Getting someone trained turned out to be a dead idea for several reasons. First, since the terror attacks of 9/11, every flight instruction school worth attending vetted potential students. The second reason was the timing. It turned out that, unlike learning to drive a car, leaning how to crop dust isn’t a matter of a couple loops around a corn field. Crop dusting was damn hard, dangerous, and more specialized than what Badr or anyone else on his leadership team ever imagined. It would have taken months to get someone competent enough to send up in a plane. The cargo that plane would be carrying was as precious as cargos came. Expensive, both in terms of money and human blood. Sending up anyone less than a skilled crop duster was out of the question.
After investing too much time and capital, only to end up scrapping the “death from above” idea, Badr and his team were at a loss. That’s when one member of his senior leadership team suggested that they all, “take a break from the project. Often times, the answer to a problem comes when you’re not thinking about the problem at all.”
Badr slit that man’s throat right then and there, with the other four members of his leadership team sitting around the same kitchen table.
“That should shut him up,” Badr said. “Would anyone else like to suggest that solving our dilemma is of such little importance as to warrant a field trip to a petting zoo? Or perhaps, we should gather our entire team, go to the park near the lake and have a winter picnic. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Clear our thoughts and make room for answers to flutter in.” Badr sat back down after using the very-soon-to-be-deceased man’s shirt sleeve to wipe the blood off his blade. “Wait till he’s dead and get his body out of here.”
It was nearly four hours later when Badr and his team knew the answer. They had continued to discuss ideas while sitting at the kitchen table until the smell of the dead ex-member of the leadership team grew too powerful for Badr to concentrate. “Whole place smells like metallic piss and shit,” he said, kicking the dead man’s face for good measure and to let the dead man know that Badr placed the blame of both the horrible smell and the interruption entirely on him. “Two of you, wrap this shit up and get rid of him. You,” he said pointing to another team member, “clean up after they get stinky out of here. And do something about the smell.”
When the two men returned from disposing of their ex-teammate, they hurried into Badr’s study.
“Badr,” the braver of the two said, “while we were in the woods, we heard a motor running in the park not far away.”
“Wait a minute,” Badr said. “You buried the body in the woods next to a public park?”
The two men paused, their faces instantly displayed how quickly blood can drain from a horrified man’s face. “He was well hidden far away from the park,” the braver man said. “He won’t be found.”
“He had better not be,” Badr said. “Tell me what seems to have you two so excited. You were telling me that you heard a motor running in a park?”
As the blood returned to his face, the braver man continued. “Yes, a motor. It sounded like a small motor. It was very distant from us, like I said. We buried him very far away from…”
“Get to the motor sound,” Badr interjected.
“Yes. We followed the sound into the park. We saw two men walking around the edges of the park, carrying what looked like large leaf blowers. They were just testing the motors, getting them ready for spring and summer, it turned out. Anyway, I casually strolled up to one of the men and asked what he was doing. He told me the city hired them to spray for mosquitoes every five weeks and, like I said, they were testing the motors and making adjustments to the nozzles.”
“Mosquito sprayers?” Badr said, his eyebrows raised. “Could it work for us?”
“I don’t see why not,” the less brave man said. “The men in the park said they would be carrying five-gallon holding tanks on their backs that connected to the foggers. We could easily get twenty or more from our team to strap on one of those devices, fill the holding tanks with our concentration and send them to strategic parts of both cities. If anyone asks what they were doing, they could say they were hired to spray for mosquitoes. They could meet at centralized locations in each city to keep filling up their tanks before heading back to another part of the city to continue spraying. It might take a few days to exhaust our supply, but…”
“This could be brilliant,” Badr said. “We need to determine how many gallons, exactly, our vials will make. Next, we need to locate and purchase a few dozen mosquito foggers. Then,” Badr paused, “we choose the twenty men that will fog the cities.”
<<<<>>>>
The day after Henry left, Badr informed his leaders that the day had finally arrived. Each member of his leadership team then flawlessly carried out each of their strategically planned and well rehearsed steps. Their planning and dedication to excellence resulted in an execution so close to perfection that Badr was certain every military agency, police force, and covert operations force around the world would use “Operation Death Fog” as a case study in terrorism prevention. Once the stigma surrounding even mentioning the operation abated, agencies, corporations and even universities would use Badr’s operation as a point of authoritative reference in the fields of planning, logistic control and execution of determined initiatives.
The team settled on twenty-five mosquito foggers: fifteen in Cleveland and ten in Columbus. Each fogger was dropped off at their location promptly at eight in the morning. Each was told to begin spraying precisely at nine and to direct the majority of the spray upwards at a forty-five degree angle.
“If people are around you when you begin spraying, make sure you act as if you are spaying for mosquitoes by focusing some of the fog towards bushes and shrubs. If you are asked why the city is spraying for mosquitos during the final weeks of winter, tell them that mosquitos are expected to hatch earlier than ever this year and early spraying may eliminate the entire population. That will make people very, very happy.
“If no one is watching you, direct your entire spray into the air. If you hold your nozzle fully opened, it will take seventeen minutes to empty your tank. Once empty, walk to your next location—indicated on your map—and wait until the van arrives to refill your tank.
“The second spraying will begin as soon as your tanks are filled. There is no scheduled time to coordinate the sprays after the first. Continue emptying your tanks, walking to your next designated location, getting your tank refilled, then emptying them into the air at a forty-five degree angle whenever possible.
“None of you have a walk longer than three-quarters of a mile between your locations, so while your days will be long ones, we’ve made every arrangement with your health and well-being in mind.”
It was nearly midnight when the fogging ended and all the foggers were rewarded with a banquet fit for kings. The small house in Columbus was much too crowded, but the wonderful sense of accomplishment made the tight quarters easy to deal with. Badr delivered no speech but did shake each participant’s hand, telling them they had earned a place in history due to the roles they had played.
When he left, Badr didn’t say goodbye to anyone. He simply walked into the cool early morning air, got into his car, called Henry to tell him that all went better than anyone could have expected, then he drove away towards the location Henry had arranged.
Badr was gone. Though he was certain the authorities would, eventually, come to discover who was behind the spreading of the bubonic plague through the cities of Columbus and Cleveland, the only records of Badr Irani’s existence would show that he had blown himself up with a suicide vest in the middle of Times Square over two years before the fog of death rolled its way through Ohio.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
There was a song I couldn’t get out of my head the next morning. I was wide awake and Rachel was still sound asleep beside me. The song was from Harry Chapin. It was about some dude who picked up a girl who was way out of his league. The guy knew it but, like me with Rachel,
league or no league, he didn’t really care. In the song, the guy wakes up, runs out of his boarding room leaving the “out of his league” girl alone to finish her sleep. He gets back to his room with a bag of food and finds nothing but a letter from the girl.
She was gone, leaving him (literally) holding the bag. So, with that song bouncing around in my head, I’m sure you can imagine that I was pretty hesitant to leave Rachel and head out to grab some food for us. I was able to convince myself to climb out of bed, making sure I took a long, backward glance at Rachel’s naked body, and headed out to find something to eat. I knew I didn’t have anything that was less than a month past its expiration date in my apartment, so I went to the nearest diner. I ordered two large coffees and a couple of bagel sandwiches.
First thing I did when I got back was to put the bag of food on the kitchen table. If Rachel was gone, I wasn’t going to be standing there, having Al looking at me with his mocking eyes, playing out the role of the poor sap in that Chapin song. I was a little surprised—and very relieved—to see Rachel sitting up in bed, smiling. She had thrown on some clothes which, I’ll admit, was a bit disappointing, but she was still there.
“Hungry?” I asked. I wished I had come up with something more alluring to ask, but that’s all that popped in my skull. Plus, I was freaking starving. As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I started scrambling for something to say before she could answer. I felt the whole “morning afterglow” conversation was like a game that, if you win, you get to burn off more calories in a very enjoyable way.
“Depends on what you’re offering,” she said before anything came to my mind. She shot me a smile that made my knees weak. Then she rolled onto her side and did that swirling thing with her hair and a finger that really attractive woman seem to have an innate ability to do so seductively.
That was alluring. She was better at this game than I was and she didn’t even know we were playing a game. I had a few seconds to come up with a good comeback. The kind of response that she and I would be talking about thirty years into the future. I needed to come up with a whopper.
“Bagel sandwiches?”
I suck at my own games.
After we finished our “bag of breakfast,” Rachel’s demeanor turned more sullen and distant. She had picked up her phone and scrolled through a few messages, pausing only to read one, near as I could tell. I couldn’t tell if whatever that message said turned her mood, if it was the bagel sandwich, the fact that she and I had taken our partnership to a whole new and unexpected level or a myriad of other things. But her mood did change and it changing had a heavy drag on mine.
“Bad news?” I asked.
“Nothing important,” she said, feigning a smile. “But I think I’m getting something.”
“Like a cold?” I asked.
“No, like a feeling. Like the feelings I get when I know we need to send a demon back.”
“Well, that’s good. Isn’t it? Maybe things are getting back to normal.” I knew things would never get back to any semblance of normal, but my saying it sounded good. It was a comfortable feeling. Being normal and living a normal life sounds so boring for most people. People do whatever they can just so other people never consider them “normal.” Funny thing is, that wish to not be normal, after all is said and done, the most normal thing about being a human.
“I think so,” she said. She paused and softly bit her lower lip and looked at the floor like it was a hundred miles away. “It’s just that, I’m not sure, but what I feel is different.”
“Different how?” I asked.
“I usually get a feeling that a demon crossed and made its full transition. Then, I get a sense of where I need to bring my sender.”
“So what’s different with what you’re feeling now?”
“I’m not sure, but I think I know who the demon is, where we will find him and exactly when we need to be where he’ll be.”
“Sounds like nothing but good info,” I said.
“Maybe,” Rachel said, shaking her head as if trying to clear it. “But it just seems too precise.”
“You thinking it’s a setup?” I asked.
“I’m not picking up anything like that, but, maybe. That’s what concerns me. I picked up that Henry was back and that he was leading a team that included Hazy Face, and now I’m picking up details about Hazy Face. Details I never received before. It’s not normal.”
There was that word again: Normal. If you were to ask a thousand people if being a sender and a spotter were normal, you wouldn’t get one person to say “yes.” But for Rachel and me, what we did for a living, who we were, it was normal. More normal for her, since she had the benefit of experience over me. My new normal, I suppose.
Rachel sat down on the couch, sending Al racing away as fast as his four pawns could take him.
I said, “You think we should follow through or wait till you get something else?”
She sat quietly for what seemed like a very long while. Probably wasn’t more than fifteen-seconds before she answered. And she answered with authority. “No. We need to do this and we need to do this today. It’s Hazy Face. He’s back and you need to send him back, today. I know where he’ll be and I know when we have to be there. This is our only chance with Hazy Face. That’s why I’m getting so many details. We have to stop him, today. You have to send him back! This is your only chance or something terrible will happen.”
I figured I was going to send back my second demon later that day.
Rachel shot up off of the couch, grabbed her cell phone, then hurried into the bedroom. I was still deciding whether I should follow her or give her a few minutes alone when I heard the shower being turned on. Rachel and I had only been a “thing”—if I could have even called us that—for less than twelve hours, so I wasn’t at all sure where she stood on the whole shower-sharing thing. I decided it would be better to play it safe and stayed out in the living room and finished my coffee.
She came out ten minutes later, suggesting that I get cleaned up. Her exaggerated sour face, elegant but directed wave of her hand and pinching of her nose was a pretty clear message that I was in need of some cleaning.
“At least I don’t smell as bad as after I got all that demon stink on myself the other day,” I said, taking her less than discrete clues and walking towards the bathroom.
“Not much better,” she said, smiling.
Since I had met her, Rachel always seemed to be on edge. With the exception of the time she and I sat near the fire in the forest, the night we spent together and how she was acting that particular moment on that particular morning, she seemed to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders. It was wonderful to see her in such a light and pleasant mood. If I had only known that would be the last time I saw her that way, in that carefree mood, I probably would have wasted a lot more time before getting in the shower and getting ready to go meet Hazy Face again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“It’s just up ahead, another half mile or so.”
“Son of a bitch, Novak,” O’Keefe scowled, “I’m too damn old to walk on trails like this.”
“What do you want me to do, huh? Move the fucking pond closer to the road? Quit your whining.” Novak trudged on through the slushy, calf high snow. “Wait till that bitch Flannigan makes the walk back this way. She’ll get all tired out for you. You may actually be able to hold her down all by yourself, Cardinal O’Fucker.”
“You just do your part and I’ll do mine. What time is that sender supposed to arrive?”
“Around one o’clock this afternoon. I have to get my pond ready. That’s why we’re here so early.”
“And Flannigan will be arriving at what time?"
Novak said, "Sometime after one. How the fuck do I know? I don't keep the bitch's schedule. Now shut up and move your ass."
<<<<>>>>
Rachel suggested that we have an early lunch then volunteered to run out and grab another bag or two of something for us.
Before Rachel left on the food run, she cracked open a Bud for me and plunked it down on the coffee table in front of me. "To take the edge off," she said.
"Don't want to lose my edge," I said back, then remembered she had told me the second I come face to face with a demon, that I'd snap sober in a heartbeat. I finished the beer and had another before she got back with the bags of food. I'll admit that I was pretty nervous about sending Hazy Face back. That son of a bitch was strong as an ox. I remembered what he did to me in the bar when I first saw him. He spun me like a top with just a shoulder tap. I cracked open another beer as Rachel spread out the sandwiches onto the coffee table.
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