-coated Capitol Hill police were dragging Colton up the crowded aisle of the hearing room through a blaze of television lights, forcing a path through the surging mob. The scientist's head wobbled limply and he seemed to be unconscious. Maybe he'll die, McKinley thought. Wouldn't it be just wonderful if that insolent and insufferable man decided to die? Then we'd be rid of him for good, him and his dangerous ideas.

The two senators had just stepped into the hallway behind the hearing room, but already the minicams and the glaring television lights were rushing toward them, and the reporters were shouting at the top of their lungs.

"Senator McKinley, Senator McKinley! Were you aware of Victor Colton's heart condition? Did you know that the stress of these hearings could have killed him?"