World War Z_ An Oral History of the Zombie War ( PDFDrive )

Paul turned the last page, then looked to me and said very matter-of-factly, “This is pretty bad,
huh?” I nodded, so did he, then followed up with “So what are we going to do about it?”
And that is how the “Warmbrunn-Knight” report was written.
I wish people would stop calling it that. There were fifteen other names on that report: virologists,
intelligence operatives, military analysts, journalists, even one UN observer who’d been
monitoring the elections in Jakarta when the first outbreak hit Indonesia. Everyone was an expert
in his or her field, everyone had come to their own similar conclusions before ever being contacted
by us. Our report was just under a hundred pages long. It was concise, it was fully comprehensive,
it was everything we thought we needed to make sure this outbreak never reached epidemic
proportions. I know a lot of credit has been heaped upon the South African war plan, and
deservedly so, but if more people had read our report and worked to make its recommendations a
reality, then that plan would have never needed to exist.
But some people did read and follow your report. Your own
government…
Barely, and just look at the cost.
BETHLEHEM, PALESTINE
[With his rugged looks and polished charm, Saladin Kader could be a movie star.
He is friendly but never obsequious, self-assured but never arrogant. He is a
professor of urban planning at Khalil Gibran University, and, naturally, the love of
all his female students. We sit under the statue of the university’s namesake.
Like everything else in one of the Middle East’s most affluent cities, its polished
bronze glitters in the sun.]
I was born and raised in Kuwait City. My family was one of the few “lucky” ones not to be
expelled after 1991, after Arafat sided with Saddam against the world. We weren’t rich, but
neither were we struggling. I was comfortable, even sheltered, you might say, and oh did it show in
my actions.
I watched the Al Jazeera broadcast from behind the counter at the Starbucks where I worked
every day after school. It was the afternoon rush hour and the place was packed. You should have
heard the uproar, the jeers and catcalls. I’m sure our noise level matched that on the floor of the
General Assembly.
Of course we thought it was a Zionist lie, who didn’t? When the Israeli ambassador announced to
the UN General Assembly that his country was enacting a policy of “voluntary quarantine,” what