by David Hunter
Part of his training was to not think of items as vintage or antique while on a mission. Clearly that had not sunk in. Both in Virginia and here, everywhere he looked everything seemed vintage, even the people who were, in his mind, long dead and largely forgotten.
As was so often happening now, sleep eluded him. Hunger, too, seemed unwilling or unable to allow his rumbling stomach to rest. He arose from the bed, put his hat, tie and vest back on, returning to the lobby downstairs.
"Can you tell me the name of a good restaurant?" A genuinely hungry Jeff was eager to fuel his body.
"Certainly, do you prefer American food or local?"
"When in Rome."
"Excuse me?"
"Sorry. I would like to try local cuisine."
"Very well, one block up you will find an outdoor café with some of the more popular food of our city to select."
"Mamnoon." Saying "thank you" in formal Farsi brought a wide smile to the young woman's face.
"Kha'a hesh mekonam!" Farsi is such a beautiful language, even her "you're welcome" response just sounded beautiful. Jeff resolved to learn Farsi when he returned. Maybe not, depending on how things went. The words may just do nothing more than dredge up bad memories best left in the farthest recesses of one's mind.
"You should know something before you try to do business here."
"Yes, what's that?"
"We generally say 'merci' for thank you. If you are too formal people will think you're trying too hard to impress and it will go against your interests."
"Oh, merci!" Jeff already knew this. He decided to be formal as a way to break in. He knew that the local employees would be curious to know about the American in the hotel. He didn't want to appear too practiced. An American salesman would want to keep a lower profile, just high enough to meet the wealthy who could afford his products but low enough to not bring undue attention to his presence in the city.
Jeff had never before had Persian food aside from authentic meals prepared for him in the facility during his training. It was delicious. Starting with a large helping of Akbar Jujdeh, a delicious chicken over rice with pomegranate sauce he found both his palate and stomach completely satisfied by the end of the meal. As soon as he was finished a plate of Shekarpareh of Khorasan was laid before him, a type of sugar cookie. After a few pieces Jeff was too full to eat another bite. Paying his bill and taking one more cookie to eat later, he enjoyed more of the sights and sounds of this delightful time and place.
In a few hours night would descend in Persia, the street lamps illuminated. Jeff decided now was the time to walk around the neighborhood, get acquainted with streets and alleys, buildings and homes, more importantly the shady places rarely visited by the residents and kept from the view of visitors and guests. Before putting the first step of his operation in place, Jeff needed to know every point of access and egress, should the need arise.
Upon returning to the hotel he evaluated the layout of all three floors, deciding this would be his residence while in Persia, his base of operations. Jeff would make sure both day and night staff were familiar with his face, and he their faces. He would tip generously though not so much so as to appear to be an American eager to flaunt his money and status to the locals.
Jeff wasn't sure about how he should behave with women. In the Iran of his day he would largely ignore them to be in step with acceptable behavior for a man, especially a non-resident. In this time and place he would have to carefully observe how men interacted with women to make sure his approach wasn't considered too forward or inappropriate in any way. The last thing he needed was to have a man think Jeff was flirting with his wife when all he meant was a kind remark or gesture. Checking hands, it was rare to see what might be considered a wedding ring on either the right or left hand of the women here. Many did wear rings as jewelry but very few remotely resembled wedding rings. Best to interact with women as little as was possible beyond a simple merci as the situation may require.
Nearly every inner city of every age showed the problems of a population huddled together. Tehran of the 1930's may or may not have been any different but this northern, mostly residential, suburb of Tehran was beautifully maintained. Trees and flowers lined the roadways and beautified the houses. In his own time this north-western suburb of Iran was still one of the more affluent areas, with the people a little more liberal thinking, secular, and slightly more moderate in their clothing.
Without all of the high rise buildings the mountains, just a distance off, reminded Jeff more of being in Denver, with the valley's snow-capped mountains in easy view. Hearing the language of the culturally and socially amazing Persians reminded him of his first few days as a young missionary in Brazil, confounded by the language and enraptured by the vistas, sounds, and smells of Brazilian foods being sold on the streets of Rio. Jeff now longed for that more carefree time when his only mission and desire was to teach people the "Plan of Happiness" for all of God's children. Now back to the present mission at hand, a mission forced by those who would instead condemn the world to misery, a mission where happiness never would be an adjective.
A genial people, Jeff received nods and smiles as he walked the streets casually. All signs and billboards, except for brands such as Coca-Cola, were in Farsi. Trying to learn the names of the streets, let alone memorize them, was well beyond Jeff's capability. Making do with landmarks would have to suffice. He also mentally cataloged the number of standard length steps from one landmark to the next, moving in concentric circles ever farther away from the hotel as he went.
Of particular interest to him was the location of the police station and identification of patrols, routes, and schedules. In a week's time he would have all of these filed safely in his memory. Committing them to paper, something that could be used against him were he captured and jailed for any reason, was a risk Jeff never took in any of his clandestine operations. He had no reason to believe the police would take note of his presence, let alone find him suspicious in any way, but unnecessary risks were just that: unnecessary.
Jeff loved this era and these people. He could have happily settled into a place and time such as this once the language barrier had been overcome. Speaking more than a few languages already, he felt certain that Farsi would pose little problem for him.
Homesickness rarely settled in this early in a mission. Seeing the happy children with their parents induced this oddly named sickness in Jeff now. How nice it would be to be home with Lynn and their children. Should this mission not work, here and in Egypt, he understood that there may not be a Lynn and children to whom he could return.
He felt it best to not even tell Lynn about his current whereabouts. Besides not having a security clearance for the details about The Project, just explaining the how and why would have required more than Jeff was emotionally capable of sharing. The old saying – Jeff loved old sayings – of "what you don't know won't hurt you" really was applicable here.
In just a few weeks, hopefully less, he would be able to return to the facility. Then he'd have plenty of time to be with his family, provided all went well. If it didn't . . . best to not even think of that.
The next few days and nights Jeff walked around town, getting to know the lay of the land as well as he knew his own neighborhood back in Colorado. He carried his satchel to maintain the appearance of a salesman. At various pharmacies and medical establishments Jeff left a business card, with the name of the hotel written below his name. An adept businessman, he made several sales, telling the purchasers that he'd relay their orders to New York City and they would receive them in about a month.
During this time Jeff was also introduced to the wealthier class of people who could afford his exotic elixirs including Ghasem's great-grandparents, seeing his grandfather as a child for the first time in person. A knot formed in his stomach on viewing this sweet, innocent child. Sitting in their parlor, eating a piece of cake with a brew of aromatic herbal mint tea, the only kind of tea his mother could drink du
e to stomach pains, the little boy was eager to show Jeff the toy he got for his birthday.
Jeff gave his mother, complimentary, a small bottle of the antacid he used himself. In his own time the pills were removed from the modern plastic container and put into a small apothecary bottle that would have been in common use in the 1930's. She was grateful for anything that might help, both she and her husband protesting when he refused any kind of payment.
"Please, please, consider this a small show of my gratitude for your generous hospitality! Besides, the cake was so delicious that it more than serves as payment!"
"Are you married Mr. Johnson?"
"Yes, I am."
"Then let me write the recipe for the cake so your wife can make it for you."
"That is very kind but I really must be on my way. I'm late already for an appointment. I would like to come back in a few days to see how well the medicine is working for you. May I call on your family in a few days?"
"Without question." The husband replied. "You are welcome here at any time."
"I will have the recipe written with a note for your wife when you return!"
"Thank you. I really must be on my way now."
Returning at a leisurely pace to his hotel Jeff thought about this kind family, so open and warm. Their son, so eager to demonstrate his new toy as he hopped, skipped, running about in the excitement of his unfolding life – barely contained energy.
How could Jeff do harm to this boy's future, a child who had done nothing wrong, who loved life? Seeing the little boy run around, hopping and skipping, in constant movement, he knew that were he to learn that his manipulation of time were to have ultimately damaged this little boy, he would never be able to look at himself in the mirror again.
There had to be an acceptable way, but what? He was already spending too much time here. Time spent in this era was diametrically time ticking away in his own. Jeff couldn't afford to wait much longer.
Table of Contents
31. Conspirator Betrayal
"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." - Abraham Lincoln
Tehran, Iran
Abd wasn't fooled by Ghasem's pretense of a partnership. Even from the very beginning, years ago when they acquired the two strain samples from the lab in Russia, Ghasem was barely able to hide his disdain for Abd and the Arabs who would work with them in the years to follow.
By now Ghasem and his pathetic little group of sycophants in the safe house were dead; their ignominious demise administered by the very genetically-engineered strain of Anthrax they worked so diligently to develop.
Abd left a small glass ampoule of Anthrax on the floor, just in front of Ghasem's favorite chair. The chair facing a solid wood table, nobody would see the ampoule until it had been crushed. Within minutes everybody in the house would be dead, soon after all living things that breathed air around the house would also be dead, covering his tracks, leaving no evidence, no witnesses who could describe his face.
The ultra-modern bio hazard labs they used to modify and mass produce the deadly strains were funded in large part by the crude oil fattened bank account of Ghasem's uncle. His part in this was necessary for the financial aspect. There was no doubt that he was a talented planner, organizer, and motivator; but Ghasem's part ended as soon as Abd had the codes entered into the pages of the designated websites.
Unknown to Ghasem, he had sleeper agents, Arabs all, loyal to him in Tehran and other strategic cities throughout Iran with political and military targets assigned to each. The religious leaders of the government, the military chain-of-command, and the nuclear scientists would all die, drowned in their own body fluids. Iran would lose any hope of supremacy in the new world order that Abd and his own group would oversee.
Reaching his rented apartment in the city, Abd planted the codes in the websites, to be uploaded within the hour. The first coded message was planted in the website his agents in Iran were monitoring, giving them a precise time to strike to guarantee the downfall of Iran before the rest of the world was brought to its knees.
Putting the final touches on the page containing the coded words, he took time to relax with a cigarette and cup of coffee before uploading it to the Internet, activating the sleepers strategically positioned around much of the globe.
Enjoying the mental image of his own hand crushing a world small enough to fit in it, Abd started to let his fantasy run wild before composing himself once more.
Crushing the cigarette butt in an ashtray he went to the kitchen, opened a cabinet door then pulled at a hard downward angle to break it from its hinges. Abd carefully removed the inside panel of thin wood to reveal his 'slick,' the place where he earlier secreted cash, false passports, identification and travel documents. With these items he hid a one-way plane ticket to Cairo, Egypt. From Cairo he would take a bus to his hometown of Kafr el-Dawwar and wait out the melee that would engulf the world. If his schedule remained true he'd be home in time to catch the first rumblings of trouble on the television. Abd grinned as he left the apartment; a taxi he earlier called was waiting for him.
Fifteen minutes after Abd got in the taxi headed for Imam Khomeini International Airport the final loose end went up in flames. The small yet powerful bomb was secured to a natural gas pipe to initiate a secondary blast, leveling most of the building. By the time investigators had the slightest clue as to who it was that set the bomb, the world itself would be ablaze. Watching the explosion on his mobile screen, via a live feed from a web cam secured to the roof of a building in an adjacent building, Abd grinned a second time that evening.
"Thank you for choosing Iran Air. We will begin boarding Flight 1503 to Cairo shortly. Enjoy your flight!" The pleasant female voice over the speaker system was music to his ears.
Abd sat in one of the uncomfortable chairs in the boarding area as he waited for his flight, watching the ground crew do their prep work from a large observation window. Fuel, luggage . . . he compared his watch to the time displays over the ticket counter. A minute discrepancy. It was his nature to assume the difference to be an error on the airline's digital display, not his own.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin boarding Iran Air flight number 1503 to Cairo, Egypt. We will board rows 1 through 30 at this time. Please make sure you have all of your personal belongings as you . . . " The overhead speaker droned and crackled as Abd moved toward the queue that had formed.
"Thank you, seat 6-F is just right over there." A smiling flight attendant gracefully pointed the way.
Abd took his seat at the window of the sixth row, right side of the plane. As the remaining passengers boarded he stared absent-mindedly out the small window, reveling in the knowledge that this was to be his last view of Iran.
He wondered when, after tomorrow, their national airlines would fly again. Probably never. Once weakened, other countries that escaped the worst of the wrath of the scourges would come in to plunder Iran's wealth of natural resources.
Without the Zionist entity in the Middle East any longer, and a civil war-ravaged Iraq, that county would almost certainly be either Turkey or Egypt. With ISIS making its way to Syria Abd was laying odds on Egypt. Turkey was to be attacked, though in moderation. Egypt was to be free of any attack. He confirmed through his own circle that Ghasem was true to his word, there were no sleeper agents in any part of Egypt.
Other than some crying babies two rows back, and slight turbulence, the flight was uneventful. The crying got on Abd's nerves. He silently cursed the rule that no longer allowed smoking on airplanes.
Landing in Cairo Abd collected his carry-on from under the seat in front of him. He pushed his way through the crowds, pressing his way through the hurried hordes of people toward the baggage claim area in the lower level.
After what seemed forever the chute to the carousel opened, spewing the first groups of luggage. Baggage slid down to begin their slow journey around th
e carousel to anxiously hovering owners' hands, waiting to snatch them up lest they make another trip around.
At length Abd's arrived. Leaving the baggage claim area he showed the bored airport employee the match of the flight tags on his luggage to that of his airline ticket. The man didn't so much as glance in his direction. "Probably not even Egyptian." He thought as he exited the sliding doors to hail one of the dozen taxis eager for another fare.
The bus station main terminal was located near the airport. Upon arriving Abd ducked into the men's bathroom, headed toward a toilet stall and closed himself in as he lit his third cigarette since leaving the airport. He wasn't fond of having no control over various situations in his life. Traveling high in the sky with nothing but a useless flotation device and seat buckle for security definitely ranked high in the list of powerless situations.
Securing the small metal bar that served as a lock for the toilet stall Abd retrieved his forged passport and identification papers that were no longer needed, burning each with a sigh. He had to pay a king's fortune for such expertly prepared documents that had even fooled the Zionist pigs once. Shame to burn them, but it would have been more of a shame to have them found on his person in his hometown where almost everybody knew him. What few pieces of edge-scorched paper remained were flushed down the toilet with the ashes. "Such a fitting metaphor for the condition of the world by this time tomorrow!"
Awaiting his bus in a chair more uncomfortable than that of the airport in Iran, Abd allowed his thoughts to drift once more. It would be great to get home, see his wife and daughter again. It had been too long and he dared not risk contacting them while on assignment. He decided to call his parents and invite them over to dinner. An only child, he knew they would be frightened once the first reports started drifting in - then pouring in - once the attacks started. If they were in his home he could curtail their fear and assure them that they were safe. The phone lines would all be jammed by the time they would otherwise try to call him.
Just as he ended his conversation with them, his mom so excited to see her boy after all this time, he boarded the bus to complete this last stage of the trip home. Abd was exhausted but excited to be united with his family once more. Eager to show how well he could protect them and how much he knew of what was about to happen, they would be impressed, and so proud.
"He looks familiar." Abd thought to himself as he took the final step from the bus to the street. The man in the car barely looked in his direction as he drove away. "These days everybody looks familiar - part of the job." He knew a healthy sense of paranoia came with the territory. All these years of looking over his shoulder, checking for signs of being followed or watched. They eventually catch up with a man.
Abd thought of some of the precautions to which he had grown so accustomed, they were as routine as brushing his teeth. When driving he always found a space with both the front and back slot open in the parking space so that he could drive through and park facing forward. He parked that way so that he could drive forward, quickly, if need be. Then there were the little, low-tech, precautions that he favored. Leaving his apartment he would pull a hair from his head before exiting so as not to be seen, if being observed. As he locked the door he would smooth the hair between the door and door frame - secured with a little spittle. This wasn't perfect, a strong wind could dislodge it and did a few times, but it would also be a first indicator of an intruder. No uninvited guest would look for a piece of hair on the door as they quietly broke in.
He tried to think of where he had seen that man's face before. Frustrating. May have gone to school with him. If he had it would have been a long time ago now. Abd probably saw, at one time or another, all of the faces in this town where he had lived all of his life before going to university. Little surprise, then, that he would have recognized a face whose owner he couldn't quite place.
His wife and daughter made his favorite meal. Abd wasn't particularly religious but his parents were observant so he decided to forgo the wine until tomorrow's celebrations. Even his parents wouldn't begrudge him that when they learned of his role in wiping the Zionists blight off the map and the Jew swine out of the corridors of world power and domination.
He checked his watch frequently the next couple of hours. His wife shot him a 'you're being rude' look. He smiled at her, shrugging his shoulders. She thought that he was eager to be alone with her. Nothing could have been farther from the truth.
Buzz
"I'll get it!" His daughter, whose sixteenth birthday was two days away, sprang to run down the stairs and answer the door. She returned with a huge smile on her face.
"What is that darling?" Abd's grandmother didn't approve of the way she was dressed at her age, let alone going to the door unescorted. What if a man had been there? Young people! The media was such a corrupting influence, what with the suggestive songs from the west and all - yet she always spoke kindly to her granddaughter, reserving her harsh words for her beleaguered daughter-in-law.
"Oh! Just look at this beautiful sweater!" She removed it from the wrapped box and shook it out for everybody to get a good view.
Clink
There was a slight sound as if two crystal glasses touching for a toast made to an honored guest.
Abd froze at the sound. Looking down to the floor he was horrified to see tiny, sparkling shards of glass mixed with a puff of powder instantly scattered into the air by the overhead fan.
Watching his family convulsing, eyes watering, losing the contents of their bowels and bladders, mouths foaming, Abd finally recalled the vaguely familiar face of the person in the car at the bus depot.
The man who delivered the birthday present waited outside for a full five minutes, having donned protective gear over his face. He observed a young couple walking down the street, hand-in-hand, watching him with a mixed look of curiosity and concern. They hesitated as they grew nearer, visually confirming that he was in very fact wearing some kind of gas mask. Standing where they were, with hesitation as to continue walking or not, the young woman - an instant later followed by the young man - began to shake as they to the ground. Foam issuing from their mouths, eyes rolled high to reveal only the bloodshot whites of their eyeballs, both died without so much as an uttered word between them.
"Let this be the end of all who would aspire to the throne." Keeping his mask on, Ghasem's second-in-command walked the five blocks to a waiting van. Standing outside he was stripped naked, hosed and scrubbed down, provided with new clothing, then driven to the flat of a family of sleeper agents a distance from Cairo as the Ebola and Anthrax strains were being released throughout the world, including Egypt.
Table of Contents
32. Nuclear Winter
"You don't have any communication between the Israelis and the Iranians. You have all sorts of local triggers for conflict. Having countries act on a hair trigger- where they can't afford to be second to strike - the potential for a miscalculation or a nuclear war through inadvertence is simply too high." - Ambassador Dennis Ross, Special Middle East Coordinator under United States President, Bill Clinton
Washington, District of Columbia
"We interrupt this program to bring you a special report." The solemn faces of the evening programs for every television station, network and cable channels, filled the screens of all powered-up devices capable of receiving a broadcast.
Having just heard the report from his National Security Advisor, the President of the United States now focused his attention on the screen showing the face of Bill O'Patrick. Bill was the outspoken commentator and sometimes 'pinhead' he labeled others who disagreed with him, dominating the early evening time slot of the conservative WOLF cable network. A proud liberal and pacifist himself, President Mason felt it best to keep his finger on the pulse of the other half of the nation, in an endeavor to know what to say to whom when he was in front of the cameras. His predecessor followed only poll numbers, dismissing what the 'other side' had to say of him. Huge mistake. His pred
ecessor also urged the continuing "War on Terrorism." President Mason instead traveled to Egypt and apologized for 'American Exceptionalism.' He even went so far as to bow to the King of Saudi Arabia. This had to be the way into the hearts and minds of those who hated America.
"It is my sad duty to inform you that across this great nation of ours dozens of cities have come under attack. How and by whom remains unknown at this time. All we can positively confirm is that people by the thousands are dying. It appears that the main objective of the attacks are Jewish institutions and neighborhoods. We have yet to validate this nationally. I cannot take any questions at this time, I'm sure you understand I have to get back to work."
With the president off the screen the camera again focused on Mr. O'Patrick.
"One moment." O'Patrick appeared to be holding an ear, eyes slightly upturned as if studying the overhead lighting. Momentarily he fixed his focus once again at the live-feed camera. "One of our reporters in Cincinnati is with us. Marsha, what are you seeing?"
"Good evening, Bill. You can see behind me ambulances pulling up to the main synagogue of the city. It is packed with worshippers for this first night of the High Holidays. Our cameraman is zooming in on the chaos behind me, and all media and crew are being kept at a distance from the scene until we have more information."
Framed in one of the many wide screen monitors fixed to the wall, the President was sickened to see bodies piled one atop the other, completely covering the steps and wheelchair ramp of this venerable old synagogue. It appeared as if people attempted to climb over their already fallen fellow worshippers in a desperate bid to escape the invisible assailant.
Among the bodies O'Patrick discerned was at least one uniformed policeman as the camera panned over the scene. From the angles of the arms and legs, and a quick zoom-in of a few faces before the focus returned to the reporter again, the victims appeared to have died in abject pain that caught them in total surprise.
"Damn the media." President Mason thought. "They are hell-bent on creating a panic."
Marsha continued, "We are getting similar reports all over Bill. From what we have learned from other sources . . . "
"Thank you, Marsha." O'Patrick cut her off. "Our affiliate in Los Angeles is standing by. Jason, what do you have?"
"Chaos, Bill, utter chaos. If you recall some months ago a building here in L.A. was attacked with similar symptoms, though for no apparent reason. After several inquiries by our station, citing the Freedom of Information Act, we were never provided any realistic information in the press briefings handed out by various governmental agencies. It appears that this attack is similar in every way, except it is no accident. It's horrible Bill."
Jason paused briefly, a barely contained look of fear betraying the reporter's desired dispassion, then continued, "I'm told this same attack - natural or otherwise - is being witnessed in a number of different places throughout the city. Hospitals are overwhelmed, more so the city morgue with people dying before they can be transported to area hospitals. Making matters much worse is the fact that the city's response plan is totally unprepared for an emergency of this magnitude. The number of gas masks, or whatever else is being used to protect our first responders is totally insufficient. Most medical emergency crews are being held back for the simple fact that they are defenseless from whatever is happening to the victims. Bill, we are getting reports from local hospitals that all medical workers and support staff are reporting to their stations and that vaccinations are being distributed to doctors, nurses, and emergency crews on the ground. I can now confirm . . . "
The reporter's eyes rolled up into his head as he dropped to the ground with a thud, out of camera view. Nearly the same moment the scene shown from the perspective of the camera angled wildly, then dropped as the cameraman went down. Before the transmission could be cut, an out-of-focus view of a husky man, in all probability the cameraman, transmitted to the mortified viewers his mouth foaming, eyes also rolled up, body quaking, fully rigid aside from powerful muscle spasms.
"I don't know what just happened. I apologize to our viewers." Again Bill looked as if he were paying assiduous attention to the studio lights, holding a hand to his ear.
"Folks, our switchboard is flooded with reporters associated with the WOLF cable network trying to get through. It appears that each is filing a similar report. These are not isolated incidents, our nation is under attack. We are attempting to get a response from Homeland Security or any other Federal agency. As further information becomes available you will hear it first, here on the WOLF. We'll continue to show scenes from around the country. In the meantime I would urge . . . "
The national Emergency Broadcast System broke through, warning all citizens of the country to stay home, this was an emergency - not a test. The verbal and written message also requested that people limit car traffic so that emergency teams could reach the affected areas.
At the order of the President, having invoked his emergency powers - instantly approved by Congress - all television and radio media broadcasts were replaced with the Emergency Broadcast System warning. The Internet, however, remained a problem with individuals sending photos and video feeds to the popular social networking sites. Spontaneous riots were occurring everywhere, homes and businesses looted and set ablaze, often with people still in them. All of this captured and uploaded to the Internet.
Though the Jews seemed to have been the target of these attacks, they were nonetheless being taken out to the streets and murdered by mobs as if they were the enemy - not the victims of racial genocide. Not just Jews but everybody who had the slightest Middle Eastern appearance, including Sikhs, were beat and killed. Originating in India, the Sikhs were a religious and cultural group, having nothing to do with the Middle East. But due to the beards worn by the men, coupled with their accents and turbans covering the men's heads, they made for easy targets of the ignorant, the excitable, and those who simply derived pleasure from inflicting pain under the cover of mob mentality.