by Glenn Ball
She could hear music.
“You brought me up out of the pit
Out of the miry clay…
I will sing…sing a new song.”
The indescribable presence she had felt at the concert years ago rose up inside of her. She felt as if she were floating, but maybe that was just the sedatives they had given her. She tried to remember.
Slowly she opened her eyes. Was she entering heaven? Everything around her seemed to be white: the walls, the ceiling, the curtains where a beam of early sunlight was peeping through the window. Everything whirled about as if in her musical jewelry box.
Groggy, her lids fell closed again. Then a familiar scent filtered into her nostrils. It reminded her of cuddling. It was his smell; the smell she had longed for on those nights-so many nights-when he was gone on his missions.
Through the slits in her eyes, now cracked open again, she could see his eyes, sparkling like they had diamonds in them, just inches from her own. She could see love gazing into her eyes. She could feel his lips touch hers, caressing, pressing his love into her. She must be in heaven.
********
Alicia stirred in the hospital bed, fitfully trying to escape the horrid experimental lab. Her memories of Antonio’s lab had come to life in her sleep, triggered by the IV and other tubes protruding from her body. As the sedative wore off her eyes peeped open, staring absently at the monitor above her.
Struggling for comprehension, Alicia was reliving her vision, with the Zika Monster sharing tubes with her. Then it came back to her; he was her Savior, healing her by taking her zika into himself.
Gradually her eyes came into focus. It was her reflection in the glass. She was now the one lying in a hospital bed hooked up to tubes like the Zika Monster. She was the one suffering, giving up her blood for test after test for the multitude, becoming a source for their deliverance from the awful plague. Antonio had programmed her to be patient zero for the attack; by her choice she had become patient zero for the cure.
Another image grew in the reflection coming to her side. It was Nicolas. His strong hand softly encompassed hers.
Turning from the reflection in the monitor to look him square in the face the reality struck her: she was no longer alone.
CHAPTER 50
Shock
Today…The Day! The culmination of years of work and waiting. Antonio was always certain the thrill of this day would be unmatched. Now that his plan of attack had been thwarted everything about this day fell short of his expectations.
As he often did when depressed, Antonio drove off alone. He picked a lonely country highway. He needed an answer for his failure, and he needed it quick. He needed to think.
Black nebulous clouds hung in the sky. Trees began to bow. Leaves swirled over the black pavement. Thick drops splattered on the windshield. Antonio turned on his headlights. Glancing in his rearview mirror at an Escalade that had been behind him for some time, he noticed that its driver had neglected to turn on his headlights. His gut warned him of danger.
He leaned on the accelerator. He squinted at the road. It was like trying to see through a windshield in a carwash. The car was beginning to fishtail. He was hydroplaning. Finally letting off the gas he began to slow to a controlled speed.
The Escalade was still keeping pace.
“Not to worry,” he told himself. He knew how to smoke out a tail.
A jag of lightning ripped across the sky. Antonio turned sharply onto a small farm road. The sky rumbled, dumping buckets of rain. The Escalade was no longer visible. “Even if they are following me, I bet I lost them now,” he smiled to himself.
There was a momentary glow as the Escalade turned, then vanished in the rain. The headlights were off again. It was haunting him like a vengeful ghost.
“They are definitely following me!” He could feel his anger rising. “After all I’ve done for him over the years, and he’s sent a hit squad for me!”
He would not make it easy for them. Spotting a warehouse off the side of the road he pulled alongside it, parked quickly, and popped his trunk. Plowing through puddles and streams pouring down from the warehouse roof he lifted the trunk lid. “You want a piece of me! Eat this!” Reaching down into the trunk for his M4 Carbine Commando with its M203 Grenade Launcher he stopped short. Rubbing the rain from his eyes he did a doubletake, flabbergasted at finding the trunk nearly empty. All that remained were his wire cutters that he’d used when they smuggled the XK23 into the airport.
Then he remembered…he’d seen one of Hector’s men smoking by his car. He’d thought it odd at the time but had carelessly dismissed it. Not smart! Now he stood alone in the rain with no weapon of defense.
But giving up was not his way. He was a Julius Caesar, an Alexander the Great, a military tactician. He would improvise. The water at his feet bubbled, bombarded by raindrops. Innovation rises under pressure.
His eyes skirted this way and that. In his mind he was imagining a thousand ways to invoke death by torture. Spitting dirty water from his mouth he felt a tingle as water pouring from the roof streamed down his back and chest. He ground his teeth in the chill as he concentrated.
An electric power substation appeared in a flash, like a premonition, as lightning blasted the darkness.
He licked his wet lips. He’d always wanted to electrocute someone. He’d heard the show was unbeatable. The victim would twitch and squirm as the body convulsed and cramped excruciatingly. As much as he loved to watch his victims scream in pain when their flesh was burned, it would not compare to what electrocuting them could accomplish. He imagined every cell in the body being fried from the inside out. Each nerve would scream in pain as voltage sizzled every inch of flesh and bone. Even the eyeballs would burn.
And he could take out all his attackers at the same instant. It would be the perfect ambush.
He had to hurry. They would be here any moment. Grabbing the wire cutters, he dashed toward the high chain metal link fence, sloshing and sliding in the high wet grass, mud splattering up his legs. He would need to prepare his trap for them, a way to lure them into the enclosure, and find a place to hide. He had maybe thirty seconds to accomplish all this.
Gaining traction on the fine gravel that bordered the enclosure, he leapt up the high fence. He ignored the sign saying, “Danger: High Voltage!”, though his heart skipped a beat with anticipation. Below the barbed wires at the top he pulled the wire cutters from his pocket and snipped the wires as easily as if they were hairs. He could hear the Escalade skidding to a halt next to his abandoned car as he finished cutting the wires. Climbing over the fence he could hear shouts. They were following his tracks to the station. “Good, I can’t wait to do them in!”
The gravel crunched under his sopping wet shoes as he ran a few sections along the length of the fence. Climbing back to the top he pulled one of the lengths of barbed wire. Several barbs stabbed at his skin. His blood mixed with the rain as he jumped down, pulling the wire with him.
Carrying the wire toward a live conductor he heaved the wire over it. Ignoring several new cuts from barbed wire he ran for cover toward the metal building where the breakers were housed. He stumbled in midstride as fire bit his leg. Unable to run he now crawled, feeling the fiery bullet deep in his thigh demobilizing him. Frantically looking over his shoulder, he watched helplessly as three of his pursuers climbed the fence unharmed, and two remained on the ground with their pistols trained on him. He stopped. His plan had failed.
The three thugs landed and pounced on him before his mind could consider how to escape. The other two promptly joined them and holding his slippery arms as if with vice grips, they hauled him toward a pair of live conductors.
********
Several nearby towns had gone black with the power outage that day. When the electric company traced the cause, they’d found the charcoal of a cadaver that had been almost unrecognizably human.
EPILOGUE
Sitting under the canopy on the rooftop, the soft sea-b
reeze caressed his skin, its invigorating smell invoking thoughts of seafoam, gentle waves and sailing in the bay below. From his castle on the hill he commanded a king’s view of the Mediterranean.
Nevertheless, his mind was elsewhere….
The hallway to her room was dark. Outside her door a candelabra on each side cast a strange dim glow on its frame. The arched wooden door to this room was barely five feet tall and seemed a portal to hell; carved into the stone above it was a skull with bat wings and the inscription, “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate".
Taking hold of the round brass knocker he gave it his signature rhythm so that she would know it was him. As usual it took several minutes for a response. This was about the only person in the world for whom he exercised patience. The response was slow but came eventually. A small hole above the knocker opened and a dark eye could be seen checking him out. Promptly the door opened, and he was invited in.
“Doña Zen, you were right about Antonio. The zika girl has been the end of him. Thanks to your warning all those years ago I was ready. Now I would like your advice about something else.”
Behind her there had been a small wood burning stove. There was a hissing, bubbling sound of something boiling above its fire. Its pungent odor still assaulted his nose, even now on the roof with the sea breeze, many hours later.
Meditating on her advice, he resolved to take the bad with the good.
It was time. He put the call through to Abdul.
“My sincerest apologies for Antonio. I trained him, yet even so he was not fully up to the task.”
There was a moment of silence. “Unlike us, he was never truly dedicated to Allah,” Abdul’s response was predictable.
“Even so he has proven useful. Phase One is now complete. We can move on to Phase Two unhindered.”