by Nick Mariano
Howard radioed his men and said that they should all head back to NYC and that they would get together to map a strategy later that day at DS’s New York Field Office. Howard asked Lee Foster to contact Homeland Security and request some additional men and he would do the same with DS. He was sure something was going on. They just had to find out what before it was too late.
THE HOUSE IN THE WOODS
The ISIS members and Bob arrived at the secluded house in upstate NY about 10 o’clock at night. The house had been procured through a number of transactions to mask the fact that ISIS had in fact purchased the residence. It was over 5,000 square feet and located on a large 15-acre tract of land, well out of sight from any roads and passersby. There were six bedrooms and baths and it had a large attic and basement. The house had its own generator for emergency electricity, Internet and cable TV and a deep well that provided water year around. The land surrounding it was well wooded and so unless you knew the house was there, it was close to being invisible. A single gated road led to it and the perimeter was alarmed and had hidden surveillance cameras to make sure no one strayed onto the property. An ISIS member was on duty at the house 24/7 to make sure that strangers didn’t snoop around the area. It would be ideal for what the group had planned for the next week or so. It was located within a thirty-minute drive from a medium sized town that would have all the equipment Bob needed for his construction project. It was also only a few miles away from an interstate highway and just three hours from NYC.
The house was stocked with foodstuffs and so the group settled in, had dinner and talked about how they would get the clean room started the next day. Bob showed the group the basement area he had in mind for the room and they took measurements so the next day they could drive to the neighboring town and get their supplies. Bob also had a number of vehicles on the compound. He decided to hide the two cars they had used to come from Wilmington and use ones that hadn’t possibly been seen by who he thought were government agents.
Howard and what had now become a small task force gathered at the New York Field Office to lay out their strategy for relocating the ISIS group and setting up new surveillance on them. Two agents were already in place outside Bob’s New York home although so far it appeared that Bob had not returned to NYC as they hoped he would. Checks of the driver’s license and credit card used for the rental car driven by the fifth person in Wilmington also came up negative. The license was bogus and the visa card had recently been reported lost or stolen. Another dead-end. The license tag numbers had been distributed to all neighboring law enforcement agencies and they had been instructed to notify DS of any sightings but not to stop or hinder the vehicles. If the vehicles were spotted and could safely be followed, police officers should do so and try to learn the destination of the vehicles. So far that had also come up with no responses from a seven state dragnet. All the agents could do was wait and hope something popped up somewhere so they could resume their investigation. In the meantime Howard and Foster had requested more intelligence from the Germans on both ISIS connections between Germany and the US and more information on the three suspected ISIS students. Additional record checks were run on Bob in hopes that something would show up to help them find the four members. The fifth man remained a mystery and agents had gone back to the rental agency in hopes of gathering something on him. They hoped that the car rental had video coverage of the main desk or parking lot. Howard briefed his superiors in DC and laid out what they had seen and developed so far. It was now a matter of wait and see what happens.
THE CLEAN ROOM
Over the next several days the group at the safe house gathered what they needed and began construction of a clean room for opening the steel case and trying to determine if the virus inside was still potent and could inflict death to anyone exposed to it. Alim had gathered some chem/bio suits, masks and other equipment from the hospital and driven up to New York two days after the rest of the group had arrived. He oversaw the construction of the clean room and laid out his plan for opening the container so that none of the virus, if it was in fact still potent, could escape and kill any of the group.
The room was broken down into two areas, a staging room which then led to the clean room. Alim and Nazari would don special chemical/biological safety suits along with gloves, booties and breathing apparatus in order to protect themselves from any exposure. The room itself would be sealed on all four sides with special plastic sheeting used for such rooms and an air exchange unit would expel air and room contaminates through HEPA filters to the outside of the house. An air-conditioning unit at the house would be routed down to the room to provide air circulation to the area. A chemical fume hood had been purchased from a medical supplier and would be where the box would be placed and unlocked by Alim using special built-in glove units to actually open the box and examine the contents. The room wouldn’t be as secure as a commercially purchased clean room but it would be effective enough to protect all the ISIS members from any accidental contamination or infection. Alim also fabricated a special incineration unit to use in an emergency to destroy the virus hosts if that became necessary.
Work progressed steadily and Alim and Bob thought that by week’s end they would be ready to move the steel container into place and begin the opening operation. Bob had already procured a number of tools from a hardware store to help Alim and Nazari get the box opened since it appeared that the lid had weathered itself tightly shut. Power tools would be used only as a last resort as Alim wasn’t sure how excessive heat could affect the contents. If the inside canisters were in fact inside the steel container and appeared in tact, then phase two would begin, testing the contents on a human body to see if the virus had withstood the years and would still reactivate when exposed to air as Mengele had theorized it would.
Meanwhile back in New York and Washington, DC, Howard’s task force was busy trying to locate the four ISIS members and their mysterious fifth person, but so far all their leads had led nowhere and they still had no idea where the group had vanished. German Intelligence had provided some additional information about the four students and the news troubled Howard and Foster. All the students had attended Goethe University, which was famous for its Departments of Biological Science, Physics, Geosciences, Biophysics, Biochemistry, Pharmacy and Macromolecular Studies. Howard thought this had all the makings for some sort of chemical/biological attack by ISIS. ISIS and a few other terrorist groups had toyed with such attacks on a small basis overseas. Saddam Hussein had used such weapons against his own people and a Japanese terrorist group had fabricated sarin gas and released it in the Tokyo subway, killing and injuring a large number of people. Both the Department of State and Homeland Security thought it was just a matter of time before similar attacks would take place in the United States and ISIS had both the money and personnel to orchestrate such an attack. Howard extended his search to the entire east coast as he had no idea where the group had headed after they left Wilmington. His group had gotten some photographs of the group while tailing them in North Carolina and he sent copies to all law enforcement agencies asking them to be on the lookout for these individuals. If they were spotted they should be followed but not apprehended and the information should be sent immediately to Homeland Security for further action. Howard knew that if these people had attended ISIS training in Syria or some other location they would have learned all the ins and outs of avoiding detection by police authorities. Clean vehicles would probably be used as well as throw away cell phones while they were in hiding, and they might even resort to donning disguises so that they wouldn’t be recognized. Time might be running out for the authorities if the group was in some sort of planning stage for an attack. Large cities would be the key targets, however, with all the added security in cities like New York, Philadelphia and Washington, he couldn’t rule out an attack on a smaller town or city. It was almost a week since they had lost the group and Howard was starting to worry that the clock was ticking down.
&n
bsp; THE PAST IS REVEALED
Mengele and his doctors had theorized that if they created an artificial host to implant the virus into. It would remain in a dominant stage until it came back in contact with the atmosphere. They engineered a host from bone fragments and human tissue that would not decompose and could contain the virus until it was ready to be released. The canisters they had designed were airtight and, therefore, the virus could remain in a dormant stage for an indefinite period of time, as long as it had no contact with the environment. They estimated that it could remain a potent infectant for as long as a century. Once exposed to the elements the virus would rejuvenate in a matter of hours. If dispersed into the air or a water supply, it would be fully potent and capable of spreading the super virus to the general population. The combination of the flu, plague and rabies viruses would cause mass casualties and a pandemic would ensue. Zombie like people would roam the streets killing both the infected and those who had managed not to be infected. Once started, nothing could stop it.
The stainless steel containers they used were Type 304 and had a normal lifespan of 20 years, however, if they were kept in a protective environment scientists believed that the stainless steel could last for hundreds of years. The canisters had been placed in stainless steel outer containers, with special seals, which meant that their virus could survive almost all environmental circumstances for many, many years. Mengele and his staff of doctors decided that the virus should be contained in a primary container constructed of a special strength glass that they used in numerous laboratory experiments and that the top would be a special airtight stopper that was fastened to the vial, and would not come loose during the transport of the virus. The tops also had two other functions when they reached their final destinations. One type top could disperse a mist like vapor that would make the virus airborne and would be used in densely populated areas to have the maximum effect on people. The second type top could be unfastened and the virus introduced into drinking water, where it would mix with the populations supply of water and become a deadly elixir to whoever drank it.
The canisters were then placed into a watertight secondary container constructed of stainless steel with special padding around the glass containers. This type steel did not corrode, rust or stain, as ordinary steel does, even if it came in contact with water or other elements. Lastly the cargo was placed in an outer container that bore the emblem of the Nazi SS. Mengele thought this was a nice touch to add to his deadly cargo. The outer box also contained some protective equipment for the German Intelligence Agents who would be responsible for delivering their cargos to the Americans. A special mask, gloves and a protective outer garment were enclosed for each operative. An instruction sheet outlining how the virus was to be dispersed once the canister was in place completed the package the scientists had prepared for their operatives.
Nazari and Alim reviewed the notes about Mengele’s experiment and some of the journal entries before they both suited up and entered the clean room to open the outer steel container. Bob and the rest of the group watched the inside of the clean room from upstairs via a CCTV that had been installed. If something went suddenly wrong the group could evacuate the house before the virus spread outside the clean room.
Nazari and Alim suited up, made a final check of their equipment and reread some notes they had made concerning how they would go about opening the outer container. They entered the room and secured all the airtight seals and began the opening process. The container was in relatively good condition considering it had laid buried for almost half a century. They tried to release the four large clamps securing the lid but they were all frozen in place from being exposed to the elements. They used some of the hand tools Bob had purchased and managed to open two of the four clamps but the other two were stubbornly stuck. Alim said that he thought the only way they could open them was by using a small electric saw that Bob had bought. Nazari agreed but both men worried that the heat buildup might affect the contents. Alim said that if they applied only small cuts the amount of heat should be minimal. Working slowly and inch by inch on the first hasp the two men managed to open the hasp in about one hour. One down and one to go. Another 45 minutes and all four hasps were finally open. The lid still refused to budge and Nazari brought out a small rubber mallet and gently tapped the lid on all four sides but still the lid remained steadfast. The two men decided to take a short break and exited the clean room to discuss things with the group upstairs. They talked about how they might unstick the lid and finally Aisha suggested the old standby for loosing stuck things. Spray it with WD-40 and wait a little while. The group couldn’t think of anything better and decided to give it a try. Bob had some WD-40 out in the garage and retrieved it and Nazari and Alim reentered the clean room armed with their can of WD-40. They sprayed all the sides of the lid’s seam and decided to give it about 30 minutes to penetrate and then began to again tap the corners with a small hammer. After about ten minutes of tapping and a little more WD-40, the lid finally budged a bit and the tight seal released. The men held their breath as Nazari slowly lifted the lid from the bottom of the box. Nestled in some sort of padding were four canisters, some equipment and what appeared to be a sheet with something written in German. Nazari scanned the sheet and could make out some of the words but told Alim he would have to get to a computer to finish the translation. They gently replaced the lid and exited the clean room.
THE TEST PHASE
Now that the outer container was opened and the inside canisters appeared to be intact, the next step was to determine if the virus was still potent and could cause the death and destruction as mentioned in Mengele’s notes from Auschwitz. The ideal controlled experiment was to expose an actual person to the virus and then see what materialized. Bob said there were usually a number of homeless people living under the bridge by the next town over and he thought he could abduct one or two at night and bring them back to the safe house. In most cases their disappearance wouldn’t be noticed by anyone and then the group could see for themselves how the virus reacted. If this experiment proved successful, they could begin to plan out their first attack on the Americans. Alim said that he had to make some modifications to the clean room so that he was sure none of the virus strain escaped from the room and that he would be ready in a day’s time. He installed a makeshift shower for washing off after the experiment was over. They also had to either contain the test subjects or chain them to something so that they couldn’t escape or tamper with the clean room enclosure. They finally decided to bolt some sturdy chairs to the floor and restrain the test subject’s arms, legs and chest to the chair.
Alim said that once the subject or subjects were restrained he would release a small amount of the aerosol virus into the room in order to expose them. Nazari had translated the papers in the container housing the canisters and it appeared that there were two types of canisters. One could disperse the virus as an aerosol and the other could be used to introduce the virus directly into a water supply. The canisters had two valves. The first allowed air to enter the chamber housing the virus, which was affixed to its host. Once air entered the canister Mengele estimated that within thirty minutes the virus would rejuvenate itself from contact with the air. The second valve was then opened and the contents could be dispersed as an airborne substance using a small push button. The notes from Mengele’s experiments stated that the virus took between 3-5 days for the effects of the three core viruses to fully infect the person and display all the signs of each individual virus. According to notes Nazari had discovered from Auschwitz, the virus showed little outward signs for the first two days. By Day 3 the subject began to display flu like symptoms like a running noise, watery eyes, sore throat and a slight sweating. By Day 4 symptoms of the plague or Black Death began to show itself and the subjects started to display major discoloration of the skin and black and blue spots began to appear all over the body. Day 5 symptoms were oozing sores, sometimes with a bloody discharge, and the effects of the r
abies virus began to manifest itself. Subjects became aggressive and would attack other people or themselves and some of the notes even hinted that the infected could resort to cannibalism and the eating of each other’s flesh. The entire group, including Alim who was well schooled in medicine and chemistry, couldn’t believe that over fifty years ago the Nazis had developed such a super virus to use as a weapon. They also couldn’t understand why it was never unleashed against the Americans although the diary seemed to infer that the landing party had either been captured or killed before they could release the virus. Even still, why didn’t Germany send more landing parties ashore with the virus until they were successful? No one could figure out why, other than the fact that the Americans had begun to turn the tide of the war by that time and maybe the Nazis just ran out of time.