by J. L. ROBB
Once the canisters were properly pressurized with the odorless compressed air, Vinny attached a small, battery-operated, solenoid valve to each one of the air valves. The solenoid of each canister was wired to a digital timer, the time continuously adjusted by satellite for accuracy. All four valves would activate at precisely the same time.
Parked at the service entrance for Terminal E, Vinny again breezed through security after saying a brief prayer, in Jesus’ name, with the two security guards on duty. He left a couple of small three-dollar boxes of Godiva chocolates for the men’s wives. They loved Vinny, he was such a good man, would do anything for anybody. He always asked about their children.
While Vinny made his way to the Hartsfield-Jackson rooftop, forty-four hundred miles due east of Atlanta, Vinny’s twin brother, Mohammed Rehza, had completed his mission, the same that Vinny was beginning, only his mission was completed at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, also known by the French as Roissy. Charles de Gaulle is Europe’s busiest airport and the sixth busiest in the world. The only difference in Mohammed’s mission was the virus type. Rather than Spanish Flu, not available in France, Mohammed had been supplied from the WMD stocks of the late Saddam Hussein, well hidden in the Bekaa Valley along the Syria-Lebanon border. Israel’s Mossad tried to warn the world in November 2002 that Saddam was moving his weapons to the Bekaa Valley; but again the world did not listen. Now instead of Saddam, thankfully among the deceased, having the WMD, they were being managed by Syria and Iran. Mohammed wondered why the Christian nations were so stupid, but he was glad they were.
“They have eyes but don’t see, ears but don’t hear.”
Mohammed remembered that from the New Testament he once started but didn’t finish. He tried to remember the exact verse, and did.
“God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that could not see and ears that could not hear, to this very day.” Romans 11:8
Mohammed had much pride in his gift of memory, and he knew the verse was true. The Christians were in a stupor and had been. Bin Laden publicly proclaimed in 1996, during Clinton’s presidency, that al-Qaeda was at war with the United States and, by default, the West. No one’s ears heard the message then, and no one’s ears will hear the message now. Which was fine with him. If Mohammed had read a little more of the Book of Romans, he would have understood that Paul was talking about the Jews of that day, not Christians.
Hartsfield-Jackson’s Terminal E had several large rooftop air conditioning systems, much different equipment than the chillers at CDC.
As Vinny walked across the roof of International Terminal E, making his way to the first of four rooftop air conditioning systems that he planned to service, Melissa Ross-Jeremias parked the Land Rover in the Short Term lot, as close to the main entrance of Hartsfield-Jackson as possible. She left her Rover, crossed the concrete lot and took the escalator down one level where she crossed the multi-laned street, filled with too much traffic as always.
Vinny removed the access panel to air conditioner 4E.
Melissa’s check in procedure was slower than normal, seemed a lot of people were flying internationally this day. The plane was late as usual and would most likely leave around 6:00 or later. She tried to control her impatience as best she could.
Vinny turned the disconnect off on the HVAC unit, cutting the power and removed the six high-density air filters. Vinny was glad the wind wasn’t blowing, though that would have made the unusual heat spell more manageable. Wind really shouldn’t matter anyway unless there was a premature discharge of the atomized virus.
Vinny’s laser thermometer indicated a rooftop temperature of one hundred seventeen degrees. He needed to work fast, but cautiously. Time would be running out soon, and Vinny needed to deliver the vials of liquid Spanish Flu to the Martyrs Brigade. This had to be done before tomorrow, when all hell would break loose, insha’Allah, God willing.
The Martyrs Brigade, the Eastern United States insurgency, had remained secret, undiscovered. Most of their communication was via satellite phone, in code. Their ability to sound American helped conceal their identities, in case anyone was listening, and someone usually was.
The code name for the coming mission of the Martyrs Brigade was Kentucky Fried Chicken, finger lickin’ good. While fried chicken had one coded meaning, potato salad had another. The Brigade had plans for the vials of Spanish Flu virus, just in time for Mother’s Day.
Vinny’s plan went smoothly and quickly, and he knew in his mind that God was willing. The four HVAC units, 4E, 6E, 14E and 16E, pleated air filters now removed, were fitted each with a container of fake freon gas that was secured inside the blower assembly of each air conditioner with Velcro adhesive strips.
Vinny checked the time on his expensive and very accurate Swiss Army Chronograph. It was 5:15 PM, the exact time that Melissa had just been assigned her seat number at the Delta check-in desk, as she stood almost directly under the main ductwork of rooftop unit 14E. Vinny was just twenty feet above Melissa’s head, unseen by the roof membrane that separated the two. He set each of the four digital timers to activate at 6:00 PM and release a ten-second spray of atomized virus into the main duct of each unit that supplied conditioned air to a large section of Terminal E. The virus would continue to be discharged in the four air conditioning systems every four hours until the virus was totally dispersed, about five days later.
Vinny secured the access panels to the four air conditioners, set a heavy wrench on the stack of air filters so they wouldn’t blow off the roof, turned the four disconnects back on and listened for the blowers to start back up. Like most large commercial HVAC systems, the fans operated continuously.
Vinny had twenty minutes to reach the parking lot, get in his truck and exit. He made it with time to spare, thanking God, Allah, for his willingness to help Vinny kill millions of innocent men, women and children. God is great, and Vinny left the parking lot with a smile on his face.
At 6:00 PM the solenoid-operated valves on the fake R-22 freon canisters opened perfectly. The power of the large blower motors sucked the virus through the supply air duct and into Terminal E. Within thirty seconds the virus, invisible but deadly, exited the air diffuser located below unit 14E directly above Melissa’s head as she waited, the last in line to board Delta 1457 to San Juan.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jeff drove his GTR to Emory University Hospital. He knew he probably wouldn’t be able to visit Samarra, but maybe he could learn something. He walked into the main hospital lobby, noting that specific “hospital smell” that was so unique to the medical industry, and to the admissions desk, dodging on the way the older gentleman in the Medline wheel chair.
“Ello dere,” the young woman greeted Jeff.
“Could you tell me what room Samarra Russell is in? She was admitted yesterday.” Jeff waited for the receptionist to check her monitor, smiling at her accent.
“Sir, we don’t shew a Samarra Russell as de patient. Could she be registered unner some udder name?”
The receptionist, a young black woman with a Jamaican accent, was courteous; and as she spoke, Jeff enjoyed the lyrical sounds of her Jamaican language, a mixture of English, Spanish, Portuguese and a little Creole. The Jamaican native language was referred to as patois.
“She may be in isolation. Could you check intensive care?” Jeff persisted, knowing from Jack Russell’s voice mail that she was apparently in grave shape.
“Whey yuh name? I will check.” Jeff recognized her meaning.
“I’m Jeffrey Ross, a close family friend of Samarra and Senator Russell. Senator Russell called yesterday and said she was in isolation.”
The receptionist checked further, finally telling Jeff that Samara Russell was in isolation in the Communicable Disease ICU.
“She have no visitors sir, not even de husband at dis time.”
“Can I go to the nurse’s station to see if they can give me any information on her status?”
“No sir, but you can phone de nurse’s s
tation from de red phone over dere.” The Jamaican pointed to the far-right side of the lobby. “Let de nurse know you are a family friend.”
Jack walked across the immaculate floor, a floor continuously mopped and buffed like all hospital floors, and picked up the red phone. He waited for a nurse to pick up, which happened after about ten rings.
“Can I help you?” The nurse’s voice was polite but brief and to the point. ICU nurses were always busy and didn’t have time for chit-chat.
“Yes maam, I am calling about a close friend, Samarra Russell.”
“She’s in isolation sir. No visitors.”
“Could you give me an update on Samarra’s status?” Jeff tried not to be too pushy.
“Not really sir, since you aren’t family. I can tell you that at this point there is no diagnosis. She is still comatose. You didn’t hear that from me.”
Jeff thanked the ICU nurse for the limited info, hung up the red phone and left through the front entrance of the hospital.
What’s going on he wondered to himself. Melissa’s new husband was missing and presumed dead from the plane crash. Samarra, one of his closest friends, was in isolation with some unknown disease; and Jeff figured she probably caught something from her work at CDC. He had just seen her a couple of days before, twice; and she seemed at that time to be perfectly normal, no signs of any type of illness.
Jeff went back to his home in Sugarloaf and called his doctor. Just to be on the safe side, he would go in and have Dr. Harrison check him thoroughly, head-to-toe, just to make sure the exotic disease fairy had not visited him too. Dr. Nancy Harrison had been his doctor for several years, and at one time had been the mayor of Duluth. After talking with her and scheduling an appointment for later in the afternoon, he called Sheri and Bennett in Raleigh to check on Audry.
***
Chuck Hutz, a.k.a. Upchuck, a.k.a. Chuck the Putz, hated test-drives; but he knew that came with the territory. In spite of Chuck’s dismal personality, and dismal was a compliment, he could sure sell those cars. Test drives were a necessary part of the sale.
“There’s never been a car I cain’t sell,” he would tell anyone who listened. As a matter of fact, Chuck wasn’t too concerned about anything except women and booze, and that included the solar storm that was headed to Raleigh and elsewhere, just a few million miles away.
Chuck needed the money and knew he would make the sell. One needs money if one has a cocaine and alcohol habit. He made good money, but his alcohol-thing and his coke-thing were very expensive, not to mention chasing all those skirts around the nightlife of Raleigh and Chapel Hill. He needed the money, but he didn’t need what happened next.
Solar activity peaks every eleven years, the peak having much sunspot activity and the non-peak having almost none. So far activity had been slow for the past two years, much slower than normal. Low sunspot activity was not unheard of but was not common by any means. Many astrophysicists believed that increased sunspot activity leads to climate warming, and low activity leads to climate cooling. Sunspot activity generated more heat radiation, so it only made sense: More solar radiation equals a warmer Earth.
Earth had experienced a prolonged spell of minimum sunspot activity from the 1600s to the mid-1700s. This period of extremely low sunspot activity became known as the Maunder Minimum, named after British astronomer Edward Maunder and was later described as the Little Ice Age. The Little Ice Age followed an extraordinary three hundred year warm spell starting in 1400 and lasting to the advent of the Little Ice Age.
It was during the latter part of the Little Ice Age that the Revolutionary War was fought, George Washington losing many of his soldiers to the extreme cold. There were instances of soldiers on guard duty who froze to death during their watch. The Rhine River in France remained frozen until mid-summer.
Though not a Maunder Minimum, the first decade of the new millennium, from 2001-2010 experienced incredibly little sunspot activity, leading many scientists to believe that global warming was a thing of the past. That was not to be however, with sunspot activity beginning to increase rapidly, almost exponentially, after 2010.
Chuck had no idea that this cycle happened, nor did he really care, had never even heard of an eleven-year solar cycle. He just knew it was the hottest weather he could ever remember. He didn’t keep up with the news, except business news and anything to do with scantily clad women. He did visit his favorite news site on the internet each day, the Barbra Streisand web page.
Just the night before Chuck had visited his favorite watering hole in Cary, a suburb of Raleigh. He was a regular at Murphy’s Pub.
“I love Barbara Streisand. She really tells it like it is. I bet she can hold her breath a long time, know what I mean? She’s really got some big uns. What a pair of lungs! No wonder she can sing so good.”
The bartender at Murphy’s Pub listened to Chuck, like he did almost every night, and corrected Upchuck, letting him know that Barbra would be really ticked off if she heard him call her Barbara.
“She changed her name intentionally from Barbara to Barbra, you know.” The bartender told Chuck that repeatedly; but after a couple of vodkas, Chuck’s memory was non-existent. “By the way, what happened to your hand?”
“What the hell are you talkin’ about? Are you crazy? What’s the damn difference in Barbra and Barbara? You are way too stupid Dean. But I like ya’!” Upchuck slurred and turned up his vodka. “She will always be Barbara to me.” He had unusual people skills.
“Plus, that broad’s a sharp cookie, yessirree,” he repeated to the bartender, and reiterated, “She sings good too!” He was a democrat because she was, or at least he thought so.
“If Barbara’s not a democrat, I’ll be whatever she is. I’m not really too political. All I know is that broad’s a hot commodity!”
“So what happened to your hand?” The bartender repeated the question, knowing in his own mind that Barbra would not like being called a broad any more than she liked being called Barbara. Chuck did have his idiosyncrasies, but the bartender never remembered Chuck with a gauze J&J bandage wrapped around his palm. He noted the drainage appearing through the bandage.
“Oh, it’s nothing. I burned my hand yesterday when I grabbed the steering wheel before I let the car cool down.” Chuck subconsciously flexed his fingers as best he could, wincing at the pain.
“Uh oh,” the bartender replied. “Burns can be painful.”
“No shellac, Sherlock.” Chuck remarked. “You must be a detective.”
“I am, and I noticed you’re cleaning up your language a bit.”
The bartender laughed and had cautioned Chuck many times over the previous months about keeping his language in check. Dean thought it a step in the right direction that Chuck substituted shellac for the s-word he normally used, abundantly.
“Yeah, my neighbor Ophelia has been helping me with that. She said I sounded like the old Eddie Murphy. That’s why I like Murphy’s Pub so much.” Chuck decided that if they had named the pub Barbara’s Place, he would have just moved into the bar.
This morning, another hot and sunny day, Chuck left Crabtree Valley Mall dressed in his usual seersucker attire and headed north on Creedmoor Road. He planned to meet the potential car-buyer at the buyer’s home on Amstel Way, one of the many ways that Chuck managed to sell so many cars. He would drive to the customer, just to make it convenient.
Today, even with the extreme heat, Chuck would don his seersucker sport coat. Chuck didn’t want to gross anyone out with his constantly oozing, infected back from the waxing he had the previous week, to please his on-and-off girlfriend.
After a couple of miles, Chuck was pleased that he had all green lights so far. He usually hit every red light that was available on whatever route he took. Passing through the intersection of Creedmoor and W. Millbrook Road, Chuck glanced in his rear-view mirror in time to see the terrible collision. He figured someone must have run the red light. He didn’t stop to help, thinking people should pay
attention or not drive.
While Chuck was heading north on Creedmoor Road in the new Crown Victoria, a forty-five foot Blue Bird Wanderlodge, the crème de la crème of recreational vehicles, was heading east on Lynn Road toward Creedmoor Road where Sheri and Bennett would turn their Wanderlodge north, on their way to Kerr Lake where they were taking eight year old Audry camping for a few days, if one could call a Wanderlodge camping.
Kerr Lake, located on the Virginia-North Carolina border, opened in 1952 for the production of electricity and flood control and was Virginia’s largest reservoir. Operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Kerr Lake’s Kimball Point was an excellent camping location with easy access from I-85. Kerr Lake, with 850 miles of shoreline, was one of the Southeast’s largest reservoirs.
The 2006 Wanderlodge was manufactured by Blue Bird Manufacturing in Ft. Valley, Georgia, until Blue Bird was purchased by Complete Coach Works in 2007. The Wanderlodge, at forty-five feet, was a Ritz Carlton on wheels, the ride described as floating on the clouds. Equipped with cameras galore, outfitted in the finest silk and leather, the Wanderlodge came with granite countertops, kingsize bed and hot tub, not exactly what most would call camping.
Sheri and Bennett were also aware, like Chuck, of all the green lights coming their way, but not aware that TACS, The Army of the Christian Soldier, had hacked into the North Carolina Department of Transportation computer systems. TACS had invaded DOT computer systems in several states and now controlled traffic flow, or maybe the term should be uncontrolled.
As a result of the TACS takeover of the N.C. DOT Traffic Control System, all traffic signals in the Raleigh area had been set on constant green, just as Chuck began his trek up Creedmoor Road.
Sheri and Bennett’s RV approached the intersection of Lynn Road and Creedmoor Road at 50 m.p.h. when Bennett noticed that he had a green light, even though all the intersecting traffic appeared to be running their red light. Bennett slowed the 50,000-pound Wanderlodge, a whiff of apprehension in the air.