by Nick Mariano
When they arrived and met the doorman at the exclusive apartment building they found out that Maloof hadn’t been at home for over a week. The doorman said he had left the week before and told him that he wasn’t sure just when he would return. Howard handed the doorman the search warrant and one of the agent’s quickly picked the locks on the doctor’s apartment. They entered the luxury apartment and set about searching the premises. After almost an hour no one had uncovered anything that could link the doctor to either the Wilmington Group or ISIS. The telephone answering machine had several messages, however, they all appeared to be connected with his job at Mount Sinai. One of the agents managed to hack the doctor’s home computer and again nothing appeared on it that would link him to either group. The search group took a short break to discuss things and no one could come up with any theories concerning the doctor that might help them out. Howard telephoned his headquarters in Washington and requested that they again check with all intelligence organization to see if they could uncover anything on Maloof. After another hour they had uncovered nothing that could help them except the license plate number and the make and model of the doctor’s car. That information was passed to all state and local police departments and they were told to be on the lookout for the doctor.
WHAT JUST HAPPENED?
Bob had quickly come upstairs and headed to the shower to wash down with the disinfecting soap that Alim had brought with him. When he finished, he dressed and went out to the living room where the rest of the group was assembled. Nazari confronted Bob immediately and asked him what the fuck he was thinking when he had shot Alim. Bob paused for a moment and gave an answer, which at first might seem comical but was in fact probably true. He said that he had seen his share of zombie movies and that once a zombie bit a person, he would eventually become a zombie himself. The group just looked at Bob but then Nazari finally spoke. After thinking for a moment he agreed that what Bob was saying was probably true. They had no doubt that the virus was still as potent as ever. The symptoms displayed by their test subject after just five days had confirmed this. Their test subject had in fact turned into a flesh-eating creature displaying additional strength when he had broken his restraint and attacked Alim. It was also true that the virus was in his blood and that when he bit Alim he had probably inflected him through the bite and chew marks. There was little doubt Alim would become infected with the virus in a matter of days and could infect the rest of the group if he continued to have contact with them. The question now was what they should do next.
Bob said that for starts they had to remove the two bodies and either bury or burn them somewhere on the property so that they wouldn’t be found. Next Hassan had to get started with developing his timer and triggering device for the canister so that they were ready by next week to do their attack on the county fair. They would then do a dry run at the fair and try to find a good spot for their device that would be concealed from view but still would provide optimum exposure to people passing by when the virus was being dispersed from the canister. Then they would wait and see what developed. If the results were positive and a large number of people became infected, they would move on to New York City for a dual attack there. They still would have one aerosol canister and one that could be injected into the water system. The combination of the two should produce mass casualties in the city and hopefully some of the infected would travel outside NYC and infect other populations. The results would be staggering and ISIS will have carried out its first attack on American soil. The virus was silent and would prove deadly to this small rural community in New York State and shortly in New York City itself.
Bob and Aisha would be in charge of the burials while Hassan started building his timer and detonator for the canister. Nazari would start to figure out where in NYC they would carry out their future attacks. The County Fair attack was now only four days away and they would move on to NYC in about ten days for their final and most deadly attack.
FINAL PREPARATION
The ISIS group got underway in preparing for their attack on the upcoming County Fair. Hassan had drawn up plans for a combination timer and activating switch and was now having Bob gather the materials at the local hardware store. The bodies from the blood bath of a day before had been removed from the house and the clean room sanitized in case they needed to use it again. Nazari was busy studying Internet sites to gather what information he could about possible sites in NYC for their final attack. He also had to determine how they could introduce the one canister into the water supply. He decided that if the security was too high in NYC for that portion of the attack, perhaps they could find an alternate site close by. The County Fair started in three days and the group would go there on the first day to scout the fair and find a good and effective place to leave the deadly canister. They needed maximum concealment but an area where the canister would get maximum dispersal. According to local newspapers the fair was projected to attract over 10,000 people during the time that it ran. The biggest activity planned for that week was a rodeo and a concert. Nazari thought the concert might be a possibility, however, just positioning the device along the midway near the entrance could also have positive results. Once they did their walk through they would make a final decision.
Back in NYC the ISIS Task Force, as it was now being called, had made little headway in its investigation. They had searched Alim Maloof’s office and home but came up with nothing to help them locate either Alim or the rest of the suspected ISIS group. Surveillance had been set up at Mount Sinai Hospital and Alim’s luxury apartment but he had still not reappeared at either location after over a week’s absence. He had been scheduled to perform some surgeries the past few days and they had to be either rescheduled or performed by other doctors. None of the outlying police agencies had spotted any of the license plates on Howard’s list of suspect vehicles. The Task Force had run out of leads and the higher ups at DS Headquarters had told him that unless something was developed in the next week, they would be forced to dissolve the Task Force as there were other pressing matters to look into.
After two days Hassan had put together and tested his timer and activating device and he was confident that it would trigger the canister without any problems. The devices would be affixed to the canister and they then planned to place everything in either a backpack or some other container that would blend in with the surroundings. They would determine that when they did their walk through in the next day or so.
The Broome County Fair at Whitney Point, NY, was an annual community event since 1871. The fair featured agricultural exhibits, rides for all ages, food stands, grandstand events, truck and horse pulls and free concerts by local entertainers. The Fair had a rich history that went back a hundred and fifty years. In 1871 the Broome County Agricultural Society decided that they would celebrate the local agriculture of Broome County annually and established a large area outside of Whitney Point to be the site of the fair after it was held at a number of different locations in the county. Throughout the years the fair had hosted a number of unique events such as public weddings, professional baseball games, Captain Fox and his Rough Riders, The Times River Diving Mule, truck, tractor and horse pulls, horse racing and the famous Gillette Shows of the 1980s. The fair was open for a week and general admission was $5.00. Nazari found a map of the fair grounds and the group studied it in preparation for their visit.
The day of the walk through came and the group assembled and got into one of the vehicles Bob had in his inventory of clean vehicles. The vehicles were kept hidden in a garage on the property and were used only for ISIS related activity. Any checks by local authorities would show a vehicle in good standing with the law. It was about an hour’s drive to the fair grounds and they arrived just as the main gate was being opened. They parked the vehicle and headed to the ticket office for their tickets. They discovered that they could purchase a ticket for the entire week and Bob decided this would be a good idea in order to avoid any large crowds later in the
week. They noted that the only security at the fair was a policeman in his cruiser parked by the entrance. Two people checked tickets as they entered and there was no security check of backpacks or purses carried by the attendees. The group decided to stay together so they could discuss any areas that might be promising for placement of their device. They checked out the area around the entrance and midway and decided that the area had too much activity for them to place an object without someone questioning what they were doing. A short distance down the midway however, they found a storage area that was used to store odds and ends and a package placed here would blend right into the surroundings. It would also provide an area of dispersal that would reach a fairly large number of people since everyone had to come down this portion of the midway to get to the exhibits and shows. The aerosol vapor should hang in the air for several minutes before moving away. They only needed to infect a small number of people to get this virus spreading. They marked this area off on their map. They continued to stroll through the fair grounds for the next two hours and found about half a dozen places where their device would have the maximum impact. They decided to have lunch and talk over which of the several spots they would use tomorrow. They finally settled on the storage area on the midway. It was a short distance from the entrance and they could place the device quickly and depart before someone wondered what they were doing. Bob would bring a maintenance man’s shirt with him and change into it once on the grounds. He would then take their package and place it in that area. Even if someone saw him they would just think he was a worker at the fair. They decided to place the device at midday as there was a big horse-pulling contest at 1 pm and large groups were expected for it.
Dry run completed, the group headed back to the safe house to complete their final preparations. Bob and Aisha would be the only two to return to the fair the next day. If something should happen, there would still be two ISIS members to carryout the NYC attacks. Twenty hours till the first attack by ISIS on American soil.
ATTACK ON THE FAIR
The day they had all waited for had finally arrived. Bob and Aisha did their final preparations for delivering the deadly virus to the fair grounds. Everyone was excited at the prospects this attack could hold for ISIS. It would be the first time the organization had carried out a full-fledged attack on American soil. Casualties from the attack could be staggering. Americans would reel in fear after the first chemical/biological attack took place in their backyard. Even if the Americans quickly developed some sort of vaccine, the number of deaths would still be in the hundreds or even the thousands depending on where fair goers went after they departed the fair grounds. It could take months to ascertain where the virus had initially spread and all it would take was one or two infected people to get the epidemic going again. Even the ISIS members were a bit scared how this could take off like a wildfire.
At approximately 11 am Bob and Aisha gathered the device and some other equipment and selected another vehicle from Bob’s inventory at the safe house. It was about an hour’s drive to the Fair Grounds and they already had their full week’s pass so they could just go directly in. They estimated it would take no more than 25 minutes to get to their selected deployment spot, place the device and leave. They planned to set the timer before they left the vehicle to save some time and so as not to arouse any attention. Only an act of God could stop this from happening. If they should somehow be detected, Aisha said that she would manually deploy the virus, knowing full well doing so would infect her. She said it meant more to her to carry out this attack on the Americans than life itself. Bob said hopefully this wouldn’t be the case and they both would get in and out of the fair grounds without incident.
At twelve noon on the dot Bob and Aisha arrived at the fair grounds, parked their car and entered the grounds by merely waving their weekly pass at the attendant. No stopping, no security checks, and no one paid the least bit of attention to them. They looked like a typical maintenance man and a young lady coming to enjoy the county fair. After traveling a few hundred feet they came to the storage area that the group had selected as the deployment spot. Bob took the small box from Aisha’s backpack and slipped into the side area without anyone noticing what he was doing. The device was already armed and so Bob merely placed his box next to some other boxes, made sure the spray section was pointed toward the midway and casually slipped from the area. No one paid any attention to the maintenance man on the side of the midway. Aisha had already departed the grounds and was waiting for Bob when he arrived back at their vehicle. They had less than five minutes before Hassan’s timer/firing mechanism activated the canister and the deadly virus sprayed into the midway inflecting anyone who was unlucky enough to be at this spot at that particular moment. The mist would linger for about five minutes and persons passing through it would only sense a slight dampness as they passed through.
Johnny and his sister Annie went to the County Fair with their father. They always enjoyed coming to the fair every summer and were on their way to their favorite ride. As they walked down the midway a slight mist suddenly floated over them and as quick as it appeared, it went away. They smelled a slight odor and then the air turned fresh smelling again. They had no idea that they had just been infected with the deadly virus.
The next day they went back to school and told their friends about the good time they had at the county fair the day before. Both children had a slight tickle in their throats and occasionally they coughed, not knowing that they were spreading the virus to their classmates. Their father was back at work at the local factory and he too had a slight tightness in his throat. He too coughed now and then and unknowingly spread the virus to his fellow workers.
Bob and Eleanor Rogers were each 70 years old, enjoying retirement and had been coming to the Broome County Fair for the past 30 years. They loved the attractions, sampled the country food at the numerous stalls, enjoyed watching the horse pulling events, and planned to bring their grand children to the fair the next day. They strolled down the midway and as they passed what looked like a storage area, they sensed a slight change in the atmosphere, but just for a very short second.
Miles Bonner was a Midshipman at the US Military Academy at West Point, NY, and was home on leave before going to his summer military training in Europe. He had been coming to the County Fair even since he was a small child and he looked forward to the day’s events including some horse racing later in the day. He felt some slight moisture as he strolled down the midway looking for his girl friend who said she would meet him down by the racetrack.
Howard Kashimba, the local pastor, came to the fair today as later in the morning he would bless the midway as he had done for the past twenty years. He too passed through the midway next to the storage area and felt a slight spray over his head, which quickly passed. During morning mass the next day he coughed occasionally, passing the virus on to the people who came regularly to morning mass.
Millie Dode was a widower and had last visited the county fair five years ago with her husband. Since his death she hadn’t returned until today when she decided to take her nephew to the fair so he could ride the Ferris wheel. As she strolled down the midway she felt a slight tingle in her nose for just a second before the feeling passed.
Within an hour of Bob and Aisha’s departure from the fair the last remnants of the virus had been expelled from the canister and several hundred people had been exposed to the virus to one degree or another. Even the slightest inhalation of the virus would cause people to begin showing signs of the inflection within one to three days.
Throughout the small town of Whitney Point fair goers began to feel the first signs of the virus and it began to pass from person to person as they came in contact with their fellow co-workers, friends, classmates and neighbors.
Two days later a workman discovered a strange looking box hidden under some equipment in the storage area off the midway. At first he thought nothing of it but when he looked at the contents inside he noted what a
ppeared to be a Nazi Swastika on some sort of metal canister. He brought the box to his supervisor, who immediately called the local police. As soon as the Police Chief saw the canister with its timing device he telephoned Homeland Security and asked for assistance. Back in NYC the ISIS Task Force received a notification from Homeland Security and Howard and his team immediately left for Whitney Point, NY.
DAYS FOLLOWING THE ATTACK
Howard and his task force flew up to Whitney Point on a helicopter loaned from Homeland Security. Additional DS and Homeland Security personnel were on the ground when they arrived. A chemical/biological team from nearby Fort Drum had also been dispatched and was ready to assist. Harold Whitney, the local sheriff, had decided to temporarily close the County Fair until the canister could be evaluated and the feds gave him a green light that everything was OK.
Bob and his group monitored the local television stations and newspapers and so far nothing out of the ordinary was reported. Monitoring of the CB and police radio channels did, however, indicate some activity at Whitney Point. It appeared that a maintenance person at the fair grounds may have discovered the canister and all of a sudden radio transmissions seemed to indicate that the County Fair had been temporarily closed. It also appeared that some federal and military personnel were either in the area or on their way to Whitney Point. The group discussed whether they should head to NYC before the authorities figured out what was happening or stay put at the safe house and continue to monitor things. They decided to stay put since so far there weren’t any indications that any of the effects of the virus were being seen or reported although it was only two days since they carried out their attack. Bob said tomorrow should begin to tell if the virus had been able to infect people on a larger scale than their first experiment in the clean room.