It was late afternoon in central Bangkok.
In an air-conditioned coffee shop, two men were huddled around a small table with empty coffee cups. The younger fair-haired one, was
dressed in dark shorts and a white tee shirt printed with a green and red apple and the words “An apple a day keeps a cold away.” H e leaned forward.
The older, bigger man, in a dark grey suit and open-necked white shirt, leaned back, swiped at a fly and then ran his fingers through the thinning black hair He scraped his chair back and stood up, ready to go. As he did so, the younger one felt his phone in the back pocket of his shorts vibrate.
I had delayed phoning Solomon to give Colin a chance to set up some sort of tracing system. Once he was ready, I called the number. My fear now was that Solomon would not answer the phone but would immediately switch it off. But he answered. “Yes? Just a moment.”
In the background, I heard a metal table or chair move and a cup rattle. Then: “Yes? Who is it?”
“Dr Solomon?” I asked.
“Who is it?”
“My name’s David Morris. I was given your number by Ms. Sarapee at KAVRU.”
The name dropping seemed to satisfy him. “How can I help?” he said in an educated English accent.
“I’m from the UK but in Bangkok with my wife - honeymoon trip.
Her choice. I’m professor of social and economic history at Bristol University with a particular interest in the effects of human population growth. Can I ask if you’re the Solomon who occasionally posts messages on the Malthus Society website?”
Silence, so I went on: “It’s just that I recently spoke to someone who mentioned your name. He said you might be working in Thailand.”
Silence, but he didn’t switch off. “Guy Williams. Do you know him?”
I was sure Solomon would now want to know more.
He spoke. “Where did you meet him?”
“On the River Nile in Egypt. Part of the honeymoon adventure. My wife likes temples and Tutankhamun. We were on a cruise, got off at a hotel somewhere downriver and got talking over gins and tonics. I mentioned my interest in human population growth, and he said that if we were heading on to Thailand, I should speak to you. That you were an expert.” I waited. If necessary, I could even describe the setting right down to the tablecloth and Guy’s colourful outfit.
Suspicious. “Did he give you my phone number?”
“Oh no. I got it from KAVRU. I knew you were a virologist and the only likely place where you might be working was KAVRU. Sheer chance.” False politeness accompanied by an embarrassed laugh. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Silence. Solomon was thinking and probably moving about and paying a bill for coffee or something but he still hadn’t switched off.
“I’m terribly sorry to bother you,” I continued in an English sort of way, “but I’m writing an article on Thomas Malthus for a magazine.
Guy said you might be up for a chat, especially on the environmental side of things. Any chance of a chat over a coffee?”
“I’m far too busy just at the moment.”
“Shame,” I said. “Are you in Bangkok?”
“Yes, but I’m just too busy.”
“But Guy said you were an expert. Why the hell aren’t population control methods enforced? No one even wants to talk about overpopulation. Look at Bangkok, for Christ’s sake. You can hardly walk on the footpath for traders trying to scrape a living and a million tourists from God knows where. Cairo was even worse.”
Solomon was loosening. “I agree. Malthus saw it coming more than two hundred years ago. But if a modern politician mentions population control it’s a quick route to political suicide.”
I was getting somewhere. Kevin, a real teacher of social and economic history, had been my education. “But something’s got to happen,” I said. “Look at Africa. Look at food and water shortages, the fighting over land and mineral resources, environmental destruction, and mass economic migration. There are not enough jobs, there is no hope, there is no…”
“You’re right,” Solomon said and I heard a chair being scraped up as if he was sitting down again. “Someone once said that synthetic biology could fuel us, heal us, and feed us, but it’s not the full solution. There are still too many of us.”
“So, what can be done?”
“Enforced population control. We can tailor living cells to act like electronic circuits, we can make synthetic plant leaves produce fuel, we can do anything we like with bioengineering. But everything is pointless if the population continues to grow like it is. There will be no quality of life for those that biology itself gives birth to.”
“You are so, so right,” I said pathetically. “It all goes back to lack of political will, doesn’t it?”
“Of course. The problem is self-interested politicians and their short-term thinking. They do not understand science, and they survive on public ignorance. They deny them the facts and do nothing because they are too afraid of infringing the modern laws they’ve invented.
Human rights are a good example. But is it a human right to live like overcrowded rats in a cage?”
Solomon then took a detour into crop genetics and lost me for a minute or so but I didn’t butt in in case it speeded things up. Then he was back to Malthus and a few others that even Kevin never mentioned. It was clear I’d touched a nerve. The one thing that was driving Solomon’s daily thoughts and daily actions was this subject, so I tried to keep him talking. Kevin had been so influential that I found myself remembering things he’d said.
“I recently re-read the old Henry Kissinger reports for the National Security Council,” I said. “Do you recall it?”
“Of course,” Solomon said. “And more recently, there was John Pimentel’s research at Cornell, where he states that the Earth can support a population of two billion individuals but only if all individuals are willing to live with Western standards and use natural resources sustainably. He stated that reducing population to a sustainable two billion would take more than one hundred years, and that was if every couple worldwide agreed to produce an average of only one child. Direct action is necessary. We cannot wait for politicians. In 1968, Garrett Hardin proposed relinquishing the freedom to breed. He said we are breeding ourselves into oblivion.
How right. But still, we see no action.”
“And what about Jeffrey Sachs?” I asked, recalling another name from Kevin. “Didn’t he call his Reith Lecture ‘Bursting at the Seams’?”
“But then look at the opposition, the Roman Catholic Church,” It was a clear sign that anger was starting to boil. “Every Pope talks about solving poverty, but if they checked their accounts instead of cooking them and had a genuine understanding of what it means to be poor, they’d find they’ve got enough money to help solve all the problems they get so upset about.”
“It’s all about money,” I said, wondering how much longer I could keep going.
“Money and technology will solve the problem,” said Solomon. “We need scientists in charge of politics. What did you say your name was?”
“David Morris,” I said. “Dr David Morris.”
“Listen, I’ve got to go. Nice speaking to you. Have a nice honeymoon.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I hope we meet sometime.”
Colin called a short while later as Anna and I were eating a spicy charcoal-grilled fish with rice on the roadside close to our hotel.
“We’ve traced it,” he said. “He was calling from somewhere on Soi 11, Sukhumvit. You know the area?”
“Know it?” I said, “Right now, we’re on Soi 5. Our hotel is on Soi 9, and we’ve just walked the whole length of Soi 11 looking for somewhere to eat.”
It was good news in a way, but the Skytrain, taxis, and buses can whisk you away within minutes. “So, what’s your plan, Jinx?”
“To stick around here for a while. A lot goes on around these streets. I might be wrong, but that old gut feeling, instinct, and intuition are telling me he’s not far away. He might not like crowds of people, but I reckon he’d put up with that just to hide in an area like this amongst every nationality, every language, and every skin colour invented.
There are hundreds of places to live undetected and all manner of dubious businesses in the backstreets.” I paused. “Where are we with the police?”
“We’re expecting an Interpol red notice for GOB, requested by Washington, to go out within hours. That means, if he’s in Thailand, the Thai police can issue a formal arrest warrant with a view to extradition.”
“And Solomon?
“More difficult. Everything hinges on the problem you already highlighted - proof of what he’s actually done wrong. Has he actually committed a crime? Is he a terrorism threat? Should he be arrested on suspicion only? I’m getting asked for evidence all the time but they’re basing so much on our report that we’re getting Arabic and Thai translations made.”
“So, the Interpol position on Solomon is what?”
“We might get a blue notice at best - a request for additional information about a person in relation to a crime. Virex could start that one rolling, but Charles Brady still has no idea what’s going on.
And if you’ve not had enough different colour notices for one day, how about an orange notice? We’re trying it. An orange one warns the police and others about potential threats from disguised weapons or other dangerous materials. Lethal viruses shipped around under uncontrolled conditions could fit into that category.”
“And your professional judgement and conclusion is what then, Colin?”
“Solomon could slip through the net,” he said.
Colin rang off, and I returned to pulling fish bones from between my teeth while Anna had started on the fish’s head. “Is this man dangerous?” she asked.
I think she meant would he shoot me or inject me with his virus if he got close enough. If he had a few friends around that we knew nothing about things could get tricky but, “No,” I said reassuringly.
But what about the danger he could pose by issuing an instruction to others to start releasing the virus? I dismissed that. I suspected it was O’Brian or El Badry who would do that. Maybe they already had, and it was too late. And someone needed to check on Tunji who was in Nigeria.
And what about the threat to Anna? I dismissed that too.
Mistakes are so quick and easy to make.