Hybrid

by Brian O'Grady

  A nurse watched as Amanda went through the anteroom and opened the isolation door; she started to scream at Amanda to stop. Lisa turned and faced the woman and reassured her that everything was under control.

  “I saw you upstairs,” she started. “You missed quite a show. I will bet that you have some questions about what’s happening to you.” Her skin tingled in response to their close proximity, and she slid the only chair in the room away from Phil. She sat down waiting for him to formulate a question.

  “Too many to be answered now.“

  Amanda could see that he was struggling to blot out the collective mental energies of two dozen people. “It won’t hurt you, so don’t try and fight it. Organize it and learn to control your mind.”

  “I’ve been trying to do that my entire life, with little success. Shouldn’t you, we be out there trying to stop him, them? You did see what I saw in his mind?”

  “That and more, Phil. Do you think you’re ready?”

  “No, but I don’t think we have any other options.” He stared at her with a steady gaze, and she could feel the fear in his mind, but also that he controlled it extraordinarily well. He was a master in managing fear; almost his entire life had been an exercise in controlling it.

  “I can see how you survived. Fear and terror are his favorite weapons, but they are old hat to you.”

  “I’m not comfortable having my personal thoughts out on display,” he admonished her.

  “You better get used to it, and not just your thoughts, but your memories, your wants and needs, all of it is now open to anyone who can read. In time, you will be able to shield some of it, but from here on out, your life is going to be very different, Phil.”

  “I won’t know how to survive,” he said. The blueprint to his survival had just been thrown out the window.

  “Do you know what I need you to do?”

  “The same thing you sent the priest to do. Only I can’t leave here; I’ll infect everyone I come in contact with.”

  “He will take care of that,” Amanda said, referring to the very tardy Ron Benedict who was chatting politely with Lisa. “It won’t be comfortable, but at least you won’t be stuck in here. I need to go, and I hope we will get a chance to talk again. You’re a very interesting man, Phillip Rucker.”

  Joseph Rider tried to finish his morning newspaper, but the violently bucking subway car and the foul-smelling drunk next to him made it difficult. The train shot out of the tunnel and into the bright March sunlight so suddenly that Joseph had to look away for a moment. The sky was the impossibly vivid blue seen only in early spring, and he focused on it as the buildings of downtown Los Angeles raced by the window. He closed his eyes and tried to absorb its energy and beauty.

  “Are you done with that?” the drunk asked and stuck a dirty finger into the sports pages. Rider passed over the entire newspaper without a word. He was certain that by tomorrow it would be among the millions of pieces of garbage that littered the City of Angels. It didn’t really matter. America had much greater problems. People were dying by the thousands in Colorado, and then, just to make the world a more dangerous place, the Iranians had foolishly attacked an American aircraft carrier. The president’s savage and immediate response had already sparked anger throughout the Arab world, even though the Iranians weren’t Arabs. People were going to die by the tens of thousands over there, maybe even more. The newspaper that was now serving as a blanket and a sunshade for the citizen next to him had casually mentioned that because of the recent crisis, units of the Strategic Air Command were being reactivated. As assistant director of public safety, Joseph knew what units those would be. More than thirty years ago, Ronald Reagan had advanced the premise that a biological attack would be the equivalent of a nuclear attack. Across the western United States, soldiers were unwrapping and assembling special munitions.

  The train stopped, and Joseph got off. People pushed at him from all sides, but he continued his relaxed pace towards the Federal Building. Even though he was an employee of the County of Los Angeles, a shortage in office space had forced him to move into the gleaming new tower two years ago. As he spent most of his time conferring with federal officials, it actually worked out better for him.

  He rode the elevator to the twenty-third floor, chatting casually with some other county refugees, and made it to his desk before eight. He was an hour early, as usual, and only a couple of other early birds dotted the Public Safety Center. As an assistant director, he rated his own small office and window. He dropped his briefcase on his desk and started his morning routine. Computer on, coffee maker on, answering machine checked for messages, and mail collected and sorted.

  Finished, he sat down and turned towards his window. His official responsibilities didn’t start for another half hour, so he thought he might tend to some unofficial responsibilities. He pulled his laptop out of its case and opened it. The small but powerful computer began to boot itself up automatically, and after a minute, a small electronic beep asked for his password. He typed in the five-letter word and his browser came up. He checked the Web site, and to his surprise found an invitation to a child’s birthday party. The signal had come early, which didn’t surprise him. Events were moving quickly and in a somewhat unexpected direction. Five years ago, he had been selected largely because of an ability to act independently, and now he prayed that he would not fail. The small blue vial lay dormant, wrapped in its special paper, under the foundation of his rented house; he would slip away from work at noon and start the process that would slowly bring it back to life. It would take thirty hours to fully reconstitute, and then it would have to be dispersed within twenty-four hours. The virus needed a host.

  He stared down at the commuters three hundred feet below him. They scurried about like ants, living their small, godless lives. He had been told that he needed to infect at least two hundred people to achieve a proper dispersal pattern, but he thought he could do many more than that before he himself was overwhelmed by the effects of the virus. He would be able to pass the virus to more than a hundred just by riding the subway; the rest he would find in the quintessential American institution: the mall. He had found a large upscale mall only three blocks from a mosque, and it would be there that death would find him.

  For three years, he had not prayed publicly. When he had first arrived in Los Angeles, he had tried to carry on all the Muslim traditions and prayers, but quickly found that his thoughts colored his actions, so he forced himself to stop. He had to be anonymous, the typical American: baseball, barbecues, and beer.

  He looked out to sea and tried to find the exact spot where the blue of the ocean touched the blue of the sky. He had never seen the ocean until he came to Southern California. It reminded him of the mountains in his native Afghanistan. The wind, the isolation, the freedom, and nature’s total disregard about whether you lived or died; things he had felt as a child in the White Mountains of eastern Afghanistan, and again as an adult in a small sailboat not ten miles from here.

  His mind drifted back to his small village. He wished he could see it once more before he died. He wished he could see his father and tell him what he had really been doing these last five years. He knew that at some point, after he had gone to paradise, someone would. A Mercedes, or perhaps a BMW, would drive up the dusty streets where he had once played soccer. A man would get out, and because of his Western clothes, he would at first be viewed with suspicion. After introductions, he would be greeted warmly and invited in as an honored guest.

  “Izhac,” he would say. “Your son died bravely in the service of the Almighty. He suffered much for Allah, but never once wavered. I am humbled to be in the presence of a man who raised such a perfect servant of God.” The meeting would end when his father was presented with an envelope full of more money than he had ever seen in his fifty-one years.

  Izhan Ahmed, also known as Joseph Rider, closed the laptop and slid it back into its case. Something must have happened to the German, he thought. No ma
tter—he had well insulated himself from Reisch. He was beyond suspicion. It was a supremely ironic twist of fate that, quite legitimately, he had risen to a position in which he was now the individual most responsible for protecting the citizens of Los Angeles from people like himself.

  William McDaniels wasn’t paid to track down terrorists, he was paid to kill them before they reached American soil, but he had an idea that wouldn’t go away. He strummed his fingers on the small file labeled Rachel Hill. The information was new, and therefore subject to error, but he thought he saw the outlines of a pattern. According to Amanda Flynn, as many as eleven parasites had burrowed deep into the body of the United States, and each was armed with a dose of the original virus. Avanti had called it the Hybrid for some reason. Then, there was the fact that over the past three years, databases and storage facilities of the FBI, the Army Medical Corps, and the CDC had been systematically altered and plundered. Now, a spy had turned up in one of those very places.

  There had to be a connection. On the other hand, just how big of an operation could Jeser mount and still stay below the collective radar of the Western world? Did they have the resources to both infiltrate American society undetected and separately invade its secure areas, all without their existence being confirmed?

  He picked up his phone and dialed the director of the FBI. It took him two minutes to get him on a secure line.

  “Good morning, Bill,” said Kyle Stanley.

  “Well, it certainly is a morning,” General McDaniels growled. “I want to run an idea by you. Yesterday, we found a spy working in the CDC, and I’m guessing she works for Jeser.”

  “That’s fantastic! We have to interrogate her as soon as possible.”

  “We’re on our way to pick her up now. Listen, I have this nagging thought that these eleven infiltrators may also be responsible for some of the computer chaos we’ve experienced over the last couple of years? This woman assumed the identity of a college coed who had gone missing six months earlier and then turned up working at one of the sites that got hit. Maybe some of them are still on Uncle Sam’s payroll using the identity of a missing person, just as she did. I was hoping that you had a way of cross-referencing the local police files with the federal employment files.”

  “It’s an idea, but the federal background checks should have kicked those out from the start.”

  “Even if it’s just a missing person report?”

  “You know, I don’t know that. My guess is that it would, but let me check. I’ll call you back in five minutes.”

  Five minutes had stretched to two hours, and McDaniels had moved on to the more mundane business of returning Iran to the Stone Age. In nine hours, the fury of the United States of America was going to be unleashed on Iran’s military apparatus. Already, the Iranians had tested America’s resolve by sending two waves of ancient Phantom and MIG fighters towards the wounded Eisenhower. Ike had responded by sending her own modern fighters towards the oncoming Iranians. Score: Ike 22, Iranians 0. Apparently, some of the American pilots had pursued the fleeing Iranian jets almost all the way back to their bases before destroying them over Iranian soil. They had used their nose cannons, which were a pilot’s equivalent of looking someone in the eye as you stab them in the heart.

  A discreet knock on the door disturbed the planning meeting. “Sir, the director of the FBI is returning your call.”

  “That will be all, gentlemen,” said McDaniels, and the two three-star generals and a rear admiral filed out. “Kyle, that was a very long five minutes.”

  “And that was a very fine idea you had. It seems that not all missing person reports are treated the same. Fact is that in my hometown of Charlotte, if an individual can provide enough documentation, the report just goes away. Want to know what constitutes enough documentation? A photo ID.”

  “Damn,” McDaniels answered.

  “It gets worse. For years, when queried, most jurisdictions have simply reported whether the applicant has a criminal record or not. That all changed a year ago.”

  Years ago, after 9/11, Congress had mandated that all authorities, federal and local, tie into a single master law enforcement database. In typical Washington style, it had taken them nearly five years to fully fund the simple project, and then almost another five years to complete it.

  The director continued, “In my hand I hold a sheet of paper that has a paltry 161 names on it. These are the names of individuals who have at one time in their lives been reported missing, and then later, miraculously reappeared, applied for, and were granted federal clearance. Technically, these 161 people are still missing, but they’re not going to be missing much longer. We’re rounding them up as we speak.”

  “Did you find Rachel Hill?”

  “Number eighty-nine. Excellent work, General. Now go blow those bastards up, and we will take care of this.”

  “So any idea how much time we have before these eleven infiltrators release the really bad virus,” the President of the United States asked his Cabinet.

  “Less than forty-eight hours. We’re working under the assumption that Reisch managed to send out his message before we were able to shut down the Web site. It is possible that some of the infiltrators did not see it before the site was taken down. Unfortunately, that will only delay the release, not prevent it.” McDaniels had taken the lead in the briefing.

  “All of this comes from the young woman that survived this same virus,” the president said. “I’m still uncomfortable with this. How do we know that she is not in league with them and that all this paranormal stuff is just to confuse us?”

  “I’m convinced of it,” Kyle Stanley said. “She took out five of our agents without ever moving. I’ve seen the video, and the evidence is compelling.”

  “Any casualty estimates?” The president had turned to his secretary of health and Human Services, who was visibly uncomfortable in the spotlight.

  “Based upon what happened seven years ago, I would say a little less than the entire population of the United States.”

  “Three hundred million people? You want me to believe that in less than six months, there will be no one left?” The president’s stare pinned the secretary to the couch. “Well, I guess we don’t have to worry about mid-term elections.”

  The six men arranged around the president chuckled nervously at his gallows humor.

  “Obviously, this is unacceptable. Options?” He searched the faces of each of his advisors, but most of them looked away. “Kyle, what is the probability that we can catch these eleven terrorists in the next forty-eight hours?”

  “We have two leads that we’re working on. The first may be the most promising. It seems that the spy Avanti used, who by the way was actually working for the Russians, took her identity from a missing person. We’re cross-referencing the list of missing persons and federal employees. We’d like to branch out a little and look into state and municipal employees, but that would take days. The other lead is the man who helped our spy establish herself. He happens to be in a federal prison right now.”

  “Excellent. What about this name she gave us, the financier, Moncrief?”

  “The name didn’t check out. We’re down to basic police work, cross-referencing residents in upstate New York with French citizenry. Unless we get extremely lucky, that direction won’t get us where we need to be.” Stanley finished by scanning the room, hoping that someone else had an idea.

  “What we need is a little more time. We need to extend the quarantine to involve the entire country, Alaska and Hawaii included. I would recommend a complete ban on travel except for emergency and military personnel, and impose an around-the-clock curfew thirty-six hours from now,” McDaniels said.

  “Why wait? The president asked.

  “It will take some time for all the federal, state, county, and city emergency plans to be activated. It would take at least twenty-four hours for everyone to marshal the resources, and another twelve to get all the people in place. To do this correct
ly and safely, everyone is going to need a little time.”

  “You’re exactly right. Make it happen.” The president made a show of looking at his watch. “That means that the curfew begins eleven tomorrow night.” All the men in the room nodded their heads.” Now, onto other business, General. How are the Iranians getting along?”

  “Poorly, sir. We are proceeding on schedule.” McDaniels was a soldier and would obey all orders from the commanderin-chief promptly and to the best of his ability, but this was not the smartest order he had ever executed.

  “Thank you, gentlemen.” The president stood, and everyone began to file out of the room silently. “Bill, please may I have a minute?”

  The door to the Oval Office closed with a slight whoosh, and the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs faced his civilian boss. “Yes, sir?” He stood at attention.

  “Relax, Bill. Please sit down.” The president pointed at the spot just vacated by the secretary of defense. “I need some plain talk. I’m into my sixth year with most of these men, and they’re all thinking just as I do. I believe that we have lost some perspective, and I’m hoping you can find that for us.”

  “Yes, sir,” McDaniels answered militarily.

  “You don’t agree with my Iran policy, do you? Speak plainly. I want your take on the matter.”

  “It is not my place to comment on policy. You have others who are much better versed in that.” McDaniels didn’t know whether to take the president at face value, or whether this was a test.

  “An excellent West Point response—now, give me an honest one. That, General, is an order.”

  “It is a mistake to reduce a country to the point you are hoping. It was done in 1919 with Germany, and that led directly to World War II. There are almost seventy-five million Iranians, and most of them have some degree of national pride. I don’t think we need to completely humiliate them before the world.” Less than two weeks into his term, and already he was having a policy break with the president.