Genetic Bullets: A Thriller (A Rossler Foundation Mystery Book 3)

by JC Ryan

  “I’m sorry, Nigel. This wasn’t my decision alone.”

  “I see. Goodbye, David.”

  Harper gently placed the handset of the ornate old telephone into its cradle, and then indulged in an expression of profanity to match his anger and disappointment. Surely this was the last blow, however. They said bad things come in threes. The flu, the terrorist strikes and now a rift with one of his strongest allies. How could it get any worse?

  ~~~

  One more circumstance in America was on the brink of creating disaster. In certain areas of New York and Michigan, where the highest concentrations of Americans of Middle Eastern descent resided, civil disobedience threatened to accelerate the spread of the H10N7 virus. Especially for those whose roots in America were shallow, news coming out of Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey in particular was more trusted than that of the major US networks. The more bombastic the pronouncements of the self-proclaimed Twelfth Imam, the more his listeners believed that the medical crisis either didn’t exist or was engineered for the purpose of ethnic cleansing. That the coordinated suicide bombing strikes had been such a success only gained the Ayatollah more support, both at home and abroad.

  That it couldn’t be both ways was beyond the capacity of an angry mob to understand. Groups began to congregate in the streets of Detroit where a large Muslim population lived, infecting the healthy faster than projected under the terms of the quarantines. The only response the government had was deployment of National Guard units. Sooner or later, it was bound to get ugly.

  That day came when a grief-stricken woman threw a soft-ball sized stone at a line of Guardsmen trying to break up a rally. Retaliation was swift, and the battle was enjoined. By the time order had been restored, several of the protesters lay dead of gunshot wounds and a number of Guardsmen and protesters alike were forced to go to hospitals for treatment of minor to serious injuries.

  News media, ever on the lookout for inflammatory stories, reported it as misuse of military power by the government. Soon every Democrat in the US was calling for lifting the quarantine. In Colorado, the largest concentration of Arab-Americans was found in Aurora, a suburb on the southeast side of Denver. When the news came out that the first cases of the virus known were those of workers hired by the Rossler Foundation, headquartered in Boulder, several mosques sent representatives to a committee that started laying plans to mount a protest there. The protest was scheduled to take place on the first Monday in February, weather permitting. That day marked the mid-point of the fourteenth week of the virus.

  Emma Clarke had moved into the guestroom of her daughter’s home to care for little Nick as Sarah spent more and more time at the office, working to hold the foundation together even as more and more countries formally withdrew their support. On the morning of February 3rd, faced with the reality that her husband and the others in Antarctica would have to leave within the next three weeks to guarantee getting home before the Antarctic winter set in, she was frantic for any kind of news. But, since the foundation had no medical labs of its own, Sarah was forced to rely on the CDC, Rebecca and the virologists in camp and on second-hand news from other labs working on it around the world. The news was grim. No one had ever seen this virus before; there were no records of it anywhere in the medical literature.

  Even the search of the 10th Cycle library hadn’t turned up much as yet. With millions of records to search, only a fraction of which were translated, progress was slow. Sarah was staring blankly out her office window when she noticed a disturbance below. As she looked on, hundreds of people began streaming from the parking lot and then from the street leading to their building, abandoning their cars in the street when the parking lot filled up. They carried signs, and now she could make out a chant from the people who were gathering. Alarmed, she intercommed Luke.

  “Luke, what’s going on outside?” she asked.

  “What we’ve been expecting for weeks. Those people are demanding that the Rossler Foundation turn over the cure for the virus.”

  “But, we don’t have any such thing! What are they thinking?”

  “Sarah, you know what they’re thinking. It’s all over the news, and Daniel and JR warned us of it weeks ago. They think we engineered it.”

  She knew he was right, but facing it was almost beyond her ability to cope. “Should I go and talk to them?”

  “NO! Absolutely not. I’m sending out some of our security guards, and we’ve sent for the police. Stay put…it’s dangerous for them to see you.”

  “Someone has to tell them we didn’t engineer it. Those poor people…and what about the quarantine? Aren’t they all risking catching it?”

  “Yes, they are, and they’re in violation of the quarantine. We need to sit tight until the proper authorities have straightened it out. Call your mother and let her know it might be a long day.”

  “Okay, Uncle Luke, but please, let me know when it’s safe to leave. I need to hold my baby.”

  The protesters today were fairly peaceful. No one fired a weapon, no one picked up a rock to throw. But it took hours to disburse the crowd. By the time it was safe to leave, Luke had called in some favors and learned where they came from. He appeared at Sarah’s door with a report.

  “These folks are from several mosques in Aurora,” he reported. “Unfortunately, Arapahoe County has a fairly large contingent of Muslims. I’m sure we can expect more of this, and if we don’t have a breakthrough soon, it’s going to get worse.”

  “How can we convince them it wasn’t us?” she asked.

  “You had a PR campaign ready to go, didn’t you?” Luke asked in return.

  “Oh, yes, I did. I’ll call Mary. I’m not sure it will help. We never expected it to get this far. I can’t believe it,” she moaned, looking at the projection spreadsheet that was open on her computer monitor. “Nearly eight million new cases this week. Why can’t anyone figure it out?” It was a rhetorical question and Luke knew it, so he didn’t answer. He didn’t have an answer in any case. That was up to the scientists and doctors. When this was over, he would retire if there was anything left of the world. This would be his last battle against the enemy.

  Chapter 27 - The time is upon us

  From his office in the elegant columned Niavaran Palace in Northern Tehran, Kazemi stared out at a cool, dark sky. He had prepared carefully for this day, the day he would announce his plans for the coming cleansing of the world by fire. By now, he had convinced himself that he was indeed the Mahdi, having traced his lineage to Ali ibn Abni Talib, Mohammed’s son-in-law. Even his given name, Amir, foretold his true identity as it meant prince, ruler or commander. He had gathered millions to his cause, all of whom waited only for his announcement to follow the prophecy by engaging in armed revolt to bring the kingdom of Allah to earth at last.

  Kazemi had consulted with Ahmad, who was proving more and more valuable, as to the best date and time for his announcement. It gave him great pleasure to think that with the current plan, all attention would be on him until the missiles reached their destinations. Far better than taking credit for the strikes after the fact. Announcing that it was coming would strike fear into the infidels, but would precede a nuclear strike against Israel by minutes, leaving too little time for the infidels to react. Once Israel was eliminated from the earth, even America must sit up and take notice.

  Of all his advisers, Ahmad’s voice was the strongest in support of his plan. He urged that Kazemi take his rightful place as soon as the plans could be formed. All the world, indeed, all the universe was poised for this moment, his destiny. Henceforth, he would not be known as Amir Kazemi, but by his rightful name, Muhammad ibn Hasan al-Mahdi.

  To lend the announcement its proper weight, his throne would be backed by the leaders of every revolutionary group he led, now enhanced by groups from Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan and Jordan. He’d heard from groups as far-flung as the UK and Canada, Russia, the Sudan and even Argentina. Once he’d proved not only his intent but his ability to carry it out
, more would come under his protection and influence. So single-minded was he in his quest to bring about the chaos described in the prophecy that he failed to consider what revenge the countries of the West might take on Tehran. Nor did he consider that his missiles might be inadequate for the task, especially in view of Israel’s highly sophisticated anti-missile technology.

  Whether or not missiles reached Israel, though, Kazemi’s objectives would be met. His only goal was to precipitate war, in order to be able to rise from the conflict as the ‘man of kindness’ and ‘perfect human being’ who would bring about a new beginning, rebirth and resurrection. Kazemi, if he had ever cared in the first place, had ceased to care about the millions of people sick or dying in his region of the world. Their plight was merely the excuse for the execution of a plan he’d hoped to put in motion since his boyhood. Of course, his rhetoric would cite the ethnic cleansing, but in truth, it wouldn’t have mattered what started it. The point was that he would be left in sole control of all the people on earth.

  From that vantage point, he would be able to bring about the correct order. There would be no more education of women, whose proper place was in the home. Women would return to the modest practice of covering themselves completely. The disgusting use of alcoholic beverage would be banned. There would be no more unholy study of the mysteries of Allah’s works in the name of science, rather, scholars would ponder His nature. The faithful would once more rely on their religious leaders to heal their illnesses and injuries. The world would then be at peace, secure in genuine life.

  The time was at hand. In the time-honored way of those who favored sneak attacks, Kazemi marshaled his lieutenants behind him and prepared to broadcast his announcement at four a.m. on February 13. His focus was on the television cameras, so he didn’t notice that Ahmad was not among them. The others were just as happy that Ahmad was missing…they were jealous of his growing influence with the great man.

  “It is written that at a time of great need, Imam Al-Mahdi, the Twelfth Imam, will arise and lead the world to peace and prosperity through a cleansing conflagration. The time is upon us. Accordingly, I, Amir Kazemi, proclaim myself to be Al-Mahdi. It is my will that the infidels who hold our most holy shrine be wiped from the face of this earth in fire and perdition. Infidels everywhere may escape this fate only by submitting to the will of Allah and following the correct path of Islam. Let this day be a lesson to heed. By the time this announcement is aired, missiles will already be on their way to Israel. It cannot be stopped.”

  At four a.m., as the broadcast day began, watchers in Iran and around the world received the news according to their beliefs. Many in the Middle East were as horrified as the West on hearing the last sentence. Israel was still asleep, two hours behind Tehran’s time zone. Western news media picked up the announcement during daylight hours of the previous date, though it was past midnight in most of Europe and Africa. All major American networks interrupted prime time programming to carry the recording in its entirety, while ordinary citizens prayed for something to go wrong with the Iranian missiles, wondering how long it would be before the news of the Israel’s fate was announced.

  Harper made an immediate call to Tel Aviv, but the phone went unanswered.

  ~~~

  At the Pentagon, within the Joint Operations Center of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all was in readiness. Despite President Harper’s caution and reluctance to escalate a shooting war in the Middle East, the JCS had been expecting an announcement like what they’d just heard for weeks. That it might come from any quarter was inevitable. That it would come from an Iranian Ayatollah was not surprising.

  Given the nuclear capabilities of Iran, supplemented as they were by North Korean and Pakistani technology, neither was it surprising that such an announcement would accompany a nuclear strike at Israel, other Western allies or even the United States. With the ability to launch missiles from seaborne platforms had come the potential that an Iranian strike might reach the western shores of the US, and of course Hawaii, American protectorates or territories such as the Philippines, American Samoa and Guam among others and allies such as Australia were all vulnerable as well.

  From the beginning of the crisis, at the time Harper had called all of his advisers together at once after Daniel’s initial call, capability for a military response had been carefully designed. As soon as it was in place, observers and analysts were tasked with twenty-four/seven monitoring of all Iranian, Korean and Pakistani missile sites, whether nuclear capability was suspected to be there or not.

  There may have been a handful among them who wished that all these preparations would pay off in the end with total annihilation of the countries that had invited war for so many decades. Most, however, tensed with worry. No one had any illusions that this was a minor action. In fact, it was the critical moment for which they’d prepared since the first World Trade Center bombing, early in 1993, and some of them from before even that. A successful nuclear strike on just one of their targets would put the entire Muslim world at Kazemi’s feet. With the standing of a minor god, Kazemi might direct his worshippers to do anything, unthinkable things. He had to be stopped at any cost.

  The Joint Chiefs had already briefed the President about what must happen if this day came to pass, and what assets were in place to defend home ground. A plan of action had been hammered out and approved against today’s eventuality, and drills had honed it to perfection.

  The first line of defense would be Israel’s own air defense system, assuming the strike were aimed at Israel, which all felt it would be. If nukes were aimed at other allied countries, the same plan would go for them. If they were aimed at the US, the plan would depend on where the launch originated and what the target appeared to be. The US would not reveal its space based assets unless forced to.

  The second line of defense would come into play only if the country’s own defense systems failed to stop the missiles prior to a critical point. If they got past a carefully measured and calibrated point that was unique to each potential target, the laser weapons on the top-secret geosynchronous satellites would fire and presumably take out the missiles before they reached their targets.

  The problem with that plan was that the lasers had never been tested from space, nor on the missiles that were available to Iran. Doing so would have revealed the top-secret weapons. Some might have called it Catch-22, after the standard phrase in the novel by Joseph Heller. No matter what it was, what you couldn’t do without an unacceptable consequence invoked Catch-22. The powers that be had determined that revealing the existence of the weapon would be worse than having it not work when needed. Not everyone agreed with the philosophy.

  Naturally, if anything got through, a retaliatory strike on whoever started this unholy mess would have to occur, to cripple their ability to follow it up with more of the same. Say someone in Iran did throw some nukes at Israel, or the US, and one got through. That someone would have to be wiped out, no matter what the collateral damage was. Following a strike on Tehran, preemptive strikes on its allies, North Korea and Pakistan would be necessary, to prevent them from doing it to us.

  There was always the possibility that Iran and North Korea would act in concert. A coordinated strike, with Iran’s missiles aimed at Israel and North Korea’s aimed at the west coast of the US would be most devastating, due to the fact that the time to reach their targets was almost identical. If the objective were to destroy Israel’s government and that of the US at the same moment, North Korea’s missiles would launch a mere ten minutes earlier. If Iran were to divide its targets between the US and Israel, the difference in travel time for the missiles would still be negligible.

  Everyone who had a crucial role to play in this drama knew all of the facts, plans and contingencies. Now it was at hand, and they were prepared to carry out their assignments. They just weren’t prepared for the emotional burden. The young captain who would be forced to push the button to launch the strike on Tehran shook as he watched the
satellite image of the missile site outside of Qom. Next to him, a female counterpart thought of her grandparents in LA. If she saw missiles aimed there rising from North Korea, they would be in imminent danger; there would be no time to call for evacuation. In that case, she would have no qualms about pushing her button. It’s true that the female of the species is always more ruthless than the male, especially if she is called upon to protect those in her care.

  ~~~

  President Harper in the White House and analysts in the Pentagon alike held their collective breath as they waited to learn whether Israel’s anti-missile strategy had been deployed and whether it had worked. If so, giant drones located in Azerbaijan should have destroyed the missiles while they were still on the launch pad. After launch, there would be thirty minutes during which everything else in Israel’s arsenal could attempt to intercept and destroy the incoming strikes. Failing that, though they had never admitted that they had nuclear weapons, Israel would use its last breath to launch a counterstrike in revenge. No one but the President and his military advisors, though, knew that the US had a trick or two up its sleeve for Israel’s defense as well as its own.

  The first news came in through satellite imagery of a massive fireball near Qom, Iran, minutes after the beginning of the Ayatollah’s announcement. However, on the screen it was evident that three missiles were unaffected and remained on course for their targets. Two were apparently headed for Israel, the other for Los Angeles. The President was informed immediately.

  “Get ready for a retaliatory strike,” he directed his informant, who swallowed hard before saying “Yes, sir.”

  The colonel who had reported as instructed to the President immediately passed the buck to his commanding officer, where it went up the line to the General of the Air Force.