A CONVERSATION WITH RICHARD PRESTONQ: The Cobra Event is a novel, and your previous books, including The Hot Zone, have been nonfiction. Why did you decide to write fiction?
RP: Because of the subject. The Cobra Event is about a secret F.B.I. operation to stop a terrorist from using a biological weapon--a genetically engineered virus--in New York City. It's based on the same kind of reporting I do for my nonfiction books, but in fact there hasn't been a major bio-terror event in this country yet, and so I had to imagine one--which wasn't too hard, since my sources think that one could occur at any moment, and they are preparing for it.
Q: What are biological weapons?
RP: They used to be called germ-warfare weapons. Disease-causing organisms are loaded into bombs or delivery systems. Things like Ebola virus, smallpox, and Black Death have been weaponized by various countries around the world. And genetic engineering has entered the picture. That's using advanced biology to alter or mix the genes of a virus to make it more powerful and deadly.
Q: This is frightening stuff. How real is this?
RP: Make no make mistake about it, biological weapons are real. For years, our scientific and political leaders pretended the problem didn't exist. They swept bioweapons under the rug. Now we're getting to payback time, and the government is scrambling to plan for the worst. It's really shocking. A number of countries are experimenting with what is known as "black biology," the genetic engineering of military viruses and bacteria. There is enormous potential for terrorism or a serious biological accident. Sooner or later, biological weapons are going to be used. Some people think that they already have been used.
Q: Are you exaggerating?
RP: I wish I were. The evidence is powerful. The USSR had intercontinental missiles loaded with freeze-dried Black Death, Ebola, and perhaps smallpox virus targeted all over the planet, especially on the United States and Europe. And since the fall of the Soviet Union, it appears that modern Russia has lost control of some of its scientists and its military viruses. I describe this situation in the book. The sections entitled "Invisible History" are essentially straight nonfiction reporting. I can't resist nonfiction.
Q: How did you do the research?
RP: I conducted over a hundred interviews with people in government agencies, in the military, and in the scientific community. The Cobra Event took me three years to research. There was an immense amount of information to learn and somehow convey to readers. One of the things I felt I had to do was to participate in a human autopsy. My notebook from that day is stained with blood and brain fluid.
Q: Why an autopsy?
RP: One of the main themes of the book is a forensic investigation--the examination of physical evidence to establish the perpetrator of a crime. The principal physical evidence in The Cobra Event is the bodies of the people who are killed by the terrorist, and the unknown life form inside the bodies. The central character is a pathologist from the CDC.
Q: Where did you get the idea for the book?
RP: It was an outgrowth of The Hot Zone, which was about natural Ebola virus coming from the rain forest. Ebola virus can also come from a bioreactor. That's a machine that makes a lot of virus really fast. In doing my research for The Hot Zone I learned that Ebola was in the hands of a bunch of really sinister figures and that they could use it on us. I began doing interviews with some very interesting anonymous sources, and pretty soon I learned that Ebola is not the only weapon out there.
Q: What about our government? Does the U.S. military have secret biological weapons?
RP: God, I hope not. I don't think so, personally. We signed the Biological Weapons Convention in 1972, and I think we've honored that treaty. All I can say is, the U.S. government is the leakiest government in the world, and I'm walking proof of that. If the country had secret caches of bioweapons, the information would leak soon enough. And I would hope that the American public would raise an outcry and stop it. The United States should not have biological weapons and we should not use them on anyone for any reason.
Q: What would a bioterror event be like?
RP: No one knows for sure. A bioterror event is likely to play itself out in slow motion. People may die like flies, with extremely gruesome symptoms, but it will happen over time. It might spread through the population. When a bomb goes off, there's a bang and it's all over, with bodies lying around. With bioterror, the event goes on and on, and you don't know if you're going to die. People move around, incubating the hot agent, infecting others. Then the primary victims die, and perhaps their families die, and their co-workers die, from having been in contact. Emergency-room doctors, police, and ambulance squads might be practically wiped out, if the weapon was contagious. It could destroy a city's medical care system and leave the city without police or first responders. The hospitals would fill up instantly and would run out of antibiotics and medicines. There might be only a few doctors and nurses left to treat the victims. Most doctors have no idea how to diagnose a biological weapon in a human being. I doubt that most doctors would recognize a human being dying of engineered smallpox if the patient walked into their office. The doctor would be the next to die, of course.
Q: What can be done?
RP: It's not hopeless. We need to a plan a federal emergency response. We need advanced biosensor devices, machines that can identify a biological weapon fast. Such machines are coming into use. We need stockpiles of antiobiotics and vaccines with an emergency delivery system. If a whiff of anthrax drifted over New York, there wouldn't be enough Cipro in the whole world to cure the people who got sick. We need forensic investigators who can work fast under terrible conditions. Scientists around the world should educate themselves and break their disgraceful silence about biological weapons; they should live up to their responsibilities as scientists. We need to make a point to certain countries: this has to stop. It won't stop, but we need to make the point anyway, because our own safety depends on it.
Questions or Comments about The Cobra Event?
Email Richard Preston at
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