BioKill (5 page)

There was a knock on the door. Hall called out for the person to enter and a piece of paper was handed to him. Placing his glasses on he quickly read the contents. “Well, that was goddam quick.” His glasses were taken off and placed on the table. “Got to hand it to the Israelis, when they act they act fast. Mossad picked up the farmer who supplied the original virus. Now we know it’s no longer a threat. It’s real.”

“Pass it here, Allan.”

Hall shuffled the note to Lopez. “Mossad extacted information from the farmer.”

“Fingernail by fingernail, I imagine.” It was the first time Lilburn had spoken in the meeting.

Hall looked at him sharply. “It appears this farmer has terrorist links. He peeled off pieces of infectious material from his animals and posted them to his contact.”

“So we have an address, here in America. We need to act fast.”

“Hold your horses, Doc. The virus wasn’t posted to the States. It went to Syria.”

“Oh shit!”

Lilburn was surprised — it was the first profanity he’d heard pass her elegant lips.
Uh oh
, he thought,
this can’t be good
.

Lopez handed the note back to Hall. “This changes things.”

Another knock on the door.

“Enter.”

A staffer appeared. “Sir, Ma’am. Mossad have supplied further info on the address in Syria. The house belongs to Mubarak Azrak — while he’s not known to us, his brother is.”

“And?”

“The brother’s name is Karam Azrak.” The staffer placed a file before Director Hall who, upon placing his glasses back on, read the first few pages. That, for the time being, was all he needed to see. Looking over the rim, Hall glanced at them. “
Oh shit
ain’t the half of it. Karam Azrak is one badass hardcore.”

“How bad, sir?” inquired Lilburn.

“Put it this way, if we had a pack of cards, like we did in Iraq, this man would be the wildcard,” Hall paused. “We can forget about this being an internal act. Azrak is Takfir wal-Hijra.”

Lopez looked sick. “Damn.”

“Dr. Crawston, I assume you’re familiar with this particular organization?”

“Somewhat, but I only have a little knowledge of their structure.”

“Takfir wal-Hijra is linked to al-Qaeda, it operates in several countries. To say they’re Islamic extremists does them a disservice — they’ll even kill other Muslims if they think they’re in the way. Martyrdom is their idea of greatness. These pricks like to keep a low profile. They’ll shave beards, drink alcohol, eat pork, whatever it takes to make themselves invisible in a Western country.” The director slammed his fist down on the table. “Hell, leastways we have a name; we now know the group behind it. Suzanna, get our teams looking to see who we have in the States right now with links to this group. Dr. Crawston, Lilburn, stay close. We may need you again shortly.”

Director Hall removed his glasses, stood up and stormed out the room like a bear with a sore paw. Lopez immediately followed. The teams in the operations room didn’t know it yet, but they were about to have their immediate plans cancelled. Homeland Security was winding up the intensity.

Inside the meeting room Lilburn could hear the two directors barking out commands to their respective subordinates. He’d seen the wheels of the intelligence service grinding over before; commanders demanding every stone be turned, every piece of the huge puzzle be studied, documented and peer reviewed. The information could take years to collate, and they didn’t have years. But it was the only way — intelligence from the field, no matter how seemingly insignificant, ultimately pieced together to make a picture. It had taken ten frustrating years to finally be able to pin down Osama bin Laden — this time they’d be lucky to have ten hours.
Like a needle in a haystack
, he thought.

“Matt,” Evangeline broke in on Lilburn’s thoughts. “Mossad said the virus was posted to Syria?”

“Correct.”

“Cheap, easy and if the postage service is working, efficient. So why not use the same method to get it to the States… It would seem logical. Just post it.”

“Surely border controls would pick up the infected material? The scanners… and those dogs pick up damn near everything that even looks like organic matter.”

She nodded. “Right, but we’re talking about possibly a tiny amount. You could wipe a handkerchief on an infected animal’s nose then take that handkerchief, neatly folded, through customs and wipe it on the nose of a non-infected animal. That’s all it takes.”

Lilburn didn’t waste any time. Swiftly rising from his chair, he left the meeting room.

Chapter Five

The two men
rose from their prayer mat, their prayer completed, their fate in the hands of Allah. So far the plan had been carried out with perfection. The parcel from Al-Zabadani, northwest of Damascus, had arrived on time in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York. Yusuf al-Nasseri was anxious to complete the next part of their assignment. The recent intrusion of the two New York police officers to their apartment had shown just how susceptible they were to the hands of fate. But as his companion Bashir Zuabi told him, Allah was on their side. They had been told, many times.

Both men were twenty-four years old and American citizens, raised from birth in New York. Their parents were proud, hardworking Syrians who had immigrated to the United States, hoping for a better life. The parents had kept their Muslim faith and did their best to instill the peaceful doctrines of Allah. Both couples, whose friendship started on American soil, felt immense pride when they heard George W. Bush proclaim Islam was a religion of peace. Their boys, Yusuf and Bashir, running together, found a darker, sinister path — one their parents had no idea they had taken.

Three years earlier, full of youthful enthusiasm and exuberance, the young friends followed their hearts and made a pilgrimage back to Syria. With the blessing of their parents they spent a week traveling the country, immersing themselves in tradition and religion. While in the capital city, Damascus, they were introduced to Karam Azrak — and a totally new concept of Islam. Their lives were transformed. At first they thought Azrak was amusing — highly independent and attractively rebellious. Initially they were skeptical, and hesitated when he talked about what he saw as the right and proper path to religious freedom. But little by little the charismatic Azrak brought them around to his way of thinking and before they knew it, the two impressionable Americans had been smuggled into Afghanistan, and a Takfir wal-Hijra training camp. The young men were returned to Syria then back to the United States, their bodies strengthened and their minds galvanized into taking up the armed fight to restore the unity of the Islamic world order. Takfir wal-Hijra sleepers in the streets of Brooklyn, they longed to be awoken.

While they waited, Yusuf and Bashir had involved themselves in the everyday life of typical young New Yorkers, nurturing as many friends as they could, preferably men or women with Christian backgrounds. They even attended Christian churches. They drank at the local bars, then drove the streets at night looking for one-night-stands, all the while reverting back to being good traditional Muslims when it came to visiting their parents. Karam Azrak and the training camp in Afghanistan had taught them well. When the package arrived from Al-Zabadani, with a traditional red and white checkered headscarf, they knew it had come from Azrak, and what they were required to do. Martyrdom was not far away.

“Come on, time to finish our preparation.” Bashir followed Yusuf into the kitchen. The second layer of the brown wrapping paper had been stripped of the packing tape with the virus-infected scabs attached. Border control had missed the highly potent animal tissue, which had passed undetected into the domestic postal service. The live virus, a virtual time bomb, was now on American soil.

The men had previously scraped off every small piece of scab they could find, then placed the tape into a jug of buffer solution with a pH between six and nine. Their training had told them anything outside this range would kill the virus.

Bashir took the petri dishes from the kitchen windowsill and looked at the contents. He was pleased with the way the culture had grown in the agar solution he had bought at the local chemist shop. It had been so simple. Purchase the sterile liquid agar, heat it in the microwave and place it in the dishes to set. After the agar was ready, he and Yusuf had rubbed the scabs over the agar, placed on it on the petri dishes and waited until nature had grown the culture. Two days later they scraped off the culture and placed it into a dissolving solution to prepare it for transfer to the next stage. Now, it was time for the final stage — mixing the solution of infected liquid and buffer solution, minus the tape, into the empty deodorant cans. Initially they had thought it would be a problem, but the internet provided the answer. No problem at all.

Yusuf al-Nasseri and Bashir Zuabi looked at the cans of foot-and-mouth virus, primed and ready to spray. Bashir placed his hand on his friend’s shoulder, grinned widely and said, “Boom!
Allahu akbar
.”

Chapter Six

Officer Ben Maitland
had completed his eight-to-four shift for the day, tired and footsore. Preoccupied, he drove his 1969 Ford Fairlane to his brother’s house, where as usual Marcie, his sister-in-law, would have prepared a good wholesome meal to compensate for his bachelor lifestyle. His brother Joe could be counted on to supply the liquid refreshment and their eight-year-old son was sure to ask his Uncle Ben if he had killed any ‘baddies’ that day.

Maitland pushed the accelerator down as the lights turned green. The red Fairlane with its raised bonnet air-intake spluttered across the busy intersection. The car might have been a classic but it was producing the classic signs of a vehicle needing some tender loving care; much like its owner. A vehicle immediately behind, its driver unimpressed with the Fairlane’s slow transition through the intersection, honked its horn loudly. “Alright already!” Maitland yelled abuse while looking in the rear-vision mirror. “Asshole.”

Thirty minutes later, having negotiated increasingly heavy rush-hour traffic, Maitland pulled into his brother’s driveway. Along with staircases, the other thing he hated with a passion was traffic — especially other drivers who raised his blood pressure. One day, he swore to himself, he would leave New York. The red car came to a stop. Placing the shift lever in park and then applying the handbrake, he reached forward to turn off the ignition. His unruly beast had other ideas and stalled itself. “Jesus, you piece of shit!”

Maitland was about to slam the car door shut when he heard his sister-in-law call out. Thinking better of it, he gently closed the door instead.

“Hiya, Ben.”

“Hi, Marcie honey. How’s your day been?”

“Just fine. Come on in, Gary’s been waiting all day to see his Uncle Ben. He wants to show you his new stamps.”

“Stamps today, girls tomorrow.”

“I know, I know, I’m worried already!”

Maitland followed his sister-in-law into the house. He and his brother Joe, two years older, had always gotten on well and when Joe married the petite blonde cheerleader from Jersey City, it was Joe who insisted he be best man.

Marcie called out to her son as she entered the front door, “Gary, Uncle Ben’s here.”

A skinny boy shot out of his bedroom and ran towards them down the hallway, yelling out “Hi, Uncle Ben” as he continued on without stopping into the front room. He jumped onto the three-seater couch seat cushions, using them as a springboard to disappear over the back. Almost instantly his head popped up, his face round and speckled with a huge grin. “Uncle Ben, Uncle Ben, come and see my new stamps!”

“Uncle Ben’ll play with you later, honey. Let me make him a coffee first, he’s just finished a hard day catching bad guys. Why don’t you watch ‘The Texas Ranger’ and I’ll fetch you some milk and cookies.”

“Aww, Mom. How about some Coke?”

“If you promise not to move from the TV until the cartoon is finished.”

“I promise, cross my heart.”

In the kitchen the two adults whittled away an hour with small talk. Maitland had long finished his third coffee and his sister-in-law was busy preparing the evening meal.

As Marcie finished peeling the potatoes Joe walked in the door. He gave a quick “Hello, son” to Gary, still watching the DVD, winked at Ben and snuck up behind Marcie at the kitchen sink. “I’m home, babe, as horny as a three-balled tomcat and thirsty as hell.”

“Joe! Did you forget? Ben’s here for dinner.”

Joe laughed, burying his nose in her hair. “I plumb forgot. Hey, little brother — how’s it hangin’?

“Same as always, last time I looked.” Maitland grinned back.

Joe looked like his brother, same height, same short dark hair and bushy eyebrows. His life was less physical — a career in retail sales had added a few inches to his waist. That, and Marcie’s cooking.

“I can give you a Bud, Joe, but that’s all,” said his wife, with a coy smile.

“Hey, I’ll take what I can get.”

The two men acknowledged each other with a high five.

“Jesus, Ben!” Joe smiled as he wiped his hand on the back of his trousers. “Hope that’s from you washing it!”

“I only had a pee, I don’t wash my hands for that.”

Marcie turned to face them. “Eee-ugh… men! You two are as bad as Gary.”

After the evening meal the family sat down in front of the television, young Gary flipping the pages of his stamp album.

“Uncle Ben, you want to see my stamps? I got some real nice ones.”

“Sure, let’s see what you got.”

Gary sat down beside Maitland on the couch and opened up the album. “Dad brought me some from work. Look at this one, it’s a cow, just like the ones on ‘The Texas Rangers’.”

“Looks a mighty fine stamp, but I thinks it’s a bull, a Texas Longhorn. So what else is new… now that’s real colorful… looks like something I saw recently, on the job.”

Gary looked up, eager to hear what his uncle had to say.

Something had triggered a memory in Maitland as he saw the bright, colorful stamp. Then it came to him. “You know what, Gary, I saw a stamp just like that only yesterday. Yeah, it was just like that… so where does it come from?”

Gary tried his best to pronounce the name on the stamp.

“Here, let me.” Maitland took a closer look. “Syria… it’s from Syria.”

The boy wrinkled his nose. “Where’s that?”

Maitland looked towards his brother and sister-in-law. All shrugged their shoulders. “Damned if I know. Tell you what, why don’t you Google it?”