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AMERICAN BIOCHEMIST WINS NOBEL PRIZE  

Stockholm , Mon (AFP, AP)  

Dr. Walter Spencer of the Biogenetics Research Group at John Hopkins University will be awarded the Noble Prize for Biochemistry today.  This distinction follows his pioneering work in development of a bacterium that has never existed before on the face of the Earth, a bacterium that consumes oil slicks.  

This bacterium recently cleared the unprecedented oil slick in the Persian Gulf caused by the partial destruction of Kharg Island oil facilities.  

Environmentalists state that a large amount of oil in the Gulf also comes from seepages in the sea bed, cracks in oil rigs, illegal discharges by oil companies, and vessels and accidental spills.  

Spencer’s new bacterium promises to clear the world's oceans of oil spills and thus return the seas and shores to their pristine natural beauty.  Dr. Spencer has named his bacterium, "Bacillis SpencerProteus", now known simply in the scientific community as "Proteus". 

TWO                            

Damman,  

Tuesday, June 16

Ali Hassan Saati tossed and turned.  A horrible image attempted to pry itself out of his subconscious.  A cold sweat drove him from his bed. 

He donned his white thobe and his leather sandals, forsaking in haste his checkered gutra headdress, and raced to his company provided Toyota Camry. 

He prayed that Allah would protect him as he recklessly sped towards the Abqaiq Oilfields to the south, past graveyards of rusted automobiles.  The overnight change from camels to Cadillacs had not been kind to thousands of his brethren, Allah notwithstanding. 

Saati knew that the foul smell of Proteus would soon recede, as he drove inland.  Those that lived on the coast of the Arabian Gulf--none dared call it the Persian Gulf in Arabia --had either adapted to the smell or moved away, a supposed small price to pay for the miraculous work of Proteus. 

Saati approached a dimly lit guardhouse and saw a guard slumbered amidst piles of Broast chicken bones and the smell of the hookah.  Saati reached inside the open window to activate the gate, fortunately indeed, for he had forgotten his identification badge in his haste. 

He searched out the first looming hulk of an oil tank and rose upon the steel tank ladder as fast as his sandals would allow.  He turned the heavy wheel and pried back the rusty hatch. 

An overpowering odor presented itself to Saati's nostrils.  He knew immediately.  The smell was the same as that drifting off the Gulf.  Saati's stomach convulsed.  He realized that Proteus was in the tanks. 

He raced to the guardhouse.  The guard was still nodding off under the influence of the hookah and offered no resistance to Saati's insistence upon using the telephone.  Saati quickly dialed, but the ringing took quite some time.  Finally, an answer.  Saati began. 

"Ted, we have got a big problem here." 

"Who is this?  Do you know what time it is?"  The Chief Production Chemist at ARAMCO, Theodore “Ted” Helmer, was not used to solving problems in the wee hours of the morning. 

"This is Ali.  I checked the Abqaiq tanks.  It is the smell." 

"What smell, Ali?  Have you been drinking sadeeki?" 

"No, Ted.  It is the smell.  You know . . . the smell from the Gulf." 

Ted was silent. 

"Ted, do you hear me?" 

After a moment, and softer now, "Are you sure…?" 

"I know the smell.  You know the smell." 

"I know the smell.  Did you see anything?" 

"No.  It is still too dark, but I heard bubbling." 

"Jesus, the goddamn thing may be in the tanks.  Jesus, I do not believe it.  I will be right there.  Do not leave.  I am coming right away.  Jesus!" 

Saati rushed out into the night to check the other tanks, praying against hope that this one tank was just an anomaly. 

THREE                          

Grand Hotel  

Stockholm,  

Seven Hours Later, Tuesday, June 16 

Dr. Walter Spencer, or "Spence" as his colleagues affectionately called him, basked in the mid-morning Swedish summer sun, and of no lesser consequence, in his recently gained notoriety as a Nobel Laureate. 

At his side was his recent bride, Susan, an up and coming biogeneticist in her own right.  She had been a relentless helper in his late night quest to find that one gene, the one gene that would convert a common bacterium into the "Oil Slick Killer". 

Susan was pretty, a fact that did not go unnoticed by Spence, as they worked late into most nights.  Of course, the fact that Spence's work, if successful, would result in a Nobel Prize, did not escape Susan's attention.  This and the late nights combined into another genetic combination, Bryan, their son. 

This later combination catalyzed another reaction, their marriage.  Birth without wedlock might not have set well with the Nobel Committee.  Bryan rolled around on the sand with Mother ever watchful that the waterfront did not prematurely claim their new son. 

With thoughts of the previous afternoon news conference still coursing through his mind, Spence did not notice the hotel bellhop rushing towards him. 

"Dr. Spencer, Dr. Spencer!  There is a long distance telephone call for you." 

Spence was irritated at being robbed of his reverie and shot back, "Please tell them that I am on vacation.  I do not want to be disturbed.  Take a message." 

"But Dr. Spencer, he seems quite insistent." 

"Who is he?"

 "He says he is your colleague, a Doctor Bearnsteen, or something like that, and he seems quite excited.  He says that it is urgent.  He must talk to you immediately." 

Spence ran through the possibilities.  Dr. Saul Berenstein, his Department Chairperson, was not one to exaggerate matters.  Perhaps the team had cracked the Proteus genetic code further.  Or perhaps he had finally found the gene that neutralized radioactivity.  No, he was years from that.  Then, he realized it was 3 o’clock in the morning for Saul.  Spence realized that perhaps he had better answer this call. 

Spence ran up several flights of stairs to his top floor hotel suite from the waterfront and breathlessly answered the call. 

"This is Spence.  What is it, Saul?" 

"Spence, I do not know how to say this." 

"You discovered something great.  You discovered the gene!" 

"Well, not exactly." 

"What do you mean, 'not exactly'?" 

"Well, Spence, there is some rather disturbing news coming in from the Persian Gulf." 

"What?  Is Proteus still doing well?" 

"In a fashion.  Proteus is still doing well, perhaps too well." 

"What exactly do you mean, Saul?" 

"I mean, Spence, that Proteus is doing too well.  Someone has discovered Proteus in the oil tanks in a major Saudi oilfield, in the Abqaiq field!" 

Spence did not quite grok what he had just heard.  His brain struggled to rationalize this new information.  "You mean that someone has sabotaged an oil tank by slipping in a dose of Proteus?" 

"I do not think so, Spence." 

Silence. 

"Spence, the preliminary indications are that Proteus is invading the oil tanks of Saudi Arabia.  They are confirming invasion and incubation of Proteus in numerous tanks, and they continue to find Proteus in more tanks as they search further.  It does not look good." 

Silence. 

"Spence, Proteus has worked its way into the oil tanks and is eating the oil of Saudi Arabia.  The only theory they have to go on is that Proteus works its way from the Persian Gulf waters into the oil of the deep sea loading pipelines for the oil tankers, past the thin oil coating of the washers in the valves, and up the pipelines, past further valves, and eventually into the tanks themselves.  Upstream, the valves between the tanks and the oil fields themselves are also the same valves.  We have been cranking the numbers for hours.  Theoretically, Proteus will proceed into the oil fields.  Spence, do you hear what I am saying?" 

Spence not only heard what he was saying, his superior mind was racing ahead to the full ramifications of what Saul was relaying to him, to visions of contaminated oil tanks, tankers, even crankcases, all over the World.  It suddenly dawned upon Spence that he had perhaps unwittingly unleashed upon the World an agent capable of destroying substantially all of the World's oil reserves, perhaps of destroying the modern civilized World, a World made modern and civilized only because of oil. 

This news was simply too much for Spence.  From fame and fortune to perpetrator of world catastrophe in a few simple seconds.  Spence's mind simply cracked. 

"Spence, Spence, what are we going to do?" 

Spence dropped the receiver on the marble floor, smashing it to pieces, an omen of what was to come of his life in a few seconds.  Dr. Berenstein could only hear faint sounds of glass breaking in his telephone’s earpiece. 

Susan was not so fortunate.  Turning around to confront the sound of shattering glass, she saw a figure falling to the waterfront from the hotel high above, a figure that too quickly and frighteningly resembled her husband. 

Susan instinctively ran and grabbed Bryan to shield his view of the quivering corpse. 

FOUR                                

The White House 

Washington, D. C. 

Two Hours Later, Tuesday, June 16 

The five months new President of the turned fitfully in his sleep.  He walked down an unknown street, not knowing who he was, afraid to ask anyone for fear of embarrassment.  This was a recurring dream, yet fortunately, not one to infest his separate waking world with such insecurities. 

"Jack, Jack, please wake up, Jack!  The Chief of Staff very much wants to talk to you." 

It was Marilyn.  She woke him rarely in the middle of the night. 

"Chuck wants to see you," more urgently this time. 

Perhaps the Iranians had finally blown up Tel Aviv with a nuclear device.  Or an insane Russian general had closeted himself in a strategic nuclear missile installation and was blackmailing the entire world.  Or now had the capability to destroy every American satellite in space and was prepared to sell it to anyone who had the money.  The President did not relish hearing of this obvious new crisis.  Why couldn’t the world just sleep when he slept? 

He wondered if he would have time to brush his teeth.  No, Chuck was just outside the door, and his voice was uncharacteristically anxious. 

Rising to his official, and most uncomfortable, bathrobe in the First Lady's hands, the President bellowed out in his controlling manner, "Where is the fire this time?" 

"In the Middle East , Mr. President." 

An Iranian thrust into ?  A pre-emptive Israeli strike against Tehran ?  The President definitely did not want to hear about a problem in the Middle East .  No American president had ever played well in that region. 

His predecessor, George W. Bush, had been brought down in his helicopter by an American Stinger missile originally provided to the Mujahideen to fight the Soviet Union .  The Mujahideen later became the Taliban, then al-Queda, who ironically turned these Stingers against their makers. 

Vice-President Cheney had become President and soon died of his heart complications.  Enduring () Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and other anti-terrorist campaigns continued for years to this day, as President Bush had predicted. 

"Mr. President.  John Hopkins University called.  There is an organism, a bacterium I think, called 'Proteus', which may be consuming all of the oil in the Middle East." 

The President wondered whether he had really woken up.  "Come again?" 

"Mr. President.  I know this sounds extraordinarily strange, but I believe that a frightening thing is indeed happening in the Middle East." 

"Yes." 

"And it might not stop there." 

"Oh?" 

"John Hopkins seems to think we have a catastrophic process at work here.  Yes, those are their exact words, 'catastrophic process'." 

The President reached back through the years for a proper response.  "Are they sure?" 

"They are on their way to see you, Sir, and they will arrive in just over an hour, Sir." 

The President wondered if being President was such a wise decision. 

"So important as to wake up the President?" queried the First Lady. 

"Well," the Chief of Staff hesitated, "The boys at John Hopkins felt that once the President had the facts, he might want to make this his number one priority, yes, 'his number one priority,' they said." 

The President now wished he had never instructed his Chief of Staff to advise him in straight quotations. 

"Furthermore, Mr. President, they said we do not have any known way of stopping it.  Yes, 'no conceivable way of…’" 

"Okay, enough!"  The President's optimistic demeanor was not used to hearing such fatalistic talk.  "Let us hear what the boys from John Hopkins have to say.  I have to brush my teeth.  What did you say the name of that thing was?" 

"Proteus, Sir." 

"Jesus, Proteus.  It sounds like a CIA code name.  Shit!  CIA better not be involved in this," thought the President. 

"Who do you want, sir?" 

The President wondered who could possibly be appropriate, or helpful, and quiet, if this turned out to be a hoax.  CIA would have to be there. 

"Sir?" 

"CIA and NSC." 

"Anyone else, sir?" 

"No, Chuck, that will be quite enough for now.  And not a word of this to anyone." 

"Yes, sir." 

The President started for his toothbrush.  

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