by Tim Curran
He called out to Green Team and they told him they were coming down. It was time to evacuate, the entire building was infested. It was a nest.
Smith made it to the stairs when he saw, in his light, that a half-dozen people were coming down to greet him and none of them were with Green Team.
What he saw stopped him.
It not only made him hesitate but it made a stream of hot urine run down his leg because there were things you could look at that could strip your mind bare and this was one of them. Those people…not truly people any longer…were parasitized by an immense worm, threaded on its length like pearls. The worm had slid up the ass of the first man in that hideous rumba line, through his body, and out his mouth only to loop down and enter the ass of the woman in front of him, through her, and out her mouth, and to the next and next and next and next. It was so long that six feet of it trailed behind the last man in the line. The worm had them. Their arms flopped limply at their sides, their legs shuddering with each step down the stairs, heads thrown back and mouths wide. They were dark with blood and slime and what might have been feces. The lead woman of the line opened her mouth and the parasite showed itself.
Smith brought up his gun.
But not quite fast enough.
The worm spat a stream of ink-black juice into his face and he was blinded instantly. He shrieked, dropping his pump-shotgun and falling against the banister, fingers going to his face that now had the consistency of jelly.
Then the worm jabbed its spines into his back, and he went to his knees, drugged and boneless. He was barely even aware of it when the worm sheared through his fatigue pants and violated him with immense force, running through him and out his mouth, threading another mad-eyed pearl onto its pulsating, flexuous length.
It was only seconds later when the BCT showed.
They opened up with their flame throwers and torched what they saw until it dropped down the stairs in a writhing, convulsing, many-limbed heap, burning and putting out a black, vile-smelling smoke.
By the time Green Team arrived on the scene, the BCT was lighting up the building. When Cave and his men were clear, they tossed white phosphorus grenades about so it would all burn that much hotter.
CHICAGO, CERMAK AVENUE:
CHINATOWN, 5:28 A.M.
Harry Niles couldn’t sleep and he honestly wondered if he’d ever feel safe enough to close his eyes again. Surely not this night—or morning—or tomorrow night either for that matter. Although he surely was not old, he certainly did not feel so young anymore. And the game Shawna and he were playing was most definitely a game for the young—hiding out, living on the lam.
You haven’t done this in years, he told himself. You’re rusty as hell and that could be very dangerous for the both of you. One mistake is all it takes, and you know it.
Oh yes.
God, how he knew that.
There had been times in his checkered past as an investigative journalist where he had seriously pissed-off powerful people—politicians, industrialists, members of various federal agencies—and had to lay low and go undercover for a time. And, back then, he had discovered that he was practically a natural at hiding out, erasing his trail, living the life of a gypsy…or a criminal. But he hadn’t done anything like that in many years now and it was not, he feared, second nature any longer. He had grown soft and weak, a middle-aged guy who liked his comforts: good food, a nice apartment, a comfy bed. He wasn’t the same guy he was at twenty-five or thirty. The guy who would have happily lived on bread and water for a year and slept under a table if it meant he could nail someone, expose some fat cat or political puppet master.
Back then, the hunt, the stalking, then the kill itself were everything.
Now, it all seemed to mean very little.
He was no longer a predator biding his time before striking, now he was prey. Maybe what was really bothering him this time around was that, yes, he was a little out of practice at this sort of subterfuge and that it was more than just himself on the line here. Shawna, he knew, was depending on him to keep her safe and that’s what scared him the most: that he would let her down.
For the time being he figured they were safe.
They were hid out in a little furnished room above Fong’s Gourmet Noodle House. Chinatown was always a good place to hide out, he knew. The proprietor, Kathy Ling, was a friend of his from the old days. Not only did she supply the room, but the Chevy Tahoe Shawna and he made their escape in. His relationship with Kathy was tenuous and pretty impossible to trace. She had given him sanctuary before. Many years ago when Harry had worked for the Trib, he had gotten evidence that overturned the murder conviction of her younger brother. She had never forgotten that. Though he had seldom asked a favor from her, the invitation was always open.
Feeling like a cheap hood in an old film noir, he got out of bed and crept to the window, pulling the shade aside just enough so he could see the dark streets below. There was nothing out there. What did you expect? A couple guys sitting in a black sedan smoking cigarettes? A mysterious figure reading a newspaper under the streetlight at the corner? The streets were relatively empty save for a few early morning delivery vans making the rounds. He could see the Chinatown gate over Wentworth Avenue and not much else of interest.
He got back into bed—a rollaway provided by Kathy, Shawna had the real bed—and laid there, thinking, thinking. According to Gabe, Shawna was erased completely and probably by now, Harry himself was as well. It all was linked (Gabe thought) to some sort of outbreak of infectious disease, a containment operation being run, at least in part, by the Department of Homeland Security. Which, of course, meant the feds were behind it. And if the feds were behind it, the odds of evading were very slim. The federal government had a very long arm. But, on the other hand, Gabe said that there were hospitals under quarantine and that meant the whole thing would go public soon. Whatever sort of black budget op this had been would become general knowledge… at least the outbreak part of it.
But Harry was not reassured.
Because Gabe also said that his contacts were afraid of the people behind it.
Not good.
Shawna sat up in bed and stumbled over to the rollaway. She pulled aside the covers and got in next him, pressing her back up against him and pulling one of his arms around her.
“Don’t get any ideas,” she said. “I’m just scared.”
“I wouldn’t get any ideas. It’s not the sort of person I am,” he said. “There’s nothing I detest more than sex with attractive young women.”
“Ha,” she said. Then after a time: “What are we going to do, Harry?”
“We’re going to live like rats until it’s safe to come out of our hole.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. We have to wait this out. From what Gabe said, it’s all going to break soon and when that happens I imagine we’ll be of little interest to the powers that be.”
“Except that my life has been wiped out.”
“It wasn’t much of a life anyway.”
She elbowed him. “You know what I mean. You might be erased by now, too.”
“For the time being, only for the time being,” he assured her. “You see, I live in a state of readiness…or paranoia, if you prefer. They can wipe me out of computers, but I have the paperwork: bank statements, social security card, stock certificates, bonds.”
“If they clean out your place, they’ll get all that.”
“They would, except I keep it all in a safe deposit box under an assumed name.”
“And the key to it?”
“Kathy Ling has one. The other is in my wallet as we speak.”
He explained that they could wipe him out all they wanted, but the paperwork with account numbers would raise an immediate red flag. Accounts don’t just disappear. Numbers can be traced.
“What is it with you and Kathy?”
“Jealous?”
“Hardly.”
He shrugged and gave he
r the gist of the story. “We keep in contact but our relationship is very discreet. No one can trace it or even prove that it exists.”
“So we’re safe?”
“For the time being.”
“That doesn’t make me feel reassured.”
“Sorry, Shawna. But we’ll take it one hour, one day at a time. If what Gabe says is true, this whole thing is about to blow wide open.”
DETROIT: EAST DEARBORN
6:41 A.M.
Down in the sewers like a rat. Listening to the rumble of cars and trucks and buses. Staring up at the world through a rusting sewer grating.
There were many in this world, infidels all, that would have been quite pleased with Sheikh Sa’ad al Khalafari’s new accommodations: rats belong in holes. But he knew that in war there was suffering and the physical plane was a plane of suffering and only through God was there grace.
There had been a raid by the FBI on the furniture store where he had been living and hiding. It had been but one of a dozen such raids across the country by the U.S. government. Some thirty people had been taken into custody and nearly half of them were illegals which would either be deported or imprisoned permanently.
Sheikh Sa’ad had been tipped off.
He went into hiding.
In the sewers.
There would come a time when he would re-emerge and by that time the American dogs and oppressors would be brought to their knees by the most humble of Allah’s creations: the worm.
Sheikh Sa’ad smiled.
God had given him a duty, a blessed mission, and that was to bring America, the great evil, to its knees. And had it not been so then God would not have delivered the very weapon of extermination into his hands: the lowly worm. Sheikh Sa’ad knew that the worm was an American invention. The technology had been harvested by agents of the Iranian Pasdaran from which he had liberated it. That was the beauty of it truly: the irony of America being destroyed by its own inhumanity and ruthless hunger for domination.
The worm, Sheikh Sa’ad thought not without amusement, has certainly turned.
It was Allah’s plan, of course, that it be so. Sheikh Sa’ad firmly believed this. He would not entertain doubt for doubt was the kingdom of the fallen and he would rise to glory as the spiritual leader of the Islamic uprising. In his mind he could hear the voices of his advisors, all of them dead now, the seeds of doubt and uncertainty they had tried to place in his mind, how they had tried to tell him that the worm would spread—and quickly—beyond the borders of America. That it would take the world country by country and within weeks, if not days, the Middle East would be infested as well.
He purged those voices from his head.
God was the great architect and God would destroy the infidels and send the worms into their graves with them. The true believers of Islam would not be harmed. As prayers fell from his lips, Sheikh Sa’ad truly believed this.
And never had he been so very wrong.
CHICAGO: 7:00 A.M.
When the morning editions of the Sun-Times and the Tribune hit the streets, they both carried extensive coverage of the raid on the tenement in Auburn Gresham by members of the U.S. Marshals Service. The story each told was much the same: on a tip, the Marshals went into the building in force to capture members of a fanatical Black Muslim sect that were stockpiling weapons for a violent overthrow of the city. Six of the men killed were on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. Following a desperate gun battle, the building had caught fire by the use of incendiaries by the Marshals and burnt to the ground.
The people of Chicago were either publicly outraged or secretly pleased that this homegrown terrorist sect had been eliminated. Questions abounded, of course, and all were answered quite neatly by a statement given by the Department of Homeland Security. A press conference was scheduled for ten A.M.
The newspaper coverage featured images of the blackened ruins of the building and various quotes by locals who claimed they were glad the rat-infested tenement had been burned, although many said that to their knowledge the old “rat-trap” was a crack house and nothing more. Several said they didn’t like it, that there was something fishy about it all and they frowned upon such stormtrooper tactics.
In Chicago and other cities, the debate would go on throughout the day, thereby distracting inquiring minds from other and more disturbing events that were breaking out in every quarter of the city as they were in cities nationwide. The story created great buzz on the Internet and extensive coverage by CNN and the other news networks. Papers from Boston to LA covered the story.
But not one of them made mention of parasitic worms.
DETROIT, HOLY CROSS HOSPITAL:
DETOX WARD, 7:17 A.M.
Maybe the rest of the country was a little slow catching onto the conspiracy in their midst, but there was one guy who had it pegged and that was Johnny Kopok. He would have been the first to admit he had a little problem with the sauce—he and old Sweet Lucy were fast friends—and sometimes he saw a few things that weren’t there and maybe he didn’t always know what year it was, but he knew a big juicy shit-smelling cover-up and conspiracy when he saw one.
“Wait a minute now,” he said to the nurse. “I been a good boy and did what you told me and ate my grub like a good soldier. Now I wanna get out and you’re telling me I can’t go?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but this hospital is currently under quarantine. Everyone will be processed out, but it will take time. We appreciate your patience.”
Jesus, this broad talked like a U.S. government flyer, kind of thing you found tacked to the wall at the Social Security office. Johnny figured he didn’t care for her much. He got the feeling she thought pretty highly of herself. She stood there, holding her clipboard in black rubber gloves, decked out in a white plastic suit and green rubber HAZMAT boots, that crazy hood over her head with the plastic bubble and twin air filters. Damn, like something out of the trenches of the First World War. Maybe one of those space shows Johnny had seen when he was a kid.
“You don’t need that space suit around me,” he told her. “I ain’t got the worms, least none that I didn’t have before.”
“We’re under quarantine,” she said.
“Yeah, but you’re giving me the creeps, you know? Every time I see you I think we’re being invaded. Take me to your leader.” Johnny laughed because he thought that was funny but the nurse maintained her mannequin demeanor. “You remind me of that one picture. The one with the Martian guy in the spacesuit, wandering around causing trouble. Then he gets out of the suit and he’s invisible. When he dies he glows in the dark. You ever seen that one?”
“I’m sure I haven’t.”
“Where’s Jimbo?” he asked her.
“Jimbo?”
“The orderly. He’s always here.”
“I’m sure I don’t know. Some of the staff are going through DECON procedures and will return at a later time.”
Boy, this lady had personality. Real personality. Talked like a fucking answering machine. “Okay. Then where’s the doc? Dr. Claddahfadda or whatever his fucking name is. Short fellah. Foreigner.”
“I’m sure he’ll be in later.”
Johnny had half a mind to jump out of bed, strip off her mask, and give her a big wet kiss. That ought to just about make her piss her pants. Least she might act human then, angry but human. He didn’t mind them drying him out for a few days, absence made the heart grow fonder and all that, but this business…Jesus, what was this about? Not that they would tell him. Some kind of infectious disease they were saying which was gamey bullshit and he knew it. Worms. It was about them goddamn worms.
“You think I got ‘em, don’t you?” he said.
The nurse just stared at him through her plastic bubble. “Them, sir?”
“Yeah, the fucking worms. Don’t play dumb, sister, you’re no good at it.”
“We currently have an outbreak of H1N1 and are following standard quarantine procedures.”
“H one N one…now what t
he fuck is that?”
“A form of viral flu, sir.”
“Flu? Oh my Christ. This ain’t about flu, it’s about fucking worms. I saw ‘em. They come out of people’s mouths. But they never got me. No sir. Now why don’t you go tell your boss that and turn me loose. I’m starting to get awful thirsty.”
“I’ll report it, sir.”
“And send Jimbo in here, will ya?”
“I’ll look into it, sir.”
She left and Johnny laid there on the bed, trying to wrap his brain around this Grade-A clusterfuck. That woman was in the Army or something. You could always tell by the way they talked like they had a size-10 bug up their asses. Johnny knew all about that because he’d been in the Marines and he could smell a jarhead a mile away. Just like he could smell a good conspiracy cooking and this one was really starting to stink.
With that in mind, he began to plot his escape.
TEL AVIV: BEN GURION AIRPORT
2:51 P.M. ISRAEL TIME
Nobody noticed the small, swarthy man reading the newspaper near the British Airways terminal. He blended in perfectly. Chameleonic, one might say. He paged through his newspaper, now and again making eye contact with another man sitting in the lounge. They did not smile or even nod. The swarthy man watched the security queue as passengers were questioned. Most were desensitized to Israeli methods and answered the questions without hesitation in bored voices. Others—foreigners—objected.
The swarthy man smiled.
He knew the questions quite well. Why did you visit Israel? What did you do while in the country? Who did you stay with? Are you a Jew? How long have your friends lived in the country? Are they Jews? On and on and on. Foreigners could become quite angry with the barrage of intrusive questions. If they raised too much of a fuss, security would take them aside and if they were not satisfied, flights would be missed.