The Last Enemy - A history of the present future - 1934-2084

by Luca Luchesini

  Along with the samples, Tarek had also given him heads up to be prepared for surprise visits. Louis was about to restart the molecular analysis software he was using to test the Indian pills, when Jorginho, the head of his security team, called him on his walkie-talkie.

  Jorginho was at the entrance of the favela, where an extremely fit, middle-aged man had shown up with an interpreter, and asked to meet Louis. The man had invited the security team to check him thoroughly, and from his behavior, Jorginho immediately understood.

  “Olha, look, Louis,” said Jorginho, “there is some guy here who claims to be named Yaakov. He wants to apologize for being responsible for your move to Brazil and he says a man named Tarek wishes you and Dora all the best. This guy is some sort of professional agent, I can smell it. What shall we do? Kill him or send him away with a warning?”

  Louis immediately wondered if Yaakov was aware of all the risks he was running.

  “Jorginho, pelo amor de Deus, don’t jump to conclusions so fast. Just scan him with the metal detector, make sure he is clean, and take him alone to the bar of Lenilton Silva. I will join you there. For sure, I do not want him in my house. Please make sure you have three of your best people with you too, you guessed correctly, he is a cop of the worst kind.”

  Half an hour later, Louis entered the small, windowless warehouse of the bar, where the air was suffocatingly hot. Louis invited Yaakov and Jorginho to sit down at a worn-out plastic table, while the security team stood at a distance, near the door.

  “Welcome to Brazil, Mr. Yaakov,” started Louis, “I hope you have other reasons for your visit, beyond making sure I have been able to settle in here.”

  Yaakov hesitated, as he quickly glanced at the bodyguards. Louis understood.

  “You can speak freely, they do not understand English at all. Some of them cannot even speak proper Portuguese, as they grew up on the streets. What news from Tarek are you bringing?”

  “In a nutshell,” Yaakov responded, “We need your help. By we, I mean the State of Israel. As you might know, I used to work in the Mossad, and we have been following you for years, therefore we know quite a lot about Telomerax. Last February, we tried to have a conversation with you but, I have to admit, it was not the right way to start a partnership.”

  “Are you also responsible for setting my Swiss lab on fire?” snapped back Louis.

  “No, we are not. We believe it was a CIA job, judging by the type of explosives used. Plus, the Swiss did not even try to blame this on us. Anyway, let me get back on topic. We know that this Telomerax is spreading like wildfire. We know there are at least three other strains besides yours and we need somebody that can help us. None of the big guys will cooperate with us, so you are our last resort.”

  “How do you know that there are three strains of Telomerax? And why should I help you? Your first approach was far from charming, you even said so yourself.”

  “Louis, let me make it simple. Tarek told us about the Indian strain. Israel and the Arab Emirates are both small countries at the center of much bigger interests, so as soon as Tarek learned that I had left the Mossad, after the Zurich failure, he contacted me.

  I am a freelancer now so what I say does not involve my former employer, although I do still have strong connections and influence there. Anyway, here is the deal: you provide us scientific advice on the drug - which we do not want to manufacture by the way - and we make sure the CIA does not interfere too much with your life here. All the other countries, including China and Russia, cannot compete with the narcos influence here in Latin America, so if you keep the ‘gringos’ at bay you are safe. We have quite some influence in Washington D.C., and we also have a good network here. Originally it was to hunt for Nazi criminals in the past.”

  Louis thought that this deserved some challenge.

  “Yaakov, you should know that if something bad happens to me or my family Telomerax goes public. Why should the CIA or anyone else try to hurt me?”

  “Louis, don’t you realize that the situation has changed? Those that control the three new strains hope that you keep it secret, to not derail their business. And they will react if and when you decide to take it public. You have the knowledge, we have a shield to offer to you and your team. It is an unusual alliance, but it is bound by the most robust glue; mutual need. Just think about it, Tarek knows how to reach me.”

  “Alright,” Louis conceded, “so if I keep it secret, they won’t bother me. Then why should I help you? You see that I am very safe here.”

  “You might be very safe, but not your loved ones. Not forever,” replied Yaakov calmly. “Could you hand me my bag for a second? You know there is nothing dangerous inside.”

  Louis nodded, and Jorginho carefully handed it back to Yaakov. The three bodyguards reached for their guns. Yaakov slowly took out a few pictures, they were all of Dora and Dorian playing on the beach.

  “All of these were taken from a number of hotel rooftops here in Copacabana, from a distance that can be easily managed by a sniper rifle. The only way to be truly safe is to live in a cave.”

  “Are you blackmailing me, Mr. Yaakov? Is this what will happen if I do not cooperate?”

  “Louis, please, don’t get too emotional. The terms of the deal are clear. If you help us when we ask, we will make sure that you and your loved ones are safe. Not only in this favela, but wherever we have influence and control. Otherwise, you will have to take care of security on your own and you now see how tough that can be. I think it is a fair deal. All we ask for in exchange, is some updates and some consultation. Anyway, I understand you might want to discuss the proposal with Tarek and your team first. If you agree, just send me a text message within one week, simply stating it is ok.”

  “There is no need to wait one week. Just do not give me tight deadlines. I still need my freedom for research. And I want to keep a small production lab here, for the benefit of the people in the favela. I think you and your associates can survive with a small, independent producer in the market, with no other ambition than quality and research.”

  “Absolutely, Louis. We fully acknowledge the value of having you alive and on our side,” Yaakov grinned.

  Chapter 33

  Bassam Al-Biri clocked out his time to end the work day in the tunnel, just as the sun was setting. It was a little past the iftar, the daily break of the Ramadan fast. Enduring the fast was becoming more manageable in 2019, as the Holy Month was moving away from the summertime and instead taking place in May. Bassam brushed the dust off of his arms and looked forward to the meal that his wife had prepared. He could afford a good dinner, and had invited many relatives and friends, as his pay had risen several times during the last few years. Because of the continuing, mysterious deaths of workers, the tunnel builders had by far the best paid jobs in Gaza.

  Bassam had managed to get a place at the construction site thanks to his cousin, Moussa, who was a Hamas activist. Bassam himself was not a strong believer in the cause of Hamas, but he had four kids to feed and send to school, and he had also managed to negotiate a special insurance of fifty-thousand dollars in case of death. Every time the noise of the drilling machine or the dehydration got unbearable, he thought about how his kids would eventually benefit from his efforts, finish high school and maybe, one day, get a good job in the Arab Emirates. Unless Hamas, inshallah, had managed to destroy the Zionist State of Israel in the meantime. In that case all his family would come back to what they considered their land, Palestine.

  His thoughts were on the fresh labneh yogurt that was waiting for him at home, when he felt a slight pinch on his right arm. His left hand reacted immediately and smashed the bug on his skin. He was about to look down to see what insect he had just killed, when a strong wave of nausea hit him. He lost his balance and fell to the ground, the nausea became a big black cloud that wiped out all his thoughts like a huge hammer. The last thing he saw were the shadows of his coworkers, rushing towards him from the tunnel entrance that he had just left.<
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  All of Bassam’s coworkers stopped just short of his body. They controlled the mixture of fear, anger, and grief they were feeling, and followed the instructions they had been given; not to touch the scene.

  In minutes, an Iranian officer arrived with his assistants, and started taking pictures and collecting every kind of sample from the scene. At the end of the examination, in the middle of the night, Bassam was enclosed in a thermal-controlled body bag and smuggled into the Sinai Desert, from one of the many tunnels that were running below the border between Gaza and Egypt. Two days later, the corpse of Bassam was laying on a table in the research laboratories of the VAJA, the Ministry of Intelligence in Teheran, where the full dissection could eventually take place.

  Four months later, Mehrdad Esfahani, the VAJA research head, sent out the Outlook invitation to brief all interested parties, as this time there was a ground-breaking discovery.

  Alireza Gilani accepted immediately, canceled all other important meetings, and then went back to the Financial Times article he was reading. It was about the imminent offer of shares of Ambrosiax, a new US pharmaceutical company that was claiming to have invented a drug that could extend life by many decades.

  Alireza was feeling a growing sense of anguish, as if he was under a siege of threats that were increasing by the day. He was sure that such a drug would be banned in his country, like the other synthetic drug that he had been fighting for the last several months in vain. At least he was now hoping to get some answers on this mysterious killer.

  The triumphant tone used by Mehrdad Esfahani to start his presentation left no doubt; there was major progress done. Along with Alireza, there were the heads of the Gaza and Lebanese secret operations and the chief ayatollah of the Ministry, who was reporting directly to the Supreme Guide of the Revolution.

  “For once,” said Mehrdad, “we have to thank the Americans. Our officer in Gaza used to work in the Los Angeles Police Department, as a crime scene investigation expert, before deciding to return to Iran and leave his parents in California. It is thanks to his expertise that we have been eventually able to isolate the cause.”

  “Why was his family exiled to California?” Alireza prompted. “Are we sure we can trust him?”

  “His family left Iran back in 1979, because his father worked in the secret police of the Shah, and Iran was no longer a safe place for him. He was born in the United States, grew up amid the Iranian diaspora of the West Coast, and became a police officer. Despite being a US citizen, he felt he needed to come back home. He returned to Iran in 2010, at the aged of thirty, and offered his skills to the Islamic Republic. After several years of loyal service, we decided we could entrust him to the most intricate tasks, like overseeing our investigation in Gaza. It paid off big time.”

  “What did he find out?” urged the head of the Gaza operations, eager to know the results.

  “We analyzed each and every thing that was on the body of the victim, from clothes to terrain samples. We actually dug out and collected everything that was around the body in a radius of five yards, took it here to our labs, and went through a full examination of it all. It was nearly five hundred pounds of dirt. That’s why it took some time, but we now know the answer. Our man - his name was Bassam - has been killed by a fly.”

  “A fly?” commented Alireza, showing his disbelief.

  “Obviously not an ordinary fly,” Mehrdad continued, “this one has a microchip attached to it, and is full of toxin to kill the victims. It is the attack weapon, no doubt. We have been lucky two times, or better, God has blessed us two times. First, the victim killed the fly and it remained attached to his body. Second, the methodology we used this time made sure no evidence could be lost.”

  “Beware of your statements,” the chief ayatollah interrupted Mehrdad to challenge his view, “one might say that it was Western science, and not God’s will, to help us out.”

  “But it was God that changed the heart of our officer, putting his knowledge at our service to show His glory and help us defend our country,” Mehrdad promptly rebuked. He was used to the theological challenges from the ayatollah, and he never gave up an opportunity to stand up for his faith.

  “Anyway, now we know exactly what type of new threat we are facing. From here, we have to find a way to fight back, but it won’t be easy.”

  “No,” thought Alireza, “it won’t be easy. We will need help.” He congratulated the research team, and he promised he would suggest them for a special reward in his next meeting with the Minister, in a few days. He then concluded the meeting and went back to his office. He noticed that after the long, dry summer the mountains outside of his window looked more barren and desolate than usual.

  Israel had come up with a new, disruptive weapon, potentially more dangerous than the nuclear weapons that Iran was trying to match.

  Three days later, he got his strategy approved by the Minister in the security review meeting. As soon as he was back in his office, he called the head of the Arab Emirates mukhabarat - the secret service. Alireza had never met him in person, however all his agents assured him that the one responsible for the counterintelligence, an agent named Tarek, was a reliable correspondent.

  Chapter 34

  On a sunny morning in January 2021, Valerio hopped into his brand new electric car and told the vehicle management system to take him to his office in the Dubai Internet City. He sat back as the car put itself in motion and moved out of the garage, then he connected to the office server via the free, ubiquitous high speed wireless network and started downloading the morning newswire feed.

  The traffic was always so congested in Dubai that it took him almost an hour to drive from his posh villa in the Palm Jebel Ali Marina to the office, but starting a few days ago, this was no longer a problem. The self-controlled car took care of everything and he could focus on his work.

  As he did every morning, he checked what he had called the “Animal House Report”. Valerio had programmed his newswire software to track and record every drug-related report, to see if and how the side effects of the Russian Telomerax version were spreading around the world. As Louis expected, these events were becoming more frequent, with an average of four per month, worldwide. Tracking tumors in pregnant women was more complex, since Valerio did not have access to any clinical data. He eventually managed to build a robot that scanned all available medical publications. If something abnormal started to happen in the cancer rates of women, the medical community would find out, but nothing had surfaced until now.

  Valerio was contemplating his idea about the effects of the spreading of the different Telomerax versions, when a call from California came in. He picked the call up, to hear George greet him with one of the loudest hellos he had ever heard.

  George had made international headlines, as he earned more than ten billion dollars in a day with the initial stock sale of Ambrosiax, the company he had co-founded with Charles Daniels. George was now in the same league of titans as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. As Valerio recalled the story, he realized that he had not been in contact with George for almost five years. What was he looking for? Was he calling to explain how it all happened? Valerio hid his surprise, and put together the most nonchalant answer he could manage.

  “Glad to hear from you George, I was just wondering if your fame had made you forget about old friends, but that does not seem to be the case…”

  George ignored it and cut to the chase.

  “Valerio, maybe you have spent too much time in London, allowing you to master the art of the British understatement, but I do not have much time for that. I need help, from you and the team, if you still care.”

  “Well, you can count on me, and maybe Louis, but I cannot guarantee the support of Helena and Tarek, for reasons you know all too well,” Valerio replied immediately. “If he wants to talk raw,” he thought, “I better lay all the problems on the table right away.”

  A few seconds of silence followed, then George continued,

&
nbsp; “Look, Valerio, in Tarek’s case things are not what they seem. I cannot explain it now, but you have to trust me when I say that I was not the one behind the plot against Rasim. As for Helena, you know, these things happen. I even feel pain for not being able to see my daughter for almost four years. Anyway, can I count on you, at least?”

  His tone was firm, yet Valerio sensed that George was scared. He was about to ask George why he did not call him before, when there was still time to explain, but then he remembered his conversation with Father Giacomo, almost ten years ago. Valerio had been allowed to share his problems with the priest without any questions asked beforehand.

  “Alright, George, I am here. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “It’s Telomerax, the one we market at Ambrosiax. Despite the modifications introduced by Dinesh, our former head scientist, the drug still has horrible carcinogenic side effects. And they are starting to appear now. We have had hundreds of cases popping up in the last two months. It is still not publicly known, however the early reports that the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, shared with us leave little room for doubt. Within six months from now the research will be complete, and by the end of the year it will go public, creating maybe the biggest scandal in the history of American pharmacology.”

  “Oh no, George,” Valerio grumbled, “you already experienced firsthand the drawbacks the first version of Telomerax had, and you know how much effort Louis put in to try to fix it. How could you just go and trust the first scientist that you meet in your venture?”

  “Well, Louis is not the only brilliant biochemist on the planet, Dinesh has a great mind as well,” George snapped back, almost resentfully. “In our defense, we did test our version and it seemed as if we had managed to remove the carcinogenic effect. Turns out that it had only been delayed. Yet this is past us, we need to look at the future. I need two things from you.”