by Fritz Galt
Aside from the hurried nature of the trip, this was an important run to infuse his underground assets in the south with cash. The thousand sticks of gelatin dynamite along with several hundred detonators were common currency for the underworld down there. Among other possible buyers, drug lords sold the weaponry to Gujarat and elsewhere along the coast for heroin that they sold in Bombay.
The dynamite sticks would make choice armaments for his soldiers around India. They were made with a high nitroglycerin content and had a velocity of detonation rated at twenty thousand feet per second. He had enough explosives and detonators, fixed with twelve-foot wires, to create several hundred human bombs, a hundred very effective car bombs, or one or two truly newsworthy building blasts. He could think of a few fine targets, but he had larger plans in mind. He wanted money quick, and didn’t want to waste his time merely creating havoc.
Settling more comfortably in his seat, he assured himself that he was immune to capture. It was a good thing he had high-quality, hand-knotted Kashmiri carpets to not only disguise the explosives, but also to pad the gelatin sticks from shock.
Also rolled up in the carpets were thirty Egyptian Maddi rifles, which were minor variants of the Russian AK-47, two hundred magazines and thousands of rounds of ammunition. The guns would be of more immediate use to him, and he planned to break out a couple rifles that morning.
Unfortunately, the rifles were designed to meet the U.S. ban on assault weapons, so they were highly watered down from the originals, and had poorer reliability, which disappointed him greatly. He also would have preferred Bulgarian or Russian workmanship, but he felt resigned. He was limited by what his sources had to offer.
The rifles didn’t cycle smoothly, and their sight bases were mounted at a crooked angle. Their finish was not consistently glossy, as if several Egyptian machinists, slaving away in the desert heat, had taken turns finishing each gun. In addition, assembly looked sloppy, the cast parts were poorly finished, and spot welds seemed like the work of an amateur. Even worse, they didn’t have the pistol grip stock, bayonet, or muzzle break of the originals, but such was life. And finally, he would have preferred the pre-ban, thirty-round magazine instead of the five-round, but he wasn’t fighting a war. Just yet.
He closed his eyes and began to visualize the abduction in front of Bombay’s Taj Mahal Hotel. His assets already would be in place. All they needed from him was a positive ID, which Keri Butler’s photo would provide, and protection, which is why he had the rifles. Though imperfect, the guns would be adequate for the task.
He sighed in his cramped, coach-class seat. The thought of working with Osama and the Saudis had given him a taste for the finer things in life.
Mick stepped off the sand, still cool because of its absolute whiteness, and ducked under wide, spreading branches of an enormous Banyan tree. In the shade, Simon hovered over a table and peered into a microscope.
“Did you finish your autopsy of the fishermen we found?” Mick inquired.
“All it took was a blood sample and a microscope.”
“What did you find?”
“Oh, it’s malaria, all right. Just what kind of malaria will take me several more hours to ascertain.”
“What do you mean what kind?”
Simon stood upright and glanced at several Hindu islanders who were tying the fishermen’s bodies to a wooden funeral pyre.
He resumed in a lower voice. “As you know, there are four types of malaria parasites that feed on human blood and reproduce in the human host.”
While he focused his microscope, he explained that malaria parasites, unlike their flesh-eating cousins, the Hantavirus, didn’t devour human cells. “Malaria doesn’t eat flesh, but it does feast on hemoglobin from red blood cells. A full-blown case of malaria could consume your hemoglobin at the rate of half a pound every few hours. What you get then is severe anemia.”
“Is anemia the reason why Mariah grew weak so quickly?”
Simon peered over his microscope at Mick. “It’s the anemia that usually kills people, not the malaria directly. With anemia, patients become susceptible to any sort of disease and die. It’s those statistics that never make it into the final numbers on malaria death.”
“But Mariah didn’t catch anything else.”
“She was lucky. You must have kept her in a safe environment. But malaria itself can kill. The limp walls of invaded red blood cells adhere to blood vessels, constricting blood flow. In cases of severe cranial malaria, the dead blood cells occlude capillaries of the brain. If treated promptly, you can prevent death, but it may result in coma.”
Mick sucked in his breath. “I guess we got Mariah to you just in time. Exactly what are you using that worked so well?”
“At first I used some powerful blood thinners and anti-clotting agents. Then I implemented the standard triple malaria regimen of quinine, Fansidar and the iron chelator desferrioxamine to unclog her veins and stop whatever damage was occurring. Now we have to wait for her recovery. It’s up to her body to find a way, a hormonal or chemical key, to turn itself back on. Here’s where science leaves off and willpower takes over.”
“She’s playing chess with Death.”
Simon’s eyebrows narrowed. “Are you religious?”
“Why do you ask? Should I be?”
“You’ve been around, seen the world. Over the years, you’ve had many religions to choose from. I just wonder where you came up with the image of playing chess with Death? It’s an old Christian image.”
“I guess I feel like some Holy Crusader these days. It’s a case of a Christian complex in an otherwise non-spiritual guy.” Mick felt impatient whenever he talked about religion. It seemed like such a waste of time. He returned to the subject at hand. “What are those drugs supposed to do for Mariah?”
“They’ll hasten recovery from deep coma in severe P. falciparum malaria. In this case, even though she didn’t have falciparum, the therapy did prevent her death.”
“What kind of malaria does she have?”
“I checked it carefully against the four other forms of malaria parasites that attack humans. It was none of the above. I’m not even sure that you could call it malaria, although it attacks red blood cells in the same way.”
“Tell me when you learn what killed these gentlemen,” Mick said, gesturing to the beach. At that moment, the corpses that were stretched across the seaside pyres suddenly burst into balls of fire.
Simon held up a glass slide. “My guess is that it’s the very same organism I killed in your daughter.”
Mick shuddered at the thought of an unknown disease sweeping India. “Who knows how many people have the disease by now? You may have been the first to diagnose it. We should call it ‘Simon’s Disease.’”
“I’m not looking for notoriety. By the way, why did you bring her here?” Simon asked. “Look at this laboratory I run. I’m sure there are a great number of qualified doctors with better facilities in Bombay.”
“I was so angry, I couldn’t see straight. There she was, a three-year-old kid in India, sent there under Executive Order at the whim of the president, and the government slaps this quarantine crap on her like she’s some rabid dog. The Indian doctors seemed unwilling or unable to give me a diagnosis. Our embassy doctors were under orders not to fly down to see her, due to all the terrorists crawling around. When our part-time consulate doctor gave me your name, you became our only hope.”
“Well, I guess you made the right decision.”
“Tell my wife that.”
“She’ll realize it in due course.”
“So why the quarantine?”
“It’s part of the U.S.’s disease surveillance campaign instituted after the Hantavirus scare in the early Nineties. The INS denies entry to the U.S. to any person having contracted a new, uncharacterized form of infectious or communicable disease, or any one of many such untreatable diseases.”
“What Mariah has is unknown and untreatable. But there’s no justice
in the law.”
“It’s an ‘Us-Versus-Them’ law,” Simon said. “Americans don’t want to be affected by or take on the problems of the Other World.”
“Try the problems of the real world.”
Chapter 9
It was seven p.m. in Langley, Virginia. The darkness was filled with falling leaves and the excitement of Monday Night Football.
In the administrative headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency, Director Hugh Gutman was using his chubby fingers to chase the remaining flecks of potato chips around the inside of the bag.
When Hugh looked up, the Deputy Director for Intelligence, Casey Blau, was standing in the doorway.
“Don’t just stand there fondling your balls.” Hugh swept an arm over his enormous, teak-paneled office. “Take a seat and explain what’s so important that it eats into my football schedule.”
Everything about Casey Blau was blue. A bony, middle-aged man, he wore a wrinkled blue business suit like an inmate trying to impress a parole board. His wide, unblinking, bleached-blue eyes cleared the room like a minesweeper. And “Blau” meant “blue” in Swedish or some such language.
“It’s safe in here,” Hugh said, with a reassuring smile. “I won’t bite.”
“I’m not disturbing you?”
“Keep me any longer, and you will,” Hugh said between his teeth.
Casey’s rear end found a seat without him taking his maniacal eyes off of Gutman.
In the high-pressure world of Capitol Hill, where Hugh Gutman had once soared as a high-ranking senator, there had been little time for such handholding. However, hidden from view in the long corridors of public service where the cogs of government actually turned, however slowly, he had taught himself patience.
The real difference between the hired and the elected, he told himself, was that now he was dealing with professionals rather than actors. This Casey, for whom he felt such disapproval, was the genuine article with a Ph.D. in Economics, several obscure languages and dialects at his command, and years of dedicated service abroad to prove it.
While he still flourished in the milieu of glib media stars, Hugh had learned to contain his aversion for the “small fry” who worked for him. After all, in his role as head of the world’s top spy agency, dropping a phrase like “character assassination” might inadvertently lead to actual termination of a human life.
“So what’s the problem today?” Hugh probed. He was growing tired of the bad news from Palestine, Iraq, Kosovo. If he had to sit through another meeting discussing Hamas, Hussein or that other guy, so help him, he would pick up his phone, call President Chuck Damon, and tell him to press the goddamned button.
“We may have a coup d’etat in Mauritius, sir.” Casey said in an emotionless voice. His blank stare gave Hugh the impression that he should already know what was on his mind.
“All right. I give up. You guys keep throwing these names at me. First it was Granada, then it was the Falkland Islands, then Kuwait, then Kosovo. One moment they’re everyone’s idea of nowhere, and then suddenly they’re everyone’s business.”
Casey’s knees creaked as he regained his feet. He sidled across the room to a huge map of the world and swept his greasy hair out of his eyes. He extended a long index finger to a pinpoint in the southern Indian Ocean, seven hundred miles east of South Africa and two thousand five hundred miles southwest of India. “Mauritius is an independent island republic.”
“I thought they were owned by the Dutch, or something,” Hugh said, attempting to sound informed.
“Yes, well, Mauritius traded hands quite often. It was just a rest stop for the Dutch and Portuguese. But the French made it into a real colony. For a period there, in the chaos following the French Revolution, Mauritius had dominion over the other French island colonies of Reunion and Seychelles.” Casey thrust his hand at obscure corners of the western Indian Ocean.
“Okay, okay,” Hugh said. “So it’s not Dutch.”
Not to be deterred before he finished his point, Casey continued, “The British began moving into the Indian Ocean in a big way. Mauritius was a strategic point along the Spice Route.” He traced a line around the southern tip of Africa.
Academics. He was surrounded by the musty world of academia.
“So the British mounted an attack on Mauritius and took her. She’s remained culturally French ever since with a French legal system, the whole bit, but Britain ruled her.”
Hugh tried to conceal a yawn.
“Then the Suez Canal opened in 1869. Putt putt putt.” Casey drew an imaginary line of ships passing from the eastern Mediterranean Sea into the Red Sea and northern Indian Ocean and stopped at the triangular subcontinent of India.
“So that was the end of Mauritius?”
“It lost its military and economic importance,” Casey agreed, “but gained a reputation for self-rule in a region otherwise governed by dictators or ruled directly by colonial powers. Indeed, the British let Mauritius form political parties and create many of her own institutions. They eventually gave her independence in 1968.”
“Yahoo,” Hugh said sitting upright in his chair to chase away the cobwebs. “Dump the colonists.”
“Democracy and all that good stuff followed,” Casey continued. “Lots of governments, the sort of contemporary politics that becomes hard to follow.”
“So are they Muslim or what?”
“Oh, no. This doesn’t look like a terrorist coup.”
Hugh sank in his seat. So what’s the point?
“Okay, so who does live there? Was it a French penal colony or something?”
“Not at all. It was never that. Just a small fraction of the people there are descendants of the original French settlers from centuries ago, but they still control most of the sugar plantations and big business.”
“Okay, sugar plantations. You’ve really got my attention now.”
“Then there are the Creoles, a mixture of French and their African slaves. Once the slaves were emancipated, they were replaced by Indian and Chinese laborers.”
Hugh studied the map. “Way down there?”
Casey nodded. “Hindus and Muslims now make up more than half the population.”
“Ah-ha!”
“Actually, Chinese also hit the island as entrepreneurs, and they tend to dominate commerce at the village level. So you have a real grab-bag of cultures.”
“I’m not thinking about the Chinese. It’s the Muslim fundamentalists I’m after. Was there some sort of a sultan running the place?”
“Well, he’s a president. To be specific, he’s the grandson of the original president elected in ’68. In the gap between their two presidencies, there was a loose coalition of leftist parties.”
Hugh stroked his chin, trying to understand the significance of this. “So what’s the problem now?”
“We think there’s a rebellion afoot. Last week in Johannesburg, airport officials stopped a group of men returning to Mauritius and searched them for drugs. Lo and behold, they found sacks of Thai heroin sewn into the bottoms of their suitcases.”
“Terrorists aren’t from Thailand, and they don’t use heroin.”
“The drugs weren’t the real find, sir. The customs officials seized documents and computer diskettes referring to preparations by a South African mercenary named Jake Harbour. Jake’s a former South Africa commando who led the underground war against UNITA in Luanda.”
“There you go, dropping names again.”
“Sorry, sir. I’ll stick to the basics. It seems that Jake was planning to carry out an assault on the government in Port Louis.”
“What’s Port Louis got to do with this?”
“That’s the capital of Mauritius, sir.”
“Okay. So a former commando is taking over Mauritius. It doesn’t seem to be a terrorist strike, we don’t have a base there, it’s not an economic powerhouse, and it’s not an incredibly important ally of ours. My heart fails to bleed.”
“I understand. But
listen to this. A band of mercenaries can’t just take over a country as big as Mauritius without some support. The documents spelled out links between key island businessmen, Islamist groups in the Middle East and the Muslim community in Mauritius.”
“Ah-ha! I knew it.”
“However, it’s not particularly the act of terrorism that should worry us. The question is, why Mauritius? Is there something larger afoot?”
“Conspiracy theories. I don’t buy ’em.”
“Do you buy actual conspiracies?”
“Show me an actual conspiracy, and I’ll tell you if I buy it.”
“Riyadh, Dhahran, Dar-es-Salaam and Nairobi. All carefully planned bombings by the same man. And that’s just one terrorist at work.”
“Yeah, but we know who he is.”
“Try this one on for size. The World Trade Center bombing in ’93 and the plot to blow up the UN Headquarters, the Federal building in New York and the Port Authority’s Hudson River tunnels.”
“We got ’em, too.”
“How many more pissed off fanatics are there out there in the world?” Casey said with a full head of steam. “Just these three instances?”
“I suppose you think there’s a single conspiracy behind all these conspiracies.”
“No, but we have to figure out what’s on their minds. Again, why Mauritius?”
“Okay, you can go ahead and alert our station chief in Port Pierre.”
“Port Louis, sir. I’ve tried to contact him, but there’s a slight problem.”
“What’s that?”
“He has disappeared.”
Hugh looked wistfully at the blank screen of his television set. Maybe he could catch the highlights on CNN.
“Okay, explain yourself,” Hugh growled. “The station chief in Mauritania has disappeared.’”
“We only have one man in Port Louis, Mauritius. Our station chief there is a guy named Alec Pierce.”
“Oh crap. Not him again.”
“You know him, sir?”